| January 7, 2006 | Saturday | Zilhaj 6, 1426 |
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PTCL wireless service
Recruitment of bureaucrats
Traffic lights
Bank statements
Credit card heist
Ideological hang-ups?
Expressway evictions
Punjab and other provinces
Renaming NWFP
SBP building
Late-night weddings
Garbage dump
Too many holidays
Kalabagh dam
I CONTACTED the Pakistani embassy in Dublin over the telephone a few days back to enquire about the process for obtaining a National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP), mandatory for every Pakistani who intends to stay for a period of six months or more anywhere outside Pakistan.
However, the gentleman at the embassy seemed not very interested in answering my questions. I then contacted the embassy via email hoping that my questions would be answered. To my surprise, the person at the embassy who manages their emails is very efficient and helpful. I was told to visit the embassy’s website (www.pakembassydublin.com) to print out an application form for an NICOP.
The application form clearly states that Pakistani students abroad are exempted from paying the NICOP application fee. However, I was told by the embassy (via email) that even though the form says that Pakistani students are exempted from paying the application fee, NADRA insists that they do pay the fee and in similar cases in the past, NADRA did not issue NICOP cards when the fee was not paid. I would like to ask NADRA why is it charging money from students when the law says the opposite?
Secondly, the embassy’s website states that the advantages of holding an NICOP are: a) “Visa free” entry into Pakistan. (Being Pakistani nationals we should not need a visa to enter our country in any case). b) Protection of the government of Pakistan in any foreign country. (I would have imagined the Government would protect the citizen’s regardless of whether they held a NICOP or not).
The fact of the matter is that I am not desperate to have an NICOP. It is the government that requires Pakistanis to have them and hence it should make the process of getting then as straightforward and simple as possible.
SALAHUDDIN GHAZNAVI
Dublin, Ireland
THIS refers to the letter by Muhammad Amir Saeed on PTCL’s wireless phone service (Jan 6).
The service was launched in Peshawar last year. A dealer to whom I spoke painted a rosy picture and also told me that the service enables the user to have a faster Internet. I bought a connection the same day and perhaps that was the day when my agony started.
Mr Saeed should consider himself lucky that he was at least able to access the so-called helpline. Despite many attempts I could never speak to anyone. As for faster Internet, I could never get that because apparently the required cords needed to hook the wireless set with were not available.
Readers may very well think I am joking but I experienced something else also. The phone sometimes works inside a room and sometimes outside the room. You actually have to roam around all over the house to see where the service is best. Also whenever I tried to call from the set, I would more often than not get the following message: “Your call cannot be connected from this service”. After my card expired — not because I had made any calls but because of the daily charges — I never again purchased another card. The set is now used by my children as a toy. A toy that I had initially bought for Rs4,000.
SAEED KHATTAK
Peshawar
PUBLIC service commissions at the centre and provinces are responsible for recruiting officers for various government departments. To select the right person for the right job, it is imperative to establish a human resource department in each ministry, authority, division and department.
This HR department will be responsible for recruitment of the most suitable person to do the work. This can save billions of rupees being spent on the prevailing system of government officers’ recruitment, which is marked by political favouritism and nepotism.
With the information technology revolution, modes of communication have changed; typewriters and steno-typists and clerks have been replaced by computer operators. Office records are saved on CD, VCD and tape spools. Government officers are also required to be trained to use computers and knowledge of information technology for efficiency and to meet the challenges of modern techniques of governance and management.
Unfortunately, we are still following obsolete tools and outdated procedures and interviews for recruitment of various government officers and supporting staff.
President Gen Pervez Musharraf had made a pledge to the people of Pakistan to reform the government’s mode of working and make the country a progressive and modern state. It is time the president fulfilled his promise.
S. T. HUSSAIN
Lahore Cantt
THE traffic light was invented in 1868 in the days of buggies and carts in London. By 1912, lighted signals were being used in the US. In this 21st century, electronic and computerized devices are being used more and more to control and monitor the movement of traffic in busy cities. One simple reason is that properly-fitted lights are visible to motorists from a reasonable distance and if they chose to obey traffic rules, they are likely to get home in one piece.
In Pakistan, following our tradition of going backwards, we are using human resources more and more for this purpose. Traffic lights in most major cities either do not work at all or are turned off several times a day to make the movement of our rulers convenient. I really feel for the poor traffic constables who put their lives on line to control traffic manually.
In Lahore the pandemonium that prevails when it is time for our chief minister to go from point A to B is unbelievable. Anyone who has tried to get across Kalima Chowk and other main crossings in Lahore where traffic lights are frequently turned off would know what I am talking about. If the CM and other VIPs were to go about their daily business in an unobtrusive and quiet manner, they would gain peoples affection and respect. In the environment they have created they get abused by common citizens daily, sycophants not withstanding.
