| October 2, 2005 | Sunday | Sha’aban 27, 1426 |
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SAU: administration’s view
Energy saving measures
‘Wars of the 21st Century’
Stem cell therapy
Pindi police
Outsize billboards
Oil price
OIC summit
Admission policy
Good news
THE dramatic climb-down by India in backing the US-supported, EU-sponsored motion to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, in the face of India’s earlier support of Iran’s stand on the nuclear issue, is a telling rebuttal of the conventional wisdom that India was much too big and resourceful to bend to external (read US) pressure.
The latter was also the assumption behind the US unwillingness or professed inability to play an effective third-party role in helping to resolve the long-standing Kashmir dispute unless India also (apart from Pakistan) agreed to a US role.
While war was never the solution, the intermittent bilateral dialogues (including Nehru-Bogra, Swaran Singh-Bhutto and other negotiations) leading up to the current composite dialogue, have not, on their part, led to any breakthrough. The US has refrained from playing an active role to break the stalemate over Kashmir on the ostensible ground that this was subject to the concurrence of India as well. However, the Indian volte-face on Iran shows to what extent India is now amenable to US leverage on matters which are an important US concern which should extend to the assurance of durable peace and accelerated economic development for a quarter of the world’s population through a just settlement of the Kashmir issue.
For India, Iran has been one of its shining diplomatic successes. In January 2003, President Khatami was the guest of honour at India’s annual Republic Day parade, an honour reserved for close allies. The same year the two countries signed a $20-billion deal involving energy and defence cooperation. What a turnaround for a state like Iran which had been described as a threat to India’s security in one of the annual public reports of the Indian defence ministry during the period of close security cooperation between Pakistan and Iran. India has now bowed to the undoubted US leverage, notwithstanding Iran’s position as an assured source of energy supply and a conduit for Indian access to Central Asia and Afghanistan.
The visionary, idealistic founding fathers and proud proponents of India’s independent foreign policy must be, if not actually turning, then at least squirming in their graves at this latest display of unprincipled pragmatism by the heirs of a leadership which had spearheaded the Non-Aligned Movement and led the Afro-Asian community of nations. The records of the UN are witness to India’s voting record at the Security Council and numerous other UN forums, showing a preponderance of anti-US positions adopted by India on contentious issues during the period of its independent foreign policy.
While progress in the peace process under the South Asian neighbours’ own steam is, on all counts, by far the preferable option, the US should re-examine the advisability of bringing its influence to bear in pursuit of a Kashmir settlement as urged by President Musharraf during his recent meeting with visiting US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. In the two-year period since the inauguration of the peace process in January 2005, the two rounds of the composite dialogue have failed to resolve a single dispute, while the Srinagar-Muzzarfarabad bus service and the APHC visit to Pakistan constitute the only two Kashmir-related CBMs. Although the positive change in the atmosphere of bilateral relations is a significant gain, the continued stone-walling by India on the core issue spells uncertainly for the prospects for South Asia’s stability and development.
America’s own vital stakes in a South Asian settlement were summed up by Stephen Cohen, one of its leading experts on the region, who wrote in “The Idea of Pakistan” that “Pakistan is situated at the cross-roads of many important American interests, including terrorism, non-proliferation, democratization, relations with the Islamic world and with other important Asian states … “.
While India may understandably be expected to pursue its national interests, as it perceives them, the current peace process, bolstered by the unremitting efforts of President Musharraf’s government, provides an unprecedented opportunity for India to shape its objectives in a direction which is also in harmony with the interests of the region, including neighbour Pakistan.
MAHDI MASUD
Karachi
This is with reference to the Bureau Report, (Dawn, Sept 16) about the role of the Security Wing of Sindh Agriculture University, Tando Jam. In the report, the SAU Teachers’ Association criticized me and my staff for not carefully handling the law and order situation on Sept 8. I would, however, like to give my account of the day.
On Sept 8 at about 12:30pm, Dr Maula Bux, student Adviser, informed me on the telephone that a group of 25 to 30 boys was creating nuisance in the Faculty of Crop Production by beating drums. When they were forbidden by the dean, they retaliated by giving abuses to the teachers. Thereafter they moved towards the administration block.
Assistant Security Officer Muhammad Ashraf Rustmani and Company Commander, Campus police, Mr Zulfiqar Shah, were in my office. I told them to go and cordon the group of students with the police personnel and monitor their move.
I informed the local police, who promptly sent their mobile force (our usual method of monitoring).
I went up to the main gate to see the situation, which was normal. Mr Rustmani came back after some time and reported that the procession could not gather strength and was well within control. Mr Zulfiqar, along with his men, remained throughout with the mob. We all were in communication on the cell phone. After some time the group of boys moved toward the transport sheds, from where they were expected to go home, as it was closing time.
At about 2:15pm, all employees and students started getting impatient to go home, so they asked the Rangers, returning from their patrol duty, to get the transport shed cleared of these demonstrators. As the Rangers closed in, they were pelted with stones by some students.
