An unfulfilled vision

Pakistan's creation was, no doubt, the finest hour of our history. Our people saw in it the promise of long-cherished freedom, democracy and prosperity.

The vision of a democratic and progressive Pakistan was unambiguously articulated in a resolution adopted at the first meeting of the Council of the Pakistan Muslim League in December 1947, when it pledged "to work for an ideal democratic state based on social justice, as an upholder of human freedom and world peace, in which all citizens will enjoy equal rights and be free from fear, want and ignorance."

Fifty-seven years after independence, where do we stand as a nation and as a member of the comity of nations? Are we living in "a democratic and progressive" Pakistan as envisioned by its founders? Can we genuinely claim to be "upholders" of human freedom and world peace? Have we been able to make Pakistan "a bastion of inner strength, political stability, economic self-reliance, social cohesion and national unity" that our leaders, over the years, have been show-casing to their people as their destiny?

These are painful questions which would need incisive and dispassionate soul searching to be able to find their answers. Every year, ritualistic messages drafted at the level of Grade 17 bureaucrats (if not lower) in the ministries concerned are issued in the name of our leaders on the occasions of the national anniversaries asking the nation to use the opportunity for stock-taking and to assess our national failures and successes.

Ironically, the 'national day' messages are at no stage seen in their draft or printed forms by those in whose names they are purported to have been issued. The contents of these messages are no more than cliches that can hardly relate to the actual state of affairs.

The annual messages, probably unique to Pakistan, are in essence a joke played every year on the people of Pakistan. They are asked to look into their "hearts and souls to assess for themselves how close they have been able to live up to the ideals and the vision that inspired the creation of Pakistan".

Unfortunately, since their independence, the people of Pakistan have had no role in determining the course of their history or the direction of their country's political, economic and social policies? They have been exploited in the name of ideology and external threats while the real challenges facing the country have remained unaddressed.

The successive governments, elected or non-elected, have been presiding over fateful, and in some cases, painful moments in our country's history without taking the people into confidence or accepting the responsibility for the tragic fallout of their actions or policies.

We have had no national agenda formulated by any government encompassing the political, economic and social wellbeing of our people. In effect, the original vision of Pakistan woefully remains blurred.

For more than half a century now, Pakistan has been wallowing in political and economic uncertainty and has had neither domestic stability nor peaceful borders. Its post-independence political history is replete with endemic crises and challenges that perhaps no other country in the world has experienced.

It has gone through traumatic experiences, including costly wars and perennial tensions with India, loss of half the country, territorial setbacks, political breakdowns, military takeovers, economic stagnation and social malaise.

During the last two decades, Pakistan has also been the hotbed of religious extremism and obscurantism. Proxy wars have been fought on our soil. Sectarian violence has taken a heavy and tragic toll in terms of innocent lives of both Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis. Even mosques and churches have not been spared for cold-blooded communal and sectarian killings.

International concerns about terrorism are today readily extended to perceived threats of Islamic fundamentalism, extremism and militancy. These threats are seen as a challenge to the "status quo" and therefore, are being confronted at all levels.

Violence of all sorts is now anathema to the world community. In the current global environment, there is no place for any kind of militancy, not even in the name of freedom struggles.

The distinction between people's liberation struggles and terrorism has almost blurred and the legitimacy of people's right to self-determination is fast wearing out.

Over the years since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Pakistan has been burdened with a massive refugee influx and afflicted by a culture of drugs and guns, commonly known as the "Kalashnikov" culture, which has been tearing apart our social and political fabric.

Unfortunately, Pakistan's difficulties have been aggravated by decades of military rule, inept political leadership, weakened political institutions, incessant corruption and general aversion to the rule of law. There has also been constant erosion of law and order.

This is not what the founders of Pakistan had envisioned when they led the struggle of the Muslims of South Asia for a separate homeland. Pakistan did not come into being merely as a geographical entity or an empty idea. It represented the collective resolve of our people to live in peace and with dignity and honour, as a free nation, imbued with Islamic ideology and democratic values.

Soon after its independence, Pakistan was confronted with serious political and security challenges undermining its stability and survival. A bitter legacy of animosity and conflicts with India ensued.

The two countries have fought wars and remained locked in a confrontational mode with heavy cost in terms of political, economic and social problems and resultant human suffering. For Pakistan, the painful 1971 tragedy was the worst that could happen to any independent country.

