| March 25, 2008 | Tuesday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429 |
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Analytical skills
‘Hold it in’
A living dinosaur
Dams on rivers
A nation with two faces
Admission test: woes of applicants
Missing envoy
Where’s Charlie Wilson?
Health conditions in remote areas
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 selection of Yousaf Raza Gilani as the prime minister has proved the point that, some decision-makers are working behind the scene. Although personally I would have liked to see Amin Fahim as PM, it is a decision taken by the People’s Party in consideration of some bigger national interests and all should agree with it because Mr Gilani holds the key to ‘prosperity’ of the poor Pakistanis.
I believe Mr Gilani is a consensus candidate acceptable to the real behind-the-scene power. If he is sensible enough about his own security in this era of terror, he should start his work with the following priority areas:
— Hailing from southern Punjab, which happens to be historically closer to Sindh than to its northern geological part and, therefore, much more acceptable, he should start a plan of balancing Sindh with Punjab by readjusting provincial boundaries.
This will be a much better alternative than dividing Punjab into three fragments because division to rule is an unhealthy procedure. Apart from making the administration top-heavy, requiring several new governors and their associated paraphernalia of cabinets and other administrative expenses at the cost of inflation crushing the poor, it is a tool to suppress the poor further without any solution.
— One of the constant demands of the NWFP politicians is also against the ‘bulldozer Punjab’ which they believe is hijacking their resources into its own exclusive use.
This problem again can be solved by united northern parts of Punjab with the present NWFP, which can then be appropriately renamed. By these administrative changes, all will get their long-awaited objections against Punjab resolved while better understanding between different ethnic groups will be automatically eliminated. This will also become a basis for similar procedure to be applied in the case of Balochistan, at a later convenient stage, which will definitely emerge in due course, in the light of balanced opportunities in other parts of the country. Northern areas will also get similar incentives to decide for a visible change while working for prosperity.
— Procedures defined above will bring ‘ceasefire’ to the decades-long water wars between the provinces and sanitise the distribution of water wealth between all members of the estranged family, creating a healthy atmosphere to discuss and resolve the issues.
— As a measure for public relief, the new government should immediately put an embargo on all wasteful expenditure by the establishment, bureaucracy and political office-holders. The prime minister should start austerity measures himself and set examples. He should know what it means because he had been grilled through all mills and should have the foresight to survive any attempts of derailment and danger points without causing public frustration.
He should also know that frustrating the public will result in putting the country into jeopardy, and would be a horrible mistake this time because the public has no patience left to wait further.
— He should immediately invite a referendum from the legal fraternity about the course of action to be adopted about an embroiled judiciary. Any further tussle between the various factions of the judiciary would be a serious impediment to the take-off of the new democracy.
It is not difficult to see that Iftikhar Chaudhry will immediately lose his utility, once the new government is in position and takes right decisions based upon sensible advice of the balanced and sensible minds leading to national interests, honour of the profession and rule of true wisdom to protect. Let us all give sanity a chance to work.
M.SAEED
Islamabad
WITH reference to Aisha Khan’s letter of March 23, I fully agree that our students should develop better analytical skills than they have. The best solution is to teach them mathematics in the proper manner from an early stage so their mind develops analytical reasoning. Unfortunately, most of the teachers are not aware of this technique. Also, the examination questions at all levels encourage rote memorisation even of subjects like mathematics and physics.
We must develop an extensive programme of professional development workshops for teachers of physics and mathematics throughout Pakistan. They should learn the interactive methods of teaching these subjects which encourage analytical thinking.
However, we must, at the same time, change the examination system to include concept-testing questions. Repeating questions from old examination papers (for which solutions are always written up by teachers in booklet form so that students can memorise these) will never entice teachers (nor students) to move towards analytical thinking.
Rote memorisation will not produce the thinkers that Ms Khan wishes for. She needs to fight inertia of teachers and administrators so the future generation can be ready to compete in the 21st century.
DR TAHIRA ARSHED
Foreign Professor of Physics
FUUAST, Via email
I write this to bring to attention the maternity care, or the lack of it, given at Islamabad’s Ali Medical Centre (and other places I am sure), as well as the negligence, cruelty and abuse suffered by women at the hands of their gynecologists.
This was my second delivery, first one being out of Pakistan. My doctor, Dr R. H. , arrived 25 minutes after I was admitted into an empty ward. I was already well into labour with strong contractions and after a quick check she said she would be back, leaving me with her junior doctor and a receptionist/nurse. Screaming from pain continuously I was ready to deliver within 15 minutes and told the junior doctor. I say some of this at the risk of being too graphic but it is important to understand what actually goes on.
The junior doctor told me that she is not trained enough to carry on and to “hold it in” and wait for my gynecologist. To add to the shock of hearing that, I had to walk from the ward to the theatre while “holding it in”.
There was no one in the theatre, one ‘booah’ rushed in with me and told me to wait so she can put sheets on bed, get the equipment etc. while the junior doctor was literally having a panic attack. It had been 50 minutes, I was holding back my delivery, and still nothing was ready and no trained doctor present.
