| August 13, 2008 | Wednesday | Sha'aban 10, 1429 |
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Upgrading business education
Who killed Aafia’s baby?
A storm that blew over
Umra visa
Payments to students
Iraqi oil revenue
Silence of Religious parties
Power failures
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
I WOULD like to add to the argument contained in M.K. Naqvi’s letter, ‘Impeachment possibility?’(Aug. 10)!
It is, of course, true that Article 47 of the Constitution envisages two stages for impeachment, inclusive of the process of investigation which, however, might not be necessary. As it is, Law Minister Farooq Naek is already upbeat about the charges to be presented by the coalition parties in a future National Assembly session.
However, according to reports, the present National Assembly rule is silent on the impeachment issue, since no president of the country has ever been asked to explain his conduct, far less impeached. Even the new rules, updated during the last assembly, do not guide us on how to proceed in such contingencies. However, we have heard since then that the task of framing a new impeachment process has fallen on the shoulders of Dr Fehmida Mirza, the present speaker.
In the new situation she may like to revert to the past precedent and the procedure followed in the no-confidence motion passed against former speaker Fakhar Imam (a no-confidence motion against a sitting speaker may also amount to removing him).
No doubt the procedure to be followed in trying to impeach a sitting president may probably be identical to the passage of a no-confidence motion against a presiding officer of parliament, since the rules allow both the president and the speaker of the house to put up self-defence.
There might be some difficulty in this regard when the two houses are convened to assemble together for this purpose.
Generally, in the case of the president’s address the president himself presides over the session; and the present rules for a joint sitting also grant the same right to him; except that the speaker, National Assembly, also enjoys the inherent right to conduct the house proceedings.
In this case, when charges have been pressed against the president, he would be denied the privilege of presiding over the sitting of the two houses, but he may watch the trial over the National Assembly CTV, which also has a line reaching his chamber and also Aiwan-i-Sadr.
However, the difficulty might arise in how the president would defend himself in the assembly when he is not a member of the legislature. Is there a possibility of his being declared ‘a stranger’ in the house? There is nothing in the present rules to suggest that the president could attend a session of parliament, except when addressing it from the dais. Could the president’s presence on the dais be interpreted to justify his presence inside the House? Or, should Article 50 of the Constitution, which includes his office in the definition of parliament, be also read as justification for his appearance in the house.
In this regard, while framing new rules, we might refer as a guide to the precedent left behind in the impeachment charges levelled against former president Clinton. Then, president Clinton argued his defence on the TV, specially beamed to the American Senate. Would something of this sort is envisaged in the new rules that are now being drafted.
In any case, the draft would have to be referred to the Standing Committee on Rules of Privilege and, thereafter, for approval of the assembly.
Do we anticipate all this happening on and before Augt 14, as some people seem to be promising?
JONAID IQBAL
Islamabad
THIS is apropos of Dr Ishrat Husain’s article, ‘Upgrading business education’ (Aug 11) . Universities exist to accumulate, disseminate and apply knowledge. The most knowledgeable are, therefore, the most distinguished in universities. And, knowledge is accumulated over time. So, academia is one world where the value of academics increases with the number of the grey hair they have.
Premium in the knowledge world of academia is on the highest level of qualifications, i.e. a PhD, seniority, experience and exposure that they acquire through research and consultancy. Premium is not on young age as fresh graduates and the young lack in terms of educational qualifications, experience and exposure.
While the highly qualified senior faculty drives academic departments, the young are encouraged to acquire doctorates, followed by continued knowledge enhancement over time through research that is then disseminated through classroom instruction and publications and applied through consultancy.
It is not a question of mere technical capability to teach a course. Rather, it is the ability to situate the course against a wider context that is important at university-level teaching that distinguishes it from a polytechnic or a junior college. Hence the premium on PhD level qualifications for university-level teaching.
At the university level, teaching is done to make the seemingly impossible possible and not to recycle what exists. Thus an additional need for highly qualified experienced academics to help the university realise its reason for being, that is to lead and provide guiding light to whichever segment the university is catering to and to help make a difference there. There is still a large enough domestic business market that needs to be served as is also evident from the evening programme enrollments at the IBA.
