| February 25, 2007 | Sunday | Safar 7, 1428 |
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Monopolies having a field day
Education: signs of hope
Man sells daughter for surgery
Western threats to Iran
Bhandara’s amendment: with a proviso
Dutch ‘advice’ & Saudi protest
Demolition of school
Another sailor’s rhapsody
Green zone
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
I WOULD like to refer to the graphic depiction through the pen-pricks of Feb 16 of the vexing problem of want of quorum in meetings of the National Assembly. It appears writers of our Constitution had not fixed 25 per cent of members of the National Assembly as quorum realistically. That is why the National Assembly is so frequently out of quorum.
Working of the National Assembly having been patterned on Britain’s House of Commons, it is worth our while to know what ensures the availability of a quorum in the Commons at all times.
It will be seen that the population of Great Britain is less than ours, yet the House of Commons has a membership as large as 650 plus. The quorum for a meeting of the house is 10 per cent of this number, viz, about 65 members.
This number, low as it is, versus 650 automatically obliges both the ruling party and the opposition to always be present in the house in sufficient strength. This is out of fear lest a bill either party considers against its interest gets passed.
Incidentally, we, a more populous country than Great Britain - 150 million or so - have fewer than 350 members in the National Assembly. It works out to a member per every 4.3 million population.
No wonder residents of a constituency do not know which MNA represents them in the National Assembly.
Obviously, there is need to drastically reduce the size of our constituencies - to at least half the present size. This would enable the National Assembly to comprise double the number of members it has now.
It would require freezing the annual budget of the National Assembly at its present figure. The salaries and perquisites currently drawn by members are fabulously high for a poor country like Pakistan.
By freezing the National Assembly’s budget at its present figure, and doubling the number of members, the salary and perquisites available to a member will come to be compatible with per capita income of the generality of people.
This low salary and perquisites will be no hardship to MNAs, come as generally aspirants to seats in the National Assembly do from well-off families, rural or urban. An advantage of increasing the number of members of the National Assembly will be minimisation of ‘horse-trading’ of members.
The increase of the number of members of the National Assembly will put an end to the present monopolisation of seats of the National Assembly by a few families of the hereditarily-rich landed aristocracy.
They have, through the last general elections, seen to it that almost every adult member of their families, male as well as female, has a seat in the National Assembly.
Their lack of interest in the business of law-making happens to be the main cause of piling up of bills awaiting adoption by the National Assembly. This places the National Assembly completely at the behest of these privileged few. It is hoped the president, who enjoys necessary powers in this respect, will find it fit to effect the suggested enhancement of the number of members of the National Assembly.
ARIF BEG
Karachi
PRIME minister Shaukat Aziz and his ministers believe in disinvestment, privatisation, liberalisation, market economy and selling prime profit-making national assets to foreigners and locals without caring for the purchasing power of the people at large.
Their oft-repeated argument is that it is not the government’s business to do business. As a consequence, profit-making national assets have gone into the hands of a few privileged and influential people. Producers in the private sector from Karachi to Peshawar jointly control production and dictate prices in the market unchecked.
In fact, some of them are part of the government as well. Had the public sector sugar and cement plants not been privatised, these cartels would have been competing with them and the prices would have remained stable.
Now that we have the installed capacity in cement and sugar, the best solution to check prices of these items is for the government to come into production of these commodities to effectively check the profiteers.
There are after all mills/factories in the public sector even in the advanced countries to provide the citizens with goods at reasonable rates.
Import is not the solution. The efficiently-managed banks in the public sector should not have allowed the huge bank spreads to the private sector banks.
The need is to bring in management efficiency based on merit to the state-owned assets and to rid them of the politically-based fat and dead wood rather privatising them at throwaway prices.
To break monopolies and cartels, the federal government in public interest should take back some sugar mills and cement plants, put in qualified and efficient managers there and allow public/private sector competition to keep inflation and rising prices in check.
It is the government’s duty to help the people meet their needs at reasonable prices and not allow a few to rob them of their hard-earned money.
AIR CDR (R) ISHTIAQ AHMED KHAN
Chaillianwala
This refers to Mr Pervez Hoodbhoy’s article on the subject (Feb 9). The writer’s exhaustive comments on ‘White Paper’, stated to have been issued by the ministry of education, and his critical thinking on structural changes in Pakistan’s educational management system are appreciable.
But the ground realities have been ignored. The ruling elites/feudal lords send their children to the best and high-cost institutions but as a policy keep the people illiterate/uneducated to preserve their hereditary constituencies and vote bank.
Consequently, there are thousands of ghost schools and far more ghost teachers. The school buildings are used by them as ‘autaq’, cattle-sheds or storage facilities, in collusion with the vested interests. The situation in cities is not any better. School buildings are not properly maintained. There is institutional decay in the system.
A recent case of demolition of a school building in Karachi after handing it over to a private individual without formally shifting a functioning school to a new location (Dawn, Jan 25) signifies bureaucratic apathy towards public education.
