| February 01, 2007 | Thursday | Muharram 12, 1428 |
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World health update
Dealing with inequality
Hides and votes
Musharraf in the ME
Credit card
Is a Kashmir solution imminent?
Sanctity defiled
The whisperer
Fake degrees
Dams and consensus
School being sacrificed
Encroachment
At the public level, there is a strong wish that Kashmiris should be allowed to take a sigh of relief irrespective of whom they want to be affiliated with.
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
THE president of the PMDC has been elected according to the rules of the constitution. The new president is honest and upright. His predecessor Prof Abdullah Jan Jaffar was dedicated to the cause of medical education who had resisted pressure from bureaucracy and politicians and did not compromise on principles. The new president should pick up threads where his predecessor has left. Here are a few suggestions: the new president’s greatest challenge will be from commercial medical colleges that have grown faster than the mushrooms in rainy season and have created academic chaos and anarchy.
Most of these colleges have inadequate infrastructure, staff, and accessory facilities. They employ part-time staff and professors, who are shown as full-time on paper. They have employed teachers not qualified in the subject they are teaching. Some of these medical colleges have been given provisional recognition. The Supreme Court has taken serious notice of this and has asked the PMDC to rectify these mistakes.
There is no such thing as provisional recognition in the constitution of the PMDC. Besides, a majority of the teaching staff in clinical subjects do not reside in the location of these peripheral commercial colleges. They cannot teach emergency medicine and surgery by remote control.
The retirement age for professors in private medical colleges and universities has been fixed at 70 years as against public sector medical colleges where the age is 60 years. This discrimination and favour to private medical colleges has raised many eye-brows in academic circles, both here and abroad. The retirement age in these colleges should be the same as in government colleges.
Quackery is another menace which has to be tackled. Qualified quacks coming out from substandard medical colleges come in the same category.
Medical bioethics should thus be introduced as a subject in medical curriculum. Promotions should be made when medical teachers obtain diploma in bioethics from SIUT.
A professor should be stopped from going abroad on holidays receiving tickets from pharmaceutical companies, unless he is reading a paper which has been accepted. The tuition fee should be fixed for commercial medical colleges to make it affordable for the general public, and the farce of self-financing scheme should be dispensed with. The disciplinary committee of the PMDC should wake up and make its presence felt. The assessment system should be reformed. Standards should be set, copy culture, sifarish and sale of degrees should be ended.
No college should be allowed to admit students more than they are sanctioned. At present this rule is being violated as the PMDC is looking the other way.
PROF ABDUL GHANI SIDDIQUI
Hyderabad
THE first World Health Update which was held at Karachi’s Expo Centre from Jan 26 to 28 has indeed been the first of its kind. We are medical students from a university in Karachi.
Our faculty was officially approached by the organisers of the event and we were requested to present our work at the conference, which we did, in the form of a poster that we prepared, got printed and displayed. Despite having paid and pre-registered for the event, we had to chase the organisers all three days of the conference to give us a mere certificate of attendance.
No programme itinerary was given to let us know when our participation would be acknowledged, if at all. Once again we had to ask around and were told that our posters would be judged on the third day around 4pm, after which we should come and collect our posters.
However, when we reported at this time, our posters were nowhere to be seen. Confused, we inquired at the information desk where we were told that the posters had been removed at 2pm but no one knew where the posters were.
We went to the conference secretariat where we were greeted by yet another piece of information, that our posters had been ‘stolen’; in the exact words ‘some random person had torn down all the posters and had run away with them’!
With an event being organised on such a big scale, one really wonders where the security was and how one person managed to leisurely take down poster by poster and emptied an entire hallway, leaving not as much as one scotch tape mark in sight. I don’t think any of us has ever heard of such a thing before, as our professor, who has attended many local and international conferences, also remarked.
The event organisers should take responsibility and provide a more credible explanation for the heppening, besides compensation to the participants.
MEDICAL STUDENTS
Karachi
APROPOS of Dr Ali Akbar M. Dhakan’s letter ‘Dealing with inequality’(Jan 17) on Mr Shahid Javed Burki’s analysis of income disparities in Pakistan, I think both are making the same point and both are basing their arguments on perceived and hypothetical relative size of each stratum of Pakistan’s population.
In this context I would like to submit that the two categories which should be the focus of attention are only two, ie, the very poor 90 million or so and 60 million or so struggling middle class.
The tiny class of super rich 0.2 million or so will be relevant when they show they have a stake in the country and make investments in the country by genuinely taking risk with it for better future, not fleece it by all kind of scams. The remaining 10 million or so, the so-called rich, play little or no role in this analysis since they have made it and will preserve what they already have.
However, there is no gain in belabouring the point of exact size of each category since we all have fairly good idea of this. The real issue is the inequalities and what has been done about these. The government keeps insisting that the gap is narrowing while the statistics provided remain suspect.
