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| March 09, 2008 | Sunday | Safar 30, 1429 |
Inmates are also humans
Preparing for the monsoon
OTHER VOICES - Indian Press
NOW that the PPP and its partners have more than established their majority, and the Election Commission has announced the allocation of seats for women and minorities, it is time the National Assembly was called to session immediately. In his Jacobabad speech on Friday, President Pervez Musharraf has been quoted as saying he is going to convene the assembly session in 12 days (10 days, by some accounts). If Pakistan had well-established democratic traditions, a delay even by a few weeks of an assembly session would not matter. But in the situation we find ourselves in, with a lot of bad blood not only between the president and some sections of the politicians but also among the various parties and personalities themselves, the procrastination in convening the assembly session is giving rise to doubts, even if misplaced. Mr Amin Fahim, PPP Vice President, on Friday called for an early NA session and said the president should invite his party to form the government since it is the largest party in the assembly.
Whether the two leading parties themselves are ready for the assembly’s maiden session is not clear. Going by media reports, the PPP and the PML-N have not narrowed their differences over the judiciary question. The difference in outlook between the two parties has been in evidence for quite some time. While the Sharifs have insisted on the restoration of the sacked judges, the PPP stance has focussed on an ‘independent judiciary’ rather than on personalities, especially that of Mr Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry. The PML-N is also reluctant to join the government, even though it has pledged support for a PPP-led government at Islamabad. At the same time, the PPP itself has not yet announced its candidate for prime minister. Mr Fahim’s demand that the president should invite the PPP to form the government looks odd, since the PPP leadership has kept the issue open for reasons that only Mr Asif Ali Zardari and his colleagues would know.
All sides must now take a look at the national scene. The euphoria over the relatively free election and the results obtained still continues, but the delay in the assembly’s first session is causing concern among the people. They want all five assemblies to meet at the earliest, form governments and get going to start the real task ahead — tackling the gargantuan problems the people face. President Musharraf will have demonstrated his keenness to continue the democratic process and take the nation into what he calls the “third phase” of the transfer of power by calling the assembly session at the earliest. An assembly session followed by government formation will end the present hiatus so that the army chief need not make the kind of statement he made the other day.
OBSERVATIONS recently made by members of the board of visitors who spent a bit of time at the Central Prison in Karachi recently have brought to light the plight of its mentally challenged inmates. The stigma attached with mental illness in society at large is itself abominable. It is anybody’s guess what it would be like in a Pakistani prison of all places, especially when the line between a mentally ill person and a criminal is blurred as it is in some cases. But no imagination, howsoever fertile it may be, can match the authenticity of a firsthand observation and therein lies the utility of the board which was established under the provisions of the Mental Health Ordinance 2001. It is by virtue of the visit, for instance, that we now know that an astounding 80 per cent of those with questionable mental health happen to be under-trial prisoners who are languishing in jail without anything having been proven against them. The prison authorities have no record available with them to segregate, or even to know for themselves, how many of these pitiable souls were already suffering from their afflictions before they were brought to prison, and how many have crossed the dreaded line during their imprisonment. In view of the sub-human — if not outright inhuman — conditions that prevail in prisons across the country both in terms of infrastructure and treatment, it is a safe assumption that the number of such individuals would be substantial. Also worthy of official attention are the board’s observations related to the absence of data related to psychiatric patients among the female population as well as drug addicts inside the prison. In practice the females have been clubbed with juvenile delinquents and none of them gets any specific psychiatric help worth its name. As for the addicts, the ordinance did have a separate section dealing with them, but not much has happened on the ground.
Based on these observations and in line with the stipulations of the ordinance, the board of visitors has very rightly suggested remedial measures without any further delay. There is a definite need to have proper and professional psychiatric help available inside the prison round the clock along with due paramedical presence. This will cover all the four segments: males, females, juveniles as well as addicts. The attachment of post-graduate trainees who may conduct research at the prison facility is also a suggestion that deserves due attention for it will surely pave the way towards having better understanding of the whole affair and making necessary adjustments in the years ahead.
