Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai (Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ‎ Malālah Yūsafzay, born 12 July 1997) is a school student and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her education and women's rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11/12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai began to rise in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television and taking a position as chairperson of the District Child Assembly Swat. She has since been nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by Desmond Tutu and has won Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize. A number of prominent individuals, including the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, are supporting a petition to nominate Yousafzai for the Nobel Peace Prize.

 

On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to a hospital in the United Kingdom for intensive rehabilitation. On 12 October, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin.

 Former British Prime Minister and current UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a United Nations petition in Yousafzai's name, using the slogan "I am Malala" and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015. Brown said he would hand the petition to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari in November. UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has announced that 10 November will be celebrated as Malala Day.

From: www.wikipedia.org

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf

Raja Pervez Ashraf (Urdu, Punjabi: راجہ پرویز اشرف; born 26 December 1950) is a Pakistani politician who is the 17th and current Prime Minister of Pakistan since June 2012. He was Federal Minister for Water and Power in the Yousaf Raza Gillani-led cabinet from March 2008 to February 2011. He is a senior leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party from Rawalpindi District.

Early Life

Raja Pervaiz Ashraf 1st (Current) PAKRAL RAJPUT PM OF PAKISTAN. Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was born on December 26, 1950 in Sanghar, Sindh. He graduated from University of Sindh in 1970 and worked in agriculture before entering politics.

Political career

Ashraf was twice elected as a Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from his constituency of Gujar Khan, Rawalpindi District. Most recently, he won re-election in the February 2008 elections. He became the head of the water and power ministry in the coalition government of PPP, PML-N, ANP, JUI-F and MQM formed after 2008 elections. In the position he faced heavy criticism for repeatedly promising the country's power crisis would be over "by December" as the country suffered regular blackouts. He oversaw expensive "rental power" projects that generated very little power, earning the nickname "Raja Rental" in the Pakistani media. He has been accused of receiving kickbacks in the rental power projects, and of using illegal money to buy foreign property. He has denied wrongdoing, and as of June 2012, is defending himself before the Supreme Court. No official charges have been made against him. However, the Court did revoke his power as the minister for water and power in February 2011. Subsequently, he was appointed to the ministry of information and technology.

On 26 April 2012, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani was convicted of being in contempt of court for refusing to bring charges against President Asif Ali Zardari On 19 June 2012, he was retroactively ruled ineligible to hold the office by the Supreme Court. The ruling Pakistan People's Party nominated textile minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin to replace Gillani, but the nomination failed when the military issued a warrant for Shahabuddin's arrest on drug charges. Ashraf was then selected as the party's next option.

On 22 June 2012, Raja Pervez Ashraf was elected as the 17th Prime Minister of Pakistan by a 211-89 vote. Ashraf and his cabinet were sworn in on the same day. His selection as Prime Minister restored the country's government after several days of turmoil where official the country was without a government. The Associated Press said Ashraf's election was "unlikely to calm the tensions roiling the country" and noted that many observers expected him be eventually be ousted like his predecessor. Political analyst Raza Rumi said Ashraf was likely choosen by the PPP because they knew he would not last long.

Immediately after his election, Ashraf said that the economy, inflation, and the country's power crisis would be his top concerns. "Our country cannot afford politics of confrontation at this time," he said. He also said he wanted to deal with the United States on "an equal footing." However, he will likely have to deal with the court's demands to charge Zardari before doing much else.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (Urdu: حافظ محمد سعید; born 1950) is the amir of Jama'at-ud-Da'wah, a charity organization that is widely considered to be a cover organization for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), one of the largest and most active Islamic terrorist organizations in the world, operating mainly from Pakistan. The organization is banned as a terrorist organization by India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Russia and Australia.