Education funds are embezzled as ghost schools and ghost teachers abound. According to Dawn editorial, ‘More money for education’ (Jan 26), the government has decided to increase spending on education to four per cent of the GDP from current 2.7 per cent. The increased funds would also go into wrong pocket. In such a situation, any improvement in public-sector education system is not possible.
The first thing, therefore, is to change the mindset of the bureaucracy and feudal lords and motivate them to let the poor children be educated in the larger interest of the nation.
Also there is a need to change the existing dual education system of English medium for the rich and Urdu medium for the poor. There should be one system, one syllabus and a common examination system for all Pakistani students.
ABDUL SAMAD KHAN
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the news story entitled ‘Man sells daughter for surgery’ (Feb 17). It was claimed that legal action would be taken against the man in accordance with the Children’s Protection Act. But the real question is whether this legal action will prevent the occurrence of such incidents in the future.
It seems unlikely. We cannot forestall these kinds of incidents just by making laws. The need of the hour is to provide a better economic environment to the general public.
No doubt the country’s economy is expanding, but its fruits are reaped by the affluent class only. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening day by day. According to one estimate, more than 50 per cent of the population is living below the poverty line.
Every now and then we read in newspapers that a person committed suicide because of lack of financial resources. In addition to this is the constantly deteriorating law and order situation. This state of affairs reminds one of the following words of Thomas Hobbes: “Life in a state of nature was nasty, brutish and short.”
Under such circumstances extravagance by our rulers is not advisable. They must give up their ostentatious living and instead adhere to the following principle which has been purported by almost every political philosopher from Socrates to Sir Allama Iqbal: the state exists for common good. Unless it is done, we will remain in a state of predicament.
ASAD ALI SHAIKH
Karachi
THE rising crescendo of threats and war-mongering against Iran from western quarters makes it essential for Muslim countries to extend the fullest measure of support to our brother Muslim neighbour, Iran.
If the anti-Iran rhetoric in the temple of power and the media in the US is carefully analysed, its source lies in Israel and its acolytes in the powerful Israeli lobby in the US editorials and news coverage in the Israeli daily Maariv provide sufficient evidence to say that it is Israel which is goading the US to attack Iran.
Israel’s age-long effort has been to have American boys killed for the security of Israel. It is now obvious that false information about Iraq possessing WMDs was fed to the American military and government so that the US would be compelled to invade Iraq.
In the past few weeks also heaps of false stories about Iran having made the atom bomb on the sly have been churned out by Israel’s propaganda mills and publicised in the US to put pressure on Iran.
Surprisingly, very little information has surfaced in the western media about the hundreds of nuclear devices piled up in Israel’s A-bomb research centre at Dimona in the Negev desert.
I was still in London when on October 5, 1986, the Sunday Times spilled the beans and splashed on its front page the sensational revelation by an Israeli nuclear operative, Mordechal Vannu, about Israel’s stockpile of explosive nuclear devices concealed in the nuclear research centre at Dimona. The Israelis tried Vannu in a court in Israel and jailed him for 18 years.
QUTUBUDDIN AZIZ
Karachi
PAKISTAN was a different country before December 1971. The Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea touched its shores. Burma and the Arakan Yomas formed its easternmost boarder, Afghanistan and Iran its westernmost.
It had two national languages and more than twice the population. The elections held in 1969 had a different mandate and the issues were completely different. In fact, these elections belonged to a different country even though after 1971 we continued to call ourselves Pakistan.
If Bangladesh had made a claim to the name they would have had a case: after all they were the bigger partner of a broken country. Luckily, they wanted to have nothing to do with Pakistan or its name. The 300 or so members were in fact elected into a void because no assembly meeting was ever promulgated.
How could a small minority of leftover members from the elections of a country with a completely different geography, demography, polity and completely different electoral mandate, assume the role of constitution-making for a new Pakistan, without fresh elections.
The country broke up, the army was disgraced, thousands were killed and displaced but no one was found at fault. No serious inquiry was ever held. Gen Yahya’s bluff demanding an inquiry was never called because questions would have been asked and that might have let the cat out of the bag.
When all was almost lost, one last flicker of hope had remained in the Polish resolution at the UN, asking for a political solution. The resolution was torn to pieces by our representative: “We will fight for a thousand years” was the bombast. Even a child knew that under the circumstances we could not fight for a thousand hours, let alone a thousand years. Were we just waiting for the fall of Dhaka? We will never know the real answer. The entire coterie of conspirators at the helm of affairs was rewarded. The service chiefs were made ambassadors, all the generals placed in secure positions or honourably retired. One general who offloaded a nurse from a fleeing helicopter and ran away from East Pakistan lived to become the secretary of defence.
We entered the Guinness Book of records by having the first-ever civilian martial law administrator. Mujibur Rahman became the founder of Bangladesh and we recognised the new country in quick time. Everyone was satisfied.
