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| November 26, 2008 | Wednesday | Ziqa'ad 27, 1429 |
Tackling the root causes
Defining plagiarism
OTHER VOICES - European Press
Should interest rates be raised?
Acidity threat to oceans
TO say that these are not normal times would be an understatement. The world has turned topsy-turvy in just a matter of months. To address this turmoil and with recession beginning to bite governments, states have launched policies that run contrary to conventional norms and standard prescriptions of fiscal prudence.
THE world’s oceans are becoming acidic more quickly than climate change models predict, according to scientists who claim it will have a dramatic impact on marine ecosystems.
WITH an elected dispensation in place, it is a legitimate assumption that the nation’s march towards a truly civilian and civilised existence has begun in earnest notwithstanding the various reservations the public has in this regard. The statement by the federal information minister in Islamabad the other day that the government would soon be presenting the Freedom of Information Bill in parliament, as such, is a significant step. The government at present is trying to incorporate the views of stakeholders to fine-tune the draft to make it sustainable in the long run. This, again, is the right approach to an issue that has complex dimensions. There is, however, a serious issue with the government’s definition of ‘stakeholders’, which, if not modified, will render the whole activity as impractical as was the case with the Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002. Though in its last stage, the draft has not been shared with representative media bodies or civil society organisations which would be the two main entities exercising their right to know on behalf of the general public.
For Islamabad, it seems provincial administrations alone have a stake in the matter. It does not take much to imagine how much procedural facilitation would be recommended by the bureaucrats. Moreover, at times the procedures are in place but that does not ensure that obtaining information will be a smooth and prompt process. Based on the preferences of those in authority, the 2002 Ordinance had allowed mere four categories of documents that could be accessed. There were as many as 19 exemptions. The language of these exemptions was so structured that even the available categories could never be accessed. The government is certainly in need of learning from that experience.
Interestingly, the statutory Public Document Rules 2004 make it mandatory on all government establishments, including the Ministry of Defence, to put on their respective websites all their decisions, minutes of all meetings, tender requisitions, evaluations and agreements. These, after all, are public documents because they deal with the masses and manage taxpayers’ money. There has been no movement in that direction either. More than the proposed Bill, the government will perhaps be better off implementing the existing regulations while taking actual stakeholders on board to smooth away the rough edges on the way. Though linked directly with media freedom, the right to know goes much beyond. By encouraging access to information, the government will, in fact, be instilling the missing sense of empowerment in the masses. By bringing in direct accountability and transparency in its affairs, it will be encouraging informed debate which, in turn, will bring down the alarmingly heightened sense of alienation and hopelessness and put an end to speculation and rumour mongering that characterise our society today. If the government is sincere enough, there will be no losers in the equation. Sincerity is the key and the onus is on the government.
OUR less than eloquent prime minister hit the nail on the head on Monday when he said that militancy and terrorism cannot be eliminated without tackling root causes. Irrespective of whether he was coached into the utterance or otherwise, a truer word was never spoken. At the core of the issue is injustice in all its myriad manifestations, be it the glaring economic disparities that should make us hang our heads in shame or how the law favours the privileged and oppresses the poor. If you are poor in this country, access to justice will remain a dream that will most likely never be attained. If you are rich, you can get away with murder, many times over. The resentment caused by such disparity is what nudges many a disillusioned youth towards extremism; religious indoctrination comes later. Young men who have no prospects despite working hard every day do not look kindly on the rich who roar past them in their SUVs as they wait for a bus. Anonymity and powerlessness come into it. A mechanic’s apprentice is what he is, come what may. The moment he joins a militant organisation, though, he becomes a force to be reckoned with. He becomes magically empowered, finally he has an identity. In short, this entire poverty-ridden, education-deprived country is a fertile recruiting ground for those bent on violence. A fleeting sense of power, glory and the promise of a life in a glorious hereafter is all it takes to transform the underemployed into suicide bombers. Justice comes in many forms — economic, social or political. On each and every one of these counts we fail miserably.
In some ways the problem is not limited to Pakistan. The entire international community is to blame for allowing decades-old wounds to fester to the point where peace becomes untenable. Many western countries are guilty of turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by Israel against the people of Palestine. Similarly, the plight of the Kashmiris goes unnoticed in quarters that do not wish to irk an India that now has immense trading potential. Such brazen injustice only adds fuel to the fire of extremism. Back on the home front, it can be asked whether some aspects of the fight against militancy can be ethically justified. Justice, clearly, is not served when US drones or Pakistani forces kill innocent civilians. This country needs to question itself, not just outsiders.
