| October 07, 2008 | Tuesday | Shawwal 7, 1429 |
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House job salaries
Unsafe rides
Bus or train travel
Security guards
PM pressured
American vows
Obama’s threat
Beyond the West
Buying radars
Helping needy
Huge increase in wheat prices
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
Some news channels had reported on September 29 that the moon had been sighted in Saudi Arabia on the same date and so Eid was declared to be on 30th. In Pakistan it was announced that the moon was sighted on Sept 30th and Eid declared on Oct 1st, notwithstanding that this announcement was made as late as 10:45pm well after the moon had set. The moon could not have been sighted on any of these evenings.
I am a retired ship master, and have been sailing since the days when there was no electronic satellite navigators/equipment, and we depended on observations of the celestial objects, sun, moon, stars and visible planets to calculate the ships’ position. The ship carried an annual nautical almanac providing the exact positions of these objects to a tenth of an arc of minute, or tenth of equivalent nautical mile on earth.
In the absence of this almanac, today there is a weather reporting website www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=pakistan which also provides the times of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset and twilight. All you need to click is on the left onto the city required. Then scroll down to “History and Almanac”, and enter in the month and date. You will find that for Karachi on Sept 30th under “Astronomy for Sept 30th” sunset was at and 7:19pm and moonset at 7:42pm, adding one hour for our present summer time.
The moon was only 23 minutes old at sunset, impossible to be sighted as you need at least a 40 minutes’ time lag between setting for sighting in Karachi, perhaps even 35 minutes if there was excellent visibility and with a very good telescope. In Peshawar, the sunset was at 6:59pm and moonset at 7:13pm, a time lag of only 14 minutes. The same can be obtained for any place in the world by entering the city or country in the “search” window on to and clicking “go”. This website provides the data for the current year and past year. The data for 2009 will become available for the entire year from January 1st.
Another astronomical website: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.php also provides this information for any day or year, even till the next 100 years. You need to scroll to “Form B-Locations Worldwide”, and enter the Longitude, Latitude and Time Zone. For Karachi you can take Long 67 degree, Lat 25 degrees, East & North, and Time Zone 6 hours (present summer time) East of Greenwich, and click “Get Data”. The position for Peshawar is Long 71 degrees, 37 minutes and Lat 34 degrees East and North. For Makkah, Long is 39 degrees, 48 minutes and Lat 21 degrees, 24 minutes East and North and Time Zone 3 hours east of Greenwich.
Saudi Arabia does not go by sighting, but strictly according to the Almanac. On Sept 29th at Makkah sunset was at 6:10pm and moonset at 6:04pm, and new moon was at 11:12am.
RAFI AHMED
Karachi
(ii)
The Ruet e Hilal Committee announced the sighting of moon very late and I think that they were pressurized into announcing the decision after the announcement made by senior minister of the NWFP government that they will celebrate Eid on the 1st of October.
I think there was lack of communication between the central Ruet e Hilal Committee and provisional Committees as both kept the nation waiting for final decision until almost 11 oclock.
I request the Government of Pakistan to put an end to this business of such committees. We should follow Saudi Arabia so that we welcome Ramazan and celebrate Eid together.
If we are not united at this point, how will we stand together in difficult times faced by the nation?
BILAL AKRAM
Rawalpindi Cantt
(iii)
Indeed it was frustrating to hear that at 10:45 that we would be having Eid the following day. According to the Pakistan Meterological Department (http://www.pakmet.com.pk/) Eid ul Fitr was likely to be on the 2nd of October.
According to Mr Muhammad Akram Anjum, Director of the MET Office, “The current astronomical considerations suggest that there is hardly any chance of sighting the new moon of Shawwal on September 30th, therefore the holy month of Ramazan would be of 30 days and Eid-ul-Fitr Inshallah would be celebrated on 02nd Oct in Pakistan”.
What a layman like myself would like to know is with all the sophisticated calculations and equipment available to the MET office, how scientifically relevant is it to actually “see” the new moon?
In post analysis, can they now ascertain whether the new moon was actually visible on the 30th of October as most so called “Shahadaatein” claimed? Was the observation of the Ruet-e-Hilal Committee accurate?
Is there a possibility of images of the new moon to be captured and given as proof from places where the “shahadaatein” were coming in?
