[B]26.05.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Social insecurity[/SIZE]
Social security for home-based workers needs to be examined in the context of employment security and income security
By Ume Laila Azhar[/CENTER][/B]

Social protection refers to a set of benefits available (or not available) from the state, market, civil society and households, or through a combination of these agencies, to the individual/households to reduce multi-dimensional deprivation. This multi-dimensional deprivation could be affecting less active poor persons (e.g. the elderly, disabled) and active poor persons (e.g. unemployed).

This broad framework makes this concept more acceptable in developing countries than the concept of social security. Social security is more applicable in the conditions, where large numbers of citizens depend on the formal economy for their livelihood. Through a defined contribution, this social security may be managed. But, in the context of wide spread informal economy, formal social security arrangements are almost absent for the vast majority of the working population. Besides, in developing countries, the state’s capacity to reach the vast majority of the poor people may be limited because of its limited resources.

In such a context, multiple agencies that could provide for social protection are important for policy consideration. The framework of social protection is thus capable of holding the state responsible to provide for the poorest sections by regulating non-state agencies.

By Asian Development Bank’s definition, social protection consists of policies and programmes designed to reduce poverty and vulnerability by promoting efficient labour markets, diminishing people’s exposure to risks, and enhancing their capacity to protect themselves against hazards and interruption/loss of income.

According to ILO, social protection is associated with a range of public institutions, norms and programmes aimed at protecting workers and their households from contingencies threatening basic living standards. Broadly, these can be grouped under three main headings: social insurance, social assistance and labour market regulation.

Social insurance consists of programmes providing protection against life course contingencies such as maternity, old age or work-related contingencies like unemployment or sickness. Social assistance provides support for those in poverty. Normally, social insurance is financed by contributions made by workers and their employers whereas social assistance is tax financed. Finally, labour and employment standards ensure basic standards at work. These institutions have been fully established in developed countries, but in developing countries their development has been uneven.

At present, four out of five people worldwide do not benefit from a level of social protection that allows them to realise their human right to social security. There has been an increasing informalisation of the labour force in developing countries over the past few decades.

Home-based workers are invisible, non-unionised and the lack of collective action can make them very vulnerable. Ignoring their existence and the perspectives of such workers by focusing social protection on the formal sector was one of the mistakes of previous policy makers. The magnitude of home-based work and the degree of exploitation of these workers call for much greater public intervention and collective action to improve home-based work in terms of occupational health and safety.

In terms of social protection, workers in the informal sector tend to be by far the most vulnerable. Poverty is a static concept, while vulnerability is a dynamic one. The lack of insurance mechanisms can have serious consequences for income growth at household, hence at a macro level.

In Pakistan, the implications of economic shocks to the ultra poor households are considerable. Once the implications triggered by these economic shocks are understood, it becomes obvious that the ultra-poor need healthcare and social security coverage, and in particular hospital treatment and hospitalisation cover, which are not offered by even the best of the primary healthcare facilities and Basic Health Units (BHUs) in Pakistan.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has adopted various recommendations and conventions on social security, which provide a comprehensive definition of social security. Pakistan has ratified three of them (C18 on Workmen Compensation (Occupational Diseases), C19 on Equality of Treatment (Accident Compensation), C118 on Equality of Treatment (Social Security)). In Pakistan, social security and pension schemes sponsored by the government actually benefit a small proportion of the population in the formal sector, even though a number of programmes are in place.

Though Pakistan has ratified all eight ILO core labour standards, it has not brought national legislation in compliance with the ILO Conventions No. 87 (freedom of association) and No. 98 (right to collective bargaining).

Social security needs to be examined in the context of overall needs of the home-based workers. Home-based workers need employment security, income security and social security simultaneously.

[I]The writer is free lance journalist and development manager and can be reached at[/I] [email]laila.azhar@gmail.com[/email]

[B]26.05.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Water wasters[/SIZE]
Perception about the quantity and quality of water needs to be changed to ensure efficient use of potable water
By Mohammad Niaz[/CENTER][/B]

Over 97 per cent of the water on earth is salt water while only three per cent is fresh water of which about two third is in the form of glaciers. The remaining unfrozen fresh water is groundwater. However, only a small fraction of water is present above ground.

Because water is a precious resource, its prudent and careful use is need of the day. There is a need to promote the habit of water conservation in homes, schools, work places, offices, industries, and agriculture. While travelling or somewhere outside the home range, every one cares to ensure efficient and wise use of a bottle of mineral water as no one tries to waste that water carelessly. Therefore, in normal daily life we need to promote this spirit of saving the potable water.

Quite often, use of water for various needs at local level is not recognised as a matter of high concern. In routine daily life, saving water being not a high priority results in water wastage. However, this sort of water utilisation becomes over exploitation of the available water. Water can efficiently be conserved through better engineering structures and behavioral practices as well as simple tips in workplace and homes.

At domestic level, water is used in a number of ways. Mostly water is used in kitchen, washrooms, and washing. Most of the water is wasted in kitchen while washing dishes by running the tap for long during rinsing utensils. A bit of conservation steps would save water such as not allowing continuous flow of tap water. Similarly, wise use of water is required during bathing, soaping face, hands, brushing teeth, and shaving. It is estimated that about 75 per cent of water used indoors is in the bathrooms. Low flow toilet tanks and showerheads should be used to minimize extra loss of water. Less water consumption will also economize our expenses as the water tank once filled will serve for longer duration and will seldom require refilling.

Similarly, car washing, laundering, floor cleaning, lawn watering etc. are some other domestic activities where water can be conserved through wise use. It is wise to water lawn and plants in morning or evening times than noon or when heat is more to ensure less evaporation. Increased frequency of use of water pumps for filling the water tank is a tool to check water consumption. An eye should be kept on water tank being filled as often they overflow and more water is wasted before the water pump gets switched off. Cloth should be washed in bulk at one time together rather than washing less number of clothes every day.

Some water pipes spread in different parts of the working places, homes, offices and other places leak and less attention is paid which not only cause water loss but can also be a potential hazard to the buildings. Therefore, leakage of pipes and water tanks should be checked regularly to avoid water loss and damages.

In hilly areas or arid areas where rainfall is seasonal or scarce, certain techniques can be adopted to save water. Ponds formation is an easy technique to save water and use it for cattle or other indirect use. Similarly, water from roof can be collected in a huge drum and used for later domestic needs.

Water pollution is one of the major problems. Though enough water is available in our surrounding, less is human usable due to pollution. Therefore, pollution of ponds, rivers, streams, lakes are not only environmentally unfriendly but also register impacts on human health and biodiversity.

Proper maintenance and repair of water drains would avoid wastage of water. Moreover, continuous loss of water from drains becomes stagnant and serves as breeding ground for mosquitoes and other insects. Simple lifestyle also contributes to water conservation, because more water can be saved by doing simple basic needs of life.

One of the common dilemmas of water use is the perception that there is enough water for different uses. But this is not the case. There is very little amount of potable water for drinking purpose. Therefore, water conservation can also be ensured not only by educating people but also adopting practices for wise use of water on need base. It is our joint responsibility to ensure sustainable use of available water. There is a need to change perception of people about the quantity and quality of water so as to ensure efficient use of water for multi-stakeholders.

Every one of us acts as a manager and planner in his or her own place to ensure efficient use of water. Every sector and person is responsible to act at local level and contribute to larger level by adopting water conservation practices and approaches for our benefits, healthy environment and biodiversity.

[B]26.05.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Our loss is their gain[/SIZE]
While investors see Afghanistan as a very productive
market, Pakistan has failed to find its share
By Aoun Sahi[/CENTER][/B]

Afghanistan is called ‘virgin market’ as years of war and conflict not only destroyed the entire infrastructure and institutions of the country but also created a lot of opportunities for investment and business. There was hardly any foreign investment in Afghanistan for almost three decades from 1970s to early 2000s in Afghanistan. The situation, however, changed after the fall of Taliban and investors found Afghanistan a very productive territory as the economy grew by 10 per cent for five consecutive years.

Reconstruction of Afghan infrastructure and economy is being carried out with the donations by international community, especially the US and Europe, but still the country provides greater business and investment opportunities.

According to the World Bank, Afghanistan has emerged as the fastest-growing economy in South Asia. “Afghanistan’s economy grew robustly by about 11 per cent mostly due to a good harvest,” said the World Bank’s report on Global Economic Prospects for 2013. The report also cautioned that after security transition, the rate could drop over the next three years.

Afghanistan has a lot of potential in agriculture, mining, energy and power, transport and logistics, housing, tourism and road infrastructure and communication sectors. In addition, Afghanistan holds a very significant geostrategic position which makes it even more attractive for investment. Afghanistan shares borders with six neighbours — Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Pakistan — and is considered as a land bridge connecting Pakistan with energy-rich Central Asia.

Pakistan, being the neighbouring country with centuries of cultural and religious bonds with Afghans, can also explore these opportunities. But, Pakistan’s role in reconstruction process of Afghanistan is not very prominent. It is a big player when it comes to security policy of Afghanistan, but comes at bottom when it comes to making investment in Afghanistan.

“The historical problems between both the countries, lack of confidence and traditional mindset of Pakistani establishment is responsible for failure of Pakistan to capture the Afghanistan market,” says Hassan Khan, Islamabad-based expert on Pak-Afghan relations. “The major issue is that Pakistan has never seen Afghanistan as a business opportunity. We always see it with a security perspective,” he says.

