| October 14, 2005 | Friday | Ramzan 9, 1426 |
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Traffic jams & serious patients
‘Conversion questions’
Steel from Kalabagh
‘Our colonial heritage’
Gas pipeline & beyond
Stress counsellor
Dead phone
Senior citizens
Oil price calculations
THE national calamity that struck Pakistan on the morning of 3rd Ramazan is an eye-opener and I appreciate the statement of President Gen Musharraf that it is nature’s hour of test for him and his colleagues.
The loss of lives and property is not only devastating but calls for serious attention and action so they are not repeated again.
One immediately recalled the violent tremor which struck the Hindukush range in the Northern Areas, including Pattan-Bisham, in 1974-75 when villages were buried under landslides and forgotten by all of us in spite of unprecedented financial assistance for relief operation, which has never been accounted for.
Merely saying that it is humanly impossible to prevent such disasters is a mirror of bad governance because it is very much in the control of governments to use their resources for the safety and well-being of their people.
So, it is due to the failure of successive governments that innocent people are made to pay such a high cost.
A friend from Japan was explaining that earthquakes measured up to 10 on the Richter scale pose no major threat there because keeping in view the seismic zones in Asia, they have designed the building structures according to safety standards that our administrations have ignored.
The Margalla Towers tragedy in Islamabad is not a pardonable offence. Will President Musharraf please order an inquiry to expose those responsible for poor planning and construction?
ALI ASHRAF KHAN
Karachi
THE most touching and tragic aspect of the earthquake catastrophe is the death of young school children.
A similar tragedy had struck the only superpower of today and that country, with all the might and wealth at its command, could not reach its stricken people for even a week.
But in Pakistan the government was able to mobilize the resources available to it and commence relief operations immediately.
Our armed forces, which always come to our aid and assistance in times of need, were mobilized in full strength under the command of General Pervez Musharraf.
Pakistanis from every nook and corner of the country, rich and poor, old and young, also took the lead in providing relief both in cash and kind.
This has created immense confidence in the government. The policies framed and pursued nationally and internationally by the government, under the stewardship of the president and prime minister, are the reason for the overwhelming response from the international community.
KHALID RASHID QURAISHI
Karachi
THE local and international media are continuously reporting on the latest situation on the ground in the areas hit by the earthquake. What is being seen is that it is going to be very difficult for the earthquake survivors because there is no food, safe drinking water, medical care and above all no adequate shelter.
The cold weather — and it will get colder as each day passes — is making life even more difficult.
The question is how will these people live for months with no shelter? It may be a better option if the government temporarily relocated the earthquake survivors to Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore.
AMER IQBAL
Lahore
THE country has witnessed perhaps the worst tragedy in its history. The army, the people and international aid workers are working out of their skins to help people in the worst-hit areas.
However, an astonishing thing is the complete absence of civil government officials and police from the relief work. It is understandable that the civil administration and police of the areas that have been devastated are no longer in a position to help but what about the governments of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan? The efforts being made by the Pakistan Army, especially its jawans, need to be acknowledged and so must be the response of the ordinary people which has been remarkable.
MUHAMMAD JAVED
Karachi
TRAGEDY knows no boundary. As an Indian from across the border I share the pain and agony of the thousands who have suffered, especially children, and offer my prayers for the dead. This is a time to help and heal and I am deeply saddened by the Pakistan government’s decision not to allow relief workers to cross the LoC.
Believe me, if an Indian Air Force helicopter or an Indian army medical team goes across, it’ll be on a purely humanitarian mission.
SATISH KALRA
New Delhi
AFTER the colossal tragedy we have witnessed, the occasional jolts felt in Karachi over the past few months assume a more ominous significance. On the night of Oct. 11 a tremor was reported and recorded. In the recent past there have been at least a couple felt in the Defence Housing Authority area, but not registered as seismic activity. So what were they? Was it because of blasting in Phase VIII to build a high-rise luxury building or is the seismic centre too far to pick up such activity?
Perhaps we should have a centre in or near Karachi for this region due to its dense population and the fact that a fault line passes through it. Perhaps a geological expert could comment on this.
DR A. AHMED
Karachi
THE College of Family Medicine Pakistan, Karachi, fully supports the views expressed by Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi on traffic jams that create problems even for ambulances and to which the lack of civic sense even among educated persons has contributed. It is a hard fact that the traffic police are not able to control the situation. The worst example of this was witnessed on Oct 5 when thousands were stuck in traffic snarls all around the city. It took commuters two hours to reach the post office in Liaquatabad from Guru Mandir.
We appeal to the government that without any delay the army or Rangers should be deployed to control traffic during Ramazan and all signals be made functional. We also urge the government that till roads are made fully functional, no fresh digging should be done.
In the greater interest of patients and emergency cases and free flow of ambulances and other vehicles, it is hoped that the Sindh government will pay attention to this pressing problem and complete ongoing road repair works at the earliest.
