| July 8, 2003 | Tuesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 7,1424 |
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US visa woes
‘Deportees ‘tortured’ in Italy’
State of education in Pakistan
Membership of C’wealth
Misleading figure
Wapda-NWFP row over dues
Wrong driving
Vajpayee’s call for peace
Karachi’s heritage
Fiscal deficit
Reduction in NSS profit
IN 1917 Chaim Weizmann, a scientist, statesman and Zionist, persuaded Britain to issue a statement favouring the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
The British government issued the statement known as “Balfour Declaration” favouring the Jews in lieu of their support to the British government against the Turks during World War I. After the war, the League of Nations ratified the Declaration and asked the British government to rule Palestine.
This encouraged the Jews to establish a separate homeland. They started migrating to Palestine from many countries, including Germany where the Nazis were prosecuting them. The arrival of the Jew immigrants in 1930 supported the fear of the Arab states that Palestine may become a Jewish state.
Jewish terrorism in Palestine antagonized the British government and in February 1947 Arab-Jewish communications collapsed. Britain in order to solve the problem asked the United Nations on April 2, 1947, to set up a “Special Committee on Palestine” (UNSCOP).
This committee recommended that the British mandate over Palestine be ended and that the territory be partitioned into two states. The Jewish reaction was mixed, some wanted control of all of Palestine, others realized that partition spelled hope for their dream of a homeland.
The Arabs did not agree to the UNSCOP plan. In October 1947 the Arab League Council directed the governments of its member states to move troops to the Palestine border. Meanwhile, President Truman instructed the State Department to support the UN plan and reluctantly it did so. On November 29, 1947, the partition plan was passed in the UN General Assembly.
The UN Resolution 181, defined the outline of a settlement in Palestine creating both a Jewish and a Palestinian homeland. The 1947 UN Partition divided the area into three entities: a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone around Jerusalem.
At midnight on May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed the new state of Israel. On the same day US President Truman recognized the provisional Jewish government as de facto authority of the new Jewish state. The US delegates to the UN and the top ranking State Department officials were annoyed on the press release which was issued by Truman for recognizing Israel without informing them first. On May 15, 1948, the Arab states issued a joint statement and the Arab armies invaded Israel. Thus the first Arab-Israeli war began.
The debate whether Pakistan should recognize Israel or not has already begun. Whatever the outcome may be of this debate, General Pervez Musharraf has always advocated a positive foreign policy. Keeping in view our interest, the government should explore the possibility of getting from Israel the total amount of loan which Pakistan has taken from several donor agencies.
If Israel accepts to pay to Pakistan the money equivalent to the amount of Pakistan’s entire loan, Pakistan should recognize Israel.
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
THIS is to mention the hardship being faced by the people of Karachi in obtaining the US visit visa. Recently in my own family there have been three cases of visa refusal on flimsy grounds which I would like to narrate.
My niece applied for the visa to meet her parents who emigrated to the US some two years ago. Hers was a “high-risk” case as all her siblings as well as her parents were in the US.
She was called for interview in Islamabad from Karachi, asked some frivolous questions and summarily refused visa. When she narrated her story to me I asked her as to why she did not ask the interviewing officer the reason for her being called for interview when apparently the counsellor office had already made up its mind. She could have at least saved Rs12,000 or so of air fare. She said that had she asked them the reason, she would have been blacklisted for the rest of her life without any hope of seeing her parents and siblings!
This episode reminds me of Ahmad Faraz who said: Kuchh apney dost bhi tarkash badosh phirtey hain/ Kuchh apna dil bhi kushada hai, kiya kiya jaey/ Salookey yar se dil doobney laga hai Faraz/ Magar yeh mahfiley aada hai, kiya kiya jaey.
In the second incident my another niece applied for the visa along with her one-year-old daughter to attend the marriage ceremony of her younger sister in Virginia. Hers was a moderately high-risk case, so she was told that she could be given visa provided she leaves behind her daughter to ensure that she comes back. When she told the interviewing officer that she had no intention of overstaying as she was leaving behind her husband. The answer was: “We have no way of knowing what sort of relationship you have with your husband” (for all we know you may be secretly planning to dump him!).
In the last incident, my younger sister applied for a visa to visit her brothers in California. She too was a “high-risk” case, i.e. a widow with both daughters married off and brothers being US citizens/green card holders.
She too was called for interview in Islamabad from Karachi only to be told that she cannot be given visa because the chances were high that she would not come back.
I look forward to the day when an Iftikhar Arif among us would get up, look straight into their eyes and say:
Hamain to apney samandar ki rait kafi hai/Tu apney chashma-i-baifaiz ko sanbhal ke rakh.
(Ms Nancy Colin, are you listening?)
DR Z. A. ANSARI
Karachi
I AM sorry and surprised to go through the news item “Deportees ‘tortured’ in Italy” (July 7).
