| June 13, 2005 | Monday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 5, 1426 |
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UNHCR & Bhutanese DPs
The disease of corruption
Religion in politics
Bush’s priority
Culture cloning?
Relief to the salaried
Kashmir solution
Naming underpasses
Advani’s visit
Sales tax on thread
THIS refers to a statement by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz (Dawn, May 20) regarding the gas pipeline project. According to him, Pakistan will decide by Dec 31 on a gas pipeline. Pakistan has already offered India an energy corridor to get gas either from Iran or Turkmenistan.
The government is still working on three major gas pipeline projects — the $3-billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan (TAP) project, the $4.16-billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) project and $3 billion Qatar-Pakistan project. The first two were conceptualized some 10 years back and it is now vital to finalize one out of three at the earliest to meet the country’s future energy demands.
India, on the other hand, is predicted to require 400 million standard cubic metres (scm) of gas a day by 2025 — up from today’s 96 million scm (Petromin, India January-February 2005 Issue). It seems that if Indian consumers do not get access to piped gas through Pakistan, they will be left with no option but to depend on LNG, and once that step is taken in the broader economy, there will be less incentive to go for piped gas.
There are already some projects along coastal India that opt for LNG. Besides, India is investing heavily in the infrastructure required to support increased use of natural gas. This has become even more so with the major development in December 2002 when Reliance Industries Ltd, India, announced its discovery of large volumes of natural gas in the Krishna-Godavari basin, offshore from Andhra Pradesh, around India’s southwest coast (Petromin, India, September 2004 issue). New reserves from this find are estimated at about five trillion cubic feet. Moreover, a proposal for a gas pipeline from western Myanmar to India through Bangladesh is under consideration and is pending approval from the Bangladesh parliament.
Nevertheless, the Iran-to-India pipeline project is more viable as compared to the others. It entails 475 km? of the pipeline passing through Balochistan in southern Pakistan.
Blowing up of oil, gas and power transmission lines has become a common feature in that region. The area along the Balochistan-Punjab border is one of the country’s most poverty-stricken areas and a restive territory. The government must pay heed to this issue and try to resolve this by giving a fair share of the oil and gas wealth to Balochistan, increasing investment in regional development projects and creating and monitoring a stable socio- political environment for ensuring a sustainable process of economic development. The significance of that region can also be judged with the fact that if the TAP pipeline project is executed. Sui gas installations will be tied-in with Turkmenistan gasfields.
RASHID ASHRAF
Karachi
THE UNHCR has just announced that they are gradually reducing their facilities for Bhutanese refugees, even though refugee representatives have been continually appealing for a greater supply of various staples. The cut in UNHCR aid affects the lives of the Bhutanese and their human rights.
For 10 years Bhutanese who have been forced to leave their country have been living in Nepal, but no international human rights organization or NGO or the Bhutanese government has established any effective, concrete programme to protect their rights.
Given the urgency of the situation, the UNHCR and as well as other humanitarian organizations should launch an emergency campaign for Bhutanese refugees. With time running out before the UNHCR intends to leave the Bhutanese with nowhere to go, local officials in Jhapa and Morang in eastern Nepal have begun cutting down the basic facilities for refugees.
Four players have crucial roles in deciding the future of over 100,000 Bhutanese: the UNHCR, the Nepalese government, the Bhutanese government, and India as the largest neighbour of the two countries.
Bhutan plans to delay the verification and repatriation process, Nepal is busy with its own internal Maoists chaos, India has shown no interest in finding the solution, and the UNHCR insists it will leave the refugees by the end of the year.
Nepali-speaking southern Bhutanese, known as Lhotshampas, were driven out of the country by the Bhutanese government in 1990. Over 134,000 Bhutanese citizens, approximately 20 per cent of Bhutan’s total population, are now living in refugee camps in Nepal and India. Nepal wants all Bhutanese refugees to go back to their homes but Bhutan has been avoiding to constitute verification mechanism.
