| May 04, 2008 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 27, 1429 |
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Broad-basing education
Genesis of war on terror
Misuse of cellphone SIMs
Cement cartel
Warped US politics
Abolishing death penalty
Robbers at work
Appointment of PCB chairman
Credit card theft
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
ENVIRONMENTAL issues linked with the fossil fuel and the harm it is causing to the earth is also a grave concern for those who have the earth’s well- being at heart.
There is a monopoly of the Islamic world on the fossil fuel resources. The West has surplus of food. Without food people will starve to death, without fossil fuel no one is going to die.
Time required to produce the equivalent of the requirement of fossil fuel to substitute the bio-fuel is not yet known. However, all conceivable resources and efforts are afoot to balance the requirement. Fossil fuel is going to exhaust in about a century’s time, with a margin of error of 10 to 20 years, here or there.
There are plants in India that produce substance that produces energy. Such plants are the future of the balance that will get us out of the fuel quagmire, responsible for food riots taking roots at present in the less fortunate world, which would in future affect the most affluent of societies.
The world has not yet been fully aware of the properties of the plant that is producing the energy in India. If proper resources and efforts are applied, this dynamic plant can restore the balance of food and oil needs.
This, of course, would be a stopgap arrangement. However, such a stopgap arrangement would save many lives that need food to survive in case the West keeps on the madness to go for bio - fuel instead of the food for the souls to eat and survive.Both the resourceful countries of the world, the one requiring fuel and the one supplying fuel, are the wealthiest of the world. Both these grand set of countries may be advised to join hands in the research and development of the plants, which have properties to produce fuel or fuel-like properties.
The plant, under reference, requires extreme temperature and scant water. If this were the case, the best place for growing this plant would be the Arab countries, and the African Sahara. The Arabs are resourceful and can invest in such ventures, with deserts all around the Arabian Peninsula, and the perfect condition for such a venture.
It would also give a substitute to the Arabs in the eventuality of the oil drying out to extinction.
The West is also a party to the need for a substitute fuel, and should strive for research and development of the plants, flower and faunae that will produce the substitute of the fuel they require to keep up with their energy needs.
Unless a balance is struck between the demands and supply of the energy requirement, there is going to be a situation similar to which we are faced with today.
I am sure there are many who are busy searching the alternatives to the grim situation the world has been put to, however, I would request that thoughts and solutions which do not include the humanitarian aspect of the living being should be excluded from the research and development of the issue at hand.
DAWOODI MORKAS
Karachi
IT is true that education is the most important factor contributing to the growth of any economy. Pakistan lags behind in this and hence it also suffers in many industries.
However, I feel that education does not only mean producing MBAs, doctors, lawyers and engineers. Education should not only be restricted to academics. Other fields need to be studied as well, to bring out polished individuals and increase competitiveness.
Fields like agriculture, carpet-weaving, textile, fashion designing, performing arts, sports centres need to be given due importance.
The mentality of Pakistanis is that education means an MBA or a doctor. However, not every MBA graduate gets a decent job.
This is because there are so many colleges giving MBA degrees that only the best college degrees are valuable enough to give an individual a decent job, leaving the rest of the graduates frustrated and bitter.
• Agriculture is considered a farmer’s job. Even though Pakistan is an agricultural country, there is no institute teaching the basics of farming and food growing. Hence the shortage in food supplies.
• Research is a field not acknowledged
• Being a cotton-producing country, no effort is made in professional training of cotton growing, or making it into secondary products. Hence, Pakistan is losing its competitiveness to other counties like Bangladesh.
• With more than 80 satellite channels, the content on these channels are not up to the mark. The reason being there is no school or institute catering to the development of programmes on television.
• The number of schools for textile and arts is very few.
• Restaurants are increasing in number; however there is no proper institute for professional cooking. Cooking has become more of an entertainment thing shown on television.
Extensive support needs to be given to entrepreneurs for any country to prosper. Pakistan is a developing country, hence business opportunities are numerous, but lack of financial and technical support intimidates many to start up their own venture.
The government should realise that there is a lack of professionalism and education in these industries which is hindering Pakistan’s growth.
With a population of over 160 million, the aim should not be to only produce people of the highest quality education, but also to professionalise fields that already exist.
SANA HAIDER
Karachi
SIGNING of a six - point agreement by the NWFP government and the TNSM is a great achievement of the mainstream political parties, who were consistently making efforts to bring peace in the region through the process of dialogue. The most encouraging aspect of the agreement is that both the parties want government writ and peace to gain ground. This agreement may also encourage the remaining minority of misguided segments to enter into such agreement.
As was expected, the US government never approves dialogue between our own people to end this lingering on internal turmoil. In fact, such agreements go against US plans. Actually the genesis of this so-called ‘war on terror’ lies in the ‘Kennedy regime’ of 1962.
