| 11 April 2005 | Monday | 01 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426 |
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‘Urdu: ‘in purdah”
Cash prizes with civil awards
Monthly savings scheme
Plight of bonded labour
PIA booking ordeals
Healthcare imperatives
Indian high commission
Biotechnology and agriculture
Passport number
Kyrgyz ruler’s ouster
Medical education
Collection of passport
Monitoring prices
THIS refers to a news item, “NFC meeting not yet convened: Budget makers in quandary” (Dawn, April 1). The reporter has rightly pointed out the unenviable situation the provincial finance ministers are facing as they don’t know yet what resources would be available to them for the next year with only a few weeks left before finalizing their budgets.
It shouldn’t however surprise anyone as the government’s deliberate dilly-dallying on the issue has been evident for some time now. It was the attitude of the federal and the Punjab governments and some other representatives that forced Sindh’s statutory member in the NFC, Mr A. K. Lodhi, to resign from his position. So far the government hasn’t answered any of the questions raised by Mr Lodhi.
It may be recalled that the 1995 NFC award imposed on the country with the help of the then caretaker governments had expired in 2002. As required by the Constitution and demanded by Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan, a new award should have been announced three years ago.
The 1995 NFC award is believed to be lopsided, favouring the centre and Punjab. The three smaller provinces have been demanding for long an end to the unjust distribution of resources and a new formula based on multiple factors such as the collection of revenue, area of a province and poverty besides population, which is at present the sole criterion for the distribution of resources.
They have also been demanding of return to the provinces of GST and other local taxes that historically belonged to the provinces and the inclusion in the divisible pool of recoveries that now go directly into the federal coffers. But as both the centre and Punjab are afraid to lose some money, they have been delaying the convening of a meeting of the NFC to reach a consensus on a new system of distribution of resources.
The federal and the Punjab governments will be well advised to listen to the smaller provinces and not delay a fair NFC award. A change of heart on their part will surely do a lot good to the country.
AZIZ NAREJO
Via email
THIS is with reference to Mr Hafizur Rahman’s article “Urdu: ‘in purdah’” (March 23). Mr Rahman laments the fact that our national language is accorded a place subservient to English. Without commenting on why that has come to be the case, I would like instead to take issue with some very disturbing statements made by Mr Rahman when comparing Urdu with the other languages spoken in Pakistan: “Add to this the fact that in Punjab, for some strange psychological reason no one has been able to fathom, the urban educated middle class and above, with pretensions to respectability and culture, have gradually taken to Urdu for oral communication also.
“For them the only use now left for Punjabi is to converse with the illiterate, to enjoy the vigour and loud violence of Punjabi movies and to draw upon the language’s matchless fund of vulgar invective to abuse opponents. Recently pop music has taken to it in a big way.”
I find it truly surprising that someone who is saddened by the fact that English has overtaken Urdu as the official language in Pakistan would look upon Punjab’s adoption of Urdu with such disdain. If anything, he should be heartened by the fact that an ethnic and linguistic group that represents well over half of Pakistan’s population is keen to embrace Urdu.
The next line is even more disturbing where Mr Rahman describes Punjabi as a language used merely to communicate with the illiterate or employ vulgar invectives. As a side note only, he mentions its use in popular music, and curiously enough, entirely leaves out its established reputation as an easy-going language with a possibility for humour rarely rivalled in other tongues.
Every language has its plus points and just as the Punjabi-speaking respect and value Urdu’s literary and poetic tradition, I would advise Mr Rahman to learn to appreciate Punjabi a bit and refrain from mocking it, if for no other reason, then just for the sake of national unity. Surely a proponent of our national language should at least be sensitive to such issues.
AYESHA IJAZ KHAN
London, UK
EVERY year civil awards are announced on Independence Day (August 14) and are conferred on Pakistan Day (March 23, the following year) by the president of Pakistan at the president’s house in Islamabad. This year all awards — except the military awards and Hilal-i-Imtiaz and above for civilians — were conferred in the four provinces by the respective governors on behalf of the president.
No civil award carries cash prize except the presidential Pride of Performance (Rs50,000). It has been learnt that the government intends to increase the prize money associated with the Pride of Performance from Rs50,000 to Rs300,000, which is highly appreciated.
However, it will be rather unfair to raise the money for one award which already carries a cash prize and leave others with no cash prize linked — unless the income levels of the recipients are taken into consideration while deciding the civil awards.
One wishes the president could realize what the feelings of, say, a Hilal-i-Imtiaz recipient would be when he or she cannot even afford the airfare of his or her spouse to attend the awards ceremony at the president’s house, particularly when he or she sees that the government is rich enough to buy Mercedes for parliamentarians where each costs more than Rs10 million.