If the answers to the above questions are in the affirmative then the Government should give a more active role to the MET office and save us from such uncertainty and trouble and do away with the Ruet e Hilal Committee.
SYED IMRAN SAQIB
Karachi
(iv)
A lot has been said on the Eid fiasco where our religious festival was celebrated in complete confusion. In fact we face this raucous every year.
In modern day when we have advanced technology equipment in astronomy and calculations are made nearest to a second, there is no need to have Ruet e Hilal committees and their innumerable members. They stay in five star hotels, traveling and eating at government expense with free telephones usage to talk to Ulemas of various areas plus hefty TA/DAs to each one of them.
The Meteorological department can work out the angle and place where the new moon can be sighted in the country. The place for example could be Badin or Mardan or Gwadar where the new moon is sighted and should have necessary equipment like telescope etc.
The telescope should be focused on the predicted angle and local elders or ulemas should be asked to come and see the new moon. If at all the government wishes the Ruet e Hilal committee to see and announce the sighting or otherwise of the moon, the Chairman be flown there and members of the local Ruet e Hilal Committee should see and confirm the new moon.
It was ridiculous to announce at mid-night when the majority of the people were asleep and were all set to get up at Sehri for another fast. I am sure many faithful must have been shocked to know that they were fasting on Eid day and then broke the fast.
The deadline should be before the Isha prayers that everyone should know about the new moon or other wise. The people in the Frontier should be told that Ramadan should start and end with the sighting of the moon in their area as per Shariat.
They probably follow Saudi Arabia in this ritual which is another country. If they had announced to celebrate Eid on Wednesday, they should have been asked to provide the proof of sighting of Shawal moon.
The government should consider this issue and decide once for all as to how they should sight the new moon in Pakistan and follow it strictly.
MUHAMMAD AZHAR KHWAJA
Lahore
This is in reference to the recently published letter on “House Job Salary” by Dr. Faraz Khan Luni(Sept 24).
Some days ago, I went to the Administrative Resident Medical Officer (RMO) of my department for some work. While talking to him, he mentioned the salary of a private paramedical staff that comes to the department for 8 hours in the night.
I was dumbfounded when he told me that the department pays him Rs7000 per month. A staff member, who isn’t even half-educated compared to a doctor, was paid Rs7000 per month for working 40-45 hours per week.
In comparison, a medical graduate, who spends 5 years of rigorous education and dreams of becoming an asset for the society is given the respect of Rs6000 per month for working in the same department around 80-90 hours per week (evening and night calls included).
The sad part of the story is that being one of the most professional people of this society, we, the doctors have to compare ourselves with paramedical staff, technicians, drivers, maids etc, and we still find ourselves being underpaid than any of them.
With a salary of Rs6000, we are not even in the position to compare ourselves with the other professionals of the society. This sorry state of affairs has not only frustrated doctors and crushed their confidence, but is also negatively affecting medicine as a profession, and thus, the health care system of Pakistan.
The recent strike in Punjab where the Young Doctors Association is demanding for a salary of Rs25,000 for resident house officers and Rs35,000 for resident post graduate trainees is extremely justified. The doctors in Sindh also deserve a better treatment from its government than a meagre pay of Rs6000 per month for house officers and Rs12,000 for post graduate trainees. With the present inflation in the country, Rs25,000 should be the “minimum starting pay” for doctors with no discrimination between provinces.
DR MEHREEN ADHI
Karachi
I was shocked to learn that about forty bus passengers lost their lives in an inferno which took place after their bus collided with a tanker near Muzaffargarh on the September 29.
Initial investigations were still being conducted but it is obvious that the bus had only one door for the passengers to enter and exit. When the accident occurred, for some reason the door was jammed.
We would not have lost so many lives had there been an emergency back door in the bus. Such a door is usually present in buses in developed countries.
Unfortunately enough in our country, the manufacturers and operators of buses use the space for a few extra seats rather than having a safe emergency exit at the back of the bus.
Moreover steel rods are installed along the bus which practically makes it appear like a cage. So one can imagine how horrendous the situation must have been.
I think the real culprit here is the government department that is responsible for verifying road worthiness of the buses. This is not the first time such an accident has taken place and would probably not be the last unless the government gathers its act.
