Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Recalling Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter on J & K PSC Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. (Potter Stewart) When I heard some have been accused and counter-accused of moral failure and failure of wits for both appearing and not appearing in the PSC exam on 6th Feb, I recalled Hawtthorne’s great novel The scarlet Letter ’s heroine Hester Prynne, a young woman, who is found guilty of adultery and a crowd gathers to witness punishment. She is sentenced to wear a scarlet "A" ("A" standing for adulteress) on her dress to shame her. She refuses to lose her dignity on the scaffold. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses. “Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”   Here is brewing up a similar story that might grow into a tale of shame and despair for hundreds or thousands of innocent pe...

Reading Darbar Move as Governance Disaster There are many painful reminders that we encounter too often that unmistakably mean we are specially abled people whom some ghosts have taken possession of. A few examples include: When we are charged for electricity usage or heaters/boilers searched, or lights go off and every analysis stops at the point we can’t or haven’t realized full potential of water resources thanks to IWT and NHPC and India’s refusal to give counter-guarentees for mega-investment projects needed; When there is a match between India and Pakistan and someone in us  can’t cheer for India or either of them; When we try to fathom why State is the key employer, employees are too many and people are virtually dying for lack of jobs in resource rich State ( if we could only tap mineral and other resources under the earth, we would have almost no unemployment as has been argued by many an expert).       While we may be one day cured of th...