Use of force at university

I AM saddened by the mistreatment of distinguished professors at the University of Karachi on Sept 7. It is the 21st century and yet the controllers of the institutions of higher learning in Pakistan have not learned how to deal with dissent.

The academicians are the conscience of society. They are part of the intellectual capital that shapes the future of a country. When they are treated like livestock, the future of higher education starts to look bleak.

I personally know one of the professors, Dr Abdul Qadeer, Chairman, Department of Applied Physics, who was mistreated and beaten up severely. I have known Dr Qadeer for the last 25 years. A physicist of his calibre can very easily get a job with the MIT or Stanford. But he has dedicated his life for the promotion of higher education in Pakistan.

Dr Qadeer, like his predecessors, Dr Azher Ansari, Dr Fazal Ahmed, and Dr Shahid Zaidi, has dedicated more than 30 years of his life to the cause of establishing and transforming the department of applied physics into a centre of educational excellence.

Why had Dr Qadeer and his colleagues to be treated in such a harsh manner? Their only fault is that they have spoken their mind. They believe that the future of higher education in Pakistan is being threatened by certain forces who want to transform public universities into cash cows to serve the children of the rich. If this is allowed to happen, then where would the poor go to get educated?

By beating up the academicians the dissent will not go away. In Pakistan, a higher education policy change should not be imposed from the top, rather it should be allowed to evolve through open discussions and negotiations.

The Sept 7 showdown is deplorable. The federal government should launch an inquiry and take appropriate action to punish the guilty parties for mistreating the professors. The honour and dignity of the professors should be restored.

PROF AHMED S. KHAN

Illinois, USA

specially interesting in the whole affair were the vice-chancellor’s remarks. He called the protest ‘an act of terrorism’.

Well, one can’t really blame the Rangers for what they did. When one has been brainwashed to obey orders, whatever they might be, one doesn’t really has a choice. So what if the ‘national interest’ on that particular day lay in the beating up of teachers and students. I mean the end justifies the means, doesn’t it?

Cheer up all the students and teachers who were beaten up while protesting. You have been sacrificed in the larger national interest. If it were not for people like you, would we ever know which country we live in? I salute you!

RAJA SOHAIL ABBAS

MD, USA

Ordeal of retired govt servants

AS soon as a government servant retires, he steps into the quagmire of corrupted accounts office procedures from which he cannot emerge without parting with a high percentage of his pension funds. The going rate in remote districts like Muzaffargarh is five per cent.

It is all the more a problem for gazetted officers because they have no service books as they are only issued with last pay certificates (LPC) with each transfer. But when they reach the last station of their posting, retire and present their collection of the LPCs to the district accounts officer, he refuses to accept them and asks the retiring officer to go back to all the dozen or so districts of their previous postings and get a service statement verified by each one of them.

The consternation of the retired officer facing such heavy odds can be well-imagined and it is no wonder, therefore, that the easiest way out for him is to enter into some kind of under-the-table bargain with the accountants.

On the other hand, it is supposed to be the duty of every district accounts officer himself to get verified from all districts concerned the entire service record of every officer as soon as he arrives under his jurisdiction. But unfortunately, he doesn’t do so because then a powerful source of extortion would be lost.

The government is requested to order the district accounts officers to settle the pension cases of retired servants on the basis of their last pay drawn only.

ARSALAN SHAH

Muzaffargarh

Graduates and non-graduates

THIS refers to the rejection of many politicians’ nomination papers for the October elections. Ex-military officers like Lt-Gen Majid Malik and Capt Gohar Ayub have also been debarred from contesting the election for being non-graduates.

In India, the most prominent politicians/parliamentarians, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Zail Singh, were not university graduates.

In Pakistan, Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, the ablest prime minister the Punjab ever had was a non-graduate. So was his immediate successor, Sir Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana, considered to be a very capable administrator.

The first chief minister of post-partition Punjab, Nawab Mamdot, was without a university degree. Similarly, federal ministers Nawab Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmai and Khawaja Shahabuddin did not have university degrees.

Many other politicians, including Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Abdul Wali Khan, Ataullah Mengal, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan and Sardar Sher Baz Mazari do not possess any university degrees. The last named has produced an excellent 600-page book published recently by the Oxford University Press. These examples could be multiplied.

It is beyond doubt that a university degree is not a necessary qualification to become a successful politician or parliamentarian. What are required of a candidate for a parliamentary elections are political acumen, robust common sense and closeness to the electorate and not a university degree.

I also disagree with Haris Masood Zuberi’s views in ‘Every military officer is graduate’ (Aug 31). The writer’s claim that military personnel are running institutions like the KESC and Wapda much better than the civilians is illusory.

Despite being under the control of the army for the last four years, there has hardly been any perceptible improvement either in their operational efficiency or financial viability despite 11 upward revisions of tariff in case of Wapda during the last three years.