Pakistan has even failed to tap potential in the sectors it has expertise in. For example, more than $1.8 billion had been invested in the telecommunication sector of Afghanistan over the past decade. Pakistan, with a greater expertise in the field, has not been able to get a share in the sector at all. The sector is dominated by Indian investors and companies.

According to a 2006 US Geological Survey assessment, undiscovered petroleum resources in northern Afghanistan are up to 36.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Estimates of oil range up to 3.6 billion barrels and estimates for natural gas liquids range up to 1,325 million barrels. The agriculture sector also has a greater potential especially in fruits. The packing and processing sectors have brilliant future.

Pakistan can also cooperate in the power sector. Afghanistan’s total power need is less than 1,000 megawatts and small and medium dams on Kabul and other rivers close to the border would help Pakistan fulfill its energy needs. “There are many areas where Pakistan can invest in Afghanistan, but we have not seen any serious effort by the Pakistani government and business community to do so,” says Najib Manali, advisor to Afghan Finance Ministry, adding apart from some small projects, Pakistan has not undertaken any major initiative. “Pakistan is doing very little in the reconstruction process of Afghanistan. Most of its projects have not completed even after several years; like Jalalabad-Torkham road is still under construction after 7 years.” Describing Afghanistan’s economic outlook very encouraging, he says, “We have built over 20,000 kilometres of roads in our country over the past decade or so. We have built our first railway network. Over 10 million students are enrolled in Afghanistan schools; the number was only over 100,000 a decade earlier. The per capita income has crossed $700 mark; it was $150 less than a decade ago. So, Afghanistan is a changed country now.”

Mohammad Sadiq Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador at Kabul, says that Pakistan has completed several projects in Afghanistan in last one decade or so. “Pakistan has completed several education, health and road infrastructure projects. Pakistan provided assistance of $330 million to Afghanistan for projects in the infrastructure, health, and education sectors,” he tells TNS. “Pakistan has been working closely on bilateral, trilateral and multilateral levels to support intra-Afghan reconciliation. Some of the key projects Pakistan completed in Afghanistan included Rehman Baba School in Kabul, where 1200 students are receiving education. The construction of Allama Iqbal Faculty of Humanities at Kabul University is also completed. We are now furnishing it.”

Listing other projects, Khan says, “A 400-bed Jinnah Hospital Complex is under construction in Kabul, while Nishter Kidney Hospital is completed in Jalalabad. Over 15 urologists for this hospital were trained in Pakistan. A 200-bed Naib Aminullah Khan Logari Hospital is being built in Logar. Sir Syed Science Faculty Block is being constructed in Nangarhar University, Jalalabad. Liaqat Ali Khan Engineering Faculty Block in Balkh University, Mazar-e-Sharif is under construction. Another half a dozen large projects, including two eye hospitals, Limb Centre at Badakhshan, two Nuclear Medical Centres in Kabul and Jalalabad are in the pipeline. Pakistan has also been offering scholarships to the Afghan students.”

Having contributed close to $2 billion in aid over the past decade, India is the fifth largest donor nation to Afghanistan. It has completed projects like construction of 218-km road from Zaranj to Delaram to facilitate movement of goods and services from Afghanistan to the Iranian border and, onward, to the Chahbahar Port. It has also constructed Salma Dam power project (42 MW) in Herat province. It has also constructed the new building of the Afghan Parliament. It has also restored telecommunication infrastructure in 11 provinces and expanded national TV network by providing an uplink from Kabul and downlinks in all 34 provincial capitals for promoting greater integration of the country. There are over 80 small projects that India completed in different parts of Afghanistan. Iran has also been playing a very active role in the reconstruction process of Afghanistan.

In the past, Pakistan and Afghanistan made several efforts to increase economic cooperation, but they yielded poor results. During President Karzai’s visit to Islamabad in March 2010, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to develop the communication network, boost trade to $15 billion a year by 2015 and enhance cooperation in education with exchange programmes and doubling scholarships from 1,000 to 2,000. In agriculture, creation of a Pakistan-Afghanistan food bank was discussed, while in the energy sector joint strategies for early implementation of trans-Afghan energy projects were agreed upon, with particular focus on CASA-1000 and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline. Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement 2010 has also failed to achieve results so far.

Afghanistan, may be for the first time in history, has started looking for other routes through Iran and Tajikistan for transit trade. “Afghanistan has been working on other options like Iran, China and Central Asia for transit trade. Pakistan needs to understand that it is not only Afghanistan that needs its land routes, Pakistan also cannot access Central Asia without Afghanistan,” says Ajmal Baluchzada, a leading Kabul’s civil society activist. “We do not want Pakistan to invest in Afghanistan, we only want it to play its role in bringing peace to Afghanistan,” he tells TNS.

“Central Asia is not economically viable. However, we are in talks with Iran. But still Pakistan is the most important route,” says Najib Manali. “Pakistan should not fear its neighbours. We have good relations with India but they are not at the cost of Pakistan. We have seen a policy shift during the last few years and hope the new civilian government will help further normalise relations between both the countries.

Traders and businessmen on both sides are frustrated with the bitter relations between both sides which diminishes their prospects of business. “Political situation between both the countries is the biggest obstacle in business relations,” says Ahmadullah Afghan, executive director of Afghan chapter of Pak-Afghan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industries (PAJCCI). His Pakistani counterpart, Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, also seconds his argument. “India, Turkey and Iran have captured the Afghanistan market,” he says, adding that Afghani traders have been doing most of their business through Iran.

“Around 70-80 per cent business activity in Balochistan and KP is directly related to the transit trade. Trade through Iran cost Afghan traders at least $2000 extra to transport goods on one container, but still they are opting that route because of bureaucratic hurdles on the Pakistani side,” he says.

Hassan Khan says as Pakistan historically supported insurgent forces in Afghanistan, it never had friendly relations with the Afghani regimes. “Afghanistan is extension of the Pakistani market, but we have never been able to institutionalise it. It is a country of over 35 million people and can be a great market for Pakistan. But we need to change our traditional mindset and start seeing it as a business opportunity,” he concludes.

[B]26.05.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Bacha of our age[/SIZE]
The writer of crisp and witty letters to the editor and a conscientious lawyer is no more
By Javed Aziz Khan[/CENTER][/B]

Barrister Baachaa (or Barrister Bacha), a seasoned lawyer and nationalist leader and a humble human being was known all over the country for his crispy, witty letters to editor in the national dailies. He loved to comment on key issues of the country and the region in the form of these letters that found a place in the newspapers, especially English language.

72-year-old barrister passed away on May 18 after he sustained a head injury while having his routine walk in Hayatabad. He was admitted to the local hospital but doctors could not save his life.

Belonging to Daag Ismail Khel town of Nowshera district in the east of Peshawar, Barrister Baachaa had contested for the slot of president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in 2009 but lost to Barrister Qazi Anwar with a margin of 44 votes. Humble and always available for comments, Barrister Baachaa had a special love for media and media persons. Baachaa played an important role in the Lawyers’ Movement against the government of Pervez Musharraf and remained in jail for 13 days.

Born in 1941, Barrister Baachaa was a popular student leader as he used to deliver speeches at the Islamia College Peshawar (now Islamia College University). He was also elected as president of the Khyber Union, a prestigious student literary body of the Islamia College. When he was a student of class 9, he led a students’ protest demonstration against Israel, UK and France for their attack on Suez Canal for which Egypt’s Jamal Abdul Nasser wrote him a letter of appreciation.

He went to the UK and remained in self-exile for around 11 years when his arrest warrants were issued for criticising President Ayub Khan during a convocation at the University of Peshawar in 1961. During his stay there, he was called to the bar by the Hon’ble Society of the Inner Temple. He joined the Awami National Party in 1992 but was later expelled by the party leadership for alleged violation of the party discipline. e was later asked to join the party which he did in 2008.

His latest statement on May 14 was against the policies of the leadership of ANP. “Bilour’s accusing finger stopped short of spelling out the detestable policies of the party, which included the party leadership’s greed, love for dollars, properties worth millions of dollars in Dubai and Malaysia, and desire to win over the favours of the United States administration at the cost of Pakhtun blood and tears in Afghanistan, tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” stated Baachaa while referring to a statement of Ghulam Ahmad Bilour after his defeat on NA-1 at the hands of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan.

The statement continued: “The only way to stop the party heading towards oblivion was to replace the present leadership with ideologically sound and committed workers who had the survival, honour and happiness of Pakhtuns closer to their hearts than the greenbacks in their foreign accounts.”

His colleagues and juniors were all praise for the late lawyer. “He was a nice human being and for what I liked him the most was his stance against human rights violations. Besides, he was one of the few people who could use their wit with decency,” says Faheem Wali, a senior lawyer of the Peshawar High Court. He adds that Barrister Baachaa’s one liners in his letters to the editor were matchless.

Another lawyer Khurram Zeeshan was all praise for Baachaa for taking up some key issues faced by the country in the apex courts. “He knew the power of the court and that is why took up every key issue in either the Peshawar High Court or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.”

Barrister Baachaa was much famous for his writ petitions in the public interest issues. Recently, he had filed a case in the Peshawar High Court against installing model of a jet fighter plane in a square in Hayatabad that was named after popular poet and former ANP chief Ajmal Khan Khattak. Baachaa was critical of the Peshawar Development Authority for placing a jet fighter on a square that is named after a poet of peace.

A couple of months back, he had moved the court against the creation of new provinces in the country when the federal government floated the idea. Bacha asked the court to stop the government from chopping different parts of the country. He had submitted an application in the Peshawar High Court in April, asking for the arrest of former President General (Retired) Pervez Musharraf for suspending the constitution.

