| October 08, 2006 | Sunday | Ramazan 14, 1427 |
To send a letter to the Editor
Click here
‘Star City’: widening of Garden Road
The hidden national wealth
Appeal for justice
Suicide for new books
Senior citizens
Justice for few, none for all
A question of meaning
An act of plagiarism
Burdening people
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
TODAY is the first anniversary of the 7.6 Richter earthquake that struck Pakistan on Oct 8, 2005. Initial estimates suggested a death toll of 70,000 with over 150,000 injured. The tragedy caught global attention.
The medical community’s response, in particular, was overwhelming. In the first 48 hours, 22 medical aid camps were established by various medical and relief organisations in Balakot alone. In the first month, more than 1,700 doctors from 23 countries came to the affected areas, either as self-motivated individuals or as part of an organised relief mission. While there was no shortage of doctors or medical supplies, there was an utter lack of coordination and confusion reigned.
A recent review of Bagh, Muzaffarabad, Balakot and Mansehra revealed nine active medical facilities with a turnover of about 3,200 outpatients per day. Even eight months after the disaster they were being run by volunteers taking two-week turns. Large warehouses remain full of medications, injections and supplies (worth millions of dollars) that are probably never going to be used.
It is crucial to ask how to do better next time. The federal government must establish a national coordination (or crisis) centre for natural disasters that maintains a database of volunteer health professionals and remains in a constant state of preparedness. Its immediate role will be to assign teams and establish a local coordinating centre in the affected area that works in collaboration with governmental and non-governmental relief missions.
Approach to medical relief has to be planned in three phases -– acute (1-7 days), limited to trauma management; sub-acute (one to six weeks), focused on prevention of infections, diarrhoea and general medical care; and a rehabilitation phase (six weeks onward up to six months). Each phase has separate requirements in terms of medical personnel, supplies and medications. In the acute phase perhaps we could make do without women physicians, but for the second and third phases female physicians are a must as acceptability of male doctors by women patients may be uncertain.
There are currently 635 patients enrolled in the Mansehra rehabilitation facility alone who are in need of artificial limbs even though there is just one orthopaedic lab in the entire area. It is going to take months, perhaps a year to meet that demand. This is an example of phase three requirements that cannot be met by the thousands of injection vials and surgical supplies sitting unused in warehouses. There is so much to learn from the disaster experience in Pakistan. Let us hope we do.
DRS MOHAMMAD WASAY AND SAAD SHAFQAT
Aga Khan University, Karachi
THE report of Oxfam, ‘Corrupt official fleecing quake survivors’ (Oct 5), that only 17 per cent of 45,000 affected households have started building permanent homes and people living in tents are having inadequate facilities is distressing.
It is more upsetting that for want of facilities 1.8 million survivors are forced to spend another harsh winter in transitional shelters.
Although looking at the inhospitable terrain and the enormity of job, i.e., building earthquake-proof structures, making the utilities available and providing livelihood, i.e. jobs/professions to millions, is indubitably a Herculean task, yet more concerted efforts are needed to reduce their time of suffering.
Today, on Oct 8, at the close of one year of the great national tragedy we need to introspect on the whole episode again so as to empathise with those who lost their dwellings, source of income and, above all, were dispossessed of their near and dear ones, an irreparable loss.
Thus, on the first anniversary of the national calamity, the entire nation stands by those who are still suffering the pain and anguish over the loss of their kith and kin. Furthermore, I entreat the community to come forward and show solidarity, as they did the day the tremor struck by providing moral and material support to lessen the burden of the distressed.
MANZOOR H. KURESHI
Karachi
IT is increasingly difficult for vehicular traffic to move along the major arterial roads of the Karachi city centre because of excessive traffic, which the present widths of roads are unable to bear. The newspapers are full of traumatic stories of persons stuck in jams for hours, or sick people dying because ambulances could not get through, or delays in fire-engines reaching, etc.
The citizens of Karachi must be informed that we have written to Syed Mustafa Kamal, the city nazim, to Ifthikar Qaimkhani, the EDO of the Master Plan Group of Offices, and to the executive officer, Karachi Cantonment, about 'Star City' which is being built on Plot 73 N. I. Lines in Karachi Cantonment, asking him why the city government has not stopped this upcoming project whose illegal plans have been approved by the Karachi Cantonment Board without observing the 37-foot road-widening cutline for Garden Road. The road lies between the CDGK and KCB jurisdiction.
About two years ago, we had written a similar letter to the city nazim Naimatullah Khan, who acted promptly in the public interest to stop a nearby project, ‘Amma Tower’ on Plot 71 N.I. Lines, and had it moved back outside the roadwidening reservation.
The road-widening cutlines to cater to increased traffic were planned by the KIT (predecessor of the KDA and CDGK) in the 1950s, when the population of Karachi was less than 1.5 million. How is it possible not to implement the same when the population of the city has increased ten-fold, especially on a critical intersection near the electronics market where the traffic and parking is chaotic?
