| January 30, 2006 | Monday | Zilhaj 29, 1426 |
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Post-graduate medicine in UK
Marco Polo sheep
Language learning
Religion: a collective matter?
Haj travel
MVT delays
Banking sector problem
‘Silent cowards’
People’s burden
Referendum on dams
Pedestrian bridge
Hospitality
NY search
SYED Jalal Mahmood’s interview carried in Dawn (Jan 8) makes very interesting reading. Indeed G.M. Syed’s son is forthcoming, knowledgeable and also comes out as a democrat. However, the three basic points propagated in the interview are worth a debate.
But before these points are listed, it will be appropriate to point to one big mistake, viz., considering the army chief of the early 1960s as somebody from Punjab. Then C-in-C Gen Muhammad Musa Khan was from Balochistan and, of course, the then president was from the NWFP.
Coming to the actual points made by him, we see that the first is the accusation that Mangla is being illegally used by Punjab although the storage there remains a part of the Indus river system. Mr Jalal Mahmood goes on to question the ongoing raising of the Mangla dam with federal funds, even though this stands to benefit only one province. Another point is that Kalabagh becomes a necessity for Punjab after the expected loss of control over Kashmir and some territorial changes in the offing, involving Punjab and Balochistan in the long run.
The third point highlighted is “greater Punjab” and the present allowance given to the chief minister of this province to visit and invite his counterpart from the Indian Punjab and the possibility anything similar by the Sindh government raising the fear of being slapped with a traitor’s tag. This he further substantiates with the fact that Punjab gets the services of the best federal officers and its public service commission remains active at the cost of such structures in Sindh and other provinces.
The last of three points raised is evident, because Punjab indeed is host to a good number of very efficient civil servants, with their efforts and prowess for all to see. Actually, most of the commentators are of the opinion that the efficiency in play in Punjab is because of these public servants.
As all the above have deeper implications than the building of the Kalabagh dam, it will be important to deliberate on the issues raised in this interview.
TAHIR BASHARAT CHEEMA
Lahore
I WISH to draw attention to the plight of Pakistani medical graduates in the UK. Britain offers not only structured training opportunities but also remuneration competitive the US and Canada. But currently the job situation is becoming increasingly competitive — even for a junior training post.
Many doctors have been engaged in clinical attachments for months and have not even been short-listed for an interview. Clinical attachments are unpaid observerships offered by consultants with the prime objective of offering clinical experience (to the intern). A survey was carried out in June 2003 by the British Medical Journal which showed that 36 per cent of foreign medical graduates in the UK (young Pakistani doctors make up 22 per cent of this category) were jobless after six months and on average there were 210 applicants for every junior training post.
The US applied restrictions on medical graduates to get visas after 9/11 and this resulted in an influx of doctors from many Muslim countries to the UK. Also, many doctors think about going to Britain primarily because of the career incentives available in terms of high-quality clinical training and also adequate salaries.
But one’s dream tends to fall by the wayside when one looks at the expenses involved and the cut-throat competition for training posts. The total expenses including fees/fare/ living expenses come to about £4,000. One should bear in mind that these are straightforward expenses.
There are many other costs involved especially if one is preparing for royal college membership exams or various resuscitation courses, which one needs to do to become eligible for many of the positions advertised. Even after all these measures the chances of attaining a job are grim and one should only consider the UK as an option if one is willing to take all these risks.
Those who plan to consider this option can get more information from websites like www.bmjcareers.com, www.gmc-uk.org or www.bma.org.uk
DR FAISAL M SIDDIQUI
Bangor, UK
THIS has reference to Mr Ali Shah’s letter “Marco Polo sheep” (Jan 19). The correspondent seems to be oblivious of the logic and benefits of “trophy hunting”. It provides safety and security to animals and prosperity to villagers and caretakers.
Animals which were facing extinction are now thriving and their guardians who were getting only a partly sum from poachers and illegal hunters are now well rewarded. For wildlife conservation this is in vogue all over the world, except India and Kenya.
These two countries completely banned hunting but failed to conserve animals facing extinction and are now seriously thinking of introducing trophy hunting.
Man has been created with the instinct of a hunter and meat-eater. That is why God has blessed him with sets of canine and incisor teeth. In ancient time he survived by hunting. Now hunting has become a sport and man’s need for meat is met by slaughtering millions of animals all over the world daily.
For trophy hunting only those animals are offered which are old, have developed good size prize horns and have no reproduction utility, and instead interfere with other young ones. Perhaps the correspondent could not see the impressive width and curls of majestic horns — a prize trophy for any hunter. In studs and cattle farms, old and defective animals are destroyed for better breed and quality control.
CAPT SOHAIL SULTAN
Karachi
Trophy hunting is now considered the most scientific method of supporting conservation efforts by culling out the sick, diseased and old males from the herd who would in any case die, be eliminated or pushed out by the stronger males in the herd.
