Remittances to Pakistan

THERE has been considerable discussion in the Pakistani media about foreign exchange reserves and the government effort to make the remittance easier for the Pakistanis abroad.

Shaukat Aziz, former finance minister and now the adviser to the prime minister on financial affairs, claims that Pakistan has simplified the process of remittance from abroad, using Western Union. I totally disagree with this claim.

If you check the Western Union’s Canada website, you will come to know that you can send 500 Canadian dollars only at a time, with a $54 service charge. It is the maximum you can send in 30 days.

So, to send $500 you have to pay over 10 per cent of the amount as service charge which is too high. If you compare it with other sources of remittance such as Hundi, you get better rates and do not pay a single penny as service charge. Hundi agents even deliver the amount to the recipient at home.

I wonder why the government does not use its own banks abroad to offer this facility to the Pakistani expatriates. For example, if Pakistan’s banks start providing the service at no charge (or a minimum charge of say five per cent) in Toronto, nobody is going to use the Hundi system which is somewhat a risky business.

I can see that Pakistanis in Canada can easily send $100-200 millions per month, and as the service improves, the figure may go up. India has opened in Toronto State Bank of India branches, which are providing this service to Indians nationals. Why can’t Pakistan do the same?

Secondly, Shaukat Aziz says that he has instructed the officials concerned to focus on remittance from the Middle East. I would like to ask him as to why he cannot pay attention to the Pakistanis living in North America who are as patriotic as any other Pakistani living in the Middle East, and who have been contributing to the stability of Pakistan.

SAIYED RIZVI

Ontario, Canada

All this and MMA too

THIS is with reference to the letters by Khurrum Saleem (Jan 24) and Dr M. Shahab Athar (Jan 25), finding faults with A. B. S. Jafri’s article titled ‘All this and MMA too’ (Jan 19).

Firstly, whether the MMA’s uncharacteristic success in Election 2002 owes much to the machinations of the ISI or the CIA is a matter on which Mr Saleem’s definitive opinion may be premature. The truth about such criminal acts surfaces much later when major actors are either dead or are in disgrace. But the fact that the results of over 80 per cent NWFP Assembly seats were available before midnight on the election day quite justifiably worries Mr Jafri and others.

As for the hardship being faced by the Afghans, surely everyone, with or without meeting them, must feel sorry about it. But they were forced to migrate to neighbouring countries because of the civil war whose impact was magnified manifold after the Taliban fought their way to power in Kabul to facilitate a US plan to lay a pipeline for transporting the Central Asian oil and gas to Karachi seaport.

The US resorted to carpetbombing of Kabul after the Taliban disagreed with it over sharing royalty from the pipeline. The innocent NWFP people, who support the MMA, have been Taliban’s overt love for Islam; they don’t know how much they love money.

Dr Athar believes that if, in the past, illiterate people could become ministers, the maulvis, too, can do so now. Undeniably, the argument is logical. Assuming that he is telling the truth about most ministers who graced this country’s governments in the past, he wants the mullahs to administer the country because they “know” about the Islamic way of life and jihad — the most misunderstood of all terms.

The model he has in mind is obviously the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Some like Mr Jafri who know how the Taliban managed that country may differ with Dr Athar, and for very good reasons.

Aren’t we all, specially the Afghans, paying the price for the Taliban rule? Was it even remotely sensible to challenge the might of the US, the most powerful devil of our times, with mere AK-47s — and, in

the process, self-destruct a Muslim country and the Muslims of Afghanistan? Should we also hand over this country, which was created after millions paid with their blood for its creation, to the likes of the Taliban?

SALMAN ALI

Karachi

Tax on profit rates on NSS

THE government has introduced a special savings scheme for the benefit of pensioners. Under this scheme, they will earn profit at the rate of Rs11.04 per annum to be paid on monthly basis. This comes to Rs920 per month on an investment of Rs100,000.

The government has also exempted from tax the profit on an investment of Rs150,000. In case an investment is more than Rs150,000, the profit shall be subjected to tax at the rate of 10 per cent. This limit is also available to a common investor in the national savings schemes. The limit was Rs300,000 during the year 2001-2002, which has been reduced to Rs150,000 in the current year.

In the case of pensioners the limit of investment should be increased at least upto Rs500,000, with the objective of providing some relief to them. The government may lose a little on this account but is sure to win the confidence of pensioners.

The national savings centres are not opening the PBA of PTCL and PIA pensioners on the plea that they have no list of the departments whose pensioners are entitled to open this account. The ministry of finance may provide to the centres a list of the departments whose pensioners may open savings accounts.

The government may also extend this scheme to post offices and banks as it is the case in other savings schemes, so that the pensioners who are getting pensions from post offices or banks may open accounts with the same bank or the post office. This will be an additional facility for pensioners.

ABDUR REHMAN

Karachi

Child Nutrition Ordinance

THE president has promulgated the Protection of Breast-feeding and Child Nutrition Ordinance 2002 according to which no person shall promote any infant formula or other products, including bottle-fed complementary foods, as a replacement for breast milk.