AT a recent workshop on plagiarism in Karachi, it was observed that the emphasis should be on creating awareness about the consequences of this unacceptable academic practice rather than going after those who indulge in it. While creating such awareness is no doubt necessary — and we would argue that accosting those who plagiarise is equally important — the concept must be first made clearer for the public. Many do not realise that reproducing other’s text and ideas as one’s own work when it is not constitutes plagiarism. A person with reasonably good command over the language being used would find it easier to get away with such a dubious act than one whose written skills are below standard and who then resorts to copying a piece of text as it is. A consensus on the definition of plagiarism is then necessary to formulate rules that would inhibit such a practice and make students conscious of the need to cite references and attribute ideas, especially in an age when the Internet has made copying infinitely easier than before. Teachers also need education in this regard. It is no secret that there are many in their profession — as there are in journalism — who have no qualms about passing off someone else’s hard work as the product of their own labour. Those who show signs of academic dishonesty at a teaching or research position should be sternly dealt with, for if they are not those under them will not develop acceptable work ethics.
The detection of plagiarism is not always easy but computer software is now available to make this task easier and the use of this should be compulsory at least in institutions of higher learning. Taking their cue from universities in the West, such institutions should also prepare plagiarism manuals defining this malpractice and its implications so that the seriousness of reproducing work without proper attributions is underscored. Plagiarism is a serious issue and the sooner that steps are taken to curb it the greater the chances for evolving a sense of intellectual honesty among the people.
The country needs honesty
The Telegraph
GORDON Brown, the prime minister, made an important admission last week. He accepted that what used to be his proudest boast — that he had “abolished boom and bust” — was bogus. The growing list of companies going broke, coming after the government’s decision to bail out several of Britain’s biggest banks, made it impossible for Mr Brown to pretend otherwise. “Of course politicians make mistakes,” he said last Friday, showing as much contrition as he is capable of. “I’ve got to be honest that we’ve made mistakes….”
We hope that in his pre-budget report, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, will at last be honest … both about the gravity of the economic crisis … and about the limits on what the government can do to get Britain out of it. The truth, which the prime minister has in the past been reluctant to admit, is that this crisis is of an entirely different order to any that the country, indeed the world, has ever had to face. No one has much idea of what will happen in the next 12 months, nor of what to do to stop lasting recession….
Given that context, we support the government’s plan to attempt to stimulate the economy by cutting taxes.… The most likely candidate for reduction in the pre-budget report is Value Added Tax (VAT): authoritative sources say that the chancellor will announce a cut in the rate of VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent — the lowest rate that the rules governing members of the EU will allow…. The chancellor is expected to introduce other fiscal measures, including making permanent the financial help given to those who lost out when the 10p tax rate was abolished…. The combined effect is likely to push government borrowing to £120bn, or nearly nine per cent of Britain’s gross domestic product…. His first priority at present cannot be to restore our economy to health: it must be to prevent the economic crisis from fatally wounding it. The government has broken many of its promises in the past. We hope that it still has enough credibility to be believed…. — (Nov 23)
Despite the already large budget and external trade deficits and high snapshot rates of inflation, interest rates are being cut further (even when there is little left to cut) and government spending is being increased to stimulate the economy.
With such developments in the rest of the world, sharply declining international prices of commodities and faltering demand for goods and services, two recent decisions of the Pakistan government to rein in demand have evoked a strong reaction from business circles. These moves pertain to the raising of the discount rate by 200 basis points and the harsh upward revision of the electricity tariff by an average of 35 per cent (temporarily postponed).
Businessmen complain that these measures will impinge on industrial competitiveness at a time when international demand is plunging and they are also facing severely curtailed domestic demand. They fear that by adopting a strategy running counter to what the rest of the world is doing, the government could damage the manufacturing and financial sectors irreversibly as firms close down and credit defaults soar.
If we view matters dynamically (the speed with which the landscape is changing makes even a week seem like an eternity) the impending increase in the electricity tariff will be tricky to defend and even tougher to sell politically. With the price of oil having slumped from $147 per barrel in July to under $45 when the anticipated revision in electricity prices assumes an oil price of $108, the increase is ostensibly to cover Wapda deficits accumulated when oil prices were high. Consumers, industry and agriculture are to be penalised for past government failure to adjust prices in a timely fashion.
