| October 30, 2002 | Wednesday | Sha’aban 23,1423 |
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Protests against US jingoism
Privatization of PTCL
House job doctors’ duty schedule
An air traveller’s grievance
Beautifying Karachi
Northern Areas issues
Election of PM
The Beau Brummells of Pakistan
Women and workplace harassment
Cooperatives scandal
Derailment of democracy in Pakistan
Karachi Paris,
France
THIS is with reference to A. B. S. Jafri’s letter “Cricket: total humiliation” (Oct 25). I agree with some of his points. However, there are a few points on which I differ.
Firstly, I do not believe that the defeat in the second Test in Sharjah is our worst ever. I believe that dubious accolade belongs to our loss in the 96 World Cup match against India. That was a match in which we had already made 90 runs in the first 10 overs before we squandered that position due to some personal duels between one of our openers and a medium-paced Indian bowler. That match deeply wounded the hearts of the cricket fans in our country as it seemed we were destined to win that cup based on the strength of our team which included a much faster Waqar Younus, Wasim Akram and the experience of Miandad.
Secondly, I do not think all the blame for the losses in Sharjah should go to the members of the team or the management. Mr Jafri talks of “late nights”. Well, regular cricket followers know that late nights are not the part and parcel of this young team only. Our senior players on many a tour have been caught. Yet they have won tests, sometimes singlehandedly. Therefore, instead of putting the blame on the team management, I feel we should put some of the blame at least on our regulars who refused to play Australia.
Thirdly, Shahid Afridi not playing due to fitness reasons I believe is more of a cover-up by the board than his decision. I believe this was done as the PCB thought they would lose face if they played Shahid Afridi instead of Imran Farhat as he was already in the squad since the start of the series and eyebrows would have been raised if the team had played Afridi. Shahid Afridi is one individual in this team that takes the attack to the bowlers like the Australian batsman do. He is a fearless man who does not care who is bowling to him. The more players we have like him the better off our team would be.
In addition, I do not believe in re-living the past. The Bangladesh-Pakistan World Cup match has been played. It is a thing of the past. It happened almost four years ago. I am not saying we should completely forget that match. However, I feel the lessons from that match have been learnt and it has been pondered over enough by experts from around the world. We need to accept it, learn from it and move on. And I do not believe in castigating a great cricketer like Wasim Akram over that match.
I feel Wasim Akram has given his all to this country. He has won matches both Test and One Day singlehandedly for Pakistan. He is a national treasure since people around the world associate great things with him and always identify Pakistan with him.
I completely understand the pain and agony Mr Jafri feels considering our recent cricketing performances. My humble wish is that instead of castigating Pakistan cricket, let’s now turn our efforts towards the betterment of and revitalization of Pakistan cricket.
NABIL HOODBHOY
TENS of thousands of demonstrators marched in the American cities of Washington, San Francisco, California, Chicago and Illinois on Oct 27 to protest against an imminent US-led war on Iraq. They chanted anti-war slogans while speakers slammed politicians for resorting to sabre-rattling.
Similar rallies and demonstrations were organized in the cities of Mexico, Japan, Spain, Germany, South Korea, Belgium and Australia, but unfortunately none in the Middle East and South Asia.
The protesters called on the US president to abandon plans to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and to spend billions of dollars needed for a military campaign on social welfare programmes instead.
The organizers of the rallies stated that President George W. Bush pressed Congress to provide him with a carte blanche, and American Congressmen rubber-stamped the Iraq resolution. The organizers termed the resolution illegal and said Bush’s threats of a war against Iraq did not represent the views of the American people.
The protests in the US are being acclaimed as one of the largest in the country since US citizens took to the streets in the 1960s and the 1970s to protest against the Vietnam war.
The US and the UK want Saddam Hussein to destroy the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) which they believe Iraq is in possession of. Well, he must do so if his country has WMD, but so should be done first by the US-pampered country of Israel in the same region. Israel is believed to have acquired a large number of WMD. In case it fails to do so, the world powers without prejudice should launch a UN-backed action against it and should destroy Israeli WMD.
Over a decade ago, Iraq occupied its neighbouring country, Kuwait. The world powers, with UN authorization, liberated Kuwait in the Gulf war. In the same region, Israel occupied Lebanese and Palestinian areas and has been killing innocent Palestinians for many decades now, but the world community, in general, and the big powers, in particular, have chosen to ignore Israeli crimes against humanity and massive human rights violations by its forces. The UN, too, has become a silent spectator.
It is high time people with conscience raised their voice against this sheer discrimination against the Muslim countries by the so-called civilized Western nations.
LT-COL (Retd) SYED AHMED TI(M)
Karachi
I AM part of the team that vets all telecom financing decisions at one of the world’s largest underwriters of telecom debt. May I point out that it is extremely unlikely that a strategic investor would be able to raise any non-recourse debt financing for a PTCL share purchase in the current market?
