| January 29, 2006 | Sunday | Zilhaj 28, 1426 |
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Tree plantation
VVIP movements
KPT fountain
Savings accounts
Religion is a collective matter
Working without salary
Airline food
PTCL wireless phone
Cellphone use
Safeguards
IT HAS been more than four years since the devolution plan was implemented. It has been partly successful in various regions and cities in terms of a degree of development of infrastructure but in some areas its effects have been disastrous.
In Sindh, the core distortion in the plan is the modus operandi for selecting district nazims by restricting the electoral college to a few hundred councillors. The powers that be have tried to ensure selection of the moneyed class to the coveted post, particularly in case of rural Sindh where feudals have become the automatic choice for this slot since they have money to purchase councillors and the muscle to coerce recalcitrant or non-conformist councillors.
This fact can be further substantiated by the fact that since the inception of the devolution plan all police officials with a sound and honest reputation have been sidelined and instead officers known for indulging in corrupt practices have been enjoying field postings, courtesy the patronage provided by the feudal families.
In short, the devolution arrangement which ensures a role for nazims in postings of police officials has served both the feudals and corrupt officers well. Similarly, the distorted electoral procedure has also strengthened feudal lords as their machinations have been demonstrated through the police acting as an instrument of influence for their masters.
Although the matter needs further evaluation, it is fair to suggest that after devolution the ever-increasing influence of feudals has also resulted in increasing tribal feuds and crimes against the vulnerable classes, particularly women, during the last four to five years. According to an HRCP report, Ghotki, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Sukkur and Larkana districts have witnessed a manifold increase in crimes of karo-kari.
Jirgas, which were never part of Sindhi society and culture, have increasingly become a quick-fix solution to premeditated murders in the name of honour and pride, opening avenues for fresh murders as the judicial concept of retribution at the hands of the state has weakened. By presiding over these jirgas, feudals have replaced the institutional framework of prosecuting the guilty through courts. It is intriguing that the areas worst affected by this menace are in Ghotki and Jacobabad, both areas that border Punjab where even in the border areas the Pakistan Penal Code is applied with full force, leaving no room for jirgas.
The claim that devolution has led to local development cannot be accepted at its face value. There is incontrovertible evidence that in most of the cases development is extremely lop-sided, with certain areas receiving preferential treatment at the expense of others at the behest of nazims as the major criterion is the extent of support a nazim gets during elections rather than following a needs-based approach. Thus the state itself has become an agent of under-development.
The entire edifice of devolution needs major revamping to conform to the concept of provincial autonomy enshrined in the 1973 Constitution. Under the present scheme the centre has diluted whatever little authority the provinces had, without conceding an inch to the provinces on issues of disbandment of the concurrent list.
JAM SAIFULLAH DHAREJO
MPA, Karachi
THE Sindh chief minister’s adviser on environment and alternative energy sources has said the government will soon launch a tree plantation drive in the province (Dawn, Jan 24).
We import paper pulp worth millions of dollars from the US, Canada and small Scandinavian countries which know the benefits of trees and make sure that they replace every tree that they cut for business. Pakistan is a big country, and the potential for growing trees is enormous as most of the land is virgin.
Won’t it be nice if we can involve schoolgoing children in this activity? This will inculcate the habit of growing trees, respecting nature and help them realize the importance of trees for the environment. Deforestation caused massive landslides and deaths in the Oct 8 earthquake, and teaching children what trees could have done to avoid this would help make the future Pakistan greener.
One way will be to allocate the road in front of each school as an area for plantation by the respective school students. One tree should be allocated to a team of students comprising students from junior and senior classes. They should be responsible for the initial planting and for watering the saplings for a couple of months. Trees will grow along with the students, and they can take pride when they become adult and see a shady tree that they planted when they were still in school.
Each team should be given a token prize if their tree thrives. It will inculcate healthy competition and absolve the government from this very important job. They will not have to run after contractors who plant trees and take off. Nobody waters them after they are planted. Once the tree survives the initial couple of months with the help of the students, its roots will take shape and start drawing water automatically.
Also new roads like the Northern Bypass and Lyari Expressway should be allocated to bigger schools who have thousands of students in Karachi alone. They have the resources to take their students out to these sites for plantation and watering.
Thousands of students living in Malir, Rafahe Aam Society, and Shah Faisal Colony can plant trees in the dry Malir riverbed. This will be a welcome change as land grabbers use this 36-kilometre riverbed for planting vegetables. They use industrial waste and raw sewage for watering them. Vegetables so produced are marketed in Karachi and they are dangerous for human health.
S. NAYYAR IQBAL RAZA
Karachi
KARACHIITES have lived with VVIP movements for a long time. They were pushed off the roads, paralyzed and humiliated for a long time during the tenure of Gen Zia and to an extent even thereafter. But the present security needs have gone beyond all limits and Karachiites have begun to express their resentment.