To put the record straight, I would like to state the following:
1) It is simply unheard of that any detainee may ever have been “tortured” in Italy. That would be contrary to the laws of my country as well as the Italian legal tradition. The Pakistani citizens may have been interrogated by the police, but this was done with full respect to the law of the land and of their human rights.
2) The correct picture of the whole episode is that all the said persons were held only for attempting to illegally enter Italy.
Once the charge was established, the Italian police were exceptionally quick, with the full knowledge and cooperation of the competent Pakistani authorities, in processing the case. The period of their detention and the related process has not been more than a few weeks.
It is as such absolutely baseless that they were charged for involvement in terrorist activities or for that matter having links with any terrorist organization.
GABRIELE DE CEGLIE
Ambassador of Italy,
Islamabad
RECENTLY, ‘60 Minutes’, a popular and prestigious news magazine programme, featured the IT Institute of Bombay in one of its stories. The institute, a fulfilment of Nehru’s dream, is now rated as the best centre of learning in the entire world; better than MIT, CIT and Harvard.
The requirements for admission are exceedingly rigorous and the curriculum demanding. The prospective graduates are besieged by ‘head hunters’ from the United States and other western countries well before they graduate. Similarly, Indian scientists and scholars can be found on the faculties of everyone of the most prestigious academic centres in the country.
India and Pakistan started with almost a parity in terms of educational standards. Both had very reputed schools; India because of its size had more of them. What has caused this huge disparity in the limited span of 50 years?
Aside from the fact that unlike India, Pakistan was deprived of patriotic, honest and visionary leaders in its formative years, two other reasons come to mind. First, India had the determination to root out feudalism and abolished zamindari barely one year after independence, whereas in Pakistan even today the prime minister and the president of the country say without a hint of irony that feudalism is not a problem in Pakistan. Feudalism is inherently antagonistic to education for fear that educated people might undermine the authority of the feudal lords.
The second reason is the restrictions on free flow of ideas which were imposed by the leadership of the country throughout the history of Pakistan. These varied from imposing the hardships of prison on the greatest poet of our time, Faiz, to humiliating the only Nobel laureate that the country has produced, to the recent inane campaign to expunge the English language of objectionable words.
Unless the Pakistanis learn to deal with modernity through education and enlightened thinking, without compromising their individual religious preferences, they are destined to become a primitive and backward society like the Afghanistan of the Taliban. There is a need to more actively promote the liberalism of Sir Syed, Allama Iqbal and Mohammad Ali Jinnah to counter the retrogressive and self-defeating radicalism of the mullahs.
M. HAIDER
New Jersey, USA
BRITAIN has declined Pakistan’s request for restoring its membership of the Commonwealth. It has been said that there is no complete democracy in Pakistan as the political issue regrading the LFO has not been settled between the government and the opposition.
No doubt, unlike other generals, President Musharraf conducted elections and handed over power to civil government. Pakistan has been passing through a critical period after the events of 9/11 and the Afghan and Iraq wars. Furthermore, the negotiations with India are ahead. In the prevailing situation, the opposition parties should play a positive role.
I would request the opposition parties to be flexible in their behaviour and cooperate with Gen Musharraf.
AFAQ-ULLAH KHAN
Hyderabad
I WOULD like to point out a factual error in Mr Waheed A. Siddiqui’s letter (June 26).
He says, “Reliable statistics reveal that the two countries have so far spent $30 trillion on the Kashmir dispute which is a criminal waste.”
India’s current GDP is about $450 billion and Pakistan’s is about $60 billion. Even if both the countries spent 100 per cent of the (current) GDP on defence for the last 55 years, they cannot spend $30,000 billion dollars ($30 trillion) on Kashmir.
Could Mr Waheed tell us the source of his ‘reliable statistics’?
SHARAD SHARMA
Indiana, USA
THIS refers to the letter titled “Wapda owes huge amount to NWFP” (June 15), whereby Mr Humayun Saif Ullah Khan, ex-MPA, Peshawar, has mentioned a letter of the chief engineer/technical director of Pesco to the provincial government about the clearance of Wapda dues with reference to the Wapda chairman’s target date, July 2002, as the cut-off date for reconciliation between Wapda dues and provincial government arrears.
Mr Humayun Saif Ullah Khan has also made a query about the clearance of hydro-electricity profit and asked whether there is a cut-off date for this as well.
With reference to the above, it is stated that Article 161(2) of the Constitution provides for payment of net hydel profit (NHP) to the provinces. In pursuance of this provision, the federal government referred the matter to the National Finance Commission (NFC). The NFC appointed a committee headed by Mr A. G. N. Kazi to devise a methodology, which was approved by the CCI. Wapda is paying the NHP to the NWFP as per the Kazi Committee formula.
As per the CCI decision, the profit calculated from 1973-74 through 1990-91 was adjusted against deficit grants released by the federal government to the province. Onward Wapda was to make payment. It may be mentioned here that from 1991-92 to 2001-02, against Rs57,425 million accruing to the NWFP as per the formula, the province has received an amount of Rs65,662 million, which is in excess by Rs8,237 million. This is due to the capping of the amount of annual NHP not to go below Rs6,000 million. There are, therefore, no arrears on this account at the end of the financial year 2001-02, rather there is overpayment. For the financial year 2002-03, Wapda has paid Rs6,000 million to the NWFP on this account.