Normally, investors would need to leverage their equity with senior and/or subordinated debt on 70 per cent debt to 30 per cent equity basis in order to make their minimum IRR requirements. As such, if 12 per cent of the PTCL shares (plus management rights) are worth say, $275 million on paper, this would necessitate raising about $200 million in debt in the international market.
There is no financial institution of repute that would lend such an amount (certainly not in the foreseeable future,) for the purchase of a telecom asset in a sub-investment grade country. This is a market issue and is independent of PTCL’s creditworthiness or profitability.
In the unlikely event that the debt is raised on the buyer’s own balance sheet, the buyer would need to be rated BBB+ or higher and even then the funding costs would be exorbitant.
It is unfortunate, but all this talk of a PTCL sale in the first half of 2003 is unrealistic.
AHMED ARIF
I SHOULD like to bring it to the notice of the authorities concerned the duty schedule of house job doctors at the JPMC. The schedule is very tough and anti-human.
On every fourth day, the day duty is followed by the night duty and the next day’s day duty which means that on every fourth day a house job doctor’s has to perform a 30-hour duty without any break, whereas in common practice the night duty is followed by a closed holiday.
As if it were not enough, new house job doctors are paid stipends after three months, with this assumption in mind that they will leave the job after getting frustrated with the duty schedule. No wonder that such practices are producing only frustrated doctors.
The Sindh health department should take notice of this sorry state of affairs and must prepare a humane and practical duty schedule.
SHAUKAT MAHMUD
Karachi
I AM a Pakistani engineer working in a German company. Although I had learnt from many about the non-professional attitude of the staff of Pakistan International Airlines, I chose to travel by it because of my patriotism.
I travelled from Frankfurt to Lahore on Sept 29 and back to Frankfurt on Oct 13. The ticket, bought at Frankfurt, was non-refundable and non-transferable.
A number of symptoms of inefficiency were noted during the first flight such as a delay of 30 minutes, a difference of one hour in the actual local time and the time displayed on the monitor and a lack of cleanliness in the toilets. However, the big shock came to me when I reported at the airport for the return journey on Oct 13.
I was told that since I had failed to get my ticket re-confirmed, I could not board the plane. I argued that my ticket was non-refundable and non-transferable and, therefore, PIA was bound to keep a seat for me on the recorded dates. But the gentleman was not prepared to listen to anything. Finally, I had to travel by Business class by getting my ticket upgraded, and had to pay $200 extra because that was the only option left to me.
Now if PIA, as a matter of policy, does not honour a booking simply because it has not been re-confirmed, it is a bad policy. It would not encourage people to travel by the national flag-carrier. But if it was a personal decision of the station manager, he must be punished.
It is a matter of common sense that if a person buys a ticket on the condition that the ticket is valid only for a particular date for the return journey and was also non-refundable, then the buyer is bound to travel on the date mentioned whether he gets the booking re-confirmed or not.
ZULFIQAR ALI
Nuremberg,
Germany
FOR quite some time, plans for beautifying Karachi have been under discussion as also the role of civic agencies responsible for the task. But the way the concept of beauty is being projected, it appears as if natural landscape plays no role in making a city look radiant and it is the construction activity alone which can beautify a city. But I feel that construction can only complement what nature gives to a place .
The vista of Karachi has gone from bad to worse in the past few years. High-rise buildings, apartments and commercial plazas have cropped up everywhere. The number of flyovers and pedestrian bridges is also growing. A cursory glance at any street meets with a plethora of billboards.
Though the city roundabouts were given a face-lift some time back, most of them are in a bad condition for want of maintenance. Police checkposts having miserably failed to serve their purpose are now lying abandoned, harbouring drug addicts or stray animals.
The creation of charged-parking spaces has led to congestion on the service roads and bylanes. Roadside restaurants and eateries have not only mutilated the look of the roads but have greatly contributed to the accumulation of food refuse on the roadside. Piles of garbage can be seen dumped in the middle of commercial and residential areas. Continuous encroachment of open spaces by land mafia has led to the loss of natural vegetation, public parks, playgrounds and roadside trees. Even the coast of Karachi has not been spared of the menace of land commercialization, which has tarnished the scenic beauty of the seaside.
In a quest for commercialization, we have forgotten that elegant plazas, colourful neon-signs and intricately constructed roundabouts are not all that make a city beautiful. Town planners and civic agencies should realize the importance of natural landscape and its conservation in beautifying the city.
ARIF-UZ-ZAMAN
Karachi
I WANT to draw the attention of the people of Pakistan and also of the decision-making authorities towards some crucially important issues related to the Northern Areas.
In the last 55 years, Pakistan has been made a political laboratory where all kinds of political experiments are made. This has only increased the feeling of deprivation and a sense of alienation among the masses. This process of experiments has affected not only the people of the four provinces but also those of the Northern Areas.
The major problem of the people of the region is that they have no representation in parliament and are out of the jurisdictions of the Supreme Court and the high courts.
I urge the next government to give priority to the issues of the Northern Areas.
