| May 11, 2006 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1427 |
To send a letter to the Editor
Click here
HEC directives
Honour killings
‘The dangerous puff’
Citizens’ rights
Pakistan Steel privatization
Preserving ‘havelis’
Gwadar motorway
Pakistan’s ranking
Founder’s day
THIS refers to Engr Mazhar Ali’s article ‘Kalabagh dam: development or disaster’ (April 29) in which he has spoken about the merits of constructing new dams on the River Indus. In the footnote he has been described as a member of the Technical Committee on Water Resources (TCWR). But unless there was a printing error in the report (Dawn, Dec 27, 2005), the committee member was Dr Iqbal Ali.
However, Dr. Iqbal Ali or Engr Mazhar Ali both hold the same views about mega dams, especially about Kalabagh. Dr Iqbal Ali, who represented Sindh in the TCWR, sided with the six members of the other three provinces and cast his opinion against the official view of the Sindh government (and its elected assembly), which maintains that there is not enough water in the system for another dam. In fact, the non-Sindhi member of Sindh stood in opposition to every term of reference of the TCWR that could have gained advantage for the province he was representing.
It does not require higher mathematics to calculate availability of water in the system. The average water flow in the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab (for years 1922 – 2002) was 138 MAF (139.82 MAF, post Tarbela). Out of this, 114.35 MAF is allocated to the provinces for the 36 million canal irrigated acres of Pakistan. (Incidentally, the only point on which all members were unanimous was the primacy of maintaining this allocation).
Another 11 MAF will be utilised by the under-construction projects (2.9 MAF behind raised Mangla walls, 4.8 for Rainee, Katchi and Greater Thal canals, 1.0 MAF Gomal-zam dam, etc). Downstream Kotri release, as recommended by experts, is 8.6 MAF. This brings the grand total to 134 MAF. The group of seven did not allocate water for urban and industrial uses that Vision 2025 estimates at 5 MAF by 2025. Another deliberate omission was the estimation of systems losses necessarily accompanying large dams.
But averages can work only where water available in the years of plenty is all stored and then spent in the years of shortage. Even a child will understand the fallacy of working with averages when it is explained to him that 84 per cent water of the largest river, Indus, including the Kabul (average 82 MAF), flows down in only 90 days of the year, and the second largest river, the Chenab (33 MAF), has no site for storage in its flow path in Pakistan. The excess water of both rivers in the peak months of July – September will always flow out to sea.
Even management of such a system is difficult unless an intricate methodology is adopted to operate it as a single unit. And that brings us to the second point of the grave misgivings of the people of Sindh. One example will suffice.
The Jhelum and the Chenab are early rising rivers in which water starts flowing in April (the Indus in comparison starts rising in June). Mangla and Tarbela are emptied by t March 31 and early kharif sowing in Sindh starts in April (in Punjab it starts about two months later). April is, therefore, the most critical period for Sindh. The logic of integrated management demands that the early flowing waters of the Jhelum and the Chenab should be given to Sindh in April and Indus waters diverted to Punjab in June. But what has been happening? The chairman of TCWR reports that in 25 years of the post-Tarbela period (1976 – 2001), waters of the Jhelum have continuously been impounded in Mangla from April 1, when they are needed most by Sindh, and in 20 out of those 25 years in the month of July more than one MAF has been released, when all rivers of Pakistan are in high flood. Also not in a single year since its inception in 1967 has a drop of Mangla water been given to Sindh although all provinces of Pakistan paid its loan.
There are literally hundreds of such senseless actions that border on malevolence and downright anti-Sindhiism. Meanwhile anyone, howsoever exalted or big an expert who says that Sind has no cogent reason to oppose dams on the Indus or that he should be believed that dams will be beneficial for Sindh, is living in a fool’s paradise.
ABRAR KAZI
Secretry, Sindh Water Committee and Anti–Greater Thal Canal Committee,
Hyderabad
IT was very heartening to read the HEC warning to freeze the developments funds of three public sector universities of Sindh as penalty for not following directives of merit-based appointments and promotions (Dawn, May 1). It seemed that finally some action being taken in favour of merit and against the prevalent culture of sycophany and political appeasement.
But now the HEC has completely retracted its earlier statement terming it a ‘misunderstanding’ (Dawn, May 9). The same universities which were ‘substandard’ a week ago are now ‘the best universities in the country’. Incredulity seems to have no limits.
The Karachi University promoted nine non-PhD holders to posts of associate and full professors. There is much talk of bringing our universities in line with international standards, but in international universities a non-PhD holder cannot rise beyond the rank of lectureship.
One wonders what machinations are at work behind such appointments and promotions. Perhaps the same that were behind the HEC withdrawing its warning to the universities a week ago?
Certain political parties in this country have targeted our public sector universities as breeding grounds for street power. Students coming to these places are generally from low-income backgrounds. Their lives, career and their entire future are manipulated and they become cheap fodder for the political parties. How do such students get degrees when they do not even attend classes? They are promoted by teachers who do not bother to take classes. How do such teachers get appointed and promoted? It seems like we are going around in circles.
