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Pakistan army spokesman, BJP leader’s spat over song causes Twitter storm

A screen grab taken from Thakur Raja Singh's video.
Updated 16 April 2019
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Pakistan army spokesman, BJP leader’s spat over song causes Twitter storm

  • Military spokesman says Indian legislator copied song produced for Pakistan's annual republic day celebrations
  • Pakistani Twitterati slam Indian lawmaker for his act of plagiarism
Updated 16 April 2019
Sib Kaifee

ISLAMABAD: A spat between the spokesman of the Pakistan army and a leader of India’s Bhartiya Janata Party over a song that Pakistan claims is plagiarized caused an online storm on Monday as users took to Twitter to defend their respective nations.

On Sunday, Gen Asif Ghafoor commented on a song posted by BJP lawmaker Thakur Raja Singh on Twitter, and said it had been copied from a song composed by a Pakistani singer and released this year during annual republic day celebrations on March 23. Singh had dedicated his song, which he claims is an original, to the Indian army.

In response, Singh posted: “Good to see even #Pakistan media is covering my song #HindustanZindabad … We don't have to copy anything from a terrorist state like Pakistan.”

Ghafoor responded once again and said: “This lie too not a surprise. That’s what was said, we can’t be surprised,” referring to Pakistan’s refrain to India in February that India would not be able to catch it off guard after India claimed to have carried out airstrikes against alleged terror camps in Pakistan.

“You will never be able to surprise us. We have not been surprised,” Ghafoor had told reporters then.

Despite repeated requests from journalists, the Indian government has not produced evidence that a camp was destroyed in Pakistan or that any militants were killed in the February airstrikes.

The claims have been an issue in India’s general election, which started on Thursday. Senior government officials - including Prime Minister Narendra Modi - have attacked opposition politicians who ask for evidence as unpatriotic.

Satellite pictures have indicated that the main structures on the hill top India claims it targeted appear to be in similar condition after the attack as they were before.

Pakistan says Singh’s song is a copy of a song called ‘Pakistan Zindabad,’ originally produced this year by Sahir Ali Bagga for Pakistan’s annual republic day celebrations on March 23.

The army spokesman’s post about the song led hundreds of thousands of Pakistani Twitter users to post using the hashtag #ChowkidarChorHain (watchmen are thieves), calling out Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Main bhi chowkidar” or “I am also a watchman” election campaign:

Topics: BJP Pakistan India Wagah Border

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Pakistan and Italy mark 70 years of archaeological cooperation in Swat

Updated 9 sec ago
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Pakistan and Italy mark 70 years of archaeological cooperation in Swat

  • Founded in 1955, Italy’s Swat mission has led excavations and conservation work at major Gandhara sites
  • Italian archaeologists have also contributed to training Pakistani researchers and museum development
Updated 9 sec ago
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Italy marked 70 years of archaeological cooperation, said an official statement on Sunday, with officials highlighting decades of joint work in preserving ancient sites in the country’s northwest, where Italian researchers have played a central role in documenting and conserving remnants of the Gandhara civilization.

The Italian Archaeological Mission in Swat was established in 1955 by Italian scholar Giuseppe Tucci, a leading expert on Asian art and religions, with the aim of studying, excavating and preserving Buddhist and pre-Islamic sites in what is now Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Over the decades, the mission has become one of the longest-running foreign archaeological projects in the country, working closely with Pakistani authorities and academic institutions.

“Pakistan is committed to advancing archaeological research, conservation and education, and looks forward to deepening cooperation with Italy in both scope and dimension,” Pakistan’s Minister for National Heritage and Culture Aurangzeb Khan Khichi said while addressing a ceremony in Rome marking the mission’s anniversary.

The event was organized by Italy’s International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies (ISMEO), with support from the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and the University of Venice, and was attended by Pakistani and Italian academics, diplomats and cultural officials.

The Italian mission was originally conceived to systematically document Buddhist sites in the Swat Valley, once a major center of the ancient Gandhara civilization, which flourished from around the first century BCE and became a crossroads of South Asian, Central Asian and Hellenistic influences.

Since its inception, the mission has led or supported excavations and conservation work at several key sites, including Barikot, believed to be ancient Bazira mentioned by classical sources, as well as Butkara and Saidu Sharif, helping establish chronologies, preserve stupas and monasteries and train generations of Pakistani archaeologists.

Italian researchers have also worked with local authorities on site protection, museum development and post-conflict rehabilitation, particularly after natural disasters and periods of unrest that threatened archaeological heritage in the region.

The anniversary program featured sessions on the history of the mission, its collaboration with the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and future research areas such as archaeobotany, epigraphy and geoarchaeology.

The event was moderated by Professor Luca Maria Olivieri of the University of Venice, who has been associated with archaeological fieldwork in Pakistan for nearly four decades and was awarded Pakistan’s Sitara-e-Imtiaz for his contributions to heritage preservation.

Officials said the mission’s longevity reflected a rare continuity in international cultural cooperation and underscored Pakistan’s efforts to protect its archaeological legacy through partnerships with foreign institutions.

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