Honeymoon eclipsed

THE crisis following the Sept 11 plane attacks in New York and Washington has also eclipsed the honeymoon period of district governments in general and Zila Nazims’ in particular.

Since taking oath, the zila Nazims, who in most of the cases are either old political guards or belong to traditional political families, were busy on two fronts — struggling with the headstrong district bureaucracy over the issue of who has what authority and enjoying receptions organized in their honour by the area people who need to rub shoulders with influential people to carve a niche for themselves in social circles.

But all that pomp and show has lost its glitter with the devastation in New York and Washington and now in Afghanistan. The government has to shift its focus from rearing its brainchild of devolution plan to the situation that places Pakistan on the centre stage of the “American war on terrorism.” And now the Nazims are organizing rallies to support the government on its stance on the “terrorism” and discussing strategies to maintain law and order in the face of anti-US rallies being organized by the religious parties.

Multan district Nazim Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Husain Qureshi is considered by the analysts as one of the most knowledgeable district heads in the province who, too, has a strong political background. In his initial speeches, he talked very rationally and gave an impression that he had got to the essence of the devolution plan besides pleading impartiality of his conduct in his acts as head of the district government.

But his critics are raising objections to contents of some of his speeches that belied his claim to impartiality. The Nazim is also the chairperson of Farmers Associates Pakistan (FAP) which is known as a ‘club of elite growers’.

In all his addresses to the district council, he urged the union council Nazims and councillors to organize themselves by joining the FAP.

In his maiden speech to the district council while appreciating the so called ‘renovation’ work on the 113-year-old edifice of the townhall, the Nazim announced that the Multan district government had constituted a committee on the history and heritage of the ancient city and tried to give impression as to the work on townhall building had started during his reign, saying: “And the work on the rehabilitation of Multan’s landmark buildings and monuments has been launched from the townhall.”

According to the grapevine, one of the Nazim’s relatives has got registered an NGO on Multan’s history and heritage and since then has been eying the conservation, rehabilitation and renovation project of the townhall likely to be financed by some donor NGOs.

MULTAN and its adjoining areas are known for mango production. Recently, the economics and marketing wing of the provincial agriculture department organized a workshop to evolve strategies to boost export of the fruit.

Punjab agriculture minister Khursheed Zaman Qureshi was the chief guest while the Multan Zila Nazim, officials of various government departments and representatives of mango growers were among the participants of the workshop.

The workshop was organized at a time when there was a cold war between the regional offices of the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and the Mango Growers Association (MGA) led by Zahid Husain Gardezi, a cousin of Nazim Shah Mehmood Qureshi, over the cancellation of mango show in Multan and participation in a seven-number delegation of mango exporters and growers who paid a visit to the UK in July last on the EPB expanse.

EPB officials say that the bureau had levied a nominal fee of Rs 5,000 per stall to ensure participation but growers refused to pay. Besides, no foreign buyer confirmed his arrival. Therefore, the show had to be cancelled and instead EPB organized a trip of exporters and growers belonging the southern Punjab to the UK to explore the European market. But the MGA people see a conspiracy behind the cancellation of the mango show.

The controversy marred the agriculture department workshop as the growers described EPB as a failure while the bureau officials tried their best to convince them that EPB’s role was jut of a facilitator which it was playing ‘amicably’.

Inspired by the MGA version, the zila Nazim termed the Multan EPB office performance zero. He said against the export target of 300 tons only 47 tons of mangoes could be exported from Multan this season and added: “Some people don’t want to see Multan as an export centre.”

But as a matter of fact, some 290 tons of mangoes have been exported from the quota of Multan while export of the late varieties of the fruit are expected to bridge the gap of remaining 10 tons. The quantity of 47 tons the Nazim referred to in his speech is that which was handled at the Multan airport despite the non-availability of required facilities.

Due to the insufficient facilities at the local airport, exporters of Multan prefer to send their consignments through the Karachi and Lahore airports. The proposed new airport of Multan will solve the problem as wide-body planes can better handle the export of fresh fruit and vegetables.

SHAH Mehmood chaired a meeting of some 12 zila nazims belonging to south Punjab, including the nazims of Jhang and Toba Tek Singh districts, here the other day. Issues confronting the district governments were discussed at length. Next meeting of the nazims will be held in Bahawalpur in the first week of November.

Social and political circles of the area, who have strong views on the deprivation of this part of the country, appreciated the move and started pinning hope that the “nazims” alliance would go a long way to address backwardness of the area. But suddenly the spin doctors of the Multan zila Nazim have started propagating that the meeting of south Punjab zila Nazims had held ‘by chance’ and that Makhdoom Sahib will soon convene a meeting of all the zila Nazims of the Punjab in Lahore.

