| January 27, 2008 | Sunday | Muharram 17, 1429 |
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Issuance of US visa
Change of academic year
US national’s abduction
Cost of human life
Waste-to-energy solutions
Urgent relief needed
Violation of law
PTCL racket
PR campaign
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
PAKISTAN has faced crises of its existence, one greater than the other, since the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan.
Rather than go through the litany of them one should confine oneself to the situation we now have to stand up to, namely our sacrificial pursuit of pax Americana in Central Asia, in the face of traumatic destabilisation of our state and society — principally by an anti-American (rather than anti-Pakistan) insurgency.
The scale of insurgency is horrendous. Hundreds of our soldiers are dead and many more injured.
There are lingering wonderments whether those of our soldiers who were ‘kidnapped’ in their hundreds by ‘Pakistani Taliban’ in Waziristan were, in fact, kidnapped.
If casualties of this scale had been suffered by the West’s soldiers in Afghanistan, they would have cleared out, in defeat.
Most of the Nato soldiers are already showing symptoms of war-weariness, if American defence secretary’s statements are analysed. Indeed the Americans themselves may well be persuaded to find a face-saving formula to quit.
The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation has already served notice on the US to indicate when they would leave Afghanistan. We must now weigh in to publicly support the SCO resolution.
The Americans can be reminded that the analogous alternative may not be far off when their superpower American army brass were being lifted in ignominious defeat by helicopters from rooftops in Siagon.
We must do so as our own capability to help has palpably gone to breaking point.
The facts are deeply unsettling. In the depth of our heartlands, in our spaces of great strategic importance like the vicinity of PAF base in Sargodha; indeed inside the ramparts of our very GHQ, the contagion of American-caused insurgency has demonstrably shown its murderous clout. The whole of the NWFP is now in the throes of rising lawlessness.
Extreme measures like curfews are being imposed. All the evidence, including the content in President Musharraf’s book, very clearly shows that the situation has been created by the West’s strategic meddling, vigorously pursued by successive US administrations, at our cost since the Soviet inavasion. Our subservient-to-USA rulers first gave it the spin that we joined it for Islam and ‘strategic depth.’ And we are now shedding our blood, destabilising our very state and nation, through another spin: That we are fighting against what the American neocons call ‘Islamic extremism’.
President Musharraf once said “you shall be on your knees if we ceased to cooperate” in your Afghan action. It is time that in concert with our Chinese and West Asian friends we came to a new strategic synthesis for our region by first discarding the neocon-given poisonous concepts.
We must now resolutely call a stop to the very dangerous western meddling with our destiny. It may already be too late.
SULTAN AHMED GEELANI
Karachi
THIS is apropos of the letter, ‘US visa’ (Jan 25), by a senior citizen in which he has mentioned that the visa fee has been increased by the US government to such an extent that it has become unaffordable for persons of average income.
He has also pointed out that one has to spend a huge amount on the visit to Islamabad for an interview and that senior citizens should be exempted from going all the way from Karachi to Islamabad to appear for the interview at the US embassy.
A number of letters have been published in these columns on the same subject and the people have been requesting the US government time and again to make arrangements to issue US visa in Karachi. But no US official in Pakistan has ever responded to such letters, nor has our foreign affairs ministry ever pursued the matter with the US government in this regard.
Recently I raised this matter with Ms Kay Anske, US consul-general in Karachi, when she met the members of the business community. I suggested to her that the US government should make such arrangements as have been made by the British deputy high commission of the United Kingdom in Karachi for issuance of British visas.
All application forms, with visa fees, are collected by the Fedex (US courier company). Fedex also completes the process of biometric fingerprinting of British visa applicants in Karachi and forwards all application forms to the British high commission in Islamabad. This saves the British visa applicants from going to British high commission in Islamabad unnecessarily, unless the applicant is called for an interview by the British visa officer in Islamabad.
I also suggested to the US consul-general during the meeting that instead of interviewing the US visa applicants in Islamabad, the US government should make arrangements for their visa officers to come to Karachi to interview the people at the US consulate-general office here or make arrangements for getting the people interviewed at some other building or in a protected hotel room. This will save the applicants for enormous physical and financial vexations.
Our foreign affairs ministry should also get in touch with the US ambassador in this regard and help facilitate issuance of visas to people in Karachi.
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
WE noted with great disappointment that the Steering Committee, under the chairmanship of the caretaker minister for education, in its infinite wisdom, reverted the academic year starting from August to now starting from April.
It was reported that the ‘powerful’ Steering Committee, at its review meeting held on Jan 12, came to a ‘consensus decision’ about reverting the academic year to April. Now we learn that the decision of the Steering Committee was not unanimous, and three eminent educationists, Father Paul of the Catholic Board, Nargis Alavi, principal of Habib Girls School, and Seema Malik, director, Teachers Resource Centre, who had been invited to that meeting of the Steering Committee, had strongly objected to the decision and requested that the academic year should not be changed.
