| September 06, 2006 | Wednesday | Sha'aban 12, 1427 |
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Unholy nexus
The Bugti I met
DHA waterfront developments
Bullet train idea
Hezbollah, faith and F-16s
Progress of library science
Medical hazards
Justice for all
Why blame Pakistan?
Sanctity of the flag
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
THIS has reference to the editorial, ‘Textile export flaws’ (Aug 30). It’s not surprising to know that growth in textiles is not at par with the expectations. The textile industry itself is responsible for the mess they find themselves in.
The foremost reason being the ineptitude of the management. Almost all of the top hierarchal positions are usually held by family members. Notwithstanding the education or experience, in the event of crisis responsibility cannot be fixed on anyone due to the stature of these people. Therefore, the loopholes cannot be identified and problems multiply with the passage of time.
In order to turn around the functioning of the textile mills, there is a dire need for professional from outside the family clan to step in.
The state also made a mistake of pampering the textile industry for too long. Every now and then the government has provided cushions, tax breaks and concessions. Textile manufacturers were even allowed to import state-of-the-art machinery duty-free at times. In EPZ zones, factories were given tax exemptions to boost exports. This facility was grossly misused by the manufacturers causing huge losses to the national exchequer.
There is no denying that textiles provide mass employment but the local entrepreneurs called ‘seths’ do not treat their employees well.
Overworked, underpaid and abused are the terms that can be used to describe the state of the workers. Longer working hours that stretch without even a day’s break is the norm. Due to the negligence of the employers accidents are commonplace.
Usually a hush-hush attitude is adopted when accidents or fatalities occur. Most of the workers are employed on a daily wage basis and are devoid of health, security and holiday benefits which they would have received had they been on a permanent payroll.
It’s high time that the government took notice of the ‘cry wolf’ attitude of the textile mills owners and stopped pampering them. The owners make millions of dollars but through their clout always find a way around paying back their dues to the society. Textiles are not the nascent industry and therefore should not be given concessions all the time.
Otherwise it will end up like the carpet-making sector which has experienced virtually no growth for the last two decades despite backing by the government.
MISBAH NOMANI
Karachi
YOUR editorial ‘Unholy nexus’ (Aug 21) addresses an important issue. Pharmaceutical companies operate in a world of high stakes with potentially high returns of their investments. Recouping the money invested in drug development means using marketing techniques that ensures increased sales.
This is where the physician comes in. Unlike consumer products where customers make independent decisions about a product, here the physician makes the decision for the patient. What influences a physician to prescribe a certain brand of drug depends on a number of factors, the critical ones being his interaction with drug companies.
Numerous studies have shown the more contact physicians have with drug representatives the more they prescribe the company’s medicines. Pharmaceutical firms exploit it to the fullest. Hence the inducements — from diaries, calendars and pens to brief-cases, laptops, airconditioners and cars. There are also drug launches in foreign locations, conferences’ sponsorships and funding of private functions like weddings, etc.
Many companies do this under the guise of ‘academic’ activities. Every interaction between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry is to one end: to establish a relationship with physicians and manipulate them to prescribe more of their drugs.
On the other hand, physicians’ primary responsibility is, and must always be, to their patients, who are in a weak position due their compromised health status. The doctor-patient relationship is based on core features of trust, objectivity, impartiality and keeping the patient’s best interest in front. It should be free from all external influences.
All inducements from pharmaceutical firms to physicians are a form of legalised bribery. Physicians must be aware of this and not fool themselves into believing they are not influenced by gifts they receive or the trips they go on. While most things in life are relative, some things are, and should be, absolute. The doctor-patient relationship is an example of the absolute category. Its sanctity must be maintained at all costs.
PROF MURAD M. KHAN
Aga Khan University
Karachi
I MET Sardar (later Nawab) Bugti in 1973 when he as governor of Balochistan and Mr Khar as governor of Punjab were asked by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to join him in Paris where I was the Army and Navy attaché. At the request of my ambassador Sahibzada Yaqub Khan I offered any assistance Bugti Sahib might need in Paris. He showed interest in perfumes and my wife took us to a perfume shop whose owner she knew and who had a large collection available.
Bugti Sahib was dressed the Balochi style head to foot, a dress code he maintained throughout his stay in Paris. In the shop as Bugti Sahib became busy discerning the perfumes he would buy, the owner discreetly enquired whether the gentleman: handsome, tall, lean and extremely graceful with a flowing beard: was the ‘guru’ of Mr Bhutto. She was somewhat disappointed when told that the gentleman was the chief of an important tribe in Balochistan and the current governor of the largest province in the country.
Meantime, Sardar Bugti having made a large selection turned to me and said: “I must buy some for the family also.” When we looked surprised he explained that the current selection was for his guards who he said would lay down their lives for him and his family without asking. “They must come first,” he added. I translated that into French for the owner whose eyes immediately dimmed with moisture.