“He had many friends among journalists as he was not only a lawyer but a very good writer too. He played an important role during the Lawyers Movement and never bowed to pressure,” says Amjad Ali Safi, a Peshawar-based court reporter.

[I]The writer can be contacted at[/I] [email]javedaziz1@gmail.com[/email] [I]and followed on twitter at [/I]@JavedAzizKhan

[B]02.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]If bricks could speak...[/SIZE]
Once a symbol of the deep connection between liberal England and nationalist India, as well as a sign of Indian independence, Bradlaugh Hall now lies in ruins
By Yaqoob Khan Bangash
[/CENTER][/B]
The writing of history revolves around personalities and events; seldom have buildings been the subject of historical research. But it is buildings in which these great people live, write, argue, and die. It is these buildings which witness the mesmerising speeches of statesmen, the deafening shots of an assassin, the silence of a writer, and the hushed sighs of a victim.

In South Asia, buildings have little value. Apart from the grand monuments, such as the Taj Mahal or the Mughal forts, few buildings are well-kept. Even important sites are often encroached upon, vandalised, and at times arbitrarily altered or badly restored. This lack of appreciation of ‘edifice history’ means that no one cares to preserve a period house, an old mosque or structures associated with particular events. The fascination with the ‘new’ deeply permeates the South Asian mindset, and as a result relegates history to often boring textbooks.

Learning history through vision, experience, or contact is increasingly impossible in modern South Asia.

Therefore, it is no wonder that hardly anyone has ever heard of ‘Bradlaugh Hall’ in Lahore. The 3000 capacity hall, which was the centre of intense political discourse in Lahore for almost half a century, and which was the main office of the Punjab Congress Committee for decades, now lies in a dilapidated condition, padlocked, with a crumbling roof and a fast flourishing business in drugs centred on it. Only the foundation stone, which notes its opening by ‘The Hon. Surendera Nath Bannerjea, on October 30, 1900,’ gives the visitor the sense that the imposing redbrick building set back on Rattigan Road might have had an illustrious past.

When my friend casually mentioned Bradlaugh Hall some time ago, I admitted to have heard about the place, but had no clue where it actually stood. Thanks to his resolute interest, he found out the exact location of the hall and after some searching we finally found the once significant and vibrant Bradlaugh Hall, forlorn and forgotten.

The website of the Indian National Congress rightly notes that the contribution of British people towards Indian independence is often ignored and mostly underplayed. However, Englishmen, and indeed some Englishwomen, were critical in the development of Indian nationalism, especially during its early phase. While most students of Indian history might have heard the name of Allan Octavian Hume, the founder of the Indian National Congress, and Mrs Annie Besant, the leader of the Home Rule League, few might recognise the name and importance of Charles Bradlaugh, the atheist Member of Parliament [MP] who was controversial both in England and in India.

Charles Bradlaugh was elected MP for Northampton in 1880, but was unable to take up his seat in parliament because he refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown. An avowed atheist and republican, he was first imprisoned in the clock tower of parliament for attempting to take up his seat without swearing the Oath, and then fined fifteen hundred pounds in 1883 for voting illegally in parliament. His insistence on ‘affirming’ rather than swearing an Oath to the Crown deeply divided parliament and after much wrangling he finally took the oath ‘as a matter of form’ in 1886 and took up his seat in the Commons. With his strong support of secularism (in 1866, he co-founded the National Secular Society), birth control, republicanism, Irish Home Rule, and women’s suffrage, Bradlaugh was a thorn in the side of a deeply conservative late Victorian England until his death in 1891.

Charles Bradlaugh’s death in 1891 drew thousands of mourners. Among them, significantly, was the twenty-one year old Mohandas Gandhi, who was then studying in London to become a Barrister. Undoubtedly, Gandhi had come to pay homage to the great friend of Indian nationalism who had staunchly supported Indian home rule.

Bradlaugh had a deep concern for India. He tabled draft reforms of the Indian councils in parliament, which later crystallised in the Indian Councils Act 1892 allowing for greater self-government. More importantly, Bradlaugh wanted the Indians to become better politicians. He attended the 1890 session of the Indian National Congress where he strongly argued for more political activity and greater efforts for gaining increased self-government. He also made tangible his connection to India and bought a track of land in Lahore, on Rattigan Road, with a view towards developing some kind of a political space.

It is said that the Punjab government was so wary of his presence in Lahore, that they asked him to leave, whereby, he bought a boat and embanked on the river Ravi, claiming that he was not legally on ‘Indian soil’ then. Even though the government finally succeeded in making him leave, Bradlaugh made his mark on the Indian political landscape.

Within a decade of his death, his friends in India built the imposing ‘Bradlaugh Hall’ on the land he had bought a decade earlier, allowing for a purpose built space for political debate.

Over its nearly half a century of active existence, Bradlaugh Hall experienced many shades of Indian political opinion. Almost immediately the hall became the chosen venue of political debate in Lahore, and broadly the Punjab, and everyone from the Congress, to firebrand nationalists, to committed socialists, held their conferences in the hall. The existence of a purpose built, affiliation free, and easily available space spurred on a marked increase in political engagement and debate, allowing for a wide range of opinion to be discussed, developed and disseminated.

Perhaps the greatest, and most controversial, moment in its history came when the Punjabi politician, Lala Lajpat Rai, the Sher-e-Punjab [lion of the Punjab], heeded the call of Mahatma Gandhi to boycott British run institutions, and established the ‘National College’ on the premises of Bradlaugh Hall in 1922. The intention behind this ‘National College’ was very interesting.

Since the advent of British rule, Indians had accepted wholesale British institutions — from Councils to hospitals to schools. This was something Gandhi wanted India to ‘unlearn,’ and develop its own policies and methods. After all, why should India adopt Western styles without question when it was itself heir to great traditions? Few people understood this, and only three people, quite independently, tried to ‘nationalise’ education at least. One was Rabindranath Tagore, who established a school at Shantiniketan, which later developed into the Visva Bharti University, and the other was Abdul Ghaffar Khan who established Azad Madrassas in the Frontier. The third was obviously, Lala Lajpat Rai.

This ‘nationalisation’ of education was very significant, because it provided Indians with ‘Indian’ education — seeped in their own traditions, culture and language. If such nationalisation of education had continued, and developed, perhaps Pakistan at least would not have been in the sorry state where our students do not know any language adequately — they do not know their mother tongue well enough, cannot understand good Urdu, and are barely proficient in English. Such confusion is certainly the result of adopting a foreign system of education without question and adaptation.

Established during the height of the Non-cooperation Movement, the first mass nationalist movement in India, most Indians who joined National College were revolutionaries. Among these firebrands was the enigmatic Bhagat Singh, who studied at the college from 1922 to 1926, meeting his future co-revolutionaries at Bradlaugh Hall. It was, of course, in retaliation for the fatal beating of Lala Lajpat Rai in October 1928 during the Simon Commission protests, that Bhagat Singh killed the Assistant Superintendent of Police, AJ Saunders, and was subsequently hanged on March 23, 1931 — becoming a legend.

The 1920s was a time of intense political activity at Bradlaugh Hall: Mahatama Gandhi presided over the convocation of the National College, Maulana Azad gave fiery speeches against the Simon Commission, and the All India Communist Party held its sessions there. During that time, Bradlaugh Hall epitomised the breadth and depth of the Indian political spectrum.

From the older Lala Lajpat Rai, and the old moderates, to the young and dynamic Jawaharlal Nehru, and IK Gujral, many politicians experienced the charged atmosphere of Bradlaugh Hall. For the self-government starved Indians, it acted at the same time as the Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, the House of Commons floor, and party headquarters. Till the end of the Raj and the partition of India, Bradlaugh Hall remained the Punjab headquarters of the Indian National Congress, and as such a bastion of Indian nationalism, in a building built on an Englishman’s land and named in his memory. Bradlaugh Hall was, therefore, at once a symbol of the deep connection between liberal England and nationalist India, as well as a sign of Indian independence.

Just as libraries are important for intellectual discourse and parks for sporting and recreational activities, public spaces like Bradlaugh Hall are important for a constructive and vibrant political milieu. For nearly half a century, Bradlaugh Hall was utilised by different religious and ethnic communities, hosted often conflicting viewpoints, and gave rise to divergent political agendas. However, it still remained an open space for all, signifying inclusiveness, tolerance and dialogue. Thus, it became the political microcosm of a multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and multi-party India.

It was perhaps poetic justice that the political role of Bradlaugh Hall ended with the partition of India. How could a place where Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Christians, and even atheists, had shared a platform, retain its role in a country founded specifically for one community? When again would people like Bi-amma (the mother of the Ali brothers), Gandhi, and Subhas Chander Bose, be able to share the same podium? How could the place which was home to the party which declared ‘Purna Swaraj’ (complete independence) as its goal during its 1929 session in the same city, co-exist with a party which demanded a separate ‘Muslim homeland’ just a few miles away in 1940?

The post-1947 life of Bradlaugh Hall has witnessed it being a storage house, a steel mill, and till latterly a small technical institute. Today, it stands decaying, locked and forgotten. The relegation of Bradlaugh Hall to the memory of a few historians, or the old grandmother who can still remember Gandhi spinning at the wheel outside it, is probably apt since Pakistan had also forgotten the people associated with it.

The national outlook of Lala Lajpat Rai, who established the Gulab Devi Chest Hospital in Lahore (opened by Gandhi in 1934) in memory of his mother who died of tuberculosis on the same spot, the revolutionary spirit of Bhagat Singh, and the nationalist Indian Muslim outlook of the Ali brothers and Maulana Azad, are also forgotten in Pakistan.

