By Nadia Tariq Ali

Nadia Tariq Ali is The Asia Foundation’s Senior Program Officer in Pakistan. She can be reached at ntali@asiafound.org. For more information on ways to support our work with internally displaced persons in Pakistan, please contact Bulbul Gupta, Grants Manager for Programs and Private Philanthropy, at bgupta@asiafound.org.

United Nations officials have described the recent displacement of Pakistanis as the biggest humanitarian crisis since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. It is also the largest dislocation of people in the region since the partition of the South Asian subcontinent in 1947 and, arguably, the worst crisis facing Pakistan since Bangladesh separated from Pakistan in 1971.

After years of procrastination, in late April of this year, Pakistan launched a full-scale military operation against Taliban militants and their Al Qaeda associates in its restive northwestern territories. Since the Taliban were consistently undermining the writ of the state, the battle has been long overdue: Taliban militants carried out suicide attacks across the country, targeting Pakistan’s security forces, intelligence community – and innocent civilians – which has made it nearly impossible for the Pakistani government to work with its allies in the region.
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By Asfundyar Khan

Asfundyar Khan is The Asia Foundation’s Senior Program Officer in Pakistan. He can be reached at akhan@asiafound.org.

The deteriorating law and order situation in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan Province is Pakistan’s most urgent problem. A new kind of war waged by extremist elements using suicide bombings, targeted attacks - and the takeover of strategic areas - has shaken the entire nation. Here, the militants are increasingly posing a formidable challenge to Pakistan and its law enforcement.

The recent surge in conflict and violence in these provinces - and in Afghanistan - mainly stems from the Taliban phenomenon. For this, Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to blame each other, causing tremendous strain between the neighboring countries. Recently, on the Pakistan side, the Taliban has transcended the ungoverned tribal areas on the border and moved into the “settled,” picturesque Swat Valley of the NWFP. The militants successfully challenged the government’s writ in Swat, violating a peace deal with the Pakistani government, and then made their expansionist designs evident by moving into adjoining districts down the hills and into the plains. An alarmed Pakistani government launched a military offensive in the occupied areas at the end of April 2009. The fallout of this has been the displacement of over two million people.
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By V. Bruce J. Tolentino

Bruce Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s Chief Economist and can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org. He just returned to San Francisco from Pakistan, where he was working for several weeks.

Each day, from sunup to sundown, at the Wagah border gate between India and Pakistan, the complex, intertwined, and still painful histories of these neighboring countries are replayed in scenes of joy, reunion, patriotism, belligerence, and battle.

At sunup, the border gates trundle open and travelers hurry in both directions across the border, which has divided the village of Wagah and the countries Pakistan and India since the British-mandated “Radcliffe Line,” and the bloody “Great Partition” of 1947.

There are joyous scenes of reunion where families split by politics, citizenship, or faith - yet united by blood and kinship - embrace. Some kneel to kiss the ground. Others take soil - foreign, yet treasured - into their pockets as souvenirs.

Wagah is the only official border crossing between India and Pakistan, the link between the historic, ancient cities of Lahore in Pakistan and Amritsar in India. These crossings and scenes are repeated many times throughout the day.
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By Melody Zavala and Syed Zahid Abbas

Melody Zavala is The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia Program Director. Syed Zahid Abbas is the Books for Asia Director in Pakistan. They can be reached at mzavala@asiafound.org and zahid@pk.asiafound.org, respectively.

Book Fairs take place all over the globe. In some places, such as at this weekend’s Book Expo America in glitzy New York City, the purpose is to promote beautiful new books from America’s top publishers. In grittier places, such as Pakistan’s volatile North West Frontier Province and Balochistan, the goal of book fairs is to spark an interest in higher education and extend much needed books to the country’s hardest-to-reach areas. In these remote areas of Pakistan, The Asia Foundation puts brand new textbooks donated by American publishers on display to help university students and teaching staff understand the resources available to them for free through our Books for Asia program. For over 50 years, the Books for Asia program has provided more than 3 million books to Pakistan’s students, researchers, and marginalized groups. While these donations present numerous transport challenges, the results are worth the extra effort and much appreciated. This week, our colleague, Mr. Syed Zahid Hussain, was interviewed during a three-day book fair held at the University of Balochistan. His remarks in The Asia Pulse capture just how valuable these donated books are.
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By Ellen Laipson

Ellen Laipson is President of the Stimson Center, a non-profit, non-partisan institution dedicated to international security issues and is a Trustee of The Asia Foundation. She was Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 1997 to 2002. The below opinion piece originally ran on NPR.org, and is included here with permission from the author.