This is a positive step as it will protect the health of a large number of neglected children in the country.

According to the ordinance, no promotional message regarding such products will be carried by any form of media, and no manufacturer or distributor shall donate free of charge such products or offer gifts to a health worker or his family or anybody employed in a health facility.

The newly-elected governments in all the four provinces should ensure the removal of such food stuff which are still being sold in the open market despite the ban. Child’s health should be given top priority by the parents as healthy children will emerge as a healthy nation.

SYED A. MATEEN

Karachi

Resolution on Iraq crisis

THE following resolution was unanimously passed at a special meeting of the District Bar Association, Bahawalpur, held on 15 Jan, with Pir Iftikhar Ali Chishti (advocate), the president of the association, in the chair:

“The District Bar Association Bahawalnagar solemnly appeals to President Khatami of Iran, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Dr Mahatir Mohammad, prime minister of Malaysia, to please jointly sponsor a summit meeting of the OIC to consider the prevailing anti-Islamic scenario and to chalk out a strategy to meet this most dangerous situation.”

PRESIDENT District Bar Association,

Bahawalnagar

One step forward, 10 backwards

THE government takes one step forward and 10 steps backwards for the elimination of indecency. On Jan 28, the federal minister for information technology instructed the PTCL to block sites displaying obscene material.

Lately, there has been rampant projection of indecent movies and songs. Former minister Dr Atta ur-Rehman announced the advent of a revolution in information technology, but instead there was a surge of internet clubs, one at almost every street corner, which became centres for polluting the minds of our youth.

The government was fully aware of the damage it was causing to the younger generation, but criminally ignored it. And only when the indecency took root in society, did the government make a half-hearted move to stop it.

Yet nothing is being done to stop the rampant indecency in cinema houses and posters featuring semi-clad women.

The government allows the evil to become widespread and then it takes ineffective but well-publicized steps for its elimination.

DR IFTEKHAR AHMAD

Lahore

Razing hope for peace

NOTHING I have read recently about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians touched me so deeply as the razing of about 60 shops in the village of Nazlat Isa. The shooting of civilians, the bulldozing of homes, the reports of torture, the scores of morally filthy assassinations, the improper arrests — the whole vast, organized mechanism of apartheid cruelty is abominable.

But the deliberate bulldozing of a thriving little street of shops just seems uncivilized and bleak beyond measure. Shop owners in the little village were driven out by Israeli soldiers with gas grenades; their stores and possessions were smashed by bulldozers. Israel’s excuse for this atrocious behaviour is that the shop owners had not obtained the necessary building permits from Israeli authorities.

The problem in the West Bank reflects something more deliberate and ugly. It is Israel’s refusal to treat the Palestinians as human beings. What in many places is a normal, everyday activity — the issuance of building permits — becomes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank a quiet mechanism for denying people their livelihood, dignity and even health. It is a slow motion ethnic cleansing carried out by the bureaucracy. But where would more than three million people go? Which poor, crowded, and troubled country of the Middle East could take them?

If America is not willing to see a proper Palestinian state established, and it is not willing to insist that Israel absorb the Palestinians as citizens, then it has a moral obligation to do something else.

America could grant all Palestinians the right of residence in the United States. The United States has granted this right before, in the case of Cuba, and it has done so for decades.

A Cuban was entitled to an automatic visa. But this policy reflected America’s bitter,
self-righteous hatred of Fidel Castro rather than any sense of obligation about justice or compassion.

RAHIM PANJWANI

Karachi

Significance of marriage

I FOUND Khwaja Sayeed Shahabuddin’s piece entitled ‘Significance of marriage’ (Jan 31) very interesting and relevant to the political situation in Pakistan.

He has justified the dominance of the male partner in a marriage by comparing it to some sinister, indispensable and undefined “final authority” in a state.

It is worth mentioning that it is the duty of a truly democratic state to encourage free and independent thoughts rather than blind subservience, and that it actually settles all issues through debate and consensus in a representative parliament. If one parliament disappoints, there is always the option of electing another.

But in Pakistan the road to true democracy is yet to be paved and the nexus of authority continues to be substantively held by undemocratic persons and institutions. As a result, the Pakistani people, women in particular, continue to suffer the tyranny of a “final authority” in both the public and private domains.

SHIBIL SIDDIQI

Toronto, Canada

North Korea’s N-programme

THIS refers to Anwar Iqbal’s piece, ‘Pakistan’s N-programme again under attack’ (Jan 22). Mr Iqbal has quoted from the New Yorker and Seymour Hersh’s article it had published.

I would like to put forward two seemingly unrelated points at the onset and will bring them into the main as we discuss North Korea’s nuclear programme.