Urdu theatre in India

THE theatre has fallen on bad days in Pakistan. And the Urdu theatre, which has every reason to be in a better shape than the theatre movement in other languages of Pakistan, seems to have degenerated so much that there is little hope for its revival.

Well-known Indian dramatist, writer and journalist Syed Mohammed Mehdi was in town. He spoke on the past and present of Urdu theatre in India and his conclusions were not heartening as well. Mehdi told the Irtiqa reception that while all the theatrical traditions were thriving, the Urdu stage was facing a crisis.

As we know, Mehdi has been closely linked with the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and has played an important role in the theatre movement. The Progressive Writers Association, he said, had given birth to IPTA in 1943. Its declared aim was to foster Hindu-Muslim unity, and the demand for national government.

IPTA exhorted playwrights and artistes to look for an ideal medium for this purpose, and the theatre was obviously best suited for this tremendously important work. Secondly, it was desired that IPTA should concentrate more on content than form. Any form that expressed content in the most realistic and vital way was considered the best. IPTA had accepted to follow the living newspaper technique, rather the conventional one. The idea was to follow the Prolecult model of the 1920s and the Brechtian ‘epic’ stage.

IPTA finally settled for the Agiprop model, and the Nukkar Theatre (The Street Theatre) was introduced to preach the gospel of peace. The Nukkar Theatre played an important role in infusing hope and optimism in the famine- stricken Bengal of the early 1940s. The street theatre was brilliantly used by the late Safdar Hashmi who did a lot to popularize secular and progressive ideals along with Al-Kazi and Habib Tanwir.

For Mehdi who has seen IPTA being founded and its graph of popularity rising to astonishing heights, the present-day ‘lean-patch’ on not only IPTA but on the Urdu theatre as a whole couldn’t be an interesting theme to dwell upon. The Urdu theatre had been taken to dizzy heights by Parsi theatre-owners such as Pestonji Framji — that one Indian theatrical company that went to London, in 1885, to stage its dramas in the golden jubilee year of Queen Victoria.

Now the Punjabi Theatre has come up as a thriving tradition in the north. The Hindi theatre is quite active. But the real boom is in the south where Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Kannad and Malyalam theatres are making big strides, and it could be said without any fear of contradiction that the Dalit theatre is also enjoying a popularity which was unthinkable twenty years ago.

Now about the contribution of Mehdi who is in his late 70s. A writer who has seen the luminaries of Urdu literature dusting the party office and strictly following the schedule of work and leisure — tea at 10am, lunch at 1pm, leave of absence on a designated day and instructions to go to sleep on the earmarked time after studying important literature, he stressed that it was not without following strict discipline that one could deliver.

He read out a paper on Ali Sardar Jafri, doing the daily chore of the party — something the youth of today would regard as punishment. We owe a lot to people who had then shown great commitment to social justice and achieved much in their stride.

Mehdi’s most popular drama was Munni Bai Hijab. The other dramas were Iqbal Ka Adam, Ghalib Kaun Hai, Jam-i-Ghazal and Gandhi Ki Lathi. The last mentioned is the latest he has written. Besides writing and directing plays, he is a freelance journalist contributing regular columns for Qaumi Awaz, (Delhi) and Sahafat, (Lucknow). He is also contributing to ETV Urdu, an Urdu channel which is owned by a Telugu-speaking industrialist and is the only Urdu channel in India. He said it is a unique development that Rashtriya Sahara, an Urdu daily, has been launched by a Bengali entrepreneur who owns Sahara TV channel.

When asked why the Urdu theatre is on the decline, he said: “Perhaps one reason, among others, could be that the National School of Drama, Delhi, and the Film Institute of Pune have also lost vitality and new talent is not forthcoming the way it came in the 60s and 70s. Shatrughan Sinha, Raj Babbar, Naseeruddin Shah and many others are the product of these institutions and Nadira Babbar, a daughter of Sajjad Zaheer, is still staging plays in Bombay and is quite successful.”

About the future of Urdu, he said it was bright in the south. The Federal Urdu University had started functioning in Hyderabad, but the Aligarh-based Jamia-i-Urdu had been steadily declining because of bureaucratic barriers.

Correction: In my last column (Oct 10) The Islamic College, Amritsar, should be read as M. A. O. College, Amritsar; and Lady Hardinge College, Lucknow, as Lady Hardinge College, Delhi.

A case for wind energy system

BALOCHISTAN indeed is the future of Pakistan. With vast land (347,190sqkm), lowest population density (20 persons per sqkm) and enormous wealth of natural and mineral resources, it has the potential of bringing about prosperity and progress to its people, as well as to the people of the country. Unfortunately, no concrete steps were taken in the past, though a number of schemes were planned to exploit its resources.