President Obama’s meetings this week with the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan focused on the immediate security crisis – the eroding situation in Pakistan and the continued threat of the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. But chances for lasting and effective cooperation between Washington and the beleaguered governments in Kabul and Islamabad will require more than intense leadership summits.

It will also require rebuilding of trust and persuading presidents Zardari and Karzai and their compatriots that Washington can balance its military and counterinsurgency know-how with a deep and sustained interest in the security and well-being of their societies.
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By Shahid Fiaz and Leylac Naqvi

Shahid Fiaz is The Asia Foundation’s Senior Program Officer and Leylac Naqvi is Program Manager, Development and Coordination in Pakistan. They can be reached at sfiaz@asiafound.org and lnaqvi@asiafound.org.

In November 2008, The Asia Foundation, with funding from the Royal Netherlands Embassy, began a new initiative in Pakistan called the Human Rights Fund. The project is designed to engage Pakistani civil society groups, the government, and media agencies – both separately and in partnership with each other – to work to improve protection and promotion of human rights in Pakistan.

The Fund focuses on five areas: freedom from torture, and other rights related to prisoners; freedom of speech and access to information; stemming gender-based violence and discrimination; rights of religious and ethnic minorities; and economic rights. An advisory committee made up of experts from Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, the North West Frontier Province, and the federal capital provide insight and advice regarding human rights in Pakistan for the Fund. Advisors form a committee comprised of members from both civil society and key government institutions. Members sometimes report on pressing issues in their areas. For example, in the North West Frontier Province, the issue of internally displaced persons has been particularly significant in the past year. The diversity of committee members’ knowledge and experience – whether, for example, primarily focused on women’s rights, or minority rights activism, whether in civil society or government – produces meaningful dialogue between the committee members and is a vital resource for the Fund.
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By Zehra Zaidi

Zehra Zaidi is a Program Officer at The Asia Foundation’s office in Islamabad. She can be reached at zzaidi@asiafound.org.

In the face of economic hardships and social pressures, some women in Pakistan, with support from The Asia Foundation, are finding innovative ways to participate in their communities. Some have been gaining momentum in finding jobs in traditionally male-dominated sectors like carpentry, food processing, and fiber glass molding for construction. Others, empowered by business skills training, have become entrepreneurs.

With training, other women are using more traditional skills, such as cooking and sewing, to design and produce products for markets in larger villages throughout Pakistan, and in some cases, internationally.
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By John Brandon

John Brandon is The Asia Foundation’s Director for International Relations programs. He can be reached at jbrandon@asiafound-dc.org.

When I visited Dhaka last weekend, I arrived a few hours prior to the last prayer of the “Biswa Ijtema,” the world’s second largest annual Muslim congregation after the “Haj” in Saudi Arabia. Two million Muslims attended the three-day assembly where devotees primarily prayed for the welfare of the Muslim community. However, the final prayer called for global peace, prosperity, and an end to worldwide conflict. The prayers and sermons delivered were spiritually uplifting and were neither political nor inflammatory.

Although the great majority of the congregation was from Bangladesh, there were 10,500 pilgrims from 105 nations, including India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. On my flight home from Dhaka, via Dubai, the great majority of passengers were congregants returning to the Middle East. This gave me the opportunity to chat at length with one traveler, Anwar.
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By M. Zia Ul Hassan

M. Zia Ul Hassan is The Asia Foundation’s Manager for Security, Institutional Relations, and Special Projects in Pakistan. He can be reached at zhassan@asiafound.org.

In the early morning hours of October 29, 2008, an earthquake hit Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Striking multiple times, its most intense jolt measured  6.4 on the Richter Scale. Over two hundred people lost their lives, thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed, and tens of thousands of people were left homeless as a result. An emergency was declared in Balochistan, and Pakistan Army and Frontier Corps troops were called in to conduct rescue and relief operations. Many international and national NGOs joined in much-needed relief efforts as well. With winter setting in and temperatures dropping, support was badly needed for the families affected by this natural disaster.
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By C. Raja Mohan

C. Raja Mohan is Professor of South Asian Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and a Contributing Editor of ‘The Indian Express’, New Delhi. He recently made South Asia policy recommendations for the incoming administration through The Asia Foundation’s 2008 America’s Role in Asia project.

Raja Mohan

After the awful terror attacks against Mumbai last month, the conventional wisdom in the Subcontinent and beyond is that the weak governments in New Delhi and Islamabad may be unable to manage the gathering crisis in Indo-Pak relations and will inevitably drift towards a military conflict.

Yet, with the help of some purposeful diplomacy from Washington, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari have managed to postpone if not avoid the more terrible consequences of the terrorist aggression against Mumbai.
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