| May 22, 2005 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 13, 1426 |
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Debate on national issues
PTCL’s privatization
Nankana Sahib district
Self-financing students
‘Kashmir struggle’
Dog bite vaccine
Railway timetable
Power cuts
HR practices in bank
LPG cylinder blast
Compost plants
THE ban on fishing by trawlers during June and July is unwarranted because from May to August the flow of water currents is from waters in India towards the Pakistani coasts, especially Karachi. This change in flow of current makes shrimps available in great abundance in the coastal waters of Karachi and Sindh. If trawling is not permitted in these months, by mid-August all these shrimps will flow back to Indian waters when the flow of current changes back from our waters to the Indian side.
The imposition of this ban means that our local trawlers lose out on catch of all species of shrimps, fish and, in particular, squid in great quantity because once trawling is permitted again in August, the school of shrimps and squid has already gone back to the Indian waters and the presence of shrimps in our part of the waters at this time is very limited. Alongside this, in the last couple of years the fish that has also been coming from the Indian side along with the shrimp goes back in August, if not caught in these months.
Thus, if the ban imposed on fishing in June and July is lifted, there will be greater availability of fresh fish and all varieties of shrimps. Our trawlers will also complete their round in four to six days and the catch will not only be of high quality and standard, but also greater in quantity.
We would like to stress that since our local boats are not allowed to function during June and July, the entire benefit of a good catch is reaped by foreign deep-sea trawlers which become operational during these two months.
The issue here is that the reason given to the local fishermen and the trawler owners for imposing a ban on catching of shrimps is that these two months are “breeding months”. If this is the case, should this reason also not hold true in the case of foreign trawlers and they should also be stopped from fishing during these months?
The fact that foreign trawlers do trawl during June and July and catch fish and shrimps in great numbers goes to show that there is an abundance of shrimps and fish in these two months and by the time our local trawlers are allowed to function again after a ban of two months, the majority of the catch had been taken by the foreign trawlers.
We, the fishermen, refute the old concept that only June and July are “breeding months”, and support the fact that the breeding process takes place throughout the year.
June-July ban should be lifted. This will increase export of fish and shrimps and benefit the fishermen.
ARSALA KHAN NIAZI
President, Sindh Trawler Owners & Fishermen Association,
Karachi
ACCORDING to press reports, the federal government plans to hold seminars on important national issues wherein, it is hoped, intellectuals and experts will, after open discussion, indicate what in their learned opinion are appropriate responses to the crucial challenges confronting the nation at present.
This should be a worthwhile exercise provided the participants are genuine scholars and experts of proven intellectual integrity, and not superficial pretenders and compulsive panegyrists of the ruling establishment.
Pakistan has all the well-identified problems of developing societies — the urgency of creating a cohesive, viable and durable nation; the need for accelerating economic growth; and the pressure for meeting the persistent demand for quickening economic growth; and the pressure for meeting the persistent demand for distributive justice.
Since the attainment of freedom we have gone through a wide range of experiences and moods — from hope to despair, from dismemberment to evidence of unanticipated reserves of strength, from threats of economic collapse to signs of economic recovery and commendable economic progress, from martial law to democratic rule. There is no doubt that the nation has shown unusual resilience and remarkable adaptive capacity.
It is, however, equally clear that the country is not adequately prepared to cope with many areas of profound significance for our future as a progressive democratic polity with a dynamic equity-oriented economy. The intellectual craftsmanship of our political leaders and planners has not been able to make an adequate response to the serious internal threats posed by ethnicity, poverty, population explosion, unemployment and institutional erosion.
On account of extremes in income and wealth reflected in excessive affluence and the failure of the authorities to effectively curb corruption and other serious crimes, our society is characterized by alienation, brutality, cynicism, nihilism, rootlessness and loss of human worth.
Only an extensive and meaningful dialogue on vital issues fortified by scientific thought can illuminate ways to appropriate action and provide some indication of the likely consequences of the policy options that are being currently contemplated. It would also enlarge the consciousness of the people — the ideological rationale and support for major changes in the desired direction.
AFTAB AHMAD KHAN
Karachi
THOSE with leftist leanings oppose privatization of public sector undertakings, specially the blue chips that are laying the proverbial “golden egg”. The PTCL is one such goose.
How the subscribers of this profit-making public utility suffer at the hands of the government servants managing it can best be experienced rather than described.
It appears that only the geniuses in the marketing department of PTCL are really working. This is the impression one gets from the spate of publicity regarding the PTCL’s innovations, new facilities and concessions splashed on the mini-screen as also in the print media.
The most important function — maintenance of the facility and service delivery — has been left entirely to the DEs, mostly recruited on a quota basis, who can seldom be contacted on phone by persons who cannot visit them in their offices.
