| March 23, 2008 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1429 |
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Minister’s unreason
Analytical education
Time zone and energy saving
Reducing expenses
Proxy terrorist war
Petrol ‘bomb’
The second verdict
High achievers
Wheat shortage
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
AFTER independence a dire need was felt to prepare the civil bureaucracy, through imparting latest techniques and processes of administration and policy formulation, to face emerging challenges of the modern world they face in day-to-day public service affairs. Institutions were established at federal and provincial levels to instruct the fresh entrances and also impart in-service training to those aspiring for further rise.
At the federal level Civil Service Academy (CSA), Financial Service Academy (FSA), Foreign Service Academy (FSA), etc, were created as pre-service training institutions for those who were selected to join these services. For in-service training institution like the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) was established where, besides various other courses at difference levels, officers of BS 19 eligible for further promotion were given training. For officers of senior management, i.e. BS 20 aspiring for promotion to above grade, the Pakistan Administrative Staff College (PASC) was established at Lahore.
The NIPAs were organised in all provincial capitals so that officers of provincial and federal government serving in the provinces can be trained. The scheme of establishing four NIPAs, one each in the provincial seat of power, was to decentralise authority to the provinces so that they can have a sense of participation on the national level as enshrined in the concept of ‘provincial autonomy’.
Moreover, this would contain extra burden on national exchequer as during the period (twice a year) hundreds of participants, besides being unavailable to public service, will be incurring TA/DA grant running into millions of rupees.
Now throwing all these exalted standards aside, the PASC, Lahore, has been converted in the fashion of centralised command structure of the army into a National School of Public Policy (NSPP), placing all institutions such as NIPA and CSA under its control.
The NIPAs have been renamed as National Institutes of Management (NIM) and relegated to train the officers of BS 17 and 18 whereas its main function of imparting training officers of BS 19 has been centralised at Lahore under NSPP.
Although these federal training institutions were functioning satisfactorily for decades and by now have acquired the status of any highly advanced seats of learning with modern facilities with such fine infrastructure, well-groomed faculty, updated and well-stocked libraries and audio and video facilities, downgrading them is, no way, in the of national interest.
Now the officers of BS 19 all over the country have to travel all the way to Lahore and stay in hostels for more than five month in each course, leaving their families behind at the cost of billions of national expenditure.
It has created a lot of acrimony and resentment in the employees of provincial governments.
It is in the interest of provincial autonomy, and more so for it will save the extra expenditure in millions which government treasury is bearing annually without any rationale, that the federal government should reconsider its decision and restore the autonomous status of NIPAs imparting training to middle management officers prior to creation of centralised command system.
Similarly the autonomous status of other federally-maintained training institutions should also be restored as it is in the interest of academic atmosphere, government exchequer and national integration and in the interest the participants as well.
DR KAZI KHADIM HUSSAIN
Hyderabad
THE caretaker minister for human rights, Ansar Burney, probably wanted the people to have something to remember him for by arranging for the release of Indian spy Kashmir Singh. He gave all sorts of justifications for winning him his freedom.
However, just a day after reaching India, Mr Singh unburdened himself by admitting that he had actually been a spy recruited by an Indian organisation. Further, that he was being paid Rs400 per month (nearly four decades back) for that job and bitterly complained that these people do hire the spies, but if the operative gets caught then the employer simply disowns him, which is what had happened in his case as well.
This should have left no doubt in anybody’s mind about the truth of his admission, but our minister, like many other ministers and officials, was not to be deterred. While talking to the BBC the very next day, though he did sound greatly surprised and dejected but instead of admitting his mistake, he tried to justify his action by saying that “there seems to be a conspiracy” to spoil relations between India and Pakistan (which he had attempted to improve through the pardon) by the admission of an espionage mission arranged by New Delhi.
Now, Mr Burney has tried to give yet another spin to the case. According to a report (March 18), he has said that the admission by Kashmir Singh that he was a spy wasn’t surprising and it only proved that he had been rightly charged and sentenced in Pakistan. Also, that had he been innocent, it would have been an embarrassment for Pakistan (for having incarcerated a blameless man). The way our leaders make U-turns is simply amazing!
In addition to that, I also remember that some time after assuming this office, a BBC correspondent asked Mr Burney about the lack of respect for human rights in Pakistan, as exemplified by the treatment of our senior judges. Instead of giving a relevant reply, the minister launched into a tirade against Imran Khan without naming him.
He said something to the effect that the person who had only won one seat in the parliament and could not even call his daughter as his own (implicitly referring to Sita White’s claim of Imran having fathered her daughter), how could such people claim to defend others’ human rights.
I was appalled to note this gross lack of enlightenment in him. An individual who launches a personal attack against others publicly obviously doesn’t respect other human beings, so how can he be expected to truly uphold their rights?