First, it should be noted that North Korea was suspected of having a uranium enrichment project as early as 1993. (Refer Albright, Berkhout and Walker — World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly enriched Uranium 1992 — P.173, SIPRI). Second, All Light Water nuclear reactors, be they boiling water or pressurized water reactors, use enriched uranium. Uranium is enriched to contain its fissile isotope U235 to around 1500 parts in a million parts or about three per cent enriched uranium for use in these reactors.

It was agreed in October 1994 between North Korea, KEDO (The Korean Peninsula Energy development Organization) and the US to resolve the nuclear issue in the Korean peninsula. Now, if the DPRK had no enrichment technology at that time, how could it have enriched the uranium? This was why the DPRK was being restrained from carrying out its own enrichment by supplying it with its need for reactor fuels.

It also shows that blaming Pakistan is a ploy. Now why the ploy is used can be easily seen by referring to a study (No.190 March 2002) put out by the Strategic Forum of the Institute of National Strategic Studies, National Defence University, US. This study shows very clearly that the original target date for the completion of the Light Water reactor project around 2003-2004 will not be met and is likely to slip to the end of the decade.

The rest has been discussed in depth at different places and the aspect of the case outlined above should put an end to any allegations of Pakistan’s involvement in the North Korean enrichment programme.

FAZAL HABIB CURMALLY

Karachi

Quaid’s birthplace

SOME writes are of the view that the Quaid-i-Azam was born in Karachi and some others maintain that his birthplace is Jhirk in the Thatta district. The former are trying to sugarcoat history by claiming that his birthplace is Karachi.

If we recognize Jhirk as the birthplace of the Quaid-i-Azam, what is wrong about it? Is it correct that only cosmopolitan cities are birthplaces of great leaders? Most great leaders of the world were born in small villages. The great mughal king, Akbar, was one of them. He was born at Joghrai near the Umerkot town of Sindh during Humayu’s stay in the province.

Thus, there is no harm in recognizing Jhirk as the birthplace of the Quaid-i-Azam.

I would like to suggest that this controversy should be resolved by conducting an across-the-board-inquiry into the matter to ascertain the fact once and for all.

NOOR AHMED JANJHI

Mithi

THIS is with reference to the letters by M. U. Chand (Jan 3), M. Shafique Ahmad (Jan 24) and some others.

It can be said with certainty that it is futile to raise a controversy about the birthplace of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

The Father of the Nation in his speech delivered at a dinner hosted by Ghulam Hussain Hikayatullah at the Karachi Club on Aug 9, 1947, categorically and proudly declared, “Yes, I am Karachi-born and it was on the sands of Karachi that I played marbles in my boyhood. I was schooled at Karachi.”

N. M. Shaikh

Karachi

Lack of traffic signals

I WANT to draw attention of the authorities concerned to lack of traffic signals and out of order traffic lights in Rawalpindi.

Traffic lights have not been placed at most intersections in the city, and at some intersections traffic lights are not working, thus causing great hardship to motorists and endangering their lives. But who cares?

The so-called local bodies are busy in pleasing the high-ups to continue their tenures, while the MNAs and the MPAs from the city do not want to get involved in such ‘petty’ issues as that of traffic signals.

Traffic police officials should take notice of this matter and depute traffic controllers at all intersections until traffic lights are placed there and the out of order traffic lights are repaired.

MOHAMMAD KHALID

Rawalpindi

Impression makes the difference

I AM a project engineer working in Canada for a $20 billion US-based multinational company.

About a month back I attended a presentation at our corporate office in Detroit. The presentation was made by one of the company‘s directors who is in charge of ventures in the emerging market.

I was stunned by one of the slides the director showed to the participants. This slide was on the world economic powers. The director gave the impression that India was the fourth largest economic power in the world, and the company should concentrate both on China and on India as they are the biggest emerging markets.

The other day I was watching a popular show of US television “60 Minutes”. This show was on technical professionals from India. The whole programme was constructed to tell the viewers that the Indian Institute of Technology and Indian engineers are the best in the world.

The Indians got the lion’s share of student visas, according to the statistics released by the INS — Indians (66,000+) are the largest group and surpassed China (63,000+) for the first time in the student category (they already surpassed China few years back in the H1B category).

Though India has Muslim population in excess of Pakistan, it was able to get away without any registration requirement with his diplomatic connections, whereas Pakistan could not do anything in spite of being a front-line partner of the US in its fight against terrorism.

Most of the MNCs like Microsoft, IBM, AOL, HP/Compac, etc. have already opened their tech centres in India. Most of the American and European call-centres have already moved to India. Now many of the toll-free 1,800 calls are directed to India and the Indians are answering.

Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford are already expanding their business in India and are making India their technical centre and export base for the components. This has boosted the Indian economy and has raised the middle class population substantially.

If India can achieve all this in spite of its contradictions, why can’t we achieve the same? I think we are unnecessarily spending our resources and time on non-constructive activities. Pakistan should now concentrate on economy, trade and good education.

KHALID MOHAMMED

Toronto, Canada