| September 24, 2007 | Monday | Ramazan 11, 1428 |
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HEC’s criteria for journals
Crazy traffic
Trade ties with Kabul
Sale of Roosevelt Hotel
Moving towards Ten10
Lockers’ rent
What next?
Matter of choice
Is Pakistan a banana republic?
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
APROPOS of the letter, ‘Energy crisis’ (Sept 3), it was quoted that China had enforced a minimum temperature setting of 26 deg. C for airconditioning to conserve energy. Now even Japan is enforcing even higher temperature setting for airconditioning (28 deg. C).
Japan’s three biggest banks were abandoning formal attire for summer to accept higher temperature settings for energy conservation.
We are merrily living in a dream, with our self-appointed leaders only interested in raising national debts beyond comprehension, just to use the present opportunity of governance.
We not only do not set correct example for the nation to follow, we do not even care if we see leaders of our wealthier neighbours live a simple life. If we could only reduce dependence on airconditioning (and change our lifestyle), we would not only solve our energy crisis but also live within our means and avoid the serious inflationary trend which is making 90 per cent of population slide further back into poverty.
Energy crisis has now enforced unplanned loadshedding, causing economic chaos and great inconvenience. Energy conservation is the only option but no emphasis is placed on this. In addition to government setting minimum conditions, the utility (both electric and gas supply) encourages conservation in most countries since their capital investments are controlled but we have not only inefficient organisation controlling the utility supplies, we have really no hope of improvement from them.
Wapda and the KESC are still ‘controlled’ by vested interests, and the huge subsidies doled out to them ensure wastage all the way. Line losses/pilferage/deliberate subsidies mean enormous losses, all being borne by taxpayers. If only correct charges were levied, the situation would be very different.
If we stop subsidising all users and charge correct tariffs, we would see a load reduction simply due to economic reasons.
Also, gas companies need to be more committed to conservation. Sui Southern has set such an inefficient example in their own new building that they are morally on the weak ground when talking to customers for essential energy conservation measures.
The SSGC’s new building is another example of ‘red building’ since no planning was done to accept green building concepts and for an energy organisation this red building syndrome (RBS) should have been avoided.
The whole world is scared of sick building syndrome and now Pakistan has added RBS, also to be totally avoided if we want to solve our energy crisis.
Gas companies can do so much to help the customers realise the importance of conservation, specially in our environment of gas in short supply. All large commercial and institutional buildings utilising gas for power generation or central airconditioning must be convinced about conserving energy, and the SSGC/ NGPL can play a leading role in arranging energy audits.
It is so unfortunate that large gas users like a private hospital in Karachi built on government-donated land, and the referred red building waste enormous energy due to very inefficient power generation and equally inefficient airconditioning system.
If they could only follow the basic requirements of green buildings, gas ‘saved’ by ensuring high efficiency can then be utilised elsewhere to help the country’s precarious economy as well as environment. We are a wasteful nation, unmoved by example of countries to whom we go running for help every time we are in a crisis.
What will it take to get out of our callousness and think about the people (not the 10 per cent who are benefited from the present debt-encouraging economy, bringing the foreign exchange annual export-import deficit to a whopping $14 billion).
If we care for the country, then we must live within our means and that should also apply to our self-appointed leaders who spend taxpayers’ money as if this was gifted for their pleasure. Conservation-encouraging simple living and energy codes — is the only hope of our economic survival.
AAZA
Karachi
APROPOS of Samina Waqar’s letter (Sept 12), correction/revision/modification of the list of approved journals of the HEC has come well in time. As rightly pointed out by Prof (Dr) Naveed Tahir of Area Study Centre of Europe, University of Karachi, the error in the HEC’s earlier website was recently upgraded to now include Journal of European Studies in the list of approved journals.
I have yet to add a few words about the impact factor in Social Sciences and Humanities area of the articles, much emphasised by the HEC. In contrast to physical sciences, ideas presented in the Social Sciences and Humanities area cannot be gauged easily in a few years.
Philosophical and social ideas that have moved the world or have impact on social structures of societies or world at large have rarely been observed immediately after they were presented. It takes sometimes centuries, and now after information technology, decades for social ideas to have any positive or negative impact on societies. A few examples will serve to establish my points.
a. The merit of Das Capital by Karl Marx went unnoticed in France and Germany more than six months after its publication, though Marx was a social activist and was wellknown in Europe as the author of communist ideology.
As a strategy to popularise his ideas in Das Capital, he took help from some of his friends and asked them to write critical articles with a negative tone so that some notice is taken of his book.