Within the two lower categories, most attention should be given to the 60 million. This is the category which is the backbone of our economy and will shape up our future and make the real image of Pakistan.
Unfortunately, this is the class which has suffered the most over the past 25 years.
Its talent pool has gone down and work ethics have deteriorated. What is worst, it is becoming illiterate. When you are outside of Pakistan the reality becomes clear and you see the difference between the capability of our skilled worker and a worker from another country.
Of course, the exceptions are there but rare. It is interesting and revealing to note that while we indulged a lot in experimenting and reforms since independence, India stayed its course and persevered with what the British left; the civil administration, medium of education, secular orientation, democracy, etc, and apparently they have done better than us.
MUNAWAR ALI
Kuwait
THIS is in response to the article ‘Hides and votes’ by Hafizur Rehman (Jan 24). In his write-up the writer says that on the recent Eidul Azha there had been quite a competition between the MQM, the Jamaat-i-Islami and Imran Khan’s boys for grabbing the skins of the sacrificed animals.
The worthy writer goes on to say that “don’t forget that later these skins fetch a handsome price, a welcoming addition to party’s funds”. This was the unkindest cut of all.
While commenting on the subject perhaps the writer forgot to keep in mind that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and the Shaukat Khanam Cancer Hospital are two different entities and the two have their own fields of action. In fact, the PTI has got nothing to do with the collection of hides on Eidul Azha.
This is an activity carried out by the Shaukat Khanam Cancer Hospital and the funds so generated are used exclusively by the Shaukat Khanam Memorial Trust. Moreover, in this regard the SKMT has been quite active and successful, even before Imran Khan founded his political party in 1996.
Like Zakat and other donations, skins of the sacrificed animals are also one of the sources of funds that the SKMT banks on while treating almost 90 per cent poor patients at subsidised rates.
Being the biggest charitable institution in Pakistan, the SKMT spends Rs700 million on the free treatment of poor cancer patients every year.
To maintain the highest level of transparency beyond any doubt the financial accounts of the SKMT are regularly audited by well-reputed national and international audit firms and their audit reports are available on the website of the SKMT.
So, about the collection of hides, Mr Rehman has wrongly equated the PTI with the MQM and the Jamaat-i-Islami. The collection of skins is and will remain the concern of the Shaukat Khanam Cancer Hospital alone.
WAQAR AHMED RAJA
Information Secretary, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf,
Islamabad
I COMMEND President Musharraf for getting himself involved in the Middle East peace process. I agree with him that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is the single most important issue plaguing the relationship between the Muslims and the West and, therefore, requires urgent resolution.
But for him to be successful, it is important on his part to realise that so far all secular efforts in this regard have failed because the conflict itself has deep religious basis and without the involvement of different sects in Abrahamic faiths — Islam, Christianity and Judaism — I am skeptical about the possibility of anybody’s success.
We are living in an age when most proponents of conflict resolution would discount or even ignore the role religion can play in generating peaceful resolution of conflict but, frankly speaking, religion has never been given a fair chance to prove itself in this regard.
I believe religion can be used to create bridges, not walls, between Abraham’s children and hopefully by doing that it will usher a new era of peace for the present and future generations of Jews and Arabs in the region.
DR MOHIUDDIN WASEEM
Karachi
I HAVE recently received a bill for using American Express credit card No. 3762-9501-0013-003 from the Standard Chartered Bank.
I do not own that card. In fact, I never applied for any card. Neither had I ever an account with the said bank. They have also charged for a supplementary card. The amount involved is $126.
I spoke to two bank officials on Jan 22 but they could not satisfy me and insisted that it was done due to a mistake. But my question is: how come they got my address when I never dealt with them?
H. FEROZ SHAMSI
Karachi
Over the past half a century, Pakistani politicians have exploited the cause of Kashmiris for their own benefit and to the disadvantage of Kashmiris.
Because, had they strayed a foot away from the rhetoric of the so-called UN resolutions on Kashmir, they might have risked losing reins of power. So the situation had never been so opportune than this time around for making some progress on this issue.
Since Gen Musharraf has all the powers at his disposal he could take bold and out-of-the-box steps without an iota of resistance, to mitigate the sufferings of Kashmiris.
First and foremost demand among Pakistanis is that there should be no further killings of Kashmiris either from militants or by the Indian army.
They want Pakistan and India to reach an agreement whereupon they decide to abandon their stated claims on Kashmir and find out a middle course on the issue, leading to easing of tensions for Kashmiris.
One should keep in mind that extreme positions have never contributed to a solution of issues but rather complicated them.
APHC Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s just-concluded visit to Pakistan should be seen not as an attempt on Kashmir sellout but rather a sincere effort by none other than a Kashmiri representative to facilitate the process under way to find out Kashmir solution.