In a lot of civilized countries, one does not even notice when an important person passes by. Surely they are less of a target in that way and definitely much less of a nuisance for other road users.
AFZAL MUFTI
Lahore
THIS is with reference to Shahid Jamal’s report in Dawn Islamabad’s Metropolitan section (Jan 5). I am a pensioner and maintain an account in the G-9 branch of the National Bank.
Each day the bank is overflowing with hundreds of customers. The problem is that most of the staff at the bank are discourteous. There is only counter where deposits can be made or money received.
The bank, if at all, sends statements to its clients after six months, and if in the meantime a customer asks for his statement he is told (without the staffer checking to see if it has actually been sent) that it has been sent. I once asked for my statement and I was asked to write an application and deposit Rs50 per page of the statement.
Withdrawing cash is another nightmare because the bank seems to suffer from an acute shortage of clean notes. Most of the notes given when withdrawals are made are soiled and unclean.
Besides, it takes an unusually long time to have another bank’s cheque cleared. There ought to be a customer relations representative posted at each branch of NBP so that the quality of service improves.
JONAID IQBAL
Islamabad
THIS is with reference to Farah Akbar’s letter “Credit card heist” (Jan 4).
I was a Gold Visa card holder since 1995. Some discrepancies in my credit card bill occurred, and I returned the card to the issuing foreign bank with a request to remove the discrepancy.
This took a long time despite correspondence, telephones and personal visits. In the meantime my bill amount substantially grew through no fault of mine. After hectic efforts, an agreed settlement was reached, and the amount was paid in November 2000. But till now my name has not been withdrawn from the defaulters’ list and, as such, I am barred from getting any credit card or credit from any bank.
The matter has been taken up with the bank concerned on many occasions, and also referred to the chairman of the credit advisory committee of the State Bank of Pakistan, without any remedy. So, the ordeal does not end when you sort out your payments and actually pay your dues. It starts from there.
ASGHAR ALI
Karachi
MR Murtaza Razvi has been unkind in implicitly calling esteemed persons of notable achievements like Dr Javid Iqbal and Justice Nasim Hasan Shah as “pygmies” in his article, “Putting aside ideological hang-ups (Jan 2).”
Both these gentlemen have been eminent jurists and their intellectual calibre and honesty — rather than Mr Razvi’s insinuation of intellectual dishonesty — regard for principles and attachment to the ideals for which Pakistan was created is evident from Dr Iqbal’s many books and the duo’s speeches and writings.
Mr Razvi appears hung up on western democracy and secularism and has ridiculed these and other “ideologues” for using Mr Jinnah’s birthday to discuss Pakistan’s ideology and whether the Father of the Nation wanted an Islamic republic or a secular Pakistan.
The importance of an ideology for the psychological and social cohesion and stability of a nation should be apparent to any educated person. The need for our older generation, who have first-hand experience of the freedom movement, including such a stalwart as the son of Allama Iqbal himself, to pass on their knowledge and wisdom to the younger generation is also undeniable.
It is the secularists who are creating a schism in the country by trying to destroy its ideological moorings, although they know very well that Mr Jinnah could never have gone against the Muslim majority’s wishes. In his letter, “Pakistan secular or Muslim state?” (Aug 7, 2005), another very important personality, a grandnephew of the Quaid, Mr Liaquat H. Merchant wrote: “Mr Jinnah did not at any time use the expression ‘secular’ in relation to his goal... of Pakistan. In fact, whenever the occasion arose he used the expression ‘Muslim state’.”
Apart from that, during the Allahabad session of the All-India Muslim League in 1942, Mr Jinnah was asked as to what type of state Pakistan would be. He replied:
“It will be an Islamic state on the pattern of a Madinah state with human rights, liberalism, democracy and complete tolerance and freedom of conscience to all citizens without any distinction of colour, creed, language and race as granted by the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) to Christians, Jews, idol worshippers and all others .... (Dawn, Sept. 6, 1997).”
In a broadcast to the people of the United States in February 1948, the Quaid-i-Azam had reiterated that the constitution of Pakistan would embody the essential principles of Islam, which, he said, were as applicable now as they were 1,300 years ago (with which the writer seems to disagree). Also, that Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy.
Therefore, Mr Razvi is wrong in thinking that Islam is incompatible with democracy, but we don’t want a democracy that allows a man to legally marry a man. He is also incorrect in assuming that the fabled ideal of the Madinah state cannot be realized today.
He should go out and observe the impressive intellectual, academic and spiritual levels, the zeal as well as the knowledge and understanding of Islam of the many western male and female converts that often greatly exceed those of the Pakistani intellectuals and writers so enamoured of the West. They have generally embraced this religion after carefully studying every faith and ideology, after becoming disillusioned with the godless secular system in vogue.
