| June 03, 2008 | Tuesday | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429 |
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Misplaced leaders
A new kind of fraud
Biodiversity and agriculture
Let cricket win
Most pivotal cadre
Building institutions
Cadets’ plight
The truth inconvenient
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
PRIME Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has said: “Terrorism is a major concern across the globe today. It is the biggest challenge facing the mankind in its entire known history” (May 24). Before speaking these high-sounding words, I wish our PM had done some deep thinking. Were there any suicide bombings in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan before Bush’s adventures started? Was there such violence in the Middle East before Israel was created illegitimately and started brutalising the Palestinians, with massive western support?
Was there jihad or militancy in Afghanistan before the Soviet occupation of 1979, which provided a good excuse to the US and other western countries to jump in? Now, the Russians and their former foes are collaborating in cornering the Muslims. There’s a jihad in Kashmir and it has become a nuclear flashpoint just because nobody is serious in asking India to resolve the dispute, despite clear UN resolutions about it.
Since the military-industrial complex in the US had to survive, they needed a new enemy after the end of the Cold War, so Islam and the Muslims were found convenient for that role. The success of the West can be gauged by the fact that the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are effectively painted as terrorists and militants and their leaders are accepting this implicitly or explicitly. Where were these ‘monsters’ while the West was pre-occupied with the communists and didn’t need them?
Ironically, right next to these words of Mr Gilani, there is a report which says that Saudi Arabia has announced a contribution of $500 million to the United Nations World Food Programme, following its appeal to help meet the needs of millions of hungry people the world over.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon welcomed it by calling it a contribution of ‘unprecedented size and generosity’, while a UN spokesperson revealed that this contribution by King Abdullah completed the target of raising $755 million in response to the hike in fuel and food prices. Thus, a Muslim country alone has met nearly two-thirds of the requirement.
Riyadh had also been the biggest contributor to Pakistan’s earthquake relief fund with $550 million, in 2005, while Kuwait had pitched in a few hundred million. Pakistan has sent relief goods to China and Myanmar.
This shows that, barring a few exceptions, the Muslims are very humane people, who, in spite of having a very small share in the world’s GDP, are doing more than the richer nations for the poor human beings.
Our prime minister should not have been so gullible as to swallow the implicit ideas implanted by the imperial powers with eyes on the Muslims’ petroleum and other natural resources, about being mainly responsible for creating the terrorism issue.
In reality it is the injustice inflicted by some big western powers and their protégés like Israel that form the biggest challenge facing the Muslims and other peoples. If these causes are not removed, how will the mayhem end?
Z.A. JALALI
Karachi
THIS is apropos of I. A. Khan’s letter, ‘State Life Insurance’ (May 30). In his letter Mr Khan has showed concern over the appointment of bureaucrats as the executive directors of State Life.
We should not be sad about these appointments because we are living in a system which is unfortunately an inverted pyramid, where the right people for the right place are seldom appointed. Our army chief becomes the chief executive of our county considering Pakistan to be a corporation. Later he assumes the office of the president.
Our generals are considered as having the ability and training to fight on diplomatic fronts as well. Jehangir Khan can become the president of the world squash federation but he cannot become the president of Pakistan Squash Federation as he is not the chief of air staff. Quite ridiculously, when an air marshal assumes the office of the air chief he gets all the necessary knowledge of squash. We need generals to run our universities and shape our education policies.
Similarly, bureaucrats are trained in their respective fields — there are 11 of them —but are sent in almost every department to run it. DMG officers, with the rest of their colleagues from other CSS groups, are sent to run education, health and agriculture ministries, about which they barely know anything.
This is why we are faced today with food shortage, illiteracy, power crisis and many more, because we believe that people managing the districts, income tax, auditing and custom can also formulate the above-mentioned policies.
This is not the dilemma of a particular department. It’s the whole system which is decaying and it needs an urgent remedy. People with the knowledge and experience in a particular field should be preferred rather than the bureaucrats and generals to run every department about which they know nothing.
ALI MOHSIN
Lahore
SOMEBODY rang me up today (June 2) to inform and congratulate that I have won a prize of Rs1,000,000 in a draw of PTCL Wireless phone numbers jointly conducted by PTCL Wireless and Mobilink.
He said the draw result has been appearing on TV channels in recent days and wondered how I missed it. To know details he asked me to ring at 0483015062, which is toll-free number of the PTCL Wireless head office.
Since the money was to be electronically transferred to my bank account, he asked me to give him my bank account number, CNIC number and home address which I did and which, my bank manager says, I should not have done because e-banking can provide space for such frauds.
Where I smelled a rat was his insistence on paying him Rs3,000 as processing fee before the cheque could be sent. Here, I disconnected the call and contacted the PTCL Wireless call centre. They said a group of swindlers was currently busy cheating their subscribers by using this method and that no such draw ever took place.
A. BOKHARI
Karachi
THIS refers to your editorial, ‘Pathways out of poverty’ (May 21), followed up by a report on International Day for Biological Diversity (May 22). The theme for 2008 is ‘Biodiversity and Agriculture’.