India considers him one of its most wanted terrorists because of his alleged ties with Lashkar-e-Taiba and his involvement in attacks against India. The United Nations declared Jama'at-ud-Da'wah a terrorist organization in December 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader.[8] According to Hafiz Saeed, he has no links with LeT. United States of America has announced a bounty of $10 million on Hafeez Saeed's head, for his alleged role in 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

Background

In 1950, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was born in Sargodha, Punjab. His family lost 36 of its members when migrating from Shimla to Lahore during the Partition of India. He is married and his wife's name is Maimoona.

General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq appointed Hafiz Muhammad Saeed to the Council on Islamic Ideology, and he later served as an Islamic Studies teacher at the University of Engineering and Technology (Lahore), Pakistan. He was sent to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s by the university for higher studies where he met Saudi Sheikhs who were taking part in the Afghan jihad.[citation needed] They inspired him to join his colleague, Professor Zafar Iqbal, in taking an active role supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. There he met some youth who later became his companions.

In 1987 Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, along with Abdullah Azzam, founded Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad, a group with roots in the Jamait Ahl-e-Hadis.

This organization spawned the jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba in 1990, with the help of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence officers.

Lashkar's primary target is the disputed Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. He is also quoted as saying, "There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy."

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed holds two masters degrees from the University of Punjab and a specialization in Islamic Studies & Arabic Language from King Saud University.

US Bounty

In 2012, United States announced a bounty of $10 million on Hafeez Saeed's head, for his alleged role in 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Saeed stated that he had nothing to do with the Mumbai attacks and also condemned the attacks. When asked about the bounty, Saeed replied "I am living my life in the open and the US can contact me whenever they want."  He subsequently stated that he is ready to face "any American court" to answer the charges which he denies, adding that if Washington wants to contact him they know where he is: "this is a laughable, absurd announcement.Here I am in front of everyone, not hiding in a cave." Saeed identified his leading role in the Difa-e-Pakistan council and United States attempts to placate India as reasons behind the bounty.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Hina Rabbani Khar

Hina Rabbani Khar (Urdu: حنا ربانی کھر; born 19 November 1977) is a Pakistani politician and the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Appointed in July 2011, she is the first female and the youngest person to ever head Pakistani's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

She was elected to the National Assembly in both 2002 and 2008 and was Minister of State for Finance and Economic Affairs between 2008 and 2011.

Early Life and Education

Hina Rabbani Khar was born on 19 November 1977 in Multan, Punjab, Pakistan in a Seraiki family. She is the daughter of politician and landowner Ghulam Noor Rabbani Khar and the niece of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a former governor of Punjab. The Khar family has roots in the village of Khar Gharbi located in Kot Adu, a tehsil in Muzaffargarh District in Punjab; and has many land holdings: an estate that includes fisheries, mango orchards, and sugarcane fields. She graduated with a B.Sc. in Economics from Lahore University of Management Sciences in 1999 and received her M Sc (Hon) in Business Management from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2001.

Personal life

She is married to Firoze Gulzar, with whom she has two daughters, Annaya and Dina. She is the co-owner of the Polo Lounge restaurant on the Lahore Polo Grounds.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Abdul Qadeer Khan

Abdul Qadeer Khan (Urdu: ڈاکٹر عبد القدیر خان ; born: April 1, 1936), also respectively known in Pakistan as Mohsin-e-Pakistan (in Urdu: محسن پاکِستان; lit: Savior of Pakistan), FPAS, DEng, ScD, HI, NI (twice); more widely known as Dr. A. Q. Khan, is a Pakistani nuclear scientist and a metallurgical engineer, colloquially regarded as the founder of HEU based Gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment programme for Pakistan's integrated atomic bomb project. Founded and established the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) in 1976, he was both its senior scientist and the Director-General until his retirement in 2001, and was an early and vital figure in other science projects. Apart from participating in atomic bomb project, he made major contributions in morphology, physical martensite, and its integrated applications in condensed and material physics.

