| October 18, 2007 | Thursday | Shawwal 5, 1428 |
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Politicking and common man
Blatant rigging
Mother deal and Vedic democracy
Accessible border for people
Organ donation for transplant surgery
Telephones out of order
Strange nexus
Woes of a KPT pensioner
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 state of unemployment today is at such a peak that millions of people, in general, and the educated young ones, in particular, are suffering from starvation. It seems as if an army of the jobless has been employed. All orders, steps, actions and efforts are made for the genocide of public. They actually are working on the agenda of the IMF, the US, the World Bank and multi-national companies. The worst attack on the future of the students belonging to poor families was the announcement in which the age for the CSS examinations was reduced, limiting it up to 28 years from 30. This caused a great storm and rock of worries for the poor students who normally happen to be 26 or 27 years old by the time they graduate.
As they come from poor rural families and start education late, they are far behind the young ones of the rich families who start their education much earlier, and that too in standard institutes in big cities.
As a result, the poor but qualified candidates are roaming in the thousands in search of jobs while results of the examinations or tests, conducted by the authorities concerned, e.g. Sindh Public Service Commission, Education and Literacy Department, either are not declared or otherwise posts are filled on source, influence, bribery, nepotism and favouritism. Hence merit and talent is crushed ruthlessly.
Here is an example: I have got my master’s in English from the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, as a regular student and am also a student of LLB, part III. But since getting my master’s in 2001, I have been wandering in search of a job.
In 2003, I attempted the written test of ‘HST’, conducted by the Education and Literary Department, but the result has not been declared as yet. I passed the written and interview tests of the ‘combined competitive examinations’ conducted by the SPSC in 2003-04 but the job was not given to me, along with many other meritorious candidates.
I applied and paid Rs500 fee for the examination of mukhtiarkar in 2005 but the examination was postponed. In 2003 I applied for the post of ETO through the SPSC, paying a fee of Rs1,000, but till today no result has been announced.
In 2005, along with thousands of other candidates, I applied for the post of a lecturer and the fee charged was Rs500 in the form of a challan but until now nothing is known about that.
My father is a poor man with a meagre income to maintain a large family. I am married, with one son, an infant. The situation is very murky. At times I feel ending my life.
There are thousands like me who are kept unemployed by a few corrupt people who do not want the majority of the educated to get any job. They do not want a system to work so that the country and all its educated members prosper together and share the fruits of collective hard work.
SHAH NAWAZ
Karachi
INJUSTICE in this country is mother of all problems. The dividing line between the right and the wrong is becoming blurred. Wrong has become the right, and right is diminishing with the passage of time. It is due to bad governance that governments have failed to solve the problems of the common man.
An ordinary person before casting his vote in the general election remains the most powerful person in the country. Once he casts his vote, he becomes the weakest and most ignored person. Political leaders who win in the election form a government and forget about the problems of the common man.
The miseries of the common man have increased many times in the last 60 years. The rich have become filthy-rich by adopting unethical means, i.e. by evading government taxes, by paying low salaries to the employees, by taking more work from workers and not paying overtime to the staff.
The function of the ministry of labour and manpower in Pakistan is just to fill in the blanks. For many years no one has heard that this ministry has ever convicted a person or a factory wallah of violating labour laws. The job of this ministry is confined to holding a convention on May 1 every year.
The labour ministry has never turned back to the poor labourers to ask if they are satisfied with their working conditions provided by their employers. The question arises: why should the ministry of labour go and ask the poor labourers when its officials get the ‘sealed envelope’ every month from several industrialists to keep their mouth shut and not interfere with what the employers do in violation of the laws?
In each election campaign, political parties exploit the sentiments of the poor. The leaders of different parties go to the constituencies and make false promises to the poor, painting such a picture as if they will change the fate of the poor. This has been happening for the last 60 years.
Now PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto is coming back to Pakistan on Oct 18 after remaining in self-exile for more than seven years. Many of her jubilant party workers would be going to Karachi airport to accord a grand welcome to the ‘Daughter of the East’.
As the general election is fast approaching, the political temperature is also rising. Ms Bhutto has served twice as prime minister but somehow during her rule the fate of the poor remained unchanged. Let us see what political agenda is she bringing this time with her to Pakistan?
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
THIS is with reference to your very apt, though casual, remarks in your editorial on Oct 3 to the naked rigging being arranged with random impunity to set conditions for a few candidates to achieve unquestionable success in the coming general election. If it is not rigging, then what it is?
