| February 20, 2007 | Tuesday | Safar 2, 1428 |
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PNSC building ablaze
Well done, Ijazul Haq
Useful trades
Size of currency notes
Dimensions of degradation
Pakistan Steel clarification
Fundamentalists on both sides
A test case
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 mere chanting of clinched mantras is barely going to move humanity nearer the cherished goal of peace. What actually is needed is for the ‘Big Five’ to pull up their socks and give a lead to use the spirit of the UN Charter as the only lodestar to set a course honouring the purposes, principles and procedures of the Charter to develop the sorely required comprehensive vision of a happier and fulfilling world where ‘Togetherness’ is supreme.
Unquestionably the world is inexorably slipping into violent chaos. The ‘unipolar’ temptation to employ overwhelming force to achieve intellectual and material hegemony has fortuitously proved to be a costly failure. Before a massive explosion sends us back to the Stone Ages, the thinking world dedicated to beneficence needs to come to the fore and make its presence felt. The route this intervention must inescapably take is in the promotion of respect and pre-eminence for the inherent institutionalised moral strength of the UN.
If nations would throw off the self-worn fetters of dubious ‘self-interest’ masquerading as ‘national-interest’, the following relevant portions of various articles of the Charter outline an unfailing recipe for negotiated and enforced resolution of conflict.
Article 33 (Chapter VI) reads: “The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, inquiry, mediation, reconciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement .....”
Article 37 (Chapter VI) reads: “Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33 fail to settle it by the means indicated in the Article, they shall refer it to the Security Council ....”
Then Article 39 (under the enforceable Chapter VII) reads: “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
Having spoken of diplomatic, economic, and political sanctions in Article 41, the Charter in Article 42 reads: “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace . . . .”
Article 45 then goes on to say: “In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air force contingents for combined international enforcement action . . . .”
Thereafter, the Charter explains at some length how such forces will be organised.
Can the ‘Big Five’, in the name of humanity, give the lead?
M.J. AS’AD
Karachi
ON Sunday morning when I switched on the television, a local news channel was relaying breaking news about the PNSC building that had caught fire. The top floors of the building were shown engulfed with thick smoke. My wife immediately pointed out that there was no activity on the part of fire brigade personnel, who though shown available on the site, were watching the scenario silently.
Horrified at this inactivity, I immediately called a friend of mine who happened to be on the site. To my great surprise and disgust I was told that the snorkels available to the fire department cannot reach beyond 10th floor of the building, therefore they are helplessly watching the building being gutted.
The PNSC building which accommodates the entire offices of the National Shipping Corporation of Pakistan is a first beautiful, 15-storeyed state-of-the-art edifice of Karachi built in the early 1960s. On its 13th floor was established one of the most beautiful and well-stocked libraries of the city having thousands of volumes on a variety of subjects. It will be a great national tragedy if the PNSC building is not saved from the flames.
RAFIQUE A. SIDDIQUI
Karachi
A SIMPLE ‘short-circuit’ caused a small fire to erupt on the 11th floor of the PNSC building. Due to lack of professional fire-fighting equipment it spread up the 16th floor and engulfed everything uninterrupted. The fire gradually died down on its own since fortunately the building only had 16 floors. This happened in Karachi, the 7th largest city of the world and the financial capital of Pakistan.
I don’t even want to imagine what would happen in case of a major disaster. A megacity of over 120 million people does not have the expertise and resources to cope with a small fire. We have a couple of skyscrapers in the city and we are hearing of plans to construct more. The only functional snorkel of the fire department had enough water pressure to reach the sixth floor.
So we are left with only two options, either we restrict all buildings in Karachi to six floors or we wake up and do something about our contingency planning skills. The structural damage to the building caused due to this fiasco might not be that great but the loss arising due to operational breakdown of all businesses that had their head offices located in the PNSC building must be colossal.
The Ports and Shipping ministry has spent millions on the ‘world class’ fountain which pumps water to the skies. Had the same amount been invested in water pumps / snorkels, its office and those of many others could have been saved.
ALTAMASH JAVED LONE
Karachi
HAVING brokered the defeat of moderates at the hands of Madressah Hafsa students, Ijazul Haq has made his father Gen Ziaul Haq very proud. He is really doing a great job of furthering his father’s legacy of cultivating and patronising religions extremism.
By yielding to the demands of the illegal occupants of the Children’s Library in Islamabad, our uniformed president has shown us the right way of getting demands accepted by the government, besides allowing jihadis to continue their armed siege of the whole country. It also signals the president’s retreat from his agenda of enlightened moderation.
One wonders, if the government surrenders to illegitimate demands of some burqa-clad madressah students in the federal capital, how fragile would its writ be in other parts of the country.
M. RASHEED KHAN
Sukkur
IT’S ridiculous that a bunch of stick-wielding women have successfully challenged the writ of the state. If the government cannot establish its writ in the capital of the country, how does it expect to establish it in Fata and Balochistan?
