Pakistan weekly round-up: India to invite Imran for SCO, row over Faiz's poetry and more ...

India on January 15 said it would invite Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit to be held in New Delhi later this year. However, Pakistan is yet to officially comment on the reports.

There has not been any bilateral engagement between the two neighbours over the past few years, especially after the Uri attack of 2016. In fact, the bilateral ties reached the edge of the precipice after the Pulwama attack last year, in which 40 CRPF personnel were martyred, and the retaliatory Balakot strikes by the Indian Air Force. If Imran Khan does travel to India for the summit, it will not only be the first high-profile India visit by a Pakistani head of state in a long time but could also signal a thaw in ties between the two nations.

The last time the leaders of the two countries met was when PM Modi made a surprise visit to Pakistan on then PM Nawaz Sharif's granddaughter's wedding. Nawaz Sharif, who was the PM of Pakistan in 2014, visited India for Modi's swearing-in ceremony on government's invite.

While PM Modi and Imran Khan have not had any formal engagements, they both attended the SCO summit in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek last June. In a vieled attack directed at Pakistan, PM Modi had said countries sponsoring and supporting terrorism must be held accountable.

The row in India over Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's famous poem "Hum dekhenge" featuring in anti-CAA protests reverbated in the Pakistani press too.

The controversy was triggered after IIT Kanpur said that it would investigate the student protests where Faiz's poem was also recited. The poem was a hit among the protesters, mainly students, who were seen singing it during their protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and NRC across India.

Reacting to the development, Faiz’s daughter Salima Hashmi said people should not be sad about the decision of IIT Kanpur. “A group of people investigating the poem’s message is nothing to be sad about, it is very funny,” she said in an interview.

Faiz's grandson Ali Madeeh Hashmi also wrote a piece on Dawn about the row and said: "When you write about love, freedom, justice, equality; how can it not move people? These are the ideals shared by all mankind, through all times, since the dawn of humankind."

He further wrote, "I, for one, was not at all surprised to see students at Jamia, AMU and just recently at JNU reciting and chanting Faiz. I was surprised though that India’s current government would pick a fight with, of all people, a poet."

China made another bid on January 15 to raise the Kashmir issue at a closed-door meeting in the UN Security Council on behalf of Pakistan, but failed with an overwhelming majority of the body expressing the view that it was not the right forum to discuss the bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.

However, most newspapers and politicians in Pakistan gave it a positive spin for Pakistan. Dawn newspaper called the UNSC meeting on Kashmir a "diplomatic victory", while Pakistan PM Imran Khan said that the meet reflected the "seriousness" of the regional situation.

However, some newspapers were not so hopeful of the UNSC's ability to resolve the Kashmir issue.

"The irony of the situation is that since the UNSC house remains divided on the humanitarian issues, there is false dawn of hope that UN could play its meaningful role in resolving the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. But this defunct UNSC role remains fatal to establish any scope of peace in South Asia," said Daily Times in one of its pieces.

The move by China was the third such attempt to raise the Kashmir issue at the UNSC since August last when the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution was scrapped by the government, and the state was bifurcated into two union territories.

A television anchor and his news programme was banned by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority for 60 days for letting a Cabinet minister display an army boot during the talk show to ridicule the opposition.

Minister for water resources Faisal Vawda appeared on Kashif Abbasi's programme on ARY News and used a military boot to heap scorn on the PML-N and PPP for voting in favour of the recently passed Army Act in Parliament.

The minister was also banned by PTI chief and Pakistan PM Imran Khan from appearing on TV news shows.

Saying that Vawda's taunting was "misplaced and mistimed", Dawn News, in its report, said, "By placing the boot on the table, Vawda not only ridiculed the institution of the military, he humiliated all political parties, including the one he expresses loyalty to."

Pakistan's Supreme Court on January 17 turned down former president Pervez Musharraf’s appeal against his death penalty in the high treason case. During the hearing, the court remarked that an appeal filed by the former president has been turned down unless the accused comes to the court himself.

In his appeal, Musharraf alleged that the treason trial “suffered from interference and external pressures”.

Musharraf was booked in a treason case in December 2013 for clamping the state of emergency on November 3, 2007.