| October 13, 2005 | Thursday | Ramzan 8, 1426 |
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‘Diplomacy at gunpoint’
‘Gentlemen farmers’
Time to take responsibility
Low-cost subways
9/11, 7/7 and OIC
Doctors’ services
Homoeopathic degree
Dividing curtain
Chappel is right
Mong carnage
WE are a team of doctors and paramedics from a reputed medical institution leaving with all our equipment and medicines to perform our duty in this hour of national catastrophe. The offer of a free air journey for doctors as announced by a private airlines on TV simply proved time-wasting in our experience.
If at all they have any such offer, it must be clarified to avoid confusion and botheration to the medical fraternity. It is time our national carrier, PIA, makes it convenient for the medical fraternity to take part in the relief work.
DR TALHA M. SIDDIQUI
Karachi
THE New York Times had issued a clear seismic warning more than four years ago about a potential quake threat to Islamabad and adjoining areas devastated by the most deadly tremor on a massive Richter scale of 7.5.The warning had appeared chapter and verse in August in 2001 in an English-language daily here.
The studies quoted in the story indicated that the “foothills of the Margallas in Islamabad are close to the catastrophe zone”. The report had predicted 40,000 deaths and 100,000 injuries. It had even gone to the extent of warning that “much worse (than previous quakes)appears not only inevitable but overdue”. Why such a dire warning was ignored by the authorities in Islamabad needs to be investigated.
If the warning had been heeded, the tragedy may not have been prevented but a substantial loss of lives and property could have been averted by taking safety measures in time.
B. A. MALIK
Islamabad
MORE is required to save women and children — the little ones are our future. For providing help and relief, we should work systematically, setting priorities. These should be: (a) tent villages with provision of blankets and food; (b) clearing debris from across the roads, if some are still serviceable — if not, the army should provide emergency steel bridges, if possible, to make all devastated places accessible; (c) everybody who can help should join hands with relief workers and volunteers to clear the rubble; and (d) all relief goods, including food items and clothing, should reach the needy with the same speed they have been collected.
As for international help, we should thank those countries which have supplied valuable services and equipment in this hour of need. All wealthy Muslim countries should come forward to donate generously besides sending medical teams and medicines. Without losing national respect, we can also accept help from Israel and India.
S.M. KAZIM NAQVI
Karachi
THE world is a little darker today — never to be forgotten. The catastrophe that struck Pakistan is the second biggest after the Quetta quake in 1935. A fond farewell to the innocent who could be a ray of sunshine for the country.
Help those who have lost their bread-winners by providing them with jobs and money so that they can become independent. If any financial assistance is announced, it should be distributed on the spot instead of time being wasted in departmental procedures. Provide the affected people with permanent shelter out of the domestic and foreign financial assistance. Let life pulsate once again. We should do our duty.
SARFARAZ ZIA ANSARI
Karachi
THIS refers to Mr Kuldip Nayar’s article “Diplomacy at gunpoint” (Oct 1). The writer contends that New Delhi acted under pressure and voted against Iran at the IAEA, Vienna, to ensure the supply of civil nuclear reactors and their technology from America and Europe. He further elaborates the point by saying that the US Congress had made it abundantly clear before the voting at the IAEA that its response would be dependent on how New Delhi voted. It was diplomacy at gunpoint.
Nevertheless, the writer says, in similar circumstances, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru would have acted differently. How he could act differently was not explained by Mr Nayar. In an effort to prove that Nehru had a strong conviction and would take a principled stand, Mr Nayar says: “Although India was weak, Nehru challenged the UK and France when they tried to capture Suez. He saw to their withdrawal.”
However, Middle Eastern history sees the turn of events in 1956 in a different light. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956 after the US and Britain refused to fund the Aswan Dam project which Nasser saw as a means to developing Egypt as a modern nation. Britain and France who were shareholders in the canal decided Nasser had to be removed from power. Israel also wanted to see Nasser deposed. So, on Oct 23, 1956, British, French and Israel representatives met in Paris to devise a military plan.
On Oct 29, 1956 Israel launched an attack on Egyptian forces in the Sinai peninsula. The next day Britain and France issued an ultimatum to Egypt and Israel to withdraw their forces to a distance of 10 miles from the Suez Canal. Israel complied, Egypt did not.
Britain and France began an aerial bombardment on Egyptian airfields. In this war Israel captured Gaza and the whole of the Sinai peninsula. However, under strong pressure from the US and the USSR and threats of United Nations sanctions, Israel was eventually forced to withdraw from all of Sinai.
In the whole episode where did India figure that Mr Nayar now claims that Mr Nehru “saw the withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied area (Sinai)”.
Also, how could Mr Nehru raise his voice against the illegal occupation of the Sinai peninsula when he himself was guilty of the forceful occupation of the Kashmir Valley?