One thing is clear that those who are opposing the current process of talks are, in fact. afraid that in case the Kashmir dispute is resolved, this will immediately cut off their financial resources and undermine their political careers.
Let Kashmiris not suffer at the cost of our petty interests and please set the UN resolution on Kashmir aside if they have miserably failed to come to the rescue of suffering Kashmiris since 1947.
YASSIR RASHEED
Rawalpindi
I RECENTLY performed my first Haj. In fact this was my first visit to the holy places as well. The overall experience altogether was very spiritual. However, I couldn’t resist drawing the attention of the government of Saudi Arabia, in general, and caretakers of the holy sites there, in particular, that anybody with a human heart will cry when he or she sees small children (mostly African origin as far as I could see) being forced to beg right outside the Masjid-i-Haram.
I use the word ‘forced’ because one can easily see that all these children are placed in a line and a woman supervising those children begging from ‘namazis’ coming out of the mosque.
More horrifying was to see some of the children who had even their limbs amputated just in order to get more sympathy. I lived near the Babul Islam and daily my heart literally cried on seeing such a thing happen.
I hope the Saudi government can get rid of this menace and it can also take action against such people as don’t even spare holy sites from getting plagued with such things.
A.G. MUHAMMAD
Karachi
AS the lion of Iraq roared his last, the hare-like rulers of other countries scampered into their burrows observing a deafening silence. US Secretary of State Rice dashed on a whirlwind trip to Arab countries. Her visit seems to be a whispering session with the rulers consisting of sweet talk of settlement of the Palestine issue and juicy morsels of sophisticated defence systems.
The secretary is following the tried and tested divide-and-rule policy which pits brother against brother. Ms Rice should be aware of the fact that the Arab horses are not as dumb as they used to be. The new generation of US graduates are capable of understanding what suits the interest of their respective countries and the Islamic world.
In consequence of this whispering session, rulers of other countries are clambering through the grapevine to hear the unheard. Their predicament makes me recall an old fable in which a group of tribes lived in a distant land. An invasion took place which killed members of one tribe, the others said: “There must be some enmity between them why should we be afraid.”
Later the tribes were wiped out one after the other. Finally, the last tribe was attacked and there was no one left to call for help. In these troubled times when other can form coalitions, why cannot the Islamic world unite on one platform.
RAFI ADAMJEE
Karachi
WILL any legal person enlighten me whether any criminal proceedings were prescribed in the Conduct of General Elections Order 2002 for contesting elections on fake degrees, besides unseating them. I don’t remember any such member of the assembly was sent to jail on their degrees proving fake. I think the government should now prescribe criminal punishment for this offence.
ZAFARUL HAQ MEMON
Karachi
UMAD Mazhar has said the government should go with the project for the greatest interest of the people (letter, Jan 25). I disagree with him when he says that there is only a small fraction of society which is against the building of dams. National consensus is needed when such a big problem is handled.
It is evident from history that the due share of water for Sindh was not given to Sindh on many occasions. That has even been accepted by our president and now he says that he is ready to take the responsibility that no such thing will happen in future.
I am not against the building of dams but they should not be built without a national consensus. If consensus is not developed, we may have to face dire consequences. This may bring a further divide between the provinces. Farmers from smaller provinces should feel secure with the construction of dams and not threatened by it.
SHEHNILA ZARDARI
Hyderabad
THE evacuation of a functioning school in Firdous Colony comes as a shock to all. It is sad to know that education, in our part of the world, is being made a scapegoat, and a school is being sacrificed to make way for a high-rise apartment and commercial complex. It is a known fact that the number of illiterate people in the country is quite low and that recently the number of primary school-going children has decreased.
The authorities should realise that by closing down such a school they are not only playing with the future of the 1,000 students that were enrolled in it, but also with the future of the country. The officials in charge also chose to remain indifferent towards the fact that by shifting students to other schools at a time when examinations are to be held in three to four months, the students can face severe problems adjusting in the new school and environment which can have a serious impact on their studies.
Such drastic and unpleasant action not only creates hurdles in the developmental process of any country but also tarnishes its image worldwide. I request the government to pay attention to this matter and take immediate steps to stop the demolition work on the school premises.
RABIA ALI
Karachi
I WOULD like to draw attention of the city government towards encroachment upon an open road space by furniture shop owners at Sir Shah Suleman Road, near Baloch Hotel stop in Liaquatabad, Karachi.
Stacks of furniture lying right in the middle of the passage leads to severe traffic jams at the above intersection.
Loading vans parked in front of these shops become an additional source of blockade.
Owners of these furniture shops feel this encroachment as their right of doing business.
It is hoped some corrective measures are taken at the earliest.
ZAHID YUSUF
Karachi
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