| 21 February 2004 | Saturday | 29 Zilhaj 1424 |
Dr A. Q. Khan and IBS
Grabbing out sourced jobs
'Vetting police reforms'
The deadly string
Medical universities on ad hoc basis
Ordeal of a Pakistani researcher
Let's preserve what is left
Pakistan-India cricket
PMDC's working
Hinglish and Engdu
PIA: appeal for reinstatement
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The BBC's "Hard Talk" with Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri on the night of February 19 turned into an unpleasant conversation because of the line of questioning and the manner adopted by the interviewer. Inexperience was unmistakably visible from the way she conducted the conversation.
This wasn't the first instance of this particular interviewer adopting the stance of an 'inquiry officer' who wants the interviewee to give her the answers she already knows. She adopted the same style while interviewing General Aslam Beg (retired).
The interviewer seemed possessed by the notions that India-Pakistan detente was an impossibility and the recent India-Pakistan dialogue in Islamabad for setting an agenda for the talks to be held at the foreign secretary level later on was a carefully planned ploy.
On the subject of nuclear proliferation, she seemed hell-bent on making Mr Kasuri admit that President Bush's recent address on the subject clearly pointed to Pakistan government's involvement therein. She also seemed convinced about the International Atomic Energy Agency and US and European intelligence agencies having the 'right' to interview Dr A. Q. Khan and his colleagues.
The BBC interviewer had her facts wrong, too. At first she very emphatically said that US Secretary of State Colin Powell had had 82 telephonic conversations with President Pervez Musharraf in the last two years about the nuclear proliferation affair, but later admitted that all of them may not be about this thorny issue. She also admitted that whatever Secretary Powell had told President Musharraf about Dr A. Q. Khan's involvement in nuclear proliferation until October last year, it was not supported by hard evidence.
Her style of questioning betrayed shades of rudeness when she interrupted Mr Kasuri saying "Come, come Mr Kasuri", or "why didn't you start the inquiry [into nuclear proliferation] earlier?", or "hasn't the Foreign Office been marginalized by the President's Office?" I haven't come across an instance of the foreign office in a country being labelled as 'marginalized' if it followed the line of action laid down by the head of the government or the head of state.
Any interviewer who leaves behind such impressions damages the news channel's integrity. The time-honoured reputation of the BBC suffered heavily because the over- aggressive Andrew Gilligan tried to put words into the mouth of the late Dr David Kelly.
Having seen the likes of the Attenborough brothers, David Frost and, more recently, Larry King, one is disappointed by the pre-conceived notions and aggressive style of young TV and radio interviewers.
Surely they can learn from these examples. Like these great interviewers, they should aim for discovering the truth rather than make the interview seem an exercise in extracting a confession.
A.B. SHAHID
Karachi
Dr A. Q. Khan and IBS
With reference to the letter "Dr A. Q. Khan and IBS" (February 16), we would like to clarify certain statements made by Dr Tariq-uz-Zafar. Since matters related to the IBS are sub judice before the honourable Sindh High Court, we shall restrict our clarifications to just a few points and draw from the counter-affidavit (1259 of 2002).
First, the Institute of Behavioural Sciences was initiated as a project of the Pakistan Association for Mental Health (PAMH) which acquired a six-acre plot of land from the Sindh government of urban and rural Sindh.
The out-patients block of the IBS was subsequently constructed from donations raised by Dr A. Q. Khan, the patron of the institute, and was then named after him on his request. The institute is formed as a not-for-profit organization based on public -private partnership and is not the personal property of any one person.
Second, Dr Zafar claims that Dr A. Q. Khan never physically took over the IBS. To quote from the law suit: Defendant No.1 (Dr A. Q. Khan) entered the premises with armed men and in the company of his brother, Mr Qaiyum Khan, Mr S. M. Farooq, General Riaz Chowhan, Col Tariq-ur-Zafar, Col Arshad Anwer, Mr Hulail Naqvi, Mr Muhstaq Ahmed.
Third, by saying that 14,101 out of 40,085 patients treated at the IBS (from December 2002 to December 2003) had psychiatric problems, Dr Zafar acknowledges that the IBS is now treating general medical patients even though the institute was set up as a psychiatric facility.
This is despite the fact that a court order dated 20-12-2002 directed the parties to maintain the status quo in respect of the affairs of the IBS. An application for contempt of court in this regard was filed by PAMH on 28-01-2003 and is still pending.
Fourth, the High Court of Sindh granted permission to PAMH doctors to visit the IBS and treat patients. However, Dr Zafar issued "Guidelines for Volunteered Consultants", which were in violation of the court order.
Subsequently, PAMH field an application for contempt of court on 19-11-2003 which is still pending. Further, the doctors of PAMH never "stopped going", as Dr Zafar claims, but were ordered through letters written by him on 24-04-2003 and 30-04-2003 not to visit the IBS. The letters said: "Prof Haroon may please be advised not to come to IBS on Friday, 2 May, 2003, or any other day following, in order to avoid inconvenience to all concerned."