LT-COL (retd) SAFIR A. SIDDIQUI
Karachi
THANKS to Mr Aman Saiyed (Sept 29) for having initiated a debate in these columns on an issue that might be on the minds of many. My narrative (Diary of a gentleman farmer, Sept 25) was based on the situation confronting the growers in the mango season, and I did not mention the wider dilemma which our farmer faces in a country better known as an agrarian economy, where 70 per cent of the GDP is derived from agriculture and spent on cosmetic fortification.
Agriculture is the only sector where every square inch of land is charted in revenue records. Even the barren and non-productive landholding of a farmer is taxed. Orchards are levied twice that levied on all other crops, yet the growers are not facilitated.
We are paying water cess though the supply has been truncated to a minimum and no reservoirs are being built. The cost of diesel is skyrocketing. Talking about subsidized diesel to farmers may be the story of farmers across our eastern border; here in Pakistan, villages are overcharged sometimes for even adulterated diesel.
Apart from innumerable taxes, farmers are paying heavily in indirect taxes. The rise in the cost of inputs, fertilizers, pesticides, farm machinery and others have not been reciprocated with value addition of our produce and is left at the mercy of nature and exploiting middlemen.
About 96 per cent of our farmers have small landholdings, deprived of the basic facilities of good shelter, health, education and income.
By virtue of policies removed from reality, Pakistan is being compelled to ignore the high-value crops produced in abundance. The agriculture sector is presumed to resist initiatives. The nation is made to believe that agriculture is not a business but a culture emanating from lethargy and exploitation. It is the other way round. Underdevelopment and poverty are rising in a rural Pakistan due to a non-developed infrastructure.
ZAHID HUSSAIN GARDEZI
President, Mango Growers Association, Pakistan
Multan
I AM a final-year student of the Dow Medical College, Karachi. Everyday I have to go to attend my ward in rotation. We all know the condition of the Civil Hospital, Karachi. It’s far from good. It is almost like a jungle where we (patients and those who work in the CHK, especially students) have to survive unhygienic conditions and the chaos created by construction activity.
Not to forget the hazard of being pricked by all those used syringes lying anywhere from the windowpanes in wards to tables near bedsides. After battling all these problems for four long years, I have across a new one.
I was in the neo-natal unit of the paediatric ward, where my current work means going through the files of different patients, when I got pricked by something very sharp. To my surprise, some doctors in the ward had pinned patients’ documents using syringe needles. It was not clear whether these were used needles or not. The bundle of pinned documents was resting near a patient’s pillow, the patient being a nine-day-old baby girl, sharing the hospital bed with her mother.
I don’t understand how doctors with all that knowledge can be so indifferent and inconsiderate and not at all be concerned about their responsibilities. How are they supposed to treat their patients if they don’t even respect their lives? It is almost as if they look at them as customers and not as human beings in extreme poverty, pain and suffering. Such people should be banned from this profession.
My appeal to all my fellow students and doctors is that it’s time we took our responsibilities seriously because this profession calls for saving lives, not taking them.
SANA SHAHBAZ
Karachi
MOST deaths on roads in Karachi involve pedestrians. There are a few pedestrian bridges that are too high to be easily used. Most of the time these are not used.
There are only three subways for pedestrians in this large city.
An economical subway design was proposed in the Institution of Engineers Pakistan’s magazine of September 1994 for a shallow oval pedestrian subway, which can be built in a very short time, without cutting the roads or affecting normal traffic, using the boring and jacking technique. Two such subways close to each other can even provide space for small shops to keep them clean and safe for pedestrians.
It is, therefore, suggested that this design may be reviewed and tried at some suitable site and adopted for general use.
S.M.H. RIZVI
Karachi
MUCH has been written, mostly in emotional vein, on the above topic. Gnashing of teeth and chest-beating have been the most visible reactions. Some have even taken refuge in the mystic world of predictions and miracles such as the coming of a ‘super hero’ and divine wrath on the infidels.
This is the reaction not only of the unwise but also of our religious and political leaders. As far as the governments of Muslim countries are concerned, they are far more concerned with their survival than with the plight of Muslims at large.
This impotent fury is the result of inherent weakness as opposed to the calm confidence of the strong. The vast wealth which most Muslim countries enjoy, not because of any hard work but because of God’s gifts, has not been uniformly employed for national reconstruction and development of human resources and for building a strong base in international financial circles.
For the last 50 years and more there has not been any visible effort to find an alternative way of dealing with the developing hostility towards Muslim countries, especially after 9/11 and 7/7.
For the first time the OIC has tried to break out of its increasing isolation by coopting certain non-Muslim countries as observers to the OIC sessions. These observers happen to be mostly located on the Mediterranean rim. This process should be taken a step further by proposing a Mediterranean Free Trade Zone (MFTA) comprising European and Afro-Arab countries located around the Mediterranean rim. Unless they have active partners in trade and industry from Europe, the Muslim countries will never be able to break out of their isolation. Once the European countries realize there is much benefit in commercial and industrial cooperation with Afro-Arab countries, they will be interested in considering alternative policies towards the Arab countries. Some of the oil revenues should be used to service the MFTA either in the form of loans to Arab entrepreneurs or as a fund for the development of trade in the MFTA.