As concerns the investment of Rs85.758 million in hydel projects, i.e. Khurram Ghari, Warsak, Dargai, Malakand and return thereon at the rate of four per cent, it is pointed out that Wapda has made up-to-date payment on this account. For the fiscal year 2002-03, Wapda received the NWFP claim amounting to Rs3.430 million on June 13, 2003, payment against it has been made on June 21, 2003.
MUHAMMAD ABID
Deputy Director (Press)
Peshawar
IN Lahore, overtaking from the left side and that too at signals and intersections is much too common when someone flashes his indicator to turn left. The car at the back tries to overtake him within a narrow space and that too from the left at a high speed. This is a major violation of traffic rules.
According to international traffic rules, driving on the left side means overtaking from the right. The traffic department should display signboards like “Keep to your left” and “No overtaking from the left”.
Also, PTV can display a programme before “Khabarnama” to inform its viewers about these and other rules.
SHAHID GULZAR VOHRA
Lahore
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has the support of not only his one billion people but the entire world. Even the West respects seasoned and older people who are not subdued by the extremists. Mr Vajpayee on his own made a call for peace and none of his hawks knew about it, but they readily endorsed his endeavours.
Sanity demands that Pakistanis bury the hatchet and initiate a process of dialogue with Indians with whom they have many things in common.
ANOOP K. SHARMA
Torrance, California, USA
CIVILIZATION and culture are judged by the heritage that is passed on to future generations. Structures and monuments such as the coliseum, the pyramids and the Taj Mahal reflect the rich testimony of our past.
Such exotic structures might not exist in Pakistan, but we still have our share of buildings, which are the heritage that have been left for us by our ancestors.
Unfortunately, these buildings are in an advanced state of neglect and decay and if not saved, they will be lost to our future generations. To save our national heritage from total destruction, the Heritage Helpline has decided to salvage some of these buildings through an “adoption” programme.
We have identified three such structures, of which the first is the Jehangir Kothari Parade, built in Clifton by Sir Jehangir Kothari in 1917. The project to save Kothari Parade is ready and is planned in three stages.
The first is to remove the billboards and encroachments from the Kothari Parade area, the second would be to renovate and restore its original glory, and the third phase would be to organize the traffic, improve the facilities and the environment for visitors, provide kiosks to the vendors in the area and ensure regular maintenance of the Parade through a fund-generating scheme.
THE HELPLINE TRUST
Karachi
THIS refers Mr Imran Khan’s article of June 24. He says that success in reducing fiscal deficit has been attained at a huge cost to the common man.
Without the austerity measures taken by the government in a country with a foreign debt of 36 billion dollars and where only 1.7 million people pay taxes, what other measures would Mr Khan suggest for reducing fiscal deficit?
MOHAMMAD IQBAL ABID
Karachi
THE reduction in the rate of profit on the national savings schemes has come as a great disappointment to the public in general and the pensioners and senior citizens in particular.
I do not think it is inappropriate to mention that the ministry of finance has never failed to attack the savings schemes in the past as well. For example, the rate of return on special savings certificates was originally 16 per cent per annum just a few years ago. It was continually brought down till it was 11 per cent per annum, and later on further down to 8.5 per cent. The withdrawal of tax exemption on the profits added another feather to the establishment’s cap.
Here we go again! The establishment’s axe again falls on poor pensioners, senior citizens and the widows whose bread and butter comes from the savings schemes of the government. Not satisfied with the repeated cuts, of late the ministry of finance has brought the profit rate still further down to 7.6 per cent. This step is far from being reasonable. Have the officials of the finance ministry eaten ‘the insane root’ which has taken their reason away? Where is the sense of justice gone?
An establishment which makes rules against the welfare of the people and persists in it will in the long run become a laughing stock in the eyes of its countrymen. The policy of continually cutting down on people’s bread and butter is against the spirit of justice and fair play.
The poor pensioners and the elderly people have invested their hard-earned money and life-long savings in the savings schemes. Why are they being punished repeatedly? Simply because they are an easy target or an easy scapegoat? How long will the ministry of finance keep adding to their woes?
The so-called (much-advertised) concessional package already announced for the retired government employees provides no more relief to them than the peanuts — that too at the cost of blocking the pensioners’ principal amount for a cool 10 years. Far from redressing their grievances, such cosmetic changes have added to the problems of the pensioners.
It is time for the ministry of finance and the CBR to show a certain amount of fairness and redress the grievances of the savings schemes’ investors. Still more so, in view of the ongoing inflation, the rate of return on the special savings certificates needs to be restored to its original 16 per annum minimum. Also the tax exemption on the saving schemes be restored.
AKHTAR KHAN
Karachi
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