Baluchistan is a tradition and tribal society. The modern Baluchistan cities inhabitants are divided between tribes and clan although their loyalties to the tribes are not as strong as the tribal Baluchistan, but when it comes to voting majority people in Baluchistan vote on tribal line.

Balochi literature is very rich in oral tradition but comparatively poor in the printed text. It was only in the early twentieth century that Balochi began to be transcribed in books. Under such trying conditions, it wasn�t easy for anyone to devote his entire life to the promotion of Balochi literature. Sayad Zahoor Shah Hashmi was a man with the commitment to do that.

Kashmir Watch,
ALI SUKHANVER

My moon is every body’s moon; this poetic phrase seems  no more limited to the expression of love between a lover and the beloved; with the passage of time it has become more appropriate and more suitable for the sincere and truthful lands like that of Balochistan. Located on the northern tip of straits of Hormuz, Balochistan has no doubt become ever body’s moon.

Mai Kolachi (Lady Kolachi) an old fisher woman who settled near the delta of the Indus River to start a community. This port was named after her as Kolachi and this community was later developed into modern Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

Historians tell us that its old name of Karachi was actually Kolachi after the name of an old woman, Mai Kolachi, who was head of the village.

The national language of the Baloch is Balochi. In Balochistan, their second-most commonly spoken language is Brahui, a language of unknown origins with many Iranic (mainly Balochi) loanwords. Brahui has been hypothesized to have been of proto-Dravidian origin. Recent studies on the origins and affinities of Brahui mostly confirms a relationship with Dravidian in general, and with North Dravidian in particular.

There is no denying the fact that East Pakistan like situation prevails in the present day Balochistan. Two provincial ministers have been killed of which ruling PPP Education Minister Shafique Ahmad Khan who was of Punjab origin was murdered in broad daylight in front of his house.

By SELIG S. HARRISON
The biggest threat to the ruling ayatollahs and generals in multi-ethnic Iran does not come from the embattled democratic opposition movement struggling to reform the Islamic Republic. It comes from increasingly aggressive separatist groups in Kurdish, Baluch, Azeri and Arab ethnic minority regions that collectively make up some 44 percent of Persian-dominated Iran’s population.

I had the pleasure of being invited to preside over a seminar on the Wakhi language held at the Institute of Folk Heritage in Islamabad recently. Outside the hall there were people in traditional woollen robes and caps, some embellished with feathers. 

The non-local rulers not only refused to integrate with locals but also considered learning their language below their dignity. Imposition of Urdu as the compulsory national language soon after partition was a manifestation of the terra nullius mindset In 1770 Lieutenant James Cook  claimed possession of the whole east coast of Australia by raising the British flag at Possession Island off the northern tip of the Cape York Peninsula — after declaring it terra nullius (empty land).