| September 04, 2006 | Monday | Sha'aban 10, 1427 |
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Justice for all
Stone-pitching the bridge
Nothing has changed
The truths about India
Freedom of information
Not a case of déjà vu
Doctors’ remuneration
‘Parha likha’ Punjab
Learning from Israel
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
POWER loadshedding has at last reached Islamabad this summer. It was not a surprise. This has proved to power planners in Lahore and finance managers in Islamabad that affairs in the power sector have really gone from bad to worse.
Previously, our power bureaucrats thought that as long as Islamabad was spared of loadshedding, everything in the power sector was right. Between July 30 and Aug 1, Karachi suffered one of its worst outages. Vast areas were without power from 24 to 48 hours. It has been reported in the media that industries in SITE, Karachi, suffered a loss of Rs5 billion in 36 hours’ load-shedding. All this is the result of wrong priorities in power distribution by the authorities concerned.
Outage is the direct result of thinly spreading all over the country our scarce available power. According to the government, by 2007 every village will be electrified. If this is done, it would cost our industries dearly. Our power situation is hopeless, so villages will have to wait for a couple of years more till we improve power generation.
To meet our present shortfalls, we have to utilise all available resources. However, whenever we discuss this subject, we start with mega projects like Kalabagh, Basha, Neelum-Jhelum and Kohala. Each of these projects requires 10 to 15 years for development. Although each one is vital to the power sector, this does not stop us from considering medium-sized projects.
The River Jhelum from Garhi Doopata to Mangla Dam, a distance of about 120km, has a potential of about 1,000 MW. The river is most easily accessible as metalled road runs along it for at least 80km.
During the 1980-83 period, Wapda investigated the Basian Dam project, located at 14km downstream of the Kohala Bridge, under major hydro- electric project PC-II, and carried out thousands of feet of drilling, excavated hundreds of feet of adits and carried out surveying in a large area. A senior French engineer of M/s. Coyne et Bellier, a French firm of repute, was posted at Wapda’s headquarters in Lahore for six months. Millions of rupees were spent on this project. A report was issued suggesting generation of 150 to 200 MW of power at this site. After so much of efforts, Wapda is not pursuing this project anymore. In fact, the project report is not traceable. It seems that Wapda has forgotten this project altogether.
Simultaneously, Wapda’s consultant, Montreal Engineering Co. (Meco) of Canada, which had identified Basha Dam, recommended cascade type of development for the Jhelum River from Gari Doopata to the Mangla Dam. They recommended five or six medium-sized projects, including Basian Dam. These studies were carried out with CIDA funding. The recommended projects would generate about 1,000 MW of power. All these projects are most easily accessible and are uncontroversial. However, Wapda is also not pursuing these projects.
Similarly, a feasibility report of the Gilgit Hydro Power Project was prepared in 1982. A dam was proposed on the Gilgit River, about eight kilometres upstream of the town of Gilgit, with a power potential of about 25 MW. The report of this project was prepared as per the direction of Gen Ziaul Haq, president of Pakistan. Nobody knows what has Wapda done to this project?
These projects, with many more medium-sized hydropower projects, would substantially add to our power generation capacity. They will not in any way reduce the importance of any of the mega projects. Had these medium-sized projects been taken up since the 1980s, things would have been much better now in the power sector. Although, we have already wasted 25 years, it is still not late.
Wapda can unearth these project reports from its archives and can still implement all these medium-sized projects quickly. To take up any of these projects, Wapda does not require direction from any higher authority.
IQTIDAR H. SIDDIQUI
Karachi
IT was very disturbing to read the letter “Justice for all” (August 25) by Afsheen Nazir in which she described her ordeal at the hands of “administrators affiliated to the Supreme Court”. She says she was asked to remove her veil because the administrators thought that the veil was controversial and that the West equated it with terrorism. This is an act of discrimination and a terrible violation of a citizen’s civil rights.