The traffic mess around Karachi’s main hospitals like the NICVD, NICH, the Kidney Centre, Civil Hospital, Abbasi Shaheed, Anklesaria and Seventh Day should be tackled round the year.
DR AZIZ KHAN TANK
Secretary-General, College of Family Medicine, Pakistan, Karachi
MR Stephen, in his second letter (Oct 7), has complained that cricketer Mohammad Yousuf, in spite of his conversion to Islam three years back, had been attending church services and making the sign of cross in the field, which amounted to playing with the Christians’ sentiments.
As noted in my letter of Sept 30, countless people even in the West have embraced Islam. Thousands of upper class Britons are said to have embraced Islam after reading the book, Islam and the Destiny of Man, written by former British diplomat and convert Gai Eaton, but there was no furore over there.
Another important thing is that many of the westerners who have accepted this faith have hidden the fact and retained their old names instead of taking Islamic ones because, the much vaunted freedom and democracy over there notwithstanding, they know that as Muslims they will be discriminated against in their societies. I have personally known some such individuals.
It appears reasonable to assume the same motive in Mr Yousuf’s case: he continued visiting the church or making the cross to avoid being discriminated against or even hurt by angry members of the Christian community. He must have developed greater conviction by now and found the courage to acknowledge his conversion openly.
Some deep reflection may show to Mr Stephen that he probably feels his faith to be weakened or threatened by the desertion of a prominent community member.
This is because the latter’s action implies that he found his earlier religion to be unsatisfactory in some way and left it for what he considered to be perfect. As a defence mechanism, Mr Stephen is now trying to exert psychological pressure on the sportsman in the hope of making him feel guilty and reversing his decision.
Instead of adopting this negative approach, our friend would be well advised to try and find out with an open mind why Islam attracted Mr Yousuf.
M. MUSLIM
Karachi
KALABAGH is a small town situated in Punjab’s west at the western banks of the River Indus. This town is known to every Pakistani for the Kalabagh dam being planned by the government. But few know that Kalabagh is famous for having the largest deposits of iorn ore in Pakistan.
The known iron ore reserves in the country are estimated at more than 400 million tons, containing a total of about 150 million tons of metallic iron. About 75 per cent of the total iron ore reserves are in the Kalabagh-Chichali-Makarwal region of the trans-Indus salt range in Punjab.
For steel- making from iron ore, the first product is steel grade pig iron which is produced from the blast furnace after processing the iron ore.
There are three basic raw materials which are required for making pig iron, viz., iron ore, mineral coal and limestone, all of which occur indigenously in the Kalabagh region.
Kalabagh has also good quality coal at Sharigh and Makarwal, and also possesses one of the best quality limestones in the world.
It has been inviting local and multi-national investors to install mini-blast furnaces to produce only steel- grade pig iron, which is an important and saleable item. This does not require huge investment and it is quite a feasible project for local business people.
Pig iron can be sold to steel markets in Lahore, Gujranwala, Karachi and other cities where hundreds of arc furnaces are busy day and night in producing steel ingots/billets which are the starting materials for rolling mills producing steel structures.
Such mini-blast furnaces can also be installed near other big deposits of iron ores in other parts of the country, e.g., Hazara, Chinniot, Chaghi and Dal Badeen.
M. INKISAR BUTT
Lahore
MR Tahir Mahmood in his letter (Oct 9) on Mr Irfan Husain’s column Aug. 20 column “Our colonial heritage” (Aug 20) is not wrong in his observation that Simon Bolivar and the rest of the eminent writers named by him would not have voted for Mr Husain’s postulate that the “colonial experience generally benefited the colonized”.
However, if the merits and demerits of British colonialism in India are viewed strictly in the context of the territory that constitutes what is Pakistan today, the merits of colonialism would far outweigh the demerits. Mr Husain would stand vindicated.
Pakistan has lived and continues to largely live off the “collateral benefits” of colonialism.
To meet their need of “babus” and “brown sahibs” the British set up an education system devised by Macaulay which is still the most effective source of trained manpower for the country. A major “collateral benefit”, if there was one.
As a counter to the above, Mr Mahmood can name many who would argue we have thousands of madressahs turning out millions of “educated” persons.
Punjab and Sindh were developed as alternative sources of cotton for their textile mills when the British lost their American colonies. A massive canal system was laid for the purpose. The North-Western Railway from Punjab to the port city of Karachi was built to carry the cotton for export to Britain.
Punjab and Sindh derived immense “collateral benefit”, and continue to do until now, from the canals and railways built to serve the colonial power’s own economic purposes. There has been no significant improvement, or extension in these after the British left.
There are hundreds of such “collateral benefits” of colonial exploitation which are mainstays of today’s Pakistan.
The district administration system installed under the British continues to prevail. After 58 years we are only able to experiment with “devolution” of power and have failed to empower the people any more than they were under colonialism.
