| May 06, 2007 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 18, 1428 |
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Transmission of hepatitis B and C
Another lame duck president
Five-day working week
Hats off
Power crisis in Karachi
Strengthening the slogan
Powerful words
Inspection centre for CNG kits
Dubious deals
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
IN spite of the shameful debacle of East Pakistan, it seems that we have not yet learnt any lessons from history. Had our judiciary been independent, and had men like Justice Munir listened to their conscience, there would have been rule of law, supremacy of the constitution and a working democratic setup.
Pakistan badly needs politics based on issues relevant to the common man. Inflation, law and order, rising unemployment, misappropriation of state assets, freedom of expression, equal opportunities, etc., should be the issues that decide elections. Unfortunately, even after over 60 years, there are political parties that base their politics on religion, ethnicity and language.
One of the leading men who played a pivotal role in the creation of Pakistan, Maulvi Fazlul Haq, who was the undisputed Muslim leader of Bengal, pointed out the dangers inherent in politics based on religion and language as early as 1941.
He led the Muslim freedom movement in Bengal, long before his other colleagues in Muslim minority areas even thought of the possibility of a separate sovereign state. It was Fazlul Haq who pointed out the dangers inherent in allowing religion to be exploited as a political tool because sanctity of faith tends to be jeopardised.
Similarly, politics based on language or ethnicity is repugnant and tends to divide the people, instead of forging unity and educating them on the important issues.
We should not forget the fact that the citizens of East Pakistan overwhelmingly voted for Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah and pledged their loyalty to the Quaid-i-Azam, while the people of West Pakistan voted for a military dictator like Ayub Khan. The role played by religious and linguistic parties in alienating the Bengali population ultimately led to the shameful surrender by a military dictator to an Indian army; the same dictator who had refused to bend to the will of the East Pakistanis.
It has been the common philosophy of all military juntas in Pakistan to divide people on linguistic, sectarian and regional divides in order to prevent federal parties from winning widespread constituency. While such a policy weakens the federation, it prolongs the illegitimate dictatorial rule of khaki junta. Continued military rule has weakened the federation, destroyed all institutions such as the judiciary and the parliament and made a mockery of the constitution.
Let there be the undiluted rule of law in Pakistan and a government elected by the people through free and fair elections. The army has no role to play, except that defined in the Constitution. An independent judiciary will guarantee that all institutions will adhere to their confined designated roles as defined in the 1973 Constitution.
T. MALLICK
Lahore
THIS is with reference to the news item,`Hospitals to get water treatment plants' (April 20). While it is a commendable effort to provide people with hygienic, clean drinking water to prevent spread of various water-borne diseases, it is also important to point out a few misunderstandings.
It appears quite obvious, having read this and similar news and articles, that the government and the media are still confused about the mode of transmission of hepatitis B and C virus infections. The news item mentions the prime minister’s programme for control and prevention of hepatitis, launched in August 2005, and also gives some statistics on hepatitis B and C viral infections.
However, it has to be said that although clean and safe drinking water is necessary to prevent spread of a number of diseases, many of them serious and often fatal, yet it has nothing to do with spread of hepatitis B and C infections.
'Their modes of transmission are important to understand and know not only because their awareness will help people to avoid them, but also the above-mentioned misunderstanding results in the much-observed social stigma. Non-infected friends and relatives feel scared to spend time with the patients and stop sharing cutlery and even sitting in the same room as them.
The modes of transmissions for both hepatitis B and C infection are similar and include use of unscreened blood transfusion, re-use of syringes and needles, use of contaminated instruments in surgical and dental procedures and also in practices like acupuncture, tattooing and body-piercing.
Sharing razors or tooth brushes have also been implicated in transmission of these viruses. Risk of transmission through sex is low. Intravenous drug use is another route of spread. The infection rate among infants born to mothers infected with hepatitis B virus is much higher than that for hepatitis C.
In a study conducted at our centre, situated in rural Sindh (Mirpurkhas), two-thirds of patients with hepatitis C were infected because of the re-use of syringes and needles.
However, breast-feeding does not appear to increase the risk of transmission of infection. Hugging, shaking hands, preparing food or swimming in a pool do not spread these infections.
Likewise, no specific dietary item has any known role in the spread of disease or its progression, except heavy use of alcohol which is believed to result in faster disease progression.
As mentioned in the news item, indeed the prevalence of hepatitis B and C in Pakistan is thought to be three to four per cent and five to six per cent of the population, respectively, as also accepted by the Pakistan Society of Gastroenterology and GI Endoscopy.
Our local data at Mirpurkhas suggest that these figures are gross underestimation for our population where just hepatitis C infection is reported to affect one in every five people. However, even accepting the generally quoted figures for Pakistan, we have roughly 10 people infected with either or both of these viruses. This means around 15 million of the 150 million population of our country have either hepatitis B or C or both, and not just “6-7 million”, as quoted in the news item.