The IBA took almost about a decade to shift its paradigm from a teaching college to a research-based tertiary-level academic institution. Research, by default, connotes a requirement for PhDs and knowledge enhancement over time to enable this degree-granting institution achieve its aims and objectives in society. There is a need to keep pace!
DR MAHNAZ FATIMA
Karachi
THIS refers to your editorial, ‘Dr Aafia’s strange case’ (Aug 9) and the report, ‘Government asked to move ICJ in Aafia case’ regarding the demands raised by the Judicial Activism Panel (JAP) in Islamabad and Lahore, of Aug 8.
It was unspeakably horrifying to learn from the JAP statement that a six-month-old child of the incarcerated Pakistani neuroscientist was murdered during their detention.
It will be recalled that Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her three kids, who were between the ages of four months and seven years at the time, were handed over to the Americans five years ago, according to Pakistani interior ministry officials, as reported then.
After that there was no news and they were obviously being held by the FBI, most probably at Bagram in Afghanistan.
After much hue and cry began to be raised since the July 7 press conference by a British woman journalist, the Americans apparently decided to cook up another story about her attacking their men with a gun and getting shot in the foot herself.
After that, she was immediately whisked away to New York and indicted in a court.
While her own lawyer Elaine Sharp is not allowed to meet her, the court appointed a pro-bono lawyer, Elizabeth M. Fink, to defend her.
Ms Fink asked how could the woman weighing a mere 90 pounds attack Americans with a gun?
Judge Ronald Ellis expressed surprise as to how she was extradited to the US so quickly when it takes longer to extradite people within two locations inside New York? (Aug 7).
Meanwhile, Aafia’s elder sister Dr Fauzia Siddiqui, who is here from the US to raise support for the former, has reportedly said that Aafia has been subjected to plastic surgery.
The only reason for that appears to be the Americans’ attempt to remove signs of torture that may have become visible on her face.
All of this goes to show the American agency/army has been acting in a very inhumane and highly biased manner.
I wholeheartedly support your concern about her getting justice and the JAP demand that Dr Siddiqui’s case should be put before the International Court of Justice, because that is the one place where she could find justice.
Also, Pakistani women’s rights organisations must lead the nation in ensuring justice for Aafia Siddiqui and her children.
A CITIZEN
Karachi
IN his column, ‘A storm that blew over’, columnist Kuldip Nayar has quoted from my rejoinder of July 24 to Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan’s letter, the figures of 10 million Muslim refugees coming over to Pakistan from India after making immense sacrifices and nearly one million more getting massacred in the process.
I had desisted from talking about the atrocities my parents and other Muslims had undergone, but Mr Nayar has tried to misrepresent some of the crucial facts and figures to make it appear that the losses and the crimes of both sides were more or less equal.
The implication is that the Hindus and Sikhs in India did not subject the Muslims to far greater barbarity, as has been claimed by the latter.
Chaudhri Muhammad Ali, a leader of the Pakistan Movement who later on became the country’s prime minister, in his book, The Emergence of Pakistan, took much pains to make it accurate and quoted many independent British and Indian sources to support his claims.
Some of the facts stated in it are cited here. First, it says the total number of refugees in West Pakistan ultimately rose to nearly nine million or one-fourth of the population.
The round figure of 10 million given by me included those who had migrated to East Pakistan as also the later arrivals in the western wing.
Second, a report by Ian Morrison, correspondent of The Times, London, sent from Jalandhar (India) on Aug 24, 1947 is quoted in the book and gives a good idea of what transpired:
“More horrible than anything we saw during the Second World War is the universal comment of experienced officers, British and Indian, on the present slaughter in East Punjab.
“The Sikhs are clearing East Punjab of Muslims, butchering hundreds daily, forcing thousands to flee westward, burning Muslim villages and homesteads … This violence has been organised from the highest levels of Sikh leadership, and is being done systematically, sector by sector.”
Besides that, Mr Ali has cited John Connell from his book, Autchinleck (p906):
“On 15 August the day of liberation was strangely celebrated in (Indian) Punjab. During the afternoon a Sikh mob paraded a number of Muslim women naked through the streets of Amritsar, raped them and then hacked some of them into pieces with kirpans (daggers) and burned the others alive.”
