The president’s plans

TO cheers from PPP supporters, Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar swore in his second president in 10 months, elevating Asif Ali Zardari to the presidency. The ceremony was in sharp contrast to the grim one last November when President Musharraf took the same oath in controversial circumstances. The PPP is the largest national party and it deserved to momentarily bask in its success. Now comes the hard part. The joint press conference held with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan highlighted some of the problems that confront Pakistan. With President Karzai at his side, President Zardari was lobbed some heavy questions on foreign policy. First, the positives. President Zardari promised “good news” on relations with India before the term of the Congress-led government expires in May 2009. Given that the soon-to-be leader of the opposition, the PML-N, also supports improved ties with India, now is the time to push for real progress in the long-running but wobbly peace process. The hurdles are clear: mass unrest in Jammu and Kashmir and accusations and counter-accusations by India and Pakistan of fomenting violence against each other. However, in President Zardari the Indians have a potential peace partner with real civilian power and at least the tacit support of the armed forces. It is time to bury the myth that peace with India can only be achieved by a military interlocutor.

President Zardari also indicated his commitment to sustaining the “great bond” with China, to the relief of anxious officials of the foreign service who have viewed the Indo-US nuclear deal and the closer Pakistan-US military ties as distressing signs of impending regional isolation. No doubt Pakistan cannot be hostage to the past in striking new arrangements in the region, but the Sino-Pakistan relationship is extraordinarily important. China showed its commitment to Pakistan by kicking up a fuss at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting that was deciding on a key waiver to enable the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. Now talk is centred on a similar Sino-Pakistan nuclear cooperation deal, which if struck will go some way towards easing fears of Pakistan falling behind India in the nuclear stakes. The bad news is on the war on terror. President Zardari was asked repeatedly about the writ of the state in the tribal areas, the frequent civilian deaths in US missile strikes and Afghan complaints of Pakistani complicity in the Taliban fight-back. President Zardari parried the questions with platitudes that “not an inch of land will be lost” and that Pakistan is committed to the war against terror. Tellingly, he appealed for the establishment of an international fund for victims of war against terrorism — thereby indicating that Pakistan will have to tolerate more US strikes in the weeks ahead.

On the domestic front, President Zardari parried direct questions on the fate of his co-chairmanship of the PPP and the anti-parliamentary presidential powers, including Article 58-2(b). The weeks ahead will no doubt reveal the president’s thinking on how to reconfigure the balance of power between the president and the prime minister.

Guarding power?

THE relationship between the citizenry and its law enforcers is not at odds for nothing. Given that the former has to grapple with routine police negligence and resort to private security options, there is much to fuel apathy amongst our custodians. Other than burdensome additions such as Karachi’s 600-strong Muhafiz force, primarily drawn from the infamous Sindh Reserve Force, the number of police officers on guard duty also runs into thousands — official statistics show as many as 482 personnel deputed on security duty for Sindh cabinet ministers and advisers; approximately 1,700 officers at embassies and government offices as well as guarding judicial and government officials; while over 1,000 watch over police top brass. Needless to say, these alarming figures have come to light amid the elected government’s tall claims of abandoning VIP culture. Sindh’s home minister enjoys an astounding 43 guards and the Sindh ombudsman has 40 police personnel. The provincial information minister, who recently lashed out at the ‘mindset’ of the local police and the ‘ineptitude’ of a particular police station, has as many as 11 police guards. Such deployments point to a heightened sense of self-importance as these hardly make for ‘life-threatening’ offices.

Second, these are trying times where a poverty-stricken populace is turning to rampant crime — the first half of this year witnessed a dramatic rise in kidnappings for ransom with over 38 cases while a whopping 64 incidents took place in 2007. The fact that the beleaguered force is already in the grip of a manpower crisis — one officer for every 545 citizens — prompts the question: should the blame for apathy be laid at the police’s door or on the conscience of our bigwigs?

There is no better time than now for the home ministry to address the woes of such an indigent force, particularly of the mid-level police corps. The most recent travesty came in the form of nepotism — from September 1995 to November 2007, 52 out-of-turn-promotions have taken place. Reforms must begin with empowering the Police Superintendents Association of Pakistan and the Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission. This is aside from alleviating long-festering issues — lack of pay raises, decent living quarters, training and upgrades that are on merit. Also, political patronage has to be rooted out to encourage neutrality. On the other end, an indigenous police force is crucial to Karachi as only a sense of belonging can curb detachment as well as police excesses. Funds saved on additions such as the Muhafiz force and related expenditures can be funnelled to assuage the plight of our law enforcers and to revive women’s police stations. After all, a homegrown, reliable force, and not private security, is the right of the public.