Bradlaugh Hall needs restoration and reopening again as a space for constructive political debate, just as Pakistan needs reopening to the committed, broad-based, and refreshing political debate Bradlaugh Hall once epitomised.

[I]The writer is Chairperson, Department of History, Forman Christian College, Lahore
[/I]

[B]02.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]The price of development[/SIZE]
Considered mankind’s greatest threat, climate change is likely to have profound
consequences for socio-economic sectors
By Alauddin Masood[/CENTER][/B]

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere crossed the alarming level of 400 parts per million (ppm) threshold, in mid-May this year, posing serious threats to the human life and economic activities on the globe.

Deep divisions between the developed countries of the North and the developing states of the South about cutting the atmospheric emissions have largely contributed to this phenomenon. Under the landmark 1997 Kyoto Protocol, it was obligatory for the developed countries to cut down carbon emissions to the 1990 level by 2012. Well before the deadline, the developed nations managed to get a big breather — at least five years extension under Durban (South Africa) accorded of December 11, 2011.

Environmentalists criticise the Durban package — as did many developing countries during the 13 days of hectic talks — for failing to move faster and deeper in cutting carbon emissions. Logically, the time to act is now, scientists maintain. They say that unless carbon emissions, chiefly CO2 from power generation and industry, level out and reverse within a few years, the earth will be set on a possibly irreversible path of rising temperatures that lead to ever greater climate catastrophes.

The developing states want the US and other developed countries to cut the emissions the most, arguing that historically it is the industrialised world that is responsible for contributing 70 to 80 per cent of the carbon pollution in the atmosphere. For over 200 years since the industrial revolution, it is the industrialised North that has emitted large amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But, the US and other developed states argue that the developing countries like Brazil, China, India, South Africa and South Korea, which are growing rapidly, should also control the emissions.

The greenhouse gases, like CO2, methane and nitrous oxide, build-up in the atmosphere and lead to climate change or global warming, posing grave threats to human civilisation. In other words, when CO2 rises into the atmosphere, it screens the sunlight, allowing the sunlight in but preventing the heat to leave.

By the year 2100, the global average surface temperature on earth, as estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), might increase by 1 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (about 2 to 6 F) with an associated rise in sea level by 15 to 95 cm (about 6 to 37 inches), posing extreme dangers to human life in low lying regions and low-lying Island States, like Venice and Fiji. But, the environmentalists forecast that due to greenhouse gases global temperature can increase by three degrees Celsius by the year 2040 and by the end of the century by five to six degrees Celsius, generating sand/dust storms, micro cloudbursts and tsunamis, if urgent remedial steps are not taken.

As concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has reached new heights, scientists believe any rise above 2C threshold could trigger far reaching and irreversible changes, both over land and in the seas. Global warming at 3 degrees can result in the crossing of many “tipping points,” including instability in the South Asian summer monsoon, near disappearance of the Arctic summer sea-rise and degradation of the Amazon rain forest, rendering any remedial action ineffective. In case global warming reaches 4 degree C, climate scientists warn, only one-tenth of the global population will survive.

The highlands, in particular, are vulnerable to ‘Glacier Lake Outburst Floods’ as overall glaciers retreat and additional snow melt can increase the amount of water dammed in the vicinity of a glacier, and the added pressure enhances the likelihood of disastrous outburst flooding. The effects of global warming, observed over the last century, include: Increase in sea level by 1-2 mm, retreat of glaciers, decrease in snow cover, shifts of plant and animal ranges, increase in coral bleaching, earlier flowering of plants and insect emergence. The main factors contributing to climate change are: burning of fossil fuels, industrial emissions and deforestation.

Though like other developing countries, Pakistan’s contribution to global warming is negligible – as low as 0.43 per cent, it ranks at the top among countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. According to scientists, 2010 and 2011 floods in Pakistan, forest fires in Russia, mudslides in China and droughts in Sub-Sahara Africa were enunciations of scenarios that experts had been predicting since long due to the impact of greenhouse gases.

In 2010, R. K. Pachauri, Chief of the Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change told Inter Press Service that the floods of the kind that hit Pakistan may become more frequent and more intense in future. Pakistan also figures among the countries which are at risk of droughts and where agriculture produce is likely to be affected adversely.

In addition to rainfall variability and changes in the marine ecosystems, evidence shows that most of the glaciers are melting and consequently shrinking in size and retreating, posing a serious threat to freshwater availability. In South Asia, glaciers of Karakoram and Himalaya ranges are reportedly under threat due to climate change. For example, Siachin glacier is melting at 110 metres per year. And by the year 2100, the experts believe, the Himalayan glaciers would disappear.

Pakistan has some 5,218 glaciers, over 13,680 square km or 13 per cent of mountains in the Upper Indus Basin, and 2,420 lakes of which 50 are reportedly highly dangerous and may cause flooding in the plains in Punjab and Sindh. Pakistan’s Indus delta also remains exposed to sea rise and sea intrusion, causing an upward shift of almost 400 metres in the coastline.

Pakistan is also experiencing biodiversity loss, shifts in weather patterns and changes in fresh water supply. The phenomenon of global warming might impact the snow and rain patterns and the snow melt during the summer. At present, Pakistani rivers receive 70 per cent of their flow from snow melt. If not addressed appropriately, these changes could accentuate after 2050.

Considered mankind’s greatest threat, climate change is likely to have profound consequences for socio-economic sectors, like health, food production, energy consumption, natural resources management and security. In fact, the harmful impacts of the global warming are already manifesting themselves in the form of storms, tornadoes, floods, droughts and increase in natural disasters to 400-500 in a year against 125 in the 1980s.

Global warming is the price of development that human beings are paying. But, the fruits of development have been harvested by the rich developed countries where development activities are contributing in a big way to global warming. But, developing countries, like Pakistan, with least contribution to this phenomenon, have to bear most of the brunt of ravages.

The rapid rise in greenhouse gases is reducing our ability to limit warming to safe levels, lending credence to apprehensions that the prospects of limiting the warming may close in this very decade. Furthermore, 13 of the warmest years recorded have occurred within the last two decades and the year 2011 caps a decade that ties the record as the hottest ever measured since 1850 when accurate measures began.

Across the world, over 710,000 people died from 1991 to 2010 from 14,000 extreme weather events, incurring economic losses, in today’s terms, of over 2.3 trillion US dollars. When seen across this 20 year period, not a single developed country features in the top 10 for climate risk. Only one — Russia — features in the top 20 as a result of the July 2010 heat wave, but that was an exception. The results underscore the vulnerability of poor countries to climate risks.

The experts apprehend that the climate change would have a wide-ranging adverse impact on human health: It would increase mortality rates due to heat stress and lead to increase in the potential transmission of vector borne diseases, including malaria, dengue and yellow fever. Moreover, it will hardly hit the poor, who are more dependent on natural resources and have less ability to adapt to the changing climate. However, increase in winter temperatures in high altitude areas could lead to decrease in mortality rates.

While highlighting the urgency of shifting away from fossil fuels, this brings to the fore the need for taking up steps to return carbon to where it belongs — the soil — through regenerative agriculture. This approach represents our greatest opportunity to reduce the atmospheric CO2 levels, enhancing soil fertility and biodiversity as well as the land’s ability to retain water.

The geographical location and socio-economic fragility of Pakistan, like some other developing states, make it more vulnerable to the environmental, social and economic ramifications of climate change, while the lack of resources/capabilities to adapt to the changes can worsen the situation. This brings to the fore the need for constant monitoring/research of the impact of climate change on human life/glaciers, and mainstreaming climate change into development planning at all levels and sectors. In addition, the complexity of the problem calls for the need to increased access to innovative farm production practices and irrigation techniques, and improving forest management and biodiversity conservation.

Adaptation to climate change, aimed at allowing vulnerable groups to adjust and live with the change in the environment and economy, would require a heavy expenditure over a long period of time. Since the phenomenon has been unleashed by the developed countries’ unhindered pursuit for accelerated development and material gains, the international community, in particular the developed states, should make focused efforts to bail out the third world vulnerable countries from a bleak future, a situation in which they are likely to land for no fault of theirs.

In view of the serious nature of threats to the mankind and human habitats, one would suggest that the UN/international organisations and the developed states should set up a special fund and a dedicated organisation for mitigating the effects of climate change and providing help to countries affected or likely to be affected by it. Without international assistance, it would be very difficult for debt-ridden states like Pakistan to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The authorities in Pakistan, on their part, need to take up this issue at appropriate fora, making a beginning by sensitising Pakistan’s ambassadors abroad and creating awareness within the country about the ways this nation can contribute to lessening the impact of climate change.

[I]The writer is a freelance columnist based at Islamabad. [/I]alauddinmasood@gmail.com

[B]02.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]A new counterterrorism doctrine[/SIZE]
The inability of the US to win the war in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the World against terrorism may come as a resounding reminder to the American realists that there are some real problems with their prescriptions
By Raza Khan
[/CENTER][/B]
The policy speech by United States President Barack Hussein Obama, mapping out new counterterrorism doctrine, is extensively realistic and could be instrumental in putting an honourable end to the Global War on Terror (GWoT) for Washington. The policy direction, which the new doctrine contains, could be effective measures to counter extremism and terrorism.

In the policy speech, President Obama, admitting the mistakes and flaws committed in the conceiving and execution of the GWoT, also suggested rectification measures. Obama’s speech may sound idealist and a departure from the well-entrenched realist American foreign policy traditions but as realism has failed to buy Americans the most sought after value, security, it is indeed a time to let idealism play its role in putting an end to the one of the longest war of the modern history and human suffering thereof.