At first it was implemented in Latin American countries, and later on in the oil - rich and strategically important countries.
This regime engineered a reorganisation of the militaries of such countries through subtle manipulations. It decided to shift the role of the armies of targeted countries to ensure only ‘internal security’ instead of safeguarding the country from external threats.
And the training for their new role was carried out by the US army. Through such training, the weapons system and the culture of the armed forces in such countries was transformed. By setting internal security as a priority, the Kennedy regime managed to achieve its goal of setting upon the army of the country against its own people.
Thus creating internal turmoil and sense of insecurity among the rulers and the general public, on the one hand, and creating a big market for the US weapons, on the other hand. This is what the US and the West have been doing with Muslims.
So far the US and the West continued to talk of democracy and declare time and again that Muslims must promote democracy. But always, in reality, fully support the actions of the worst of tyrants in the Muslim world.
ABID MAHMUD ANSARI
Islamabad
IN developed countries one cellphone SIM is issued at a time to a person after verification of proper credentials of user and a contract is signed for a particular period between the service provider and a user during which the user cannot break the contract.
In Pakistan various service providers issued uncounted cellphone SIMs without proper documentation, which has created serious security threat not only for the country but also for intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.
Terrorists use cellphone SIMs to communicate among members of their groups in order to plan and conduct acts of terrorism. In my letter, ‘Sale of cellphone SIMs’ (Jan 18, 2006) I had highlighted how cellphone SIMs were sold to the people through paan shops and grocery stores.
After two years the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has asked service providers to block dubious SIMs by May 22. Out of a total of 81 million mobile phone subscribers, 7.4 million SIMs have been issued by cellular companies on fake or non-verifiable documents while Nadra has no details of 35 million SIMs in the country.
Cellular phone companies must accept the responsibility that they have failed in keeping proper records of their subscribers due to which government and various law-enforcement agencies are facing a lot of problems in tracing the culprits.
Cellular phone companies should issue SIM cards only to such users as possess computerised national identity cards. Mpreover, users of SIMs issued on old identity cards should be asked to submit a copy of CNIC so that proper data should be maintained in Nadra’s records.
The policy of issuing 10 SIM cards in the name of one person is not appropriate. To give leverage to a family who would like to be connected on the same network, the application forms should clearly mention the names of actual users and relationship with the person in whose name a SIM card is issued. The service providers should also take a copy of CNIC of the actual user.
As stolen and snatched cellphone sets are openly sold in the mobile market, the government should devise a policy of ‘lost mobile tracking’ system to enable law-enforcement agencies to trace a lost, stolen or snatched mobile phone set through satellite system and reach the culprits within the shortest possible time.
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
AS reported (EBR, April 28), a team of Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has raided the office of All Pakistan Cement Association’s headquarters at Lahore and impounded records and computers containing data on cement production in the country. The action is reportedly taken so as to verify whether the manufactures have formed a cartel leading to increase in the prices of cement.
After privatisation and especially the previous regime’s lax regulatory control, the cement producers have formed a cartel and whenever they feel increasing the price of cement, they do it at will. This unbridled and unfair increase in the price from time to time has made the construction activity extremely unbearable.
The action of the CCP will have a salutary effect on other cartels such as sugar and petrol. However, this admirable effort will be wasted if tax authorities (income-tax, sales tax and excise) are not allowed accessibility to the said plethora of information. I would, therefore, ask the federal revenue authorities to approach the CCP for the impounded material and recover the unpaid of taxes, if any, from the cement producers.
At this juncture of serious financial crisis, recovery of unpaid taxes from this most vibrant sector of economy will be a great of help to the national exchequer
RAFIQUE AHMED SIDDIQI
Karachi
ACCORDING to a news report (April 28), the Republican candidate for the American president, Senator John McCain, has resorted to defaming Senator Barack Obama of the Democratic party by seizing upon a Hamas official’s words of praise for the latter.
The political adviser of Hamas had reportedly said Obama was a “great man with a great principle.” In response, Mr McCain retorted that Mr Obama would be the ‘candidate of the Hamas’, and “if Senator Obama is favoured by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly.”
This insinuation is obviously meant to scare the American public away from voting for his possible rival in the election, which is substantiated by his declaration: “I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas’s worst nightmare.”
As a senior Republican senator, McCain may care to recall that during the 2000 election, the Muslims in America, regardless of their origins, had voted en bloc for candidate George Bush, because they thought he would prove to be better than his rival John Kerry. Obviously, the Muslim community had also included those of Arab descent, which would have comprised the Palestinians as well. However, nobody had objected to it at the time, or implicated Mr Bush to be a representative of the world’s 1.4 billion ‘terrorists’.
