| May 8, 2003 | Thursday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1424 |
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Secretary’s qualifications
Midnight knock
Boycott calls
Shah Milinda’s questions
Indian overtures
Babri Masjid
Help for Roohi Bano
Law on private schools
Speedbreakers
Is Pakistan SARS-safe?
HASAN TAHIR
PRESIDENT Musharraf’s recent statement in which he has linked Pakistan’s denuclearization to the settlement of the Kashmir issue is very disturbing (“Musharraf links N-free region to Kashmir settlement”, May 5).
The statement demonstrates that there exists continuing foreign pressure on the top administration of the nation to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear assets. Worse yet, it is an indication that the country’s leadership appears all too eager to yield to such pressures.
Over the last three decades, Pakistan has been diverting a very substantial percentage of its GDP towards the attainment of a nuclear capability. This has drained Pakistan and Pakistanis by taking funds away from education, health and social benefit programmes.
Now, it will be criminal to smoke the gains, whatever the conditions and linkages, and whatever the proscribed gains. Clearly, the Pakistani nation did not give up its other rights in lieu of the nuclear capability only for the settlement of Kashmir issue. Such linking of Pakistan’s denuclearization is still-born and brain-dead. The president has linked Pakistan’s denuclearization to the denuclearization of South Asia, hoping that India’s persistent refusal to even discuss this matter could give Pakistan a way out.
The Pakistani leadership should observe that at this point in time, there is not one country in the world that questions India’s nuclear programme. Over the last five years, the international news media has gradually learnt to stop asking such questions, which is in line with Indian status as a recognized nuclear power, same as that of the US, the UK and others.
The reasons for such a recognition of India’s status are fairly well understood, and our leadership is fully aware of that. Indian economic strength is not one of those reasons, since India has a per capita GDP of about 80 per cent that of Pakistan, though the GDP itself is 10 times that of Pakistan.
The most significant support for this recognition comes from Indian assertive stance on its nuclear status. India never permits any discussion, nor does it leave any door open for negotiation when it comes to India’s nuclear weapon programmes.
When former US president Bill Clinton visited Indian parliament during his second presidential term, he raised the question of Indian nuclear weapons. President Clinton was harshly rebuked. Every single Indian speaker in parliament took turns to admonish President Clinton, and advised him to “put up and shut up”, which President Clinton did.
President Bush has followed suit. During a press conference at a nuclear non-proliferation summit in Geneva, the Indian representative clearly told a journalist: “India will not sign the NPT, not now, not ever.” Case closed. No one asks that question again. There is a lesson to learn here.
SHAMS NAQVIEl
Sobrante, CA, USA
THIS refers to the news item (March 18) about the proposed amendments to the Companies (General Provisions and Forms) Rules 1985, prescribing the qualifications for a company secretary.
Those who are engaged in company secretarial profession understand as to what should be the qualifications for a company secretary. Certainly, it should not include the chartered accountant, or a cost and management accountant, or a master’s degree holder or a law graduate.
The “chartered secretary”, who specializes in company secretaryship, is in fact the only qualified person to be employed as a company secretary, and the prescribed qualifications should include the name of a chartered secretary. But surprisingly the chartered secretary has not been included in the prescribed qualifications of a company secretary under the proposed amendment.
The government functionaries vested with the authority to prescribe the qualifications for the post of a company secretary should know that in the UK, a chartered secretary, who is a member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, is appointed for the job. Accountants or degree-holders do not qualify for this post because “company secretarial work” is a specialized function.
The SECP proposal comes as a surprise to all professional company secretaries. Inducting accountants in secretarial work is considered professional encroachment and below the professional decorum and ethics.
It is time the authorities such as the SECP, while taking decision on important issues of professional education, associated or sought the advice of eminent educationists, otherwise it would result in continuation of unethical practices and disrespect to professionalism.
The previous SECP chairman, Mr Khalid Mirza, had inserted the name of chartered secretary in the Code of Corporate Governance. Later, while framing the proposed amendment to the Companies Rules 1985, this provision was deleted for no just cause. One fails to understand why the SECP is favouring the Institute of Corporate Secretaries of Pakistan (ICSP) when the former CLA had also licensed the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Managers. This matter needs to be investigated by an independent committee.
The SECP chairman is requested to review the decision about the qualifications for a company secretary and include the chartered secretary as the foremost required qualification.
ATHAR ALI KHAN
Karachi
YOUR editorial, “Midnight knock” (April 30), makes painful reading, re-establishing the bitter truth of the maxim that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The manner in which about a dozen personnel of the National Accountability Bureau, headed by an army major, raided the house of the widow of a journalist and arrested her at midnight is so offensive.
It is all the more painful that this disgusted act was conducted under the warrant signed by the head of NAB, Lt-Gen Muneer Hafeez. What is more surprising and horrifying is that the NAB warrant did not mention the specific charges against the widow, which necessitated such a midnight operation.