Later when I asked Nawab Bugti if he would like to have a look around the city, in his usual graceful manner he thanked me first, then said that he had joined the Sorbonne University in Paris at the age of 18 and still remembered the city’s lay like the back of his hand.
Some how the circumstances of his death have touched my heart in the same manner the passing of the Quaid, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, Khwaja Nazimuddin and Z. A. Bhutto died. May his soul and that of all others rest in eternal peace.
VICE ADMIRAL (r)
IQBAL F. QUADIR
Karachi
THE recent spate of news items motivated by “empathy for recreation of poor and antipathy for beach development” needs clarification to place things in a correct perspective.
The DHA’s waterfront integrated development plan for 14km Clifton beach-front has been evolved after due technical diligence taking into account the inputs from prominent urban planners, architects and stakeholders. The DHA took full cognizance of environmental protection, coastal conservation and town planning according to the stringent national and international standards.
The plan envisages maximum beach-front area to be accessible in its improved yet pristine form to the general public. State-of-the-art facilities for public recreation and entertainment as a value addition to this prime beach front had been added. Requirements of recreation-starved lower classes with a view to “franchise and not de-enfranchise” them are integral to this plan.
Some land parcels are being utilised for residential and commercial purposes or else they would either be encroached upon or degraded as an entity. However, the components of commercial nature are situated on land outside the beach front. These developments have been included to maintain the economic viability of the project and do not hinder the access of public to the sea in any way.
The dilemma is that either you add value to the beach or leave it as it exists. In case the beach potential is not utilised, it will become analogous to development of katchi abadis. The vision of beach, therefore, should be inclusive of the facilities that beckon entertainment to the poor classes.
DHA waterfront developments comprise residential, commercial and recreational plans. Commercial plazas have been only allowed on extreme ends while nucleus consists of board walks, amphitheatres, jogging tracks, promenades, water parks, sand beaches, performance decks, etc., open to public, and unregulated beach accesses interspersed with state-of-the-art facilities.
The DHA is, however, committed to providing to all sections of the populace of Karachi long overdue recreational environment.
LT-COL (r) RAFAT NAQVI
PRO, DHA
Karachi
THE Pakistan Railways has asked, through an advertisement in the Dawn issue of Sept 1, for the feasibility study for the bullet train between Islamabad and Lahore.
Things are improving in the PR ever since Shaikh Rashid has become its minister. He left his comfortable house in Rawalpindi and spent three days and nights in continuous rain at the Ranpathani bridge supervising its repair.
1t is suggested that the PR should also carry out the feasibility study of the Karachi-Rohri section. Rohri is a major railway junction from where trains go towards Quetta also. The PR’s own ticket sale record will prove that the “return on investment” on this section will be far greater than on the Lahore- Islamabad section.
Moreover, there is the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway but the road from Karachi to Rohri cannot compare with the quality of the former. Laying of new tracks suitable for a bullet train in the mountain range of Potohar comprising many treacherous hill torrents and constructing several new bridges on top will be far more difficult and costly than laying it on the plains of Sindh.
I hope the minister will give this idea a thought.
S. NAYYAR IQBAL RAZA
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Mr Ayaz Amir’s columns ‘How many F-16s does Hezbollah have?’ (Aug 11) and ‘Faith knows no religious boundaries’ (Aug 18). In the first one, he has implicitly tried to prove that the F-16s are unnecessary for Pakistan, while in the second the objective appears to discount the role of Islam in Hezbollah’s motivation and success.
The Lebanese militia has done exceedingly well against the Israeli military without having aeroplanes or aerial defences. However, if Hezbollah had possessed an even fewer than Israel F-16s (and F-15s) or equivalent fighters and other requisites of air war, it would have prevented the widespread death and destruction in their country and knocked the hell out of the Zionist state.
Of course, Hassan Nasrallah would never have committed the folly of buying his jet fighters under the humiliating and extremely restrictive conditions that the Pakistan air force is going to get the F-16s.
In the other column, Mr Amir has said the central tenets of Hezbollah’s ideology are intensely and purely political. He has also cited the writer Robert Pape who says “Hezbollah is... neither a political party nor an Islamist militia” and tries to prove from its operations from 1982 to 1986 that it is a loose collection of disparate groups, including Muslim fundamentalists, communists, socialists and Christians, and others.
That may have been true many years ago but the militia showed no indications of this during the recent war but only of strongest adherence to Islam. In a dispatch from Aitta Shaab in Lebanon for the Guardian, journalist Declan Welsh has quoted a Hezbollah soldier as saying: “Israel is strong but by our Islamic resistance we are victorious.” Another fighter, when asked by Mr Welsh how they had survived the Israeli blitz, replied: “God was with us” (Dawn, Aug 16).
Likewise, according to a report in a section of our media, an Indonesian reporter revealed that the Islamic Youth Movement in Jakarta had sent 217 mujahideen to Lebanon in July, of these 72 were Indonesian, 52 Filipinos, 36 Malaysians, 43 Thais, five were from Brunei and three from Bangladesh. There is also mention of a new group Al-Fajr, which is a Sunni Lebanese organisation that had begun operations against the 1982 Israeli invasion under another name (Aug 17).