However, the government has now launched a number of projects, including Gwadar deep-sea port, Makran coastal highway and Mirani dam. Work on these projects will start shortly to create infrastructure for developing communications, agriculture, industry and trade. This would also help local / multinational petroleum companies interested in undertaking exploration across Balochistan.

Energy is regarded as vital to industrial development of any area. Pakistan’s total installed power generation capacity is 17,772mw (out of this, Balochistan’s contribution is about 100mw, mainly through the gas turbines or diesel generators).

To meet the projected high load demand in the country, Wapda has recently announced Vision 2025 which lays emphasis on hydel power generation. The plans have long gestation period and will be constrained by lack of financial resources and insufficient implementation capability. How that is going to meet the rising demand of electricity in Balochistan is yet to be ascertained.

There is need to develop alternative and cheaper sources of energy such as solar, wind and geothermal. Wind is the most important renewable, sustainable and emission-free source of energy. Comparison of different sources energy (table below) highlights the merits of wind power generation. Wind, one of the oldest, widely used sources of energy, has recently become the fastest growing energy source all over the world. The realization that fossil fuels are in limited supply has played a dominant role in the wind power technological advancement on a large scale, particularly during the last 10 or so years.

Wind energy costs compare favourably with conventional fossil- fuelled power plants, and costs continue to decline steadily and substantially as technology improves. In the USA, wind power generation costs have lowered to an average of 5 cents per kwH at sites with 5.8 m/s (meters per second) average annual speeds. The next generation of wind turbines currently being developed will further reduce the cost of wind power generation to 2.5 cents per kwH. India even claims wind power generation cost between 2 and 2.5 Indian rupees, depending upon site conditions.

Pakistan has 900km-long coastal line with a sizable wind potential, having wind regime suitable for wind power generation. The average wind speeds of 5 to 7 m/s are available in most of the areas such as Naushki, Naukundi, Ormara, Turbat, Pasni, Lasbela and Khuzdar. It has the potential to generate wind power up to 400mw during the next 10 years.

A study was carried out by the Dutch government in 1985 to determine the feasibility of installing windmills along Balochistan -Sindh coastal area. Later, a number of schemes were prepared and windmills for water pumping were installed in Balochistan. During the last 22 months the government of Balochistan has installed 28 windmills whereas schemes for another 250 units have bee approved. No effort, however, has been made as yet to apply wind energy technology to power generation.

In response to the energy policy, 1994, the two American investors, in collaboration with local companies, had shown interest in establishing wind power projects in Pakistan. The Kenetech wind power project, to generate 100 mw electricity, was proposed to be set up in Balochistan, and Omega-Zond wind power farm of 150mw capacity was planned for Sindh. None of the projects could see the light. Yet another proposal has recently been made by Vestas of Denmark to the Private Power & Infrastructure Board, in association with the local private sector. It is reported that the project lacks credentials, and no feasibility report of the project has been prepared.

The essential ingredient in a wind energy conversion system is the wind turbine. There are two types of turbines in use throughout the world: wind-axis or “upwind” and cross-wind axis or “downwind”. These are two- or three-bladed units for steady-state operation, with constant blade pitch angle, with pitch change mechanism, and operate efficiently at high speed. The main features of modern wind turbine are variable rotor speed control by full span blade pitching and the use of advanced power electronics. The electricity generated by wind turbines is used for many applications: from large, utility scale power plants to small, single turbines for home or village use. There are three factors which limit the applicability and accuracy of wind turbine, namely:

i. average wind speed, and wind power available per unit area of cross-section.

ii. variability of the wind, and

iii. average and peak wind velocity.

Selection of a suitable site is thus key to the economics of wind energy.

At present there are over 30 manufacturers of wind turbines, in the range of 250kw to 2.5mw each, pre-dominantly in the USA, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Australia and Japan. One of the manufacturers in the USA has installed 550mw of wind energy, having produced over 1,000 wind turbines installed worldwide.

India is reported to have installed capacity of 770mw wind power generation, and there are two domestic manufacturers of wind turbines. Norway has developed a combined wind / diesel power plant for autonomous power supply, which will reduce fuel cost by 50 per cent to 70 per cent depending on wind conditions. A Danish company offers software for designing wind turbine farms.

In Pakistan, engineering units such as Heavy Mechanical Complex, Pakistan Machine Tool Factory, and Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works have the requisite capability of manufacturing wind turbines and allied equipment. All components of a wind turbine, e.g. blades, controller, gearbox, shafts, rotor and tower, can be manufactured at either of these facilities.

The selected advanced technology has to be acquired from abroad. The ministry of science and technology has taken initiative in this direction and is now evaluating a proposal under the technology development programme for financial assistance to the Pakistan Machine Tool Factory. According to this proposal, the cost of the first project of one-megawatt module is estimated to be Rs20 million, which will reduce substantially for the subsequent projects. Meanwhile, the ministry has included wind technology among the selected fields for award of foreign scholarships.

