| September 25, 2007 | Tuesday | Ramazan 12, 1428 |
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Water access
Press freedom
Working hours
Revising exam results
Denial of job opportunities
Team spirit
Telling effects of traffic congestion
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 trouble with American foreign policy, as a very senior Pakistani career diplomat, now in his nineties, once observed, was that the American people unfailingly fail to see the wood for the trees, and hardly ever espouse popular causes. One striking feature of this proclivity is the issue of Palestine; it was spawned by them, nurtured by them and allowed to fester by them, even six decades after the dubious midwifery carried out by president Truman to facilitate a second term in the White House (1948).
Only a couple of days ago Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the American initiative to call an international conference in November 2007 on Palestine with the express purpose of establishing a Palestinian state. One is astounded that the Bush administration, even today, does not realise that any initiative, bearing the Bush stamp, is almost certain to be a red rag to the Palestinian people.
One is equally astonished that how come otherwise gifted people like Condoleezza Rice, who prides herself to be the prize student of that very able and venerable academic, diplomat and peacemaker (Danger in Kashmir) Dr Josef Korbel, (incidentally Madeleine Korbel Albright’s father), choose to wear blinkers when rationality expects them to take an unjaundiced view of an issue which has brought so much suffering to so many.
If creditability and sustainability were to be held essential ingredients of any new initiative, then it must come from the whole world community, duly supported by the P5 plus Germany and the forum for this must be none other than the UN. This is even more so for Palestine for it was on the very floor of the General Assembly at Flushing Meadows that the nefarious resolution, without legal precedent in international law, partitioning Palestine was passed in the wake of the undemocratic arm-twisting of the weak by the powerful.
It would now be in the fitness of things that this issue is de-cobwebbed and disentangled there if only for the sake of world peace. Notwithstanding the present American administration’s reluctance to practise democracy at the UN, which they so vehemently preach as its high priests elsewhere, if they really mean business then they must wholeheartedly take the democratic route of going through the UN. The simpler procedural option for doing so would be to place the issue on the UN agenda for 2007, even if it is necessary to insert it now. This would automatically send the subject to the First Committee for in-depth debate there. The First Committee should be requested to treat it on a priority basis for making recommendations for adoption by a plenary session of the General Assembly and by the Security Council under Chapter VII.
The consensual objective of this exercise should be to make parties agree to go back to status quo ante as envisaged by the original UN partition plan of 1947. Once done it will have the endorsement stamp of the whole world, hardly allowing interested parties to play destructive games. Needless to say to stop more bloodletting around the world the major peacekeepers of the world must give the idea serious thought.
International conferences touted by the US will, I am afraid, be as abortive as those called so many times in the past.
M.J.AS’AD
Karachi
FAKIHA Javed has pointed out (letter, Sept 21) that Pakistan’s per capita water access dropped from 5,600 cubic metres in 1947 to mere 1,200 by 2005. The source of these figures is not given but in 2005 the World Bank painted a much more alarming picture. An extract from Dawn of Sept 20, 2005 reads:
“Mr. John Briscoe, a senior adviser to the World Bank, warned the government of Pakistan that . . . . . the survival of a modern and growing Pakistan is threatened by (lack of) water. Pakistan has to invest and invest soon in costly and contentious new large dams.
“Pakistan has very little water storage capacity. The United States and Australia have over 5,000 cubic metres of storage capacity per inhabitant and China has 2,200 cubic metres, while Pakistan has only 150 cubic metres of storage capacity per capita.
”Pakistan can barely store 30 days of water in the Indus basin. If something wrong happens with the Indus basin, Pakistan has no alternative to feed its agriculture. There is no latitude for error . . . . .”
As to why General Musharraf has taken no action so far, perhaps, he knows something we don’t and believes bad things will somehow not happen ---- at least, as long as he is there.
MADIHA GHAZALI
University of Toronto, Canada.
WITH reference to the editorial, ‘The cynic and the critic’(Sept 10), I concur with the substance of the editorial. You have rightly defined the vital role that the media play in serving as vigilant critics of governments.
But there is also a need to correct and clarify.