The fact is that there are faculty members in grades 20 and even 21 who are rarely seen in their respective departments unless of course there is a faculty luncheon. It is no secret that these people are in positions of authority in return for services rendered to one political faction or the other. Meritorious candidates are bypassed for the simple reason that they may not have the will or the talent to suck up to the powers that be. The teachers’ societies at our universities are very vocal in their opposition to any educational reforms proposed by the HEC.
They get upset that the autonomy of the universities is being curbed. I question this autonomy. It does not seem to be freedom for honest intellectual, but really the autonomy of mutual back-scratching. So our universities are indeed not autonomous; they are in the clutches of political factions.
This has totally ruined some of our universities. It seems that the authorities have become completely delusional. Claiming that the universities are the ‘best’ in the country will not make them so. Shutting our eyes to reality will not change it. If we seriously want to improve this dismal state of affairs, then the political parties must be made to stop using the universities to further their own agenda.
One last word of advice to the HEC: if your policy must succumb to political ‘imperatives’ (read expediency), then please do not go around announcing it in haste. This turns the joke on you.
A. KHAN
Karachi
MR Javed Khan in “Curse of honour killing” (May 1) while recounting the brutal attempt of the killing of a 14-year-old girl by her two cousins in Karachi has given an example of the role played by Sir Charles Napier in dealing with the custom of karo-kari in Sindh about 150 years ago.
He has appreciated Napier for eliminating this abominable practice by razing entire villages where such a case was reported.
I would like to point out that Lt-Gen Napier came to India as an employee of the East India Company, a body corporate-turned-sovereign.
Despite signing a written accord of cooperation with the Mirs he treacherously imposed war and outwitted them in the battle of Miani and annexed Sindh, then an independent state with the above trading company (as an estate) and not with the Crown.
It was only after the 1857 war of independence that the British government took over the affairs of the subcontinent.
The insidious conduct of Napier could not be explained better than by his once close associate, i.e., Col. Outram, who held the portfolio of political agent of Sindh, in his book Conquest of Sindh (two volumes).
Likewise H.T Lambrick, special commissioner of Sindh, in Charles Napier of Sindh has quoted numerous instances of the general’s perfidious nature. More relevant are the dispatches of Judge Advocate-General Col Keith Young who was straightforward in disclosing Napier’s sense of “justice.” His “conquest of Sindh” was not accepted by even the British intelligentsia as something to be proud of.
So the razing of villages by Napier was carried out only for the sake of creating terror in the hearts of the subject population and not to eliminate karo-kari, which remained alive throughout the British period.
The difference is that now due to the communication explosion and involvement of NGOs such incidents even in the remotest corner of the province get immediate coverage.
Honour killing is a most obnoxious and ruthless practice and needs multi-pronged handling.
MANZOOR H. KURESHI
Karachi
MR TAYYAB Noor Gandhi’s article in your esteemed daily of April 9 on the above subject, deals with ‘sheesha’ smoking, which is several times more harmful than smoking cigarettes.
Mr Gandhi has reproduced a study conducted at the department of medicine, King Abdul Aziz University, Saudi Arabia.
The study showed that CoBb concentration in cigarette smokers was 6.47 per cent while in sheesha smokers it was found to be 10.6 per cent, about 60 per cent more.
Mr Ghandhi has further dealt with long-term health hazards which include the risk of lung and oral cancer. Usually sheesha smoking is shared by young people in Pakistan at posh restaurants and there is always a risk of spread of infectious diseases by mouth as the same sheesha is used by several smokers.
None of the restaurants providing sheesha at a fancy price has admitted that tobacco is being used in sheesha. They call it some sort of a flavoured mixture. I have personally checked the flavoured materials used which contain more tobacco than flavour.
While travelling in western countries in the early 70s and 80s, I came across Indian and other grocery shops which sold pocket-size hookahs or sheesha made of brass. These attracted drug addicts who used to smoke different highly intoxicating powered drugs. Though sheesha may satisfy smokers at present with its pleasant flavour, ultimately it may lead to adopting other vices. Smoking of sheesha should be banned immediately by the health ministry.
SARAH LYALL
Karachi
I AM writing this with reference to your editorial of April 20. I want to share a bitter experience I had in connection with possession of my flat No. C215 in Karachi's Iqra City Project. I have complained to the authorities of various departments but it hurts me to say that there is nothing like justice here. Justice was delayed (and as such denied); and although it may exist in letter, it was not manifested in spirit
The government should constitute an independent national commission to resolve legal complications and simplify the laws of the land in accordance with the needs of the common person. Our official procedure and judicial system should be amended to meet the needs of lay people.
MRS MUMTAZ BEGUM SOOMRO
Via email
THE National Assembly debated the privatisation of Pakistan Steel and the “graduate members” confined their speeches to the price and transparency. But the issue is more than the sale price and the deal’s transparency, the issue is primarily one of the sovereign right to sell “family silver.” Only parliament should exercise this right. But the “graduate members” are more concerned with form than substance.