Throughout our independent statehood, we have lived with a perceived "external threat" to our country's security and survival. The history of the last fifty-seven years, however, shows that the real threat to our country's survival and stability has been from within, not from outside. Had we not messed up the things in East Pakistan ourselves, the 1971 debacle could have been avoided.

As we celebrate our fifty-seventh independence anniversary, Pakistan faces multiple new challenges. The nuclearization of South Asia has raised the world community's stakes in how we conduct ourselves regionally and globally.

Religious extremism and terrorism-related problems afflicting our country have also placed us on the global radar screen. The world watches us with anxiety and concern as we clean up the Al Qaeda ranks in Pakistan. Our crucial role in the "war on terror" complicates our tasks, both internally and externally.

Meanwhile, with our continued domestic political instability and precarious law and order situation, we remain unable to harness the unique asset of our geographical location for our economic growth.

Foreign business interests are afraid of coming to Pakistan because of a domestic and regional environment that is perceived as politically and economically unstable and uncertain.

These are exceptional times warranting exceptional responses to our problems. The "system and methods of government" in our country are no longer an issue of relevance as far as the international community is concerned.

The whole world community including the major powers are convinced that given the seriousness and magnitude of our problems and their grave implications for the rest of the world, continuation of Pakistan's present political dispensation is indispensable.

What is important in today's context is the need for Pakistan to be stable politically and strong economically with a moderate, liberal and progressive outlook and impregnable security.

Perhaps, in the given situation, there is no alternative to continuing with the present system which has the requisite will and power as well as international backing to take difficult decisions, in both domestic and external domains, in the supreme national interest. Pakistan has never been in greater need for a culture of political consistency.

We will soon have a new technocrat prime minister in Pakistan who is familiar with the imperative of good governance as a means of sustainable development.

He also knows that the people of Pakistan, already disillusioned over the years with the performance of successive military regimes and political governments, will have great expectations from him.

He must already be straining his nerves to delineate a new strategic vision for his government, based on a set of irrevocable principles, over-arching goals and re-ordered national priorities.

Despite the inherent flaws in our body politic, the need for continued commitment to the ideals of democracy and pluralism must remain the guiding principles of his government.

Genuine democracy rooted in the will of the people, rule of law, good governance and people-centred development are today the key requisites of success for any government in the developing world.

We need to seriously address our social problems. This has been the most neglected aspect of our national endeavour. No previous government has paid enough attention to this area.

A culture of social integration and cohesion is required to reinforce national unity. Education must be placed on top of priorities in our development planning and budgeting.

The government must engage all segments of society to effectively deal with extremism, obscurantism and violence. As part of national reconciliation and reconstruction, a vigorous effort needs to be made to promote an environment of tolerance, understanding, responsibility and moderation, while curbing extremism, militancy and violence.

We need an effective and realistic but low-key foreign policy premised on economic diplomacy and friendly relations with all (enmity with none) and focused on protecting Pakistan's vital national interests.

Pakistan should be a factor of strength and stability to our neighbouring regions and must be an active partner in promoting mutually beneficial regional cooperation within the frameworks of Saarc and Eco.

Our relations with major powers must be set in bilateral perspective. We must give up expectations of drawing in major powers to influence our domestic political dynamics or alter the regional balance in our favour. Excessive obsession with India has been counterproductive in building quality relationship with major powers.

On the economic front, the emphasis has to be on self-reliance. Despite unprecedented amount of outside help in terms of loans and grants, the basic responsibility for development remains that of the national government on the basis of "country ownership, local initiative and self-help".

The new prime minister knows that neither international or regional organizations, including the World Bank and IMF, nor foreign donors can achieve for the states what they (the states) are unable to do for themselves.

In the ultimate analysis, political leadership of the new prime minister will be judged on the basis of his own calibre and performance as well as the policies that he will make and implement under his own signature and constitutional mandate rather than his "inherited status or bestowed honour".

Hopefully, next year's Independence Day message of the prime minister to the nation will not be a rehashed version of the last year's text; and will instead be a candid and clear balance sheet of his one year in office, giving the people an opportunity to make their own judgment on their leader's performance.

The author is a former foreign secretary.

Iraq: a thought experiment

Let us conduct a little thought experiment. The year 2014 will arrive in only ten years' time, and the US occupation of Iraq will be long over by then. Let's imagine that Iraq does not break up in the civil war that the US government keeps telling us is the only alternative to a continued American military presence. What is the best-case outcome for Iraq a decade from now?

