We hear that the Pakistan Navy hierarchy is so embarrassed about the PNS Mehran terrorist attack and follow up questions about embedded support for terrorists that it is actually working on a salvage plan. The idea is to find national heroes within its ranks. Since BMW-driving chiefs with bumbling statements do not fit the picture, it is thinking on the lines of a Nishan-e-Haider for at least one of the young officers killed in the horrific incident. However, there is another view that the bosses should shed their billionaire life styles, close down shadi ghars and other “milbus” activities, stop counting free plots, freebies and personal investments and get down to doing the job they are so overpaid for. Will some one take a vote on this?
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We hear that during last week’s visit to China, PM Yousef Raza Gilani bared a secret that may come as a surprise even to those who claim to keep a close eye on his past and present. It all unraveled at Beijing University. While addressing an audience of students, he confessed that his earliest career choice was medicine not politics. However, he did not get the required marks to make it into medical college. Not to be deterred by such minor details, our PM’s father approached the governor of the province and requested that he adjust the young Gilani on the Governor quota in medical colleges. Guv did not oblige either and so the young Gilani registered at the journalism department of Punjab University, entered politics and the rest is history.
Lesson of the story: If you get high marks, you become a doctor; but if you do not, you can always become the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
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Could one rumour doing the round of “Osamabad” qualify as “There is no smoke without a fire”. It goes that after the US Navy SEALs’ operation in Abbottabad, Clinton rang up the Man on the Hill in Islamabad and gave him an offer that he did refuse. She told him that if Islamabad wanted to take credit it was welcome to do so. If it did not, that too was also acceptable to Washington. The Man said no thank you. You are welcome to own it. And so they looked like Rambos and Terminators and so we looked like the idiots we probably are.
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