| July 13, 2007 | Friday | Jamadi-us-Sani 27, 1428 |
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An SOS call
Misleading information
More dams
BBC documentary
Company’s working
New lakes in Sindh and Balochistan
Departmental exams
Common heroes
PMDC should take notice
Qalandar’s poetry
SALU
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
IT is with deep distress that one sees the violence which has engulfed the once peaceful country called Pakistan. Its major cities are affected by rising crimes, rule of hoodlums and thugs, lack of clean drinking water and continued insecurity and impoverishment for the multitude.
Much of Pakistan's problems are due to the continued support of causes which were alien to this land such as the Afghan Jihad, support for the Palestinian cause, enactment of Islamic laws, support of western ideals and culture without realising Pakistan's own indigenous culture and identity.
Pakistan needs to come out of this American complex of creating new identities and not facing up to the culture which is deeply rooted in the land of this country and has been built over centuries.
The government needs to accept the diversity which its population has and has to respect the social fabric and system which is centuries old and has the colours of the past in it.
How long will we continue to have a non-representative government and a military which would not bow to popular will? Heroes of the past whether pre-1947 of post-1947 have to be acknowledged. Internal colonisation has to be stopped. Structure of government has to remain simplified. All areas of Pakistan and that means the Northern Areas and AJK have to be given representation in the National Assembly.
The military has to be made more representatives at all levels by the different segments and ethnic groups of this country. Lateral entries into the Civil Service have to be abandoned. Greater spending needs to be done on health, education and infrastructure.
The Senate should be made representative on the lines of the US Senate. The election commission should be made independent. All laws passed during military governments should be declared null and void automatically when a civilian government takes over. Military assets should be privatised and land reforms should be carried out on military farms. Tenants of military farms should be given ownership and possessor rights.
The government should tax all sectors of the economy. The tax on rich industrialists should be raised whereas the salaried class should have a higher income bracket for taxation. Local customs should be included in the laws of the state. Local university graduates should be given preference over foreign university graduates. The DMG group with all its powers should be restored.
The defence budget should be slashed and brought to a minimum. The institutions of state should be strengthened. Only those judges who pass the PCS judicial examinations should be appointed, and judges should not be selected from the lawyers’ community.
The nazim system should be abolished. The quota system should be imposed with weightage as was given by the British to the Indian Muslims in the army. Similarly, this should be given to the people of Balochistan and Sindh and Southern Punjab. The Civil and Criminal Procedure Code of the British should be reformed to bring it at par with the requirements of the present age. The Land Acquisition Act should be abolished.
ALI HUSSAIN MAZARI
Via email
WE, the residents of the Airport Employees Corporation Housing Society (AECHS), Rawalpindi, have been chronically suffering because a corrupt administration is indifferent to our problems. And we do not know who will rescue us.
Ever since the beginning of the summer, every other day there is a power failure that continues for six to 10 hours at a stretch. Whenever Wapda is contacted, we are advised to contact the administration of the Society to sort out the problem since it is the administration that is responsible for any faults. When the administration of the Society is contacted, it is the same old story that you get to hear.
The old transformers have run the course of their natural life and every other day there is some major fault in them that plunges the whole Society into darkness for hours.
Every time we are promised that the workers are sorting things out for the time being and that the old transformers will be replaced with new ones the very next day. But that "very next day" is yet to see the light of day.
The apathy of the administration has rendered the lives of the residents of the Society miserable.
There is no garbage-collecting system, though the administration collects money from each house after every three months. The roads are in a dilapidated condition and their condition further worsens after a downpour.
We, the residents, are sending this as an SOS call to anyone who can enable us to live decently as human beings.
M. TAHIR MAZARI
Islamabad
ON June 13 I had a reservation on PIA flight PK 319 scheduled to depart from Islamabad at 2230 hours for Karachi. I phoned PIA to check if the flight was leaving on time; on being informed that it was, I hurriedly checked out of the hotel to reach the airport by 2130 hours.
Check in was done and I am seated in the waiting area. At 2200 hours an announcement was made that the flight was delayed for an hour due to bad weather. The same announcement was made more or less every hour. Strange to note that only PIA was affected by the ‘bad weather’; other local and international airlines (Air Blue and Thai, for example) were able to take off and land.
As business class had not been available, I was in economy plus. It was one of the hottest days in Islamabad; the airconditioning and lights of the waiting area went off and, although the lights came back, airconditioning remained off for three hours. Adding to the agony and misery endured by passengers, especially those with children and connecting flights, were mosquitoes, flies and other insects. It was a long night of terror.