If a telephone becomes dead all of a sudden, then no amount of dialling 18 and pressing this or that numeral in response to the voice emanating from a cybernetic device is going to help. Even 080044544, if it gets connected by sheer good luck, cannot render the promised assistance. Nor can the subscribers’ centre (phone 2629910) restore life to the dead telephone. Ultimately, the area lineman, if he can be got hold of, can do the trick by sleight of hand for a little “honorarium”, provided it does not turn out to be dreaded cable fault, which is more deadly than snake-bite. Bitten by this cobra, my phone (4937240) is likely to remain dead, perhaps, as long as I remain alive.
Privatization alone can weed out the corrupt and the inefficient. One reason why the twin malady of corruption and inefficiency is rampant is the all- pervasive role of the government in every sphere, though its hands are tied in the matter of hiring and firing personnel. It can neither recruit the deserving nor sack the undesirable.
JAFAR WAFA
Karachi
I WANT to convey my gratitude to President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi for granting Nankana Sahib the status of a district. As this city is considered the “Vatican” of the Sikhs, we have demonstrated to the international community how much we care for the minorities.
Now the problem is planning for its tehsils. The most suitable city for this is Bucheki, which is being ignored. This city is an international market for rice. It is situated 80km from Lahore, west of Jaranwala Road. It is considered the boundary between Nankana Sahib district and Lahore division. When we think of its suitability as a tehsil, it becomes the centre-point of More Khunda and Mandi Faizabad to its east and Sayyedwala in the southwest. Both the areas consist of half a million people.
The rumour is that More Khunda is going to be a tehsil and the areas of Bucheki and Sayyedwala have been attached to it, which is a senseless proposition. The people of Sayyedwala first come to Bucheki and then go to Nankana Sahib; now they will go to More Khunda. If they need to go to the district, they will again come to Bucheki and then go to Nankana Sahib. It is not a relaxation but a kind of punishment for more than 200,000 people.
If the government is not aware of these facts, it should not make thousands of people suffer but let them be a part of tehsil and district Nankana Sahib.
RANA SANA-UR-REHMAN
Nankana
ACCORDING to government policy, 20 students are admitted to each medical college on a self-finance basis. These students come next to open merit students in terms of high marks. Although there is negligible difference in the marks of these two categories, the fee paid by the self-financing student is 25 times higher than that of the open merit student. This is a great injustice.
And although self-financing students are paying high fees, they are not provided with any special facility in their colleges. Rather, they are treated as last in order of merit in allotment of hostel rooms. Self-financing students being in a minority are usually looked upon with disdain by open merit students and college teachers.
On behalf of the self-financing students, the president, the prime minister, the Higher Education Commission chairman, the Punjab governor and the chief minister are requested to look sympathetically into this matter and order the health department to stop charging heavy fees from self-financing students and treat them at par with open merit students.
ABDUL RAZAK (MBBS)
Multan
THIS refers to Mr Khalid Hasan’s letter (May 16) in reply to mine (May 10). The gravamen of Mr Hasan’s charge is that President Musharraf has conceded “on essentials to India on Kashmir without receiving any reciprocating gesture”. Let us first examine this charge on legal merits.
UN resolutions are of two types. Resolutions passed under Chapter 7 are mandatory involving sanctions and those under Chapter 6 are not. Unfortunately, the UN resolutions on Kashmir do not indicate under which chapter the resolutions were passed.
Pakistan has all along stressed that the resolutions were passed under Chapter 7 because their substance provides for a detailed implementing mechanism and thus by implication has a binding character.
Unfortunately, this point of view has never been supported by any of permanent members of the Security Council, including China. Pakistan has not requested for a formal opinion from the office of the UN secretary-general on this issue; perhaps there is wisdom in not doing so.
Even assuming that the Kashmir resolutions were passed under Chapter 7, SC resolution 1172 has changed the legal matrix altogether. This 1998 resolution recommends that India and Pakistan should address the issue of Kashmir bilaterally. This resolution in effect endorses the mechanism provided by the Shimla Agreement followed by the Lahore and Islamabad declarations. Thus the SC has in effect altogether changed the character and remedies of the original resolutions.
The Pakistani public has been deliberately fed on a diet of half truths by our governments as regards the status of the UN resolutions. The original resolutions also called for the withdrawal of our troops from Azad Kashmir before a plebiscite could be held. We agreed to this condition but long after the horse had bolted from the stable.
Our undeclared policy since 1965 (Operation Gibraltar) up to Kargil was to front freedom-fighters. In the 1990s many of these fighters were loose guns. This misdirected, misconceived jihad was read as state-sponsored terrorism by the world community. Pakistan’s jihadi option of the 1990s virtually destroyed our Kashmir case. Even the veteran Sardar Qayyum, supreme head of the Muslim Conference, in a recent interview declared: “Jihad has become a business. In fact, the worst damage to the Kashmir cause has been caused by the Jihadis ... Jihad has no future.”
I shall take Mr Hasan’s word that Mahatma Gandhi visited Srinagar on August 1, 1947 to advise the ruler to remove his pro- independence prime minister. It is a measure of this great man that in the last days of his life seeing the obtaining facts, he made more than a dozen statements advocating a settlement in accordance with the wishes of the people. It is for this reason he declared a few days before his assassination: “I have been severely reprimanded for what I said concerning Kashmir.” His assassin Nathu Ram Godse, inter alia, cited Gandhi’s Kashmir statements in his non-defence in court.