In a slight digression, it may be noted that no further killings of Sikh or Hindu women took place in Pakistan after the reaction of 1947, but Muslims keep getting subjected to such treatment in India to this day, as happened in Gujrat a few years back.
Third, again the author made a most crucial observation:
“As Muslim refugees from East Punjab started pouring into Lahore and other places in West Punjab and told their tale of woes, there was instant retaliation against Hindus and Sikhs.
“So inflamed were the feelings of the people at the sight of the destitute, wounded and maimed that the exhortations of the Quaid-i-Azam and other leaders to exercise restraint and eschew revenge fell of deaf ears … Unlike in East Punjab, there was neither plan nor organisation behind these sporadic bursts of violence.”
Mr Nayar, that was the fundamental difference: the operations against the Muslims were pre-planned and well organised, as happened in Bosnia in the 1990s.
Also, the Muslims formed the bulk of the figure of one million I had mentioned.
A PAKISTANI
Karachi
PERFORMING Umra during Ramazan has its own special significance. Since the Saudi government has announced quota system for the Umra visa, thousands of Pakistanis desirous of performing Umra during this month will not be able to do so.
Our ministry of religious affairs should persuade the Saudi government to relax these restrictions at the earliest so that people of Pakistan are able to perform Umra.
Moreover, the air fare has gone up tremendously. A middle class person is already suffering from various problems and is not able to save enough money to enable him/her to perform Umra.
The government should reduce the air fare to enable common people to perform Umra.
MUHAMMAD ASHRAF SANGRI
Pir Jo Goth,
Khairpur Mirs
INDEED, the newly-elected government has put in effort to promote the unemployed youth, including the National Internship Programme now called the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme. It serves as a new ray of hope for the Pakistani youth.
However, I would like to know about the future of postgraduate students, myself being one of them.
I am being paid Rs12,000 in Sindh which is hardly sufficient in times of high inflation.
The authorities concerned should increase the amount to Rs 24,000 to help promote the young and talented students for further studies offered in Pakistan.
DR JAMEEL AHMED UJJAN
Via email
THOSE watching the CNN, ABC, CBS or the NBC and others, recently, must have noticed that the American media and those in the news these days are making noises about the billions of dollars that Iraq has collected and saved from oil revenues, and that it should be funnelled in to help Americans ‘rebuild’ Iraq.
Is there anyone to see the logic or rationality in demanding money from the Iraqis to build their own homes and country which was destroyed by the invading coalition forces, mostly the American forces, in the first place?
G PIRACHA
Guyana
YOUR editorial regarding the silence of religious parties in response to the misguided Tehrik-i-Taliban’s recent pronouncements about spreading their violence is spot on.
One reason for the religious parties to exercise this realpolitik is perhaps on the basis of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’.
Little do they understand the history of failures of such a strategy. Another reason is their lack of any sense of history about the intellectual and conceptual basis of Pakistan.
My reading of modern subcontinental history indicates that Pakistan was created as a state for the Muslims of the subcontinent, where everyone was free to exercise their freedom of religion, and not as an Islamic state.
It was the pervading fear amongst Muslims of India at the time of the curtailment of the British Raj that they may be persecuted by the Hindu majority that formed a pillar for the intellectual basis for the creation of Pakistan.
An irony is that in the last two decades, Pakistan was one of the top five countries, including the war-torn Iraq, where more Muslims have been killed due to sectarian, ethnic and political violence.
The distinction between a Muslim state and an Islamic state is not just parsing words, but a critical one. This is a distinction that a vast majority of Pakistanis make at every opportunity when deciding to elect their government.
The religious parties would be well advised to learn from history that violence only begets violence. They should see modern-day Turkey to learn a lesson that if they push the peaceful human beings too far by their violence, corruption of thought and maligning of religion, history shows an equal and opposite reaction.
My plea to all the religious factions is: stop violence, take part in elections and see how many Pakistanis you convince.
R. MATIF
London
FOR the last several weeks we, the residents of Masjid Road, Nawabshah, have been facing round-the-clock loadshedding. The problem is especially severe for those of us who are taking their examinations these days. Every day the loadshedding continues nonstop for eight hours, i.e. from 7am to 3pm.
The authorities concerned should take action in this regard to solve our problem once and for all.
RESIDENTS
Nawabshah
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