Oblivious of the damage being continuously inflicted on the earth due to the indiscriminate use of natural resources, humankind is still on the run, degrading and eroding the preserves of nature.
Reports of degradation of landscape, deforestation, loss of plant and animal species are becoming too familiar. As the number of humans inhabiting the planet is rising, the number of plant and animal species are dropping. Habitat destruction and pollution are reducing the earth’s biological diversity.
Biological diversity is the backbone of sustainable advances in agriculture because without biodiversity we cannot make selection and recombination biotechnologically. There is thus an urgent need for the conservation of species as well as for the restoration of degraded habitats.
The Industrial Revolution provided great benefits but also led to environmental changes in the form of pollution and eventually to climate change. What could be the strategy out of poverty. In vitro-application in crop, improvement has a world of strange possibilities. Man is changing the genetic make-up of many living organisms for providing a stable food supply.
The massive scale on which transgenic crop plants (a write-up by the writer on transgenic crops appeared on Business pages on June 13, 2005) are being released means that there is a potential for increasing food production and many of them can produce a new drug, a new foodstuff and a new material.
The genetic diversity is being lost at the rate of 137 plants daily in the world. Biotechnology can produce ‘wonder wheat’ which when planted in place of other wheat cultivars will end up being monoculture, biodiversity will then get reduced.
However, biotechnological methods are such that if we can transform on wheat variety with a gene, we can transform a lot more variety. So biotechnologically we can actually increase biodiversity by increasing the number of crops with desirable genes in them.
Ecosystem in Pakistan harbours and sustains the immense biodiversity with distinct habitats and climatic conditions, including homestead farming, grasslands, forests, deserts, wetlands and mangroves managements. These preserves of nature are to be conserved, and if need be then these can be genetically manipulated, for our sustenance.
DR. M. JALALUDDIN
Department of Agriculture
University of Karachi
THIS is apropos of Rafat Mahmood Ansari’s letter, ‘A huge hit but is it cricket?’ (May 29). I think the writer offered only a one-sided viewpoint of the IPL.
He says: “First it was one-day cricket and now it is the Twenty-20 format that has deprived the game of its real beauty”. The reality is indeed far from it.
The youngsters in fact, who played the Twenty-20 league alongside legends, have benefited as they have got the chance to play with legends whom they could previously only have admired from afar such as Glenn Mcgrath, Shane Warne, Graeme Smith and Jacque Kallis.
It is as if one was to draw a parallel similar to a budding financial analyst serving an apprenticeship under George Soros in the fiscal world for six weeks. It would only give him/her greater knowledge and skills which they would take longer to develop left on their own.
Indeed if one was to listen to interviews given by the youngsters who play in the Twenty-20, they all count the chance to play with legends of the game as the biggest plus point of the Twenty-20 IPL league as they have learned a vast amount of knowledge from the biggest names such as Warne.
Mr Ansari says: “This shortest form of cricket will not serve the game of cricket at all” and further mentions the one-day cricket as an example. I find this thought very hard to digest. The one-day cricket he so despises is credited with increased run rates now being achieved by teams in test cricket.
Above 3.5 runs per over is expected as the norm now whereas before the advent of one-day cricket a run rate of 1.80 to 2.00 runs per over was deemed very respectable.
Mr Ansari’s other assertion is that “even an average cricket with limited skills can carry the day”. I do not think that you can classify Ricky Ponting, Shane Warne, Matthew Hayden, Glenn Mcgrath as ordinary cricketers. What do they have in common? They have each won three 50s over world cups. Each has great test match records as well.
I too come from the school of thought which prefers to watch test match cricket. Indeed for me a hard-fought test match battle decided in the last hour on the fifth day has no parallel or equal.
However, I am not close-minded and do appreciate Twenty-20 for what it is. I see no harm in cricketers earning an improved income for their families. As long as test cricket is not affected, there is no problem in the three forms of cricket existing side by side. Hence, I would say let cricket win.
NABIL HOODBHOY
Karachi
THIS is apropos of Subedar Major ( r) Muhammad Ali’s letter, ‘Subedar majors’ conference” (May 28), 2008.
My father was a ‘dafadar’ and grandfather was honorary captain in an Indian cavalry regment in 1933. As such, I know that the cadre of VCO (Viceroy Commission Officer) -- later JCO (Junior Commission Officer) -- was pivotal in British Indian Army which primarily was a colonial force and those who joined that outfit were mercenaries and not the soldiers of a free nation.
This pivotal cadre is non-existence anywhere in the world except India and Pakistan. The VCOs/JCOs were heavily paid and awarded perks, privileges and respect by the British because they were instrumental in maintaining control on millions of unarmed Indians.
It follows that they were driven by self-interest and no other consideration. Analogically this is true in respect of officer cadre inherited by Pakistan at the time of partition.
After partition the environment and the circumstances in which the JCOs have to work changed drastically. A white officer would never ask a VCO to do some thing related to his person or family. With native officers professionalism was not the only factor which governed their conduct with subordinates. I have seen JCOs building houses and rendering personal services for senior officers. In fact, this rank should have been abolished in national army long time ago.
