By playing up the security card and mixing sports with politics, India will face serious consequences on at least two major counts. It will lose hosting rights for the next edition of the World Cup which it is scheduled to hold alongside other cricketing nations in the region, including Pakistan. And it will lose substantial firepower within the ICC where it has been trying for long to challenge the old guard on the basis of the numerical strength of the Asian sides. By putting the Asian bloc in jeopardy, India will have to hand back every bit of ground that it had gained in the last few years. Unfortunately, its intransigence will ensure that there are no winners in the equation.

THE crisis that has gripped undergraduate medical education in the country is as serious as it is deep-rooted. A great number of doctors that the system has been churning out for the past many years are neither properly educated nor professionally trained.

The doctors are not to be blamed. It is the system that is responsible for their poor skills.

Short-sighted policymakers, greedy owners of private medical colleges and a group of professionals with vested interests are directly responsible for what passes as the country’s medical education and healthcare delivery system. Pressure from civil society organisations could have made a difference, but they generally don’t want to waste their energies on an unglamorous topic like the health of the poor masses.

Apparently for our politicians and military rulers, medical colleges are mere buildings and faculty and training facilities are minor issues. Successive governments have used medical education only as a tool of political bribery. They have opened new colleges in the private and public sectors and increased the number of seats in existing institutions without considering the stipulations of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC). In the last few years they have upgraded even worthless medical colleges to the status of medical universities.

The change of status in the PMDC in the wake of the 1971 debacle spelled disaster for the regulatory body. A secretary was appointed and he continued in office till Gen Pervez Musharraf grabbed power in late 1999. One of the better things that came out of the general’s tenure was the arrest of this individual on charges of serious and prolonged financial irregularities at the PMDC.

However, then came a federal health secretary who along with a health minister and a few others set about causing almost permanent damage to the cause of medical education in Pakistan by upgrading medical colleges to the status of universities.

The new PMDC secretary, meanwhile, had an embargo placed on the opening of any new medical college. With his boss, the then PMDC president Prof Zafar Hayat, and the help of Council members, he was partially successful in streamlining activity in medical colleges but the death of Prof Hayat once again turned the tide against his efforts. Because of the connivance of certain health department officials, the PMDC was made impotent and the secretary ultimately removed.

The main hurdle thus crossed, the managements of medical colleges had a field day, getting seats in their respective institutions increased even in the absence of the required faculty both in terms of quality and quantity. With a part-time faculty and without proper infrastructure, they soon became commercial centres producing doctors with limited skills.

And then came the final nail in the coffin when most of these facilities were upgraded to university status. The sole purpose behind the move was to gain financial benefits that became available after the Higher Education Commission (HEC) suddenly increased funding.

The only medical institution deserving of the status was a community-based facility in Karachi opened after a lengthy process of professional planning at each stage of execution. All that the private institutions learned from the example was that a new door had been opened for minting money. Instead of bringing them in line with requirements, they were awarded university status.

It started with Liaquat Medical College in Hyderabad and it was only a matter of time before Punjab had one. And if Hyderabad could have a medical university, how could Karachi be without one? So it was time to get Dow Medical College upgraded. Then came another question: if Sindh could have two universities, why couldn’t Punjab? Sure enough, the balance was restored with the elevation of the King Edward Medical College. And so the twisted logic continued, throwing up medical universities at the drop of a hat across the country.

The generals, politicians, faculty at medical colleges and HEC academicians did not create these universities to improve medical education; they joined hands to have more power, more funding and more fun.

The universities, however ill-equipped, will never be demoted to the status of colleges. What can still be done is to make them follow the relevant rules and regulations which would gradually streamline their operations.

There is an urgent need, for instance, to have a proper full-time faculty associated with each of these universities, both in the private and public sector. There is also the need to have a powerful, autonomous and competent medical and dental council to monitor activity in the realms of medical education and healthcare delivery.

Merit is an early casualty in the current scheme of things. There is a need to turn things around. The government should implement the recommendations of the Senate Standing Committee on Medical Education, and give autonomous status to the PMDC. Moreover, nothing can be achieved if the government does not strictly follow the policy of merit at all levels. A high-powered commission should be formed immediately to take a holistic view of the state of undergraduate medical education today. The findings of the committee will be enough to shock all.

SIR Elton John is well known for his quick temper and outrageous behaviour. A documentary of his life said it all — it was called, knowingly, Tantrums and Tiaras.

But a London high court judge ruled on Friday that the singer’s sense of humour failure over a satirical piece by a Guardian columnist was a tantrum too far. In a groundbreaking libel decision, the judge said that “irony” and “teasing” do not amount to defamation. The ruling offers protection to writers of satirical articles clearly not meant to be taken seriously and was welcomed by media lawyers and journalists.

The Guardian was awarded costs and the singer, who brought the action, was refused leave to appeal by Mr Justice Tugendhat. John’s legal team indicated that he might now seek leave to appeal.

John brought the action following the publication in Guardian weekend magazine, in July this year, of a spoof diary written by Marina Hyde. “A peek at the diary of Sir Elton John” recorded his fictional thoughts about his annual White Tie and Tiara ball, which raises millions of pounds for the Elton John Aids Foundation.

“Naturally, everyone could afford just to hand over the money if they gave that much of a toss about Aids research — as could the sponsors,” Hyde wrote, in the persona of the singer. “But we like to give guests a preposterously lavish evening because they’re the kind of people who wouldn’t turn up for anything less.”

Photos of the ball had been published by arrangement in OK! magazine under the heading: “The stars dazzle in Chopard as they join Sir Elton John and David Furnish for their annual extravaganza.”

The singer, represented by solicitors Carter Ruck and, in court, by William McCormick, claimed that the article suggested that John’s commitment to the charity is so insincere that he hosts the ball knowing that only a small proportion of the money raised will go to the charity, and that he uses the event “as an occasion for meeting celebrities and/or self-promotion”.

It was also suggested that Hyde acted maliciously, as she was aware that the sponsors covered the costs of the ball and all the money raised — between GBP6.6m and GBP10m — went to the charity. In Hyde’s “diary” she suggested that “once we’ve subtracted all these costs, the leftovers go to my foundation. I call this care-o-nomics.”

The Guardian, represented in court by Gavin Millar QC, denied John’s claims and argued that the article had to be taken in context. It was also argued that no reasonable reader would have believed that the words were meant to be taken at face value. The judge agreed. “The transparently false attribution is irony,” said Tugendhat, in a 17-page judgment. “Irony is a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used ... The attribution is literally false but no reasonable reader could be misled by it.” The judge added: “Irony is not always a form of sarcasm or ridicule.”

For the Guardian, Millar submitted that the words used were “obviously a form of teasing” and the judge accepted this. “The words complained of ... could not be understood by a reasonable reader of the Guardian weekend section as containing the serious allegation (that only a small proportion of the money raised went to charity).

“If that was the allegation being made, a reasonable reader would expect so serious an allegation to be made without humour, and explicitly, in a part of the newspaper devoted to news.”

The judge suggested that “if the Guardian were to expose a fraud of the kind that is alleged ... then such a reasonable reader could be sure that the exposure would be written without any attempt at humour”. He added: “It is common ground that the meaning of words, in law as in life, depends upon their context.”

— The Guardian, London