The West is more concerned about the absence of freedoms and liberties in a country than its people’s choice of clothing. Many Muslim women in Europe and the USA wear the veil, and nobody questions their right to do so. It is another matter that every now and then there is a racist incident directed against visible minorities. When this happens, the full force of the law comes to the aid of the victim.
Even if the West equated the veil with terrorism (which it does not), Ms Nazir should not have been asked to shed her veil. Upon reading about the bizarre explanation given to her by the administrators, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Had she been invited to attend a ceremony or been accepted as a volunteer at the American Supreme Court, nobody would have dared ask her to remove her veil.
Nothing would have happened, if she was seen wearing her veil at the ceremony. Contrarily, Pakistan’s standing will suffer if and when the world finds out about the wanton disregard based upon their perverted perception of modernity.
A society is not free and modern when citizens cannot wear what they want. In my humble opinion, there is no difference between the Turkish and the French laws that forbid women to wear a headscarf and the laws of Saudi Arabia and Iran that force women to dress in a certain way.
All these laws are anti-freedom and anti-modernity. She now deserves an apology from none other than the chief justice of the Supreme Court and possibly also the president of the republic, if it is established that the ‘administrators’ were also acting on behalf of the executive branch. As she has eloquently pointed out, a terrible injustice was done to her due to a ceremony which was ironically titled “Justice for all”.
SIDDIQUE MALIK
Louisville, USA
IT is gratifying to note that railway traffic between Karachi and Hyderabad, on both the tracks, was finally restored on Aug 25, after the disruption of this vital railway lifeline of Pakistan, twice since July 30, when the 100-year-old bridge had collapsed under a flash flood due to heavy rains. The temporary bridge, on a diversion on sleeper cribs, had also been washed away soon after.
The report and panoramic picture of the site by Mr M.H. Khan, published in Dawn of Aug 27, however, offered the real cause of the collapse, due to the gravel and sand having been illegally removed by some mafia, close to the downstream side of the bridge, thus causing heavy scouring of its foundations. In case, this weakness was detected in time and protected by adequate stone-pitching, the collapse could have been avoided.
As heavy rains were being forecast during the entire period, instead of building a sleeper-crib-supported temporary bridge on the diversion, a standard stone-pitched dip was provided, which could be built within 24 hours, and the traffic could be restored on both tracks much earlier. Such dips offer quick restoration of rail traffic despite following flash floods, which are generally for a few hours only, during which traffic could be stopped and restored without much effort, as soon as the flood passes away.
It is hoped that the authorities concerned will check up all such bridges on this and other routes, where gravel and sand has been removed or is likely to be removed from the downstream side and take action to strengthen them, where so required, to avoid such disruptions.
Besides this, provision of dips may be considered where the conditions permit in the case of damage to bridges or breaches, etc., for quick restoration of traffic, instead of making sleeper crib temporary bridges, which are weak and are likely to be washed away, as happened in this case. To achieve such measures, adequate stock of pitching stones may be kept, as flood reserve near such vulnerable places as had been the practice for a long time.
S.M.H. RIZVI
Karachi
IT was July 1979. I was sitting for my first year intermediate pre-medical examinations. My examination centre was in Kharadar and the first paper was English. By 10am, as we were writing the exam, it started to rain furiously. There was confusion as to whether the paper should continue. We were told to continue with the examination. The centre had a leaky roof, but we kept writing our paper.
By 12 noon when the paper finished, we learnt that some centres had already cancelled the papers. When we looked outside I saw cars floating in water. I wasn’t sure what to do. I knew that my parents would come and get me. My best friend, who was with me, argued that they cannot get to us even if they tried. He advised me to walk to his place on Burnes Road in the waist-deep water.
Reluctantly I agreed. It took us three hours to walk from Kharadar to Habib Bank Plaza. Most of the way I had to lift my friend, on my shoulders to save him from swallowing the water now mixed with overflowing gutters or getting drowned. He in turn saved my admit card from getting soaked by placing it in a plastic bag. We rested for 30 minutes and started off again with him on my shoulders till where Shaheen Plaza now stands.