The announcement by President Barack Obama to restrict the use of drone attacks in countries with which the US is not at war will have major repercussions for Pakistan. In a related development, President Obama has also announced shifting of the control of drone attacks from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the country’s military. To date, the CIA has carried out the largest number of drones strikes anywhere in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). Tens of the al Qaeda commanders and fighters of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have been killed in these strikes, but a large number of non-combatants have also perished in these attacks. Resultantly, Washington has been facing extreme pressure from human rights groups both within the US and outside as well as political circles particularly in Pakistan.

Despite announcing to reduce the number of drone strikes, the White House justified the large number of drone attacks in recent years. In a bid to deflect criticism, it argued that drone strikes were the most ‘discriminating’, meaning having caused extremely limited collateral damage relatively to other strikes. Although this argument has a substance, it cannot be used as a blanket justification for using the lethal weapons in a foreign land.

Sounding as a typical idealist democrat, Obama said that the US was at a crossroads after spending over one trillion dollars and paying the sacrifice of around 7000 lives over the last one decade in the GWoT. He said, “We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us.” This policy direction was indeed required on part of Washington as the GWoT has been seemingly futile and rudderless.

In times of crippling economic situation, Washington had no other option but to define the contours of the remaining part of the war. Speaking in idealist overtones, Obama said, “To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance.” This means that idealism has started overtaking the naked and ruthless realism of American foreign policy. The inability of the US to win the war in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the World against terrorism may come as a resounding reminder to the American realists that there have been some real problems with their prescription and doctrine.

Making the right analysis of the US interventions in the 21st century, President Obama said the US military entanglements in foreign lands did not ensure security of American mainland and instead fomented radicalism. Obama said, “A perpetual war — through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.” Obviously this has been the lesson which anyone with an average intellect could decipher from the events and incidents in the Af-Pak region. The US has been losing an increasing number of soldiers in Afghanistan without any sight of victory. If one does retrospective analysis whether extremism in the name of religion has grown or has reduced it transpires that it has exacerbated. Thus, it means that the GWoT has failed to achieve its objectives.

The most important part of President Obama’s new counterterrorism doctrine is emphasis on the need to locate the root causes of extremism. He maintained that although the attacks in the West continued while referring to the Boston and London strikes, but stressed that Washington should seek to address the “underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism.” The panacea which he suggested was expanded foreign aid and diplomacy. The doctrine in this regard is quite realistic because it has been due to the failure of diplomacy that wars have raged in the 21st Century.

A part of the blame in this regard can be attributed to the conduct of diplomacy in the full-blown public and media lens. In our era, the diplomats have also been playing to the gallery instead of focusing on their primary objective of furthering their respective interests through negotiations, tact and compromise — the very ingredients of diplomacy. A deeper look would reveal that even in a country like the US, if not entirely, a significant part of the foreign policy particularly related to defense has been formulated by the military and the intelligence agencies, which had disastrous consequences.

Insofar as provision of foreign aid is concerned, obviously this can go a long way in mitigating the sufferings of people in the Af-Pak region as well as Iraq, Yemen and North Africa, where al Qaeda has cultivated strong basis. Apart from it, foreign aid could increase the capacity of both the state institutions to provide good governance which is the main cause of rampaging extremism and terrorism in these regions. However, in order the aid to be effective it needs to be given in the right hands.

The most important issue regarding terrorism which the US faces right now is the issue of home-grown terrorists. Obama, realising the problem, said that after a successful fight against al Qaeda in the Af-Pak region Washington should now focus on the problem of home-grown terrorists. It means that there is a need to have a critical analysis of the American society and understand the dynamics of deviant behaviour displayed by Muslim Americans and that why many of them have decided to become terrorists.

Dismissing that al Qaeda is a serious threat, Obama, like a true statesman, argued, “In the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight.” This is where Obama calls for soul-searching and wants a reassessment of the societal and social and state institutional processes of the US which have been contributing to the menace of extremism in the US society. Now this is the most apt approach to addressing the issue of religious extremism and terrorism because this means finding faults within than without. Now whether the American state institutions and policymaking circles would concentrate on what their scholar president has directed them to focus on is anybody’s guess.

Obama also called for formation of a special court to assess and give a go-ahead to drone strikes. This aims at inclusion of a third branch of government into the decision-making and execution of these lethal attacks. However, the attempt by President Obama to give a legal cover to lethal part of the counter-terrorism strategy may not turn out to be very successful in achieving its aims.

In a nutshell, President Obama’s recent policy speech regarding the priorities and challenges of the US existing policies has put an end to the notion of a ‘perpetual’ war. This would scotch many conspiracy theories regarding the covert intentions of the US in the Af-Pak region. At the same time, Obama’s speech has also laid the foundation of a new national security framework which is more realistic, comprehensive and noble vis-a-vis the existing paradigm which has been unrealistic, incomprehensive and ignoble.

[I]The writer is a political analyst and researcher who hold doctoral degree in [/I]International Relations:razapkhan@yahoo.com

[B]02.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Food for thought[/SIZE]
Migration, urbanisation, improved life styles and income levels have
complicated our food intake patterns. So ‘eat whatever you want but mostly plants’ and ‘avoid whatever your grandmother would not recognise as food’
By Syed Mansoor Hussain
[/CENTER][/B]
For centuries, food that was eaten was pretty much unchanged in a particular area. There were differences in quantity, richness and style but the essential ingredients were the same. However, the last few decades have seen a major transformation in what we eat. The major reasons for these changes are migration, urbanisation, improved life styles and income levels, increased amounts of processed and refined foods, sugary beverages, fast foods and greater consumption of meat.

In a country like Pakistan where a majority of people are still living on the edge of poverty, many of the above factors are less important but we still see rising incidence of ‘chronic’ diseases that are at least partially related to diet. In particular, we are seeing more obesity in younger people, a virtual epidemic of high blood sugar (adult onset Diabetes), high blood pressure, increased incidence of blockages of heart arteries (coronary artery disease), and complications from these conditions.

As far as adult onset Diabetes and obesity are concerned, these are definitely related to what we eat. The more we eat of refined starches like white bread and white rice, refined sugar and high fat diets, greater the incidence of obesity and Diabetes. And Diabetes as well as a high fat diet definitely increases the risk of coronary disease. Also we are eating more processed and fast foods that contain greater amount of salt and that contributes to the incidence and severity of high blood pressure increasing the risk of brain damage (strokes).

Even though modern medicine has made great strides in controlling Diabetes, high blood pressure and high blood fat levels, that can lead to coronary disease and other complications like damage to limbs and the eyes or kidneys, proper diet still forms a an important part of prevention as well as treatment of these conditions. But I really want to talk about what normal people eat. Clearly there are no absolutes and the Internet and magazines are full of different diets and lists of miracle foods that would make us live forever.

The first thing to remember is that an average person, weighing around 65 to 75 kilogrammes who does not work as a day labourer or a farmer needs to consume around two thousand calories a day. Any excess intake will be stored in the body as fat. We don’t have to weigh ourselves every day to find out if we are putting on weight. Our clothes will tell us that. But being slightly overweight is not all bad and recent ‘studies’ suggest that people with some extra fat have a better survival when they become seriously sick compared to those that are thin.

Clearly the important thing then is to eat enough to maintain a certain weight. Here diet as well as the amount of physical work we do is both equally important. Food is the primary source of energy but types of food we eat is also important. Different types of food provide a variety of nutrients and minerals that the body needs besides just calories. It is for this reason plain sugar and foods heavy in sugar are often called ‘empty calories’.

First about fat in our diet; without fat we would not consume what we call ‘fat soluble vitamins’. So some fat is necessary but it does not have to be only of animal origin (ghee). Much is made about the source of a particular fat or oil but basically it is the quantity that matters. Olive oil or other oils from seeds all have their supporters. Another source of ‘good’ fat is nuts but these are too expensive for most people to use as a primary source of fat in their diets. The important thing, however, is to cook using as little fat or oil as possible.

Next is the question of proteins as in meat. Some animals, especially cattle, in west are bred to provide fatty meat — the ‘marbled steak’ for instance. From having meat as the main source of calories, we now believe that meat should be used more as a ‘side dish’. And it should be lean rather than fatty. Fish and poultry have less fat than beef or lamb. That makes them a better choice as a source of protein. Fish also provides certain oils that are felt to be beneficial. However, legumes (daals) and beans are also an important alternative source of proteins. The ‘lowly’ egg has come back in fashion as a source of fat, proteins and minerals. But eggs cooked without fat.

The primary source of calories for most people is the carbohydrates as in bread, potatoes and sugar. Here it is important to understand the concept of ‘glycaemic index’ or how rapidly a carbohydrate is absorbed into the blood after it is eaten. Generally speaking, purer a carbohydrate is like sugar or refined starches (white bread or white rice), the quicker it is absorbed and produces a physiological response that can be detrimental in the long run. In general, whole wheat, multi-grain flour, brown rice and unrefined sugar are better. Another major advantage of whole wheat type starches is that they contain dietary fibre that has distinct advantages when it comes to intestinal health.

As far as ‘plants’ are concerned, this includes vegetables as well as fruits. These provide a large number of nutrients that are vital for health. In general, vegetables should be eaten as close to uncooked as is possible. Another interesting fact about ‘plants’ especially fruits is that the more colour they have the better they are in terms of important dietary supplements called ‘anti-oxidants’. And plants are also a great source of fibre that as I have mentioned above is important to keep our intestinal systems working efficiently.