In the KESC, conditions are even worse. Perhaps the author is not aware that its daily loss runs into millions of rupees. Its annual loss has gone up enormously to Rs15 billion. Its annual interest payment amounts to Rs7 billion despite a huge write-off of a Rs94 billion loan. Its line losses have jumped to 41 per cent. Even the Privatization Commission is finding it difficult to find a buyer for it.

R. R. ALVI

Lahore

Summit on sustainable development

THE World Summit on Sustainable Development is over in Johannesburg after 10 days of bargaining, debate, protests, presentations, negotiations, renegotiations, etc. The main outcome is a 70-page non-binding plan and a burning question: was anything achieved?

It brought back memories of Rio-1992 when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan commented: “You must not expect conferences like this to produce miracles, but it must generate political commitment — Johannesburg is not the end of everything, it is a beginning.”

Ten years ago at Rio, the focus was on the critical importance of NGOs and civil society organizations as partners in sustainable development. By contrast, in Johannesburg, economics and trade have dominated the discussion.

According to the official propaganda, sustainable development will somehow trickle down to developing countries as soon as they agree to open their markets to foreign trade and investment. And if that doesn’t work, then Type-II initiatives, which focus voluntary commitments from the corporate sector and public-private partnerships (a new buzz word in the global environmental scenario) are the only available options.

While world leaders from 191 countries rocked to the tunes of Johnny Clegg and Gloria Bosmann at the farewell dinner of the largest international conference in history, the plan of action for crucial issues like climate change and energy conservation remained on the shelves at the end. Negotiations on issues relating to trade and finance and non-negotiated partnerships to implement Agenda-21 were the most successful.

The agreed implementation plan is weak and does not fully address major environmental issues, not to mention that similar was the outcome at Rio (1992). Overall, the delegations most determined to weaken the text along the lines stated above were the United States and Group-77.

We support the NGOs and youth worldwide and express our disappointment that some wealthy nations and large transnational corporations did not allow greater progress on the road to sustainable development.

HAMMAD NAQI KHAN

WWF, Pakistan

Lahore

UK visa for students

THE British High Commission has resumed entertaining applications for student visa but it has yet to announce dates for interviews.

Most of the UK universities commence their fall session in the middle or end of September. Students enrolled for this session are, therefore, left hardly with any time to wait for an interview call.

Authorities should be aware of the fact that students trying to go abroad for studies already go through a lengthy admission process and have to make intensive efforts to get a chance for acquiring higher education. After making so much of efforts, it is very frustrating for a student to be left without an admission merely because of avoidable delays in the issue of a visa.

Now that the British High Commission is entertaining visa applications of various categories, it is requested that they should give immediate consideration to students’ interview cases.

FAROOQ MALIK

Karachi

Why Iraq?

THIS is with reference to the British and American bombing of targets in Iraq recently. Despite the fact that Iraq is not involved in the Sept 11 incident, and also that no evidence is available regarding Iraq’s alleged piling up of biological weapons, President Bush and Mr Blair, have not budged from their menacing stance on Iraq.

If anyone needs to be punished for holding mass destruction weapons, it is the United States of America. It is the only country on this planet to have used nuclear weapons, and that too against innocent civilians.

SUMAIRA DADA

Karachi

Our leaders & unity

THIS has reference to Engr. B.A. Malik’s letter, ‘Political and Religious leaders’ (Sept 9). To the writer, a picture showing Maulana Fazalur Rehman, Sajid Naqvi, Qazi Husain Ahmad, Shah Ahmad Noorani and Hafiz Idrees, in a group photo, is something amusing, although a similar picture appearing on the front page of Dawn on Sept 2 was not found amusing.

The writer has chided the religious leaders, asking them to offer prayers behind any one of them acting as an Imam. I may remind him of a picture published by an Urdu newspaper showing all the leaders mentioned above offering prayers under the Imamat of Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani in the Nishter Park, Karachi.

For once, the religious parties have joined hands with a view to stopping the military regime from meddling in the country’s politics. There is no provision in the Constitution assigning any other role to the army except safeguarding the country’s borders both in peace and war.

K. A. WAHID BUTT

Lahore

Working women’s hostel

I REFER to the letter ‘Working women’s hostel’ by Anila Haq (Sept 4). She has advised the management to pay electricity bills regularly so as to avoid disconnection and sufferings of the hostel residents. I would like to clarify the situation.

First of all, Anila Haq is not a resident of the hostel. The electricity problem has been created by the KESC by changing the consumer status of the hostel from domestic to industrial. This move has raised the normal billing from the range of Rs12,000-14,000 to Rs50,000 per month. As there has not been a single industrial machine within the premises, the management has taken up the case with the KESC.

As for the ‘commercial ventures’ mentioned by the author, it may be noted that one of them, the nursery school, has been sanctioned by the government and doesn’t use the KESC power. It has its own generator. The other project, the conference hall, has also nothing to do with the hostel.