That day I reached my home in Clifton Block 5 on foot at 8pm, only to find that my parents had rented a truck which went up till Habib Bank Plaza and then refused to go any further because of the height of the water. They came back distraught not knowing what had happened to me.
Apparently nothing has changed. This shows that as a nation we are static and have not developed any civic sense and responsibility. The responsibility to make our lives better goes right to the top leadership and then right to the bottom to our individual selves. Our inaction has made Karachi a big slum.
DR KALEEMULLAH SAYYED
Little Rock, USA
IN his letter, ‘Pooling resources key to success’, Ashish Singh has claimed that India never attacked any country. Also, that Pakistan had essentially forced the Bangladesh war on them and, China, too, had attacked India, rather than the other way round (Aug 25).
This is a typical Indian approach — denying every wrongdoing on their part. The war in Bangladesh came about because India had sent in its commandos disguised as the ‘Mukti Bahini’ guerillas. Field Marshal Maneckshaw had not only acknowledged this but also the loss of their lives by the hundreds.
Besides that, it had also been training thousands of insurgents from East Pakistan inside India. This was confirmed by one such Bangladeshi guerilla, M. Zainul Abedin, in his eye-opening book, RAW and Bangladesh, while providing many particulars of the dirty game played by the Indian army and the intelligence agency RAW, before and after the creation of his country, leading to his total disillusionment.
Regarding the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the famous British philosopher and peace activist Bertrand Russell, who called himself a ‘lifetime friend’ of India and had worked for its freedom in 1947, had much to say in his book, Unarmed Victory.
The gentleman had not only played a significant role in trying to defuse the Cuban missile crisis between the US and the USSR the year before, but had also made hectic efforts for rapprochement between the two Asian countries by directly communicating with their prime ministers, Zhou Enlai and Jawaharlal Nehru (whom he knew personally).
While praising Mr Zhou’s positive and helpful attitude, he had bitterly criticised the Indian government and public’s hawkishness and bigotry, of which he gave concrete examples, on an issue of critical importance to the international community. He had concluded that India had double standards and was not only responsible for the war but had also misled the West in order to gain its sympathy and, more importantly, military and moral support.
There were other independent western analysts as well who had laid the blame on India. One such writer’s book was even banned by New Delhi because the truth was too painful to digest. Apart from that, another western defence analyst, Sandy Gordon, had written some years back that relations between India and all of its small neighbours have at one time or another been troubled because of its desire for hegemony.
Besides the Kashmir dispute, he had noted India’s occupation of Goa In 1961, the economic blockade of the land-locked Nepal and the difficulties with Sri Lanka. In the case of the latter, things got so bad, wrote Mr Gordon, that the Sri Lankan government had reportedly approached the United Kingdom, the United States, Pakistan and China in July 1983 for assistance in case India invaded.
The frequent border clashes with Bangladesh in which hundreds of the latter’s troops and unarmed civilians have been killed in recent years are yet another problem, as also the fiddling with the river water supplies to Pakistan and Bangladesh. No, Mr Singh, attempts to distort history or bully other countries won’t help India but only a sincere recognition of the rights of the smaller countries as well as of the Indian minorities in Kashmir and the north-eastern states and a genuine desire for peaceful coexistence as sovereign equals will.
M. MUSLIM
Karachi
Reference ‘Hezbollah TV case fuels debate in US’ (Dawn, Aug 28). It is highly regrettable that in the land of freedom and democracy that America is supposed to be, Pakistani-American businessman Javed Iqbal should be stopped from using his first amendment right of freedom of expression.
Really, he should face no restriction in re-broadcasting Al-Manar TV programmes from Lebanon. These programmes will enable the American people to watch for themselves the massive destruction of Lebanon which the Israeli armed forces, with the active support of American state of the art weaponry, have inflicted.