We all feel that this is an issue which needs to be deliberated beyond the narrow confines of the Steering Committee.
All over the world, academic year begins after the long summer (and in some cases, after the winter) holidays. The logic of this is self - explanatory: if the academic year were to start before the summer holidays, to be followed by two months of summer holidays, then students would have forgotten much of what they had learned before the holidays. Following this logic, even when government schools would start in April, leading schools in the private sector started their schools in August.
It is also disappointing that the caretaker minister, rather than focusing his attention on more fundamental issues of government schools, e.g. correcting administrative anomalies and retrogressive government policies, making sure teachers come to school on time, improving the curriculum and textbooks, and improving school discipline and the standard of government schools in general, found the issue of academic year more important and urgent.
We have been working to bring about a paradigm shift in government schools, and have already demonstrated this change in several government schools located on Nishter Road. Given the success of these schools, the CDGK has asked us to reform, in the next phase, by the end of this year, 250 more schools of Karachi.
I hope the department of education and members of the ‘powerful’ Steering Committee will look carefully into these changes, give us their recommendations and be a part of this process of change.
SAMI MUSTAFA
Chairman of Bookgroup and Principal, The C.A.S. School,
Karachi
THE news of Benazir Bhutto’s death was a big shock to all of us here. In one of my emails that I sent to her in November with a warning asking her to be careful as some people in the Pakistan government do not want her in the country.
Well, conspiracies always take place in politics, especially in Third World countries like Pakistan. It happened with her father, Zulifkar Ali Bhutto, and she also became victim of the conspiracy against the objectives that we have for better and prosperous Pakistan.
One of my good friends and colleagues, who is an American citizen, also became a victim of similar conspiracy. As of today we have no response either from President Musharraf or anyone from the government of Pakistan. However, this whole incident cost Pakistan an investment of $ 2.5 billion in the energy sector for which we had been working for the past two years.
The present governments, both central and provincial (Punjab), have caused much damage to Pakistan which drove away this investment from Pakistan.
All our groups’ investment in the energy sector, which was intended for Pakistan, has been diverted to China because of this incidence. The president paid no attention to our letters to him in which we have asked for full investigation.
The US government has paid a huge amount of money to stop terrorism, especially to protect American citizens. In this incidence, an American citizen was made a target by some government and public officials. We consider this incident as an act of terrorism. Almost one year passed by but the Pakistan government failed to respond to any of the letters sent or complaint filed.
This matter has now been reported to the US Congress and Federal agencies for investigation by our security department.
This incidence could have taken the life of my colleague, Zaidi. Our company is also thinking of taking a legal action against government of Pakistan and some individuals in Pakistan involved in this conspiracy. The Pakistan ambassador in the US, Lt-Gen Duranni, and President Musharraf both were informed of this threat in November 2006. No attention was paid.
MARK DELL
Via email
CARETAKER Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro has announced Rs300,000 relief for the families of each person who died in the Lahore suicide blast.
Every time some tragic accident occurs with loss of human lives, our ‘leaders’ rush to the spot with a platoon of cameramen to ensure their self-glorification at the cost of someone else’s miseries.
To add insult to the injury, the very first announcement made on the ‘ocassion’ by these leaders is the compensation amount for the deceased and the injured. It will be of great interest to know the formula by which the ‘cost of human life’ is calculated by our leaders.
DR IRFAN ZAFAR
Islamabad
I’M surprised that incineration technology still hasn’t taken off in Pakistan, considering the waste disposal issues and, most importantly, energy crises our country faces -- only half of Karachi’s 8,000 tons of garbage per day is sent to the already-scarce landfills.
Incineration involves burning garbage to heat the steam needed for producing heat and electricity -- traditionally, more polluting fossil fuels such as petroleum or coal are used instead. With incineration, we not only put our garbage to good use, but it also cuts down the landfill space needed for garbage disposal extensively.
Modern incineration facilities separate recyclable materials and hazardous waste before sending the garbage to the incinerators, and properly-equipped modern incineration facilities give off extremely low emissions, and toxic flue gases emissions are also minimised using technologies such as bag-house filters.
The only by-product is ash, most of which (bottom ash) can be reused as construction material or for pavement, while the remnant fly ash, which is toxic, has to be disposed in a sealed landfill. What’s more, incinerators can be erected anywhere, anytime, and have a fairly simple operating formula.
Apart from incineration, that had its inception back in the 70s, waste-to-energy technology has prospered tremendously by now. Recovering methane from landfills for use as fuel, known as landfill gas, is a fairly well-known method in developed countries now.
Companies have recently come up with processes that can recover biogas, a low-emission environmentally friendly fuel, from sources such as sewage and industrial waste. These sources are capable of producing enough electricity to power a large town, and incineration produces even more.