It was only after these critical articles appeared in journals that positive response started coming from the academic circles.
b. Omar Khayyam’s Ruba’iyyat became known in Europe centuries after his death when an English man, Fitz Gerald, who knew Persian translated it into English. This translation again went unnoticed until another renowned English writer found it in a ‘penny box’ and with the help of some other poets got it published in 1868. Gerald became a recognised poet figure and as the translator of Ruba’iyyat after it. And Omar Khayyam’s poetry got recognition in Europe.
c. Socrates had to drink the cup of hemlock for his supposedly blasphemous and anti-state ideas. It was only recently in 2001, that is 2, 400 years after his death that the government of Athens submitted an apology to his departed soul and declared 2001 as the year of Socrates.
d. Christ’s mission was (partly) successful 300 years after in AD 325 when Constantine declared Christianity as Roman Empire’s state religion.
e. The ideas of American philosopher Sanders Pierce, who is the founder of philosophy of pragmatism, became known to the world many years after when the famous American philosopher/psychologist William James took notice of them and acknowledging the original source popularised them.
The HEC needs to consider that the impact of ideas in the social sciences and philosophy cannot be gauged in a fixed timeframe. Therefore, the merit of research papers in Social Sciences / Humanities / Liberal Arts cannot be assessed immediately. Peer review is already a condition of approved papers by the HEC. This should be enough in evaluating papers in Social Sciences and Humanities.
DR ARIFA FARID
Former Dean of Faculty of Arts,
University of Karachi
THE way drivers in Lahore navigate traffic has become totally crazy. Their erratic and disorderly behaviour has been aggravated by the government’s massive last-minute simultaneous road construction works devouring enormous public funds. Most of these projects are on main arteries of Lahore and roads in commercial districts, surely to court the business community and cover up their inept tenure in power.
My conjecture is that if the drivers cannot understand the simple rules of driving on city streets, one wonders if they are ready for far sophisticated concepts like democracy. If driving was the true reflection of our national psyche, our national disregard for the rule of law or for that matter any rule is obvious.
One can easily judge from our driving patterns that we are a society of opportunist, selfish and self-centred individuals, taking whatever we get during our passage through life or the road, be it the right way or the wrong way. Just like someone overtaking a crowded queue of vehicles into the opposite lane, causing a gridlock at a junction angering and frustrating hundreds of fellow citizens.
The VIP culture or the VIP movement also reflects upon the psyche of the privileged few who serve the public and are foremost in flouting the rule of law. Do they even know they are showered with a billion curses every time they pass through a road where common citizens have to pay the price for their privileges by being stranded in the heat.
For a society of individuals who care less for the greater good and more about their immediate gains and boast about it demonstrates clearly that we aren’t ready for democracy. Democratic behaviour is first seen on the roads before it can enter the parliament. Orderly traffic should be considered a prerequisite for ‘real democracy’ our politicians are harking about all the time
Meanwhile, a gun-totting traffic warden with a baton to thrash drivers into submission would suffice so that at least the traffic flows on Pakistan’s roads. We the public has to get ready for democracy before we deserve it.
JAWAD N. KHAN
Lahore
APROPOS of Other Voices, the editorial, ‘Pakistan- Afghan ties’ (Sept 20), contributes to a mutually beneficial, advantageous situation to Pakistan and Afghanistan and to develop friendly relationship with estranged Afghanistan.
It will be a great help to poor Afghanistan if Pakistan allows goods and other commercial items from India to Afghanistan through Pakistan, a passage that had existed for a long time, even prior to colonial days.
Afghanistan should not suffer from hostile India-Pakistan relationship.
NIRODE MOHANTY
Huntington, USA
TO sell or not to sell Roosevelt Hotel is receiving wide media coverage. It reminds me of Hamlet as in his speech, “To Be or Not To Be”, Hamlet shows his character to be confused, fickle, and an overthinker. During the last 20 or so years, the government and the PIAC’s board of directors took several decisions to sell and perhaps equal numbers of decisions not to sell Roosevelt Hotel.
It has been reported in the media that the PIA chairman has informed the Senate Standing Committee on Defence that “PIA needs money as the national carrier was borrowing to meet the losses”.
It is also reported that PIA’s accumulated losses are over Rs25 billion at the rate of Rs1.2 billion each passing month and the sale of Roosevelt may get $122 million or Rs7.3 billion.
So, it appears that an answer has been found to sell Roosevelt to solve PIA’s borrowing problems. But only for the next six months. What happens thereafter?
For PIA and the government, the emphasis should have been on the right question: why is PIA haemorrhaging and incurring losses continually? And why PIA has not found any solutions to its problems in spite of many changes in its leadership?
It is vital to appraise the situation in the correct perspective. Sale of Roosevelt will provide cash to save PIA only for six months. What miracles are anticipated to glide PIA into profits thereafter?
Undoubtedly, the answer to PIA’s problem is not the sale of Roosevelt. It will provide temporary relief and will be tantamount to treating the symptoms rather than the disease. Why was the request of the PIAC board to reconsider the sale of Roosevelt summarily turned down by the PM’s adviser on finance and economic affairs? Why are some vested interests desperate to sell the hotel right away?
The other question reported by the media, as well as clarifications from the Privatisation Commission, was about the transparency and conflict of interest in the process of sale of Roosevelt. The PC spokesman claimed that advisory fee of $500,000 plus 0.99 per cent of net sale proceeds as success fee would be paid to the adviser. If the hotel is sold for $450 million, as claimed, (not considering the price of $1 billion as reported by the New York Post (July 11), then a total of $5 million will be paid as advisory fee.
