| September 8, 2003 | Monday | Rajab 10, 1424 |
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Oil spill: fixing responsibility
Beware of muggers
Thandiani church estates
Lahore city problems
How NAB operates
Poor Internet facility
New medical colleges
Seeking justice
Pemra’s strange logic
‘Persistent sugar crisis’
THE news of the recent bomb explosions in Mumbai brought as much grief to me as had the suicide attack on a mosque in Quetta and I am sure that I am not the only one who has felt this way.
However, I am compelled to state that the comments of the deputy prime minister of India, Mr L. K. Advani, over this incident amount to nothing more than a senseless effort to exact political capital out of a tragedy. Without solid evidence and proper investigation, he blamed Pakistan for this terrible event and proceeded to launch a habitual diatribe against it. How could one occupy such an august office, yet indulge in such a cheap behaviour?
Contrarily, I am sure that the vast majority of the people of India and Pakistan harbour no ill-will against each other. However, visionless and selfish politicians on both sides, through their venomous propaganda, continue to appeal to a tiny segment of the population. Every society has its share of such nonchalant voters who are willing to be swayed by the scare tactics of political opportunists. Basically, this voter behaviour can be attributed to a lack of knowledge of the issues. As we all know, in a democracy and specially in the absence of dynamic leadership on either side of the political divide, this segment of the electorate may end up playing the “kingmaker” role, sometimes with the sad result of putting racists like Mr Advani into power.
This explains why the irritants in India-Pakistan relations never seem to dissipate. Meanwhile, the saner elements within both governments have become hostage to the bigots. What both countries desperately need is dynamic leadership with sincerity, courage, realism and charisma.
In order to demonetize the political capital of Advani-like people, a mass campaign of spreading education and information needs to be launched on both sides of the India-Pakistan border. Dissemination of knowledge will administer a blow of death to the political career of such inhuman acrobats.
It should be obvious who is behind the Mumbai blasts. These blasts were carried out by the vested interests that do not want a normalization of relations between the two countries that share a common history and face similar problems. Regardless of the origin of the terrorists who carried out this ghastly act, they are enemies of both the peoples. These terrorists need to be defeated and crushed and this can be best achieved by cooperation between India and Pakistan. The mentality displayed by Mr Advani hardly fits into such scheme of things.
People of India and Pakistan owe it to themselves and to each other to defeat all kinds of terrorists and relegate power-hungry demons like Mr Advani to the status of irrelevance. Only then, these two peoples will be able to tackle their common enemy, the twin menace of poverty and ignorance. Once this objective is achieved, then, for these peoples, sky is the limit.
SIDDIQUE MALIK
Louisville, KY, USA
THE wreckage of Tasman Spirit and the resultant oil spill on the coast of Karachi is nothing short of an environmental disaster. The after-effects of the oil slick have made Karachiites suffer from mental and physical agony. It has destroyed whatever marine life we had and has seriously polluted the Seaview beach.
According to an estimate, the closure of the beach will cause a loss of Rs20 million every month to the national exchequer. Those poor souls who used to earn their bread and butter by entertaining visitors at Seaview stand penniless. The beach, which used to be one of the most lively and frequently visited places of the city, now gives a ghostly look.
This disaster has clearly exposed the inefficiency of the government. The agencies concerned did not even care to develop any contingency plan to take care of such situations. Every big city in the world has an emergency plan to handle such situations, but we, as always, remain absolved of all such responsibility. We always believe that “jab aiga tab dekha jai ga”.
If we can’t even control an oil slick, how on earth would we be able to cope with any natural disaster or catastrophe like an earthquake? Karachi lies on the fault line, which makes it very much vulnerable to an earthquake. We have already experienced one and were lucky to have survived its impact. Next time (God forbid), we might not be that lucky.
What’s more intriguing is that no one has been held responsible for this environmental disaster. The agencies concerned were giving an “all is well” picture till the situation got out of hand. The government has promised to present the findings of an inquiry to the National Assembly. Ironically, the inquiry team consists of those people whose job was to prevent this disaster from happening in the first place.
The inquiry may meet the same fate as that of other ‘inquiries’ that were hushed up to avoid fixing responsibility on anyone. The culprits will freely roam around. Only the people and the country will suffer, as always.
