| March 18, 2006 | Saturday | Safar 17, 1427 |
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Import of cars
Parks and parking plazas
Why do we burn flags?
Internet broadband
Vacant slot
‘Jumbo’s take-off aborted’
Milosevic’s death
Energy needs
NIC cards
Art of war
Sovereignty
Libraries and study centres
Holiday
Petrol prices
THIS has reference to Mr Karaim Soomro’s letter “Free safari” (March 11). I agree with him that the Korangi Industrial Area (KIA), one of the largest industrial estates of Pakistan, contributing more than Rs200 million in revenue a day to the national exchequer in the shape of duties and taxes, has been deprived of basic civic amenities since its inception in the mid-60s.
So far as the correspondent, observations about the role of leaders of the Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI) are concerned, he is partially right that much time has been wasted in handing out bouquets and shields. But this was for a very limited period, say, for a year or so.
The fact remains that the act of isolation individuals cannot be generalised and applied to all other chairmen and office-bearers of the association who, from time to time, during their tenures of office rendered selfless services for the betterment of industrialists of the area and did their utmost to persuade the top brass of the Sindh and local governments for resolution of basic infrastructural facilities.
Perhaps, it will be in the fitness of things to give a resume of the efforts so far made by the leaders of the association in this regard. Since the formation of KATI in 1970, consistent efforts were made to persuade the then KMC and the KDA to develop the industrial area as promised at the time of its inception. Unfortunately a tug-of-war between the KMC and the KDA continued unabated till July 1994 and no agency was prepared to own KIA.
It was only on Aug 13, 1994 when the then Sindh chief minister Syed Abdullah Shah visited the association that it was announced that KIA would be handed over to the KMC from the KDA for development with all assets and liabilities.
Unfortunately, when the notification was issued, the land control of the area was not handed over to the KMC. Consequently, the KMC refused to own KIA because land control was the only source of income.
KATI, therefore, decided to convince the Sindh government to hand over control of KIA to SITE Ltd which already runs the SITE area, Nooriabad and other industrial estates, excluding only Korangi, Landhi, the FB Area and North Karachi industrial estates.
Sindh governor Soomro was invited to KATI on July 5, 2000 and he too agreed with our idea of handing over control of KIA to SITE Ltd or to allow making KATI Ltd on the pattern of SITE Ltd. He formed a committee under the then minister for industries, Mr Dewan Yousuf Farooqui, to study the proposal and give his recommendations.
The committee decided in January 2001 to hand over control of KIA to SITE Ltd. In the meantime, a KATI team met President Musharraf with the same proposal who constituted a task force under Brig Akhtar Ali who submitted his report to the corps commander on Sept 21, 2001 in which it was recommended that either KIA be handed over to SITE Ltd or the formation of KATI Ltd be allowed. Before the implementation of the recommendations the new city government came into being and the city nazim opposed KATI’s proposals.
When Dr Ishratul Ebad took over as governor of Sindh, at the behest of the City Nazim, it was ultimately decided to form a separate industrial area development board for each industrial estate of Karachi, namely, Korangi, Landhi, FB Area and North Karachi, under the chairmanship of the city nazim. As we anticipated, these industrial development boards remained dormant and no progress was made.
On June 15, Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim visited the association and announced the formation of KATI Ltd and allocated Rs250 million for KIA’s development. The new city government, headed by Syed Mustafa Kamal, and provincial Industries Minister M. Adil Siddiqui are taking keen interest in the development of KIA as a result of which construction work on the main Korangi Road 8000 has started under the supervision of the FWO.
SHEIKH MANZAR ALAM
(Former chairman, KATI)
Karachi
THIS has reference to a report (Dawn, Business pages, March 12) regarding the import of cars and its subsequent loss to the local auto industry.
Can anyone raise a question about the local car industry’s inability to meet the local demand that causes the customer to hang around for months even after acknowledgment of full payment? Nowhere in the world customers have to wait for so much time, even for the delivery of new models.
As for the lay-off of employees in the auto and its allied industry because of the liberal import of used cars (as was mentioned in the report), this is nothing but an exaggeration. Everyone knows that local assemblers have already captured the leading market share by booking vehicles months ahead, which they yet have to deliver to customers, in addition to mark-up at the cost of the customer’s full payment.
Furthermore, the ministry of production has failed to control the so-called “OWN” against the immediate delivery of cars even after implementation of the NTN condition for all bookings.
GULZAR A. SHAIKH
Karachi
RECENTLY the Sindh governor made an announcement that Jehangir Park is to be converted into a car park. The same day an advertisement by the Clifton Cantonment Board invited proposals from architects for the design of a car parking lot on the park adjacent to the Forum in Clifton.