When I was finally in a lie-down and the baby was not going to wait anymore, the doctor just arrived (and spent a minute putting on her theatre boots). The butchery that took place after that just cannot be mentioned nor the extent of her carelessness.
I can say this with certainty because of the huge difference compared to the experience of my first delivery.
When I mentioned this ordeal to other patients of the gynecologist, their reaction was just: “Yes, things can be like that”. This is when I realised that because these women don’t have a different experience to compare with, they accept this as the norm. They do not even know that pain management, such as gas masks, even exists.
It is absolutely disgusting how the doctors and hospitals abuse this fact and carry on torturing so many women in labour knowing they are getting away with it because of the patient’s lack of exposure and knowledge. I think such bad practices should be exposed, as well as the good ones, so patients know where to go and whom to trust.
AZKA ALI
Dublin
THE most successful large commercial plane of the 20th Century has now virtually become a living dinosaur. Though a magnificent and iconic plane when it was first introduced over 40 years ago, the Boeing 747 Classic Series is on the verge of practical extinction with less than 35 per cent of originally produced aircraft left in active service.
Airlines all around the world are faced with tough choices on how to get rid of old planes and induct new cost-effective, better-designed new planes. The Boeing 747 Classic’s demise is further catalysed by higher fuel prices, rapid advances in aerospace technology, and significant leaps forward in cabin comforts available in new planes.
Let’s first do a comparison on costs of Boeing 747 versus the new Boeing 777 in a roundtrip flight from Karachi to New York, about 32 hours. The 747 has four engines, and consumes about 3,600 gallons per hour, translating to about $11,000 per hour (assuming prevailing fuel prices). Whereas the 777-300 has two large engines and consumes about 2,450 gallons of fuel per hour, translating to about $7,500 per hour. So, a 32-hour roundtrip flight between Karachi and New York will cost only in fuel around $350,000 for the 747 and $240,000 for the 777. Just in fuel cost the 747 will be $110,000 more expensive than the 777 on KHI-NYC-KHI route.
The next question is whether an airline should purchase new 777 and sell off the 747. The analysis is relatively detailed yet elementary, for the sake of brevity let’s focus on the following: if a fleet already has 777, should they continue using the 747? The answer is no, if the 777 can suffice the long routes, if it cannot and it is profitable to run the 747, then only perhaps.
As shown earlier, for all practical purposes airlines are faced with stiff fare competition and if your competition is running 777 on long routes, your 747 will be a losing proposition, you will need to upgrade to more cost - effective planes just to compete on fuel.
The airline business is an extremely competitive business worldwide. It is time for airlines to use better and more modern planes for attracting passengers. Strategic airplane decisions are very tough to make in bureaucratic national airlines, however they need to be made quickly, otherwise long-term survival of the airline will be in jeopardy.
HUMA RAZZAK
Karachi
Alarming reports are appearing in the press to the effect that India is building 10 dams on the Jhelum and the Indus, in addition to 52 that it is already constructing on the Chenab and the Jhelum rivers. And that this will enable it to store up to 80 per cent of the Jhelum and Chenab flows.
She could thus turn Pakistan into a desert (March 19). The news reports (March 19) about the dams, situated on top of Pakistan, which is already in the grip of unprecedented food, water and power shortages, are creating unrest among the people. Regrettably there is no word from the authorities on such alarming press reports.
India is required under the Indus Waters Treaty to inform the Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters at least six months prior to commencing any such work on these rivers. The Pakistan Commissioner must be informed of the dams India is building on our rivers.
As a concerned citizen and taxpayer, I demand of the Pakistan Commissioner for Indus Waters to let the people of Pakistan know the facts to allay their fears.
B.A. MALIK
Lahore
WE are a nation with two faces. Each face has a different gesture, shape and posture. We proudly announce unconditional release of Indian spy Kashmir Singh. In return, we receive the body of Khalid Mahmood.
No Indian authority says ‘sorry” for torturing our citizen. We also never mind it and assure India this will not affect our confidence-building measures. Once upon a time we received the body of Aamir Cheema from Germany.
We did not even dare ask the Germans: why this? The then interior minister Aftab Sherpao promised to investigate this tragic incidence and that’s it. Everyone became silent then.
Perhaps last year tens of Pakistanis were butchered in a Spanish jail. Nothing happened to us and we remained mum on this brutal killing. Daily hundreds of Pakistanis are scornfully maltreated in the US and in many European countries. We take it as order of the day. This is our face for others.
When we turn to our fellow citizens, we have a different face: We drop rockets in Sui and kill residents indiscriminately. We pour bombs and target our own citizens with gunship copters in Bajaur, Wana, Waziristan, etc.
HAFEEZUR RAHMAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia
STUDENTS applying to Lahore University of Management Sciences’ undergraduate programmes for the Fall 2008 semester were required to take LUMS Common Admission Test if they had less than six O level A grades/Matric with 80 per cent marks and FA with 70 per cent marks and 2100 in the SAT 1 (which fewer than 10 per cent applicants could manage).