We have requested EDO (MPGO) Ifthikar Qaimkhani to immediately take up this matter of road-widening setbacks, before hundreds of innocent persons book shops and flats in the project. We have also asked him to tackle the KCB on the arbitrary change of zoning carried out by them in the city centre, where 1: 6 plot ratio commercial projects are approved overnight on former residential bungalow plots, without conducting any technical town planning exercise, and without providing the necessary enhanced utilities, infrastructure and amenities.
Through copies of the above letter, we have also asked the governor, the chief secretary, the DCO, the additional DG, ML&C, at Rawalpindi, the director, ML&C, at Karachi, and the cantonment executive officer, KCB, to save what little is left of the built environment of this beleaguered city.
AMBER ALI BHAI
General Secretary Shehri:
CBE Karachi
YOUR correspondent, Sabihuddin Ghausi, writing on the above subject needs to be congratulated on a well-thought-out and well-researched thesis on a highly controversial subject (Oct 2). He has relied on many others to determine the quantum of hidden wealth in the country, from 100 per cent to 34 per cent is a big gap.
Mr Ghausi, however, has not taken into account one major contributor to the black or hidden wealth — defence purchase. He although has mentioned that as this is not presented to the National Assembly, one cannot fathom the quantum that contributes to the hidden wealth on this count. We all know that this is very large and going by what one hears from different sources from the marketplace, one can safely say that almost 100 per cent goes to the hidden wealth.
In respect of the hidden wealth, there is also another observation I would like to make. The ‘black economy’ created by business does not affect adversely the country because invariably the money gets into circulation and does not leave the country. Whereas those who deal in arms, particularly the defence purchase, mostly goes out of circulation into the coffers of another ‘safe’ country. Several years ago a list of military personnel holding monies in foreign countries was published and it surpassed all imagination. This needs to be plugged if we wish to make any progress in the economic development of Pakistan.
What makes people resort to the practices of amassing hidden wealth? The answer is simple. Greed and risks. Greed can never be satisfied and risks shall be eliminated only if all-round stability is restored to the country.
Evasion of direct taxes is only to a certain extent. However, evasion in the indirect taxation continues or rather it has increased. Under-invoicing is rampant as is clearly brought out by Mr Ghausi that in case of China alone the under-invoicing is to the tune of almost 100 per cent. Now that this is known, the CBR or Customs authorities should reject all invoices of second party of Chinese goods and ask for the original invoices of the manufacturers duly verified by the Chinese authorities. Similar precaution should be taken for the rest of the countries of the world as well.
Let us hope and pray that good sense shall prevail in all sectors and the spirit of 1947 shall be imbibed to take Pakistan to greater glories. As of now we are in a pit, with no light at the end of the tunnel.
MAHER ALAVI
Karachi
I ADD my voice to the points raised in the letter “An appeal for justice” by Raiyan Khan and friends (Oct. 5) in which they made an eloquent plea for mercy for Mirza Tahir Hussain who is set to be executed soon.
The courts in their wisdom and because of legal technicalities may not have been able to take these mitigating circumstances into consideration, but this is exactly the situation for which the Constitution gives the president the power to commute a death sentence.
Recently, President Musharraf said that he was not going to stop this execution because he was not a dictator and thus did not want to interfere with a judicial judgment. I beg to differ with the president. If he ignores these crying mitigating circumstances, he will prove himself to be a dictator. On the other hand, exercising his constitutional powers to stop a punishment from becoming irreversible will prove that he is aware of the responsibilities that the Constitution places on him, and thus is not a dictator.
For the sake of fairness and Pakistan’s image, please commute this death sentence to the time already served (18 years of agony for someone whose ordeal started when he was 18, should be enough punishment), and allow the man to return to the UK. Finally, for the sake of equality, fairness and justice, all those who have been sentenced to die because the courts would or could not take into consideration the mitigating circumstances surrounding the murder with which they were charged, should be granted clemency. In a judicial vacuum, this is one of the bounden duties of the head of state. When we err, we must err on the side of life, not death.
SIDDIQUE MALIK
Louisville,
THE news of two orphan sisters’ suicide for not being able to purchase new books in Ladhayawala Warraich, Gujranwala, is shocking indeed (Oct 6). It is a slur on our society that for want of a few hundred or thousand rupees to pay their school fees or books and stationery, the students prefer to end in the bloom of their life. It is more painful to see that the sisters were students of the Public City School, supposedly well-off.
Till recently, private schools and colleges in the various parts of the country used to have ‘Poor Students Welfare Funds’ to offer financial help, books and the items of stationery to the deserving students to encourage their education. Such a system needs to be revitalised in every private educational institution for the needy students, if it has been disbanded for one reason or the other.
The cases of the deserving students could be referred to the managing committees of each school or college by the head of the institution for consideration.
One is frequently delighted to see the flashes on our TV of ‘educated Punjab’. How can a country make advances in educational fields if the needs of the poor students are so criminally neglected?
The Punjab education minister should come to the rescue of the students who are almost resourceless, but are fired with the enthusiasm of education. Such cases falsify the tall claims of educated Punjab.