But the fact remains that the 1973 Constitution can at best be taken as a proposed document by well-meaning citizens, founding fathers if you like (for want of a better expression) stunned into cooperation and accommodation by the tragedy. This document still has to be ratified by a properly-elected and mandated constituent assembly. This has been a pending requirement for the last 36 years.
A constitution cannot possibly have constitutional amendments made by martial law administrators or dictators (civil or military), especially amendments passed by assemblies which were the outcome of ‘non-party’ elections. The blasphemy law, the Hudood laws, concoctions like the Eighth and 17th Amendments et all are null and void.
With the uproar within the country, international pressures, the opposition going hoarse crying ‘wolf’ using standard cliches of pre-poll riggings, etc., and demonstrations and ‘julooses’ galore, we might after all have free and fair elections in 2007.
The new parliament can then ratify the proposed document of 1973 in its original form and Mr Bhandara’s amendment included. Addition of the Quaid’s speech -– “religion should have nothing to do with the business of state” — to the 1973 Constitution in its present mutilated form, with so many religion-based laws, would mean perpetual conflict and contradictions. The speech or its relevant portions should become part of the 1973 Constitution sans amendments.
CAPT S. AFAQ RIZVI
Karachi
IT is shocking to read in your paper (Feb 19) that the Saudi government has sought an apology from a Dutch politician who said that “Muslims should tear out half the Quran” if they wanted to live in Holland. A similar apology was sought last year over a Danish cartoon, which provoked worldwide protests among Muslims. It appears that the Saudi Government has taken the sole responsibility for lodging protests now and then when such comments are made in the western media.
It is a fact that Muslims, particularly of the subcontinent, who live in Europe and America have failed to assimilate into the western way of life, and women specially insist on observing purdah and wearing Hijab and national dress. Adherence to this way of life exposes them to European prejudices and ridicule. Similarly, suicide bombings, mostly by Muslims, spoil the image of the Muslims and give an impression that a Muslim is a terrorist and fanatic.
The Muslims’ image will not improve and they will continue to face insults and abuses unless they learn to conform to the western way of life. Alternatively, they should return home, if they insist on purdah, Hijab and their national dress.
A.S. PINGAR,
Karachi
THE news item under the heading ‘School demolition matter hushed up’ (Karachi Metropolitan, Feb 13) has shocked me and many other concerned citizens.
One thousand children are roaming around the city and knocking at the doors of various schools, many have dropped out for good.
This barbarous act has destroyed the future aspirations of innocent children. What will happen to these children in future is not difficult to guess, street crimes or the poverty cycle cannot be ruled out.
Do we need another Islamabad mosque and madressah scenario to be repeated before the authorities take note of this heinous crime?
More shocking is that neither the Jamaat nor Altaf Bhai has taken notice of the incident. Above all, even Mr Cowasjee, who always champions the cause of the poor to save them from the land mafia, did not write on the issue.
In this state of helplessness, our only hope is the chief justice of the Sindh High Court.
Therefore, I appeal to his lordship to take suo motu action as a further 25 such schools are reported to be on the list of the land mafia.
A. MAJEED
Karachi
THIS is apropos of Mr Mohammad Ahmed’s letter ‘A sailor’s rhapsody’ (Feb 15), where reference is made to Afghanistan not realising its rights and privileges under the ambit of the United Nations Convention of the Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS), suggesting Pakistan to seek stricture for Afghanistan to abide by UNCLOS.
This UN convention dictates that states without a sea coast would have the right of access to and from the sea, and would enjoy freedom of transit through the territory of littoral/transit states by all means of transport. This right is exercisable through bilateral, sub-regional and regional agreements, between landlocked and transit states.
Afghanistan is fully reaping the fruits of UNCLOS as well as Afghan transit pact but miserably failing in obligations as ‘transit state’ for land-locked Muslim Asian states. Afghanistan and its saints (US, Nato) are drawing all advantages at present.
The coalition forces’ war effort is sustained by the transit rights. The Karzai government has obligations not only to the people of Afghanistan but the landlocked Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as well.
Afghanistan is not realising the economic loss it is causing to the CIS which are craving for access to warm waters of the Arabian Sea.
The earlier Afghanistan realises this, the better it is. The country will have set its own house in order and build transport infrastructure to facilitate transit for the CIS.
As regards stricture about abiding UNCLOS, the CIS are more genuine parties to demand it than Pakistan.
EHSAN UL HAQ
Karachi
THE authorities announced last month that the Jehangir Kothari Parade at Clifton, Karachi, was ready for inauguration. The president visited the city but left after opening the expressway.
On a casual visit to the park, I was stopped at the gate by the guard. I felt as if I was trespassing a forbidden green zone.
This park has been used by foreign guests and men in uniform during the Hamara Karachi and other festivals. It is baffling to observe that this public park remains out of bounds for the people of Karachi.
It seems that the authorities are waiting for the elections to gain political mileage, or there is a sinister agenda to develop parks and keep them locked like the Nanakwada Park and Sherpao Gardens.
RAFI ADAMJEE
Karachi
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