It is suggested that the decision-making authorities may seriously consider assigning some cash prize with each civil award given to the country’s finest people in their respective fields, and design some mechanism keeping in view the rank order.
A CIVIL AWARD RECIPIENT
Via email
I WANT to draw your attention towards the Mahana Amdani (monthly income) scheme accounts which were closed recently. The savings scheme introduced about 20 years back has been closed for reasons best known to the authorities concerned, but this has deprived hundreds and thousands of people falling in the lower income group of regular savings, or of enabling them to get some regular pension-like financial assistance. As a result these people have been left at the mercy of fake investment schemes offering good profit rates but decamping with their hard-earned money later on.
One or two thousand rupees a month may not be large in real terms with the passage of time and the ever-declining value of money, but it is better than nothing. This may be seen as a sort of a pension particularly for persons who no longer have any other regular source of income in old age.
I am confident that the scheme, if reintroduced even with stricter conditions like an extended span of up to 100 or more months but brought at par with the annual/final rate of profit offered in defence saving certificates, Behbood savings certificates or pensioners’ benefit accounts, etc. will attract thousands of depositors. It will also provide a strong deposit to the credit of the government at a comparatively much lower rate of mark-up.
SYED ARSHED HUSSAIN
Faisalabad
LAST week I got an opportunity to meet Mr Manoo Bheel, a freed bonded labourer from Sindh, in Lahore. His story moved me — all his family members have been in the custody of a landlord for the last seven years, and his struggle for their release has failed.
The Sindh Assembly took up the issue and a committee called “Manoo Bheel key bachchey” (children of Manoo Bheel) was formed within the assembly but Manoo is still waiting for the release of his family and children. He wants all civil society organizations to put pressure on the government to take some action. He is determined to protest and is on hunger strike and now sits in front of the Hyderabad Press Club daily for four hours.
Will someone from the government inform us why it has failed to rescue Manoo’s family and why justice has been denied to this poor man despite the fact that the culprits are well known to all? Why have feudals been allowed to establish states within the state and exploit poor people?
ARSHAD MAHMOOD
Mardan
I TRAVELLED from Houston to Karachi via Manchester in January. My return flight in business class from Karachi to Houston was booked and confirmed by my travel agent in the US for March 8, with a stopover in Manchester.
I could not travel on the date so I went to the PIA head office in Karachi on March 7 to have my reservation changed to March 22. I was informed that my seat had been put on “request” and I would get confirmation 48 hours before the flight. When I tried to confirm my seat before flight I was informed that I could not travel on this date as the flight was full, including all seats in the business class.
I requested for a seat in the economy class as I had to get back home immediately, but in vain. Finally, not getting any answers from the staff at PIA I had no recourse but to ask for a favour from one of the big shots in PIA. A seat was immediately available for me in the business class within 10 minutes.
But a bigger surprise awaited me when I boarded PIA flight #789 to Manchester and found 12 vacant seats in the business class and 90 vacant seats in the economy and the same was the case with PIA flight #713 to Houston.
What does the PIA have to say?
DEED AHMED ALI
Dallas, Texas
MORE than 100,000 patients visit just one of the federal government-run hospitals in Karachi. Diagnostic facilities, patient care, and the doctor-patient and patient-nurse ratios are dangerously below the mark. Hence, our medical schools and postgraduate medical institutions are focusing more on treatment of acute conditions rather than alleviating the root cause of any disease.
The healthcare infrastructure in Pakistan has passed through troubled waters. It has remained a norm to lay more stress on acute infectious diseases as compared to chronic ones. Treatment of episodic illnesses is different from chronic conditions. Our workforce in healthcare institutions is not adequately prepared to cope with emerging challenges. While there is a shortage of funds, the unchecked migration of workers from the rural to urban areas has affected the health of those living in abandoned communities. In addition to knowledge of diagnosis and treatment of acute illness and injury, today’s healthcare workers need a core set of competencies that will yield a better outcome for patients with chronic conditions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) identified and described common competencies across various professional groups (including family physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, and allied health workers) in a draft document. After multiple discussions and suggestions the final list of core competencies was drafted that applies to everyone looking after patients with chronic conditions. Healthcare givers are requested to understand the experience of illness from the patient’s perspective. This type of care is responsive to and respectful of the needs, values, differences, and preferences of the patient. Doctors should give coordinated and continuous care and alleviate both pain and emotional sufferings.
Listening to and communicating with patient leads to providing education and information, sharing decision-making and management, preventing ailments, disabilities and impairments and promoting well-being. The workforce needs skills that allow them to involve patients in all aspects of decision-making in their healthcare. They need the ability to work in teams and collaborate with other providers.