Another source of calories and minerals especially calcium that is needed for bone strength and of fat and proteins is milk and dairy products. We go through periods where one type of dairy product is thought of as better than another. Essentially all of them are useful but not as the primary source of calories. Yoghurt especially that contains live cultures is accepted as a good source of dairy intake.

So, some basic ideas that have evolved over the last few years. Multiple small meals are better than two or three large ones. Drink a lot of water but avoid sugary drinks like sodas and fruit juices sold in cartons and avoid processed food and fast food. And then there are two general guidelines that I find particularly useful. The first is that ‘eat whatever you want but mostly plants’. Second is that avoid ‘whatever your grandmother would not recognise as food’.

[I]The writer is former professor and Chairman Department of Cardiac Surgery, KEMU/Mayo Hospital, Lahore:[/I] [email]smhmbbs70@yahoo.com[/email]

[B]02.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Challenges, opportunities[/SIZE]
As the ban on kite-flying and making continues, the youth at risk look for alternatives
By Naila Inayat[/CENTER][/B]

For some, it is painful to think of all the art and the skill that has died with the ban on Basant — the vibrant colours, the festivity, the string and the kite-making, the flying techniques and, most significantly, the youth who lost their livelihood. For some, kite-making was a family enterprise.

30-year-old Nasim Bano is one of the many who fell prey to the circumstances after the ban on kites. “String and kite-making was our business, we weren’t dependent on anyone for our living. But the ban on Basant took everything away from us. As a youngster, this was a skill and business that I inherited from my ancestors — thinking that our future generations would also benefit from it.”

“There was a time when we as a family were deprived of even having a single proper meal in a day,” she says with teary eyes.

Bano, a resident of Kot Lakhpat, Lahore, has studied till 5th standard. She is married and has the responsibility of six children on her. “I wish I had completed my matriculation that would have given me an opportunity to take up an alternative. But now I’m trying to make ends meet so that I can at least feed my children,” she says.

According to the Kite Flying Association of Pakistan, around 3,30,000 people have lost their jobs due to the ban. However, in 2006, kite flying was banned in Punjab due to the rampant use of glass-coated or metal kite-strings, also called the killer kite thread, which took the lives of several motorcyclists.

Since then, the debate whether the ban is justified or not, or the government should have tried to regulate the making of strings continues with less focus on the individuals who lost their bread and butter.

Kite-making has always been a business restricted to the informal sector. It was the work that kept both women and men earning. It was shared by entire families, who could earn up to Rs 2,000 a day. Today they are broke with no work to do. In rare cases have those affected been able to shift their line of work, but even then they are reported to not be as prosperous as they used to be.

“Kite-making was totally a home-based work done by families that brought them decent income. Due to unemployment and increasing poverty, young girls were forced into prostitution while the young men took up odd jobs,” says Maria Kokab, Programme Officer at HomeNet, a national NGO.

Having closely monitored the ordeals of the kite-makers, HomeNet decided to raise voice for the women kite-makers, who had no alternative skill and many of them were supporting their families.

“Where unemployment and inflation keep increasing on weekly basis and population ratio is also on the rise, it becomes imperative to encourage the cottage industry and informal sector employment. The “Empowering Home-based Workers” project for kite-makers initially engaged 500 women workers in order to give them alternative employment — something that the government failed to do,” Maria says.

It was not an easy ride for the resource group as it faced difficulties in reaching out to the young kite-makers who were neglected and isolated. Though they were in large numbers, they were not ready to share their problems due to the ban and police raids on their homes.

When the focus groups tried to understand their problems, they were threatened by police who assumed that they are going to restart their kite-making business. “In some cases, men stopped their women from meeting our team. But slowly, we built their confidence, had long meetings with the male members of their families and convinced them to join training,” Maria says.

The ‘National Policy On Home-Based Workers’ reveals that most of the home-based workers, who represent 60 per cent of women workforce in the country, are piece rate workers involved in manufacturing and post-manufacturing tasks such as embroidery, carpet weaving and handlooms, wood work, bangle making, dates cleaning, packing prawn peeling and many other similar tasks.

The project began from two cities of Punjab, Lahore and Jhang. Considered a hub for kite-making, Walled City, Kahna, Kot Lakhpat, Shahdara, Imamia Colony and Guddi Market in Lahore were focused. Kasur, Gujranwala and Faisalabad were other important districts of Punjab where a large number of women kite-makers were targeted.

Nasim Bano is one of the home-based beneficiaries of HomeNet. Her eyes shine when she begins to talk about the project, “For me this opportunity came as a big relief. We have been imparted skills like needlework, knitting, dastkari, stitching, dyeing etc. I recall the time when I wasn’t employed; I didn’t even have the money to get my shoe stitched. But today, I can sew shoes — that is something that I learnt at one of the training workshops,” she says.

Bano doesn’t want to look back as she plans to start her own stitching school. “My area (Kot Lakhpat) has a lot of young female workforce but there are no means to engage them. With the help of HomeNet, I want to set up my own stitching school where I could pass on the skills to the youngsters in my community,” she says.
[I]
The writer is a staff member.[/I] Twitter: @nailainayat

[B]02.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]lesson[/SIZE]
Schools in Gadap Town are getting clean drinking water and functional washrooms, thanks to HANDS
By Shahid Husain
[/CENTER][/B]
About 25 kilometres from the Karachi city in Al-Haj Dur Mohammad Baloch Goth, in Malir district, Gadap Town, is situated a beautiful school named Government Boys Elementary School. Its magnificent Neem trees and chirping birds remind one of Tagore’s Shanti Nakatan. There are 220 students and a team of 11 dedicated teachers — three of them female.

Mohammad Aslam, 40, the headmaster of Government Boys Elementary School told TNS that about 100 years ago a person named Dur Mohammad Baloch migrated from Turbat in Mekran Division in Balochistan and settled down in this village. In the beginning, he involved himself in agricultural pursuits, but one fine morning an idea clicked his mind that he should establish a school for village children.

“Initially, the school was established in 1933 in Mirpur Sakro because Dur Mohammad Baloch could not get land in Dur Mohammad village,” headmaster Aslam said. Thereafter, the school was shifted to Damloti, the place from where the people of Karachi used to get drinking water.

“The school was then shifted to Sheedi Khan Goth and in 1948 it was relocated to its present premises in Darsano Channo in Union Council-2, Gadap Town, Malir,” Aslam said.

Malir in Sindhi language means “fertile” and it happened to be the food bowl of Karachi until it was devastated by “Reti Bajri mafia” that devoured its sand and gravel and destroyed Malir River. The buildings in Karachi city have been constructed with the sand and gravel of Malir River but at a heavy cost. The river that received water from the hilly tracts of Gadap has been totally ruined. So have the fertile Malir valley and its farm houses.

A few farms exist but the vast majority of agricultural land has been acquired by builders. The “Reti Bajri mafia” operates in connivance with police, land mafia, bureaucrats and feudal lords.

HANDS, the brainchild of eminent pediatrician Prof. A.G. Billoo has done a remarkable job. It has provided filter plants to hundreds of schools in Gadap town and taught hand washing with soap to students as well as teachers, ‘chowkidars’ and other staff of schools. “HANDS have taught our children and staff hand washing according to WHO standards,” Aslam said.

“Many important personalities hail from our village and some of them have studied at this school,” Aslam said with a sense of pride. “Abdul Hakeem Baloch, MNA-elect from PML-N, Ghulam Hussain Baloch, Director Finance, government of Sindh, Mohammad Saddiq Baloch, DEO, Elementary Schools, Karachi and Ghulam Mustafa Baloch of non-governmental organisation SPO studied at this school,” Aslam said.

“I am headmaster at this school since 2011. Our students get filtered water thanks to HANDS. It has also constructed five washrooms. Nine classes are functional,” Aslam said.

“But we have persistent problems too,” Aslam said. “One is loadshedding. On an average, we face loadshedding for over 7 hours daily. Sometimes, we don’t have electricity for three days,” he lamented. “We don’t have funds to hire ‘chowkidars’. Hence there is always a threat of theft,” he said.

The school is neat and clean. “However, every month there is a cleanliness drive and all the students and teachers participate in it,” said Bilquis Rehman, General Manager, Communication & Information, HANDS.

Amir Ali, 14, a student of class VIII, said shyly he wants to become a doctor. His father Umeed Ali is a police constable. He has 5 brothers and one sister. His mother is a housewife.

Abdul Khalil, 25, is a voluntary teacher. He is Matriculate and has also acquired a degree in “Shahadat-e-Alamia,” a religious degree equivalent to Masters. “I volunteered so that kids of my village may become educated,” he said.

It was now noon but Neem trees had kept the school cool. The school bell rang and young kids came out from their classes in a queue and dispersed.

Yet another school visited by TNS was Hashim Khaskheli Government Girls Primary School. It has 150 students from Class I to V. It was established in 1995. HANDS have entered into partnership with the government school and conducted renovation, planted trees and installed swings for children.

Safia Tareen, who works for HANDS, lives there and teaches hand washing with soap to the students. There are 7 teachers in the school whose educational qualification is from Matriculation to BA.

TNS also visited GGBPS Primary School Hashim Jokhio in Gadap Town. Prominent documentary film-maker, author, environmentalist and leading debater of yesteryear Javed Jabbar who graduated from the University of Karachi in the 1960s shot his famous film “Ramchand Pakistani” in 2007 at this school. There are 10 girls in the school. The rest of the students are boys. There are five teachers; one of them is female.