Iraq was the most developed of the bigger Arab countries before Saddam Hussein dragged it into the war with Iran in 1980, and it could easily recover that status given just one decade of good luck and good management.

Only three things have to happen right. One, the occupation ends quickly. Two, the country does not tear itself apart in an orgy of ethnic and religious violence. Three, the cash flow turns positive.

The occupation will end relatively soon - maybe as soon as next year, but certainly before the next US presidential election in 2008 - because the American public simply won't stand for the cost and the casualties.

Neither President George W. Bush nor Democratic challenger John Kerry will talk about a US pullout now, but the flimsy link that Mr Bush made between the 'war on terror' and the invasion of Iraq was destroyed by the report of the 9/11 Commission. When the going gets really rough for the US in Iraq, that will be what tips the scale.

One year or four years from now matters a lot in terms of what the international scene looks like by 2014 - we could be back in a global confrontation between rival alliances if Iraq goes on too long - but strangely, it matters less in terms of Iraq itself.

Either the country breaks up when the US pulls out, or it does not. Whenever it happens, the choice for Iraqi Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans, for Sunnis, Shias and Christians, will be to bury their rivalries and prosper together, or to live apart in misery.

Choose wrongly, and Iraq ends up as a super-Lebanon, immersed in a civil war of all against all at ten times the scale of the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war. But Iraqis have always avoided civil war in the past, though sometimes at the price of tyranny.

The Baathist regime that came to power in the 1960s was a horror politically, but it knew how to use its oil wealth. The country was the second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, and on the eve of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980 its GDP was about $200 billion in today's dollars.

That provided for free education for everybody (including university, if you qualified), a growing middle class, a diversified economy that did not depend solely on oil, and the most liberated female population in the whole Arab world. Saddam Hussein was not yet at war, so Iraq's abundant natural and human resources produced the prosperity you would expect.

Then came the criminally foolish invasion of Iran, and an eight-year war that should have spelled the end of Saddam Hussein - but did not, mainly because the Reagan administration decided that saving Saddam was a lesser evil than letting Iran win.

US support for Saddam ended with his invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War of 1991, but Iraq had to endure twelve years of United Nations sanctions before he was finally overthrown in the US invasion of 1993.

By now, after almost a year and a half of further damage from looting, foreign occupation and guerrilla war, the Iraqi economy is about a quarter of what it was in 1980. But the natural resources and the people are the same as they always were.

Countries with deep ethnic, linguistic and religious divisions that can see the promise of prosperity as the reward for cooperation can often surprise the pundits by burying their rivalries and pulling together.

Think of Malaysia, of South Africa, of India. The Iraqis could confound the pessimists and do the same - and then, provided they sorted the cash flow issues, they could be seeing prosperity again by 2014.

Iraq's foreign debt, largely incurred during the war with Iran, now amounts to about $120 billion, which is a crippling burden. If the debt could be written down to one-third of its present amount, then Iraq would have a chance.

If Iraqi oil exports could be boosted to 7 or 8 million barrels a day, which could be achieved with five years of serious investment, and if oil prices stay high (which seems practically guaranteed), then it would have a very good chance.

Would this newly prosperous and powerful Iraq be a democracy of sorts? Maybe, though it would be more likely to resemble Malaysia than South Africa. But it could just as easily be a regime that resembles the old Baathist secular dictatorship or the theocratic tyranny of neighbouring Iran: neither prosperity nor power are necessarily linked to democracy.

Would any members of the US-appointed 'sovereign government' of Iraq still be in power? Quite possibly: politicians are born acrobats. But they won't be talking much about their past: any Iraq that has really recovered its independence will see the US invasion as a national humiliation and regard America as its enemy for at least a generation to come.

Even if the Bush administration's motives for invading Iraq were pure and selfless, it would still be the same. Ingratitude is not just the norm in politics. It is an iron law. -Copyright

Who is winning the war on terror?

The "war on terror" was officially launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001. George W. Bush coined the term "war on terror", but this is anything but a conventional war.

The sides are not clearly defined - we don't know precisely who it is being waged against. The battleground and mode of conflict are even less clearly defined. And, almost three years on, we still don't know who's winning.