All buses must have an extra door at the back for emergency exit. Is it too difficult or economically unviable a demand to ensure safety? Also, why are cars without safety belts being manufactured in Pakistan?
If people do not wear them at least the manufacturers should do their bit to ensure passenger safety. And why is it that after every few months there are reports of passenger vehicles falling into a river or canal with weak railings on road sides? Why can’t we have strong concrete blocks as railings on all our bridges?
I do not think resources are the problem. We just do not take it seriously that these accidents are preventable. We probably do not value the most precious gift we got from our creator…life.
AHMED UMAIR
Lahore
This is apropos to the news story, “Ancient buses, dream trains” (Sept 28). It was pointed out by Mr Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota during his recent visit to the country that most vehicle owners in developing countries consider the use of public transport as infra dig and thus prefer to spend more money and time traveling in their own private vehicles, with many of them enjoying the added luxury of a chauffeur to negotiate the traffic jams and arrange parking in choked neighborhoods. Such people are fazed neither by rising petrol prices nor by traffic jams, and apparently are not bothered by the time lost inching along congested roads in their air-conditioned cars.
It is the ordinary man on the street who needs a mass-transit system that is fast and efficient. One would have thought that for a very large number of Karachiites the revamping of the dormant KCR would be the ideal solution – gliding noiselessly through the most densely populated areas of the city in a fraction of the time that a comparable road journey would take.
However buses, which Mr Idris seems to prefer over rail would require ever-increasing road space for which they would have to compete with cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles. The KCR on the other hand would travel on a dedicated railway line, and thus complete journeys in pre-determined times.
Rail transport both inter-city and intra-city has always been opposed by vested interests representing the automobile industry. But rail travel apart from being more efficient and economical than road travel is environment-friendly too, being mercifully free of air and noise pollution.
Penalosa may have plumped for buses in a relatively smaller place like Bogota, but for a sprawling metropolis like Karachi – with the poor living in outlying suburban areas having to travel the longest distances to their places of work – rail networks are the ideal solution to their transport needs.
ASAD SIDDIQI
Lahore
Reports of security guards who died while performing their duties at the Marriot Hotel were all over the news for the past few days.
In most cases they were the only bread earners for their families and their innocent children now live an uncertain life. There was no news of any compensation (if any) that has been provided by the hotel management to them.
I would like to suggest that life insurance policies should be assured for all the security guards working at all the hotels, embassies and at other sensitive locations across the country.
The minimum value for such a policy should be at least Rs5 million and the premium should be paid by the hotel or by the institution at which they are employed and not by the security agency.
WAHEED ZAFAR
Karachi
IT is regrettable that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani admits that his democratically-elected government had to take difficult and ‘undemocratic’ decisions because of international pressure.
By so doing he has authorised the increase in prices of utilities by withdrawing petroleum and other items’ subsidies. He did not explain what the ‘international pressure’ was.
Let me tell you that it was the threat and blackmail of international oil companies and loaning agencies. It is an open secret that the first world countries and international financial institutions have thrown a cauldron around the weak third world countries, especially Muslim states — and more especially Pakistan — to keep them away from joining the developed countries’ club.
For this purpose and other hidden agenda they use pressure tactics and arms to ruin them economically and militarily. And all this is done in the guise of help and friendly advice.
It is noteworthy that foreign aid, including loans, has been used as pressure tactics - sometimes as incentive or bribe — sometimes as punishment by holding it back — to make our nation a pushover. After May 28, 1998 they have accelerated their efforts.
I must ask the Prime Minister to show some resilience and not be cowed by pressure. A reference to Z. A. Bhutto’s remark about foreign aid would be in order.
Z. A. Bhutto had said: “Foreign aid is a worm if you stamp it — and it is a monster if you recoil from it.’ Does it make any sense or any guideline to you? My idea of a self-respecting nation is to resist the outside pressures.
We are living in hard times and in difficulties. We would continue to do so if we keep accepting those pressures, and more. Let’s hitch up and begin to say ‘no’ to pressure.
A strategically important country and a nuclear power should not be treated like a banana state.
REHANA NAQVI
Karachi
ACCORDING to a report in a section of the electronic media (Sept 17), US military leader Admiral Michael Mullen has, during a trip to Islamabad, assured the Pakistan authorities that the country’s sovereignty would not be violated again.