Perhaps they are the ones who will bring around an Islamic renaissance because they do not have the inferiority complexes that many of us do. Some of them are already saying with confidence that the 21st century is going to be the century of Islam. It is a folly to assume that any man-made system can be superior to a divine one. But there is hope: the noted Orientalist and convert Frithjoff Schuon (Shaykh Isa Nur ad Din Ahmad) has said: “If man is intelligence darkened and gone astray, God is the illuminating Truth which delivers.”
SALAHUDDIN KARIM
Karachi
THERE have been further evictions and demolitions of communities as a result of the Lyari Expressway project in Karachi. A community of over 100 houses was demolished in front of us and armed police, with tear gas and batons, was there to ensure that no protests could take place. Earlier protests resulted in at least one man getting shot — his name is Salahuddin and he was shot in the stomach.
The most recent demolition took place in a bizarre atmosphere with people watching quietly as their homes were demolished. Most of the noise did not come from those present but from the machines — the bulldozers. The police and the city government stood by providing glib answers when interviewed. By the time the demolition operation was over, many families (lots of young children and old people) were sitting round tiny fires with the few possessions they could salvage, looking very traumatized.
Clearly, such forced eviction is one of the worst forms of human rights abuses.
AN EYE WITNESS
Karachi
I AM writing this in response to Mohammed Mudassir Siddiqui’s letter “Punjab vs other provinces” (Jan. 5).
People in Punjab have sacrificed their language for the sake of Pakistan and accepted Urdu in their schools. Go to any village graveyard in rural Punjab, and you will see who sacrificed their sons, brothers, husbands and loved ones for Pakistan. Go to any part of Punjab and you shall see everyone living in harmony regardless of where they came from. They can speak their language freely.
As far as seats in the National Assembly are concerned, they are allocated on the basis of population. That is why it is called majority rule.
AZHAR HUSSAIN
Kissimmee, FL, US
AMIR Usman has in his article (Dawn, Encounter Dec 24) made a convincing case for renaming the NWFP. His cogent arguments deserve full consideration of the government and of the public at large. The provincial assembly should debate the issue and press for the solution proposed by Mr Usman.
The writer has aptly said that while the federal government has to safeguard the sovereignty and security of the country as a whole, it needs to respect and honour the sentiments of the federating units.
AMIN JAN NAIM
Islamabad
The State Bank of Pakistan building on I.I. Chundrigar Road, Karachi, gives a rather dilapidated look and the building appears to be in need of a coat of paint and distemper. The brass plate outside needs a shine.
These things may not appear important, but they are for those who value heritage. I request the newly-appointed governor of the State Bank to kindly have a look to the building and make it appear worthy of its position as the headquarters of the country’s mother bank.
SHIRAZ SACHEDINA
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the letter “Weddings are good” by Faisal Habib (Jan 5). Mr Habib perhaps is being very polite in talking about the nuisance created by a wedding ceremony for residents of an apartment complex in Clifton Block 8, Karachi.
The entire apartment complex was kept awake by the live music at the wedding which went on into the early hours of the morning. Repeated requests were made to the organizers but to no avail.
There have been several wedding functions at this particular cricket ground on Ch. Khaliquzzaman Road. In most cases, the music starts at 9 pm and goes on well past 3 am. It is accompanied by continuous firing of guns and crackers. Of course, meals are also served at these weddings. One wonders what role the Clifton Cantonment Board is playing in this drama. Who will put a stop to this?
AGGRIEVED RESIDENT
Karachi
I WOULD like to draw the attention of the Karachi and the Gulshan Town nazims to the garbage being dumped behind the National Stadium. Opposite gates no. 4 and 5, along the road leading to the KDA filter plant, there is a big area of about eight to 10 acres in size where there are tons and tons of construction and household waste. Besides being illegal, the dump is a health and environmental hazard.
The area should be fenced so that no further misuse and dumping takes place. Then the garbage dump should be levelled and spread out, the unwanted garbage removed, and the soil consolidated. On top of this soil, a lawn could be laid.
If done in this manner, it will demonstrate good solid waste management, controlling misuse of land and discouraging disposal of garbage in a hazardous manner. Besides, credit will be given to the nazim for a job well done.
A. RAHIM
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the Sindh government’s decision of re-opening schools on Jan. 9 while some private educational institutions are opening on Jan. 16. Schools have been closed since Dec. 20 which means that almost a whole month will have been wasted by the time they re-open.
As far as the summer vacations are concerned, these have been extended till August 16. But since many private schools end their sessions in mid-May this means that the summer vacations will be three months’ long.
Why in the world is the Sindh government wasting so much precious time of students? The latter need to make the most of their time by studying instead of sitting idle and bored at home. The education minister should look into the matter.
DR ZAREEN TAJ
Karachi
PRESIDENT Gen Musharraf’s claim that Sindh will be the “real beneficiary” of the Kalabagh dam is like President Bush’s promise to the people of Iraq that the US-led invasion of that country would usher in its “liberation”.
Mustafa Mahesar
London, UK
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