There is no denying that there is a huge hole that the government wants to fill but this could be difficult for the manufacturing sector precisely when there is an international recession, demand is contracting and costs critical for maintaining competitiveness and exports are rising. The rise in the cost of utilities and credit and in recent days the upward movement in the value of the rupee is bound to affect exports significantly.
The decision of the State Bank to raise the discount rate by two percentage points (with an increase of an additional 150 basis points programmed for January/February under the agreement with the IMF) is supposedly to restrain private demand (although that may not happen if banks decide to reduce their spreads) thereby also tapering the trade deficit, reducing the pressure on the rupee and easing the inflationary stress in the economy.
It has been argued before in these columns that our massive current account deficit and high domestic inflation has not been entirely on account of the rapid increase in commodity prices (especially oil). The blame for much of our misery can be laid at the government’s door (especially the previous regime). Loose monetary policy, populist reckless government spending, liberal inflows from external sources (thanks to 9/11) and massive volumes of liquidity in international financial markets kept the rupee overvalued and allowed aggregate demand to grow faster than the domestic production. This resulted in domestic inflation and rapidly widening trade deficits.
Since these imbalances were not corrected on a timely basis the chickens have come home to roost and we are now implementing an IMF programme, which surprisingly is less onerous than certainly this writer had envisaged.
This writer would propose a different approach to constrain aggregate demand — which has been the villain of the piece — than jacking up interest rates. The inflationary impact of more than Rs1tr borrowed by the government from the State Bank has already been set into motion and can only be corrected over the next 12 months or so.
Moreover, while accepting that in real terms interest rates are presently negative they are only so in the static sense because inflation is expected to fall with the dramatic decline in commodity prices.
To curb demand government expenditures need to be slashed by setting the budget deficit target at less than four per cent of GDP instead of the 4.3 per cent agreed with the IMF.
This would have to be achieved by cutting development and non-development (especially defence expenditures) drastically, since it would be a daunting endeavour to mobilise large amounts of additional revenues from a beleaguered industry over the next 12-18 months — it would be a folly to look at tax receipts during the first four months as representing a trend for the remainder of this and the entire next year.
Next, to contract private demand the preferred strategy should be to impose regulatory/excise duties and LC margins on finished goods as temporary administrative measures (these being bad policies to be pursued only in the short term) and allow the rupee to depreciate (being mindful of its inflationary impact).
Finally, we should be examining events dynamically with things changing at lightning pace. The trade deficit should narrow quickly (unless exports collapse) with import prices of commodities plummeting and a depreciated rupee and regulatory duties depressing demand, all helping to decelerate inflation speedily.
Therefore, in this writer’s opinion the decision to raise interest rates could turn out to be premature. It has not only created panic in credit markets but it is also likely to be unnecessarily painful (and perhaps even more costly politically) as the economic outlook darkens, business investment plans are shelved, industries begin to close and job opportunities shrink.
Water samples collected around an island in the eastern Pacific over the past eight years showed seawater had acidified more than 20 times faster than scientists expected.
The effect could be devastating for shellfish and other crustaceans, because acidic waters dissolve calcium carbonate used by the organisms to make their protective shells.
Oceans absorb about a third of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activities. When the gas dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid, which alters the ocean’s delicate chemical balance.
The increasing acidification of the oceans is likely to have impacts that run throughout the marine ecosystem, because the organisms most affected are at the bottom of the food chain.
Timothy Wootton, a biologist at the University of Chicago, led a team of researchers who analysed the acidity, salinity and temperature of water around Tatoosh Island off the north-western coast of Washington state.
Over eight years, the pH level of the water fell by 0.36 to about 8.1, more than 23 times more than the predicted fall of just 0.015 points. Water is neutral if its pH is seven, and becomes more acidic as the pH falls below that.
Writing in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists raise concerns at how rapidly the process is happening and the impact it could have. “Acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously predicted, at least in some areas of the ocean,” the authors write.
According to computer models of the local marine life, the rise in acidity is likely to cause substantial falls in the numbers of mussels and large goose barnacles, while algae and populations of smaller barnacles may increase.
In turn, the changing distribution of these organisms will have effects on marine life that feed on them.
Last month, researchers warned that a new global deal on climate change would come too late to save many of the world’s corals. A report from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California found that carbon dioxide emissions are likely to acidify seawater enough to cause widespread damage to major reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Even stringent cuts designed to stabilise greenhouse gas levels still put more than 90% of the world’s reefs in jeopardy.
— The Guardian, London