MAJ (r) SHAMSHAD ALI KHAN
Karachi
THIS is apropos of Ayesha Siddiqa’s article, ‘Building institutions’ (May 29). The writer has reasonably pointed out possible repercussions regarding the government’s step for ousting the director-general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI). with the intention of rebuilding the organisation.
She has objectively pointed out the drawbacks of research culture prevailing in our public policy institutes. Moreover, she rightly said: “The entire issue of restructuring the ISSI raises the larger question of the need to restructure public-sector research institutes.”
Pertaining to this, I want to highlight important findings of the study survey conducted by the ‘Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program’ at Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute.
In this regard, over 3,000 non-US and 2,000 US-based public policy organisations were evaluated. Moreover, in the international group, 3,304 organisations were originally identified, of which 228 were then nominated by two or more peer evaluators as “one of the leading think tanks in the world”.
One can perceive the impartiality of the survey from the fact that the US could not qualify in the list of ‘Top 30 Think Tanks’ in the world, though it is the country having largest think tanks, i.e. 1,776.
Unsurprisingly, Pakistan does not make a position in the list of countries having the largest numbers of think tanks in the world. It has a total of 15 think tanks. It is important to note that Bangladesh has 34 think tanks and stands on 25th position in the list.
The painful fact is that only two Pakistani public policy institutes have been listed in the top 228 leading think tanks of the world, i.e., Islamabad Policy Research Institute and Sustainable Development Policy Institute. It is interesting to note that the ISSI is nowhere in the list.
Further, Pakistan even does not fall in the category of countries having top think tanks in the region (Asia). India is far ahead than Pakistan in both categories and stands on fifth position with 122 leading think tanks at its helm.
The purpose of sharing this is not to malign the performance of Pakistani think tanks. We lack the ‘culture of honouring suggestions’, shared by experts for reforms. This is why they are unable to play any positive role in society.
In the end, I want to request incumbent governments to ensure a rational policy for making public research institutions competitive and highly productive.
MUHAMMAD AZEEM
Karachi
PIAC advertised for the vacancies of ‘Cadet Pilot’ in January 2006. More than 50 cadets went through the rigorous and painstakingly slow process of selection for more than two years. Last step (final interview) in the selection process was completed on Feb 28 this year. Nothing has happened in this regard even after the lapse of several months, not to mention that two-and-a-half years have been taken by PIA to get this far.
We, the concerned candidates, are painfully awaiting our appointment letters, and request the PIA high-ups to look into the matter sympathetically.
PIA CADETS
2006 Batch Karachi
WHICH is that country under the firmament wherein:
— Poverty is prevalent, corruption is evident, taxpayers are indigent, tax evaders are affluent, criminals are intelligent, democracy is incipient,
— Traffic is incoherent, unpredictable remains imminent, fifth-columnists are eloquent, the ones caught red-handed may be proved innocent, weather is mostly inclement, jails don’t reform the delinquent, everyone shouts that majority is silent, society is tolerance-deficient, polls are unnecessarily adjectived as transparent, mishaps may be adverent, basic needs of the government servant outsize his emolument, mobs immediately get violent,
— Flattery is taken for a compliment, nobody is aware of contentment, everyone whomsoever you meet looks impatient, governance stands eaten up by government, marvelous feats mostly happen as an accident, law succumbs to precedent, critic is labelled an insurgent, PhDs are mushrooming but R&D is non-existent,
— Those who break law are found to be the most confident, working ambience thwarts appearance of talent, passing the buck onto others is considered to be the most convenient, national priorities are to personal motives subservient, trivials do render the federating units divergent, officially-announced economic indicators are mutually inconsistent,
— A pervert may be reputed as an abstinent, only wealth is needed to look prudent, every government subjects the nation to a new experiment, right man at right place is mostly absent, masterminds behind all historic national tragedies remain latent,
— Official response to any situation is seldom pertinent, foreign policy is without any internationally-recognised ingredient, national resources are wasted in the name of development, you cannot move a man only with argument? Pharmaceutical industry thrives at the cost of the patient, honesty is taken with insanity equivalent, a nasty tale is usually behind a man’s sudden ascent, watchdogs look crapulent, flyover may collapse any moment, transfer of power is always turbulent, the hero of the entire nation was forced at gun-point to repent,
— Ninety-seven per cent of the capital is owned by those whose own strength is three per cent, supplies may not be according to indent, people speak English with least regard for accent, offices actually promote what those are tasked to prevent,
— News is talked about prior to occurrence of the incident, the one posing to be owner may actually be on rent, feudal mindset is permanent, instability remains recurrent, rains turn roads into drains of effluent, the administration relaxes by seeing the rascals mutually-deterrent, anyone can be defamed as agencies’ agent,
— Scientists innovate but don’t invent, US influence has been persistent, educational policies benefit everyone except the student, the judiciary has finally become firm in refusing to relent, the camel many times did throw the owner out of the tent and
-- The Constitution is the easiest prey for an amendment, parliament is indifferent, the police are virtually independent, serving ministers are seen complacent, trust deficit is nationally inherent and a retired army chief still continues as the president?
Let me pen off as hints are sufficient.
MUHAMMAD WAQAR ASLAM
Quetta
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