Along with my family members and friends, I have been a regular voter for the last 60 years. A time has now come when it has become imperative for our free media to come forward, educate the voters and ask them to vote for a person who promises to:
i) Continue to remain a human being after being elected and is not taken away by egocentricity to behave like a king or queen but firmly puts his/her foot down on VIP culture or any type of show-off to intimidate those who elected him/her,
ii) Retrieve all national wealth pilfered through looting, corruption, etc, or getting the loans written off, irrespective of who is involved,
iii) Utilize national resources to improve health, education, technological facilities instead of constructing lavish buildings for a purpose for which palatial edifices of historical significance already exist. It is at the expense of the common man’s welfare that new buildings like provincial assembly, secretariats for chief ministers, etc., are being built in Lahore and planned for other provincial capitals,
iv) As done immediately after independence in India and Bangladesh, effectively banish all ‘wadera shahi’ and remnants of princely states. (Where are the defunct states like Junagarh and Manavader that the progeny of long-departed rulers still continue to enjoy extraordinary immunity and royalties in Pakistan and at whose expense?)
v) Ruthlessly proscribe the cruel and illegal ‘anti-human’ customs of swara, karo-kari, vani, marriage with the Book, and a host of similar shameful practices, rampant despite objections by the courts of law.
Almost about 100 votes that I have will this time not go to him/her who ignores the above. I request, sir, for your kind support that I hope I will get.
A VETERAN VOTER
Karachi
AYESHA Siddiqa’s article, ‘Mother of all deal’ ( Oct 12), is an excellent focus on ‘elite gangsterism’ against people; this, a generic phenomenon of South Asia, is rooted in ‘Vedic’ democracy embedded in the Indian caste system that drives Hindus and Muslims both. Unlike western democracies/socialism based on compulsory free same level education up to high school, full employment and/or compensated welfare, free and same standard healthcare, the Vedic type, a British invention/imposition in the subcontinent, provides none of these but the Indo-Pakistani constitutions mention it; by the way the latter are only reincarnated 1935 government of India Act amended to suite ‘Islamism and Hinduism’ by self-serving elites.
The West seems to have a major stake in maintaining this and cheers ‘the largest democracy’, as well as ‘militaristic-Islamic democracy’. Can anyone imagine the cost of providing full compulsory high school education even in Urdu or Hindi medium in South Asia? One perhaps will have to slash the defence budget by some 75 per cent and stop buying military hardware from the West; there lies the rub of cheering India’s ‘great largest democracy’.
The Vedic democracy‘s real strength lies in Hinduism where staying in your ‘caste status’ is mandated for your ‘upgradation’ in the next reincarnation/life; Muslims of course do not believe in reincarnation but have maintained the inherited social system of their Hindu ancestors. Vedic democracy seems to have a bright future in South Asia despite some excellent reviews of Dawn.
ABDUL KHAN
Via email
INDIA’s high-level committee, Border Area Development Programme (BADP), constituted by the Indian prime minister, has suggested in its report that the border should be accessible to the people by introducing people-friendly policies and new strategies keeping in view the changed situation on the other side of the border after the success of the confidence-building measures and extensive development on the other side.
Increase in Indo-Pakistan trade has also been suggested by the report issued by BADP.
The report is strictly in economic context but the language in the report should be appreciated by diplomatic circle as well.
If the recommendations are implemented, it will have its profound implication on the further success of confidence-building measure. Exhausting procedure of issuance of visa and disturbing border management are among the major obstacles to ‘people-to-people contacts’.
Governments of both the countries should also reconsider their respective visa policies. Now Pakistan should also reciprocate this encouraging steps taken by India because “there is no eternal friend and foe in international relations…” but neighbours are obviously eternal and permanent.
Having the harsh relations on the doorstep, the friends outside of the walls are useless. Without having friendly relations between the two, neither country could realise its dreams of economic progress and prosperity.
SAFDAR ABBAS WATTOO
Bahawal Nagar
I HAVE been following up the debate and news on organ donation for transplant surgery in your newspaper and on TV channels. This debate, by and large, involved two groups, both pleading to protect their own interests.
It is ironic that the main party involved in this serious matter, i.e. the patients who are left to live a miserable life unless they receive a transplant, has no part to play in this whole discussion. Only those who have such patients in their families can appreciate the apathy and misery of these patients.
As a transplant surgeon, I have been involved in this intricate life-changing surgery for the last 17 years and have worked in Pakistan and the UK. My main concerns regarding my own experience in Pakistan have been the gender of live, related donors and non-compliance on the part of the recipients.
Most of the donors in my practice were women: sisters, mothers, daughters, cousins or from one of the many wives, who have no say in matters concerning their lives, raising concerns of coercion.
My other concern was the financial burden on the recipients, most of whom stopped their immuno-suppression after one year due to high cost.
It is impossible to implement a uniform programme for organ donation for all countries due to deep differences: economical, social, religious and cultural. However, it is universally accepted that transplant tourism and commercial transplantation are certainly immoral, and have given Pakistan a very bad name but, more importantly, it is dangerous for patients.
Pakistan is hugely underdeveloped with the exception of a few big cities. Before implementing a transplantation programme or any other super surgery requiring huge finances, there are other pressing issues which require urgent attention.