Abdul Qadeer Khan was one of Pakistan's top scientists, and was involved in the country's various scientific programmes until his debriefing. On January 2004, Khan was officially summoned for a debriefing on his suspicious activities in other countries after the United States provided evidences to the Pakistan Government, and confessed it a month later. However, these activities turned out to be ordered and supervised by government and the allegedly the military, although both have denied the accusations sharply. After years of debriefing, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on 6 February 2009 declared Abdul Qadeer Khan to be a free citizen of Pakistan, allowing him free movement inside the country. The verdict was rendered by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Aslam. In September 2009, expressing concerns over the Islamabad High Court’s decision to end all security restrictions on Khan, the United States warned that Khan still remains a "serious proliferation risk".

Early Life

Khan was born in 1936 in the Bhopal State of India (then part of the British Indian Empire). His father Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Khan was an academic who served in the Education Ministry of the British Indian Government and after retirement in 1935, settled permanently in Bhopal State. In 1947, after the partition, the family migrated from India to Pakistan, and settled in West-Pakistan. Khan studied in Saint Anthony's High School of Lahore, and then enrolled at the D.J. Science College of Karachi. There, he took B.Sc. in Physics and B.A. in Mathematics under the supervision of Suparco physicist Dr. Bashir Syed. In 1956, he attended Karachi University and obtained a B.S. degree in Metallurgy in 1960. To support the fees of his education, Khan was employed at Siemens Engineering where he worked as a practical trainee (junior engineer).

After graduation, he was employed by the Karachi Metropolitan Government and worked as an Inspector of weight and measures in Karachi, Pakistan. In 1961, he went to West Berlin to study Metallurgical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. In 1967, Khan obtained an engineer's degree (in Technology), an equivalent of Master of Science, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and a Doctor of Engineering degree in Metallurgical engineering under the supervision of Martin Brabers from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, in 1972. Khan's doctoral dissertations were written in fluent German. His doctoral thesis dealt and contained the fundamental work in Martensite, and its extended industrial applications to the field of Morphology, a field that studies the shape, size, texture and phase distribution of physical objects.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Ahmad Shuja Pasha

Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha (Urdu: احمد شجاع پاشا), HI(M) (born 18 March 1952) is the current Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's premier intelligence service since October 2008. He was due to reach the age of superannuation on 18 March 2010, but has received two extensions. His tenure was extended by a year and then again by another two years, until 18 March 2013. He was recently named as one of the 100 most influential people by Time Magazine.

Army Career

Pasha was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the famed Frontier Force Regiment in the 49th PMA Long Course in 1974. He has commanded an infantry battalion, a mechanized infantry brigade and has served as the Chief Instructor of the Command and Staff College of the Pakistani Army. From 2001 to 2002, General Pasha served as a Contingent and Sector Commander of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone.

Pasha was promoted to Major General in January 2003, and posted as GOC 8th Infantry Division in Sialkot. From there in April 2005, he was sent as Commandant Command and Staff College in Quetta. From April 2006 to October 2008, Pasha served as the Director General of Military Operations at the Army headquarters overseeing all military engagements in Waziristan, Swat and other tribal areas.

In October 2007, Pasha was selected as Military Adviser to Secretary-General of United Nations however due to his commitments as DGMO he never joined the UN.

ISI appointment

The newly elected civilian government of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani tried for two months to gain control of the appointment for the director of the ISI as well as place the agency under the administrative, financial, and operational control of the Interior Ministry. However, the attempt failed when Chief of Army Staff, General Kayani appointed Pasha on 29 September 2008. Pasha’s prior post was responsible for planning operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan, signaling a reorientation from the ISI's traditional Kashmir/India focus. Pasha was appointed director of the ISI at Washington's behest; Pasha is closely allied to General Kayani, the CIA, and holds anti-Taliban views. The United States Government had pressured Pakistan to replace Lieutenant-General Nadeem Taj, the prior chief of the ISI, whom they claimed as "double dealing" with militants with a more acceptable candidate like Pasha. Additionally, Pasha’s appointment was part of a wider Chief of Army Staff reappointment shake-up that solidified General Kayani’s loyalty among the military as all prior appointees were done by former President and Chief of the Army Pervez Musharraf.

From : www.wikipedia.org