| June 07, 2006 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1427 |
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Historical building in Gilgit
Burning natural wealth
Baloch senator’s presentation
Way out of power crisis?
Islamic banking
Mangrove plantation
Worse yet to come?
The narrow view
Pre-monsoon rain
Ambassador in Washington
Wedding meals
Traffic on Mai Kolachi
DHA
THIS is with reference to the article ‘Taking stock, resuming course’ (Dawn, Education page, May 28) by Ms Ayesha Siddique. She has describe an HEC programme as the “mass production of PhD without focus on quality”.
There are two types of PhD programmes at the HEC and in both the highest importance has been given to the quality of PhD.
First, in the indigenous PhD programme, about 1,000 scholarships are awarded each year but there is no possibility of mass production of substandard PhDs under this programme as the HEC has laid down strict quality control guidelines regarding PhD output, and universities have been informed that their PhD degrees will not be recognised if they fail to meet the stipulated quality standards.
These include: (1) qualifying international subject GRE examination prior to admission to PhD, (2) intensive course work at MPhil and PhD levels, (3) enrolment of specified number of PhD students with each supervisor (normally one to four, and maximum of eight in exceptional cases), (4) examination of PhD thesis only by two eminent experts in technologically advanced countries and (5) publication of at least one research paper in an international journal of repute, (6) enrolment of students only with those supervisors as are recognised by the HEC for them to be eligible to HEC scholarships.
The writer appears not to be aware of these strict requirements laid down by the HEC as none of these are even mentioned in her article. The HEC is, however, open to further specific suggestions to improve quality, instead of being subjected to unfounded criticism.
A second well-thought-out programme to develop high quality faculty has been launched and over 1,100 students have been sent to Germany, France, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and China already for MS and PhD level studies with necessary steps to ensure their return. The world’s largest Fulbright programme has also been launched with joint funding from the HEC and the USAID to send the brightest students to only the top universities in the US.
To ensure the very best quality of student intake, a nation- wide test is first held and the best performing students are then interviewed by teams of eminent foreign professors who come especially to Pakistan to hold interviews and test the students’ command over the subject, with the HEC playing no role whatsoever in the final selection process.
The ‘sifarish’ culture, therefore, just cannot work under this transparent merit-based selection process which ensures that only high standard students will qualify. Moreover, most students are required to do an MS abroad and not admitted directly to PhD. This ensures that those who perform poorly at the MS level will be sent back and not allowed to continue for a PhD.
The chancellors’ committee, headed by the president of Pakistan, has reiterated again at its recent meeting that compliance with governance issues must be linked with funding and those universities which violate HEC quality criteria for PhD programmes will face severe cuts in their funding and their degrees will not be recognised by the HEC. Adequate measures are thus in place to check the quality of education being imparted.
DR RASHID MATEEN
Higher Education Commission Islamabad
HIGH above the city of Gilgit on its southern extremity stands a historical building which is the house of the general officer commanding, Northern Areas. This building is one of the oldest official buildings in the Northern Areas.
In yesteryear, it used to be the commandant house of the Gilgit scouts. It has been in existence for three centuries. This building, by virtue of the fact that its inhabitants from time to time have played instrumental roles in shaping the history of the Northern Areas, enjoys the status of a historical monument.
A couple of years back, it was decided that the general officer commanding will shift to another house being constructed in the heart of the cantonment area. The army authorities directed the revenue department to acquire the GOC house. But then it was auctioned to, of all people, the customs department for something like Rs15 million. Now as soon as the general’s new house will be ready, he will shift and hand over this living history of the north to the customs department.
The people of the Northern Areas consider this building as their historical heritage. We appeal to the president of Pakistan to cancel this sale deed and declare the building as a museum of living history for the Northern Areas, as at present there is no museum in this area.
Due to the non-existence of a museum, the Northern Areas have lost hundreds of priceless artefacts. This building, if declared a museum, will provide whatever history that is left a place to survive for posterity.
IQBAL AHMAD
Gilgit
AS a frequent traveller between Islamabad and Lahore along the M-1 motorway, I often encounter as many as one dozen brush fires on either side of the road on a single trip. All appear to be caused deliberately and wilfully.
Sometimes I have seen uniformed motorway employees setting fire to the grass and underbrush, which then spreads far and wide.
I have fruitlessly tried to persuade them that this is wrong but they invariably retort that they are under orders from their superiors.
The celebrated motorway police merely watch as these ecological crimes happen.
The destruction caused by this compulsive pyromania is there for all to see. Thousands of eucalyptus trees, planted along the roadsides, have been burned either partially or totally.
In the dreadful heat, obviously under orders, teams of uniformed motorway gardeners tear away at everything that is green. They burn whatever will burn.