International donor agencies continue to pour resources into Bhutan without addressing the refugee crisis or attaching conditions to the donations.
The UNHCR should play a critical role in finding concrete ways for alternative solutions to the crisis. Nepal’s government and others have to do everything to ensure assistance to the Bhutanese refugees.
KAMALA SARUP
Via email
WHILE reading the article “How corruption hurts social sectors” by Ms Zubeida Mustafa (June 1), I came across the contents of an address delivered by the NAB chairman at the auditorium of the Model College for Girls, Islamabad, in which he stated that nobody from outside could force us into corruption. Young people should join hands together in the fight against corruption, as it is only with joint efforts that the country can get rid of dishonest elements, he said.
Easier said than done. Corruption is always under the carpet. One cannot perceive corruption while sitting in cosy offices and travelling in limousines and climbing up rostrums to deliver speeches. One has to become an ordinary man, visit public offices, and read readers’ letters in the media. Recently a serious complaint has come up regarding the new electric meters which are perceived to run faster than the old ones. It is NAB’s duty to investigate the matter.
Go to the regional cooperative housing societies and observe their working. Even genuine housing societies with transparent records are bullied to meet the illegitimate demands of staff members.
Read the report (Dawn, June 2) about jobless youth who offer kidneys for sale. One of the three youth mentioned in the report said that poverty alleviation programmes and public welfare schemes launched by the government were nothing more than an eyewash. Furthermore, he stated that institutions like Baitul Maal and Zakat and Ushr funds were not giving the poor their due rights.
If the NAB’s chairman happens to visit the office of the Zakat committee chairman, disguised as an ordinary person, he will notice a big car parked outside the chairman’s office and on inquiry he will be told that the car is for the chairman’s official duties. Was it purchased from Zakat funds?
Eradication of corruption is not possible. But it could be reduced provided our high-ups lives within the constitutionally-prescribed limits, without pomp and show. A moderate will have a visible impact on their bureaucrats and government functionaries.
GHEEWALA A.G.A.
Karachi
MR KUNWAR ldris in his article “Sectarian curse of Pakistan” (June 5) says that history of Pakistan is a sad tale of rising intolerance and receding virtues. The result is that we have become a brigand society. Humanity and brotherhood have declined and religious fanaticism or bigotry is on the rise. Mr Ardeshir Cowasjee explains it in these words: “...that’s why we are where we are”. Perhaps these are the causes that deny us peace and democracy.
I find no reason to disagree. What interests me most in column is the view that “the very presence of religion in politics inexorably leads to sectarianism which in turn breeds hatred, periodically bursting out in violence.”
In the present complex times, which necessitate the segregation of faith from diplomacy, it is not possible to run the affairs of the state or the country with a mixture of religion and politics — as used to be done in Muslim societies from the early days of Islam till the early 20th century when the Muslim caliphate was broken up in Turkey.
Since Muslims considered their rulers, kings and dictators, no matter how harshly they ruled, to be divinely ordained personalities, the result was blood, tears and smoke. This led to croaking up of Islam into so many factions, all of them daggers drawn with each other. The abyss the Muslims are in is the logical and ultimate result of cutting each other’s throats.
Mr Idris advises that instead of blaming outside hands far the sectarian madness, the government should (a) improve the economy, (b) maintain law and order, and (c) leave the people to take care of their own faith. Thus the state would be secular and society Islamic because 88 to 90 per cent of the citizens are Muslims (not 95 to 97 per cent Muslims as he has mentioned).
S.M. KAZIM NAQVI
Karachi
GORDON Brown’s Africa Package is getting momentum with the support of G-8 members. When Mr Bush was requested by war ally Tony Blair to contribute more to cope with hunger and Aids in Africa, he blatantly refused by saying that the US is already contributing a lot by donating one billion dollars per annum. Mr Bush donates one billion dollars and knows quite well that the US drug-makers mint billions and billions of dollars by selling expensive drugs to the Africans. Mr Bush spent more than $40 billion on the Iraq war and occupy the country’s oil, but he hates the idea of helping the hungry and sick of Africa.