Anyway, as a result of these incidents, he has lost every grain of the considerable respect he used to have in my sight and is advised to give up his human rights work and join President Musharraf’s camp full time.
DISILLUSIONED
Karachi
A VISIT to the exhibition organised by Geographic Society of Pakistan in Karachi recently on the educational wall-maps is an eye-opener. Educationists and the authorities of the ministry of education stand to benefit from such exhibition ideas.
Education is the burning topic of the day. The education system in Pakistan requires a big change to meet the growing international standard of knowledge. But unfortunately no one is coming forward to provide details on how Pakistani students can compete with the western students.
What we are lacking behind? The basic understanding and overall knowledge of the surrounding to meet the given situation is missing. That is what we call IQ. How can this be improved? Is it the fault of our education system? This is to be diagnosed.
Observers are of the opinion that knowledge-based education has shown a decline since the inception of Pakistan and it is deteriorating further. Our leaders have only helped us to increase the number of educational institutions across the country, but have not paid attention to the quality of education.
This gave birth to private institutions which are of better quality but are not affordable by common citizen. Today such institutions are more commercialised and are equally knowledge-based.
What is required to help mend this situation? We may draw the attention of scholarly people to help the federal and provincial educational systems by providing them knowledge-based education about the environments surrounding us. We should be good enough to broaden the vision of students, establishing relationships of humanity with our motherland.
How much do we know about it? And how much can we benefit by applying the knowledge is nothing more than a common sense which is missing in our society? Accordingly, we have to pay more attention to the British educational system, emphasising visual education of studying different kinds of maps that are to be displayed liberally in the premises of our educational institutions. Encouraging students and teachers equally to understand and know more about Pakistan, its natural resources including the countries surrounding Pakistan and to know more about planet Earth, the home we all share.
This knowledge is essential for improving our living pattern. As long as we are unable to tap our resources, know our location in the world where we stand, we will remain as dumb driven cattle.
It is time we were aware of our educational requirements and insisted on visual education through maps and field trips to different parts of the country. By this way we will develop the students to undertake independent research and analysis.
AISHA S. KHAN
Karachi
Except India and a few other countries like Nepal, most global countries have their time-zones separated from standard GMT time in multiples of one complete hour. International authorities regulating ‘Time’ should make it compulsory for all nations to adopt time-zones deviating from the standard GMT time in multiples of one complete hour only. However different time-zones for summer and winter in a country should not be allowed.
Metric unit of ‘time’ needs also to be introduced with a complete day divided in 10 metric hours instead of present 24 hours. Each metric hour may have 100 metric minutes with a metric minute having 100 metric seconds thereby making a complete day of 100,000 metric seconds instead of present 86,400 seconds.
Otherwise also, the Indian government had advantage in implementing energy-saving suggestion by a group of scientists for increasing difference in Indian Standard Time (IST) and Greenwich Time (GMT) by half-an-hour to make it GMT+6 hours instead of present GMT+5.30 hours. The suggestion, considered earlier also several times, will result in 16-percent energy saving in peak evening hours resulting in a huge saving of about Rs10,000 million per annum.
MADHU AGRAWAL
Delhi
With reference to the news report, ‘Salman’s note of caution for new government’ (March 18), I am surprised at the audacity of Dr Salman Shah, caretaker finance minister, after having been a part of the team which messed up the financial and political economy of Pakistan, to caution the incoming government not to offer any relief package until the international price of oil comes down to $85-90 a barrel.
My question to him is: what should the masses do until such time: die of hunger or commit suicide (while the rich in Islamabad drive around in the Mercedes cars and wear designer outfits).
The solution lies in austerity starting at the top. Cut down the wasteful and non-development expenditures.
NAZIM F. HAJI
Karachi
A NUMBER of letters have appeared in these columns on the ongoing wave of suicide bombings in the country in which each writer has viewed these incidents from various angles. In 2007, a series of suicide attacks and bomb blasts rocked almost every part of the country from Peshawar to Karachi in which more than 1,100 people lost their lives.
Now during the current year within a period of 71 days between Jan 10 and March 12, there have been 18 incidents of suicide bombings in different parts of the country, which have claimed a total of 270 lives so far (March 12).
It was expected that after the polls the situation would improve, and fighting and bloodshed in the troubled Waziristan Agency and elsewhere will also die down slowly. But it did not happen and it appears that the current spell of suicide attacks is mostly a symptom of a bigger malaise.
The resistance to terrorists and official determination to retaliate may, however, cause these groups to change tactics and adopt more violent methods. But the ongoing terrorist activities in the country hints at somewhat more dangerous situation, which is the use of pro-Taliban militants of Waziristan as mercenaries by some hostile states to conduct proxy terrorist war against Pakistan.