According to media reports, the students of the madressah were armed. I wonder where they got the arms from. I’m sure if the government tried to find out if the arms they were carrying were authorised or not, they (the students) would occupy another government property until their unauthorised arms (if they actually are) are declared ‘authorised’.
By giving in to the ‘demands’ of the management of Madressah Hafsa, the government is sending the wrong signal that anyone can build a mosque wherever they feel like. There is no need to worry about building regulations because one can get away with it by occupying government property and conveniently declaring any government action as un-Islamic.
MEHVASH ZUBAIRI
Karachi
AYAZ Amir’s recent article on the hypocrisy of prohibition reminds me of my younger days growing up in Karachi. As late as the late 1960s, I remember very well, alcohol was openly available without any restrictions. There were many bars openly serving alcohol in many parts of the city. But we did not know of anyone within our extended family, or even beyond, in the larger circle of our family friends, who drank.
We all knew it was openly and legally available. It could be bought and consumed, but we never thought about getting involved with it. We knew it was there, but something, our inner voice or upbringing, always told us that it was not for us. To us it was neither bad nor good but just something that ‘others’ did. Those who drank were not judged by their drinking preferences, but by their character.
A close look at the developed and progressive societies around the world makes it abundantly clear that the availability of alcohol, per se, has no discernable impact, positive or negative, on general well-being of a society. It is the value system and the social structure of a nation, or the lack thereof, that causes people to abuse such things to their own and the society’s detriment.
The malaise that has gradually and imperceptibly, and so unfortunately, engulfed our nation is obviously not caused by people’s drinking habits, but our ingrained inability to respect each other as human beings, our lack of tolerance for even minor differences among us, and our abject failure to see each other and treat each other as God’s created human beings, who deserve, and should be accorded, the dignity and respect that God has bestowed upon them.
Unless we learn to accept each other, respect each other, be tolerant of our differences, and most importantly treat each other as humans, we as a nation cannot command other nations’ respect. If we have no respect for our fellow citizens, how can we expect others to respect us as a nation?
Without self-respect we cannot aspire to be a respectable nation, and cannot expect to be taken seriously by others. Somehow, we have to learn to set our priorities right and our obsession with alcohol, whether for or against, is clearly not one of them.
S. ZAFAR IQBAL
Houston, USA
DURING my recent visit to Dubai and other Gulf states, I heard many adverse comments on the niggardly size of the new currency notes issued by the Pakistan government.
The size of the new Pakistani currency note for Rs5,000 is very small, and in a hurry it is confused with the new Pakistan 100-rupee note. Similarly, the size of the 20-rupee note and the 10-rupee note is very small.
The State Bank of Pakistan should keep in view the respectable size and crisp paper quality of the currency notes issued by Dubai and other Gulf states. Currency notes issued by the Indian government are also fairly respectable.
Has the Pakistan Security Printing Corporation run short of good quality currency printing paper? Instead of diminutive 5000-rupee notes, slightly larger 1000-rupee notes would be better. The new Pakistani coins also need to be improved.
QUTUBUDDIN AZIZ
Karachi
RECENTLY your paper published a letter by ‘A Bath Island resident’, requesting the honourable chief justice of Pakistan to save the residents of the Bath Island from mental and physical torture by ordering immediate action against illegal construction, as has been done in the case of PECHS.
A week earlier there had appeared an advertisement in your paper ‘Sale of Bath Island Property, Karachi’. The advertiser, General Manager (A&P), Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), invited sealed offers for sale of PIDC’s property situated at a prime location of Bath Island, known as “PIDC Bath Island’s Flats” constructed on an area of 7,250 square yards. The last date of receipt was given to be Feb 7.
Some years ago, Dawn (Aug 11, 2002) carried an article in its Magazine entitled ‘Dehumanising the city’ by Zarina Zarnigar, on the callous neglect of the PIDC flats building, infrastructure, degradation of the Bath Island enclave and humiliation of the residents; violation of their civic and human rights.
Her pleading that “civil society has to be strengthened if we want to survive as a Zinda Quom” went unheeded. “People have to raise their voices against injustice and they have to be supported by the media and other components of civil society.
“If you cannot bring about a revolution in the country as a whole, or do not see it as desirable, you can try to change the immediate environment around you, being a desirable change in approaches to basic questions of civil and human rights.” The inevitable happened gradually, the rot originating in the PIDC flats spread to the whole enclave.
Bath Island after the last monsoons was not livable. Many had to take shelter elsewhere. The PIDC flats had already became a ghost complex, ramshackled, totally rundown, garbage littering the ground.
Only three out of thirty flats were occupied. Dark and filthy, they are not worthy of human habitation.