While the cost of these technologies is not the lowest, it is more affordable than petroleum in the long run. Besides, these prices are expected to go down as the world is now in dire need of environmentally friendly renewable energy. Furthermore, many of these technologies were designed with developing countries in mind, like Pakistan.
I hope that Pakistani energy suppliers would look into the huge potential of waste-to-energy technologies as a long-term answer to its energy crises, waste disposal and environmental problems.
MOHAMMAD ALI
Canada
THIS is in response to various views put up by editors, reporters and readers of your esteemed newspapers. They all agree in being worried about the likely misfortune awaiting Pakistan and wish President Musharraf to leave now. Solutions to the problem put up by them all are, however, discordant. The closest suggestion to a possible solution could be through collaboration.
Although the ball lies in the courts of quite a few, Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Pervez Musharraf, Fazlur Rehman, Shujaat Hussain and Altaf Hussain. But the right to first serve lies with Mr Musharraf, since he has the ball in his hand.
However, a vast majority of the people have lost their trust in him, with the rare exception of a few who still eat of his hand or may do so when the election results are according to their wishes.
Another body that can assert the waiting calamity are the people of Pakistan. The people would need leadership equipped with vision, charisma and persevering passion. Fortunately of such qualities there is now serious dearth in Pakistan, but most of them are under house-arrest.
There are many who place blame on the people for not using the streets. I am glad the people are not on the roads. They will be only a mob without guiding, viewing and genuine leadership.
There is yet one individual who can come to help. Like Gen Aslam Beg, in 1988 instead of picking up the caps left by Gen Ziaul Haq, ensured the Senate chairman to head the state, himself assuming command of the army, allowing the election to be held on scheduled date and the majority party handed over political power.
Now it is up to Gen Kayani to advise Mr Musharraf that he can no more bank on blind support from the army, will not tolerate any rigging in the election and may suggest a government formed by a coalition of most, if not all, major political parties with adequate representation to all, especially Balochistan and Karachi.
TARIQ MAHMOOD HASAN GARHI
Peshawar
I WOULD like to draw the attention of the government officials concerned towards the Punjab University establishment affairs. Recently, more than 250 seats of professors, associate professors as well as lecturers were announced. Out of these, 138 posts were for lecturers.
According to the ordinance 2005, which was passed by the government of Pakistan, there must be two per cent quota for disabled persons.
Unfortunately in the advertisement of the Punjab University for the recruitment of the above positions, no quota was mentioned, which is a great violation of the government law. The officials concerned are hereby requested to give attention to the issue.
RIZWAN SAIF ULLAH
Lahore
AFTER learning of the ‘Pakistan Package’ activated compulsorily on all the telephone numbers by the PTCL in December, I had dialled their helpline No. 1236 to cancel this facility. The number was very busy but after several attempts I did manage to connect and use the automated recording system to do the job.
However, when I received the bill, to my surprise I had still been charged Rs199. Therefore, instead of wasting time and energy by going to their office, I tried the 1236 number again to repeat the cancellation process, but the line was too busy, so I finally called it after 1am with the hope of getting through. I was able to go through the process where I was required to press the ‘1’ for the second time to confirm I actually didn’t want the deal. Unlike before, this time a recording asked me to wait. After about a minute there was another message regretting that the system was busy so I should try again after some time. I did that but to no avail. Frustrated, I went through the whole process again after a few hours on that very cold morning but was again told the same story of the system being busy.
This shows that the PTCL people appear to be deliberately making it extremely difficult and frustrating for the subscribers to cancel the service. They would either have to undergo the unnecessary hassle of going to their office or keep paying Rs199.
There have been a few reports in Dawn in recent weeks highlighting this problem but the PTCL people have been making excuses. It is also surprising why the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has not acted to ease the public suffering due to PTCL highhandedness. The minister concerned is urged to take urgent notice and do the needful and also ensure that the PTCL will not arbitrarily impose any package on the subscribers in future
Of some people I talked to, nobody had opted for this package but one person still got the charges on their bill like me. I am not giving my phone number here because, looking at the PTCL attitude, I am afraid they may disrupt my line.
A SUBSCRIBER
Karachi
AN article about a small car being produced by India (Jan 19) is part of shrewd and clever PR campaign by the Indian industry.
India inherited, at the time of partition, Tatas- and Birlas-like bunya businessmen and built gigantic affluent empires in the ‘largest democracy of the world’, where millions of people are living on the pavements and lepers are seen begging on the streets of New Delhi.
Rahul Singh, a writer of Indian origin, who is associated with Top Gear magazine, forgot to mention that the engine of the small car will be manufactured in Germany.
RAI RIAZ HUSSAIN
Former Minister (Press),
High Commission for Pakistan,
New Delhi
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