This painful incident reminds us of a similar midnight Karachi police operation at the house of the editor of Newsline, Ms Razia Bhatti, which made her feel so terrified that her soul and body could not keep together for long and she died soon after. One wonders if we will ever become civilized normal human beings.
SAMREEN ANWAR
Jhang
THIS refers to Tahmina Noor’s letter, “Boycott calls unwise” (April 18). The writer’s idea contradicts reality. Technological progress has made the US powerful enough to be oblivious to the UN decisions and to the confrontation of countries like France, Germany and Russia as well as the Arab world. The US derives its strength from its economy which is used for research and development by its military.
This is a major factor that retards the growth of other technology-hungry countries such as France, Germany, Russia, China and North Korea.
This underscores the fact that to contain the US, the only weapon the Muslim world will need is through economic might. This will not only create a balance of power in the world but also prevent the US from targeting and vandalizing countries like Iraq.
To the writer’s perception that boycotting US products is like isolating ourselves, I would say the US and its allies are not the whole world.
The popularity of US-born products is only due to mass advertisements and the pressure on the governments under debt to support their business.
However, boycotting the US products will make way for equally compatible products from other non-US and non-allied countries. This will also help grow the local industry.
To the writer’s view that the economies of the US, the UK and Australia are interdependent, I would say it is the Blair-Bush project that brought about all the vandalism, and boycotting them all will not be injustice.
SARMAD HUSSAIN LARIK
Jamshoro
IT was interesting to read Mr Musheer Anwar’s roundup under the title “Shah Milinda’s questions” in your paper (April 25), which took place between King and a Buddhist sage, Nagasena, on the nature of soul. But the information which the writer has mentioned is historically not proved.
Firstly, writing the name of the king as “Shah” is inappropriate. The title of “Shah” is used by Persian rulers and not by the Bactrian kings. The name of the king was Menander and not “Mirendar”, as mentioned by the writer.
Menander was a great Greek ruler who ruled even beyond Beas up to where Alexander conquered India. The questions of King Milinda are taken from Milindapanha, which is a book available in Pali and translated in Sri Lanka from which, it was further translated in Burma and Thailand. One is in Chinese and the other is in Pali.
According to Buddhist sources, Menander gave up his kingship, retired and handed his thrown to his son. But this is not confirmed by the Greek accounts according to which Menander was a good Bactrian king who died in a camp. Cities observed his funeral as usual, divided the ashes equally and erected monuments.
There is no proof that Menander was converted to Buddhism. He might be a great benefactor of this religion. There has been only an isolated evidence that a copper coin bears a wheel (chakra), which is only a Buddhist emblem as the symbol of a universal monarch, according to Indian traditions.
In a Buddhist stupa, which has been found in Bajaur (NWFP), his name is mentioned as Maharaja Minandra which is most probably, Menander. Menander’s son, Strato, was a minor when the king suddenly died and was declared king and his mother, Agathocleia, was made his regent. It
is the same period when Mahabharata was written. It seems that the Greek invaders did not remain in the Ganges valley and Pataliputra for a long time and abandoned the middle country of India as a civil war broke out in the Greek territories. In Indian sources, the name of Menander is not mentioned but the Greek invaders are described as “Yavanas”.
S. M. MASUD
Lahore
THE Indian prime minister’s offer for a dialogue with Pakistan appears somewhat paradoxical as it is synchronized with India’s latest test of 150km range surface-to-surface nuclear-capable missile, Prithvi.
However, in view of India’s repeated flirtations with the peace process, Pakistan should take the Indian stance seriously making imperative for itself to guard its own strategic interests.
Pakistan’s minimum credible deterrence requires the maintenance of an unmistakable and secure retaliatory capability, improving both the numerical and lethal strength of its nuclear warheads and their delivery systems, preferably unchallenged by quantities or qualitative improvements of Indian missile defence systems.
JEHAN ARA AHMED
Islamabad
THIS refers to Mr Raza Pervez’s letter (April 15) on Babri Masjid. Unfortunately, Mr Madan Bhalirao of Pune, in his response (April 25), missed the very soul and basis of the writer’s argument about creating a wrong precedence of digging up a historical site to prove or disprove the whimsical complaint of a community about the existence of the place of worship of a particular shade of religion.
Archaeological examination is unlike the examination of a body which is done, if at all, on the orders of a court only when convincing evidence is provided that the death occurred as a result of some criminal act and not because of any natural causes.
In any case, the science of archaeology as such, or the Indian pride being secular was never disputed. Mr Madanji is requested not to look at the principle involved herein with a chauvinistic mindset.
DR TARIQ ZUBERI
Karachi
IN these bad times it makes one happy to read the letter by Dr Amanat A. Mohsin of Gulshan Psychiatric Hospital in your April 30 issue offering free medical services to the once famous artist, Roohi Bano.
It is heartening to see that someone cares. It is a pity to see a person of her calibre in such a state. Is this the way we treat our celebrities? I am sure there are many, many more who could help the humanity in this deprived country.
Let us honour our artists when they need our help and not to praise them when they are dead. “If more people gave flowers to the living than to the dead the world would be a better place.”
