Pakistan-India talks
January 10th, 2011
There have been so many false dawns in Pakistan-India relations since the Mumbai attacks of 2008 that any good news must be tempered with a healthy dose of scepticism. Thus, while it is heartening that the foreign secretaries of the two countries will meet on the sidelines of a Saarc summit in Bhutan next week, it would be extremely unrealistic to expect the meeting to yield tangible progress. We have been through this process before. The two foreign secretaries also talked at the UN General Assembly last September but were unable to make any breakthroughs.
The Mumbai attacks fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between the two countries. Historically, Pakistan has always insisted that the Kashmir issue should be front and centre of any negotiations while India has wanted a broader agenda that encompasses trade and economic cooperation. That has now been reversed. It is Pakistan that doesn’t want to limit the scope of such talks while India refuses to discuss anything but terrorism. Thus, to repair relations with India, Pakistan first needs to take action on the domestic front. The government and military have been hesitant to take on the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks. The court case has faltered and it continues to operate relatively unhindered. Until there is a decisive shift in policy, India-Pakistan talks are destined to fail.
Even doomed negotiations, however, are preferable to a complete break in negotiations. It is heartening that both governments, despite their intractable differences, are willing to give diplomacy a chance. The next step, which would ideally take place during the Bhutan talks, would be a softening of their rigid stances. India needs to realise that increased economic cooperation would inevitably lead to greater political relations. If the two countries are bound together through trade, it will be in their interests not to upset the apple cart. Pakistan, for its part, needs to pledge to fight the LeT with the same vigour and intensity with which it took on militancy in the tribal areas. Fighting home-grown terrorism is vital not just for our relations with India but for our own survival.
Gas woes
January 10th, 2011
The question of what makes news is determined everywhere by the media. This ‘agenda setting’ determines what is discussed at various forums and which matters are considered significant. The role is a powerful one. For the last three weeks or so, protests have been staged almost daily, blocking GT Road, by residents of towns scattered across Punjab. They complain that, for days, there has been no gas in homes, making it impossible to cook or keep warm. This is no trivial matter as northern Punjab is facing a bitterly cold winter, but the issue has received only the most sporadic media attention. Perhaps this is seen as something to be expected given that they happen every year.
While roadside eateries do a roaring business, the pockets of people empty faster than ever. Money goes out on buying gas cylinders which, in smaller towns, are now being sold in the black. There are many implications attached to this state of affairs. Even giant cities like Lahore and Faisalabad are badly affected.
What is most disturbing, however, is the governments indifference to the plight of these people. Their representatives seem not to have bothered to inquire into their complaints or offer a few words of solace. Even such demonstrations of concern offer people some relief. At present, there is a sense only of hopelessness and anger. The Punjab government, after accusing the centre of staging a conspiracy against it, has, to some degree, addressed the concerns of industrial consumers but it has ignored the domestic sector. Sui Northern says no gas loadshedding is taking place as far as domestic supply goes. But there is no gas coming through the pipes. The condition of these people deserves to be given far greater attention. The crisis, from their perspective, is still more acute than the political turmoil we stand in the midst of.
Rail losses
January 10th, 2011
Three years after the terrible day in December 2007 when the country burst aflame at the news of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, Pakistan Railways appears to have been unable to clean up the ashes. Of the 87 locomotives destroyed in the conflagration that followed, only three have been made serviceable again. This does not bode well for a country that once boasted a reasonably well-run railway network and that is in desperate need of a massive upgrade of its transportation network.
But the company is horrendously inefficient and runs an operating loss of close to Rs40 billion a year. Yet it is not without potential. Over 55 million Pakistanis use the railway every year and the network handles a substantial proportion of domestic cargo, including most shipments of oil to refineries. The government, however, seems incapable of running the company properly or even privatising it.
For instance, the plan for the restricting and privatisation of Pakistan Railways has been handed over not to the Privatisation Commission but to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). By no stretch of the imagination is it the mandate of the central bank of a country to formulate privatisation strategies of state-owned assets. The SBP should turn down a task for which it is not equipped and does not have the mandate for. For its part, the administration would do well to pay more attention to the woes of the railways, lest the losses mount up to the point where it is forced to sell the company for a fire-sale price. Over the past several years, the government — regardless of which administration was in office — has proven itself incapable of running businesses. It should heed the advice of Senator Waqar Ahmed Khan and get out of the business of running commercial enterprises, focusing its efforts on regulating commerce in the country instead. The country would be better served by having robust private enterprises regulated by a robust government.