Patients in the crossfire

PROTESTING doctors and a government indifferent to their demands are a dangerous mix for patients. This is more than apparent in the ongoing protests launched early last month by junior and mid-career doctors working in government hospitals in Lahore. Almost daily these doctors either gather at a protest camp in front of the Punjab Assembly or take to the streets blocking traffic and inconveniencing the man on the street. Although no government can afford to allow its medical practitioners a long absence from duty in view of its responsibility towards the sick, the authorities in this case have done little to bring the doctors back into hospital wards and operation theatres. In fact, they have responded to the protests with force and taken punitive action. At least one protesting doctor is facing the sack and police are not averse to using batons against the demonstrators when they feel the need to do so. With both sides sticking to their proverbial guns, the patients can only pray that at least one of them stands down.

The doctors are asking for an increase in their salaries, a better service structure and job security. Indeed, with spiralling inflation and the rising demand for medical care, better working conditions and better wages are something that these doctors should be getting without having to stage protests to press their demands. The government, on the other hand, may be constrained by financial limitations. The two sides should understand that their intransigence can continue only at the patients’ peril. Continuing protests and official apathy to the doctors’ demands are putting lives at risk. This is unacceptable and should not be allowed to go on indefinitely. For the general good of the patients, the two sides should try to find some middle ground to resolve the impasse. They should do so as soon as possible.


THE decline in the number of women in top jobs in Britain is alarming. Last year, slow progress on equality in the workplace actually went into reverse in half of the sectors surveyed. Today we have fewer female MPs, cabinet ministers, senior police officers, judges and NHS executives than we did even a year ago.

The standard explanation for this is that women have babies and that this arrests their career development. Improvements in maternity provisions seem to have exacerbated this trend. Paid maternity leave has now been extended to a full year, but it is available to the mother only. This has, perversely, entrenched women in the traditional role of wife and mother because the man is unable to take the same parental leave to share the child care. The government should change the law to allow couples to choose which of them wants to take the year off.

But there is more to the problem than that, which is why women who do not have children — a quarter of the female workforce at age 40 — suffer from the same discrimination and disadvantage. The trouble is that the attitudes and habits of the British workplace were forged in an era when breadwinner dads and stay-at-home mums were the norm. That mindset persists. It is a macho culture of long working hours where, even if the old boys’ network is not what it was, the boys go out for a beer with the boss after work. And — despite the fact that girls now outperform boys at school and at university — there continues to be a subliminal consensus that women are less capable or strategically able than men.

All that needs to change. More flexible working patterns, the choice to work from home and job shares need to become the norm. Workers also need access to more high-quality, affordable child care. Attitudes need to change in politics too. It is shameful that fewer than one in five British MPs is a woman and that countries like Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq and China beat the UK on women’s representation in parliament. Nor can there be any excuse for the decline in the proportion of women in top jobs in the public sector. The shattering of the glass ceiling can no longer be left to gradual social change. It is time for changes in government policy. — (Sept 5)


HOUSE prices are dropping, the economic forecast is dreary and the rain has not let up for months in London. All the more reason to find comfort in the good things in life, it would seem. According to the new Zagat guide, London restaurant lovers are paying little heed to the credit crunch, with more people than ever eating out regularly in the capital.

With the average cost of a meal with three courses and a glass of wine in London increasing by about 3.7 per cent to $71.77 since last year’s survey, it is hardly surprising that 76 per cent of Londoners say they are spending more eating out than ever before. Yet 82 per cent of the survey respondents said they are going out just as much, if not more, than they did two years ago.

Tim Zagat, co-founder of Zagat Survey, said: “Although the average cost of a meal in London is up, that hasn’t stopped diners from eating out on the town. Thanks to an influx of less expensive eateries 43 per cent say they are going out more and only 18 per cent say less.”

The deepening economic cloud may have a silver lining for London’s restaurant scene — thanks to a declining Pound Sterling, London is no longer the most costly city for dining out in the world. “London is no longer quite so daunting for tourists from a price perspective,” said Zagat. “There is also lot of choice at the budget end of the scale in London. The famous restaurants may get all the publicity, but there are also a lot of wonderful inexpensive ethnic restaurants.”

Thanks in part to the relative strength of the euro, Paris now tops the list of the world’s most expensive places to eat out. And according to the 2009 guide, the food that is in London is now not only cheaper, but better than the average fare found in the French capital.

In a scale up to 30, Zagat reviewers gave London an average food rating of 20.52 compared with Paris’s 19.40. For anyone who has experienced the studied surliness of that city’s waiters it will come as little surprise that it is much the same story with service — overall London restaurants average 18.39 for service compared with 17.88 in Paris.

— The Guardian, London

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Regards,
P.R.