PAKISTAN PASSIONATE ABOUT COLLECTING WORLD RECORDS

[This month, the contestants came together in the eastern city of Lahore for the annual Punjab Youth Festival to show their stuff — many in athletics, but others in downright quirky displays, including a boy who achieved fame by kicking 50 coconuts from atop the heads of a row of people. A Guinness adjudicator was flown in to certify the results.]

By Michele Langevine Leiby

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One young contender created the world’s largest sequin mosaic using 325,000 of the sparkly disks.

(K.M.Chaudary/AP) - 

Outside his Lahore workshop, Mohammad Murtaza
of Pearl Shoes shows the certificate issued by the Guinness
 Book of Records for the largest sandal,
measuring almost 13 feet long.

Two other youths achieved 123 consecutive badminton passes in one minute. And 1,450 participants broke the record for the most people arm-wrestling.

Such are the skills that Guinness World Records are made of in Pakistan, where thousands of young people are groomed to establish their unique feats for posterity.

This month, the contestants came together in the eastern city of Lahore for the annual Punjab Youth Festival to show their stuff — many in athletics, but others in downright quirky displays, including a boy who achieved fame by kicking 50 coconuts from atop the heads of a row of people. A Guinness adjudicator was flown in to certify the results.

It seems Pakistan has become a world-record-creating machine, with the coordinated effort reaping an impressive 23 world records over the past year, according to event organizers.

The push for inclusion of Pakistanis in the venerable Guinness World Records, which launched in book form in 1955, stems in part from festival organizers’ desire to boost the image of a country often associated with militancy, religious strife and economic decline — but not often with athletic prowess beyond the cricket field.

There is a patriotic element, as well: Last October, 42,813 Pakistanis gathered in a Lahore field hockey stadium to sing the national anthem and create yet another world record for the most people singing their country’s anthem.

Days later, 24,200 people held green and white boxes — the colors of the national flag of Pakistan — to set the world record for creating the largest human flag.

Although some of the records might seem amusing — coconut-kicking champ Mohammad Rashid of Karachi this month claimed his fourth world record by breaking 34 pine boards with his head in just 32 seconds — the competitions were no laughing matter to participants.

Usman Anwar, director of the Punjab Youth Festival, explained that the kids had been training for eight months. “We started at the neighborhood and village level so that children could come out and participate,” Anwar said. “Our main objective was to inculcate interest for sports in the public.”

Young people from 55,200 neighborhood and village councils vied for a chance to compete in the games, he said.

“We were able to select the best of the best to train for the world records,” Anwar said.

Because of terrorism, political upheaval and widespread unemployment, many young people have little hope for the future, said Hafeez Rehman, a professor in the anthropology department at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

Sports competitions — however you define sports — create an opportunity for youth to excel personally and also to improve Pakistan’s image, he said.

“We have energetic youth. Pakistan has more than 55 million young people. It becomes an asset for the country,” Rehman said

.

The festival itself has become part of the record-setting mania. It was recognized for having more participants — 3.3 million, according to Anwar, most of whom registered online — thus setting a world record for sporting events.

© The Washington Post

NEPAL: DIVIDED LIKE WHEN THEY WERE NEVER BEFORE
 [The international community, that supported Regmi's appointment, apparently is losing its faith now, given those many compromises the head of the executive has already made on issues vital for democracy and social justice. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressed her dissatisfaction with a recent ordinance supporting amnesty for those guilty of gross human rights violations during the decade-long conflict that ended in 2006. Similar grievances were expressed by Jeffrey Feltman, UN under-secretary for political affairs.]

By Yubaraj Ghimire

* Are there any  chances for the  new legislative assembly delivering a  constitution?

Things have seemingly changed in Nepal. Official programmes of ministers and the prime minister hardly draw any politicians here. The Supreme Court chief justice's appointment as the chairman of the council of ministers, with his cabinet packed with retired civil servants, has apparently altered the composition of the crowd. Leaders, especially of the four major parties, however, are apparently wrestling from outside to control the cabinet. So far, Khil Raj Regmi has tolerated the four-party dictate. But will the extra-constitutional status of the four-party machinery be a lasting phenomenon?

The central committee of the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) still insist that Regmi must quit as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal to ensure judicial independence. The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (CPN-M), the breakaway group from the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M), goes a step further and says, "Regmi must be dismissed as Prime Minister and power handed over to the political parties" — something the parties demanded when former King Gyanendra took over in February 2005.

The international community, that supported Regmi's appointment, apparently is losing its faith now, given the many compromises the head of the executive has already made on issues vital for democracy and social justice. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressed her dissatisfaction with a recent ordinance supporting amnesty for those guilty of gross human rights violations during the decade-long conflict that ended in 2006. Similar grievances were expressed by by Jeffrey Feltman, UN under-secretary for political affairs.

Feltman was in Nepal to encourage more political parties, including the CPN-M, to participate in the proposed June general election. But the response has been negative. The UN in particular and the diplomatic bureaucracy in general seem to be gathering only positive responses on the basis of their regular contacts with the four parties. There is a huge gap between what has been claimed by the four parties' top leaders — that the country is ready for polls — and the perceivable public discontent and mood of indifference as well as the disapproval of most political parties about the polls being "thrust upon" them.

Yet, Nepali political parties, including the big four,  in shrill rhetoric defend their move to have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nepal presiding as the head of government. In their kind of wailing cry they tell: "We took the decision under compelling circumstances." Regmi, who understands the parties' plummeting popularity and ‘authority’, now appeals to the bureaucracy to cooperate with the government holding the elections. On the other hand, the international community and donors, despite their reservations about the proposed ‘general amnesty’ clause in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's founding ordinance, have promised full support for conducting the elections.

"What is the guarantee that the soon-to-be elected New Constituent Assembly's delivering or in other words producing a constitution when the political spectrum is divided so badly?" asks Shekhar Koirala of the Nepali Congress party. But bureaucrats-turned-ministers promise they will do their best and return respectability to politics — something people would hardly pay any heed to. The Chief Justice is now a target of public criticism, for "bartering away the independence of judiciary"  with an elective post he currently holds now. It is now understandable that people's perception and those of the international community and the four-party "syndicate" are now at collision course.

@ Indian Express