The Arab countries in particular and Muslim countries in general must realize that their highest priority is the development of human resources in the fields of higher education and cutting-edge skills.
Petro-dollars should also be made available to Muslim countries strictly for development of infrastructure and human resources. There are now well-documented criteria for assessing the feasibility of a project which any Muslim country may put up for financing. These small steps would develop economic activity on an increasing scale in Muslim countries which would attract investors and traders from the West who are already investing heavily in China and India because of the availability of highly skilled labour and developed infrastructure.
F.H. ANSARI
Karachi
DOES our ministry of health have plans to introduce a law as in India that doctors’ services should be put under the consumer protection act, enabling doctors to be sued for negligence and compensation be given to the aggrieved?
Many private-sector hospitals and their doctors perform tonsilitis operations in two instalments so that patients have to pay twice since many surgeons work on a commission basis and want to make money. Most of the patients do not know that both the tonsils must be removed in one go.
Many times old rods are installed in broken legs or a broken part of the body, but the patients are charged for new rods. It is very important that the government should introduce a consumer protection act so that doctors’ unethical practices should be checked. What has the Pakistan Medical Association to say in this regard and what action can be taken by the association?
Pharmaceutical companies have recently increased the prices of drugs and medicines. Some of these medicines are being sold at less than half the price in our neighbouring country.
The ministry of health should take necessary steps to check the steep rise in prices of drugs and medicines. Through these columns I wish to hear the reaction of the ministry of health and what steps are being taken to get prices reduced in line with prices in India.
KHALID M. KHAN
Karachi
OUR National Council of Homeopathy awards diploma certificates (DHMS) to candidates who have passed the four-year course in homeopathy. Regretfully, no university in Pakistan awards any degree in homeopathy whereas a large number of universities in India award degrees of Bachelor of Homeopathy Medical Science (BHMS).
In our country and other countries of the world the course contents and training in the subject are almost the same. I, therefore, suggest that our medical universities or other universities may come forward and recognize the subject.
The universities may award affiliation to homeopathy colleges (private and public), revise the syllabuses and courses and, if possible, get their approval from the Higher Education Commission, then conduct examinations as they are doing in allopathic medicine and award a bachelor’s degree. Our National Council of Homeopathy may also issue registration certificates to homeopath doctors after examining the graduates as is being done by the PMDC.
AMARNATH MOTUMAL
Karachi
The Dawn-Guardian News Service article “Golden curtain divides old and new Russia” published in your issue dated Oct 12 says in part: “Crime, paranoia and a desire to impress the neighbours have led many wealthy families (in Russia) to build high walls around their properties, screening them from the poverty and uncertainty outside.
‘‘Their contact with others from different backgrounds is minimal. Even when they venture out from their fortified homes, the bubble is kept intact....
“Concern is growing that (children of such families) are being denied the skills to operate outside the pampered existence of secluded compounds.”
Does this ring a bell for any one of us here?
NAIMAH SIDDIQI
Karachi
GREG Chappel the former Australian captain and batting great, took over as Indian coach in June. Within three months, he made his presence felt — not only in India but wherever cricket is played — when he minced no words about the current status of Indian captain Saurav Ganguly.
Whatever Chappel has said about Ganguly is correct and based on facts. In retrospect, one can say that since the last World Cup 2003 played in South Africa, Ganguly has been showing lack of form. Cricket experts like Richie Benaud and Imran Khan denounced him as a leader who neither sets an example to be followed by his team, nor does he ever rise to the occasion.
For Ganguly the reason for being the most successful cricket captain of India was that he was lucky enough to get a bunch of very good players who performed exceptionally well even against the best of opposition while his own performance went from bad to worse or at the most it remained below average.
So if Greg Chappel wants Genguly to step down and make way for a better player, it stands to reason. The Indian selectors or the BCCI will be making a great mistake if they do not listen to someone whom they have themselves selected to take important decisions and prepare a strong team for the World Cup 2007. In other words, if the BCCI is not ready to follow the advice of their own coach, then why did they hire him in the first place?
RAFAT MAHMOOD ANSARI
Islamabad
THE horrifying happening at Mong on 7/10 represents the worst manifestation of armed obscurantism; obscurantism stoked and fostered since 1953 against a responsible and law-abiding community.
In situ, it is unfortunate that successive administrations, barring one or two, ignored the flashing amber lights starting with the Munir Inquiry Report (1954), and proceeding through the findings of the mission of the International Commission of Jurists (Pakistan: Human Rights After Martial Law: 1987), and beyond in reports of human rights watchdogs of international renown and repute. Had they heeded the advice and taken concrete corrective measures in good time, the sectarian bloodbaths that we continue to go through for two decades were surely avoidable.
Indeed how telling is the axiom that whereas the persecuted may be right or wrong, the persecutors are never right.
M.J. AS’AD
Karachi
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