There are a number of reasons why proxy terrorist wars constitute a particularly grave source of escalating terrorism. Access to the armouries, training facilities, cash, and logistics support of sponsor regimes vastly increases the firepower of terrorist groups. Sponsor states find a proxy war remarkably cheap compared to a conventional military attack.
Terrorism carries none of the risks of open war. It is clandestine and undeclared and, therefore, the sponsor states can simply disavow any involvement. The target state, especially if it is militarily weak and politically and economically unstable, will find it almost impossible to keep external aid from reaching terrorist groups. Meanwhile, liberal states constrained by the moral scruples of public opinion will be unable to intervene covertly in sufficient strength to counter the enemy terrorists or subversives active in the target states, so there is no restraining or checking element of force available to uphold the victim regime.
Furthermore, the sponsor states engaging in terrorism and subversion have no problem in countering a retaliatory terrorist or subversive attack in their own backyard.
Some people blame President Musarraf and the United States for creating trouble in the tribal areas of Waziristan in the name of ‘War on Terror’, which is not correct. Hostile states, which are against Pakistan’s existence, are striking from every angle to destabilise every government, which comes into power and to make Pakistan politically and economically weak.
The proxy terrorist war against Pakistan is also evident with the continuing suicide bombings deep into the country, mostly targeting military personnel and establishments to create a climate of fear and collapse, essentially by demoralising security forces into capitulation.
Obviously people of Waziristan cannot carry out such terrorist and subversive activities all by themselves unless there is a backup and some hostile foreign power uses them as mercenaries for their vested interests. Therefore, besides hunting down terrorists, we should also try to find out the sponsor states, which are conducting proxy terrorist war on us and take appropriate action against them.
SQN LDR(R) S.AUSAF HUSAIN
Karachi
THE second time rise in petroleum products in just 15 days has a ‘bomb’ effect on the public. It does not only affect the users of petrol-consuming machines but also those who indirectly suffer with the hike in prices of different commodities as a result of the increase in transport charges.
The most affected section of the people is that of the low-income employees. It is a pity that officials entitled to cars and petrol allowances are compensated for the increase in the petrol prices while the lower grade persons belonging to same offices are left high and dry and have to pay from their own pocket while using public transport etc.
The authorities concerned should increase the conveyance allowance of the employees in grades one to 16 of government organisations and their equivalent in public institutions in proportion to the increase in the price of petroleum products.
Further, students should be given concession in fares by minibuses and coaches as there is no bus service available in many areas of the city.
MUHAMMAD PERVEZAKHTER
Karachi
WITH reference to your editorial, ‘The second verdict’ (March 20), the only plausible reason for delay in calling the National Assembly session apart from politicking could be to bask in the glory of a civilian president on the March 23 armed forces parade.
An elected prime minister alongside would draw away public attention and of those on parade.
IQBAL F. QUADIR
Karachi
THIS is apropos of a letter by Mirza Shahid Barlas titled, ‘Achievers’ ratio’. Like Mr Barlas I am also saddened at the state of education in this biggest city of Pakistan. The standards have particularly gone very low in the last two decades.
I am at present serving as a manager in a private organisation where I am involved in the process of interview and selection of candidates to fill in positions in my department when they fall vacant. I am astonished at the poor understanding of the candidates of their respective subjects of specialisation. More than 95 per cent of the candidates with bachelor and master degrees had to have private tuitions in coaching centres.
It leads me to believe that it is almost impossible for an average student to pass in the tests without going to coaching centres as nil or little regular classes are held in their colleges. Often when a gap of two to three years is pointed out to the candidates in the certificates and degrees obtained by them, they invariably come up with the answer that it was because they could not afford the tuition fees of the coaching centres.
The situation is indeed very grave. We have to take concrete steps to improve the education in our beloved city of Karachi. Hope and pray that our new provincial government gives the portfolio of the provincial education minister to a person who can bring about a radical change in our education system so that our future generations coming out of our educational institutions do not in any way lag behind those from other provinces. We should rather make efforts for our future generations to excel in all fields.
ABDUL QAYUM KHAN
Karachi
THE recent shortage of wheat and its impacts demonstrated how unprepared the country is when it comes to tackling such an important issue. Well there is more bad news looming ahead and the government needs to start preparing for it on a war footing.
A significant number of wheat crops across Africa and parts of western Asia are being infected by a lethal strain of stem rust disease ‘UG-99’. Scientists following its eastwardly progress warn that this may wipe out entire harvests in countries not capable of or not prepared to battle this disease. It is only a matter of time that it will reach Pakistan as it moves East. The resultant effects will cause a massive shortage of wheat and drive its price and of flour well beyond the reach of the common man.
The country in its present state of turmoil cannot afford another crisis to deal with.
RIZWAN RAHEEL
United States
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