Through all this ordeal, not a single senior PIA official was present to communicate the correct problem; all we heard was the lady making the shocking announcement – and that from a safe distance. No hotel or compensation was offered to us helpless passengers. We began to think that the inefficient personnel of PIA do not have the right to live off taxpayers’ money and then torture them with misleading information.
Finally a new aeroplane arrived from Karachi and we left for Islamabad at 0300 hours on June 14, reaching Karachi at 0500 hours and back home by 0600 hours.
I urge the president, the prime minister and members of the National Assembly to debate on whether we should have PIA or should it be closed down and the routes given to other local or international carriers.
ZARINA SAJID
Karachi
ASAD Khan has called for the construction of more dams to alleviate the problems of electricity and water shortages (July 6). His cry for help may be too late.
A large dam takes better part of 10 years to complete. According to reports published earlier in the week, even the feasibility studies to establish the viability of these projects have not been completed. These will take another two years. At the end of the day, it could well turn out that the sites selected for the dams are unsuitable on technical grounds.
It seems highly improbable that any of the proposed dams could be completed by the date promised by President Gen Musharraf. At the present rate, the number of mouths to feed in the country would have grown by another 40 or 50 million by 2016. At the same time, continually diminishing water supplies will cut short the country's agricultural production.
With farm outputs and power supplies drastically reduced due to shortage of water, it does not take much imagination to visualise that we are headed for very difficult times ahead. The country appears very likely to descend into chaos and societal breakdown. Compared with this, the present unsettled and unhappy conditions will look like a child's play.
PROF KHURSHID RABBANI
Halifax, Canada
THE BBC recently showed a documentary titled 'Pakistan: The threat within'. I felt the comments on this documentary were biased and not based on facts.
Just to cite a couple of examples, they showed footage of a madressah student reciting ‘ayats’ from Surah-i-Rahman and the commentator said, "This is how the madressah students are taught hate".
This just shows the ignorance and lack of education of the BBC correspondent on the topic and the ‘ayats’ the student was reciting.
In another instance, re-enacted footage was shown of Pakistani elite police force capturing the Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubeyda.
They showed the commander of the force narrating how he had captured the person, and the BBC correspondent gave his personal view and said: "I believe he feels remorse at the capture of Abu Zubeyda although he does not acknowledge it".
In the past the BBC used to be one of the only western channels which could be relied upon for showing objective, factual and well-informed, researched documentaries.
ZUBAIR NASEER
Karachi
SABIHUDDIN Ghausi’s report on Pfizer is revealing. There is a whole section in the Companies Ordinance which deals with prevention of oppression and mismanagement and also with the conduct of directors.
The operations of Pfizer Laboratories Ltd appear to be in violation of a whole bunch of these provisions.
The company is selling some of its product at gross loss; has accumulated losses as a result; its liquidity situation is dismal for which it has borrowed funds from its parent company in the US and these funds were converted into equity through issues of right shares.
The auditors’ report is that transfer pricing and its financial standing on local Pfizer and to its minority shareholders have been negative and the company has not distributed any dividend for the last 10 years.
To a layman, all this would appear to be in violation of the law. Are their any loopholes in the provisions that are preventing notice of these flagrant violations by the authorities?
IMRAN SIDDIQ
Karachi
IMMEDIATE study in detail should be done to see the flow of water and the possible locations of storing all of the water that is wasted at present. If all this water that is being wasted in flood and rains in Sindh and Balochistan should be stored in large man-made lakes and reservoirs across the length and breadth of Sindh and Balochistan, this would ensure ample water availability for farming and drinking for many years to come, after each heavy rain.
Also water-testing labs of the highest standard should be maintained next to each lake and reservoir to constantly test and improve the water quality for safe use.
This will ensure that the yields of land already in cultivation goes up, and also as much as 25 million acres of new land acreage can be brought under cultivation. Since in Sindh almost 50 per cent of land is without water and highly fertile and in Balochistan almost 70 per cent of land is without water and also highly fertile, full utilisation of these unutilised land is essential for the overall development of Pakistan’s agro economy.
This will help create more employment and poverty reduction. For example, if each landless farmer is given 50 acres of land, then almost 500,000 persons will get gainfully occupied. This will also improve food production in the country to allow for more export and reduced domestic prices.
This development will enable Pakistan to meet its export target of $45 billion and also increase four times in the next five 5 years.
Also, these reservoirs can be complemented with the latest state of art fish hatcheries that can regularly stock these lakes with good healthy fish seed, thus producing high-value protein food for domestic consumption and export.
A committed plan should be made by the government along with top engineers in the country to design and construct at least 50 small lakes and reservoirs in Sindh and Balochistan. In addition, the existing lakes and reservoirs should be enhanced in capacity through heavy dredging, side wall widening, increasing height and cement lining so that the heavy rain that we get in Sindh and Balochistan every few years should be stored and managed and it must be made into a source of advantage rather than a source of destruction, and not one drop of rainwater is wasted again.