Mr Hasan refers to my reflections on a visit to Srinagar as a more or less a “rosy eyed account”. Perhaps he should read the article again. I have described Srinagar as city under siege with “broken people” as inhabitants. Is it not a case of Mr hasan seeing the Kashmir dispute through the rosy-coloured spectacles of yesterday’s jihad?
M.P. Bhandara
Rawalpindi
I must take exception to the claim (May 18) of the honorary general secretary of the PMA, Karachi, that anti-rabies medication is not available at any of the public sector hospitals in Karachi.
The Civil Hospital, Karachi, is providing a full cover of anti- rabies vaccines free of cost to all patients visiting our anti- rabies management centre during working hours. Those coming after 3pm are managed in the emergency.
The anti-rabies centre administers vaccines intradermally which requires expert supervision. When required, high-risk patients are also administered passive immunization.
In the last three months the anti-rabies management centre has registered 956 victims who were given intramuscular and intradermal injections and out of these, 350 victims were advised rabies immunoglobulins. Most of the human RIG and Equine RIG was provided by the hospital to individual patients, partly from our regular budget and partly from our Zakat funds. A few patients after the initial management choose their own regime and take their remaining dosages near their residences through their own resources.
M. SAEED QURAISHY
Medical Superintendent Civil Hospital,
Karachi
RAILWAY timings are changed on April 16 and Oct 16 every year. The railway timetable used to be issued well before these dates. Since the railway administration sold the printing and publishing rights for the timetable, delays have been taking place. Last year, the timetable was published in November. This year it is not yet available whereas the timings have changed from April 16. In Sialkot, the timetable has not been available for the last many years.
Will the PR general manager look into the matter and redress this public grievance?
JALAL-UD-DIN SHAD
Sialkot
WHILE exams were being conducted throughout the city of Karachi, the KESC was “playing truant” in spite of repeated official assurances that there will be limited or no loadshedding this summer and that things were “under control”.
School- and college-going children have been worst hit. During the day the hot weather does not permit them to study while at night low voltages and perpetual tripping of power have made it almost impossible to carry on with their preparations.
Isn’t it unjust that at the end of the academic year the “poor performance” of the KESC will reflect on that of the students?
NUDRAT SHAKIR
Karachi
THE attention of the State Bank of Pakistan is drawn towards unethical human resources practices being pursued in a private bank which have put the careers of many trainees in jeopardy, resulting in mental and financial stress.
The bank has been inducting fresh intermediate and graduate trainees in direct sales of their consumer assets, offering an initial stipend between Rs6,000 and Rs8,000 (depending on the qualification of the candidate) for a period of two months along with a commission of Rs1,000 on each product sold during the training period. The offer is purely verbal.
When it comes to salary time, all that the trainee gets is an insignificant amount under the head of a tax-deducted “commission” — which most of the times means no money at all, because trainees are hardly able to fetch any new business in two months’ time due to their lack of knowledge or for not having yet grasped the tricks of the trade.
The management expects that within two months fresh boys should exploit and explore their own contacts to sell the bank’s products after which period the person having exhausted his contacts becomes virtually useless for the bank and is forced to leave.
Ironically one cannot protest, as the bank clearly says that “it is a matter of policy” and it reserves the right to chuck out anyone after the 60-day training without paying stipend or commission or both (only that this policy matter is conveyed to the trainee after he has spent two exhausting months). What the management calls “policy” is in fact augmenting frustration among the youth with unemployment on the rise, while also creating a negative image of these big, growing institutions.
ABID SULEMAN
Karachi
A woman kept crying uncontrollably because her husband, children, brother and mother were buried under debris in the recent LPG cylinder blast tragedy in Lahore. The incident took place at 2:20am in the densely populated area of Allama Iqbal Town and rescue operation started at 5:00am after Fajr prayers.
The rescue team did not have cranes and lifters to remove the debris. The Lahore Development Authority lent them a crane, but the team did not know where to start and how to carry out the operation. They started from the rooftops of adjacent houses and were able to pick up those with superficial injuries first.
There is a need for specialized and trained workers and specific equipment to tackle such emergencies and disasters. A suggestion could be that the rescue operation department should be under the control of the army medical corps so that the team has a clear comprehension of fatalities and superficial injuries.
MIAN AZHAR MAHMOOD
Lahore
THE news (April 27) that the Environment Protection Agency is working on a plan to set up compost plants near vegetable markets in 10 selected areas of the NWFP that will convert solid waste into organic fertilizer marks a long overdue step. If solid waste is managed properly, it cannot only be profitable but a hygienic way of disposing of garbage and a natural way of making fertilizer, thus making the environment and the product safer for humans at minimum expenses.
Let us hope this will be taken up seriously all over Pakistan.
S. BABAR
Karachi
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