Take the issue of sides, the first and usually most obvious feature of any conflict or struggle. Here we have the American government, the British government and a host of assorted allies (some voluntary, others coerced) arrayed on one side.

But who are they fighting against? Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization? You don't wage war on one man or one organization. Nor would it be credible to lay the blame for all acts of terrorism at the door of Al Qaeda.

In fact, the war on terror is being waged against a phenomenon: terrorism. It is a phenomenon that has many practitioners - Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, of course, but also groups in Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, the Occupied Territories, Britain, Spain and many other countries.

These diverse terror groups are not linked by any formal association: they are just part of the same multi-headed monster called terrorism. Because these groups are so diverse, have such different goals, differing modes of action, it is impossible to clump them together as a single foe.

Seen from this perspective, the "war on terror" is actually an amalgam of many smaller conflicts: the US government against Al Qaeda, the Pakistan government against local terrorist groups and foreign elements affiliated with Al Qaeda, the Indonesian government against whoever was behind the Bali bombs, and so on.

But even when seen as a collation of many conflicts, the opposing side is no easier to make out. The foe remains largely undefined and invisible. Or rather, he/she remains indistinguishable from any of us. For the woman sitting next to you on the bus, the man entering the restaurant, the deliveryman riding his bike - all of these could be terrorists.

In short the "war on terror" is being waged against a diverse, indistinguishable foe that can strike at random. How then, do we know who's winning?

Victories for the terrorists are obvious: a suicide bombing that kills dozens of civilians, a derailed train, a plane flown into the Pentagon, a gunman who wreaks death on worshippers in a mosque. These are the visible, clearly manifested "successes" of terrorism. But there is an underlying, less visible but more profound, achievement or the phenomenon.

The objective of any terrorist is to strike terror into the heart of a population, and thereby ultimately persuade governments / policy-makers to concede to their demands.

Terrorism might not have succeeded in the latter, but it has certainly achieved the former. Today it is impossible to think of one aspect of our lives that has not been affected by terrorism.

Air travel, attending a sports event or a political rally, going to work in a tall building - terrorism has totally changed the way we function. This in itself is a victory for terrorism.

Victories for those fighting terrorism are far less tangible: a public event that goes off without incident; a bus, train or plane that reaches its destination safely; people going to work everyday and returning home in one piece - these are the significant but invisible successes in the war on terror.

There are of course tangible successes too: captured terrorists, planners, financiers, bomb-makers; the discovery of arms caches; the defusing of bombs.

Foiled plots - terror attacks that were planned but stopped before they could kill - are probably the most crucial victories in the war on terror. But they are victories that are hard to claim: they rarely come in the form of neat plans laid out with dates and times, or of terrorists caught red-handed. More frequently, the form is snippets of intelligence leading to potential targets being identified, a security beef up and no attack.

Governments, intelligence services, the police - all periodically claim to have uncovered and foiled terrorist plots. They could well be telling the truth. But because the sources they rely on for information are invariably confidential, the rest of us are not in a position to decide. We simply have to take their word for it.

Of course, the flip side to this is that governments might not have foiled any terror plots but - hiding behind the same smokescreen of protecting sources and confidentiality - they can claim to have done so. They can tout successes in the war on terror, which might never have happened.

Why would they do that? Because, in an era where terrorism is the global threat, where terrorism is the phenomenon that defines and determines domestic and foreign policy, victory in that war becomes all important.

Governments have to show they are making progress in it. They especially have to show progress when the other side - the terrorists - can daily prove their "success": a suicide bombing here, a car bomb there, scoring notches is easy for the forces of terror.

In the face of such relentless pressure - from terrorists and from the public - it is little wonder that governments tout non-existent successes.

But there can be more sinister motives. They are best illustrated by examples, one recent, the other dating back to last year. The Iraq war was premised on intelligence that showed Saddam Hussein had WMD, and that these posed an "imminent threat" to the West.

It has since been proven that the intelligence showed nothing of the sort. But the supposed success in the war on terror - identifying a potential WMD threat - was sufficient excuse for the Bush administration to launch a long-desired assault on Iraq.

The recent example is the security alert in New York, Washington and London (primarily). It followed the arrest of Muhammed Naeem Khan in Lahore, and all manner of potential terror plots - specifically targeting five prominent buildings in the US - being gleaned from his computer.

On the face of it, the information represented a credible threat. But zoom out slightly and you see that the Al Qaeda surveillance took place three years ago, and that the Pakistan government is denying it passed on any threat information.