The matter, therefore, has been pending an action with the KESC. The management has also been taking up the case with the Ombudsman and federal finance minister besides the President whose intervention has led to the restoration of power supply to the hostel for the time being.

MRS MUMTAZ ALAVI

Pakistan Federation of Business & Professional Women,

Karachi

Pre-entrance test

I REFER to a letter by Mr Abbas, ‘Pre-entrance test in NED’ (Sept 7). I wish to state that there is no category where the eligibility for admission can be had by securing 35 per cent marks in the entrance test as mentioned by the author.

S. GHULAM KADIR SHAH

Registrar, NED

Karachi

Unity in diversity

THIS is in response to an excellent letter ‘Unity in diversity’ by Hozeifa Akbar (Sept 10). It is a pity that noble words like those are such a rarity in the subcontinent today.

I am of Indian origin and have been living in the US for the last 16 years and have countless friends of Pakistani origin. I have always had and have numerous close friends from India who happen to be Muslims.

For us, the difference in religion has always been greatly overshadowed by the commonality of our language, food, music and other aspects of the cultural bond we share.

No religion in the world teaches its followers disrespect for the other faiths. So why do we let our personal egos override our common sense and indulge in the game of oneupmanship?

The state of our economies hardly allows us the luxury to fight each other. Our pride of nationalism is so misplaced that we judge success by how much harm we can cause to the other instead of improving the living standards of our own. If we were more pragmatic we would have laid stress on literacy, technology and living standards upliftment.

If that had happened in the last 50 years, I am sure there would have been the flags of India and Pakistan on the moon. However, it is never too late to start.

BIMAL PARIKH

TX, USA

Pakistani help sought

I am a foreigner, currently in prison in Hyderabad. I was admitted to the Civil Hospital attached to the Liaquat Medical University and Hospital, Hyderabad, for a major operation . By God’s grace, my operation was successful.

When I came out of the hospital, my sentence was over (it ended in February this year). But I am now without my passport. I wrote to the Customs Department about it, but they said they had lost it. A Preventive Officer lost it. I have been in jail here since 1994. My passport No is: 045319.

Could some Pakistani kindly help me get my passport and arrange for my departure home?

AYOKO MENSAH

Hyderabad Central Prison,

Hyderabad

Joyride

ACCORDING to a news item (Sept 4), Brig Saulat Abbas, DG Pakistan Sports Board, left for Germany on Sept 5 to assess the disappointing performance of the Pakistan hockey team in the Champions Trophy.

Interestingly, by the time the DG reached Germany, the Pakistan team had already played five matches. It is clear that this belated visit was largely meaningless.

However, it shows how joyrides are manipulated by sports officials by misleading the government.

USMAN ALI

Lahore

Mass transit for Karachi

THE article by Fahim Zaman Khan (Sept 6) appears to have been written with a vengeance. In his opposition to the elected mayor (City Nazim), he has gone too far in denying Karachiites their basic right. Mr Zaman has twice been at the helm of affairs of Karachi, both the times serving as an unelected mayor, and perhaps for that reason he has been against those elected by the people of Karachi.

Although a mass transit system for Karachi has been talked about for almost 40 years, it was only taken seriously in the early 1990s when with a grant from the Japanese government to the World Bank, its blueprints were completed.

Indeed in 1992, an MoU was signed between the Sindh government (when Mr Muzaffar Shah was the CM) and a senior World Bank representative, under which Karachi Mass Transit Authority (KMTA) was to be established with the Sindh transport minister as its chairman. The World Bank had shown willingness to support the funding for the first corridor costing about US$600 million then.

Unfortunately, the establishment of the KMTA was not to the liking of some of the bureaucrats in Sindh secretariat and with the appointment of Fahim Zaman as administrator of the KMC (with full powers of mayor), the KMTA was abandoned as a stepchild and instead the National Mass Transit Authority was established with its headquarters in Islamabad.

The whole idea was to deny any mass transit system to Karachi. The World Bank also realized the then city government’s intentions and subsequently withdrew its support to the KMTA.

It is worth mentioning that in the early 1990s, a similar scheme was being developed for Bangkok and when I had been there last year, I had the opportunity to take a ride on their mass transit trains. It is one of the most modern systems in Asia and, to a great extent, has solved the traffic congestion in the city.

Those who have opposed a mass transit system for Karachi in the past and have still been supporting the vested interests should realize that whatever they are doing is neither in the interest of the people of Karachi nor those of the country.

Mr Naimatullah Khan, being an elected Nazim, has taken the right decision by going for magno metro train. He deserves the support of all those who are in favour of Karachi becoming a modern mega city. Every mega city of more than 10 million people between Tokyo and Cairo has a mass transit system except for Karachi.

Gen Pervez Musharraf deserves our thanks for supporting the magno metro train idea. The city cannot wait for another 10 years for a mass transit system, the cost of which will become prohibitive with each passing day.

DR MEHTAB S. KARIM

Karachi