View Single Post
  #993  
Old Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Amna's Avatar
Amna Amna is offline
Super Moderator
Moderator: Ribbon awarded to moderators of the forum - Issue reason: Best Moderator Award: Awarded for censoring all swearing and keeping posts in order. - Issue reason: Diligent Service Medal: Awarded upon completion of 5 years of dedicated services and contribution to the community. - Issue reason:
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Desert of Dream
Posts: 2,926
Thanks: 446
Thanked 1,987 Times in 1,041 Posts
Amna has much to be proud ofAmna has much to be proud ofAmna has much to be proud ofAmna has much to be proud ofAmna has much to be proud ofAmna has much to be proud ofAmna has much to be proud ofAmna has much to be proud of
Default November 22nd, 2016.

Date: Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016.


Farewell General Raheel Sharif


A tweet from the Director General ISPR set the media ablaze but settled a raging debate. The words “COAS kicks off his farewell visits…” in Lt General Asim Saleem Bajwa’s tweet were the first formal confirmation that Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif was retiring upon completion of his tenure. This was in line with a similar tweet from Lt General Bajwa earlier this year which had said that General Raheel Sharif had no intention of staying in office any longer than his mandated tenure.

It is a reflection of the perennial civil-military tug-of-war in Pakistan that the retirement — or possible extension for that matter — of an army chief becomes one of the most pressing political issues of the time. This is not surprising in a country that has seen numerous army chiefs extend their terms in office either through an extension or via an outright military takeover. Pakistanis are justified in being nervous,more so when the civil-military relationship boils over into thinly-disguised tensions.Such conjecturing was more acute in the case of General Raheel Sharif because of his turbo-charged performance in battling terrorism in Fata, Karachi and other parts of the country. To him went the credit for launching Operation Zarb-e-Azb at a time when the political leadership was dithering and wavering in face of relentless Taliban attacks. Under his command the army went deep into the lair of TTP and cleansed areas. It may yet be premature to proclaim an outright victory against terrorists but it may not be wrong to say that their threat has been diminished significantly.

Perhaps this success was what prompted people to wonder aloud about an extension for the general. With a political crisis brewing as a result of the clash between the government and PTI, many stakeholders had begun to look at the army chief with a mixture of nervousness and expectancy. Posters asking the army chief to stay in office beyond his three years also appeared.

The uncertainty has finally been put to rest as we prepare to bid a competent army chief farewell and welcome his successor. The PM will hopefully utilise his experience to make a wise choice for the COAS. An institutional transfer of command within the army strengthens the institution and sets an example that will hopefully be followed by the political leadership.


Coming full circle


Nothing is forever. Few foresaw the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union, even fewer the Trump presidency. The re-swinging of the compass that determines the relationship between Pakistan and Russia is equally not something that was foretold but so it has transpired. The Cold War adversaries are now aligned in such a way as to credibly address one of the great problems of modern diplomacy — peace in Afghanistan. The proposal is that Russia will host trilateral talks involving itself, Pakistan and China within the next month and is rightly described by an unnamed Pakistani official as ‘a watershed moment.’

None of the various groupings of nations that have cobbled together solution-oriented groups has done anything but ultimately fail, and often ignominiously so. They foundered as much on the failure to be inclusive, particularly of the Taliban in their various iterations, and the new tripartite proposal suffers from the same deficit. It may be that the presence of Pakistan will provide a Taliban conduit as it has in the past, and the Chinese have shown considerable interest in the recent past, hosting a meeting with the Taliban in the last year. Russia at the table considering its past history with Afghanistan is the intriguing addition. There is an obvious rapprochement with Pakistan as signaled by the first joint military exercises in the last month, much to the irritation of India that is also a player within Afghanistan. Russia may be spurred by a deteriorating situation within Afghanistan and a bullish Islamic State who now have a significant in-country presence. Not all Afghans are likely to be delighted by the Russian proposal, and some will actively work to thwart any good that might come from it. An unstable Afghanistan is in the interests of none of the great powers, regional and global. Added to the mix is the uncertainty in terms of future foreign policy direction by the upcoming Trump presidency that will have to come up to speed with remarkable alacrity if it is not to misstep in the Afghan minefield. That said, we wish good fortune to the new proposal.

K-P education reforms


The state of education in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) is in a tussle with itself. In the 2015-16 academic school year, provincial education officials discovered that there was an influx of approximately 34,000 former-private school students at their government institutions. The reason is due to the tenuous K-P Registration and Functioning of Private Education Institutions Ordinance, 2001, which has allowed the cost of private education to rise without a ceiling cap and without defined criteria on teacher qualification. Unable to afford private education and dissatisfied with their quality, parents have opted for public education for their children. The shift towards public education might be a progressive development as the state of government education is evolving, but private institutions need some regulation, particularly in terms of quality standards and considering it is a nascent industry prone to exploitation.

At this point, however, it would be naive to say that the state of government education is improving significantly in K-P. So far, its education department has focused on school infrastructure and teacher training but there are still many reforms to be made. Competition from the private sector should be welcomed but both sectors must work towards a shared primary goal: to churn out astute students well-suited for higher education. Instead, the former is mired in corruption by teachers who draw salaries without fulfilling their duties and the latter in raising profits without justifying costs and delivering quality. Provinces across the country continue to operate ghost schools, though some have been shut down, and have an exploitive private education system. It is incumbent on provincial education departments and respective private school associations to devise better laws for the functioning of private schools to facilitate education, not make it a burden and dissuade parents and students from obtaining it.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22nd, 2016.
__________________
To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)
Reply With Quote