LUMS is one of Pakistan’s fewer than a dozen good institutions and, sadly, it has become all too aware of it. Many outstanding students who deserve to study abroad cannot do so simply for financial reasons and look to LUMS as their next best hope. But LUMS has, to say the very least, disappointed hundreds of applicants.
The admissions office very often does not respond to emails carrying inquiries and if it does, the answer is either totally off the point or insufficient. And as for the LCAT, one can only hope it did not reflect on what the standards are like within the campus.
Since no syllabus was outlined by LUMS for this test, students were told to study along the lines of SAT 1 and two sample tests were available online. In the actual test, however, not only did the level of difficulty in the Maths sections exceed that of the SAT but many questions could not be done by those who had only taken Maths till O level. Others required long working which were inappropriate for an aptitude test.
Moreover, there were glaring typographical errors which resulted in the loss of extremely precious time for the applicants.
The English section was outright outrageous. Sentences cannot be taken completely out of context for fill-in-the-blank questions and prepositions many a time failed to make an appearance. So much for assessing the applicants’ English! In a few questions, there was more than one correct answer and to sum it up, the LCAT had not been proof-read. If the questions themselves were phrased incorrectly, how are we to know the right answers will tally with LUMS’s distorted opinion of what is right?
AN APPLICANT
Karachi
MY uncle, Tariq Azizuddin, went missing on Feb 11. My family has spent 38 days without any knowledge of his whereabouts and without any satisfactory information from the authorities.
Last year during a telephone conversation I asked my uncle about safety conditions in Afghanistan. He said: “I’ve been living here and i’m safe, so there is no reason why anybody shouldn’t visit this
place.”
It seems rather unfortunate since he got kidnapped in Pakistan and not Afghanistan. I want to ask the prime minister, the president, the Chief of Army Staff, our intelligence agencies: Is Pakistan safe? If an ambassador of the government of Pakistan has to go through this ordeal ......, when will this torture end?
MARIA QAZI
Karachi
I CAME across an interesting comment in a report of the IRC Commission on Iraqi Refugees, which states that more than four million Iraqis have been uprooted by violence. It said: “We believe that the US has a special responsibility to Iraqi refugees, if only to restore its credibility.”
In a flash, my mind raced to a recently-released film, Charlie Wilson’s War, a true story about a US senator, played by Tom Hanks, who, driven by witnessing the horrific scenes in the refugee camps in Pakistan during the Afghan war of the 80s, lobbies successfully to get anti-aircraft guns and weapons to the then-called Mujahideen to fight the Soviets and kick them out. America was the champion of freedom back then.
Three decades later, with four million refugees being a burden on the neighbouring Arab countries, America turns a blind eye, their plight is hardly even heard in the world media, because the champions of freedom are fighting a war for ‘Infinite Justice’.
I wonder what Charlie Wilson would think now, if he’s alive.
ALI M. KHAN
Lahore
IT is rightly stated that “health is wealth” but our country has remained, and to a great extent still is, bankrupt on this front. Health facilities in remote areas, especially the countryside, paint a dismal picture. Also, the mortality rate among mothers and children is higher than even in countries that gained independence after us and possessed fewer financial and natural resources than we are bestowed with.
In Kachho, patients of snake- and dog-bite, when brought to government/public hospitals, don’t find the required vaccines. They, therefore, have to resort to buying these vaccines from the market on high prices, which are usually beyond their reach. Further, there is a negligible number of BHUs and the majority of them remain dysfunctional.
The people of Kachho face many health-related problems. First, they are malnourished due to drought conditions and abject poverty.
Second, the non-availability of safe drinking water compels them to resort to extract water from shallow and deep wells that contain all kinds of impurities that play havoc with the already fragile health situation of the inhabitants.
People resort to traditional prescriptions and rush to fake doctors and spiritual healers which prove disastrous for their health. The re-use of indispensable syringes is also a common practice.
The health conditions of women and children in Kachho are worse. There is not a single lady doctor in any BHU of Kachho. The lady doctor appointed in taluka hospital, Johi, hardly remains on her desk and as a common practice runs a private clinic in her residential quarter in the same hospital. Due to cultural and traditional constraints, male members do not take their womenfolk to male doctors, and if they do in some extremely serious situation, the womenfolk are unable to share their health problems with the male doctor.
The usual treatment for women is to bring a tablet from a nearby shop (majority of the shops sell counterfeit tablets at cheaper rates) without any prescription from a doctor. If the tablet does not work, an amulet or a glass of water from the spiritual healer is the treatment for every health problem faced by women.
There is not a single maternity home in the whole Johi taluka and due to the long distance, unavailability of roads and the transport a considerable number of women die during delivery cases.
The local elected representatives of the PPP should pay heed to these festering problems, especially the health issues of the whole Johi taluka, in general, and the Kachho area, in particular.
GULSHER PANHWAR
Johi
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