| January 26, 2003 | Sunday | Ziqa’ad 22,1423 |
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Relief for drought victims
The IT conundrum
IT will be some time before the damage done by US Ambassador Nancy Powell’s remarks the other day accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to “prevent infiltration across the Line of Control” is undone. She also insinuated that Pakistan was still allowing the use of its territory as “a platform for terrorism.” Finally, it seems, the American envoy in Islamabad has managed to catch up with her counterpart in New Delhi, Robert Blackwill, who has been making similar allegations and insinuations for quite some time — only more often and in a stronger tone. The two diplomats now unmistakably give an impression as if they are more Indian than the Indians themselves on Kashmir, even if this brazenly partisan tilt means going against the State Department’s known South Asia policy. Both, it seems, are unconcerned about facts and indifferent to the moral side of the Kashmir problem, to the suffering of the people of the valley and to the gross human rights violations there, which have been roundly condemned worldwide — including by some of India’s and America’s own human rights groups and the saner elements in US Congress and the media. The killing of Kashmiri civilians is not a myth, nor propaganda. Last March, India’s Home Minister L. K. Advani admitted in parliament that 61,000 people had been killed in occupied Kashmir during the last 15 years. The number is indeed much higher — in the vicinity of 80,000, according to impartial estimates. Neither Ambassador Powell nor Mr Blackwill seems concerned about these killings nor about the colossal and continuing human rights violations going on in the occupied territory.
Pakistan’s position on “cross-border terrorism” is well known. It has denied that it is letting infiltrators cross the Line of Control into Indian-held Kashmir. To prove its bona fides on this score, it has repeatedly proposed the setting up of a neutral mechanism to deal with the issue of cross-border happenings. Islamabad, for instance, has suggested that observers from friendly countries be posted along the LoC. Time and again it has made it known that it would favour UN monitors to be posted along the LoC to judge for themselves if there is any infiltration from Azad Kashmir. However, it is India which has rejected all these proposals out of hand. New Delhi also expelled the United Nations Military Observers Groups from the occupied state. Obviously, they were a thorn in India’s side because they were able to see for themselves the atrocities to which Kashmiri civilians were being subjected under a policy of brutal suppression. These atrocities included mass rape of Kashmiri women, the burning of villages, custodial deaths and “disappearances,” extrajudicial killings, torture of prisoners and rigged elections.
Most unfortunately, Ms Powell’s “advice” that Pakistan should stop letting its territory be used as a staging post for terrorism assumes that Islamabad is doing so while officially denying it. This flies in the face of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the Security Council in which he praised Pakistan’s role in the war on terror. Pakistan and America are old friends, and 9/11 has brought them together again. This relationship needs to be sustained and strengthened rather than put under unnecessary strain. The “hot pursuit” and madressah bombing controversy was fortunately sorted out amicably after Islamabad and Washington got in touch on this issue. It is in this fashion that the two countries should proceed.
THE prime minister’s two-billion-rupee package for the drought-affected people of Balochistan will help alleviate some of the misery of the people of the province. However, given the scale of the crisis, and the related problems of underdevelopment and poverty, relief agencies fear that the amount will only cover the immediate relief needs of the people. The prolonged drought has been a bitter fact of life for the people of the area for the last six years. However, the crisis is finally hitting the headlines, prompting relief agencies to take notice and sound alarm bells. One well-known charity has gone as far as to claim that Balochistan is just months away from a catastrophe if relief efforts are not speeded up.
The World Food Programme, in partnership with the Balochistan government and local and international NGOs, has launched an appeal for funds and chalked out an emergency programme to deal with the crisis. The districts of Pishin, Kharan, Khuzdar, Chaghai and Qila Saifullah are the worst affected and in need of urgent succour. At least 20 people are reported to have died of drought-related causes in Aranji in Khuzdar district, and a large number of people are still at risk. The lack of rainfall in recent years has caused havoc to the life of thousands of people. Heavily dependent for their livelihood on livestock and rain-fed agriculture, the drought has caused large-scale impoverishment. People have helplessly watched their orchards wither and their animals die as the drought conditions worsened. Wells have dried up and the ancient karez system of underground water channels has all but collapsed. Many villages have been abandoned as people take to the road in search of food, water and employment.
While immediate relief is a top priority for those most in need, there is also need to ensure that aid reaches the most desperate and is not skimmed off by corrupt officials and local influentials. The government must also plan ahead and find longer-term solutions to the crisis, including finding ways to replenish the depleted groundwater level and the construction of check dams to help people survive during prolonged periods of drought.
SINDH education department officials meeting in Karachi the other day decided to retain Information Technology as a compulsory subject up to the intermediate level. Higher secondary schools and colleges across the province have already charged students Rs 1,500 per annum for the service, despite the fact that teachers and facilities to teach IT are yet to be provided in most institutions in the rural and semi-urban areas. This leaves a large number of the 90,000 intermediate-level students in the province in a quandary: they have to secure a minimum of 33 per cent marks in IT theory and practicals to be declared successful in the annual certificate examination, even though they have not received adequate training in the subject.
There is no doubt that IT should be made a compulsory subject in the public education system so as to familiarize the next generation of students with this vital tool. The problem is that the subject has been made compulsory without first having provided public institutions with the necessary infrastructure. Imagine the misery of students who would be required to sit in exam for a subject that they were never taught at college even though they had paid for the privilege. It is time the authorities looked into the matter and removed this obvious anomaly to save thousands of intermediate students this extra anguish while they prepare for their final exams. The logic is simple: students’ proficiency in IT cannot be judged until adequate arrangements are made by the education department to provide trained teachers and computers to all the colleges in the province.