The health ministry, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, Pakistan Medical Association and health professional bodies should make it an obligation that training includes the new set of core competencies which can prepare health workers to manage the most prevalent health problems today. Hospitals should collaborate with each other and with patients to develop treatment plans, goals and implementation strategies that centre on the needs, values and preferences of patients and their families. At the same time some responsibilities lie on patients too. The reality, however, is that patients consult multiple providers who lack coordination among themselves and across settings, resulting in care that is, at best, expensive, confusing, and conflicting and, at worst, harmful to patients.
DR TALLAT HABEEB ABID
Karachi
ON March 28 I went to the Indian high commission in Islamabad. Many men, women, children and senior citizens were standing in the queues outside the building, a majority of whom had come from Sindh and Punjab to get visas.
People have to get tickets first to enter the embassy area by bus where they have to reach early in the morning while some stay overnight. The high commission opens its window at 10am and closes at 12 noon. People who do not want to stand in long queues bribe the policemen on duty there, and they are allowed to enter the high commission’s premises out of turn while people standing in queues watch helplessly.
The behaviour of the police is very harsh. They often abuse people. This needs to be stopped.
WASIM A. BUTT
Lahore
I WAS glad to know that biotechnology is being considered by Mr Sikander Hayat Bosan, federal minister of agricultural and livestock, as a solution to agricultural problems facing Pakistan (April 1).
As for the application of biotechnological methods for the solution of salinity and drought tolerance, research reveals that plants can tolerate salinity and drought by biotechnological means when the soil salinity is at about one per cent level.
Physico-chemical measures are required to be adopted first to decrease the soil salinity level. I have found in my researches that micro-organisms (living organisms) which are generally used to make salinity and drought tolerant are adversely affected like crop plants. Only mangrove plants are able to tolerate sea-water and soil salinity ranging from 3 to 3.5 per cent, with an occasional flush of sweet water.
We should apply a multidimensional approach and use all available means to save the 35 per cent loss in food productivity due to salinity.
DR M. JALALUDDIN
Adjunct Professor of Agriculture, KU
Karachi
IN the new machine-readable passport, which I must acknowledge looks nice and better than the old one, the page with the photograph contains two different numbers (besides the tracking number). One is the passport number, and the other one is the booklet number. I was however surprised to see that it is the booklet number and not the passport number which is printed on the rest of the pages. This includes the punched numbers also.
My question to Nadra is that which number does one need to mention while applying for a visa. I have not seen two different numbers in any other country’s passports, and Nadra must clarify this for the benefit of all.
DR NAEEMUL HAQUE
Karachi
KYRGYZ President Akayev’s ouster is a sombre warning for rulers across the Muslim world. Akayev’s brutal suppression of political activists did not dampen their resolve for the liberation of Muslims, but rather strengthened it to adopt an Islamic way of life.
The protesters lined up on the streets carrying placards of the “lale”, or tulip, which is a Central Asian symbol of devotion to Allah. Moreover, Akayev’s utter subservience to foreign powers, sacrificing Muslim interests to further Russian and American material interests, further distanced him from his own people. Hiding behind slogans of national interest did not save him.
I take encouragement from the fall of Akayev that the Muslim world stands today on the threshold of liberation from foreign-backed tyrants through the re-establishment of Islam.
DR ABDUL WAJID
Lahore
THERE is a great confusion in the current status of our medical education. Most doctors after completing the FCPS part I exam are required to join a teaching institute for meeting their requirements for FCPS part II. At present, we do not have enough institutions that our doctors can join, and there is, therefore, an imbalance.
According to the new CPSP (College of Physician and Surgeons) rules, one should appear in the exam of FCPS part II within six years of passing part I, otherwise it will “dissolve”. At the same time the CPSP has derecognized a number of institutions. Many FCPS part I holders are sitting at home waiting to join an institution, which are so few, and nobody seems to be concerned about their future.
There is a need for urgent planning in this regard.
DR REHANA AHMED
Karachi
THIS is to bring to the notice of Nadra the hardship a citizen has to face in collecting a machine-readable passport from the only centre in Karachi.
It took me, over 60 years in age, four-and-a-half hours to submit my application. According to the token slip I had to collect the passport after 12 days. To be on the safe side I went there after 15 days, and after standing in the open in a queue for over two hours I was told my passport was not ready. Nobody can understand the physical and mental hardship I went through.
Can’t we have telephone numbers to inquire whether the new passport is ready or not?
M. RAHMAN
Karachi
ACCORDING to a recent news item, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has constituted a 12-member committee to monitor the price situation in the country. The committee while watching the supply and demand position will also coordinate with the provinces and district governments. Monitoring will be on a daily basis.
This step will certainly help to put the genie back into the bottle. However, if a correct price list of essential items is published daily in local newspapers, it will greatly help households to plan their daily purchases.
MUHAMMAD ARIF BUTT
Karachi
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