Add to this wider picture the political context - John Kerry waging an effective campaign against George Bush's handling of the war on terror - and the suspicion definitely arises that the security alert was more about political one-upmanship than genuine terror threats. Note too, that this was not the first political crisis in which the Bush administration had "uncovered" a terror threat.

In short, the war on terror has also become a political tool. It is used by governments - for they are the only ones who can claim access to top-secret intelligence - to achieve other objectives, and/or to deflect criticism and relieve political pressure. This facet of the war on terror - its use as a stick to beat domestic opponents - makes it even harder for the rest of us to judge who is winning.

As stated above, we are living in an era when the "war on terror" is the key issue in politics, elections and government policy. It simply dominates everything else - even the economy.

Given the pivotal role it plays in the national and international order, the lack of clarity over who is fighting it, how it is being fought and who is winning has to be a major source of concern.

Dollarization of the economy

Dollarization of the country's economy will not be permitted by the government, nor will it allow any group to profit by pushing up the dollar and forcing down the rupee, says the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Dr Ishrat Husain.

He came up with this warning as the rupee touched the 59.10 to a dollar rate in the open market after moving up from the Rs 58 where it has been for long, and despite the efforts of the State Bank to shore up the rupee against the dollar, which has been gaining strength around the world in recent weeks.

The State Bank has already spent 700 million dollars to strengthen the rupee in the last three months and is ready to spend more to achieve its objective. The country has over 12 billion dollars of foreign exchange reserves at present.

It is imperative for the government to hold up the rupee to accelerate the economic revival and speed up the economic growth instead of being forced to import essential machinery and equipment for infrastructure development at a high cost and spending far more on debt servicing in terms of rupees.

In the later half of the 1990s the official policy was to encourage dollar saving and keeping of dollar accounts with the people for an attractive overall return of 21 per cent, but now the government has the necessary foreign exchange reserves to counter speculative trends in the inter-bank market.

The dollar recently became strong in relation to many other currencies as the US economic recovery gained ground and interest rates there began moving up. And the Pakistan economy, too, became strong as its exports went up, balance of payments improved and external debt was reduced. As a result of the strong dollar the currencies of many developing countries, including India and of Japan and the euro bloc, have depreciated.

The Indian rupee is now 46.345 to a dollar. And if at a time when Pakistanis are wanting to have large scale trade with India the Pakistan rupee takes a plunge from 59 to a dollar they will feel demoralised and blame the government for following an erratic economic and financial policy.

The Bangladesh taka is now 59.65 to a dollar - almost the same as the Pakistan rupee despite the weak Bangladesh economy which has frightful post-quota fears. The exchange rate of Nepal rupee is 72 and battle-scarred Sri Lanka's rupee goes for 103.50 to a dollar.

Despite all the rhetorics about the strength of our economy, our rupee is truly weak, and it cannot be made weaker by speculators or others like those who manage the revamped Havala and Hundi system.

But as long as inflation in Pakistan is high, despite the strong official claim of low inflation, the rupee will be weak. And the speculators can make it weaker as they have always tried to do.

A section of the businessmen had always been for dollarization of the economy. The government has always resisted such moves and finally in the 1990s yielded to that partly. But when the 1998 nuclear explosions took place the foreign exchange deposits were frozen and allowed to be withdrawn at an enhanced rate of Rs. 2 for each dollar of deposit.

We are too close to Dubai not to feel its commercial and financial impact. Pakistanis are being persuaded to buy apartments and other homes in Dubai with the promise of residential permits. And quite a number of Pakistanis are examining the options with keen interest in view of the large loan facility available along with re-purchase offer.

The State Bank is now operating on two fronts to hold up the rupee. It is trying to suck up a great deal of the financial liquidity in the market. It swept away Rs. 54.75 billion last week.

Still there is a surplus liquidity of Rs. 105 billion reported in the market. Foreign banks too are sucking up the surplus funds as the United Bank opted to get hold of Rs. 2 billion, including Rs. 500 million through sale to the public.

It has been said that the foreign exchange reserves have become rather static after they reached 12.5 billion dollars because three billion dollars were spent on import of textile machinery, and that the import of other machinery increased by 33 per cent late year, says Dr. Ishrat. But for such spending the foreign exchange reserves would have been far higher.