Headmaster Mohammad Azam, Matriculate from a school in Memon Goth, told TNS that HANDS constructed washrooms in the school.

“There are three washrooms; all functional,” said Saeed Ahmed, an engineer from HANDS who lives there. The washrooms had WCs and clean towels too. They had overhead tanks and were connected to a big underground water tank through pipes. One could also find green Peepul trees and beds of ornamental flowers.

TNS also visited low-income locality called Surjani Town where HANDS has constructed a filter plant. Kids as young as 4 were collecting drinking water in bottles from the filter plant.

The demand for water in Gadap Town is 45-50MGD but it’s getting 18MGD, an engineer from Karachi Water & Sewerage Board, who requested anonymity, told TNS. “Summer brings crisis here,” he said. “We are focusing on distribution of water.”

[B]02.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Challenges ahead[/SIZE]
Pakistan is in dire need to break away from a
monolithic ideological formulation which has become anathema to its very existence. Thus, this is the most appropriate time to undertake such an initiative
By Tahir Kamran[/CENTER][/B]

The seminal trait of a state is the monopoly that it exercises over violence of any kind. Thereby, the state is enabled to act as a bulwark against any subversion or anarchy directed either from within or without. If divested of that singularly important attribute, the political formation called ‘state’ starts to implode.

Beset with the process of implosion, the Pakistani state is struggling hard to defy the challenge posed to its very existence. Plagued with militancy and terrorism, ruling Pakistan will not be plain sailing. The fragmented state in which Pakistan finds itself provides a conducive environment for non-state actors to prosper to such an extent that they could mount a challenge to the state’s existence.

The foremost challenge facing the in-coming government, therefore, is to restore the position of the beleaguered Pakistani state so that it is able to regain the monopoly over violence. This is possible only if these non-state actors are rendered toothless and subsequently obliterated, but not, of course, at the cost of civil liberties.

Ensuring the civil liberties of all its citizens, irrespective of the religious or sectarian persuasion they adhere to, is imperative for the peace and prosperity of the country. However, the only plausible recourse to perform that herculean task is to disarm the countless factions and bands imbued with militant zeal, contesting the supremacy of the state with impunity. Forging a broad consensus among the political stake-holders will be the first and the most important step. The writer of this narrative believes that Nawaz Sharif, with decades-long experience of practical politics under his belt, has the requisite capacity to bring the divergent political voices together.

This expectation is worth nursing, despite the likely incumbent’s previous propensity to accumulate over-riding authority in his own person. The rough ride that he had to endure during his days of incarceration and subsequently in exile seems to have done him considerable good, as demonstrated by the political acumen he has exhibited in his post-exile period. Having said that, the political will and persuasive skill that is needed for performing the task before him will be an ordeal of gargantuan proportions. This requires the dexterity and skill of a super-statesman. Whether Mr Sharif will measure up to that extraordinary level, the coming months will reveal.

Given the difficulty of the task in hand, one must not be under any illusion in this particular regard. Pakistan is currently one of the most difficult countries to govern. Endeavours made to begin the process of disarming the many armed factions may not yield immediate results, however, the first small step in the direction of non-violence will, in itself, be an immensely creditable feat. One must qualify here that I am not proposing non-violence in the Gandhian sense. Non-violence has its moorings in our own ethos too. A centuries-old ethos which was embedded in South Asian Muslim traditions, which has allowed socio-cultural pluralities not only to exist and sustain, but to thrive.

In the current situation, a stride, however small it may be, to cultivate such plurality is likely to generate a discourse at the national level which eventually will permeate down to the grass-roots level. Eventually, it will sprout and start blooming and will serve as a viable alternative to the order punctuated by militancy and violence. Besides, it will strengthen the all inclusive nature of Pakistani nationalism as prescribed by the founding father which has been jeopardized by belligerent religiosity, expressing itself through violence. Pakistan is in dire need to break away from a monolithic ideological formulation which has become anathema to its very existence. Thus, this is the most appropriate time to undertake such an initiative.

Of equal importance is the reconfiguration of the nationalist ideology, with its character embedded in cultural plurality. Any variant of nationalism rooted in monolithic ideology sustains itself through coercion and force. In a country with a multiplicity of cultures and social values, the state must remain neutral. In the current situation, any religious narrative is bound to have a very strong sectarian ring to it.

In the case of Pakistan, it will virtually be impossible to segregate Islamisation from Sunnification. Hence the minorities and the Shias will suffer social and political exclusion, if not complete extinction. Outfits like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Jaish-i-Muhammad and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, to name only a very few, must be done away with. The fact that needs to be stressed here is that any nationalism predicated on religious ideology engenders social and sectarian fissures, which will eventually jeopardize its very existence. Ironically, therefore, religion, instead of providing the culturally or religiously disparate factions with a glue, becomes a fissiparous force.

One may draw consolation from the fact that Mr. Nawaz Sharif and his close coterie of companions are trying hard to distance themselves from the Ziaul Haq’s legacy, which is a very felicitous development. In the light of the party programme of the PML-N, it can very safely be inferred that the resolution of the substantive issues will be its priority. More so it will not squander this opportunity of placating reactionary forces, as it has in the past.

It is quite pertinent to mention here the intimacy that the Prime Minister-elect enjoys with Saudi dynasty is seen by many with the pinch of salt. If USA flouts Pakistani sovereignty through drone attacks, Saudi Arabia allegedly does the same by funneling the funds to the organisations and outfits that foment one particular creed through militant means.

Since 1980s, Pakistan is being used as a battleground for the ideological clash between Saudi Arabia and Iran which has resulted into a complete laceration of its social fabric. Hence, Pakistan will have to eschew from all sorts of hegemony, material or ideological in order to restore its prestige and honour among the comity of nations. In order to do that, the resource generation primarily from within the country is extremely important and so is looking into its own history for moral and ideological guidance.

Continued reliance on the foreign assistance will not help us to ameliorate ourselves from the lowly status of what Fraz Fanon termed as the Wretched of the Earth.

[B]02.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Nagging distractions[/SIZE]
With a comfortable majority, Nawaz Sharif still faces a daunting task to keep the military and civilian bureaucracy at bay
By Helal Pasha
[/CENTER][/B]
The relations between the Army and Nawaz Sharif’s earlier administration were at its lowest around September 1999. Then COAS Gen. Pervez Musharraf flatly denied “any differences with the government”, following the US warning against any “unconstitutional move” to remove the elected government in Pakistan. Then Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, based on intelligence reports, accused the Taliban government in Afghanistan of facilitating the trained and armed sectarian groups in Pakistan. The Pakistan Foreign Office, speaking for the Taliban, flatly denied the assertions. Interestingly, then Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz had no prior knowledge of the Foreign Office spokesperson’s denial (Dawn September 23 to October 9, various dates).

While the COAS was denying any possibility of Kargil investigation, the prime minister called his Indian counterpart to improve relations. In Washington DC, when asked how long in her view the Nawaz Sharif government would continue, “Before December they will go” was Benazir Bhutto’s response. She welcomed the coup on October 12, 1999 within hours of its success.

The 2013 election results have brought Nawaz Sharif back to the PM’s House. Many analysts have been counseling and cautioning Nawaz Sharif to avoid déjà vu all over again. A cursory reading of the conditions in 1999 makes many to believe that the differences in 1999 were over the foreign or the defense policy.

This hypothesis gained coinage as the Kargil incidence happened right when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was making an all-out effort to improve relations with India. While the Indian prime minister was enthusiastically welcomed in Lahore, the COAS refrained from showing up. The Kargil incidence, soon after the Indian prime minister’s visit, destroyed any goodwill generated during and after his visit. Nawaz Sharif was visibly annoyed when he had to rush to Washington DC to salvage a rapidly worsening military and foreign policy disaster on the mountains in Kashmir.

The Kargil incidence, just like the prior armed or political conflicts with India, reflected the internal political dilemmas in Pakistan. The stark reality is that whenever Pakistan is in deep internal economic or political crisis, either the relations with India take a turn for the worst, or Pakistan finds itself in a war or war-like state.

In 1965, after the coerced election victory, President Ayub found himself in a perilous political crisis and the whiff of coup grew against him. The escalation of the conflict in Kashmir was a part of the strategy to regain the lost political ground. However, that did not save him for long. Similarly, the war in 1971 was essential to cover up a momentous political disaster in East Pakistan.

The army coups in Pakistan tend to develop around some contrived calamity. Gen. Ayub took over in 1958 after Khan Qayoom started a march to destroy the scheduled elections. The 1977 coup of Gen. Zia followed a deliberately designed political crisis after the elections. The Kargil incidence was part of the series of false dilemmas that crop up in Pakistan at various points to create the environs for a change at the central government.

The annoyance of the prime minister over Kargil was enough to develop a consensus for the coup within the GHQ. That conflict, not in any way, shape, or form, confers the problems were over the foreign or defense policies. The sharp differences were already there as was evident from the forced resignation of Gen. Karamat a year before the Kargil incident.

The Kargil incidence was the public face of developing consensus for the coup within the officers and had nothing to do with differences over foreign or defense policies. Historically, all Pakistani political parties and the GHQ agree over the vital foreign and defense policy goals. Often even the priorities are identical too.

Kargil strengthened the view that relations with India are a separating line. However, looking at the history, all the army ruled governments worked to improve relations with India. It is an erroneous assumption that the usually sour relations between the civilian governments and the GHQ are over these two policies. The abstract fear of India did influence the army before the 80s. Presently, the manipulation of the public opinion has ensured that the Army will maintain its pivotal position in the Pakistani politics, even after extensive relations with India are established.