I would like to take this opportunity to inform both parties that these acts are violations of the law. Article 19-2.2.8 of the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations, 2002 clearly states: “Spaces reserved for parks and playgrounds shall not be converted for any other amenity or for any other use”.
To my knowledge, neither the governor nor any other entity, military or otherwise, has the right to break the law. Or maybe my knowledge is deficient on the matter.
As for the Clifton Cantonment Board’s advertisement, if I had any hope whatsoever of any positive response, I would approach the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) and Institute of Architects Pakistan to require its members, publicly, to refrain from participation upon pain of excommunication. Alas. If wishes were horses.
HUSNAIN LOTIA
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Mr. Altaf Husain Qureshi’s letter “Why do we burn flags?” (March17). American-Muslim scholar Sheikh Hamza Yusuf contends that Islam forbids flag-burning.
He draws an analogy from the verse of the Holy Quran that forbids the Muslims from maligning the idols of Makkah, lest the unbelievers maligned Muslims in turn. It is well known that in this day and age, flags are held in similar reverence by a country’s population. Burning flags does nothing but promote even more anti-Muslim sentiments.
Particularly with regards to the Danish flag, it carries the Christian cross. As Muslims, it is totally unbecoming of us to desecrate the symbols of any other religion — be it the Cross, the Star of David or any other. I trust Shaykh Hamza in his interpretation of this issue and it would be enlightening to know what our local scholars make of it.
HARIS ZUBERI
Karachi
WE have been studying the Internet broadband situation and feel that Pakistan is perhaps not doing the right thing by using a bandwidth on the demand concept which is a legacy of the technology that came from ISDN and the telephony world. This is the reason the West has dumped it. It failed because it was too expensive to maintain and the technology needed to run such a thing was also expensive.
In my opinion we should follow the lines of dedicated connections as other developing countries, including India, have done as now the world can connect to these countries any time they want.
We all know that the path to prosperity and development of a country is through the type of education it offers to its citizens and the quality of education now will depend on a developed and affordable broadband connectivity. If we do not take immediate measures, we might miss the boat.
SHAHAB AFROZ KHAN
Karachi
IMRAN Khan is his party’s only member of parliament and has been unable to transform his massive popularity as former captain of the cricket team into political success. The basic reason for this is that he wants to apply the rules of cricket to politics.
Mr Khan needs to learn and understand is that politics is altogether a different ball game. In politics the decision is in the hand of the masses not the individual. Their voice and presence determine the course of action.
His efforts to make his presence felt in politics during President Bush’s recent visit to South Asia was a failed attempt to bring the masses and his beloved MMA out on the streets. Instead, our great former cricketer should fill the vacant slot of fielding coach so badly needed by the Pakistani team on tour to Sri Lanka.
T K SHEIKH
Islamabad
THIS has reference to the news report headlined “PIA Jumbo’s take-off aborted” (Dawn, March 14).
It was nice to read that the 450-seater Jumbo aircraft bound for London had only 113 passengers. That is about four seats per person. Well done, PIA marketing.
TANVIR VAQAR
Mirpur Mathelo
THIS is in response to Mr Maqbool Ahmad Bhatty’s article “Death of a mass murderer” (Dawn, March 15)
I have to say with a lot of regret that Mr Bhatty’s views on Milosevic mirror the views of self-serving western commentators who unleashed balatant propaganda about Milosevic and then justified Nato’s horrific bombing of Belgrade in 1999.
Mr Bhatty does not venture into the past history of the region which is important to understand the modern tragedy of Yugoslavia and the Balkans as a whole. Yugoslavia was the most secular and multi-ethnic society in Europe prior to its break-up in 1990 by a deliberate conspiracy hatched by Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Germany and Nato in order to encircle Russia and give this mineral-rich region to local satraps who were little more than thugs.
Slobodan Milosevic succeeded Josip Tito as the constitutionally elected leader of Yugoslavia. The Serbs have historically been the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia and their attachment to the former Yugoslavia was the strongest among all the other ethnic groups, namely, the Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes and Kosovars. As such when western propaganda threatened to destroy the relatively harmonious fabric of united Yugoslavia, Milosevic attempted to utilise his constitutional powers to stop an ethnic bloodbath from engulfing the country and to keep the country united.
Out of all the leaders of the different Yugoslav nationalities, Milosevic had been the most tolerant and the most impervious to the nationalistic passions which later consumed the other constituent states and led to the break-up of Yugoslavia.
So while Mr Bhatty has heaped all sorts of slanders about Milosevic, he would not say the same about the Bosnian president at the time, Alijah Izzetbegovic, who was a known Islamic fundamentalist who wanted to establish an Islamic caliphate across the Balkans. Similarly the Croatian candidate Franjo Tudjman, who was favoured by Nato to do its part in the destruction of Yugoslavia, had been on the payroll of the Nazis during the Second World War.