Conservation of wild animals is an essential part of healthy wildlife management that is very expensive in terms of employing guards to stop poachers and illegal hunting. India and Kenya stopped hunting totally.
The result has been disastrous. Illegal hunting soared. Hunters started killing immature males, even females and pregnant females, to satisfy the blood lust so deeply inherent in human society.
Trophy hunting in the north of Pakistan with communal help has increased the population of the wild stock. Seventy per cent of the trophy hunting money goes to the community — they thus become guards without the government paying them any salary. When they can get more money by protecting wildlife, why should they resort to illegal hunting? The wild animals become their assets.
Communal improvement like roads, small dams, electricity, clean water are financed by the money they get from the trophy hunting.
DR A.A. QURAISHY
President/Founder, Wildlife
Conservation Society,
Pakistan, Karachi
MS Zubeida Mustafa’s opinions and analyses are usually well-researched and balanced. Her last column (Jan 18), however, required a little more objectivity.
Pakistanis essentially have a multilingual identity with English being quintessential and much too ingrained a factor in terms of job opportunity, self-satisfaction, and upward mobility. Regrettably, our class system and professional environment tends to overvalue individuals proficient in English and with a neutral accent in comparison to those who lack these despite otherwise similar qualifications. This is a fact and will only become more acute as we head more towards globalization. Trying to go against the tide in a country of 150 million with meagre resources is wishful thinking at best. Though still arguable, we may as well accept the fact that despite our affection for Urdu, shared by many anglophiles here for its prose and poetry, it will not serve as a language of enablement.
Coming to a child’s ability to process multiple languages at a younger age, research by a British expert has shown that the earlier language acquisition occurs in life, the better, since after the age of 12 it is akin to learning a subject of study.
This is substantiated by a linguistic expert who has said that the crucial period of language acquisition ends around the age of 12 and if no language is learned before then, it can never be learned in a normal and fully functional sense.
DR ZOHAIR ALI NANJIANI
Karachi
REFERENCE is made to Mr Ashar J. Khokar’s letter (Jan 26). Two points need attention. First, religion is a personal affair, therefore, a singular matter. It will become collective when confronted with collective irreligiosity or opposing non-religious forces.
Second, I agree with Mr Khokar that secularism does not mean ‘la deeniat’ (irreligiousness). Secularism only separates religion from politics, that is, that religion and affairs of the government should be two different things, as the founding father said on Aug 11, 1947 before Pakistan’s first constituent assembly. Secularism is not a monster; you should not recoil from it.
A person having secular ideas can still follow his faith or religion — devoutly or moderately. Islam, like other religions, does not stop us from having enlightened ideas of justice, truth, knowledge, tolerance, democracy, equality and human rights.
S.M. KAZIM NAQVI
Karachi
THIS refers to S. Qadri’s letter (Jan 19). I disagree with him — religion is not a collective matter, it is personal, and my belief should have nothing to do with anyone else’s. My lack, or otherwise, of interest in faith and religion should not bother others.
Relating religion with one’s dress code is absurd — if a dog bites a person walking in the street, who do you punish, the dog or the victim?
ASHISH SINGH
Bangalore
I HAPPENED to travel from Jeddah to Karachi on PK 372 on Jan 15. It was a regular flight but was carrying mostly Haj passengers.
For several years in the past, PIA used to gift 10 litre aab-i-zamzam packs to the returning pilgrims on arrival at Karachi airport. This zamzam used to be brought to Karachi in bulk on almost empty planes returning to Pakistan (at the start of the Haj season).
For some unknown reason, PIA has recently discontinued this practice. Instead, the returning pilgrims (sick and tired with fatigue) were asked to collect tokens from a centre at one end of the Haj terminal at Jeddah airport on payment of five Saudi riyals. Arrangements were made to seal the cans at three counters far away from the counter where the tokens were issued. On Jan 15, after 7 pm only one of these three counters for sealing the cans was open. Our baggage arrived at the designated Pakistan Haj counter which was at one end of the Haj terminal, and the PIA counter for check-in/ luggage was at the opposite end. To add to the misery of the tired pilgrims, the baggage removed from the buses and loaded on airport trolleys by the airport baggage handlers was off-loaded in between the two counters. It took us more than one hour just to find our luggage and another hour to get a token and get the zamzam cans sealed. And yet another hour to take all the luggage and zamzam to the PIA check-in counter at the other end.
After getting the boarding cards, the pilgrims had to walk another half km to the boarding areas from where they were to board a bus from the Haj terminal to Jeddah Int’l airport terminal.
The departure time of our flight was scheduled 9.15 pm but it took off about three hours late. And the Haj flight scheduled to take off at two in the afternoon before our flight had not even been announced till our departure. There were many other airlines including from India and Bangladesh departing from the same terminal but the chaos seen at the PIA counter was distinct
IJTABA H. ZAIDI
Karachi
ON Jan 23 I went to the motor vehicle wing of the excise department at Awami Markaz, Karachi, at 10.30am to pay motor vehicle tax for the year 2005-06. There was a large line of around 50-60 men and women. Upon noticing that the line was not moving forward for half an hour I tried to look around for the reason.