KHURRAM MUSTIKHAN
Karachi
THE other day I went to Saddar in the evening for shopping. About 7pm I started walking back carrying a few packets in my hand towards my car, which was parked at some distance. While I was negotiating the footpath near the traffic signal of Benaras Silk House, a pedestrian overtook me and said that someone was calling me from behind. As I looked back, a young tall man attired in Shalwar Qameez waived at me. He took long strides walking towards me and said in a loud voice in Urdu, “Sir, how do you do? It is good to see you again after such a long time.”
He started shaking hands with me. I noticed that his grip over my hand was extraordinarily firm. Still holding my hand he said, “Sir, do you recognize me?” I told him that I did not know him and he might be mistaking me for some one else. Then he whispered in my ear that he belonged to Tablighi Jamaat and his colleague would like to discuss something with me.
On hearing this, I gave a forceful jerk to my hand and got it released from his grip and walked away. When I narrated this incident to my friends, they informed me that these days a gang consisting of three to four persons is operating in the Saddar shopping area and their modus operandi is that they select a well-to-do person as their target.
The first member of the gang, posing as pedestrian, informs the person that some one is calling him. The second, posing as an old acquaintance, grabs the hand and the third catches the other hand, apparently in a friendly manner, and then whispers into the ear of the victim that they are carrying a loaded pistol and they should be handed over the wallet, watch, mobile phone, gold chain, etc., while walking and without making any noise/alarm.
I would like to share this incident with the readers so that they should be careful while shopping alone. I also appeal to the inspector-general of police to take special measures to arrest these culprits.
SULTAN HAIDER
Karachi
HAVING failed to bring home to those concerned within the church circles the grave nature of the crisis, I am now invoking aid of the government authorities concerned to help rectify a wrong that, if allowed to continue unchecked, would do immense harm to the interests of the Christian community.
The picturesque mountain resort of Thandiani, Abbottabad, has had a close link with the church in Pakistan ever since the inception of the country. It was the summer headquarters of the institutions connected with the Church of Scotland (now part of the Church of Pakistan). There’s considerable amount of property owned by the Peshawar Diocese of the Church of Pakistan.
However, there have been some very unhappy developments. Of late, all the church property, which is now in a shambles, is being encroached upon by builders and contractors scrambling to prey upon the tourist potential to reap the quick buck, or private individuals who are just out to covet church property, regardless of the religious sentiments of others.
While every sphere of our national life is infested with mafias, what is saddening here is the utter callousness and apathy of our church authorities. The Peshawar diocese seems to be least moved. The Bishop of the Peshawar has been away to the UK for the last two years, yet he still continues to be the Bishop.
I whole-heartedly commend the steps taken by President Musharraf in 2001 passing an ordinance that no graveyards or places of worship of the minorities can be sold under any circumstances. I hope he will intervene and save the property from further grabbing by unscrupulous elements and capitalists and also save the paradise-like mountain top from being polluted and rendered a slum.
MRS IRIS SAMUELS
Lahore
THIS is to bring to your knowledge the various multiple problems faced by the Lahore city. The local government is solely responsible for overlooking and neglecting these problems.
First, no planning has been done to provide clean water to the people. There are several areas where there are no proper arrangements for clean water. Water purification and desalination plants are badly needed to pump at least 0.5 million gallons of clean water daily to the city.
Secondly, the drainage system in most parts of the city has collapsed because of heavy rains. Similarly, roads in most localities have gone from bad to worse.
Thirdly, the LDA and the district government have added to the traffic mess by starting The Mall underpass. We already have three underpasses, and now we need overhead inter-connecting bridges like those that have been built in Karachi. Underpasses cannot solve these traffic problems. We need to hire foreign experts to carry out such tasks.
Similarly, traffic and streetlights in several areas are out of order. All approach roads leading to the new airport terminal are without streetlights.
Since we do not have any beaches like in Karachi, we can, however, build sea resorts like Keamari, Manora and Manchar Lake in Sindh. We can create a sea world like that in Singapore.
For this we shall need foreign experts. If we really want to make Lahore a modern metropolitan city, the provincial government, as well as the city government, will have to work together rather than sleep over it.
JUSTICE MIAN SHAFI
Lahore
I AM grateful to the writer (Aug 5) for informing me that there is an armed forces’ body known as Special Inquiry Wing overseeing the functions of the FIA and the Anti-Corruption Establishment working in the National Accountability Bureau.