Balochistan needs to optimize the use of wind energy resources. Meteorological studies of the potential sites have been conducted. Windmill pumping installations already being available, the turbine siting for power generation will be easy. The fact is that the private sector will be reluctant to invest in a wind power project in Balochistan for various reasons.

The remoteness of the area and poor communications in most of the region is one reason; low return on investment the other. It would, therefore, be most appropriate for the government of Balochistan to adopt practical measures to establish wind power projects, utilizing indigenous resources of design, engineering, manufacturing and technical services.

A 50mw power plant could be commissioned in a year from the date of commencement of construction. More jobs per unit energy are created in this case as compared to other forms of power generation. A sustained and coordinated focus on developing wind power generation in Balochistan would help in strengthening Pakistan’s economy and improving socio-economic conditions.

Disturbances report greatly exaggerated

ALL the signs are there that the Sharjah tournament will go ahead, the most positive of which is that Pakistan has announced its squad. No other cricket playing country has been so badly hit by the political turmoil in the region than Pakistan. Putting aside India’s refusal to play against Pakistan on one side, this refusal is in a class of its own, New Zealand cancelled its tour and last minute attempts to get Sri Lanka to play three One-day Internationals fell through because the Sri Lankans got cold feet.

In retrospect, both the New Zealand tour and Sri Lanka’s short visit could have come through. Television reports of disturbances in Pakistan have been greatly exaggerated and those of us who live in the subcontinent are quite used to processions and demonstrations. But that is now water under the bridge.

There are no surprises in the Pakistan squad and all those selected have been playing domestic cricket particularly Shoaib Akhtar who seems to have held out reasonably well and there has been no recurrence of any injury. With Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Abdur Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood in the squad, Shoaib cannot take his place in the team for granted. This is a healthy sign and there will be that extra bit of motivation for him to give his hundred per cent.

Shoaib can become a great bowler but this greatness will not fall like manna from the sky. To his natural talent, he will have to add hard work and most of all discipline. He is a bit of a loose cannon. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has shown great indulgence, as well as, having made a sizeable investment in him.

But the onus of fulfilling his potential lies squarely on Shoaib’s own shoulders. Letting your team down is one thing, inexcusable as it is, but letting yourself down, is even worse. He is still young in years but by now, he should be sufficiently old in hours to understand that no player is greater than the game.

Sometimes a correct decision is reached through a circuitous route. Richard Pybus who was the Pakistan coach went back to South Africa and is not returning because of the political uncertainty. This has led to Mudassar Nazar being appointed to the job. He is an excellent choice and there are many, including Imran Khan, who feel that he should have been made coach in the first instance.

Mudassar is a likeable, easy going man with no hang-ups about his own importance. He will get on well with the players. Imran had a lot of respect for his cricketing knowledge and used to consult him frequently.

His appointment will also bring to an end the argument that there should be a Pakistani rather than a foreign coach. It was an argument that was stirred up by some ex-players who fancied themselves for the job. Mudassar has been running the cricket academy at the Gaddafi Stadium and was manager of the Pakistan ‘A’ team’s tour of Sri Lanka and by all accounts has done a good job. It remains to be seen if his is a make-shift appointment or whether he will get the job permanently.

The suggestion by the ICC that Pakistan’s matches should be played at neutral venues so long as the present political troubles last makes good sense. The difficulty will be trying to find neutral venues. Sharjah and Morocco have been mentioned, as has Northern Australia. It could be a combination of venues. Obviously, Pakistan will want to keep the television rights but the main thing is for the Pakistan team to be playing.

There is still the remaining part of the Asian Test Championship and I had suggested that since both Pakistan and Sri Lanka had qualified for the final, there seemed no point in a league match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka and we should proceed to the final, making it a best of three finals. If for some reason the final cannot be played in Pakistan, then the best of three finals could be played in Colombo, Dhaka and Sharjah.

Poor Kenya seems hopelessly out of place in the triangular in South Africa. But this surely does not mean that it shouldn’t be competing. Kenya came to South Africa without any illusions. They knew that they were a long way from this level of cricket. But the only way they will get there is by competing.

Look at the way the African countries have come up in football. There must be a lot of untapped cricket talent in that vast continent. Namibia has already qualified for the World Cup 2003. I first went to Kenya in 1956. It was then a part of East Africa. We had taken a Cricket Writers team. Leave alone, any native Kenyan playing, they were all but barred from coming to the ground to watch the matches. That seems a long long time ago.

And finally in a lighter vein, here is Navjot Sidhu describing the fielding genius of Jonty Rhodes: “He is the Great Wall of China. He is a machine”.