So, instead of the lush greenery that normally follows the rains, one sees blackened ashes on the roadsides. In other countries, natural vegetation is treasured as a source of both beauty and oxygen.
I am at a loss to understand why the National Highway Authority and Frontier Works Organization have ordered their employees to perform acts of arson and destroy national wealth.
PERVEZ HOODBHOY
Islamabad
THIS is in response to the letter ‘Baloch senator’s presentation” (May 31).
On May 25, the United States Institute of Peace, a non-partisan organisation dedicated to the non-violent resolution of conflict, hosted a panel discussion on ‘The crisis in Balochistan’ due to concerns about the growing level of violence there, and the use of Balochistan as a base for the Taliban.
The three speakers, Senator Sanaullah Baloch, Frederic Grare, and Selig Harrison, all presented remarks on the situation.
To correct the above-mentioned letter, USIP did invite a speaker from the embassy of Pakistan in Washington to participate, but the embassy declined to provide a speaker, and declined to respond to the panel after the talks.
The full recording of this session is available to your readers free of charge at http://www.usip.org/events/2006/0525_balochistan.html. USIP does not take responsibility for the comments of speakers, but I invite your readers to listen to the presentations themselves to make an informed judgment of whether the event provided valuable and balanced information.
J. ALEXANDER THIER
Senior Rule of Law Adviser
United States Institute of Peace
SHOPKEEPERS in Karachi have been told to shut businesses by sundown in the wake of what is termed the worst-ever power crisis to hit the city.
The move to cut power to streetlights in some non-residential areas might also provide some relief but it appears to be inadequate as small vendors and shops are not responsible for the 60 per cent line losses suffered by the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC).
Another move, which should be taken simultaneously, is to cut illegal connections that are found in abundance in almost every locality in the city, including several industrial areas.
Overcoming the pilferage of electricity, which is apparently encouraged by vested interests in the electricity utility, will go a long way in overcoming in the shortage.
One cannot understand how a shortage of “only a few hundred megawatts”, as KESC claims, can lead to power shutdowns lasting long hours almost every day.
One can only wonder what will happen when the shortage increases during the peak summer season.
GHOUSE MOHIUDDIN
Karachi
A BANK’s president has held depositors responsible for low return by saying, “who stops depositors from shifting from current savings account to time deposits which offer better rates”? (May 15).
The argument offered by the banker holds no ground. To offer lower rate of return to the current savings account-holders goes against the Islamic banking system. Islamic banking has no conditions other than sharing the return on deposits, or sharing the bank losses, according to the bank’s profit or loss on a year-to-year basis, i.e., more return for us in case the bank has more profit.
This is the basis of the Islamic banking system which has been done away with by the very people who were supposed to take care for it.
Z.A. KAZMI
Karachi
WE have planted about 7,000 mangroves on the seashore at Port Qasim in front of our site, and they are coming out nicely. Our mangrove plantation contractor Sultan Shah introduced me to Abu Bakr, who is from Zanzibar, Africa, and has dual nationality.
His wife and kids live in Pakistan while the rest of the family is in Zanzibar. He is constructing a 25-foot-long fibreglass boat near our mangrove plantation area.
Abu Bakr appeared like a typical Pakistani fisherman, he was shabbily dressed, wearing a dark dirty shirt with torn-out sleeves, paint/oil-soaked shalwar and was barefoot. His belongings, all very humble, lay on the seashore under the sun. He introduced himself to me in fluent English with a 10 on 10 accent.
Later he told me that he could speak Arabic, Italian, German, Swahili and all coastal African languages. He has travelled a lot and studied the usage of fibreglass in New Orleans in 1982, a year before I heard about fibreglass.
The technique that he is using for making his fibreglass boat is innovative. He has created a wooden skeleton, which is wrapped and covered with pieces of old cotton rags/cloth. Once the sewing of the cloth is completed with the wooden structure, he will wet it with solution of polyester resin, hardener and catalyst and lay woven fibreglass mat on top.
By doing so he has successfully eliminated the need for development and usage of a costly mould. I could only look at his creativity and admire the uniqueness of his design. The engine, he plans to use, will give him 35mph. He says he can go to Zanzibar in this boat.
He is a nature lover, something which I have in common with him. He hates fishermen who cut mangroves for firewood, and showed me a four-inch-thick, five-foot-long mangrove trunk which he snatched from the other fishermen.
He also dislikes the hunters who catch wild birds from the mangrove plantation and volunteered to stop all such hunters from our coastal area. He says mangroves attract fish, prawn and crabs in large numbers. His livelihood is catching crabs. He has named his boat ‘Yes Baby’, and he has a boat named the same in Zanzibar.
I found him quite knowledgeable on mangroves as he told me about the three types of mangroves found in Port Qasim and also which one grows faster. He says that on his return fishing trips from the mangroves he will bring us saplings to be planted ‘free of cost’.
