PIA soars again
Monday, April 27, 2009
The week-long strike by PIA pilots, which had disrupted dozens of flights, was finally called off on Thursday. The pilots had been ‘going by the book’ to press for demands centring around an improvement in packages. It obviously came as a relief for passengers – some of whom had been stranded outside the country – that things have been worked out following a round of talks at the Defence Ministry.
Now that this latest wrinkle in the smooth working of PIA has been sorted out, it is time to pay closer attention to the many issues facing the airline. Reports continue to come in of appointments based on nepotism; of planes flown by pilots who had previously been disqualified on health grounds. Due to similar factors there is concern too over the standards of safety as far as aircraft maintenance goes.
The government, the Defence Ministry bosses and the management of PIA need to keep several things in mind: PIA should be a symbol of national pride as it was through the earlier decades of its existence. More important still is the fact that the lives of hundreds of people are in the hands of the national carrier each time its flights take off and land. It is imperative every possible effort be made to keep them safe by ensuring the airline is run on a professional footing where merit always holds weight over political affiliation or favouritism.
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Plastic poison
Monday, April 27, 2009
Pakistan is not the only country in the world to suffer from the curse of the plastic bag. Just about everywhere that goods or food are sold we may be sure that there will be a shop-assistant reaching for a plastic bag to place our purchases in before we leave the shop. Plastic bags replaced the infinitely preferable paper bag in the 1950’s and quickly became ubiquitous – as did the problem of what to do with them once they had carried goods from market to home. Our rudimentary waste collection and disposal systems and only a very hazy grasp of the benefits of recycling mean that our love affair with the plastic bag was always doomed to have an unhappy ending. The third and developing-world countries seem particularly prone to the miseries inflicted by waste plastic – animals choke on it, sewers and storm drains get blocked by it – and even a casual observer would have to admit that we have a large and unpleasant problem on our hands – as well as under our feet and at the roadsides. Attempts over the years by both provincial and federal governments to persuade us to dispose of our waste more wisely have mostly fallen on our collective deaf ear. We are a nation of litter-ers, happily tossing our rubbish to one side as we travel along, blithely uncaring for the fact that it might take fifty or a hundred years for the bag that we ate our jalebi from to biodegrade.
All of our urban areas see the litter-bug at work, and Karachi is particularly badly affected. The widespread use of plastic bags, the absence of suitable ‘green’ alternatives and the lack of uniformity (and conformity) regarding current legislation are some of the reasons behind the failure of campaigns jointly launched by the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) and the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) to cope with the plastic problem. The Sindh Assembly has recently taken up the cudgels again and the Minister for Environment and Alternative Energy Askari Taqvi has said that the ministry of environment is drafting a law which will allow the production of plastic bags made of “bio-degradable material only”. It is hoped that this draft will then be shared with the other provinces and a nationally uniform law subsequently adopted. Fine aspirations and we wish the minister well. Unfortunately you cannot legislate a national ‘change of mind’ into existence. Unless and until we decide individually and collectively that we really do not want to live on a rubbish heap of our own careless making, then all the well-intentioned legislation in the world is not going to make a scrap of difference. By all means get the necessary laws on the statute books – but at the same time draft and then implement a twenty-five year programme to educate the children of this polluted nation as to the perils of plastic and the consequences of wilful littering.
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Perkier police
Monday, April 27, 2009
The recent announcement by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif of a rise in pay and perks for the Punjab Police, bringing the package offered to them at par with that for the elite Motorway Police set up during the PML-N government in its last tenure, was met by spontaneous eruptions of dance by exuberant cops. Their display, like the raised fists of their female counterparts, demonstrated just how much the decision meant to them. The police, especially the ordinary constables who guard check posts and gates, have been for many months now on the frontline of terrorist assaults. There have also been on the frontline of criticism whenever there is a ‘security failure’ – perceived or real. But these men – and women – who are expected to guard us against attack are also among the lowest paid of government officials. Some studies suggest this is one, though not of course the only, factor in the high levels of corruption within the force. It is certainly a reason for low morale and a lack of motivation, which can sometimes contribute to huge lapses in professionalism.
The grant of better wages, allowances and risk pay-outs will help address some problems within the force. Resentment over the better pay of the Motorway Police and new traffic wardens in Lahore has been high. The fact that the Sindh Police also benefitted recently from an increase in salary indicates new thinking on the role of the police and the problems they face. This seems sensible. In the situation we face today, we need every available person to help combat militancy; the cops who patrol roads and keep watch over ‘mohallas’ are indispensible in the battle now being waged. While the force has so often been ridiculed and attacked for its incompetence, the fact also is that over the past year cops across the country have been slain by bombs; some have died while trying to protect other citizens. Heroic behaviour such as that of the young policeman in Islamabad who gave up his own life to prevent a bomber entering a police station and killing many of his colleagues must also be recognized. The pay and perks increase is a step towards acknowledging that the police force is central to national security. But there is a need to do more. In order to succeed against highly motivated and well-prepared killers, the police need better training and equipment. There is also an urgent need to improve professionalism within the force, by ending the present culture of nepotism and political postings, so that the police can be turned into an outfit truly capable of combating both rising crime and growing militancy.