This sudden provocation caused offensive reaction and the Rangers resorted to a baton charge and apprehended three students, who were the main culprits. Mr Rustmani was right there with the students and informed me in time.
Since the vice chancellor was out of station on duty, he was informed on the cell phone and he ordered the handing over of the arrested students to the police. Meanwhile, I along with Dr Qazi Suleman, senior most Dean, Dr Umeed Ali Bulro and Dr Maula Bux Kumber, had a quick meeting to consider the situation and decide on further action. At 03:15pm the Rangers were ordered to escort the transport convoy to Hyderabad and the arrested students were handed over to the police.
At about 04:45 pm, I was informed that the students had again pelted the Rangers with stones, when they returned to the hostel gate, after the convoy escort duty. I rushed to the hostel gate and found that the place was littered with stones, whereas the Rangers had busted inside the hostels and the students had hidden themselves inside the hostel buildings. The Rangers again arrested three students, two of them P.Os, and had FIRs registered in the local police station.
At about 09:00pm, the vice chancellor arrived and called a meeting of all the concerned officers, including Police TPO, and Rangers Commanders, where it was decided to let the prevalent situation stay for the night. Thereafter from the next day onwards conditions were eased out.
Initially we were of the opinion that it was an impromptu incident, but on the second day there was a repetition of the same incident at Sindh University, Jamshoro. Here the students were pitched against the police instead of Rangers. On the third day, students ransacked the Vice Chancellor’s office. These events indicate that fully planned operations were launched by the miscreants to exploit the students and pitch them against the law enforcement agencies.
As regards the allegation of allotment of the bungalow to the Rangers by Meritorious Professor Dr R.B. Mirbahar, the accusations were made on suppositions.
Lt-Col (retd) Syed Khalid Murad
Director, Administration Campus,
SAU, Tando Jam
DROPPING the five-day week proposal is good news, as it offered no substantial advantage. LPG, CNG, ethanol and biogas are being used in many countries to save on oil, which has become unaffordable.
The biggest drain on oil fuel in Pakistan is due to the transfer of 85 per cent freight from rail to road since the 1980s, due to the lopsided priority by the agencies concerned, causing over $1 billion per year loss to the national economy because of higher consumption of oil. This must be much higher now.
This is due to the fact that road vehicles consume energy at about 10 HP per ton, whereas rail consumes nearly 1.2 HP per ton of load carried. The total loss since the 1980s on this account would be mind-boggling. This also involves consequent higher pollution and a high rate of road accidents. In view of this position measures are urgently needed to transfer most of the long-distance freight from the road back to rail. This will require better use of locomotives by amalgamating many passenger trains, induction of freight wagons and, above all, utilization of road trucks for short- distance hauls from railway stations to godowns. Some improvements of rail tracks and signalling systems are also needed, besides re-provision of rail tracks in the KPT. All these can be easily achieved within a few months.
Long-term improvements include quadrupling of tracks from port to Pipri, which has been pending for over a century, while land for it has been lying acquired since the 1880s when the railway was built, besides doubling of tracks beyond Lodhran towards Lahore and, finally, extension of electrified tracks from Karachi to Khanewal, etc, in stages.
I am sure all these measures can be easily achieved within the available resources with good planning and execution.
S.M.H. RIZVI
Karachi
MR. M.P. Bhandara (Sept 27) again talks about the sinister super organization, Al Qaeda, that all the powers in the world have failed to vanquish even after four years of merciless war. He paints the spectre of “Islamist terrorists going global” and “nuclear fire-bombing major US cities with bomb grade plutonium from Abkhazia”. He also fears bin Laden may try to take over Saudi oilfields. As he puts it: “What greater ambition for a renegade reclusive billionaire than to disturb the universe?”
There are no limits to one’s imagination, but these are best explored in fiction. Realistically, Al Qaeda was little more than a collection of some rag-tag and bob-tall fugitives hiding in remote caves of Afghanistan with nowhere to go. Their leader depended on a kidney dialysis machine to survive. In all probability, none of them is alive today. As to the home-made nuclear bombs, these are a myth. Tests have shown that a so-called “dirty bomb”, at worst, will make a few people sick.
The Americans needed a bogey man, and Al Qaeda was the best they could find as an excuse for occupying Afghanistan. They want to keep the myth alive because, as the satirist Mencken put it: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the public alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
No one wants terrorism and few favour the terrorists but, in dealing with them, one must not lose sight of reality and reason. The West may have its purpose for churning out alarmist propaganda. We don’t have to swallow everything they tell us hook, line and sinker.
K. HUSSAN ZIA
Mississauga, Canada
THIS has reference to Dr Farhat Moazzam’s letter “Stem cell therapy” (Sept 24).
I am disappointed at the attitude of senior medical healthcare professionals towards the introduction of cutting-edge, innovative and low-cost medical technologies that may alleviate suffering and benefit patients for whom there is very little hope in conventional medicines/medical treatments.
I am particularly surprised at the “grave concern” expressed by Dr Moazzam on the advertisement placed in Dawn on Sept 11. Not one of the doctors and/or professors of medicine who have been criticizing the pioneering new, patented and validated technology, including Dr Moazzam, appear to have made the effort to actually contact the doctors involved in the project or directly to get further information on retrodifferentiated stem cell therapy and its benefits.