We all remember how this promise has been made a number of times, including by President Bush when Prime Minister Gilani had visited the US. However, there have been a number of attacks after that, including the first-ever ground-based one by American marines on Sept 3.
It appears that the US establishment believes that since a promise is not the word of God, it can be broken any time.
Z. AHMED
Karachi
The recent statements pose serious threat given by Obama, and our leaders should wake up and analyse the situation.
He may not be after Taliban and Al Qaeda, as at some point in history both of them maintained very good relations with this current enemy.
Had they been after Al Qaeda, they would have invaded countries that Bin Laden and his associates belonge to.
They have different aims and objectives behind this war of propaganda and we all know it very well.
Pakistan is the only Muslim nuclear power and surrounded by two enemies since its creation.
We have little friendly relations with our neighbour, Iran. Iran has a courageous, strong and sincere leadership as we have also recently seen in the UN.
They speak on equal terms but we have changed our policies overnight after 9/11.
Iran faced the same situation after Russian invasion and Talibanisation of Afghanistan but they were wise and did not become a puppet in return for a few dollars.
Iran was kept away from the dangers that Pakistan is faced with today.
They are building nuclear plants openly despite economic and military threats and are not prepared to compromise their political independence.
We already have a deterrent but the enemies want to destory it, not militarily but by crippling the authority of the state.
It is time we saved our nuclear facilities before it is too late. Wake up, please, before invaders pull us out from our beds.
MEHDI RIZVI
Canada
With reference to the editorial, “Beyond the west”, (Oct 5), Socialist China is the only country which can stand up to the world.
The Chinese people have always come to Pakistan’s help in times of dire need, whether it was Indo-Pakistan war or our problems with the West, regarding Pakistan becoming an Islamic nuclear power.
Both President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani should visit China as soon as possible.
JALALUDDIN S. HUSSAIN
Canada
A news item on Sept 29 reported that the USA will sell a new sophisticated radar system and Cobra helicopters to Pakistan.
The nation is astonished as to why we should buy the latest radar system and Cobra choppers from the US.
We have known for the last seven years that the US forces, US air force planes have violated our space frequently, we have never fired a bullet on intruder planes of the enemy.
If this is the condition of our defense line, then what is the use of radar and Cobra helicopters?
It is better to spend the money on social development.
BASHIR HUSSAIN AZAD
Shahi Bazar, Chitral
Facilities like investment in Behbood Savings certificates to widows irrespective of their age was sanctioned by the previous government. It is suggested that the same should be allowed to divorcees. I request President Zardari to direct the authorities to do the needful.
DR B. JAMAL
Lahore
Prime Minister Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani has announced wheat procurement price as Rs950 from the previous Rs625 per 40 kg: a huge increase of Rs325 per 40 kg.
As a Pakistani citizen living in Karachi, I was shocked to hear this big and unproportionate increase.
In the last 5 years, the agricultural and food items have increased almost 300 per cent, thus increasing the income of the farmers to quite an extent as well. Due to high prices of food items, people living in the cities have already been affected, particularly the low income classes which are passing through the worst time of their life due to exhorbitant price hikes.
Before elections, the political parties had promised the people of Pakistan that they will decrease the prices, giving relief to the people.
These political parties had also criticised the government of Pervez Musharraf for such price hikes, but instead of decreasing the prices, the present government is further making an increase in prices on one pretext or the other.
One of the government pleas for increasing prices of agricultural produce is to bring the prices at par with international prices. But the government should also bring at par income and salaries of non-agricultural groups at international level. If a citizen of the US is purchasing wheat at a reasonable rate, he also gets a reasonable monthly salary to absorb the increase. So it is not fair to set agricultural prices according to the international standards in the name of poor farmers.
As the PPP represents landlords and influential farmers, the party seems to be taking such steps to benefit its MNAs and MPAs.
Being an elected and democratic party the PPP should take care of the interests of all the citizens of Pakistan. People in the urban areas are facing grave issues like increasingly high prices, joblessness, law and order situation, various taxes, high prices of electricity and gas etc.
I hope the PPP government will make balanced policies by taking care of the problems of its people.
M.A. KURAISHI
Karachi
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