The editorial says: “The first moves towards restoring the freedom of the press was by the late Muhammad Khan Junejo”. Presumably this credit is given because, earlier in the same editorial, without citing the specific year, i.e. 1988, it is stated that the Federal Shariat Court (in January 1988) found sections of the draconian law known as the Press and Publications Ordinance, enforced by Ayub Khan in 1962, to be ‘unIslamic’ for containing provisions that inhibited press freedom and aimed to suppress freedom of expression.
While it is correct that the Federal Shariat Court rendered this important judgment during the tenure of prime minister Junejo, the black law was not repealed by Mr Junejo’s government which was arbitrarily dismissed by Gen Ziaul Haq on May 29, 1988.
In pursuance of a private member’s resolution, which the undersigned submitted to the Senate about two years earlier in 1986 (during my tenure in the Senate 1985-1991), my resolution calling for the total repeal of this black law was finally tabled in the Senate, the sole surviving legislature on July 10, 1988.
Mr Junejo was already removed from office. Gen Ziaul Haq was heading the cabinet without a prime minister. Mr Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro was minister for information. During debates in the Senate in January 1988 on aspects of the media, I had also called for the end of the PPO.
As the record of the Senate shows, in July 1988 after I presented detailed arguments for the immediate repeal of the law (without necessarily relying on the judgment of the court) and after — to my pleasant surprise — obtaining support from both the government and fellow opposition members — and despite the reluctance of the honourable minister (who asked for a few more days to draft a new law) to support the resolution for repeal, my resolution calling for the total repeal of the Press and Publications Ordinance was adopted by the Senate. This, to the best of my knowledge, is the only time in the 26 years of existence of the law that any Pakistani legislature adopted a resolution calling for the PPO’s repeal.
Gen Ziaul Haq perished about a month later on Aug 17, 1988.
The law was eventually repealed in September 1988 during the tenure of the interim government of president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
These facts are being pointed out without detracting from the courageous struggle rendered by journalists and newspapers for over two decades against the black law.
It is also necessary to place this on record because it has become customary, as in the case of the Dawn editorial, to ascribe credit to journalists alone for the struggle against the law and its eventual repeal. This is unfair. Parts of civil society, members of parliament and even some members of governments (working within the constraint of government discipline) often struggled for the same cause. The eventual repeal was the culmination of a combined and collective effort, certainly spearheaded by journalists.
JAVED JABBAR
Karachi
EVEN though the government has prescribed uniform working hours for private organisations to observe, some are observing excess hours of work for excess production aiming at personal benefit to the owners of the organisation.
One organisation in the Korangi Industrial Area makes its workers work from 9am to 6pm every day for six days a week. After allowing for one hour recess for prayers and lunch every day, this works out to 48 hours a week, which is more than what has been prescribed by the government under the labour laws.
Again, this very organisation works for seven hours a day from 8am to 3pm during Ramazan for six days a week. The decrease of only one hour a day during Ramazan is too inadequate and defeats the very purpose of decreasing working hours in Ramazan.
The authorities concerned are requested to look into the matter.
A.M. SAYIED
Karachi
I WOULD like to draw the attention of the higher authorities towards the results of the final professional BDS annual examinations 2007 which were announced on July 14 by Karachi University.
I, a student of the KMDC, with roll No. 78041 (enrolment No. Med/KMDC 3014/2003), had secured second position, with 728 marks, but later on this result was revised by Karachi University and, according to my corrected marks sheet, which was issued on Aug 13, there is an increase of 35 marks overall but they had omitted my second position without any justification.
I possess a good academic record and had secured the first position in the second professional BDS (2005) and had distinction in 11 out of 15 subjects in my four years of BDS education. Now after this revised result I feel that the only asset I had, that is my position in the final year, has been taken away from me. This is unfair. My question to the higher authorities is : why should I suffer because of the mistake done by the examination board?
Only a prompt and positive action in this regard will meet the end of justice.
SAIMA
Karachi
THIS has reference to letters ‘National School of Public Policy’ and ‘HEC advertisement’ (Aug 28 and Sept 9), highlighting the significance of divulging the exact number of vacancies and the provincial quotas in the advertisements calling applications for job opportunities falling vacant in these organisations.
The unfair practice of masking correct information is not the specialty of only these two institutions as one can witness from everyday advertisements that come into view that most of the public sector departments/institutions on one or the other pretext avoid disclosing such vital information, thus depriving the candidates of smaller provinces of their right to employment.