When Milosevic could not prevent the disintegration of Yugoslavia by the imperialist powers he sought to protect the sovereignty of Serbia and Montenegro, the only republic of the former federation which did not want to secede. He signed a humiliating compromise at Dayton with the very people who had played a big role in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. By all standards of modern law, then US president Bill Clinton, his secretary of state Madeleine Albright, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the rest of the third-rate leaders of Nato are war criminals who should have been tried at the International War Crimes Tribunal.
Meanwhile as president of Serbia, Milosevic proved resilient to attempts by the World Bank and IMF to colonize his country. He was in favour of state control of essential industries and keeping prices of essential items low, for the common man. This model has now been rolled back in the newly-created UN-US protectorates of Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia.
When imperialist attempts to make Milosevic surrender were repeatedly thwarted, a thuggish army of paramilitaries known as the Kosovo ‘Liberation’ Army (KLA) was created and financed overnight to sabotage the Milosevic administration. The KLA was initially trained by associates of Osama bin Laden and then by the CIA. Overnight the imperialist West became a defender of white European Muslims.There had been no social base for an independent Albanian Kosovo before the KLA was born.This was merely an attempt to weaken the Milosevic administration and bring it to its knees.
A vicious 78-day bombing which reduced one of Europe’s most beautiful and historic capital cities to rubble, along with a middle-class ‘revolt’ engineered by US-funded NGOs, led to the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic. In this manner, the historical memory of the most secular multi-ethnic society, with the exception of Muslim Spain and Soviet Russia, was finally obliterated.
RAZA NAEEM
Lahore
WITH reference to US Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman’s discussions with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz regarding Pakistan’s future energy needs, it is promising that the government of Pakistan has taken a bold stand and expressed its unequivocal position on deciding the country’s energy policy based solely on its own national interest.
At the same time it is mind-boggling that the US should oppose Iran’s intentions to use nuclear energy for peaceful and developmental purposes only. As an active member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), Pakistan should not only fully support building up of Iran’s nuclear capability and the gas pipeline project, but also oppose Israel’s quiet development of a nuclear arsenal. The bombing of Iraq’s nuclear centre back in 1982 is worth remembering.
JALALUDDIN S. HUSSAIN
Quebec, Canada
MY brother applied for new computerized national identity card (NIC) on July 12, 2005 and deposited the urgent fee. After a lapse of eight months some papers were returned for verification, and were promptly sent back. Since then nothing has happened and it is difficult to track the progress on issuance of the new NIC.
The government has made it mandatory to possess the new NIC, but with the protracted processing of application by NADRA, as evident from this example, the government is unaware of the hardships being experienced by the common citizen in this regard.
ABID HASAN
Karachi
THE second president of the United States, John Adams, wrote in a letter to his wife Abigail Adams: “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain (May 12, 1780).”
Our leaders have been studying politics and war for the last half a century. How long will this nation have to wait to study other subjects?
MIR TABASSUM MAIRAJ
Islamabad
PRIME Minister Manmohan Singhs speech to the Indian parliament on March 14 in which he has urged President Musharraf to keep his promise to curb guerillas operating from areas under Islamabads control is in sync with the chorus sung by President Bush and his team.
Some days ago the President Hamid Karzai levelled similar allegations. Given the obedient nature that we have been showing since 9/11, the day is not far when other states will tell us what to do. Should we wait for that day to come or should we show some self-respect by asking them to stop accusing Pakistan?
SAMINA SHAH
Karachi
ONE of the major acclaimed objectives of the present government was to improve health and education. I would like to ask all concerned to identify any one public library or study centre built by the government.
It is also noticed that public libraries and study centres built long ago, mostly by private trusts, remain open for a very restricted time, usually till 5pm, and are often closed on Sundays.
It is requested that the authorities concerned should take measures to establish adequate public study centres with basic facilities, enabling students belonging to various walks of life to take advantage.
JAWAD SHAKEEL AHMED
Karachi
WITH due respect, I would like to share my concerns regarding the declaration of a school holiday on account of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai’s Urs. I would prefer that my child go to school on that day and learn about Shah Bhittai instead of spending time at home doing nothing. There are enough school holidays in a year including vacations and strikes.
MALIK MURAD ALI
Karachi
INTERNATIONAL petrol prices have declined from around $72 to $59 a barrel but our government has still not lowered the price. For the past four months the price of petrol has remained unchanged and I strongly believe that it is high time the government gave us a break.
FAWAD SULTAN KHWAJA
Peshawar
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