DR S. ZAFAR ABBAS
Mirpurkhas
MAHIR Ali (‘Keeping Wolfowitz from the door’, April 25) is perhaps a little off the mark in branding Paul Wolfowitz a war criminal, although there is no denying his long-term aspirations as a warmonger. Much before 9/11 both he and Richard Perle were urging Clinton to attack Iraq, and when he demurred they wrote directly to Netanyahu to do the dirty work on his own. He wisely declined.
However when the dough-like Bush became president, the neo-cons in the White House and at the Pentagon manufactured the threat of Saddam's WMD and Wolfowitz as deputy defence secretary figured in lies to Congress about Saddam Hussein's WMD as a reason for attacking Iraq.
As the leading neocon, he convinced Bush that not only would the Iraqi population welcome US forces as liberators but also that the whole operation would be successfully completed in a matter of months with the deployment of only 100,000 servicemen. He was wrong on all counts.
The carnage set in motion has gathered momentum and today Iraq is ungovernable. However, Wolfowitz was allowed to disengage, and ensconced at the World Bank where it was believed he would have the opportunity to salvage his reputation and image. He has now become a victim of his machinations, and must pay the price for his indiscretions.
Wolfowitz is not the first warmonger to head the World Bank. Four decades ago Robert McNamara had been conducting the Vietnam war as LBJ's defence secretary. It was on the basis of his repeated lies -- that Vietcong patrol boats had attacked US warships on a supposedly routine mission off North Vietnam -- that the US Congress approved the infamous 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which led directly to an escalation of the war in Vietnam, and in which the US remained mired for five years.
Opinion about Wolfowitz's ouster from the World Bank is divided. Mahir Ali believes that if the choice is between him and John Bolton, maintaining the status quo would be the less unbearable option although the US administration has been toying with the idea of appointing Ashraf Ghani, the former Afghan finance minister and at present chancellor of Kabul University, as the successor to Wolfowitz. But let good sense prevail leading to a farewell to Wolfowitz. How many lame duck presidents can we have?
ASAD SIDDIQI
Lahore
AS per a report in Dawn (April 30), two weekly holidays will be introduced as part of the drastic measures for energy conservation. The main reason being given is that more customers will thus be provided to business and commercial concerns on Saturdays as compensation for obligatory early closure of business after sunset during the week.
A five-day working week system is a recipe for disaster in our country. With our bad work ethics and lazy attitude, effectively it will come down to a work week of barely three and a half days. As experienced previously, our government servants will leave for the weekend on Fridays and will come to work late on Mondays. With our ludicrous intensiveness of work to start with, one can imagine the losses in terms of national productivity under these reduced working days.
More importantly, the public will suffer immensely for not finding the work force in government offices on so many days in a row. Under these circumstances, what is a common man supposed to do to have his vital official work done in the offices?
We know there won’t be any energy savings with these disastrous measures. The business community will not get any compensation either. People don’t go shopping in the sizzling heat of the summer days and thus the shopping activities will continue to take place in the evenings, after working hours, as it always has been. So the extra holiday on Saturdays will be meaningless.
I appeal to our decision makers to save the nation from the negative results of the proposed five-day working week. It failed in the past and sanity demands that old failures should not be repeated. Let us keep the present system of a six-day working week.
SOHAIL RANA
Rawalpindi
I WOULD like to express my sincere gratitude to the fine staff at Jinnah International Airport. Recently, while travelling back to Islamabad, I had forgotten my wallet in the departure lounge in Karachi and I didn’t realise it until the plane took off. I was very upset; all my money and identity cards were inside the wallet. I immediately informed the flight staff who were very quick and responsive.
They sent a message to the ground crew but some honest person had already picked up the wallet and called my home to inform my family that it was safe. When I landed in Islamabad, the authorities concerned immediately sent a telex to Karachi and the wallet was sent over on the next flight.
Whosoever hears this story says that I was lucky because there aren't that many honest people out there. But I say that there are honest people, we do not know about them. It is so nice to know that there are people out there that care enough to go out of their way for someone they do not know. Once again, hats off to the honesty and sincerity of PIA and the airport staff in Karachi.
KHALID
Islamabad
IN 1996, the residents of Karachi witnessed the collapse of three basic civic agencies, KESC, PTCL and KWSB. At that time, a group of concerned citizens had decided to file public interest litigation in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against these utility services, for failing to provide the services for which they were established.
The case was admitted for regular hearing in the court of Justice (r) Ajmal Mian and the MDs and senior officers of these utility services were ordered to appear before the court every Saturday. Suggestions and recommendations relating to increasing power generation, maintenance and improvement of distribution systems, reduction in line losses and power theft and setting of complaint centers were approved and ordered by the court.