This underhand practice is against the provisions of the Constitution, the norms of transparency and looks extremely mischievous at the face of it. Such distortion, specially coming from the above two institutions, one representing not only the federal government but also the federating units, and the other representing the seat of higher learning, is unacceptable.
The need of the hour is transparency and intellectual honesty that only can lead to nation-building. The federal authorities are, therefore, approached that in the greater national interest they should take note of this undesirable state of affair which, on the one hand, is depriving the people of their right to job and, on the other hand, can become cause of mistrust and chasm between the people of federating units.
BASHIR AHMED QAZI
Hala
THE basic purpose of playing sports is to prepare the younger generations for the future challenges of life; physically, mentally and spiritually. It teaches to struggle as hard as one can. And take victory with humility and defeat with grace and determination to do better in future.
Having said that, the team spirit is the main ingredient of success in any game or sport. Any individual with ego and short temper is an antithesis of a team and a destroyer of the team spirit. Such individuals should not be included in any team. No matter how good they play.
N. A. KHAN
Karachi
CITIZENS endure taxing anxiety almost every day due to rampant traffic jams in almost all big cities of the country. Fatal incidents are on record when critically ailing patients had to breathe their last in the middle of the road as ambulances carrying them were stuck in traffic jams. Whose responsibility is it to resolve problems that affect everyday public life so gravely? The government is spending huge amounts from the national exchequer on various departments of public service but the question is, what is it delivering?
The traffic congestion, accompanied with alarming rate of street crime, has hit hard by and large every individual; even the towns are no more secure from this menace causing severe mental strain, the mother of all diseases. Effects are visible, for instance, high blood pressure, ulcers, irritability, difficulty in making routine decisions, loss of appetite, accident proneness, fidgeting, sleep disorders. These can be subsumed under three general categories: physiological, psychological and behavioural symptoms.
Let’s take a look at our neighbour India, how they are managing road traffic in mega cities.
Kolkata, provincial seat of West Bengal, at one time capital of British India. The Communist Party at wheel of the administration claims that it is not Mumbai, not Delhi, it’s Kolkata that manages traffic the best. The vehicular traffic is very much in the fast lane despite the metropolis having the highest density of vehicles per kilometre among all metros. The city has a density of 814.80 vehicles, the highest among per km road length as compared to 766.31 for Mumbai, followed by 616.58 Chennai and 170 Delhi.
The city has the minimum road length among all the metros with 1,404km, followed by 1,800km in Chennai, 1,900km in Mumbai and 25,948km in Delhi. The Kolkata traffic police have been successful in attaining a travel speed of almost 19km an hour, which is amazing under the circumstances.
This achievement is to be seen in the backdrop of the major constraints of a burgeoning population, growing number of vehicles, hand-pulled rickshaws and handcarts operating under the Hackney Carriage Act, limited road space, regular processions, demonstrations and road blockades by political groups.
The Mumbai Municipal Corporation is set to design, construct and commission a traffic infrastructure management system. The project has been financed by the World Bank. It is expected to reduce travel time, cut down pollution levels and fuel consumption: the Spanish IT firm Telvent has undertaken the project.
Now, real time intelligent traffic control for Mumbai is not far away. Telvent technology will constantly acquire data on road status, including number of vehicles arriving at intersections by each access point. The data will be used to constantly adjust traffic lights at each intersection in accordance with real-time demand and in coordination with neighbouring intersections for optimal coordination between intersections and reduce traffic congestion.
Now if we talk about developed states, words of praise fall short for their traffic system. For instance, congestion charging, introduced in London and Edinburgh, has produced positive results. The firms, experienced in the UK and internationally, offer expertise on design, management, monitoring, tools, resources and expert knowledge to the customers.
An innovative technology called Metro Count Vehicle Classifier System is another device which combines state-of-the-art traffic logging hardware easy-to-use software. The Metro Count provides a total solution to all traffic monitoring issues, from routine statistics through to the most complex traffic management problems.
Granted, there is no dearth of honest and capable workers in our administration who can emulate and enforce successfully the workable systems here, provided they are given due encouragement and the fawning flatterers are kept at bay.
Sikandar Ali Shah
Karachi
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