We have now seen several letters of complaint and reports of death of some people who could not get to hospitals in time. Articles have appeared in newspapers and Dawn published an editorial against the arbitrary closure of roads on account of VVIP movements.
Citizens wonder whether there is any realization in government of the nuisance, harassment and danger to which they are exposed. Is there any realization that the citizens are the ultimate masters and the leaders so-called public servants?
No one will deny the leadership the security protection they reasonably need. But this cannot be achieved by crushing the freedom of movement and putting citizens’ lives at risk. Parliamentarians must take up this issue in a publicly-televised debate for whatever it is worth.
I remember a time during the tenure of John Major as prime minister of the UK when he used to reach the House of Commons late due to traffic congestion on his route which led to the cabinet secretary writing to the chief constable of London to ensure that the prime minister’s motorcade was not held up in traffic. The chief constable replied that if the prime minister wished to reach the House of Commons in time for question hour, he should ensure that he left Downing Street earlier. Nobody heard anything more about that but you can be assured that the chief constable neither lost his job nor was transferred to the tip of northern Scotland.
LIAQUAT H. MERCHANT
Karachi
APROPOS of Mr Naeem Sadiq’s letter “KPT fountain” (Jan 23), I should like to say that slapping a port where dry cargo growth has increased by 46 per cent in the last six months as against the traditional average of 10 per cent as the “least desirable destination” in the region is not just cynicism , it is ignorance of and indifference to facts.
Similar is the remark about Karachi port being more expensive. The correspondent has no clue about how tariffs are calculated and how port costing is done.
To quote an example, the cost for handling one 20-ft container at Karachi Port is around $44 as against $68, $129 and $111 for Iran, Dubai and Salalah, respectively. A crane which costs Rs250 ($4.16) an hour at the Karachi port is $68 an hour at Dubai port. The wharfage for foodgrains and agriculture-related goods such as fertilizer has been so low that the port subsidized Rs7 a ton on handling these commodities.
To put the record straight, the correspondent may be informed that the Karachi port does not spend any taxpayer’s money: rather it generates its own funds. Further, talk of the port having ‘outdated equipment’ is not accurate. The KPT has just inaugurated an oil pier with state-of-the-art equipment at a cost of Rs1.3 billion, not a penny of which came from anywhere but the port itself.
The Karachi port does not take any federal grants nor does it have to extend a beggar’s bowl in front of donor agencies for any of its projects, whether renovating roads around the port, or port infrastructure development, or acquisition of port craft. The two container terminals at the KPT, the KICT and the PICT are as modern and efficient as any terminal in the world.
Similarly, the advertisement for a birthday alluded to by Mr Naeem Sadiq was not sponsored or paid for by the Karachi port, and this fact was written in the advertisement if he had bothered to take a closer look. One would advise Mr Sadiq to visit the Marine Drive close to sunset and witness the way citizens throng to get a view of the fountain.
RAHEMA NAZIR
Senior PRO KPT, Karachi
WHEN lending rates were lowered, interests on savings accounts were also brought down. Now lending rates have been increased but interest rates on savings accounts have remained very low — one to two per cent. Normally the difference in rates should be two per cent less than the lending rates.
That is why banks are making huge profits. I would request State Bank of Pakistan to intervene in the matter.
ABDUL QADIR
Karachi
APROPOS of the rejoinders of Mr Ashar J. Khokhar and Ms Rukhsana Khan (Jan 26) to my letter (Jan 20), the following comments are offered:
Mr Khokhar, while contending that secularism does not mean “la deeniat”, has cited examples from his country of residence, the UK, to explain the term. Let me quote the opinion of the well-known British writer, Ms Karen Armstrong, who used to be a nun and wrote books on Christianity until she encountered some sufis in Central Asia that radically changed her thinking. After that, she studied Islam and started writing books on it, beginning with a biography of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) which is a real labour of love.
Discussing Europe’s “enlightenment” in her book, A History of God, she explains that by the end of the 18th century Europe had begun to dominate the world (due to its technological advancement) and tried to colonize as much of it as possible. With this, the process of westernization had begun, along with the cult of secularism “that claimed independence of God”. Many other western writers and commentators, too, have acknowledged that secularism is indeed godlessness.
She further writes: “My study of the history of religion has revealed that human beings are spiritual animals. Indeed, there is a case for arguing that Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus....(Religion) was not tacked on to a primordially secular nature by manipulative kings and priests but was natural to humanity. Indeed, our current secularism is an entirely new experiment, unprecedented in human history. We have yet to see how it will work.”
From her deep understanding of both culture and religion, she has shown that man is religious and spiritual by nature. So, why try to impose something unnatural on him, whose benefits have not even been proved yet?
Now, let us also consider the views of another British writer and convert, Mr Gai Eaton, who was raised as an agnostic, about the centrality of belief (in God) to Islam.