In my last letter (July 26), I expressed the fear that the presence of the FIA and the ACE in NAB will adversely affect the accountability process to some extent. But I now feel satisfied that in the presence of the SIW it will be difficult for these agencies to indulge in malpractice.
However, I would like the readers of Dawn to keep the following things in mind.
1. Why did the government in 1999 establish the NAB, while the FIA and the Anti-Corruption Establishment had already been working for years? What is their performance? Since 1999, a number of cases lodged by NAB have been dismissed or closed by the higher courts on the basis of weak evidences, controversial statements, partial investigation and interrogation, etc.
2. In NAB three agencies are working, namely the armed forces, the Anti-Corruption Establishment and the FIA. Why has the government inducted army personnel into NAB as a watchdog on the FIA and the Anti-Corruption Establishment personnel? Is it because the government does not trust the FIA and the ACE?
NAZIM ALI HOTI
Karachi
IT is one thing to boast of starting a new technology but quite another to run it successfully. The Internet facility was begun with a big bang in our country but, unfortunately, though its users have grown accustomed to trying to use it frequently, all their attempts only come to grief because the strength of Paknet signals has been greatly attenuated with the passage of time and their telephone lines often have a crackling noise which interferes with the Internet signal and the connection terminates after every few moments, making the Internet use unproductive, frustrating and too costly.
In this whole Internet imbroglio, the real winner is the PTCL because every time Paknet gets disconnected and then reconnected by the user on a reflex urge, the cost of a call gets added to his bill and with one person making dozens of attempts every day, the benefit of millions of call units accrues to the PTCL every month.
One can only infer from this that such a state of affairs has been deliberately created to fleece the people, as is being done to them in all other spheres of life by those who hold power. If someone complains to the local Paknet and PTCL authorities, they, instead of doing something to correct the defect, rebuke the user by putting the blame on some fault in his computer.
ALI ASGHAR
Muzaffargarh
OUR medical colleges are facing an acute shortage of teachers, specially in the departments of basic sciences like anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, pathology, forensic and community medicine.
Opening of new medical colleges in private and public sectors is making the condition worse. Besides, there is a constant demand which we have to meet in the friendly countries. Most of the teachers in basic sciences come out from the postgraduate medical institute attached to the Punjab University, Lahore, and BSMI (Basic Sciences Medical Institute), Karachi, which award MPhil in the respective subjects. These MPhil qualifications are of high standard and we have not yet received any report of dissatisfaction from any quarters. As the courses are lengthy and specialties are less charming, very few good teachers are available in these subjects.
Instead of adopting some special measures to lure doctors to take these specialties, the Punjab University and BSMI have made a reverse move by increasing the period of study by one year for MPhil students. So, instead of encouraging young doctors to take more jobs in the basic subjects in medical colleges, they have been forced to turn their back on. It is a wrong decision and should be taken back immediately.
I will rather say that there should be a uniform period of studies for MPhil in all institutions of Pakistan, and that should be two years, and let PhD courses be tougher and longer.
PROF (DR) ALTAF HUSSAIN RATHOR
Faisalabad
I WAS deeply grieved to learn about the fate of Sibtain Ali of Daniel Pearl Memorial Society, Lahore, as published in these columns on Aug 20 by the mother of Sibtain under the titled “Looking for Justice”.
The organization was no doubt, as far as I know, a ray of hope for the minority communities and ignored segment in our society which helped minorities whether it was a Church burning issue in Bahawalpur, or an attack on the US embassy in Islamabad or the unfortunate incident at the Marriott Hotel, Karachi.
The organization was engaged in mustering youths for serving people in distress. It did not receive any grant or “Zakat” from any quarter and is closed now as I have come to know through the letter from the widow.
We are definitely a confused and broken society which even did not spare educationist like Hakim Mohammad Said and Rais Amrohvi while terrorists frequently attack NGOs like Abdus Sattar Edhi.
Unfortunately, we also did not extend treatment to the Father of the Nation when he needed it, as he died in the middle of Drig Rroad, Karachi, after waiting for an ambulance. How long terrorists will target human-loving people?
SAMUEL ANJUM
Lahore
THE Pakistan and Electronic Media Authority (Pemra) seems to think, quite mistakenly of course, that it is the country’s moral custodian. In response to an editorial (Aug 23) asking Pemra to relax its policy on the Indian channels’ issue, the authority’s deputy general manager for public relations, Mr Muhammad Saleem, wrote: “...[W]e ought to recognize that in view of the country’s literacy levels and tens of millions being in an [sic] impressionable age, they require guidance rather than blind- folded [sic] free choice, at this point of time. With improvement in literacy and the educational environment, a time will indeed come when the viewer would attain enough maturity to exercise correct judgment.”