KARACHI ought to follow suit without delay if a repeat of the chaos seen in recent years is to be avoided. It was reported in late Feb that open drains and sewerage pipes in ten Lahore localities were emptied of nearly 60,000 tons of silt and waste over the last six months, resulting in markedly improved sewage flow in the areas concerned. Such advance planning is of the essence, for waiting until a few weeks before the advent of the monsoon leaves little time to clear a drainage system clogged with all manner of detritus. Sadly, the unnecessarily large number of agencies responsible for civic affairs in their respective jurisdictions in Karachi — 13 in all — have been prone over the years to doing too little too late. On Aug 11, 2006 the Karachi city nazim had issued directives that the cleaning of stormwater drains must be treated as a year-round process, not a last-ditch emergency measure. The evidence on the ground suggests that these orders have been followed only haphazardly, without any sustained effort to keep the city’s drainage system free of blockages.
True, civic agencies such as the city government and the Defence Housing Authority have laid down new stormwater drains and sewerage lines over the last 20 months or so. Still, there is no knowing what measures have been taken to ensure that these new as well as existing drains are capable of coping with a monsoon deluge. For one thing, are they being cleaned on a regular basis? Will lines that are meant for rainwater drainage but are being used for disposal of sewage handle the extra volumes once it pours? Then there is the problem of outflow. Increased land reclamation in recent years has narrowed, and even blocked, access to the city’s natural drainage outlets. Land is valuable in Karachi and there is no let-up in demand, but reclamation cannot take precedence over basic infrastructure needs such as a viable drainage system. What is needed is an eye to the future, not just on the coffers.
Money not enough
The Shillong Times
THE current budget has increased the allocation for the health sector by 15 per cent…Yet doubt assails the common man about how effectively the money will be utilised. Past experience is depressing. The budget outlines a national health insurance scheme for the unorganised sector living below the poverty line.
A national health programme for the elderly is also on the drawing board. Allocation for the National Rural Health Mission has been hiked.
It may be recalled that… Saarc recently asked member countries to earmark at least four per cent of GDP for the health sector. It considers medical care a basic right and an issue of social justice. One of the essential factors of healthcare is the availability of clean drinking water. Along with it comes sanitation…The mind boggles at the fact that even after decades of economic growth, India lags behind Bangladesh…
…The union budget has set aside Rs1,200 crore for sanitation. But its implementation depends on two factors. There should be public awareness of the need for it. Second, the necessary infrastructure has to be built. …WHO has revealed that 2.6 million people die in India per year because of shocking sanitary conditions. The nutrition level in India is lower than that in sub-Saharan Africa. Infant mortality in India is 2.2 million per annum. The National Health Policy should…focus on sanitation and nutrition, which alone can bring about improvement in India’s national health. It is only then that inclusive growth can acquire real significance. — (March 7)
Half the sky
The Asian Age
WOMEN hold up half the sky, said Mao Zedong years ago. If we ruffle through glossy supplements on International Women’s Day it would seem as if this is true. …There are female achievers in all well-lit arenas of social life. But if we look at the vast unlit terrains of Indian society, the self-congratulatory smile disappears. The woman’s lot is still dreary…Much of this part of the sky is cloudy. But there are flickers of light, switched on by movements such as women self-help groups. Fitfully but surely, these groups, set up with financial and community action objectives, have brought in genuine empowerment of women. They have proved what we have known always — that economics is the key.
But the master key is still politics in India. Even the platform for compulsory primary education of girls has to be built and sustained through politics. The women CEOs and other achievers…owe more to their slogan-shouting sisters than they would care to assume.
The World Economic Forum has placed India ahead of nations such as the US and France in political empowerment. Translated, this means that there are more women in legislative bodies and more pro-women legislation. This is well and good, but it need not make us smug, for it is about formal politics, which is not enough. It is true that a halo of legislation surrounds a college girl as she walks along the street now. But legislation empowers only when it is translated into action, for which we need creative and compassionate politics of the collective kind. For ultimately, “the woman’s cause is the man’s,” as the poet said... — (March 8)