It may be recalled that in 2003 the same PC selected a renowned real estate company (similar credentials as that of Cushman and Wakefield) as an adviser on success fee of $900,000 provided that the hotel is sold otherwise, no fee will be claimed.
Why did the PC agree to five times more fee when the property to sell is the same Roosevelt Hotel and the term of reference identical? How can the PC justify extra payment of $4 million?
Also, the PC spokesman claimed that the appointment of Cushman and Wakefield did not raise the question of conflict of interest. However, in making this declaration he, conveniently and perhaps purposely, ignored to mention Citibank.
The PC should note that everyone is aware that the consortium comprises Citibank and Cushman and Wakefield. Does the PC spokesman believe that the decision makers have no past relations with Citibank?
The Senate Standing Committee should seek answers from the relevant authorities to all the questions raised in the foregoing and look into all the agreements and relevant documents and decide about the fate of Roosevelt Hotel -- the only profitable unit owned by the people of Pakistan.
Also, questions of transparency and conflict of interest in the appointment of the adviser to sell Roosevelt Hotel must be comprehensively examined. Since the time is of essence, it is hoped that our parliamentarians will deliberate on the issue expeditiously as their term is nearing an end, otherwise the Supreme Court would be burdened with taking yet another suo motu notice.
More than often, failure and disappointment are the results of decisions taken in haste and without due diligence.
HASSAN
Karachi
It was interesting to read Rafi Ahmed’s letter, ‘The bowl out rule’ (Sept 21). The bowl out clause was really astonishing.
In these times, where people have little time for each other and even their own families, the modern cricket is replacing the ‘good old cricket’ gradually. The days of the Test cricket started fading fast after the introduction of the ODIs. And now the Twenty20s which, more like the fireworks at a wedding ceremony, have been blessed by the ICC. No doubt it is thrilling, as well as time-saving, but was that the true spirit of the game when it was introduced?
The bowl out rule may eventually be leading cricket towards Ten10s in the time to come. It would be an hour’s show at most, much shorter than a long play excluding commercials and the end ceremonies. It may be only a decade away from now when just 11 players, each facing a single ball from the 11 opposite team bowlers alternately, will decide the match.
The authorities responsible are requested not to deface the game of international cricket and leave it alone at least for now.
IJTABA ZAIDI
Karachi
I SHOULD like to draw the attention of the authorities concerned to unauthorised increase in locker’s fee by the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) about 600 per cent above the existing rates. These rates are much higher than other offered by competitive banks. But there is nobody to check upon the management of the National Bank of Pakistan.
Is the locker’s facility being offered to earn profits or to facilitate the customers to keep their costly articles in the lockers?
The National Bank of Pakistan earns millions of rupees in profit but does not share this with the customer by offering them a reasonable benefit level on their deposits. This shows that the aim of the NBP is only to earn profits and not to facilitate the general public.
The relevant authority is requested to look into the matter and inquire from National Bank of Pakistan authorities about the illegal recent increase in lockers fee and order them to revert to old rates for benefits of general public.
NOOR NABI SHEIKH
Hyderabad
THE NEWS item, ‘Local companies holding board meetings abroad’ (Sept 12), was an interesting read. Flying to exotic destinations to hold board meetings is just slightly harder to digest than the conventional “traveling at company expense”.
While regulators and other stakeholders should be better judges of these so-called administrative expenses, it is beyond me to come up with a plausible reason to excuse them, especially for companies with a predominantly local stake.
The common man in Pakistan has always been at the receiving end, whether he be the small investor or the law-abiding taxpayer. Very rarely is he surprised by something dished out by the political and corporate pundits.
I believe the next thing he is going to hear is President Musharraf flying out all the ruling and opposition MPs to get re-elected on an island off the Caribbean — with taxpayers’ money of course.
AYESHA ARIF BAWANY
Karachi
CAN it be argued that Gen Musharraf’s conditional offer of resigning as COAS if he is given another five-year term as president implies an open admission by the general that the presidency is more dear to his heart than the army — the institution he speaks of as the bastion of Pakistan’s progress, prosperity, and national security?
Should those committed to serving in the armed forces be hurt at this trade-off?
A. A. Ahmad
Lahore
IFTIKHAR Ahmed’s article, ’Is Pakistan a banana republic?’ (Sept 11), makes an interesting reading. After defining the parameters of a banana state explicitly, he has evaluated the objective conditions in Pakistan to see how and how much they match with those parameters.
His closing paragraph sums it up adequately: “President Musharraf, a military dictator, is a law unto himself. He claims to have a monopoly over wisdom and expects everyone to obey his orders. He alone knows what is good for the country. Ironically, there are many in Pakistan who concur with the general. This is typical of a banana republic”.
However, I don’t feel ironically, there are many in Pakistan who concur with the general. This commodity of sycophants, self-centred, myopic and the wretched of the humanity are found all over the world hovering around from Bush to Musharraf. So what can we expect from a coterie of self-centred generals and their sycophants?
M. SALEEM CHAUDHRY
San Jose CA
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