So, the Pemra official believes that the time hasn’t come, not at least yet, for the nation’s teeming masses to be conferred the privilege to view the cable channels of their choice. Earlier in his letter (printed in this newspaper on Aug 30), the official does agree with the fact that perception of what constitutes vulgar is a matter of opinion but then goes on to say that it is “precisely for this reason” that Pemra has had to “devise regulation which must be complied with in a civilized society”.
Reading all this would seem to suggest that whoever wrote this is more of a zealous ideologue than an official spokesman for the government’s regulator of electronic media. And obviously it would be fair to assume that the official is not speaking on his own but on behalf of those who run Pemra.
One would like to ask those in charge at Pemra what gave them the authority to act as the people’s moral custodians. As far as one is aware of Pemra’s brief, its primary responsibility with reference to cable television is to ensure that cable subscribers get reliable and disruption-free service at affordable cost. Ensuring that programming does not offend viewers in terms of obscenity or vulgarity should only be a secondary priority, not least because most cable operators in the country do not show X-rated programmes. And if one finds Indian shows or films vulgar, then some Pakistani shows aren’t that far behind either.
In any case, some channels which (though broadcasting from overseas) have a decidedly Pakistani identity show Indian songs regularly, so should they also be taken off air?
Bringing in of ideology in almost everything is a dangerous development and something that must be resisted by progressive segments of civil society. The remarks by the Pemra spokesman aren’t really all that different from attempts by the University of Punjab to purge the MA and BA English literature syllabus on the grounds that some of the books on it were vulgar and obscene (including books by Swift, Hemingway and Pope). The last thing people need is government officials’ lecturing on morality. It would be much better if Pemra stuck to its primary task and looked out for the interests of cable subscribers in that they get reliable and affordable services.
OMAR R. QURAISHI
Karachi
The above-mentioned article by Mr. Sultan Ahmed in EBR (August 18-24, 2003) is a matter of concern vis-a-vis the national economy. The article prompts me to say as under.
The third largest industry of the country is in crisis. Representations have been made from time to time and issues discussed but corrective actions have not come forth. There are several aspects to the problem but I confine myself to the issues raised in the article. The current situation is rooted in import of 930,000 tons in fiscal 2000-2001, in excess of the country’s requirement.
The distortion in supply and demand situation caused serious disbalance in sugar economy affecting legitimate interest of mills for more than two years and of growers this year as sugar prices have reverted to pre 1996-1997 level. In the intervening period costs have escalated by 42 per cent. Market realities have gone unheeded, giving rise to the crisis.
Reference has been made to India and Bangladesh. In India, structure of sugar economy is very different with heavy dependence on exports. There the cost of production is also higher than international sugar price. Increase in cane prices and cost of production did not find support in sugar prices. To save the situation, the government intervened and created a buffer stock financing the subsidy. The Indian government further created a Rs 6 billion sugar fund to pay arrears to cane growers. In Bangladesh the total requirement of 500,000 tons is met through local production and unrecorded import of 300,000 tons. Most mills remain in deep financial difficulties.
In the interest of Pakistan economy and more particularly the economy of the rural areas, the availability of excess sugar must be rationalized both on short and long term. The problem of below cost sugar price (inclusive of 18 per cent sales tax) has caused serious reduction in liquidity, and non-clearance of various accounts adds to the complexity, the fall-out of which injures the national economy.
It must be recognized that excessive financial burden can no longer be borne by the industry and the situation can not be corrected without reducing the stocks by 400,000 to 500,000 tons for the period extending into coming sugar year. There is no escape from the fact that export will have to be supported which essentially is support to agriculture. Suitable mechanism should be evolved.
Long-term solutions cover the whole realm of productivity improvement in the field, in the factory, in marketing, in capacity utilization and handling of surpluses. Optimization of elements of cost will require basic changes in the total sugar and sugar-cane regime. The Rs76 billion industry with gross turnover of Rs61.2 billion, injecting into the rural economy Rs.52 billion annually, with large employment deserves more attention based on correct perception of on-ground realities. Improvements will provide more employment and assist in poverty alleviation.
MASOOD AHMED
Karachi
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