Indeed, situated as it was in the heart of the domain of the rich, the feudals and the entrenched, the multinationals, the infusion of the middle class babus, as one multinational operative put it, was anathema, considered even a threat to the privileged class. A feudal lording nearby dubbed these flats, as ‘kabutar khanas’ (pigeon-holes), but they were much-sought-after by PIDC professionals.
Had the upcoming builders followed the pattern of these flats, employees/ tenant- friendly, spacious, an architectural elegance in simplicity, environment-friendly with open spaces, gracious living and quality of life that spawned a culture of community consciousness, Bath Island and the rest of the city would have been pretty, that the people could have been proud of.
For the last two or so decades the authorities concerned terrorised the residents, used all kinds of harassment and foul play such as destroying their peace of mind, depriving them of basic necessities and then finally getting them ejected after years of torment.
Now the destruction of the PIDC flats would seem to be on the cards which should not be allowed to take place. With the dehumanising of the PIDC flats began the sorrows of the residents of the Bath Island, “an area not long ago a posh and peaceful abode of middle class community, mostly government employees and the Parsi community”, as ‘A Bath Island resident’ has put it in his letter, has “become haven for the builder mafia’s insatiable lust for making stupendous profit” that must be stopped.
A collective and community-based resistance is indicated. Please join us.
FRIENDS OF PIDC FLATS AND BATH ISLAND
Karachi
APROPOS of the article ‘Ukrainian firm gets $23 million contract’ (Dawn, Feb 6), the Pakistan Steel would like to clarify the following points:
Earnest money factor: earnest money has no relevance to the estimated cost. Were it so, the estimated cost would stand divulged. It is required simply to ensure seriousness of the bidder. Pakistan Steel, as far back as 1978, evolved a system under which the amount of earnest money was made dependent on various slabs of estimated cost of works.
The amount of earnest money in respect of the highest slab being Rs8 million, the same was taken for the tender under reference.
Indigenous repair of coke oven batteries: After the collapse of coke oven batteries in June 2005, Pakistan Steel had to resort to import of coke to keep rest of the plant operation, which otherwise was facing the risk of shutdown. The indigenous temporary repair of all the ovens of battery No. 1 and of 26 ovens of battery No. 2 is a short-term and stop-gap measure, which is aimed at reducing the dependence on imported coke. This cannot be compared to complete restoration work of the coke oven batteries with a guaranteed performance life of minimum 15 years at full capacity.
Low participation in the tender was due to the uncertainty created as a result of start of privatisation process of Pakistan Steel.
Comparison with budgetary offers of tyazhpromexport (TPE), Russia: Subsequent to the signing of the MoU with Russian Federation in February 2003, TPE submitted a budgetary offer amounting to $462 million.
This was reviewed downwards to $164 million in April 2004, and revised upwards to $200 million in February 2005, after approval of PC-1 by CDWP of the planning division on Feb 1, 2005.
TPE budgetary offers of 2004 and 2005 included repair of coke oven batteries at $4.049 million and $8 million, respectively.
It is not fair to compare these costs quoted for limited repair of coke oven batteries when they were fully functional at high level of production with the work awarded recently to the Ukrainian for complete reconstruction of the batteries.
Functional performance guarantee in the letter of award is covered in the main contract document. It is never a practice to include all conditions of the contract in the letter of award. Pakistan Steel has obtained a 15-year functional performance guarantee from the contractor, which is quite unique for similar international contracts.
MUHAMMAD SHARIF KIANI
Public Relations Department, Pakistan Steel, Karachi
WHEN we talk of so much being in common between Pakistan and India, we don’t mention that the bigots and the fundamentalists on both sides think on the same lines. The latest example is the stiff opposition to St Valentine’s Day. The RSS and the VHP spew as much venom against those who celebrate the occasion as their counterparts on our side of Wagah do.
During a breakfast show on a popular TV channel a young anchor discussed objectively the origin and importance of Valentine’s Day, but before she could have gone home she got quite a few threatening calls from infuriated people who claimed that she was preaching an un-Islamic practice. On Feb 14 members of a right-wing political party demonstrated against the celebration of Valentine’s Day. Strangely, the fundamentalists don’t raise a slogan against cases of gang- rape, karo-kari, corruption and bribery, nor do they call such evils un-Islamic.
The other day I ran into a simple young man from upcountry, who said that the maulvi sahib in a mosque close to his house insists that listening to music is ‘haram’. Surprisingly, the gentleman doesn’t describe evils like sodomy and robbery in the same vein.
ASIF NOORANI
Karachi
THIS has reference to your editorial ‘A test case for Pakistan’(Feb 9), conveying Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s advice to the government to sign the international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearances.
There is hardly any rhyme or rationale in the HRCP’s demand in an environment in which the government’s own agencies are responsible for the forced disappearances in accordance with its (government’s) own agenda.
G. MUHAMMAD
Karachi
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