| November 09, 2006 | Thursday | Shawwal 16, 1427 |
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Ban on Indian channels
Drug regulatory body
SOS to DHA and CCB
Saddam Hussein’s trial
London mosque
America’s policy-makers
A tale of two photos
Gender discrimination
Appeal to the dishonest
US elections
Mr Burki’s columns
Declining talent
PCB ban
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
WHEN the national airline of Malaysia, MAS, posted a slight loss after years of record profit, its governing board of directors decided to cut administrative costs and sell its multi-storeyed corporate office skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur. The airline management voluntarily took a token pay cut to send a message down the line. They conserved their schedules, since these were not times for expansion, given the spiralling fuel costs. Funds saved were spent on fleet maintenance, improvement in passenger services and other core airline services.
The size of executives was drastically reduced. In order to offset the effect of fuel costs, MAS resorted to fuel hedging, a process where analysts, based on years of specialised research, buy fuel in the open market at a time when the price is low and sell it when the price is high, after retaining supplies for their own use.
PIA has just shown a deficit of over 22 billion, with losses spiralling to over nine billion in last two quarters. The extravagance with which the airline’s management spent its borrowed funds does not depict responsible corporate culture, which is their claim to fame. Corporate offices are being expensively renovated, money is being spent on painting aircraft tails or pasting stickers on them; buying new limousines; frequent foreign visits are being undertaken by senior executives including the CEO; new flights have been started only to be suspended after sustaining huge losses; expensive new long range aircrafts were procured without taking approval for operating such flights to USA; the list goes on and on.
An airline which was once the pride of Pakistan and the favourite of expatriates all over Europe, has today been placed under scrutiny. Its capacity has been drastically reduced by temporary suspension of high capacity Boeing 747s to UK by CAA Pakistan. Even the brand new ATRs were grounded for three days due to poor maintenance.
How have things deteriorated to such an extent, that the European Aviation Safety Agency intervened, while the management was caught unaware or failed to understand the gravity of inspections by EU? After all the EASA must have given repeated written warnings, which must have gone unheeded, before the warning was issued. Other than the CEO, those who serve as DMDs and SVPs belong to the airline. There is no doubt that PIA’s executive corridors are dominated by mediocrity, who must have secured promotions on political recommendations. Had even one of them spoken up, things would have been different.
The CEO of PIA must take the blame for having an incompetent bunch of advisors, who pleas him with an “All’s Well Syndrome”, which afflicts those in power in Pakistan. His failure reflects poorly on those who appointed him. PIA is a national asset and is more important than individual pride.
RASHID ORAKZAI
Oslo, Norway
I AGREE with Faiza Mujahid (Nov 7) when she says that our government is unnecessarily involved in every petty matter. It should concentrate on mega issues which are in abundance and leave other issues for the public to decide. Take for example PEMRA: what is its contribution other than to re-employ retired senior officers?
I can very conveniently watch the latest Indian movies at home courtesy my cable service provider but I’m denied excellent Indian TV channels which are not only entertaining but highly informative. This decision may have been taken to protect the local film industry, but what are the results? The industry is in a slump and we don’t even have new good films to show for.
I think that both Indian as well as Hollywood movies should be shown in our cinemas which should be renovated, and house the latest screening equipment for a proper entertainment experience.
By doing so, we will revive the old institution of entertainment and recreation, which till the 1970s was part of our culture. This will provide recreation to people of all ages and some respite from their stressful and hectic schedules.
Also the cinema industry will get a new lease of life and provide employment opportunities for people.
If President Musharraf wants to reduce the bigotry and extremism which is creeping into our society, he should immediately liberalise cinema and TV channels.
KHALID RASHID
Rawalpindi
IN her letter, Ms Mujahid suggests that the ban on Indian channels should be relaxed because the Indus and Ganges valley civilisation were part of India and Pakistan. She is not alone in this misconception of our great civilisations.
Most of the civilisations in the subcontinent reside in Pakistani areas such as the Indus civilization and Harrappa and so forth. Most of the people in these civilisations were immigrants from Central Asia or west Asia, which means simply that most of them were non-Indians. And obviously this applies to Pakistanis in general also. Pakistani culture, especially the Urdu language, is a non-Indian entity.
Pakistan is more sophisticated in its language and culture then India. Our ancestors brought civilisation to India for example beautiful Islamic buildings, Ittar (perfume) Urdu language and etiquette.
We should learn a great lesson from the Mughals who tried hard to mix Indians and Muslims but ]they ended up evaporating. Every Pakistani knows today that Urdu language is in great threat from Indian channels.
We should watch embrace every culture and society movies and shows including India’s but not at the cost of Pakistan’s own culture and language.
JAVED ALTAF
San Ramon, USA
THIS is in reference to the separate drug regulatory authority that is being proposed by the government to ensure the sale of genuine medications. I hope the new authority is different in composition from the existing drug licensing board which it is likely to replace.