M. SHAFIQUE AHMED
Karachi
THE recent suicide of two students in a professional college in Karachi within a few weeks of each other highlights the need for proper professional counselling of students. Students of today live in a far more competitive and fast moving world than 20 years ago. The stress on them is also much more and some of it gets translated into behavioural, physical and psychological conditions as cigarette smoking, aggression, drugs, depression and suicide. Very few institutions have professional counsellors who can help students with their emotional problems in a proactive manner. Most institutions either act once they have a crisis or have a knee-jerk approach, putting the blame on the individual or his/her family.
Most suicides are preventable, provided the tell-tale signs are picked up early and proper help is provided to the individual. Most suicides are also the result of clinical depression, which goes largely unrecognised and untreated in our society. Once a suicide has taken place the surviving family members have to be supported emotionally.
Suicides are a complex phenomenon and there are multiple factors involved. Its prevention also requires multiple approaches and at different levels. To prevent suicides we all have to work together and share responsibility — individuals, families, teachers and the community. Every educational institution, particularly professional colleges, must appoint independent psychological counsellors, who should not be on their teaching staff. All educational institutions must include life-skills programmes as part of their curricula, which should cover topics such as stress management, conflict resolution and interpersonal relationships.
Murad Moosa Khan
Aga Khan University, Karachi
FOR the past two decades the United Nations has been encouraging member-countries to undertake more welfare measures for the disadvantaged sections of society, including senior citizens (aged plus 60 years).
The Senior Citizens Association of Pakistan, of which I am currently the president, appeals to the government to tell the people of what it has done so far to implement the UN’s Millennium Goals spelled out in binding resolutions of the UN General Assembly in regard to the well-being of elderly citizens.
Senior citizens would be most grateful if the government issues a statement of national policy vis-à-vis the care of the elderly citizens, specifying the measures it plans to undertake to promote their welfare. We are awaiting the unfurling of the ‘Senior Citizens Welfare Bill’ which was being vetted by the National Assembly’s standing committee, some months ago.
Some of the urgent welfare measures we expect from our government are:
– Issuance of senior citizens’ identity cards through Nadra on payment of a token fee.
– Token monthly pension to indigent families of senior citizens as is being done in Andhra Pardesh in India, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and the UK.
– Facilities to senior citizens in air and rail travel by way of rebate in fares.
– Priority to senior citizens in medical treatment in government hospitals.
– Giving of due importance to geriatric medicine and gerontology in the curricula of medical colleges and short-duration courses to update the knowledge and skills of doctors in these fields in the light of advances made in the West in treating the elderly.
QUTUBUDDIN AZIZ
Karachi
MY son, Affan Leghari, was picked up two years ago during Ramazan by an intelligence agency men from our house. We have tried our best, but are unable to find any clue to his whereabouts. We do not know why he was picked up.
We also have knocked the doors of the Sindh High Court, but no help is forthcoming. We are facing hardship and having health problems.
If the judiciary keeps its eye closed on these inhuman acts, we can conclude that justice is for the few, none for all.
DR ABDUL MAJEED LEGHARI
Karachi
THIS has reference to Senator Raza Rabbani’s statement about In the Line of Fire (Sept 29). According to him, Z. A. Bhutto was “the greatest practical revolutionary after Chairman Mao (Zedong)” and had “led a peaceful working class revolution” in Pakistan.
Clearly, words have lost all meaning. In 1971, the army had the power to lose half the country. It did not have the power to make a political compromise. Only the political parties could do that. West Pakistan’s feudal class was determined not to submit to the bourgeois Awami League, which could carry out land reforms. Z. A. Bhutto was the feudals’ representative in the stand-off. After 1971, he closed the doors to Pakistan’s development by destroying its rising industrial capitalist class, while actually reinforcing the feudals with his ‘land reforms’.
M. ABUL FAZL
Karachi
I AM a bit annoyed but also amused and flattered. A letter writer from Karachi conveniently plagiarised my review of Gen Musharraf’s In the Line of Fire from the Amazon.com website and tried to pass it off as his own.
Incidentally, he has copied it word for word but left out the last paragraph which implores both Indian and Pakistani readers to see this work as a book, and not use it to strengthen pre-conceived notions about each other’s countries and resort to beating the drums of war.
On the other hand, it is flattering that despite the amount of brickbats I received from Pakistanis on how biased my review is because of my Indian origin, there are Pakistanis who think it is fair. I decided to point out this act to Dawn as I wanted Pakistani readers to know that not all Indians see the work of Gen Musharraf through the prism of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
The president is entitled to his interpretation of Kargil, Kashmir, India, Vajpayee, the Agra talks, etc., as much as any citizen in India or Pakistan. That makes him neither right nor wrong.
Surely, we mustn’t deny the existence of our own wits to rationalise and subscribe to the opinions and logic of sub-continental leaders and politicians.
JVALANT SAMPAT
Copenhagen, Denmark
THE KESC has imposed a ‘bank charge’ of Rs8 on consumers, as shown in the current bills. Collection of bank charges from consumers is not fair.
Today, it is the KESC and tomorrow the list will include Sui gas, telephone and all such organisations.
S. W. HASSAN
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.