| October 09, 2008 | Thursday | Shawwal 9, 1429 |
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International defence exhibition and seminar
Calling a spade a spade
The problems we create
For economic recovery
A legend is no more
Toy guns
Apartheid US style
Sensible decision
Unjustified criticism of the president
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 National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) was unexpectedly closed in August despite its invaluable contribution to human development — education, adult literacy, primary healthcare, capacity building and community development — with the massive network covering about 122 districts of Punjab, Sindh, the NWFP, Balochistan, AJK, and Fata and with more than 80,000 employees at its disposal.
Its closure was tantamount to economic genocide of thousands of families. The NCHD, set up in 2001, aimed at improving public sector delivery mechanisms to achieve Millennium Development Goals set by the UN.
The MDGs encapsulate development aspirations of the world as a whole. They are not only development objectives: they encompass universally accepted human values and rights such as freedom from hunger, the right to basic education, the right to health and a responsibility to future generations.
In adopting the millennium declaration in 2000, the international community pledged to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty.” We are now more than halfway towards the target date — 2015 — by which the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved.
Being a signatory to the millennium declaration, Pakistan too was bound to devise means and mechanisms to achieve the desired goals of millennium development.
Establishment of NCHD was a pertinent move in this regard, which aimed at achieving the goals through universal primary education, adult literacy programme, volunteerism for community development, primary healthcare programmes, capacity building programme, etc.
NCHD started its operations in 2002 in just two districts, Mardan and Narowal. Since then it has expanded, and its programmes are now being implemented in 122 districts.
Pakistan was the first country to establish a public-private partnership to mobilise global resources for human development following the monetary conference for international financing of development in March 2002.
The Pakistan Human Development Fund is a public-private partnership that channelled resources from the government of Pakistan, private sector and the international donor community, into the NCHD and its programmes.
The main objective of the fund was to consolidate efforts towards building human capabilities by supporting various programmes and projects in social sectors for improvement and enhancement of education and literacy; primary healthcare; poverty alleviation; development of working skills; improvement of social service delivery.
The Fund lent financial and other support to the efforts of the NCHD to build the capacity, train and enhance the competency of the government functionaries, elected representatives and non-governmental organisations working in the social sector at the district level.
The current annual budgetary requirement of NCHD is Rs2.3 billion to run its six programmes in 122 districts of the country. This is a very economical budget which is less than that of even any single district of the country.
The release of this amount should no be a problem for the government given the urgency of achieving the MDGs, invaluable contributions of the organisation in the sector of social development and danger of loss of employment of 80,000 family earners.
The NCHD and PHDF board members met Prime Minister Gilani on May 29 to apprise him of the work NCHD has been doing. The PM issued orders for an immediate release of Rs874 million to the commission.
He also directed the finance ministry to include funds for NCHD in the next year’s budget, saying that NCHD has done commendable work and his government believes in continuity of policies.
In spite of the remarks by the prime minister in appreciation of the role of NCHD and an assurance of the release of the required budget to NCHD, no further steps were taken to save this organization.
As a result of unavailability of the funds, the chairman decided to abruptly shut down all the programmes of NCHD and employees were issued dismal letters.
Later a meeting was held with the government and an announcement was made about the continuation of NCHD till December, and putting the matter before a committee for further decision.
The government again reneged on its promise and no notification was issued in this regard. The government must clear its position and do the needful to retain NCHD.
ZUBAIR SOOMRO
District Literacy Officer, NCHD
Shikarpur
THE international defence exhibition and seminar, commonly known as IDEAS, a display of ‘arms for peace’, was first held in Karachi in the year 2000.
Thereafter, it has become a routine feature and after every two years the exhibition was held in the years 2002, 2004 and 2006. Now the fifth IDEAS (defence exhibition) will be held from Nov 24 to 28 at the Expo Centre, Karachi.
With the passage of time, there has been a tremendous growth in foreign and local exhibitors and, accordingly, this time there is a greater demand for space at the exhibition centre by foreign and local exhibitors. The number of local visitors has also increased many times during the last four exhibitions.
The following details show how IDEAS gained popularity among international and local exhibitors and how many visitors attended the exhibition from 2000 to 2006:
During the last exhibition that was held in 2006 there were 221 leading defence manufactures from 27 countries that included 148 foreign and 73 domestic companies. This was attended by more than 30,000 defence professionals, analysts and service personnel.