Mr Bush may be the villain of the piece for the Muslim world and the Europeans but he is a well-wisher of his own country. He wants his home industry to flourish by banning imports from other countries. The 2002 steel row between the US and the Europeans is an instance. He banned the import of European steel to benefit his home steel producers.
Although the common Americans are quite happy inexpensive Chinese goods, Mr Bush does not like this idea since the Chinese will prosper and his home textiles industry will suffer.
He has been successful by making the Chinese levy a 400 per cent tax on their textile exports to the US. He is well aware of the dangers of global warming but does not support the Quito agreement since it will hurt US industry.
Mr Bush has just one belief: America and only America.
A lesson for our leaders.
KHALIL AHMED
Karachi
I WATCH and enjoy Indian movies and am a fan of Shahrukh Khan. I also watch Moeen Akhtar doing his impersonations in Such Much and Abrarul Haq sing Shareekan Nu Agg Lagdi. The Indians might be ahead in films but our television has always provided better quality entertainment than theirs. We don’t have a Shahrukh, they don’t have an Abrarul Haq and that is a fact. They are all stars and in considering them so, I thought I was neutral. But there are some things that stir you to the core, and the recent “developments” on our television channels in the wake of Pakistan-India friendship have finally managed to do so.
First it was the sponsored mujra-like songs that are being aired, rather than our own songs. Indian film songs are being lifted, remixed and picturized with the female lead wearing lehngas or peshwazes. I really fail to understand the idea behind these songs and where Pakistan enters into it. They are not our creation, they are not in keeping with our culture, then why hire Pakistani models and shoot them in Pakistan to try to pass them off as Pakistani to fool people into believing that this is the Pakistani answer to the remix wave engulfing India?
We need to understand that the Indians are remixing old numbers to fill up space in their pop charts because there is nothing happening on their pop scene. Our perfect answer to that is Ali Azmat’s Na re na or Zeshan and Sajid’s King of Self. Yes, we are different from them and we are very classy.
If you look closely at the Indian television programmes, their channels either telecast films or film-related programmes 85 per cent of the time. Why follow them in TV programming? Zee is still airing the same Antakshiri it was airing 10 years back. What we need to learn is advertising, backing our own talent and presenting it to the world as ours. And believe me we are learning. Videos and advertisements in Pakistan now are way above the ones aired 10 years back.
As yet, the major electronic media issue has been the satellite invasion in the country and the threat that Indian satellite channels pose to our culture. But I have seen this issue recently take a very different turn. What came as a shock to me was a cooking show on one channel where an actress greets viewers with her hands folded. What, may I ask, happened to the Assalam-o-Alaikum? Should all we married ladies have a bindiya on the forehead and sport sindur in the maang like Maria Wasti in one of her serials? And it is not just the independent channels, Shagufta Ijaz greets her new bahu in one of the serials on PTV, making circles with “sadqa” money in her hands in front of the bahu like the “arti” in Hinduism.
Such a trend developing in our channels is not a cultural invasion; it is culture cloning of the Indians. I hope our “independent” channels realize that and do what they are truly meant to do, i.e. represent Pakistan in the satellite world.
SHAISTA RAMEEZ
Lahore
BEFORE the presentation of the Finance Bill 2006 in the National Assembly, senior government officials were issuing statements and making tall claims that considering various factors, the government would provide relief to the salaried class by reducing tax rates.
However, the bill seeks to withdraw the benefit of reduction of tax liability now available to the salaried class under Para (I) (I) of Part III of Second Schedule to the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
By following such double standards, the CBR has shattered the confidence which the government seeks in society for the purpose of broadening the tax base and for reviving confidence in the taxation system. The proposal to withdraw this relief available to the salaried class who are already hard hit by inflation is tantamount to making a mockery of the government’s own initiative of reducing the tax rate.
