Lahori Culture is Rich

Pakistani Cuisine

akistani cuisine (Urdu: پاکستانی پکوان) is a refined blend of various regional cooking traditions of South Asia. Pakistani cuisine is known for its richness and flavour.^[1]
Within Pakistan, cuisine varies greatly from region to region, reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. Food from the eastern provinces of Punjab and Sindh is quite similar to the cuisines of Northern India and can be highly seasoned and spicy, which is characteristic of the flavours of the South Asian region. Food in other parts of Pakistan, particularly Balochistan, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, involves the use of mild aromatic spices and less oil, characterizing affinities to the cuisines of neighbouring Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia.
International cuisine and fast food are popular in the cities. Blending local and foreign recipes (fusion food) such as Pakistani Chinese cuisine, is common in large urban centres. Furthermore, as a result of lifestyle changes, ready made masala (mixed and ready to use spices) are becoming increasingly popular. However, given the diversity of the people of Pakistan, cuisines generally differ from home to home and may be totally different from the mainstream Pakistani cuisine.

Real Picture against Pakistan

My generation, the baby boomers, was trained to think but the progressive generations are being trained to let a select few think. The control and brainwashing role has been delegated to the media, the voice of all politicians, over the past 20 years through disinformation. In the futuristic book, the Time Machine, published in 1895 by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveller discovers in the future that there are only two groups of human species: the ineffectual, hermaphrodite and leisurely Elois or the downtrodden, subterranean Morlocks. The Time Traveller finds that both species of humans have lost the intelligence and character of mankind at its peak.
Early last year, I was discussing The Time Machine and its implications with a friend of mine, a retired officer from the Pakistan army. When I brought up the subject of Pakistan’s nuclear defences my friend did not wish to discuss the subject because of the sensitivity and after some shop talk we departed. The last thing he’d mentioned was “go and research Professor Chossudovsky”. We never met again because he passed away in January 2010 but his opinion that he’d whispered in my ears that Pakistan’s nuclear assets could serve as deterrents against the neo-con regime in Afghanistan interested me.
Recently, I began researching Professor Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economist, and came upon his very interesting 2-part publication titled “The Destabilization of Pakistan” (December 30, 2007 and January 8, 2008) which can be read on globalresearch.com Professor Chossudovsky underscored the following salient points:
• Pakistan’s extensive oil and gas reserves, largely located in Baluchistan province, as well as its pipeline corridors are considered strategic by the Anglo-American alliance, requiring the concurrent militarization of Pakistani territory (sic).
• U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units” (William Arkin, Washington Post, December 2007) (sic).
• “Regime change” with a view to ensuring continuity under military rule is no longer the main thrust of US foreign policy. The regime of Pervez Musharraf cannot prevail. Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation (sic) (very interesting that the Professor wrote the article in December 2007 and Musharraf was removed in August 2008)
• It is by no means accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council- CIA report had predicted a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan pointing to the impacts of “economic mismanagement” as one of the causes of political break-up and balkanization (sic). I’ll discuss this issue of “economic mismanagement” further.
• These various “terrorist” organizations were created as a result of CIA support. They are not the product of religion. The project to establish “a pan-Islamic Caliphate” is part of a carefully devised intelligence operation (sic). Religion has become a means to the end goal.
India is not the least interested in occupying Pakistan with a Muslim population of 170 million for to do so would mean that not only India’s Muslim population increase but also an unmageable ethnic mix. However Balkanization is intended for creating a free Baluchistan with vast natural resources and a coastline of 750 kms. The remaining coastline with Pakistan would be 250 kms. The warm waters have always been the great game objective.
Whether the political and the military establishments of India are aware or not, India’s role carved out by the US is critically important for Pakistan’s denuclearization. The time frame to achieve the goal seems somewhere between 2010 and 2012. The specifics and details of the US-NATO goal have been becoming evident over the past 10 years through political, economic and military manoeuvrings in the region.
The regime change in Pakistan in August 2008 was a strategy meant to put Pakistan’s economy in dire straits. Rumours were that Musharraf, stung by being outwitted by the US in September 2001, had been extracting stringent economic concessions from the US. US thus favoured removing Musharraf with a corrupt regime who would do its bidding. Since then Pakistan’s economy has been moving from bad to worse. Pakistan’s foreign debt has increased from $ 45 billion to $56 billion by mid-2010, an outrageous increase of 10% per annum. By January 2010, Pakistan’s annualized GDP growth had shrunk to a meagre inflation adjusted 2%.
India does comprehend very well that if Pakistan is balkanized and de-nuked, the power in Asia shifts in favour of India. Since China is a fast rising economic and military power, it is essential that the west develop India as an equal economic and military power to counter China. This balance between India and China cannot be maintained if Pakistan is to remains a N-power.
Economy plays a major role in wars. In Chossudovsky’s book “The Global Economic Crisis: The Great depression of the XXI Century”, Peter Dale Scott wrote America escaped from the depression of the 1890s with the Spanish-American War. It only escaped the Great Depression of the 1930s with the Second World War. There was even a recession in the late 1950s from which America only escaped with the Korean War. As we face the risk of major depression again, I believe we inevitably face the danger of a major war again. If this surmise is correct, the only two catalyzing factors would either be an aggravation of America’s war on terrorism or igniting the Korean peninsula. To the author, America has no intention of re-engaging in Southeast Asia.
The likeliest possibility of starting a major war exists in Pakistan’s FATA region involving US-NATO troops and India on the eastern border. Pakistan is already boxed in by having opted to be the front-line state for the war on terrorism in 2001. Its economy is in ruins, corruption among the leadership is rampant and outside of a divine intervention or the involvement of China or the threat of nuclear weapons, the US is set to balkanize Pakistan, at least in two parts. Though the success is doubtful due to various reasons and a heavily stretched military sphere of control, it does not preclude an attempt. If not a military subjugation of Pakistan, an economic debacle could well result in denuclearization terms being put on the table by US-NATO political and economic command. It is the author’s opinion that the US and NATO would be taking a risky gamble in the balkanization operation due to China which also has strategic interests in the region, both in Iran and Pakistan.

Dashing Pakistan

Pakistan fails to send team to probe Mumbai attacks

Pakistan has failed to send a team of officials to India to investigate the November 2008 Mumbai (Bombay) attacks, Indian officials said.


Islamabad told Delhi that the judicial commission would not be able to come as planned, a home ministry official said.
The team was due to arrive in Mumbai on Thursday. Its members were due to meet Indian officials and doctors involved in the investigation.
The Mumbai attacks claimed 165 lives. Nine gunmen were also killed.
The sole surviving gunman from the attacks, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, was convicted of murder and waging war on India in May 2010 and given a death sentence.
His appeal is pending in the Supreme Court.
Officials said no reason had been given for the cancellation of the visit.
Pakistan had agreed last year to send a judicial team to India during home secretary-level talks between the two countries.

The 60-hour siege of Mumbai began on 26 November 2008, targeting luxury hotels, the main railway station and a Jewish cultural centre.
Relations between India and Pakistan hit rock bottom after India blamed Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the attacks.
After initial denials, Pakistan acknowledged that the assault had been partially planned on its territory and that Qasab was a Pakistani citizen.