Extensive media coverage was made with over 2,200 articles, editorials and news items published worldwide in leading newspapers and industry magazines. Moreover, people from the world’s renowned electronic media channels were flown from various parts of the globe to Karachi to cover this mega event.
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has formally announced the soft-launching of IDEAS 2008 in Islamabad on May 23, which was largely attended by the ambassadors of various countries, government departments and businessmen.
Preparations for IDEAS 2008 are in full swing and various government organisations representing different countries have already booked the available space in exhibition halls. Booking of space for IDEAS this time has been increased by 250 pr cent whereas attendance of defence delegations have been increased by 225 per cent.
Visitors from various countries will also come to Karachi to see this mega event. But this time organisers have imposed an entry fee for the people who would like to see this exhibition, though previously there was no entry fee imposed for issuing the passes for the visitors during the period from 2000 to 2006.
This time people who wish to see the defence exhibition will have to pay $25 per person. However, a discount of 20 per cent for a group of minimum of four visitors has been offered by the organisers.
As usual, all roads leading to the venue will be closed due to security reasons. Frustration of the people will be at its peak as in addition to the heavy traffic jams on the nearby roads, the residents of the adjoining areas will not be allowed to visit the venue, without paying entry fee in advance whereafter passes will be issued by the organisers during a particular time.
I would request the prime minister to ask the organisers of IDEAS 2008 event not to charge any entry fee to the people and issue entry passes free of cost after proper security clearance. After all, the organisers must be earning a handsome amount of money which they will be charging under different heads for organising this mega event.
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
WITH reference to the Oct 5 editorial pages, two top columnists emphasised that we have at least two writers, Anwer Syed and Ardeshir Cowasjee, who have the guts to call a spade a spade, even in the current suppressive environment.
Anwer Syed writes in his column(‘Mr Zardari’s US visit’): “Mr Zardari’s recent visit to America, with an entourage of some 60 persons, must have cost millions. It would help if he cancelled all foreign trips and just stayed home”. Any conscientious person can understand that this one paragraph speaks volumes. Details had been splashed in American papers as many Pakistanis, including Dawn’s editorial on the ‘President’s etiquettes’, emphasized the point.
Ardeshir Cowasjee in his column (‘Black is not white’) exposed the manipulation of sycophants to cover Zardari’s misspelled words in one-sentence message he recorded on Sept 11 in the message book at the Quaid’s Mazar by pulling out those two pages out of the 100-page book on which Zardari and the Karachi Station Commander recorded their message.
Thus the ‘more loyal to the king than the king himself’ made a laughingstock of their master, even the whole Pakistani nation. The famous Urdu verse depicts this class of people: ‘Hooay Tum doost jiskay................................” May God save the king.
M. SALEEM CHAUDHRY
Karachi
WE are a special breed, we Pakistanis. We create problems and blame the high authority for these maladies. Previously governments never bothered for the evils we did; but we kept on topping them up and accusing the governments for doing nothing about them.
I wanted to enumerate some more troubles than Javed Khan Tareen has talked about in his letter, ‘War on terrorism’ (Oct 4). For brevity, I will restrict myself to one problem, i.e. the mushroom growth of mosques. Mr Tareen wants to know if these mosques are beyond the pale of law — they proliferate the hate propaganda and are engaged in fanning sectarian embers to flames.
The weakness of our otherwise ‘strong nation’ is the failure to keep it disciplined — the religious discipline, that is. We did not need so many mosques, did we? For 0.3 million Karachiites in 1947, there were only seven mosques; and they catered well.
Now I cannot count them. Every group has scores of mosques everywhere instigating the worshippers to hate the other groups’ worshippers. Since they cannot kill the other groups all the time — which they actually want to — they shout at each other.
The callers for the prayers shout the call with all the power of their lungs through high-pitched loudspeakers in an effort to drown the call of the other muezzins. I have three mosques in the vicinity of my house. When ‘azan’ is called by the three callers at the same time on such high fidelity, my grandchildren, six months to 14 months old, wake up with a start and begin crying. It takes some time and some effort to calm them down.
What kind of a competition is that? I understand that people have been, for fear of hurting religious feelings, reluctant to ask those muezzins to keep the call low in volume. That gave them unrestricted and unchecked prerogative to do as they pleased.
The religious freedom in Pakistan, unlike other Muslim countries, has led to even ‘Muslim rebellion’. I think the government of Pakistan has to do something about it — and do it quickly.
We have not much time at our disposal. This is a warning to be heeded to.
A WORRIED PAKISTANI
Karachi
THIS is apropos of S. M. Naseem’s article, ‘For economic recovery’ (Sept 20). Mr Naseem, a well respected economist, is an incurable IMF-hater and I am unlikely to change his mind. So I won’t bother.
I have written elsewhere about our experience with IMF propgrammes and what a hash we have made of them. I need not repeat that here.
Mr Naseem thinks we should get back to doing research to find solutions to our economic problems. I would submit to him that we know the solutions. Doing research and setting up a panel of economists is simply a waste of time.
We know how to raise taxes, cut spending, boost exports, control the money supply, bring inflation down, and foster growth. We know how to implement structural reforms that raise economic efficiency. These are hardly mysteries whose solution needs deep thinking.
Let us get on with the job of implementing, for a change, that which we know. It is naive to think that there is a magic potion out there that, if found, will solve our economic problems.
As for the IMF, we have implemented only one programme in five— and-a-half decades. Given this record, how can we conclude they are bad for us and don’t work?
DR MEEKAL AZIZ AHMED
Virginia, USA
A LEGEND from the golden era of subcontinental film music, Mohinder Kapoor, died of cardiac failure in Mumbai on Sept 27 at the age of 74.
Mohinder made his entry as a playback singer in the film world at a time when this genre of music was dominated by singing giants such as Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey and Hemant Kumar.
Film producers and music directors could not take the risk of introducing a new singer with the fear of losing business. Moreover Mohinder Kapoor was a fan of Mohammad Rafi and copied his style of singing. Therefore, in the presence of the master performing at his peak there was hardly any room for a singer who had idealised the best.
Nevertheless Mohinder possessed such a melodious voice and perfection in singing that the music directors could no longer resist the temptation of giving him the chance.
He had depth in his voice and a wide singing range which is a rarity amongst the singers.
Mohinder came up to their expectation and two of his songs released in 1958, ‘Aadha Hai Chandrama, Raat Aadhi’ for the film ‘Navrang’ and ‘Chand Chupa Aur Taray Dubey’ for ‘Sohni Manhiwal’, became super hits.
Soon Mohinder started competing with his superstar counterparts and his fan following in the whole subcontinent touched great heights.
On listeners’ request, Radio Cylone played his songs frequently and they also got high ranking in its popular weekly programme of hit film songs named ‘Binaca Geet Mala’, which was never missed by the music lovers and became almost part of the local culture.
His famous song ‘Chalo Ek Bar Phir Say’ from the film ‘Gumrah’ got Filmfare magazine’s best film song award for 1963.
Mohinder’s ghazal ‘Meri Jan Tum Pey Sadqay’, composed by Ravi in Raag Peelu for the film ‘Sawan Ki Ghata’, is one of his best.
His most popular number ‘Mere Desh Ki Dharti Sona Ugle’ from the film Upkar won him the prestigious national award.
Mohinder sang for over 200 Indian movie soundtracks, including many Marathi films. His golden period was the 1960s and early 70s when Mohinder’s songs in films Hamraaz, Gumrah and Upkar proved his unique talent.
He is no more but his songs will continue to revive his memory for many years to come.
PARVEZ RAHIM
Karachi
THIS is in response to the letter by Adnan Nazir (Oct 6). Mr Nazir seeks to discourage violence in children by banning the manufacturing of toy guns.
He wishes the law enforcement agencies to take stern action against the manufacturers of toy guns and seeks to take stern punitive action against them.
I do not agree with this remedy proposed by Mr Nazir. He seems to utterly forget the question of civil liberties. This is a solution along the path of least resistance.
If we indeed wish to keep children away from violence, we shall have to cultivate a non-violent society and teach children to live with tolerance. There is no short-cut.
The emergence of mobile phones have encouraged the practice of obnoxious calls, shall we ban mobile phones and send all the mobile phone vendors to jail?
If we follow such a line of argument, we shall have to prosecute every tradesman as almost every commodity in the world can be blamed for misuse. Besides, children have a right to play.
RAUF CHAUDHARY
Multan
US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has said that the nuclear deal like the one with India, which is still to be signed, cannot be made with any other country — Pakistan included. Tehran is asking a pertinent question. Is it not a violation of the NPT to make such a deal with India?
Favouring a nuclear India, which has been sitting in Russia’s lap, and refusing another nuclear country, Pakistan, which has been ‘an ally of allies’, a ‘major non Nato ally’, a coalition partner and the frontline state in the war against terror, is it not a foolish behaviour?
It cannot be justified by any moral or political standard. Does the US think that since Pakistan is a relatively small military power, it can be squeezed by the neck to accepting US hegemony?
France has also signed a nuclear deal with India. Does it mean that the US will have no objection if these two cooperate in nuclear field?
During the 70s France had agreed to supply a reprocessing plant to Pakistan. The US objected to it and pressured Paris to cancel the agreement.
With the face red in embarrassment the French president announced the cancellation of the agreement.
The French media had accepted that the US had arm-twisted the French into refusing the plant to Pakistan. The then prime minister Z. A. Bhutto was infuriated by US intervention.
It would be a good idea if Pakistan makes, in the present changed circumstances when it is already a nuclear power, a deal with Britain or France (again) to acquire a reprocessing plant for civil nuclear energy direly needed for power generation and agricultural purpose.
The opposition to such a plant would not be relevant now. What is good for India is also good for Pakistan — without exception.
M.K. NAQVI
Karachi
IT would be more sensible for the US to ban the presence of its personnel on our soil and leave the area, including Iraq, as soon as possible. The US has done enough damage to the world peace, not only militarily but also economically.
The German finance minister has very rightly said the US is unlikely to remain a super economic power and we look forward to seeing that day come sooner rather than later.
RAZI MALIK
Jubail
THIS has reference to two main articles (Oct 5) in which President Asif Ali Zardari has been very harshly criticised. Even when Gen Musharraf, wrongly labelled as dictator, was the target of media bashing, I used to suggest that we should offer some respect to the office of the president. The same is true of Mr Zardari who after all is our democratically elected president.
As regards the article with the headline, “Zardari’s US visit”, it appears to me that the responsibility did not lie with Mr Zardari for the fact that it was not his official visit to the US. Again, Anwar Syed, the writer of this article, without enlightening his readers about the main point of Mr Zardari’s speech, in a very generalised manner passes this sweeping remarks: “This was a bad speech, unbecoming of a president and one that did nothing for his country”.
For me it was too early for Mr Syed to reach this judgment. As regards rhetorics, even a common man of a suburban area very well knew what the US was doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and for that matter India in Kashmir and Israel in Palestine.
Still we heard some tall but contradictory statements from the mouths of the leaders of these countries. Displaying Benazir Bhutto’s photograph was also understandable. Whatever position Mr Zardari enjoyed today, he has attained it because of that great lady. It is his greatness that he always acknowledges this fact.
Anwar Syed’s objection to Mr Zardari’s as president coming to the General Assembly was also now unnecessary. He should have raised this issue and advised earlier in his weekly writings prior to the General Assembly’s meeting if he considered it in national interest.
Mr Zardari, to me, has succeeded in convincing the world that Pakistan has paid and will continue to pay the heaviest price for war against terror and, as such, deserved maximum world support at this critical juncture.
As far as expenses are concerned, it is generally believed that Mr Zardari has been trying to minimise the size of his entourage and for this he has been travelling through normal flights instead of chartering special a plane. In fact, he has set an example for it.
Now with due respect to Ardeshir Cowasjee, he has let himself carried away by the smear campaign launched by vested interests against Mr Zardari. If his assessment of the English proficiency of Mr Zardari is correct and if it is alone a criterion, then a senior English professor or an educated Britisher will be most suitable for the post of the president of Pakistan.
My advice in the end to such worthy writers would be that they should try to ignore such weaknesses, especially when pointing out such juicy material that does not serve any purpose.
Last but not the least, a word of advice to Mr Zardari who now and then talks about changing the system.
He should first change the mentality of the people for which the whole educational system is required to be changed. People correctly educated and having national interest will never ridicule their own president.
K. MURAD BEY
Karachi
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