GHULAM-UD-DIN
Karachi
THE MMA, being the smallest of the three major groups elected to the National Assembly with 16 per cent of the total vote, is insisting that the prime minister’s slot should be filled with their nominee.
How can a prime minister be from the group that still represents a minority sentiment in the country?
The MMA’s demand is downright undemocratic to begin with. This is also to take an undue advantage of the absence of a clear majority that could not come up in the election.
DR MAHNAZ FATIMA
Karachi
THIS refers to Ardeshir Cowasjee’s article, ‘The Beau Brummells of Pakistan’ (Oct 20).
I distinctly remember it was ‘Amir-ul-Momineen’ Ziaul Haq’s reign in Pakistan when the foolish order to return to sherwani as national dress and a directive to government servants to wear shalwar qameez whilst on duty were issued.
The staff of the State Bank of Pakistan were offered a loan of Rs2,000 per head for a sherwani. Although it was deducted from their salaries at the rate of Rs100 per month, no employee was seen attired as desired.
WAQIF LAHORI
Lahore
THIS refers to the news report “Amendment to law against harassment disapproved” (Oct 23). The report says that “the government was of the view that if the law was approved, it was likely to be misused.”
However, I am of the view that women ought to be protected at the workplace because incidents of sexual harassment are on the rise.
A couple of reasons could be attributed to this rise but the major one is that the culprit is able to get away with the crime. What greater motivation does a criminal mind need?
We also have to bear in mind the fact that it requires a lot of courage on the part of a woman to lodge such complaints. Therefore, it is not healthy to keep mum about such incidents.
According to the government, this law would create an aura of distrust at the workplace because women could then lodge complaints against their male counterparts without disclosing their identity.
But I do not think that this is the correct approach because no woman in her right mind would like to create a myth around herself.
Second, if a man who is a constant source of nuisance to women is pointed out, it will surely forewarn other men with such intentions against indulging in such acts.
I think that some sort of amendment should have been made to the law to protect women without the law being misused by anyone.
NADIRA RAHMAN
Karachi
THE cooperatives scandal of 1991 just reverberates for politicians, but the poor victims have yet to find any solace as the majority remains bereft of their looted savings. All this is against the much heralded action by National Accountability Bureau and the payments made to some of the victims under TV spotlights. Specially unfortunate are the people who were deprived of their monies by the cooperatives registered in Islamabad. In fact, except for a very few with claims not exceeding Rs25,000, no one has been paid during the last decade.
Would NAB take notice of the situation and the different policies for payments for Punjab and for those cooperatives which had been registered at Islamabad?
TAHIR BASHARAT CHEEMA
Lahore
THE election is over, with apparently a pre-planned hung National Assembly to ensure ‘tailored’ democracy and for us, poor Pakistanis, political uncertainty.
To my utter disappointment, commentators in pre-election debates in newspapers and on TV channels had kept blaming the voters for making wrong choices in the past and also criticized the so-called politicians for adopting wrong policies that led to lack of democracy in the country.
According to reliable documents, it was in 1953 when the then C-in-C, Ayub Khan, started the process of subverting democracy by encouraging and supporting governor-general Ghulam Mohammad to dismiss prime minister Khwaja Nazimuddin, just after he had received a vote of confidence in parliament.
This was not for a higher cause. The C-in-C had the PM dismissed because the latter had refused to extend Ayub Khan’s term in office, denied him additional privileges and, above all, because the PM wanted to cut down the size of the army to make it affordable for the nation.
Ayub Khan committed these acts with the US support. He also had the support of West Pakistan’s landlords who felt threatened because Khwaja Nazimuddin played a crucial role in abolishing feudalism in East Pakistan.
That Ayub Khan wanted to achieve his political ambitions by taking these steps is reflected in his autobiography, Friends Not Masters.
No wonder he had the constituent assembly dissolved in 1954, and, despite being a
public servant, became a minister. Also no wonder that he continued the process of destabilization by having ministries after ministries dismissed until the people were fully disillusioned to welcome his coup — indeed a high treason.
Besides pioneering the derailment of democracy, according to the Hamood-ur-Rehman Commission verdict, credit for introducing the culture of corruption and the process of bad governance also goes to the Ayub era (Ref Pakistan Law Journal, PLD 1972, SC 152-81).
Since 1953, Pakistani generals never fully went back to the barracks, despite the 1965 military debacle and the defeat in 1971.
They all ruled directly and for the rest half of the country’s history indirectly through so-called politicians.
The nation has had no genuine politicians with some sound political ideology. The political parties are directly responsible for this sorry state of affairs, for they never promoted the culture of democracy within themselves, let alone in the country.
The powerful feudal-bureaucrat-general axis is here. The so-called politicians are here. Above all, Americans with their FBI are here! What is not in the country are well-organized political parties, with well-defined programmes and leadership having come up through genuine intra-party elections.
In my view, the election 2002 has changed nothing as real democracy remains derailed.
GHULAM KIBRIA
Karachi
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