DR ANWAR MANGI
General Secretary, PAMH, Karachi
Grabbing out sourced jobs
US companies are expected to ship more than 200,000 service jobs to countries like India every year for the foreseeable future. The simple concept at the root of this trend is: a trained Third World brain is every bit equal to a trained American brain at a fraction of the price.
India has the advantage in attracting jobs from the US economy because a vast majority of its educated people speak English. Pakistan also should benefit from this but has not done so as the government has not launched a sustained campaign to attract jobs and promote itself as it should have in the US to multinationals who outsource back office work.
One in 10 US technology jobs will go overseas by the end of 2004, according to the research firm Gartner. In the next 15 years more than three million US white-collar jobs, representing $136 billion in wages, will depart to places like India, with the IT industry leading the migration, according to Forrester Research.
India now has the second-fastest-growing economy in the world. Within four years IT outsourcing will be a $57 billion annual industry - responsible for seven per cent of India's GDP and employing some four million people. Why? Just consider the following:
The hourly cost to operate a call centre per hour in Kansas City, Missouri is $12.47 - equipment $0.39, labour $10, profit (markup) $2.08.
In Mumbai, India, it is $4.12 - equipment $0.56, labour $1.50, profit (markup) $2.06.
It's time Pakistan grabbed its slice of the pie. Lots of good jobs are up for grabs, which can provide a very good standard of living in Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan must aggressively compete for international business with India.
FATIMA MUHAMMED
New York, USA
'Vetting police reforms'
Congratulations are due to you for the timely editorial "Vetting police reforms" (February 27) for it is sure to deter those who are trying to rush the Amended Police Act 2002 where no consideration has been given to public opinion, nor has the judiciary been consulted in this respect. It has been pointed out that the amended act offers no chance of public accountability.
The Human Rights Policing Committee, through its 4,500 members and coordinators all over Karachi, receives numerous complaints every day about police excesses in various forms, including police harassments and intimidations on roads, illegal detentions in police stations for days and rampant corruption in kutchi abadis.
The number of such complaints has much increased after the abolition of the magistracy, i.e. posts of DC and SDO/SDM. In the earlier system, DCs and SMDs exercised some checks on the police force, but now police officers listen to no one.
Police heads side and support their departmental subordinates only in every wrong done to the common man. With the present enforced law, the police are duty-bound to produce an accused/suspect under arrest before a magistrate within 24 hours, but in most such cases the accused are kept in a police custody for days without any record. The relatives are given no information so they keep running from one police station to another.
The proposed law gives a very wide range of powers to the police. However, a system of proper checks is very necessary to save the common men from harassment and intimidation by policemen.
AFZAL MOBIN
Chairman, Human Rights Policing Committee, Karachi
The deadly string
The 36 hours after the advent of Basant with its supplements of nightly aerial firing and kite flying using deadly strings of thin copper wire brought gloom to many households in Lahore. Five children died and 500 people were injured during the fray of looting kites. Two children had their throats slashed by a wire string used in kite flying while riding a motorcycle.
Even one such unwarranted death is too many and the responsibility lies squarely with the authorities that encourage Basant festivities without ensuring proper safeguards.
Hazrat Umar (R.A.) once said that if even a little goat or a dog died of hunger on the banks of the Euphrates River, he would be held responsible for it by Allah Almighty. Do our rulers realize their responsibility if innocent children die owing to uncontrolled use of wire strings by kite fliers?
I had one such experience while driving on Canal Road in New Garden Town. A metallic wire got stuck in the front number plate of my car on February 14, which was separated only after slashing the front fender, bonnet and top with deep gashes.
Kite flying within city limits ought to be banned totally and an open space may be fixed outside the city, where enthusiasts may engage in kite flying to their hearts' content, so as to spare the lives of innocent citizens, including children.
DR M. YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore
Medical universities on ad hoc basis
Medical universities in Sindh and Punjab have been set up by the two provincial governments on an ad hoc basis, without having a feasibility report and consultation with professional organizations like the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, the Medical Association of Pakistan and the Pakistan Dental Association.
As a result, there is so much resentment among the medical profession that some senior members of the profession have resigned in protest. The governments have thus been deprived of their long experience and now find it difficult to effectively implement such projects.
Students of the medical colleges are also not happy with the decisions of the two governments. Some of them have sought relief from the apex court against the affiliation of their medical colleges with the new medical universities, instead of the old universities like Punjab, Sindh and Karachi whose degrees have been universally recognized during the last 50 years.
The concerned students apprehend that the degrees to be awarded by these medical universities will not be recognized in countries like the UK and the US for at least three to four years after the first batch of doctors graduate from them.
The majority of our doctors go to these countries for specialization, and the first few batches of doctors will not be able to have specialized training there.
The first medical university was established in the public sector in Sindh, and the Liaquat Medical College, Jamshoro, was upgraded to the university status while the seniormost Dow Medical College of the province was ignored for reasons best known to the then government.