The current drug licensing board has been dominated by pharmacologists, a few serving or retired governmental physicians and plenty of serving medical administrators. It never adequately reflected the medical community who actually do 80 per cent of drug prescription.
Even the key personnel on the board administration were not doctors. The result was that either life saving drugs were sometimes missing from the formulary or borderline safe substances were unnecessarily registered.
For example clear lifesavers that are used in primary pulmonary hypertension and dozens of useful drugs as immunological drugs were missing from the formulary. Not all heart disease medication is registered. Similarly there are no regulations about medical instruments and devices.
To add more confusion, active pharmacological ingredients of homeopathic or hakimi medications are not printed on their bottles. Those who use such medication are unaware of any possible adverse reactions. Additionally some clear cut allopathic medications are sold and registered as mere cosmetics while others like drug solvents are not examined for patient safety.
Attendants working at chemist shops prescribe medicines for customers which is wrong. There are no laws to protect patients.
Many aspects of the proposed drug regulatory authority are legal in nature — such as patent issues — so a board with no judicial member or members of senate or parliament shall be incomplete.
The balancing of scientific evidence is important in drug licensing. There has been at least one report in which a drug licensing board equated studies done on rats in importance to those done on humans and drugs were de-registered such as a painkiller combination on flimsy grounds.
In case the drug regulatory board cannot perform or is similar in composition to the existing drug licensing board, then it need not be constituted.
MANSOOR ELAHI
Islamabad
KARACHI is suffering from dengue fever these days. The media is replete with stories on this subject — new cases being reported, people succumbing to the disease, precautionary steps being taken, fumigation taking place etc.
The cases have been reported from almost all localities in the city. Defence Housing Authority, supposedly a posh locality, is no exception. The worst affected areas in DHA are Phase V Extension, Phase VI and Phase VII. The reason is obvious. Many vacant plots in these phases are still flooded with rain water since August or first week of September and have become breeding grounds for all sorts of insects, particularly mosquitoes.
Several requests have been made to DHA and Clifton Cantonment Board for fumigation but to no avail. They have been passing the buck to each other. The ground in front of a senior government official’s house in Phase V Extension has been cleared of rain water but the authorities seem completely oblivious of other water “reservoirs” in the vicinity. The stagnant water has become so polluted and discoloured that it looks like crude oil. The wading birds that had so merrily inhabited these wetlands after the rains have migrated to fresher habitats, perhaps Bundal and Buddo Islands.
One wonders why this apathy on the part of DHA or CCB? Don’t they have resources to meet such contingencies? If not, then where does all the money go that these organisations make in the name of property tax, conservancy tax, water charges etc?
I request both DHA and CCB to kindly survey the above stated areas particularly the plots along Saba Avenue and save the residents from their next door neighbours — the deadly mosquitoes.
MIRZA M. NAYYAR
Karachi
SADDAM’S crime in Dujail was established beyond any shadow of doubt. He was found guilty of killing 148 innocent citizens.
Saddam had himself signed off the death sentence of these innocent people and supportive documentary evidence was found.
Later, Saddam even accepted his own responsibility in the Iraqi court for these deaths.
Justice was at last done, at least, in this case whatever may have been the twist of fate that brought the Iraqis to this long-awaited fortuitous pass.
And, justice must always be welcomed.
DR MAHNAZ FATIMA
Karachi
THE Tablighi Jamaat is planning to construct a huge mosque in London. It is reported that the mosque will accommodate nearly 50,000 people. I wish the Jamaat would consider utilising their funds for the welfare of the poor in Pakistan, by constructing hospitals and orphanages rather than a prestigious mosque.
KHALID A.
London, UK
CONGRATULATIONS are in order for America’s policy-makers as Saddam Hussein has finally been given the death penalty. They made the man and now they plan on finishing him. He was the American’s most favoured man in the 1980s as he invaded Iran but then he became the most hated man in 2003. Justifications for an Iraq invasion were needed not only for the Iraqi people but also for US citizens, who are going to vote for the Republicans so that they can carry on the final re-shaping of the Middle East.
While they may have sown the seeds, they should at least let the people of that land decide who will eat their fruits.
Iran is still waiting for US help to sow the seeds of internal conflicts and divisions. North Korea has waited a long time to get rid of their poverty through negotiations and not through a small scale of a nuclear test. Palestinians have fought for decades to give minimum standard of living to their people. But, the super power is unhappy with the democratic government of Hamas because they do not recognise Israel. Kashmiris are still waiting to exercise their right of self determination. Now what?
The solution to the problems does not lie in invasions, forced occupations, financial sanctions or in brutal fighting. It lies in removing conflicts slowly. But who will do this? The Muslim ummah is in deep slumber. The United Nations dare not even implement its so-called resolutions on core global issues. The job of the US as the sole super power is to spend billions of dollars in weapons and killing innocent civilians.