“Islam, (is) a religion which treats the distinction between belief and unbelief as the most fundamental of all possible distinctions, comparable on the physical level to that between the sighted and the blind.... We do not seek for an adequate description of a landscape from a blind man .... In Islam every aspect of human life, every thought and every action, is shaped and evaluated in the light of the basic article of faith. Remove this linchpin and the whole structure falls apart (“Islam and the Destiny of Man”)”.
It may also be noted that thousands of upper-class Britons are said to have embraced Islam after reading this book but unfortunately many Muslims unappreciative of the value of their faith are trying to push us into the same trap these truly enlightened people are warning us about. The western secularists, blind as they are to spiritual realities, are arrogantly misleading themselves and the rest of the world by trying to eliminate or weaken the importance of the most fundamental pillar of Islam, which is belief in God.
Regrettably, Ms Khan has considered the invocation of Islam in dealing with “huqooq-ul ibad” as “muddying them up”. Another noted western convert to this great religion has begun one of his books by quoting the Quranic verse, “God is the Light of the heavens and of the earth.” By explaining things in the light of His words, one can’t muddy the subject matter but only enlighten it.
S. QADRI
Karachi
THE PIA management has issued a circular, No. 59/2005 dated Oct 24, 2005, allowing its employees to work in office during leave preparatory to retirement. As per circular the employee shall be required to submit an undertaking in writing that he/she will not claim encashment of leave or any other compensation in lieu thereof.
The question arises as to why an employee who has served the airline up to 60 years of his age minus LPR is willing on his own to work in the office without any compensation and even encashment of leave?
Experience shows that whenever such people at higher levels are allowed to work in autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies, they have made illegal money using their position to make up for the loss of salary, etc. It appears the circular is meant to benefit some favourites.
Under a mandatory scheme, PIA has retired employees who have have reached the age of 57. These include employees of groups I to V, while such mandatory retirement for employees of groups VI to VIII is in the pipeline. In the situation it is unjustified to allow such employees to work during LPR.
The chairman would do well to immediately withdraw the circular in the interest of transparency. If at all there is need for such a policy, it should be applicable only up to the manager level.
CONCERNED EMPLOYEES
Lahore
IT IS interesting to note that PIA believes in “feeding” you well even if your doctor will be furious. On a recent flight to Islamabad (PK 0300, Jan 18) I had the “good” luck of experiencing PIA’s hospitality and I would like to share my experience with you.
For breakfast “starters”, PIA offered grape fruit. When I explained to them that this fruit was not recommended for those who take the “statins” group of medicine (quite common these days), they said they had no other fruit. For cereal, PIA had only full cream milk (you cannot get a higher fat content than this). Then they had only croissant, short cake (all rich) and no “plain” toast/bread. Then came eggs (not boiled so that at least you could take the white) and potato “bhujia” with lots of chillies. So one can chose either to accept a lot of cholesterol and fat or stay hungry.
Since this flight is very early, you expect a reasonable choice so that you are not hungry when you start work straightaway in Islamabad but then PIA obviously thinks differently.
AINUL ABEDIN
Karachi
APROPOS of Mr Muhammad Aamir Saeeds letter PTCL wireless phone (Jan 1), the PTCL would like to clarify as under:
PTCL provides V-fone service using state-of-the-art technology. Customers occasionally come across some difficulties in using sophisticated features of V-sets provided by the company. Such customers are provided with technical support on toll number 0800-77888 as well as are facilitated in all PTCL customer service centres/franchises. Customers can also contact PTCL focal persons for V-fones in Karachi during office hours on telephones 5879920 and 5364656 in this regard.
PTCL V-scratch cards are available across the city and only these scratch cards should be used. Value-added services available in the system are provided to customers on demand.
ATHER JAVED SUFI
Media Coordinator, PTCL
Headquarters South,
Karachi
ACCORDING to a survey, the number of cellphone subscribers crossed the 18 million mark last month leaving behind the authorities’ forecast of 16 million mobile phone users by December 2005. The figures compiled by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority suggest that by October 2005 cellular density in the country stood at 11.95 compared with 10.98 registered in September 2005. Consequently, cellphone drivers are growing by leaps and bounds on our roads. This is a new monster threatening safety on our roads.
A British study shows that the greatest risk to a cellphone user is from an accident while distracted — particularly when driving. This risk is likely to be many tens of thousands of times greater than a radiation hazard, says the study. Talking on a mobile phone while driving is more hazardous than operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.
Fifty-one countries have banned the use of cellphones while driving and Pakistan is one among them. The ban here was to become effective by July 1, 2004, but it has had no effect. The government and the police authorities are not doing anything about this blatant disregard of the law and clear violation can be seen on the roads.
RASHID ASHRAF
Karachi
THE information minister has stated the willingness of the government to incorporate constitutional safeguards and guarantees to alleviate the fears of Sindh regarding the Kalabagh dam. Keeping in view the constitutional history of the country, can there be any guarantee that the Constitution itself won’t be suspended or abrogated in the future?
S. A. ALI SHAH
Haripur
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