The Punjab government also established the University of Health Sciences perhaps following in the footstep of Sindh but again ignoring the seniormost medical institution, i.e. the King Edward Medical College, Lahore, and appointed a junior person as its vice-chancellor. As a result, the old colleges like the King Edward Medical College refused to affiliate itself with the university, keeping in view the interest of the medical students of this prime institute of the subcontinent.
The Sindh government realizing the injustice done to the Dow Medical College in the past recently declared the college as Dow Medical University but appointed a junior professor as its vice-chancellor at the cost of seniority and merit.
Since the two colleges have been declared as universities, they should be declared centres of excellence responsible only for post-graduate medical education and award of qualifications like MD, MS and PhD, while undergraduate medical education should be made the responsibility of medical colleges which should remain affiliated with their previous universities like the universities of Punjab, Sindh and Karachi. It will give greater opportunities to our medical graduates for specialization.
DR ISHWAH
Karachi
Ordeal of a Pakistani researcher
This refers to a number of letters being published in various English dailies of Pakistan, pertaining to an injustice meted out to a Pakistani researcher in Germany.
I wonder under what law of the world Pakistani researcher Dr Qaisar Rashid has been denied of his past research work that he conducted in the field of 'therapy' of an autoimmune disease and, instead, has been forced to adopt 'pathology' as his future research field by issuing an experience certificate by a German research institute.
Ironically, the version of the institute was reinforced by a German court, contrary to the spirit of the contract signed between the researcher and the research institute mentioning the research field as 'therapy'.
What message the German research institute and the court have tried to convey to Pakistanis?
I consider discrimination a weak word to describe this sort of glaring injustice done to a Pakistani researcher.
SAMINA AHSAN
Islamabad
Let's preserve what is left
In the Dawn issue of February 14, there was a letter from Hafeez Akhtar, proposing heritage status for Lahore's Faletti's Hotel.
Mr Akhtar also refers to a Dawn report regarding the premises of the Civil & Military Gazette on The Mall, Lahore, which now houses a shopping complex. The building that was pulled down to raise this plaza was the home of a widely-read newspaper and was also the place where Rudyard Kipling worked when he was associated with the Gazette.
Crass commercialism has robbed us of a piece of our history. Let us preserve what is left.
AKHTAR ISMAIL
Karachi
Pakistan-India cricket
Being a Pakistani and a cricket fan I request the Pakistan and Indian governments that they should not postpone or call back the forthcoming Indian cricket team's tour just because of some doubts and/or threats. Once the tour begins, it will bring great feelings of joy to the millions of people around the world.
I would like to let the Indian cricket team know that whenever news/information as regards doubts etc. about the cricket team's tours appears, the sensitivity of cricket lovers is hurt.
I think both teams have an obligation to respect the feelings of their fans and provide all of us with a delightful cricket series. At the same time the administration should ensure fool-proof security arrangements.
HINA ALI
Karachi
PMDC's working
This refers to the opinion expressed in these columns (January 15) by an affected doctor about the denial of registration of his MD degree by the PMDC (Pakistan Medical and Dental Council) for reasons best known to the authorities in the council.
It is a fact that qualifications of MD and MS are included in the schedule of the ordinance, and non-registration of such qualifications is a gross violation of the law of the land. Doctors who obtained the qualifications of MD and MS have been victimized by the council by not registering their postgraduate qualifications.
If the PMDC feels that a particular qualification is not of a good standard, it should take necessary action to remove such a qualification from the relevant schedule of the ordinance, so that doctors do not acquire such qualifications and waste their valuable time.
I request the honourable chief justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of this gross violation of the law and relieve all such doctors of the agony they are undergoing because of non-registration of their MD and MS degrees.
DR SALAHUDDIN
Karachi
Hinglish and Engdu
If saying "Kishwar's hurts are still green" is Hinglish according to Mr Asad Siddiqi ("Hinglish?", February 18), was that Engdu when Francis Bacon said: "A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green." In Antony and Cleopatra we find Shakespeare using "green" for new when he refers to "my salad days, when I was green in judgment."
Similarly, Lamb when he says: "He is yet in green and vigorous senility." The Shorter Oxford Dictionary explains "green" to mean "full of vitality, not withered or worn out, unaltered by time or natural processes, fresh, new". Yet I thank Mr Siddiqi for alerting me.
MUSHIR ANWAR
Islamabad
PIA: appeal for reinstatement
I, with 30 other people, was appointed a medical officer on a daily-wage basis in the medical division of Pakistan International Airline, Karachi, vide an order of February 2, 1994. But our jobs were never confirmed; instead some resource persons were regularized owing to their political connections.
Although my service record was quite satisfactory, my job was terminated on October 20, 1997, without any reason.
I request the PIA management to reinstate me in my post on the following grounds:
1. The order dated October 20, 1997, is liable to be set aside as it was issued any show-cause notice.
2. There were no complaints against me during my service as regards my performance.
3. My service is long enough to entitle me to be reinstated in my job.
DR MUJEEB-UR-REHMAN
Karachi
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