Proper and immediate implementation of this through the Planning Commission, ECNEC and all relevant departments will lead to a fast improvement of the GDP, GNP and per capita income of the country which would go up to $4,000 per person.
Time should not be wasted and all available resources and reserves that the country has should be effectively applied to make both the people and the country prosperous.
Z.H. EFFENDI
Karachi
BEING a government employee I know the fact that it is indeed in the rule of law to hold departmental examinations of the government servants. It has been five years since I was appointed in the police department in BPS-5.
In my short span, I have not seen any departmental examination of the police so far. Unfortunately, one can very easily find the highly talented police personnel in the department who have anxiously been waiting for departmental examinations but they are not held.
Perhaps this is what leads to frustration among the employees serving in police. On the contrary, whenever the posts of ASIs are advertised, the direct examination is taken for the selection of the candidates, ignoring the basic right of serving police personnel.
As a result, they are again greatly disappointed. It is pertinent to mention here that, apart from this, over the decade I have not seen any advertisement for sub-inspectors, inspectors and DSPs in the police department.
However, thousands of posts for police constables are repeatedly advertised in different newspapers. Thus I am still at a loss to know who will lead these police constables after their recruitments as such no police officer is appointed along with these police constables.
RASHEED AHMED MIRANI
Sukkur
JAWED Naqvi is understandably impressed with Begum Hazrat Mahal’s attitude towards secularism contained in her counter-proclamation and wonders if a grand mausoleum would ever be built at the site of her burial in Kathmandu (July 2).
If such a move is afoot, I hope it is preceded by a mausoleum for Bahadur Shah II in Rangoon. That’ll be a fitting way to bring the Mughal dynasty to a formal closure. Be that as it may, it is interesting to find that the fine tradition of secularism extends much further back than 1858 when Begum Mahal made her counter-proclamation.
Ghulam Hussain, a man apparently from a family of high-level officials in the Mughal court and eventually finding employment with Warren Hastings in Calcutta, wrote his Seir Mutaqherin (Review of Modern Times) in 1781 – some 77 years before the counter-proclamation.
Noting how the Mughals had come to stay in Hindustan, while the British only wished to return after garnishing their riches, Hussain added that once the Hindus and the Muslims overcame the initial mutual aversion, the two groups came to coalesce together into one whole, “like milk and sugar that have received a simmering.” Details of Ghulam Hussain’s work are contained in Nicholas Dirk’s The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain.
GANESH KRISHNAN
USA
THIS has reference to the news item regarding the PMDC’s inspection of the Sukkur Medical College (July 1). We talk so much about private medical colleges, but this news item shows how public sector medical colleges are trying to cheat the PMDC and get recognition.
According to this report, Prof Ali Akbar Khan, principal of the Nawabshah Medical College, has said that he was informed by the health secretary that the transfer of some faculty members of the Nawabshah Medical College and the Chandka Medical College to the Sukkar Medical College is of a temporary nature and as soon as the PMDC inspection team has finished its work, the teachers concerned will be transferred back to their respective colleges.
This amounts to cheating our institution and, hence, serious notice of this must be taken by higher authorities.
PROF ISHTIAQ AHMED KHAN
Karachi
THIS is in response to S. Irtiza Hussain’s letter (July 5). The poetry of Hazrat Sakhi Shahbaz Qalandar is collected, translated and published by a local gentleman, Ghous Bux Gohar from Kotri Kabir, Sindh. He is the owner of the famous historic library of Kotri Kabir. The poetry is compiled from several ancient manuscripts and later on edited by renowned Sindhi scholar Niaz Humayuni.
The interest in Persian in Pakistan, and especially in Sindh, is indeed alive. Not only do people read Persian poetry with interest but they also write it.
MASOOD LOHAR
Hyderabad
THIS is in response to Manzoor Ali Isran’s letter, ‘Shah Abdul Latif University’ (July 2). Being a Khairpurian I agree that political hindrance is responsible for the lower ranking of the university and that there is also lack of discipline among teachers and the administration.
However, the writer has only disclosed the negative viewpoints for the university. He has not seen what I did when I was an external candidate of the university.
He only saw 10 computers in the central library but did not see 10 to 15 computers connected to the Internet in computer labs of business administration, commerce and IT departments.
His statistics say there are 200 teachers for about 5,000 students; that works out to one teacher for a group of 25 students.
Most of the teachers are found to be hardworking which is why almost 60 per cent of the graduates from SALU are bureaucrats, armed force officials, working with banks, multinationals and teaching institutions.
M. FAHEEM ABBASI
Khairpur Mirs
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