The government needs to make serious efforts to save mothers, neonates and infants who die due to lack of basic facilities, and control simple diseases like diarrhoea, tuberculosis, typhoid, poliomyelitis and malaria, which still claim too many lives in Pakistan.
More attention should be given to prevent and control diseases which lead to kidney failure. As the quality of dialysis in Pakistan is substandard, the government should provide funds for this purpose so that these patients can be dialysed in proper setup free of cost.
As regards cadaver donation, in a society where relatives do not give permission for post-mortem, considering it mutilation and insult to the departed soul, just mentioning cadaver donation is frowned upon. Allowing cadaver donations in such a society will encourage body mafias to emerge. In order to get organs, people who are weak, underprivileged, homeless and unfit to survive will fall prey to middlemen and will be killed to supply organs to rich recipients by ruthless surgeons looking to fulfil their ambitions and greed.
As regards live donation in Pakistan, in my opinion one has to be a little rationale in deciding the fate of renal failure patients. We should take the middle-of-the-road approach. The live, related donation programme must be encouraged and, at the same time, unrelated donations should not be stopped or discouraged, but be regulated and controlled.
In this regard a joint government- and private sector-controlled live donation programme should be set up where every donor, whether related or unrelated, should be adequately compensated. This shall avoid the exploitation of unrelated donors and save several related donors from donation against their will.
PROF MAQSOOD ANWAR NOORANI
Consultant-General and
Transplant Surgeon
London
TO all those hapless customers of the Pakistan Telecommuncations Company Limited (PTCL) whose connections are out of order for more than two or three months like mine and who have done everything within their capacity like me, I have a word of warning.
The PTCL Misri Shah Exchange has found a novel way of harassing their valuable customers. My telephone # 021-5847431 has been out of order for the last three months. One fine day last month my connection was restored.
I obviously felt relieved but the joy was short-lived as it turned out that the number restored was not mine. I was actually using someone else’s line. We got the line closed.
I thought it was an isolated incident but to my sheer frustration last evening it was revealed to me that my line # 021-5847431 had been given to some navel officer residing in my vicinity.
Now I will be charged for the calls I am not making. In the meanwhile my line is still out of order.
The general manager of the PTCL and the divisional engineer, Misri Shah Exchange, are requested to take immediate action to stop this act of negligence.
MUNAZZA MUQUIM
Karachi
MY telephone 021-4613700 has been dead for the last six weeks. Despite complaints on 18, 134, 4610000 and directly to the D. E., Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block 15 office, no action has been taken. The authorities concerned are requested to do the needful.
DR ZIA UL HASAN
Karachi
PRESIDENT Musharraf has said in an interview that there is not even the minutest dichotomy between his and COAS-designate Gen Kayani’s vision, opinion and thoughts.
In other words, they are ‘ek jan do qalib’. May I remind Gen Musharraf that there was even greater understanding between Iskandar Mirza and Ayub Khan, Yahya and Ayub Khan, Z. A. Bhutto and Ziaul Haq, Benazir and Leghari, Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf. Abbaji used to say that Musharraf was his third son (teeja puttar).
What did happen, sir? Friends stabbed friends and that too in the back. So let us not boast of friendship in the dirty game of politics. Remember, Aurangzeb had imprisoned Shahjahan.
SAFIR A. SIDDIQUI
Karachi
APROPOS of the letter of a KPT pensioner, S.G. Mohiyuddin (Oct 7), who has asked as to whether his entitlement is under the federal government scales or under the KPT’s scales and pay, it is clarified that:
a. The pension scheme was introduced in the Karachi Port Trust with effect from 1968 with the approval of the federal government. It was directed that a case or matter not specifically provided for in the compendium of pension rules and orders be dealt with by the board on the merits of each case in consultation with the government of Pakistan.
b. The pay and perquisites of KPT workers are increased every two years according to the memorandum of settlement with the CBA under IRO and, as such, their salaries are higher than those of government employees and they get higher pension benefits than do civil servants.
c. The pay scales of the federal government were not adopted in toto for KPT workers; the NPS 1,11,13 were skipped under agreement with the CBA and a special grade 15A was introduced for them. Mr Mohiyuddin was retired on 16.01.1974 in the KPT’s special grade 15-A.
d. The pay scales for KPT workers were delinked from the federal government pay scales with effect from April 1, 1990.
e. The federal government approved the increase in pension in 2004 which has already been received by the applicant and increase in pension in 2006 has also been approved by federal government, which is being paid to the KPT ex-workers, including the incumbent.
Earlier, Mr Mohiyuddin had also approached the federal ombudsman who had been pleased to reject the complaint. Further, a representation was made by Mr Mohiyuddin to the president which appeal was also rejected.
MANAGER
Public Affairs, KPT,
Karachi
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