If only 30 per cent of those recommendations and suggestions had been implemented, there would not have been the need to privatise the KESC or the PTCL. There has been a marked improvement in the services of the PTCL after privatisation, but in the case of the KESC, even after a lapse of almost three years, the situation remains pathetic.
Karachiites continue to suffer and the city, the industrial and commercial backbone of the country and once proudly known as the “City of Lights”, is once again plunged into darkness and is facing the worst power crisis in its history.
The reason for the KESC’s privatisation was to improve its services and end the suffering of the citizens. We were assured that the new management would invest in the corporation and in the entire system to increase power generation, distribution and maintenance systems, which would improve its services and bring an end to the power breakdowns, loadshedding, fluctuation, low voltage, billing, power theft and management problems, etc.
Despite the fact that millions of rupees of the taxpayers have also been pumped into this failing public utility service, its services have not improved and, like every year, the blame game is in full swing. Consumers are accusing the new management and Siemens of failing to invest in the corporation, as promised, the KESC is blaming Wapda, which in turn is blaming the KWSB and so it goes on. However those who set up the privatisation deal are laughing all the way to the bank.
The KESC management, Wapda and our ministers for power must be congratulated for proving the old saying, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time”, is wrong, as they have been successfully fooling us for the last 10 years and getting away with it.
The government must investigate and inform us the terms and conditions under which the KESC was privatised and take stern action against those responsible for the suffering of the residents of Karachi. If they fail to do so, then they have no right to govern and we should demand their resignations. And if we don’t, then another old saying goes, “people get the government they deserve”.
A. H. MAKER
Karachi
FOR the last couple of years the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) has evolved a new methodology for selecting candidates in competitive examinations. Concerning the first phase of examinations, which are written, it is an open secret that the question papers are bought and sold even as news about the efficiency and transparency of the PPSC remained in the headlines of leading newspapers during the course of examinations.
When the results of written examinations are declared, the number of candidates who have passed is much less than required. An obvious example is the 2006 examinations in which more than 25,000 candidates appeared and the PPSC cleared only 122 candidates for interview, while the announced number of seats to be filled was 232.
Only PPSC officials can say if this efficient post-examination performance of the PPSC has any connection with the pre-examination scenario. It was because of this very reason that civil judges were directly appointed in Punjab recently.
Even if we were to believe that the selection process was transparent, the situation is evidence of the declining education standard in Punjab. If only 122 out of more than 25, 000 candidates are capable of passing the PPSC examinations, then this hardly strengthens the chief minister’s slogan of "a para likha Punjab".
Also, if the Punjab education department is not able to produce the required number of candidates for its own services, how can it expect them to be inducted in the private sector or international organisations. Now it is up to the authorities concerned to decide who is responsible for this scam. But one thing is quite clear; whether it is the ‘efficiency’ of the PPSC or the education ministry which is busy producing a "para likha Punjab”, it is the candidates of who are at the losing end.
NISAR AZMAT CHATTHA
Gujranwala
THE column by Irfan Husain (‘Time for reckoning’, April 28) motivated me to look up Nelson Mandela's speech of 1964. This was essentially a confession of sorts in which Mr Mandela has clarified certain ambiguities. It’s a very long speech or statement in court but I would like to quote the last few lines, which are very powerful, for the benefit of those who may not have come across them.
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. "
Only a person of Mr Mandela's mettle could have uttered such powerful words.
KH. KALEEM AHMAD
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the letter by Syed A. Mateen of Karachi (April 29) on the above subject matter. The Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan clarifies that the capacity of HDIP CNG Cylinder Testing Laboratory is 75 cylinders per day on average, and not 15-20 kits/cylinders as mentioned in the letter.
However, at present the capacity remains under-utilised. Working hours of the laboratory are being increased with the increase in the number of vehicle cylinders. Moreover, in order to facilitate consumers, HDIP is in the process of establishing cylinder collection points in different parts of the city of Karachi.
Consumers are requested to bring or send all those vehicle cylinders which have completed five years of service to the HDIP laboratory as required under the CNG rules 1992.
EHSAN UL HAQ
PRO, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources
YOUNG lawyer Anil Khan Luni of Lahore (letter, May 2) has shot off at half-cock. He writes: “It appears that Mr Cowasjee is much more concerned about Gen Musharraf rather than the rights of the ‘clients’.”
The general can look after himself. I am concerned with the fate of the under-trial prisoners (UTPs) in our jails who could be proved innocent.
In Sindh, there are 20 jails certified to hold a total of 9,511 persons. At the end of April they were filled with some 20,000 prisoners, 15,578 being classified as UTPs. From Karachi jail alone, 424 UTPs were ordered to be produced in various courts on May 2. The lawyers rampaged and the prisoners could not be taken to the courts. Their cases, presumably, were adjourned to a date in office, i.e. three weeks down the line.
Perhaps Mr Luni can find out how many suffered a similar fate in Punjab.
ARDESHIR COWASJEE
Karachi
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