| February 22, 2002 | Friday | Zilhaj 9, 1422 |
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Pakistan standard time
Privatization not in national interest
Rebuilding of Afghanistan
Planting trees: a suggestion
Speed breakers on RCD highway
Misuse of loudspeakers
Pakistan exporting wheat
Injustice to pensioners
A faux pas
Control of leishmaniasis
Private practice of doctors
Delivery of Nadra cards
Lesson from Enron scandal
REFERENCE a news item in Dawn (Feb. 19) “EC unhappy over NA seats distribution”. It is gratifying to note that even the Election Commission of Pakistan is not satisfied over the distributions of NA seats.
In this process Balochistan is the main sufferer. Our political leaders and analysts have repeatedly brought it to the notice of the concerned authorities, but they have shown no response. According to the latest census Balochistan population is 6.3 million. It has been allocated fourteen general seats in the National Assembly, reflecting an increase of only three seats whereas the FATA with the population of only 2 million has been given 12 seats.
The population of Islamabad is not more than that of Quetta but instead of 1 seat it has been given 4 seats. The EC has also not mentioned Balochistan. Again the same neglect and apathy has been shown even by this august federal institution of Pakistan. It is certainly not a good sign to constantly neglect this important province of the country.
We are not sure as to how the seats of Senate will be distributed by the NRB. Anyhow the present distribution is reflective of the same bias, which the policy makers in Islamabad have been harbouring toward the minority provinces, particularly to Balochistan.
Pakistan is a federal structure according to its Constitution but federalism has never been made a cornerstone of policy making or in developing the political institutions with a view to ensuring a real federal status to it. In the federation all the units must be given equal representation but in the Senate of Pakistan, Balochistan and Sindh have been given 19 seats whereas NWFP has been allocated 27 seats (19 provincial and 8 FATA) and Punjab 22 seats (19 province + 3 Islamabad). This is clearly done to make the other provinces even more ineffective in an already ineffective Senate.
We do believe that no areas should be unrepresented in the national legislative institutions. The tribal areas of NWFP should be merged with its adjoining province as has been done in the case of tribal areas of Balochistan.
Therefore the Senate should be made the equal representative of the four federating units of Pakistan i.e. Punjab, Sind, NWFP and Balochistan. It will not be impertinent to suggest that the re-allocation of the seats of the NA should be made on the basis of a political formula which should be based on equity with minor provinces.
Therefore 50% of the seats should be equally distributed among the four provinces and 50% should be distributed on population basis. We do not mean that Capital area or FATA should be deprived of their due share either in the National Assembly or Senate but they ought to get it as a part of a province and not as separate political entity.
This present system makes a mockery of the concept of federation and runs counter to very spirit of the Constitution itself.
Therefore, I appeal to the Chief Executive and Chief Election Commissioner to ask the NRB to examine the whole scenario in its real political context and help lessening the already pervading sense of deprivation among the smaller nationality of Pakistan.
MIR SHAI MAZAR BALOCH
Quetta
THE experiment of introducing “Summer Time” had failed earlier. The repeat decision to modify the time is therefore not understood at least by me.
Moving the clocks forward in summers is usually considered advantageous in high latitude countries like the UK, USA and some others, where sunlight is a sought after natural phenomenon for various cosmetic and other reasons. By moving the clocks the workers in such countries get home an hour earlier in relation to the sunset and are thus able to enjoy an extra hour of sunlight. Correspondingly the changed time is also known as Daylight Saving Time/Sunlight Saving Time.
In Pakistan we have no real need to suntan. Even the Caucasians while in our country try to stay away from the blazing sun in the summers lest they get sunburnt. So why change to a time which does not correspond to our geographical location on the globe.
India and Bangladesh lie to our East and logically must stay ahead of us in time, but with the changed time we would be ahead of India and the same as Bangladesh - a rather unnatural situation.
Please note that when UK switches to summertime, the whole of Europe also maintains the same. I remember that last time the change had caused a lot of confusion because some decided to put the clocks forward while others decided to advance time resulting in inconvenience and missed trains and planes.
To avoid uncertainty may I suggest that the government publicize the fact that Pakistan Standard Time (PST) wef 1st April would be GMAT (UT)+6 and shall revert to GMT+5 on 1st October.
Given the above arguments the government may like to reconsider its decision and if the same can’t be reversed for some reason it must vigorously advertise the change to familiarize the not so knowledgeable amongst us.
The reasons for the change would also be of interest to many.
A. WAJID SALIM
Air Cdre (Retd)
Lahore
THIS is with reference to Manzoor Ahmad’s observations regarding privatization of the PSO in his article, “ Prelude to privatization: Foreigners ready to pounce on PSO”, (EBR Feb 18). I fully agree with the writer’s view that privatization of companies such as PSO, PTCL, OGDC, WAPDA, etc, is counter to our best national interests. Companies like these are the heart of our country’s economic infrastructure.
Those who think that the IMF and the World Bank have the best interests of Pakistan at their hearts, must be blind to what the Western news media and anti-globalization campaigners have been saying about them for a while now. In at least six editorials, the prestigious US newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, has cast its vote against both the IMF and the World Bank as well as their respective chiefs, for their mismanagement of affairs of practically all countries that the two have interfered in, starting from Indonesia.
I expect that Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz would fully know where such privatization would lead to. He must have been privy to such secretive wheeling and dealing during his tenure at New York’s City Bank. Now that Mr Aziz is serving the people of Pakistan, I would further expect that he would keep the interests of Pakistan and Pakistanis dear to him, and would work against the handing over of these assets to foreign companies.
SHAMS NAQVI
Richmond,
California
THE richest and the most advanced country in the world, the US, attacked the poorest and the most backward country in the world, Afghanistan on October 7 last year and the bombing of that ruined country still continues even after the ouster of the Taliban government.
Now the US says it will rebuild Afghanistan. But would they do so?
An estimated amount of $ 15 billion will be required to reconstruct Afghanistan.
However, the commitments made so far are: Iran $560m, Japan $500m, the European Union $487m, the US $296m, the UK $295m and Pakistan $100m. So, the US and its protege the UK, are only ahead of the heavily indebted Pakistan, in contributing towards the reconstruction of a poor country destroyed mainly because the world’s only superpower had so desired.
MAQBOOL MOMEN
Turbat
IN my view the problem of deforestation can be tackled effectively if the government and Nazim involve the school community (teachers and students) in tree plantation and its regular upkeep.
What I suggest is a pilot project at Karachi. In case the project is successful, it may be