TV channels like CNN and Fox are dishing out propaganda about Hezbollah’s ‘terrorism’ which is really far from truth. Even Hezbollah leader Nasrallah’s latest statements on Israel’s disproportionate and massive retaliation during the 34-day war are being downplayed and misinterpreted by American TV channels.
True to the principles of freedom of expression, the regulatory agencies of New York should allow Mr Iqbal to operate his legal business and let the American viewing public decide for themselves if Al-Manar is broadcasting terrorist propaganda or not.
GOHAR SYED
Quebec, Canada
THERE are no similarities between Balochistan today and the events of 1971 in East Pakistan. Sheikh Mujib exploited the government’s actual neglect, while Bugti neglected the government’s attention in order to ensure his own supreme authority and his own perpetual neglect of his land and people. He tried to mislead the Baloch through the ‘we are neglected by the rest of Pakistan’ fiction, while all he was concerned about was the effects on his ‘rule’ if the government succeeded in developing Balochistan.
With all due respect anyone who takes up arms against the nation’s army and the government, hints at separatist intentions or damages public property and claims to have killed soldiers and many countless others is a traitor and bound to end up like this. Not just in Pakistan but in any country of the world.
The Quaid-i-Azam said: “Pakistan has come to stay and no power on earth can destroy it.” No one is bigger than Pakistan, and anyone with sinister motives will meet a similar end.
HARIS MASOOD ZUBERI
Karachi
I WAS surprised to read that the governor has increased the allowances of professors, associates/assistant professors and the under-training doctors ranging from Rs7,000 to Rs15,000 (Dawn, Aug 23). But he has grossly ignored house officers who are the backbone of this profession.
A paltry Rs6,200 (stipend of house officers) is indeed very little remuneration vis-a-vis hazards and challenges they are exposed to. Remember, last year a young budding house officer contracted a killer disease and sacrificed her life for the cause of this noble profession.
The professors, associate professors are already well-off due to their private practice. I hope the governor is not following in the footprints of our prime minister whose economic policy has been to make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.
Being a doctor himself and having gone through the financial hardship of a house officer, it is astonishing that he has shown insensitivity to the plight of the house officers. It is believed that in Punjab the house officers are being paid double the amount of what their counterparts are getting in Sindh. One country, two standards. Why?
It may be pertinent to mention here that working condition in public sector hospitals is appalling, yet the young doctors discharge their duties with devotion and a sense of commitment.
And now he (the governor) is promising 45,000 new jobs in Sindh (an impossible rhetoric), the doctors who cleared Public Service Commission, Sindh, examinations last year, their fate is still hanging in the balance.
Will the governor set his priorities right and do first thing first?
SAFIR A. SIDDIQUI
Karachi
WHO is the chief minister trying to impress? The government of Punjab is spending millions of rupees on their advertisement campaign for promoting education.
These advertisements appear in the English dailies and I am sure that the readers of these newspapers already send their children to schools.
Could the minister spare us from these ads and spend the money where it is badly needed, i.e., on educating poor people.
Also, why does the chief minister have to appear in each advertisement?
RIZVANA IKRAM
Lahore
HEZBULLAH guerrillas have changed the perspective of power in the region. What used to appear big now looks very small and, vice versa.
They have shown that true leadership can bring about great changes in the destiny of nations for Syed Hasan Nasrallah has indeed changed the destiny of the people of Lebanon. The possession of heaps of modern weaponry and a large army is no guarantee of success in warfare.
Instead a smaller group of sincerely dedicated fighters can cause real damage to a much larger and well-equipped army. This so-called, terrorist organisation has already undertaken the mammoth task of rebuilding what was destroyed by a terrorist state.
During the 34 days of naked aggression not once did the Hizbullah appeal for help or a ceasefire. They confronted the enemy unflinchingly and steadfastly on their own.
MIR SAJJAD MEHDI
Karachi
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