S. BABAR
Karachi
ON the night of May 4 there was a small news item at the 9pm bulletin of the PTV about Roohi Bano, the legendary actress of our country. The news clip shows a glimpse of the pathetic condition in which she is living today. She has been suffering from some sort of psychological disease.
Her son is still jobless and her old mother is taking care of her at the moment. Through these columns I appeal to the authorities concerned to provide succour to her and job to her son so that he could support her. Also, our TV artists must end their indifference and generate some money for her by organizing some sort of benefit concert.
Karachi
THIS refers to the news item (May 1) about legislation on private schools’ registration.
Answering questions, the federal education minister, Zubaida Jalal, replied in the National Assembly that “as per the criteria approved by the federal cabinet, the institutions which had already been established had been given a grace period of five years to fulfil the conditions set out in the criteria.
“Inspection will be carried out by the HEC after completion of the grace period. No university has been inspected during the last one year.”
My request to the minister and the HEC is that they should make sure that these private institutions are going to implement the desired requirements of the criteria. The HEC should set some milestones for them for each year to make sure that things are done in a systematic way and completed by the prescribed time.
If it was left to the institutions and no check was made for five years, it would be most likely that at the end of the grace period, no one would have implemented any requirement.
To ease its task, the HEC should ask the institutions to prepare a comprehensive five-year plan to implement the criteria and submit it to the HEC, and then the HEC should check each year that they are on the right track.
RIAZ NASEER
Los Angeles, USA
THROUGH your esteemed daily I want to bring to the notice of Administrator, Defence Housing Authority, and Corps Commander, Corps 5, the President of Defence Housing Authority, about the construction of two illegal speedbreakers, right in the middle of the road at 26th Street. One in front of some consul-general’s house and another in front of one colonel’s residence on both sides of the double track.
It is quite possible that some day a fatal accident happens at these points. One wonders why this preferential treatment is given to individuals at the risk of the public, in violation of all rules and regulations with regard to the main thoroughfare.
JAWAID IQBAL
Karachi
THE Dawn report headlined “94pc patients recover without treatment” (April 30), called “misleading” by Dr Viqar Zaman in his letter (May 3), also shows ignorance of your reporter and amounts to spreading disinformation.
Ever since the SARS global alert by WHO in mid-March, I have been noting, thanks to multiple website updates and press reports, the day-to-day toll of the potentially deadly lung infection which initially involved three countries on March 12 (487 cases, 17 deaths), and 30 in five continents by May 5 (6,583 cases, 461 deaths).
Indeed, the infection not only expanded in prevalence, but steadily raised the mortality rate from 3.4 per cent at first to 5.1 per cent on April 19, and seven per cent by May 5, supposedly small numbers in the scheme of global threats. Some patients exhibited only a severe cold, but without hospitalization and intensive care given to others with frightening respiratory distress, the mortality figures would have been much higher.
This is a sobering reminder of the 1918-19 flu pandemic which sickened 525 million and killed over 21 million, but had a mortality rate of about 2.5 per cent. The flu virus incidentally also tended to select the young and healthy (20-40 years) over the old and infirm, while the virgin SARS agent at first infected the elderly, but currently also younger contacts as it gained virulence with passage through the human pool.
This is not surprising because its single-stranded RNA of 30,000-odd bases can suffer minute mistakes during replication. The critical issue, then, is whether these slight mutations can affect the severity of the disease, or the ability of its siblings to survive longer in the environment.
Indeed, fresh research indicates that the virus is stable in urine for 1-2 days and up to four days in the stool of patients with diarrhoea; admittedly virus in droplets expelled during coughing and sneezing can live for a day or more by clinging to any hard surface: one’s hands and fingers can then spread the highly contagious virus to nose, mouth and eye; human excreta may contaminate water supply.
Today new cases have been reported in only six countries, deaths in 10. There is no vaccine in sight, and treatment includes mechanical ventilation when needed, and a cocktail of drugs: steroids to lessen the cytokine storm causing lung inflammation, antibiotics to prevent bacterial superimposition, and possibly the anti-viral drug oseltamivir, not Ribavirin which can cause severe hemolytic anaemia and is a known teratogen, and shown to be ineffective in lab studies. And as of May 5, about 2,764 patients (42 per cent) of the 6,583 reported cases have so far been released after treatment.
Pakistan today is said to be SARS-free, but is it SARS-safe? Vietnam is the first country to contain the outbreak, with no new case seen in 20 consecutive days, thanks to stringent preventive measures. While the UAE is using high-tech thermal scanners and infrared cameras at its airports to spot SARS- infected passengers, District Nazim Mian Amer has directed that a “small X-ray machine should be installed at Lahore airport” for the purpose, and “the government is considering carrying out complete screening of all passengers coming from affected countries on the apron before allowing them to disembark” (Dawn, May 2). The word “considering” should be a wake-up call while we pray that the outbreak has peaked.
PROF ESSA M. ABDULLA
Karachi
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