Former president Jimmy Carter has recently met Hamas leaders, which shows that such patriotic and leading Americans can have alternative views on the Palestinian question – that is what democracy is all about. Similarly, it is not surprising if this time some Muslims are supportive of Obama, given the fact that by now most Americans have started viewing the incumbent’s Iraq policies as having been so flawed as to lead to greater insecurity and hatred for them across the world.
Another funny fact is that around May 2007, towards the start of the election campaign, some American opponents of Barack Obama had tried to put off their compatriots through a subtle psychological trick by saying that his name sounded too much like Osama.
Now, a Republican Party’s television advertisement has again tried to connect Mr Obama to his former pastor Jeremiah Wright’s controversial speeches in North Carolina, which is due to have the democratic primary elections on May 6, by saying that the senator was ‘too extreme’ for the state. The New York Times, which commented on this on April 26 under the title, ‘A shameful, ugly ad’, described it as ‘manipulative, shameful, race-baiting’.
One can hardly add to this assessment. All one can say is that the level of unreason and prejudice evident in the US election campaign is very dismaying and can only worsen the country’s image that has already been immensely damaged by Mr Bush’s aggressive, biased and imprudent policies.
IQBAL
Karachi
THIS is apropos of your editorial, ‘Abolish the death penalty’( April 26). You are absolutely right in arguing that two wrongs can never make a right. If a person allegedly commits an act of terrorism, kills and maims other persons and is awarded a death penalty, this will not bring back the lives already lost, nor any real solace to the victim(s). Also, in the prevailing socio-eco-cultural scenario it is almost impossible to determine the guilt of murder. You have rightly pointed out that the confession is obtained mainly by torture. When a person realises that it is better to die once than undergo frequent beatings and insult by the police, he will make a false confession. Sarabjit Singh is a case in point. Presumably, his death will bring relief only to sadists, otherwise the humanity will cry on his unnatural and painful death.
With the exception of America, the greatest hangman on the earth, Muslim states and a few other states, including India, the international community, on the whole is against the death penalty. The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights passed a resolution in 2000 against such an inhuman punishment.
Can our new government, in order to improve the country’s international image, abolish the death penalty? If it will do so, it will certainly save the lives of thousands of its citizens and Sarabjit Singhs who are bidding time to go to the gallows. Please stop the legacy of Zia who felt pleasure in hanging and insulting human beings.
DR MEHTAB ALI SHAH
Sindh University
Jamshoro
CRIMES in I-10 Markaz, Islamabad area, have gone up . This is the second time in two weeks when our possessions have been snatched in the shopping area.
The question is what the police are doing, just patrolling?
MUSTAHSEN
Islamabad
ALTHOUGH the volume of the game has increased many times, the overall standard and quality of play has deteriorated, barring one or two glaring exceptions. Tendulkar, being an outstanding performer, incidentally would be an automatic choice in an - All Time World XI. As indeed our own Wasim Akram whose name would be the No. 1 choice to open the pace attack in the All Time World XI. Unfortunately, we have successfully managed his early ouster depriving the world of this supreme talent.
We are now in the process of destroying another great talent, Shoaib Akhtar, who still has a couple of years of good cricket if handled with care. I spent some time with him as a manager on the Pakistan New Zealand tour 2000-2001 but did not find him unmanageable, though he was then at his prime.
It is tragic that cricket like most facets of this country’s affairs is being run on the mantra of screwing the square peg in the round hole. The efforts of the military, bureaucracy, bankers and others have brought the game to its present low.
To find a suitable cricketing outfit or to create one is the job of a professional. The appointment of the national coach, Geoff Lawson, shows the paucity of our cricketing intellect. Our woes are batting failures against the moving ball, how can this poor chap handle an issue he is clueless about?
Anyway, the minister for sports should recommend to the patron of cricket to appoint the next chairman of the PCB keeping in mind that he has to know his cricket having played at the highest level.
We have so much talent that a World Beating XI can be developed within a year provided we have the right man to do it.
F.S. AIZAZUDDIN
Former manager, Pakistan cricket team, New Zealand tour 2000-2001
Karachi
MRS Farah Gazdar, in her letter (April 23), says how her credit card was stolen and used for buying purposes, and the amount so stolen will have to be paid by her.
She appealed to banks/credit card companies and the government to prevent such thefts and fraud. I am sorry to inform Mrs Gazdar that there is no way to prevent credit card theft and fraud. This is a multi-million-dollar crime all over the world, and banks/credit card companies and governments, despite their best efforts, are unable to stop it. However, banks/credit card companies all over the world, in their greed, continue to advertise and sell credit cards and promote their use, as this is very lucrative for them.
I would, therefore, advise Mrs Gazdar and everybody else that there is only one way to avoid credit card theft and fraud, and that is to stop using them.
ABID SHAIKH
Karachi
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