Mr Amir has also stated: “In my view, which could be mistaken, resisting foreign occupation is a political aim .... (instead of a religious one).” Among the many references to Jihad and fighting in the Holy Quran, it has also been said that to those against whom war is made permission is given to fight because they are wronged in that they have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right. Allah has further noted that in such situations places of worship also get destroyed and has assured of His help (22: 39-40).
It may be noted that if some non-Muslims occupy an Islamic country, it invariably becomes difficult or impossible for the Muslims to lead their lives according to Islam. Thus, a western scholar has rightly noted:
“Far more crucial (than any doctrinal teaching about God) was the effort (jihad) to live in the way God had intended for human beings to live. The political and social welfare of the ummah... (has) sacramental value for Muslims.”
Defending one’s country is a religious duty and politics can’t be separated from it.
AHSANUL HAQ
Karachi
I COMMEND Zubeida Mustafa for another piece of fine writing (‘Progress of library science’, August 9). She has an uncanny knack for choosing the right topic at the right time.
The article is sort of an update, rather a descriptive fact-sheet on the 50 years of libraries and library education in Pakistan. It raises relevant issues. Speaking from experience, the primary goal for people who take any course of studies in Pakistan has been, and still continues to be, the ability to get an employment upon completion.
The spirit for acquiring mastery over the subject is either entirely missing, or, if exists, it is partial or has the secondary position. There have been, however, exceptions as the article cites names of certain legendary figures. Another big name among them is Dr Ghaniul Akram Sabzwari.
The subject piece seems void without this big name in the history of Pakistan librarianship.
There are multiple books, monographs and essays, which the learned professor has published. One of his most significant achievements is the Pakistan Library and Information Science Journal (formerly, Pakistan Library Bulletin), which he has been publishing since 1968. The journal is the only current source of information on Pakistani librarianship.
The librarians of Pakistan today need the spirit that these pioneers have demonstrated; they should have an urge to serve their homeland in a befitting manner. They need joint endeavours and determination to fight out the bureaucracy which is alike the world over. Pakistan’s is no more a novelty.
MUMTAZUL ISLAM
New York, USA
Admissions to medical colleges in Sindh have recently started. Due to the absence of any scientific data on jobs and career opportunities a lot of people enter medicine with wrong expectations. They do not know what has hit them until after they have graduated.
Pakistan has probably one of the world’s highest rates of unemployment among medical graduates. Prospects for post-graduate work are very few and one has to do unpaid work for at least five to six years without even a stipend. And even then there is no guarantee of a job or a career progression.
For a variety of reasons the prospects of jobs and post-graduate opportunities in western countries are thinning and only God knows if they will even exist in the next few years.
Obviously I cannot tell people not to study medicine; all I am suggesting is that they educate themselves about the possibility of joblessness, frustration and desperation after graduation.
DR N. I. ALVI
Karachi
IN her letter ‘Justice for all’ (August 25) Ms Afsheen Nazir has described how she was denied participation as a volunteer in the golden jubilee celebrations planned by the Supreme Court of Pakistan due to the way she dresses.
This is infringement of human rights of a citizen as well as outright discrimination. It must be condemned and the perpetrators educated. Obviously they are ignorant of the fact that such practices do not reflect either ‘enlightenment’ or ‘modernity’. Someone may please tell Mr Hammad Raza and Miss Aliya that it is not the business of the state or its functionaries how a person dresses. The West, who they referred to, does not interfere in people’s choice of clothes and surely it cannot equate clothing with terrorism. So far nobody has called a dress as being that of a terrorist. At least not to my knowledge.
Aftab S. Alam
USA
ACCORDING to a news item in your newspaper (Sept 3) the New York Times has commented that Pakistan should deploy forces to check the infiltrators from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
It must be pointed out that the US government is putting up fences and setting up border patrols to check the illegal Mexicans coming into the US from the south. Why doesn’t the US ask the Mexican government to put up barred wire and deploy military patrols to check the infiltrators from Mexico into the US?
It is not our responsibility to check anyone going to Afganistan from Pakistan. If they do not like infiltrators from Pakistan to go into Afghanistan then the government of Afganistan, should use their military to check this infiltration. If they cannot do so, it is their problem, not Pakistan’s.
DR KHALID BUTT
Karachi
ON and prior to August 14 buildings and vehicles are resplendent with national flags and photographs of personalities that need to be paid tribute to. But what happens after the sun sets on Independence Day? These flags are left to quarrel with the breeze till they are defeated to shreds, or are unwittingly trampled underfoot, or are seen floating in open sewers.
The masses should know that national flags have an identity and respect of their own. School and college students should realise the sanctity of their country’s flag. If this green and white flag is walked upon by nationals of another country and the news is splashed in our dailies, how will this volatile race of ours react?
MUNEEZA SHAIKHALI
Karachi
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