They did not do what they were sent there to do. No such sale should be transacted except by the approval, first, of the provincial legislature concerned and, then, of by the National Assembly.
The entire deal should be scrapped by the National Assembly whose members should now put aside their party-centric obsessions and get down to living up to voters’ view of it as the nation’s only sovereign body.
Why is there this urgency to sell our industrial assets? And that too the better ones among them? And why this enduring preference to sell to outsiders, giving them additional advantages not ever given to Pakistan’s professional entrepreneurs? What is it in our laws that Pakistanis who have the money to build palatial houses and to buy expensive cars (allowed recently to be imported at the cost of hurting our own automobile industry) are not investing in industries as was the case in the 1960s? Why is more capital going into trade than in industry, and why should foreign investors come without local partnership with local investors?
Should we not learn from our very brotherly brothers in the Middle East where our investors and professionals have to have local partners, and from the USA’s recent action to protect their seaports from their staunch friend in the Middle East?
The cabinet should look into these points and provide for removing the imbalances in its next budget proposals to the National Assembly.
Syed I.R. Kazimi
Karachi
AFTER PTCL’s sale of 26 per cent shares (ownership), Pakistan Steel was also sold out cheaply for $336 billion or Rs21.68 billion, which includes all plant and equipment and machinery plus 4,547 acres of land and a 55 megawatt power plant with all infrastructure (roads, gas, water and utilities).
A local company had once offered Rs20 billion for the land alone.
The adjoining areas (vacant) and industrial estates without development are being bid for Rs5 to 6 million per acre while developed plant land of 4,547 acres may fetch Rs15 million an acre at the present market rate.
The government has no right to sell public sector assets before debating the issue in parliament.
M.Y. CHOHAN
Karachi
THIS has reference to a recent news report about preservation of ‘havelis’ by the government. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has promised Rs50 million for the restoration of old buildings.
I would like to state that Sethi Street in Peshawar boasts eight ‘havelis’ built in the style of Bokhara and Samarkand. According to official records, they were built between 1888 and 1912 by prosperous Sethis who traded in Samarkand and Bokhara mainly in skin and hides, carpets, dry fruit and tea.
These goods were exported to different countries across Asia. The fall of the Russian empire in 1917 following the Bolshevik Revolution was a blow to the business of these rich merchants. The later generation couldn’t keep up the business of their forefathers. The present generation of Sethis does not have resources to maintain these ‘havelis’.
In April 2004, a document, Walled City of Peshawar, was launched jointly by the directorate of archaeology and museums, NWFP, the Heritage Foundation and Unesco. A resolution was unanimously passed for implementing all the proposals of the document to restore the old city, prevent unplanned commercialisation and destruction of historic sites and buildings.
Before commercialisation takes over, I appeal to the prime minister to discuss with the NWFP authorities how to save these ‘havelis’.
DR IRSHAD AHMED SETHI
Peshawar
THE motorway linking Karachi and Gwadar has become a source of economic activity. Highways like this one are supposed to have safety measures of international standard, such as the motorway between Lahore and Islamabad.
Some of the following points may be studied in the case of the Karachi-Gwadar highway: There are sharp approaches, and turnings from one to another main road; there are no proper international standard signboards at specified distances for the approaches; L-turns should be avoided and big semi-circle turnings be designed; humps and other such measures should be made before turnings; no communication whatsoever is available on this highway, and even cellular phones get cut off; no fuel is available for hundreds of kilometres, nor is there any vehicle repair shop; and there is no restaurant or washroom on the highway.
A survey must be carried out to make up for such shortcomings.
SHAIKH FAKHRUDDIN SADRIWALA
Karachi
THE report that placed Pakistan ninth in a list of failed states is the “joke of the year” and factually incorrect. The study — compiled by the US Foreign Policy magazine and the US-based Fund for Peace think-tank —- showed Pakistan moving from 34th position to ninth in the table. Pakistan was the only country that jumped 25 places in a year.
The fact that Afghanistan was placed ahead of Pakistan at 10th position speaks volumes about the report’s credibility. Even Iraq is better placed than Pakistan.
Clearly the compilers made no effort to find out about what was actually happening in Pakistan. I do not understand the parameters they adopted to declare Pakistan as a failed state. Pakistan has attracted billions of dollars of foreign investment in the last financial year.
The country’s law and order situation and its human rights record are better than those of many other countries and certainly far better than those of Afghanistan and Iraq. Pakistan should remain aware of its enemies and try to project itself in better way.
JAWAD HAIDER
Quetta
IT has appeared in a section of the press that Sindh University is celebrating founder’s day from April 9 to 16 as Allama I. I. Kazi Day. Allama Kazi was a great vice-chancellor of the university, but whether he was its founder is not clear.
I suggest that a workshop may be held to exchange views on this subject of historical interest.
AGHA SHAHABUDDIN
Former provincial secretary, local government, Karachi
You can also send letters to the Editor
Just send your message to the following address: letters@dawn.com
Make sure you include your full name, postal address, e-mail address, and in the case of Pakistan your day-time telephone number.