None of the eminent doctors have gone to TriStem Corporation’s website (www.tristemcorp.com) or Google.com (search word “Ilham Abuljadayel”) to try and get information on the history of this technology and/or the scientific research conducted by Dr Ilham Abuljadayel since 1990. Instead, they are criticizing a revolutionary technology and may be discouraging terminally-ill patients (with no conventional medical options) to look at stem cell therapy.
At no point in time have any of our advertisements claimed a “cure” for any/all diseases. We have advertised a “treatment” of diseases in which conventional medicine has either been ineffective or does not have a treatment.
In Beta Thalassaemia Major, a genetic disorder for which Dr Moazzam has claimed that nothing is possible using retrodifferentiation, our results (verified by two independent laboratories including the Aga Khan University Hospital Lab) show a significant decrease in transfusion requirements and a drop in iron load as measured by Serum Ferritin “without” any chelation within a period of 1.2 weeks.
In every discussion with inquiring patients, we have advised all parties involved on the nature of this new treatment.
We plan to present the benefits of retrodifferentiated stem cell therapy and the results obtained thus far through an open seminar for all concerned to be held in Karachi very shortly and publish the findings to-date in the appropriate forum.
TARIQ MUMTAZ
Karachi
WHY do we dislike our police? After going through the agony of contacting police officers of relatively high level to report the negligence and injustice of some police officers, I came to know that why we dislike our police.
On Sept 24 a seven-year-old boy was run down by a pick-up on Chakari Road, Rawalpindi. The place of incident is hardly 100 yards away from the police checkpost.
It happened at 8.30am and the police reached the spot about 12 noon. When the SPP was contacted to let him know that no one so far had been arrested by the police in the case, he said: “You write an application as I have more than 100 police stations to see and I can’t listen to you in this way”.
I was shocked to hear him speak like this as I have read that the foremost duty of a police officer is to console the aggrieved.
DR ZAFAR IQBAL
Rawalpindi
THIS has reference to the news report (Karachi Metropolitan section, Sept 16) about a huge billboardfront of the Hotel Metropole falling on a car and several motorcycles. This is due to poor workmanship by the contractor, who must be penalized.
In fact, most big billboards pose a risk of such accidents. Many are fabricated and erected without public safety in mind. The foundation bolts are left open to be corroded, although they should be coated with rust-preventive paint and then embedded in the foundation.
Secondly, it is noticed that whenever a billboard is removed, the foundation bolts are left behind on the pavements and roads. Pedestrians can be hurt.
There is an urgent need to establish an engineering cell in the city government which should properly inspect all billboards and force contractors to rectify the faults.
SALEEM ATHAR
Karachi
MR AZIZ Suharwardy (Sept 16) has brought out that either the government and/or the oil companies are making a profit of Rs20 per litre on the retail sale of petrol which comes to Rs3,180 per barrel. Converting at the current market rate of a dollar, thus comes to about $53 per barrel.
The government and the oil companies owe an explanation to the people of Pakistan why they should be allowed such profiteering.
MAHER ALAVI
Karachi
IN his article “Setting an agenda for the OIC summit(Sept 29), Mr Ahsan Iqbal has drawn attention to a number of weaknesses of Muslim countries like education and health, and has given useful suggestions for the next OIC summit.
However, he has not mentioned a very important positive aspect, i.e., the possession of 70 per cent of the world’s oil and gas reserves by Muslim countries, which, with the backing of 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, can be used as an effective weapon, if used intelligently, for global peace with justice.
The OIC should persuade the Muslim rulers of these countries to use the oil weapon by warning the aggressor nations that oil supplies to them would be reduced if they do not change their policies.
The oil-producing Muslim countries should reassure the world that oil production is not being reduced. With the US heavily dependent on oil, having faced two hurricanes and with more predicted, a slowdown of its economy and its people’s increasing opposition to their government’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would not be possible for the US to attack or occupy any country in the existing situation.
S. SIBTUL HASAN HAZEEN
Karachi
SINCE last year the NWFP has done away with the self-financing scheme for admission to medical colleges. But the Punjab government reserved 340 seats in medical colleges of the province under the guise of self-financing scheme and put them up for sale to the scions of the rich in contravention of the instruction of the Higher Education Commission.
It is the poor who pay all the taxes with which educational institutions are run. Most of them, however, die without medical care they cannot afford. Now their children are being denied the right to higher professional education, even if they come on merit. In this contest, the self-financing scheme is discriminatory and a denial of a right. The government, which champions the cause of democracy and fundamental rights, is requested to stop this scheme.
M. NAZIR CHAHAL
Gujranwala
WITH Sachin Tendulkar now out of the Super Series Test, Pakistan captain Inzamamul Haq has been called up. The decision to include him is a bit belated but it is still good news for fans of cricket in Pakistan. Our prayers and good wishes are with him.
HASHIM KHAN
Quetta
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