| May 4, 2002 | Saturday | Safar 20, 1423 |
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Death by stoning
MBAs but no interview calls
The makings of a national hero
Kalabagh Dam and human chain
Nadra’s new CNICs
Failure of water schemes
World Bank rating of CBR
The peace at polling centres
No comment needed
Intermediate exams in Sindh
Our apex courts: some details
Child beggars
Industrial exhibitions
THIS refers to Khalid Husain’s letter ‘Role of columnists’ (April 15). In the last two paragraphs of his letter, Mr Husain rightly points out that “...unless the people are empowered, the country isn’t going anywhere” and “...any system which seeks to empower people, however minimally, is unacceptable to the bureaucracy, serving or retired”.
But what hinders us to cross this hurdle? It is not the dearth of good ideas or shortage of intellectuals with noble intentions. It is the acute shortage of appropriate public forums to collect ideas contributed by the intellectuals; debate them logically and in depth through active participation of the contributors; chalk out concrete measures through consensus and sell them to the people.
No bureaucracy or any other vested interest can resist the power of people motivated to embark upon a clear course of action.
The problem may be due to the ailment of self-aggrandizement and self-seeking to which not just waderas but all of us seem to be afflicted to various degrees.
Even when just three strangers will meet, an order of social ranking will be drawn up immediately in the group.
The collective wisdom of the group will be deemed to rest entirely with the person placed on top. The ideas can only flow from top to be applauded and obeyed by the lower ranks. Reverse flow of ideas is looked down upon, and at best ignored. Only praises can flow upward.
How can there be a forum of even 10 intellectuals when all ten are striving to be ‘leaders’?
Each member should get equal chance to project his idea which others are required to listen to carefully, and not miss the point the contributor is trying to make, and then debate its merits on a logical and rational basis to see if anything of substance can be extracted from it.
Let our elite columnists suggest how to create such forums and define rules of their business so that contributions from the intellectuals of the whole nation are pooled, moulded into concrete plans, and presented to the people.
If we succeed, that will bring the change, which has eluded us for generations. The other option is to keep trying to prove Einstein wrong when he says that doing the same thing over and over again will not bring any different results.
KHALED AHMED
Islamabad
IT is concluded from the statement of Zafran Bibi’s lawyer (April 23) that the sentence of stoning to death in a public place has been awarded her on the basis of her confessional statement to having committed the crime.
It is universally accepted that if an accused is convicted on the basis of a portion of his/her own statement, then his/her entire statement made in the court must be taken as correct.
Accordingly, whosoever this unfortunate woman alleges as her tormentor, automatically stands convicted.
The text of the judgment of the Additional Sessions Judge, Kohat, must be made public so that not only the people in this country but those all over the world, may know why a woman has been convicted of having committed ‘zina’ while the man named by her as having done this to her was allowed to walk honourably away from the court of law.
This is an injustice disguised as justice, and is the worst form of injustice.
It is time that we, as a nation, learn to give due regard to the weaker sex.
In having dispensed the most severe punishment to a helpless woman with a child of few months, should we consider ourselves highly sublimated and exalted?
S. ABRAR HUSSAIN
Lahore
STUDENTS getting their MBA degrees from the Preston Institute of Management Sciences, Karachi, are facing a problem: no one even calls them for an interview. It seems that most of the companies are ignoring the institute, although it has been recognised by the University Grants Commission. Its faculty includes specialists in their respective fields.
After its recognition by the UGC, the institute has increased its fees by at least 25 per cent. Still more students want to join it because it is a good institute. But this situation won’t last if students coming with the hope of getting good jobs, do not get jobs. It is the responsibility of the institute to contact reputable organizations in this regard.
The situation is very disheartening for the students of Preston Institute. They spend money on education but instead of getting a job in a multinational or a bank, they do not get even interview calls.
ABDULLAH SABIH
Karachi
AFTER toppling a governing system based on moral and intellectual dishonesty and rampant corruption that left the national exchequer drip-dry and the national institution destroyed, Gen Pervez Musharraf could certainly have found a respectable place in history. But in the rich and holy tradition of his military predecessors Ayub, Yahya, and Zia, Gen Musharraf has destroyed a dream of any good soldier to become a national hero.
Pakistan’s brief and chequered political history has seen men rise as national leaders — mostly tailor-made by the establishment. Only very few have been recognized nationally and internationally as popular public leaders by historians. Of course, they were M.A. Jinnah, the Quaid-i-Azam and founder of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who met with a tragic fate in the cause of building Pakistan onto a strong independent state.
Gen Musharraf has made a herculean rally, using all mobility and publicity at his resource — the US Time magazine quotes this expenditure to $28 million. What a heavy price to become the president of a heavily debt-ridden state in a chaotic politico-economic scenario!
Accountability and merit, slogans of the present military regime, have all been thrown to the winds, thanks to the courtesy of strongly entrenched corrupt senior management and their patrons in Islamabad.
KHALID DURRANI
Karachi
THE President recently stated during one of his addresses in Sindh that if the Kalabagh Dam is not built, Sindh will become a desert in the next 10 years. This was said in view of the stark fact of our depleting storages at Tarbela and Mangla dams due to silting that can only be compensated by making a new storage dam.
The only site available is at Kalabagh where all necessary studies at a cost of more than Rs1 billion have been carried out. However, the construction of this vital storage dam has been held up as a lot of dust has been kicked up by Sindh in a virulent anti-Punjab attitude that obfuscates the entire issue of water development.
Some political stalwarts from Sindh simply do not want a water storage dam to be built in Punjab as if the majority province is enemy territory. These short-sighted politicians are ready to sacrifice the entire agricultural economy of Pakistan.
Crying from housetops that Punjab has misappropriated Sindh’s share of water, in spite of the assurance from the President that being a Sindhi himself he would not allow for any loss of Sindh’s share of water, has become a fashion these days.
It appears that the PPP has become a sworn enemy of Punjab on the water issue although its leader once claimed of being a chain holding all the provinces together. How can a chain be kept intact by malicious propaganda against Punjab, which has 73 per cent of the agricultural base, sustaining the national economy to a large extent?
DR M. YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore