| October 20, 2008 | Monday | Shawwal 20, 1429 |
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Preserving national heritage
Two-day weekend
War on terror
Illegal flight of foreign currency
Buying radars
Contradictions between the lines
A question to Taliban
Daylight saving time
NIT clarifies
Please stop it
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
YOUR editorial ‘Global recession looms’ (Oct 11) was pertinent, specially your question at the end, ‘Does our government have what it takes?’
The PPP government has been in the saddle for a while now but has yet to show it can ride. The government had a great opportunity to make a spectacular start with some bold decisions and determined responses to the challenges the country faced on all fronts -- political, economic, judicial, law and order, terrorism and a whole lot of others.
It cannot be, or was it, that the PPP discovered the crisis confronting the country only after assuming power and knew nothing about the mess the country was in.
The one thing the country most needed was leadership.
Instead, all the new government offered was broken promises and pledges on the judicial crisis, and lamentations and whining on how every problem is the doing of the outgoing government, a chant that has not ended.
A more dreary and dismal beginning by an incoming government is hard to imagine. Far from instilling hope and confidence in the people, the incoming government dismayed and dispirited the people even more. And the disheartenment continues.
If the present charade at governance is gone on with, the PPP has everything to lose. That would be of no concern if it were not for the fact that the country’s future has become hinged with the PPP through an act of one brave chief justice who looked a dictator in the eye and said, no, and through a sad accident.
As the guest at a TV programme asked the anchor: ‘Can you name even six ministers from the huge cabinet?’ By the look on the anchor’s face it was clear the challenge was too much, and the anchor is a journalist. An average citizen probably can name no more than two or three, only those whose job is to waffle publicly on behalf of the government and are thus to be seen in the media.
There are no faces or names in the massive cabinet that are readily recognisable as belonging to those who are battling the country’s problems on a ‘war footing’. Are there any such faces and names in the cabinet? Only when the financial crisis has begun to drown the people has it occurred to the present lot of rulers that, maybe, they should have someone familiar with finance handling the finance ministry and, finding none in the army of elected ministers, opted for a former Citi banker with a striking micro finance track record, as adviser on finance., whether senior or special, escapes the mind.
The problem is clearly the calibre of the party’s, and coalition partners, elected ministers. Not one of these worthies who sit around the huge table at cabinet meetings inspire a measure of confidence, or add to the collective astuteness of this body of men, and women. Who presides over this band of elected ministers, and selected advisers of the senior and special variety, anyways? Is it the prime minister? The president?
In almost every other country afflicted by the current economic meltdown, institutions and the leadership have self-activated and one can see the massive efforts under way to contain the situation, except here, in Pakistan, where there are neither institutions, nor the leadership, to see the country through with minimal damage.
To answer your question: “Does our government have what it takes?” The answer sadly is, no it doesn’t.
S. KHALID HUSAIN
Karachi
(II)
THIS is apropos of Jason Pereira’s response (Oct 14)to Affan Rasheed Siddiqui’s letter, ‘Economic crisis’ (Oct 4).
There is merit in Mr Affan’s observation. If we go back to basic economics and pick any book we will see in the first few pages the description of what is called use and allocation of resources and then we see a famous graph called ‘guns and butter’ curve.
You have a choice of being at any point in the curve depending on your choice from amongst various ratios of the two. If part of the trillions of dollars’ worth of materials, food, logistics used in Iraq and elsewhere is channelled to more productive use, it would certainly have created more jobs in the US.
The media is not touching the point because it amounts to defeatism. Long before this financial crisis started we saw that the economic indictors in the US were not showing a healthy sign, especially in the area of job creation. The economy was showing signs of slowing down and all cannot be blamed on sub prime only.
Credit default swaps (CDS) are like insurance policies which some lenders buy to secure the loan/s given to some borrowers which they feel is risky.
There is nothing wrong with it. It is just like buying a life or health insurance policy. It is up to the seller of insurance how much premium he should charge. If the seller of CDS (AIG, for example) charges less because of a positive perception of the market, then the lenders will be inclined to lend aggressively and keep on buying CDS from the seller , AIG in our example.
By the way AIG did not collapse and was bailed out by the US with injection of $85bn. Because keeping AIG alive was necessary to keep the banks alive which had purchased CDS from AIG.
What Warren Buffet was referring to was the hedge funds, which created unprecedented levels of leverages, which should be controlled and regulated. It’s like creating artificial demand which creates volatility similar, if not identical, to margin trading, in essence.
For example, if some one has bought $100,000 worth of shares and has $2,000 in his margin account, then we are seeing $98,000 worth of ‘artificial’ demand created out of thin air. Multiply that buy million of players and what do you get? Speculation on speculation. It is time to put the house (the world) in order. Economics is all about allocating our scarce resources (supply) against our unending desire (demand).
MOHAMMAD ALAM
Kazakhstan
AS reported, ‘Historical building’s facelift plan hits snags’ (Oct 11), the bickering between the Sindh government and the federal department of archaeology and museums over preserving work of the ‘Tajjar building’, one of the most significant monuments of national heritage, is extremely awful.
If the federal department of archeology feels that national memorials have not been handled by provincial authorities properly, specially in the case of Kot Deji and Rani Kot, then what it has done to the historic building of Wazir Mansion leaves much to be desired.
Another edifice of national importance, the 8th century mosque built by Muhammad b. Qasim in Alore or Arore, 25km from Rohri town, is a shambles because of lack of interests shown by the archeology department.
The Alore (now a small village) was once a metropolis, capital of Sindh, situated on the bank of the River Indus. It was here that Muhammad b. Qasim defeated Raja Dahir, the ruler of Sindh, and thus began the Muslim rule in this part of the world.
The poor performance of the federal department of archaeology and museums was never rivalled as can be witnessed from numerous decaying sites of national significance spread all over the country. Thus considering the fast deterioration of valuable heritage, the Sindh provincial government created the department of antiquities to look after the archaeological, historical and physical heritage of the province. The department has three wings: heritage, conservation and archaeology.
Recently the Sindh government has also established an endowment fund amounting to Rs1bn, which will subsequently be raised to Rs3bn, for the preservation of the physical heritage of the province.
A 14-member management board, which includes educationists, archaeologists, bankers and public representatives, has been constituted to manage the fund and evaluate, pass and monitor the heritage conservation projects. The secretary of the Sindh antiquities department will act as the board’s secretary.
The antiquities department would prepare and submit conservation projects in the fields of investigation, documentation, research, physical conservation, post-excavation conservation of sites, museum/archive-based research related to physical heritage and trainings to the management board. Only the well-researched projects will be evaluated by the board for necessary funding.
It is time this subject was handed over to the provinces to deal with. However, keeping in view the fact that the objective of both the federal and the provincial departments is the same, i.e. ‘conserving national heritage’, the federal department of archeology may fund, as well assist, the provincial government with expertise available with it in carrying out proper protection and maintenance of the monuments.
It is, therefore, proposed that in the case of the Tajjar building the federal archaeology department should not create any impediment. It should rather come forward with funds and expertise and leave the overall conservation work to the department of antiquities and the committee having eminent people from various walks of life, established by the provincial government to preserve national assets of antiquity.
MANZOOR H. KURESHI
Karachi
IT is interesting to see our government tweaking a few small things to get more juice out of our electricity infrastructure, like day light savings and switching off billboards. One recent suggestion is making Saturday officially off, and close fuel stations on Friday.
May I ask why the two-day weekend cannot be Friday and Saturday, with Sunday through Thursday the official working week? Anyone would attest that Friday’s productivity is between 20 per cent and 80 per cent for organisations compared to other weekdays. Most companies have to resort to ‘special’ hours to longer prayer break. Employees are lethargic after a two-hour prayer and lunch break. We also have disconnect with middle-eastern markets. The HR also faces dilemma of special attire rules for Friday compared to rest of the week.
Why not a Friday-Saturday weekend? Sounds like it takes care of primary objective of saving power consumption while increasing the productivity for the fifth working day.
FARZAL ALI MUHAMMAD
Karachi
(II)
I WOULD like to mention that despite a crippling energy situation in the country, where millions of people are getting sick and tired due to perpetual ‘loadshedding’ the authorities concerned seem incapable of addressing the real issue.
I strongly believe that by immediately introducing the two weekly holidays, huge loads of electricity can be saved. This goes for banks, industry( both large and small) transport and so on.
The original plan, which was floated in Dawn, was very practical. Fridays should be declared ‘no petrol’ days and Saturdays be given off.
I would like to add, for general information, that a single branch of a medium-sized bank uses, on average, eight to 10 airconditioners and about 40 to 50 light-bulbs from 9am to 6pm. We are talking about only one branch.
So all those at the helm of decision-making should wake up to the reality and introduce two weekly off-days. Most sociologists tend to agree that like in the West the production ratio should increase with adequately adjusted working hours.
M. IBRAHIM
Peshawar
I HAPPEN to have lived through World War II, the Korean war, the Vietnam war and the two successive asymmetrical wars in Afghanistan, among others, on the globe. Where wars of insurgency are concerned, the consistently noticeable point has been that casualties of insurgents were reported with nauseating repetition by their conventional opponents, while loss of territory to insurgents remained unreported.
Towards the end of the Vietnam war, for instance, an American wag who had been collecting Vietcong casualty figures, as reported by the US Army, found that the total exceeded the North Vietnamese population. Despite the reported heavy losses of fighting men the Vietcong defeated an American Army that numbered 640,000 towards the close of the war.
Now, we read and hear of mounting Taliban casualties in Afghanistan, when we also learn — quite authoritatively I might add — that Taliban have been gaining such strategic ground in Afghanistan that even the Nato top military brass are giving every appearance of facing defeat.
We also hear that Pakistani Taliban have lost important commanders in the battlefields and are suffering great attrition of men. If that is held true, then how come they have greatly expanded their control of territory in the NWFP, and made fugitives of politicians that have not only been well entrenched for generations but are indeed in control of the provincial government?
Is it not time that we judged the anti-insurgent war’s progress in the context of territorial gain or loss? What we reliably know, of course, is that the spectre of deep public disturbance and insecurity has continued its progress from Waziristan to the whole of the NWFP, and now haunts Islamabad and even southern Punjab.
SULTAN AHMED GEELANI
Karachi
APROPOS of a news report in Dawn (Sept 27), an estimated amount of $150 million a month is being illegally transferred out of the country right under the nose of the State Bank of Pakistan. What an irony bigger than this can be for a country like ours which has now gone on its knees, and whose foreign reserves have crashed to $8bn from $16bn within a period of six to seven months?
In view of the law and order situation deteriorating day by day, foreign investment is a far cry and whatever is left is being mercilessly and illegally transferred out of the country.
Those involved in this illegal business cannot be a common man. He has his eyes on the second meal for his family. I remember when we had carried out nuclear tests in 1998, the western countries had imposed sanctions against our country.
The government in power then (Nawaz Sharif) decided to freeze all foreign currency accounts in the banks. The day the freeze was to become effective, an amount of $800 million was transferred overnight to foreign banks!
Who were the people involved with this transfer is anybody’s guess but for sure not a common man. Such is the impact of pain for the country. Hopefully someone highup may have read this news and will try to stop removing the oxygen mask from the ailing economy of this poor country.
HAJI ASHFAQ
Muscat
ACCORDING to a report(Sept 29), the US will sell sophisticated radar system and Cobra helicopters to us. But why should we buy these? We have never fired a bullet on intruder planes.
If this is the condition of our defense line, the radar and Cobra helicopters are of no use. It is better to spend the money on social development.
BASHIR HUSSAIN AZA
Shahi Bazar, Chitral.
CAPT. S. Afaq Rizvi’s letter, ‘Contradictions between the lines’, displays exaggeration, cynicism and distortion of truth (Oct 10). On the one hand, he says that the deposed CJP Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry is “Nawaz Sharif’s candidate for reinstatement as the chief justice of the Supreme Court...” and, on the other, that he “loved his job and flourished on it for many, many years under the dictator (Musharraf).”
Everybody has seen that the People’s Party and lawyers’ leader Aitzaz Ahsan, countless other lawyers, judges, civil society members, students, media persons and political workers, regardless of their political, ethnic or sectarian loyalties, have owned Justice Chaudhry, not just Nawaz Sharif. It is highly cynical to make Mr Sharif or his party seem the only backers of the erstwhile CJP, although their role has been undeniably important.
Similarly, the time period of six years, which the writer has specified elsewhere in the letter as the duration Mr Chaudhry ‘served the dictator’, would normally be referred to as ‘several years’ or ‘many years’, but, calling it ‘many, many years’ is undoubtedly an exaggeration, showing the writer’s intention to defame the honourable judge by any means.
The writer also says that “had (the CJP) not been asked to resign on March 9, 2007, he would have continued as before. There would have been no crisis.” And, “Let’s not pretend that life began on March 9, 2007.”
This is a distortion of truth. It is well-known that much before his ouster, Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry had taken a number of steps and given a number of judgments, which alarmed Mr Musharraf that his impending move to get re elected as the president could be thwarted by the righteous judge.
Some of these included the reversal of the privatisation of Pakistan Steel and measures to get the ‘disappeared’ people brought to court for a fair trial and fulfilment of the due process of law. In this connection, the top judge’s summoning of the intelligence agencies’ bosses and other senior government officials, along with the many suo motu notices on various issues, clearing of thousands of pending cases, etc., may be recalled.
Thus, it is a travesty of truth to say “life began on March 9” of last year, because the CJP had apparently found it possible to start acting according to his conscience and the requirements of real justice much before that. But, the writer has shown intellectual untruthfulness by shoving this truth under the rag, which we all remember. He has also said nothing about the glaring faults of Mr Musharraf.
The correspondent says in the end: “Promises made or broken in London, Dubai, Bhurban or anywhere else are irrelevant.” This shows his lack of respect for established principles and is very unfortunate. A man who breaks his promises loses the trust of the people, which is disastrous for the leader making the vow and, more so, for the nation. A very revealing quotation goes, “A mind conscious of integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform,” but Capt. Rizvi apparently wouldn’t buy this.
ASIF QURESHI
Karachi
IN the light of the letter, ‘Chinese engineers’, by K. Naqshbandi (Oct 13), with which I heartily agree, I have a query for Taliban, who have also kidnapped a Polish citizen working in Pakistan.
If somebody kills my child, would I be justified in killing his child, in revenge? Worse still, could I slay a guest of his from a distant land? I know Islam does not allow this at all. Instead, I would have to got to a ‘qazi’ (judge) and rely on his judgment. Perhaps, he may sentence the killer to death, or even let me kill him with my own hands, as is probably done in Saudi Arabia.
However, punishing that man’s child or guest may be tribal justice, as is being done by Taliban, but it certainly isn’t Islamic justice. By tormenting or killing innocent people, Taliban (or Al Qaeda) aren’t working for the glory of Islam but only defaming it.
A. HAFEEZ
Karachi
WE will revert to the standard time in about two weeks. As an staunch supporter of daylight saving time, I would very much like it to be adopted on a permanent basis. All should agree that as a poor country we must encourage every effort of the government regardless of the amount of savings it generates.
However, if the government is inclined to give in to the critics, I would suggest that the clocks should be rolled back by half hour only and this be made the Pakistan Standard Time (GMT +5.50 hours). This will help us save 50 per cent daylight saving time all year round and also save some the ‘inconvenience’ of adjusting to the new time every six months.
ARIF KHAN
Karachi
APROPOS of Jamshid Kalam’s letter, ‘Let them default’ (Oct 14), we would like to make a few observations.
Mr Kalam mentioned: “Why does the government insist on getting poor old NIT to pump liquidity into the market?”
It looks like that the writer suggests that existing investors funds are being put at risk for the benefits of possible defaulters, which is not the case.
In fact, the funds of NIT are contributed by investors who have full confidence in the management of the NIT. The management of NIT does not utilise its funds for such purpose.
The NIT management takes its own decisions according to the need of the hour, so that maximum benefits from its investment may be derived for its investors. The financial results of the funds managed by NIT for the past years fully reflects that funds are being managed prudently.
We would also like to clarify that EMOF is a separate fund and similarly any new fund would be established as a separate entity so that the funds of ordinary NIT investors are not utilised for this purpose.
If the market improves due to the additional investment of the new funds, their benefit of such improvement would be accrued for the account of NIT’s general investors, whose funds are not being utilised for the present purpose under discussion.
NIT Management
Karachi
I WAS appalled to watch a video story on a local TV channel on Oct 14 at 5.57pm. The video showed that a heroine was kidnapped by some people, and the hero set out to liberate her after equipping himself with heavy firearms.
His style and demeanour were that of a killing and vengeful maniac. The rest of the story, supported by computer graphics, involved merciless killings and destruction of property.
I am not in favour of or against the story. But it is really disappointing to find these wayward immature TV channels making firing and killing spree a source of entertainment while at the same time they unleash their vent and harangue against rising use of arms and militancy.
Should our media deliver such things in the name of entertainment? Please don’t deprive us of a few minutes of relaxation before our TV sets while our surroundings are rife with terror and uncertainty. Please stop it.
RAIHAN A.K. LODHI
Karachi
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