Now 2.5 billion dollars out of the reserves are to be kept in foreign treasury bonds to earn the best possible interest. If earlier Pakistan lost when the dollar went down, and along with it its reserves, the stronger dollar has improved its position now. And in a world of increasing interest rates it should be able to earn far more by keeping 2.5 billion dollars of the reserves in foreign treasury bonds.

China has foreign exchange reserves worth 470.6 billion dollars and Hong Kong 120.8 billion dollars, making a total of 591.4 billion dollars. Much of that is kept in the US treasury bonds. India has a foreign reserve of 114 billion dollars.

Prof Walter, chief economist of the Deutsche Bank, spoke in Karachi on the world economy as well as Pakistan's prospects. He said the world economy should keep booming in the year 2005 if nothing extraordinary happened to destabilize it.

But with President Bush wanting to take on one country after another after its unfinished agenda in Iraq, the world can expect several nasty surprises of shocks if he is re-elected.

On Pakistan's economy he said the 12 billion dollar foreign exchange reserves can erode fast if it is not constantly replenished through foreign direct investment.

That investment has now reached almost one billion dollars, primarily because of privatization of several major enterprises. Privatization is, in fact, not new investment but replacement of one investor or a group of them by another.

But if the new owners make large new investment that can make a large difference. Anyway 2004-05 should be a good year for privatization and inflow of foreign capital into Pakistan.

Prof Walter also argued that if the rate of economic growth in Pakistan has to be kept above 6 per cent the national savings should be far higher. There is a great deal of money available for speculation, and not enough for fixed investment.

And at the moment, instead of promoting larger savings which are being discouraged by the very low interest rates, and in fact, a penalty for keeping small deposits.

What we have instead is vigorous promotion of consumer banking, largely for buying of foreign luxuries which do not increase employment or productivity in Pakistan. The consumer banking bonanza may seem too good for the country but the unemployed may not always take to suicides. More of them may take to crime, and ultimately terrorism.

One developing country which adopted the dollar as its currency in recent times is Argentina. It did not change the name of its peso but kept its value at par with the dollar.

But after a prolonged struggle to sustain its value it had to revert to a convertible currency and later face a host of problems. So it is not easy for developing countries to dollarize their economies and also have the advantages which the US has.

Even now the US is running an external account deficit of 500 billion dollars on an average a month but as long as the whole world pours its reserves into the US banks it has little to worry except that the national debt is increasing.

Now the new threat to our balance of payments and balance of trade which this year is expected to have deficit of 3 billion dollars, is the soaring price of oil which has touched 44.90 dollars a barrel in New York.

It has shaken up not only the developing countries like Pakistan but also the US where President bush and his Democratic rival John Kerry have come out with their own solutions.

The Bush administration had announced it would add another 100,000 barrels of crude a day to the Strategic Reserve until April, bringing its capacity to 700 million barrels. Adding so much to the reserves when oil prices are already very high - retail price 2 dollars a gallon - has drawn severe criticism from the public.

Mr Kerry's economic Adviser Roger Atman predicts the world oil price could drop to 10 dollars a barrel with a new president in office because it would remove the "instability premium" created by Mr Bush's aggressive foreign policy Mr. Kerry on the other hand wants not only to severe the US dependence on Middle Eastern oil but also on external petroleum altogether.

He will create a 20 billion dollars energy security trust fund bankrolled with existing off-shore oil and gas royalties. He would use the fund to offer consumers 5,000 dollars tax incentives for buying vehicles that use clean fuels and help factories retool.

Kerry's adviser said that 4 billion dollars in new revenues could go to farmers each year for ethanol and other bio-fuels. The government in Pakistan has also been talking of developing alternate energy and Sindh has now assigned a provincial minister for the task. Will we now make real efforts in this direction, using wind and sun power and developing biofuels to drive vehicles and engines of low speed?

At a time when oil price in New York has touched 44.95 a barrel and the government in Pakistan finds it difficult to shift the higher prices to the consumers, while keeping all the high energy surcharge for itself, we ought to make desperate efforts to develop alternate energy that befits an agricultural country.

Earlier we thought we had all the gas needed to produce power instead of using the costly furnace oil. But now we find the gas is not enough to meet the needs of power production and also produce enough fertilisers. So after raising the prices very high the government has lowered urea prices by Rs. 18 per bag and allowed its exports to increase domestic availability.