According to him, what we are doing is going to increase the crab, fish and prawn habitat and in the process create a sustainable livelihood for fishermen.
He also talked about the mangroves that we planted in the Port Qasim area in 1999 which, according to him, are now converted into a forest with healthy school of fish, crabs and prawns.
He has two energetic, English-speaking team members and he graciously introduced them to me as our new team members for the mangrove plantation project. He also said that his new ‘Yes Baby’ was available to us for our mangroves plantation or any other need.
Impressed and awed by his personality, I invited him over for a cup of tea or lunch which he politely refused. He said he might come some day to make a telephone call which I accepted quickly.
S. NAYYAR IQBAL RAZA
Karachi
THE evening of Friday, June 2 may have set a new benchmark for traffic jams on the streets of Karachi. I spent five and a half hours stuck in traffic on I. I. Chundrigar Road.
During that traumatic time I witnessed four elderly ladies panting for drinking water, corporate executives missing their flights out of Karachi, and six Edhi ambulances trying to make headway with ailing patients lying helplessly in the hope of reaching hospitals.
All this was done in the name of a rickshaw driver strike, the preparation of which had started as early as 3 pm. Was the city government sleeping in the late hours of the afternoon?
Well it certainly seems so. Can anybody advise them on how to remain awake to early warnings or are worse incidents yet to come?
BEHRAM N. MANA
Karachi
I WAS shocked to see photographs in certain newspapers of a man painting over the hoarding of a mobile telephone company in Peshawar under instructions from the provincial government.
The huge billboard on the main road leading to Hayatabad on the outskirts of Peshawar shows a smiling Kalash girl in her traditional attire. It appears that this billboard violated the principles of morality of a certain political party and was, therefore, deemed ‘un-Islamic’.
Would the self-appointed guardians of our faith care to explain what exactly was obscene or vulgar about a young Kalash girl wearing her traditional clothes which were by no means revealing?
If this is how the provincial government plans to react to the marketing campaigns of major investors in our province, I see no future for the development for our province and its unfortunate people.
I feel this is yet another short-sighted measure taken by the leadership of a religious alliance to gain some publicity and win over its extremist supporters.
SHAFIQUE UR-REHMAN
Canterbury, UK
AS monsoon rain has already hit Mumbai 10 days earlier, then usual, there exists a good potential for pre-monsoon rain to hit lower parts of Pakistan. This can lead to abnormal tidal waves across coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan. Therefore, the authorities concerned should take immediate steps to prepare for early pre-monsoon rain.
ARIF UR REHMAN
Karachi
A two-star general is replacing a four-star general as our ambassador in Washington. Maj-Gen Mahmud A. Durrani, who was once military secretary to president Ziaul Haq and served as military attaché in Washington for five years, is replacing Ambassador Gen Jehangir Karamat.
Gen Karamat had accepted the assignment for a period of two years and didn’t want to stay beyond that.
Mr Nawaz Sharif had summarily retired COAS Gen Karamat three months prior to his actual retirement date as he had suggested the formation of a national security council.
As commander of armoured division in Multan, Gen Durrani was extraordinarily insistent in his phone calls to Gen Ziaul Haq in August 1988, asking him to come to Bahawalpur to witness the US M-1 Abram Tanks field demonstration.
He said it would be politically expedient and diplomatically desirable for the president to witness the exercises. Zia went but never came back.
ASLAM MINHAS
Karachi
I WONDER what became of the proposed legislation for sanctioning one-dish meals at weddings. Didn’t we read in the newspapers that our hardworking legislators plan to pass a bill in this regard promptly? Then what happened?
We read reports of punishments and arrests for violation of the ban on serving of wedding meals. What is the matter with our legislators?
If they have agreed on legislating a new one-dish wedding meals law, then why the delay. Let us solve the people’s problems on a priority basis.
GUL JAHAN
Sargodha
THIS is regarding the heavy vehicular traffic on Mai Kolachi Road. While one side of the road is being repaired, heavy vehicles like trailers, trucks, containers are plying freely along with normal traffic such as coaches, cars and motorbikes on the other side.
As far as I know, such heavy vehicular traffic on the city roads is not allowed during the daytime.
The long heavy trailers, containers , trucks, etc., are not only adding to the traffic jams but also causing accidents during rush hours.
The authorities are urged not to allow these heavy vehicles to operate on Mai Kolachi Road during the day.
SARAH IQBAL
Karachi
A FEW days back a letter appeared in these columns stating that every country in the world has an army but none has a Defence Housing Authority (DHA) except Pakistan.
I would like to point out that, in addition to Pakistan, the US too has a DHA. It is called the “Arlington Cemetery”.
TAJAMUL BUKHARI
Lahore
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