I hope that the root causes of terrorism can be found and solved instead of moving these issues to the point of no return.
WALI M. BALOCH
Nawabshah
THE Dawn issue of Nov. 7 has two photographs which lucidly illustrate the problem of governance. The first (on the front page) shows our president and prime minister at the World Islamic Economic Forum in Islamabad along with the ex-premiers of Australia and Sri Lanka and the Malaysian prime minister. Everyone’s body language and posture shows their total boredom and speaks volumes for the impotency and irrelevance of the talking shops we are so fond of wasting time and money on.
The other photograph (on the first page of the Metropolitan section) shows the sewage and slime ridden drainage channel right outside the open windows of the special isolation ward of the Jinnah Hospital, where dengue fever patients are being treated. It is an ideal mosquito breading environment!
I don’t know how much the WIEF cost but I do know that the money could have been better spent in addressing the real issues that confront us.
OMER YUSUF
Karachi
ON THE one hand we are launching many projects with great fanfare for women’s empowerment, but on the other, we are robbing them of opportunities.
Recently the Sindh Public Service Commission declared the results of the exams for the posts of medical officers. The results reflected the gender quota for male and female doctors as 4:1 ratio. It is quite strange that female doctors were allowed to compete for 25 per cent of the posts, though their ratio has now increased up to 50 per cent. It is because of the application of open merit and entry test for admission in medical colleges.
It was good that 182 posts were reserved for female doctors, but they were not allowed to compete for the other 600 posts. As a result, many good female doctors could not prove their mettle owing to the government’s fallacious policy.
Had they been allowed to compete for all seats, their ratio would have been 50 per cent. but unfortunately, they were restricted to a mere 25 per cent of seats. Is this the way to bring women into the mainstream?
SHABBIR A SETHAR
Shikarpur
THIS IS in reference to Mr Cowasjee’s two-part column “Appeal to the dishonest” (Nov 5). I was deeply moved by the importance he gave to the word “secular”. There was much discussion and dissent in India too on L.K. Advani’s reference to Mr Jinnah as a secularist.
However, all of a sudden, this idea dawned on me. Before granting independence to Pakistan and India, had the British made it mandatory for these upcoming states to write down their constitutions first and then saw to it that they were secular in character, much bloodshed would not have happened. Then there would not have been this mass exodus of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus from their home lands.
M KRISHNACHARY
Mumbai, India
SOUTH Carolina governor Mark Sanford didn’t have his registration card when he went to vote in the current US mid-term elections on Nov 7. He was turned away without casting his vote.
Could this happen in Pakistan or would a polling officer lose his job?
SHAFEEQ SHAIKH
Overland Park, USA
I WANT to express accolades for the efforts your revered contributor Shahid Javed Burki puts in. Rarely do newspaper articles have the gift of being instructive without being cumbersome. For someone like me who has no background in economics or politics Mr Burki is a teacher who has helped me in shaping my views.
For the past many years I have found him to be optimistic, always emphasising on the positives of the current Pakistani political and economic scenario. Given the usual optimistic tone that he is known for, I was disturbed by his remark: “I have a great fear. As I see the economy moving forward at a reasonable pace led by the private sector there is no assurance that it would produce social and political tranquillity. While the GDP grows and the economy expands, inter-personal and inter-regional income disparities also increase.”
The way the current Pakistani society is being transformed into a market dominant entity may have dangerous consequences without a system of institutional and legal checks and balances. Market forces may be shaping the telecommunication sector well and people may have cheaper communication options but provisions of basic necessities remains the foremost duty of the government. It is the question of sustenance for more than 75 per cent of the population. It goes to show that the country and its people can not be leased out to market forces.
SAAD NAUMAN
Roubaix, FRANCE
IN HIS article “Declining Talent in Civil Service” (Nov 5) Kunwar Idris has suggested a constitutional amendment to limit the number of cabinet ministers. This is an excellent suggestion that should be carried a step further to also include civil service appointments.
To quote just one example, in pre-partition India, the ministry of finance in Delhi was staffed by just one secretary and one additional secretary. The post of a second additional secretary was specifically created in 1946.
At last count in Pakistan alone, there were 72 posts for additional secretaries sanctioned in the ministry of finance in Islamabad.
K. HUSSAIN ZIA
Mississauga, Canada
THE PCB ban on Muhammad Asif is utterly baseless and unfair. Instead of helping him regain his composure, the PCB is plunging him further into an abyss of depression and uncertainty. The first point that counts in Asif’s favour is the fact that he is not quite proficient in the English language and there is no way he could have gotten round to comprehending the respective PCB rules and regulations. In fact, it was the job of the PCB to educate not only Asif but all the other players who face the same dilemma.
I request the PCB to please consider his case thoroughly and at least reduce his sentence. Asif has a very promising future ahead of him and will prove to be valuable to the Pakistan team.
SANEELA ALTAF
Karachi
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