It is requested that the available relief in tax reduction should be retained in the best interest of salaried taxpayers who are one of the major contributors of taxes to the national exchequer.
MUHAMMAD ALEEM
Karachi
FINALLY we are getting signals of flexibility from India. And we are also getting indications as to what could be a Kashmir solution. Full sovereignty may not be given to the people of Kashmir and chances of redrawing of LoC are becoming dim. What we can expect now is a solution providing for self-government within the territorial limits of the two countries.
This is a very crucial time. Anti-peace forces will try their best to sabotage this process. The determination of the Indian and Pakistani leaderships will be tested. We need a leadership that can lead us and not be led by emotional slogans. We have no right to say that Kashmiris are being betrayed when the Kashmiri leadership itself is satisfied with current developments. ZEESHAN AHMAD
Lahore
A couple of underpasses are being built in Lahore under the canal flowing through the Quaid-i-Azam Campus of Punjab University. These are now nearing completion, and pillars are being erected at prominent places to display, as is customary in our country, the names of political figures who may be at the helm of affairs for the time being.
It would be a good gesture of “enlightenment” if the underpasses are named after old teachers or distinguished alumni of the university instead of political persons whose position is transitory and often controversial.
ABDUL QAYYUM QURESHI
Lahore
FOR the past several days Sindh’s illustrious Amil family, the Advanis, was with us.
Mr L. K. Advani’s visit to St. Patrick’s High School and his house in Jamshed Quarters brought back flashbacks of his childhood.
He visited Mohatta Palace but could not be entertained at another Mohatta landmark, the RGM Hindu Gymkhana, now housing PASA and others.
As its present acting president, after the recent death of Mr Dalpat Sonavaria, it would have given the Sindhi Hindus and myself great pleasure to greet the Advanis there for a happier homecoming. Instead, the Hindu Panchayat feasted them at the PC.
RGM Hindu Gymkhana’s 39,110 sq yds lease dated March 1, 1921, for 99 years is still valid. Our late president fought hard to get it back.
Hopefully the present scenario will induce the Sindh government to give back to the Hindu population its rightful place to celebrate festivals and meet socially like the Muslim Gymkhana and the YMCA close by.
My Alma Mater has got back St Patrick’s College. How about the RGM Hindu Gymkhana?
VINOO GURDAS ADVANI
Acting President, RGM Hindu Gymkhana, Karachi
SALES tax SRO No. 535 (1) 2005 and SRO No. 536 (1) 2005, issued on June 6, 2005 have created a great deal of confusion in the local sewing thread industry. SRO 535 has zero-rated sales tax on supplies on all textile articles falling under PCT heading 5001.00 to 63.10. On the other hand, SRO 536 issued on the same day lists the individual PCT headings on which sales tax has been zero-rated and this list excludes PCT headings relating to sewing threads: 5204.1900, 5204.2010, 5204.2020 (cotton threads) and 5508.100 (polyester threads). In this way, the two SROs issued on the same day appear to be contradictory.
This anomaly will make life very difficult for the value- added textile industry, i.e., knitwear and woven garments. They will have to continue to pay input sales tax on purchase of sewing thread, and then claim refund for this sales tax later on. This is exactly the problem that the government had tried to resolve by exempting the entire textile chain from payment of sales tax, and thus saving it from having to claim massive tax refunds.
Furthermore, keeping the local sewing thread under the sales tax regime while exempting both the raw material for sewing thread (cotton ad polyester yarn) and also the customers of sewing thread (knitwear, hosiery and bed linen) from payment of sales tax, will introduce a complexity in the sales tax system.
It is hoped that the existing confusion will be removed as soon as possible by declaring the polyester and cotton sewing and embroidery threads also as zero-rated for sales tax.
SAEED HAIDER
Karachi
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