I was told that the online computer system was not working. This situation prevailed for another hour. At about 12.45 pm an excise department officer appeared and told everyone present that since the excise department had not paid its telephone bill, PTCL had disconnected the telephone lines and that there was no chance of the computer system working any time soon. In fact, he said reconnection might take another two to three days.
Will the excise and taxation adviser to the Sindh chief minister please look into this to ensure that those who go to pay motor vehicle tax do not end up wasting their time.
ASIF HUSSAIN
Karachi
I WANT to draw your attention toward the exploitation by DSAs (direct sales associates) for various multinational banks. These are franchised operations, whose employees are not working as direct staff of the bank but for companies which have been contracted out a certain specific operation of the bank by the latter’s management.
Staff of DSAs sell products like credit cards, car loans and so on and usually work as sales executives under the supervision of a ‘team leader’. These sales executives are not very trained in their job and are also often not paid on time. The team leaders almost work as if they are the touts of the owner of the franchise. Lahore is the den of such activities.
I am a business graduate and have worked for such a DSA in Lahore. Believe me the conditions there are like those of a brick kiln. It is requested that the senior management of the banks should take notice of this and take the franchises to task.
WASIF RANA
Lahore
WHERE has all the self-righteous moralizing of the MMA vanished? Their absolute apathy at the kidnapping of a journalist in Iraq is disgusting. There are other Muslim groups around the world raising their voice against these barbaric acts, which only increase the negative image surrounding Islam. But in Pakistan, our ‘men of God’ are too busy worrying about issues like mixed marathons.
Pakistan’s curse isn’t in the fact there are mullahs, because every country has it’s own version of rabid religious types. It is that they have all visibility, and this grants them mainstream acknowledgment. Meanwhile the ‘silent majority’ remains silent, even as society around it regresses into medievalism. Unfortunately, its silence only serves to empower the mullahs even more. Perhaps, the better term for this group would be ‘silent cowards’.
SAAD KHAISHGI
Houston, TX, US
PETROLEUM prices have not been reduced so far, despite a persistent fall in the world oil market and repeated demands within the country. Instead, the government has increased the gas price, taking advantage of the false high oil prices.
Huge imports of sugar could not bring down the price of indigenous sugar. In spite of making tall claims the government could not ensure availability of flour at the previous rate of Rs9 or Rs10 a kilo. It has reached Rs16 a kilo within two years.
After a few weeks’ show, the government had to surrender to the butchers. It could not check meat prices that have been going up. Meat is now beyond the reach of the common man. Transport fares have been increased many times, causing hardship to the masses.
This sorry state of affairs shows that the government does not have any consideration for its people.
ANWAR HUSSAIN
Karachi
HOLDING a nationwide referendum in all the provinces of Pakistan on the question of building or not building the Kalabagh dam seems to be the most democratic method to settle the prolonged controversy over the dam issue. The president can launch a public debate on the dam issue on all television channels to educate people about the urgent need for building a new dam.
Dam experts and engineers well versed in developing water resources from Pakistan and even abroad should be invited to inform and educate the Pakistani public on the Kalabagh dam project. In televised seminars and discussions questions from the public should be answered by experts. Leaders of political parties should be invited to air their views in a democratic manner.
QUTUBUDDIN AZIZ
Karachi
I WOULD like to thank the Karachi city government for making overhead bridges on Sharae Faisal at FTC and Sharae-i-Quaideen in a bid to make travel signal-free. However, the authorities concerned have ignored the need of the people who have to cross Sharae Faisal to reach their workplaces or homes.
Though there are some zebra crossings in front of the FTC and in the Nursery area, our motorists generally ignore these. There is need to post traffic police to prevent the threat to pedestrians.
I request the authorities to consider construction of pedestrian bridges at all required locations on Sharea Faisal. Closing of medians using concrete/ rille, etc., may also be undertaken in parallel. The proposed pedestrian bridges may also be facilitated with lifts/ramps for the handicapped and the elderly people.
TAHIR MUHAMMAD QADRI
Karachi
ONE of my cousin’s recently had a chance to visit the Katasraj shrine in Pakistan. The experiences that he shared with us were sort of eye-openers.
Till then we had always believed that all those who had gone to the shrine had been shabbily treated. But my cousin narrated a very different version. He was so much appreciative of the warm Punjabi hospitality on your side of the border that it was really heart warming.
Now, even I look forward to visiting Pakistan and the area of Kundian in Punjab where my forefathers originally hailed from.
PRADEEP KUNDI
Patiala, India
THIS is with reference to the body search of some members of the prime minister’s delegation at New York airport. The fact is that it was heartening to see the high and mighty of this land being treated as ordinary people.
A. GAFOOR
Karachi
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