The British installed a police and judicial system which persists to this day. The strength of both the systems lay in their fair application and effective enforcement. Both systems worked. We have corrupted both systems entirely and turned them into tools of intimidation in the hands of the powerful. A “collateral benefit” wasted.
The village panchayat truly functioned as a township or village council. It is inconceivable that a Mukhtaran Mai kind of atrocity could have been committed without the culprits and the local “influential” jagirdar, zamindar, tumandar, makhdoom, sardar, chaudhry, pir or whatever paying a terrible price, under law, and in quick enough time. So much for the standards of justice then, and now.
The British used the jagirdars, zamindars, nawabs, makhdooms, sardars, pirs, chaudhrys as administrative adjuncts under a tight leash. So long as this retrogressive and degenerate “gentry” delivered land revenue to the colonial rulers, recruits for the colonial army and generally maintained peace in their area, and paid due homage to the British district officers, they were left alone. One false step, however, and it was the law and jail.
The degenerate “gentry” in Pakistan never had it better; it rules the country, makes laws, and plays havoc with the nation’s destiny.
S. KHALID HUSAIN
Karachi
REFERENCE editorial ”Energy accord with Russia” (Oct 4), it is indeed realistic to engage Russia in the economic development of this region by considering Gazprom to build the gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan.
This process should be taken one step further by engaging Russia and encouraging its transit trade through Gwadar. In fact, Russia may be persuaded to build railway as well as an all-weather road from Central Asia up to Gwadar on the basis of “build and operate”, recovering the cost of both the projects by a suitable tax on passenger and goods traffic.
The time has come for Pakistan to take geographic compulsions into consideration when formulating its foreign and commercial policies.
Our most trusted friend, China, is already deeply engaged in the construction of Gwadar and other infrastructure facilities in Pakistan. By engaging Russia in addition, we would be starting an area of economic cooperation covering both China and Russia.
As the war in Iraq and Afghanistan threatens to engulf more countries, the time has come for us to have broader friendships and more political options in this region.
We must, however, guard ourselves against our in-bred tendency of seeking military alliances and military supplies in the narrow context of Indo-Pakistan squabbles.
A solid foundation of lasting friendship is economic and commercial cooperation and not military pacts which have done us no good, as our history unequivocally testifies.
F.H. ANSARI
Karachi
THE Pakistan Association for Mental Health is shocked at the magnitude of the earthquake disaster. Apart from the immediate personal misery of the survivors, they will also have to cope with acute stress and post-traumatic stress disorders that leave enduring and deep seated scars if not tended in time.
With its limited resources, the Pakistan Association of Mental Health is re-organizing its distress response team (DRT) to help the survivors by setting up ‘focus groups’. The methodology used will be that practised during the Shanti Nagar carnage which consists of training lay / local volunteers to initiate exchange of experiences and ordeal in the groups. Such ventilation helps to minimize the pain and feeling of loneliness in distress.
The association is enlisting lay people for short-term training in first aid-counselling and for help in setting up self solace groups on the modified focus group technique. The course starts from October 20. Interested volunteers (men and women) who wish to be trained and are ready travel to the calamity areas in the next four-12 weeks may contact Dr M. Suleman/Dr Ali Wasif on Karachi telephones 22572475, 2232423.
Prof. S. Haroon Ahmed President,
PAMH
Karachi
THIS refers to the news item “Number of unattended telephone complaints on the rise” (Oct 8).
My telephone — 4993517 — has been out of order for the last three months. I have personally visited the Gulshan-i-Iqbal Telephone Exchange several times and met DE/SDO/ Customer Services but to no avail.
MUHAMMAD SHAFIQUE
Karachi
LAST week we observed Senior Citizens’ Day. Much was said and written about the miseries of old people. Nothing has changed and I am sure will not. For an old man (or woman) the times are very difficult, specially for those surviving on meagre pensions.
There is a class of people who were granted benevolent fund (pension). And if they have to wait for it for months together, how will they feel? The last payment was made up to and for January.
Since then the reply always is: “Funds not received; come next month”. And this goes on from month to month.
Last time they said it “may be in Ramazan.” On the first of Ramazan, I went to find out. The reply was “Not yet, come after Eid”.
I felt like committing suicide. Those who are responsible for providing funds are heartless people.
May I request the authorities to be more considerate?
AN AFFECTED
Karachi
THIS is with reference to by Mr Aziz Suharwardy’s letter “Oil price calculations” (Sept 18).
Just recently I found a few discrepancies which I thought would be worthwhile bringing to the readers’ notice.
The rate at which handling, bank and LC charges and marine insurance are charged is quoted at 0.9 per cent. According to the calculations, it should have been 9 per cent.
Excise duty originally quoted as 0.88/litre has been added as 0.13 in a later calculation.
There has been a mistake in the total of the following calculations published:
Price per litre of petrol = 27.94 + 4.20 + 0.13 = 33.15
I understand the miscalculation was in no way intentional, but a clarification is nevertheless required
USMAN IDREES
Lahore
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