Disconnect between the civilian governments and the Army brass is primarily on the style of governance. The army, over the last several decades, has developed a sense of entitlements and the Generals find it difficult to stay away from the daily operations of civilian administration by the civilian representative. The elected governments often reach the PM’s House after several years of bitter political struggle. They have to appease their followers, assembly members, and make deals with the other power brokers. While the leaders attempt to maintain their political base, the nagging criticism of the state functioning over trivial issues from both the military and the civilian bureaucracy linger.

The hammering and the constant nagging of the outgoing People’s Party government over the internal issues from the military bureaucracy turned it into an ineffective government. President Zardari and his prime ministers had given up all pretenses of control of the foreign and defense policy very early on in their administration. The attempt to recover some ground through the Kerry-Lugar Bill designed with the help of former ambassador to the US, Hussein Haqqani, also backfired on the PPP government.

The new administration of Nawaz Sharif will again face the similar issues. Mr Sharif, though with a comfortable majority, still faces a daunting task to keep the military and civilian bureaucracy at bay. The irritable army-civilian relations will continue. The international support that he already enjoys is wider than the PPP administration ever had a chance to develop. That gives him an edge and many eyes would be on Sharif’s admin on how it copes with the meddling and the micro management of Islamabad from the offices in Rawalpindi.

[B]09.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Crippling drive[/SIZE]
Continuous attacks on polio vaccinators have put the anti-polio drive in peril
By Javed Aziz Khan[/CENTER][/B]

The world is concerned about polio (or Poliomyelitis) crippling the coming generations while the Pakistanis are worried about the lives of those fighting against the infectious disease since they have become the prime target of militants all over the country. In fact, polio has not killed anyone but the anti-polio drive has killed many in Pakistan during the last few months.

Apart from grave concerns over attacks on anti-polio volunteers, the world bodies had expressed serious reservations over dissolving the Polio Monitoring Cell at the Prime Minister Secretariat in Islamabad. Taking notice of the concern shown by the world bodies and reports that it may endanger the provision of 130 million US dollars fund to the country for polio eradication, caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso had to direct restoration of the cell.

The caretaker prime minister’s step, however, did not guarantee the security of thousands of young girls and boys administering anti-polio drops to the children below the age of five. The young and educated volunteers, mostly girls, are paid only Rs500 per day during the three-day campaign. A large number of parents have stopped their daughters from taking part in the campaign and putting their lives at risk for the meager amount. Several women have refused to perform duty especially in tribal areas where only male vaccinators are now carrying out the campaign.

“The government should make efforts to convince the elders, the elected representatives and the religious scholars to go to the people and create awareness among them regarding polio, measles and other diseases that are crippling and killing our new generations,” Dr Gohar Amin, provincial general secretary of the Pakistan Pediatric Association, told TNS. According to the pediatrician, there is no other option but to vaccinate children under the age of five against polio and other infectious diseases.

Poliomyelitis, polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral, infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route. Although approximately 90 per cent of polio infections cause no symptoms at all, affected individuals can exhibit a range of symptoms if the virus enters the blood stream. In about one per cent of the cases, the virus enters the central nervous system, preferentially infecting and destroying motor neurons, leading to muscle weakness and acute flaccid paralysis.

“This is the responsibility of the government and its agencies to arrange for the security of those carrying out the campaigns to ensure all the children are vaccinated even in the restive tribal areas close to the border with Afghanistan,” said Dr Gohar Amin.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government authorities had to suspend the three-day anti-polio drive in Peshawar on the very first day when a two-member team of the volunteers was attacked by armed men in Kaga Wala village, in the outskirts of the provincial capital, on May 28, 2013. The 18-year-old Sharafata was killed on the spot while 20-year-old Sumbul was pronounced dead in the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. Police claimed the arrest of 14 persons in a search operation during which a sub-inspector suffered a heart attack and passed away as well.

The two young ladies, according to police and other volunteers in the area, had refused to take police escort to remain in low-profile. The strategy, however, did not work. The next day, another female volunteer sustained minor injuries when attacked in Hangu.

The World Health Organization had to call back its officials from the field after the attack, resulting into the suspension of the vaccination drive by the local district administration and health officials.

“The drive is now to be resumed on June 10 with intensified security for the volunteers,” said Commissioner Peshawar division, Sahibzada Mohammad Anis, after heading a high-level meeting of the security personnel and health officials. A number of females, however, are reluctant to be part of the drive that has claimed several lives all over the country during the last few months.

“The drive will be simultaneously carried out in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata between June 10 and 12. This is up to the district police officers to arrange for the security in districts and the station house officers in their respective area during the three days,” Shadab Younus, the spokesperson for the UNICEF, told TNS. The authorities have to decide whether to run the campaign in phases or at the same time.

According to the UNICEF official, 3010,290 children below the age of five would be vaccinated in 18 out of the 25 districts of the KP by 8,939 teams of volunteers. Separately, over 693,000 children will be targeted in Fata during the drive. “No anti-polio campaign is being carried out in North Waziristan while in South Waziristan, vaccination is carried out only in the Wazir-dominated areas. Also, no vaccination will be carried out in the Frontier Region Peshawar,” said Shadab Younus.

The anti-polio attacks started from Karachi where five females and a male volunteer were killed on December 17 last year. The same day a young female volunteer Farzana was killed in a similar attack in the outskirts of Peshawar when she was administering drops to children along with her sister.

The then provincial government’s spokesman, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, and the local police officials tried to hush up the issue by terming the attack an act of enmity and decided to continue the campaign all over the province. The very next day, the attacks on anti-polio workers began from Shero Jhangi area on Charsadda Road, Peshawar, when armed motorcyclists opened fire on a team of anti-polio vaccinators. A male volunteer, Hilal, sustained critical bullet injuries in the attack and was rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) in Peshawar.

Almost at the same time, a team of anti-polio vaccinators was attacked in Behram Killay in Nowshera, while another team was assaulted in Garhi Zardad in Charsadda. Few hours later, polio supervisor Zakia Begum and driver Ayaz were shot dead when they were on way to Tarkha village in the limits of Battagram Police Station in Shabqadar area in Charsadda. After a series of attacks, the vaccination was stopped all over the country.

The campaign, however, had to be restarted and that was done in January after providing police escort to all the male and female volunteers taking part in the vaccination campaign. The attackers did not stop and even started targeting the policemen accompanying the polio teams. A police constable was killed in Mardan while another was killed in Swabi during the past months while protecting the volunteers.

The writer can be contacted at [email]javedaziz1@gmail.com[/email] and followed on Twitter at @JavedAzizKhan

[B]09.06.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]Drugs and real politics[/SIZE]
Drug production and trafficking would never end unless the ‘real politics’ of the mighty nations comes to an end
By Alauddin Masood[/CENTER][/B]

“The ANF has become a failed department. Drug is being smuggled under the nose of ANF. Drug is being sold out openly and no one is there to stop it. The future of the national youths is heading towards destruction persistently. Such a huge budget is given and such a huge force is there and even then drug trafficking is not being controlled.” — Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (The News: June 1, 2013)

Interdicting drugs and conducting investigations of persons involved in drug-related crimes require a high degree of expertise and professional training. For handling this specialised job, a dedicated agency — Pakistan Narcotics Control Board (PNCB) — was created in 1973. However, after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the job was entrusted to persons whose expertise was in defending the motherland, but they were in no way qualified to handle drug trafficking because they were neither trained for it nor had the capacity and expertise to carry out investigations in cases related to drugs.

Most of the staff is inducted into the ANF, on deputation from their parent organisation, for short durations. Any new entrant to this field would need, at least, six months time to fully grasp the issue and another six months for specialised training. By the time, they start delivering their 3-year tenure comes to an end.

However, in the hands of trained and qualified people, detection of a case could lead to the arrest and busting of a whole gang of criminals. For example, in 1973, when the British detected that a Pakistani actor was carrying some drugs, they allowed him to check out from the airport under close surveillance, sell the stuff, deposit the proceeds in a bank and return to Pakistan where he was kept under close watch. After the first attempt, when that actor attempted to carry drugs the second time, he was arrested at the Heathrow Airport, produced before a court of law, along with the stuff recovered from his possession and also the full documentary evidence of his previous attempt. This led not only to the conviction of the actor but to the arrest and conviction of the entire gang of drug smugglers and their accomplices, both in the UK and Pakistan.

While a novice would feel happy with only one arrest, qualified sleuths strive for busting the entire gang involved in drug smuggling. Furthermore, there are hundreds of concealing points in a vehicle, ranging from 150 in a car to 3,500 in a ship. How could a person not fully trained for this job recover the stuff from points where the stuff is tactfully concealed by gangsters? Therefore, to entrust the job of stopping drug trafficking to the army was wrong in the first place. However, following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, it might have been justified to achieve the geostrategic goals of the “free world!”

In fact, major powers have a history of encouraging the use of drug money for achieving their strategic objectives across the globe. For instance, following Mao-led Chinese revolution, one of the Kuomintang generals escaped to the Golden Triangle area (regions bordering Burma, Laos and Thailand) with 12,000 troops. The CIA encouraged General Li to cultivate opium poppy and use the drug money to keep his troops battle worthy to pursue the ultimate goal of recapturing mainland China from the revolutionary government.

One of the former directors of CIA has written an exclusive chapter on these events in a book published by him post-retirement. Not only US agencies, their Soviet counterparts also did not lag behind in using drugs for achieving their strategic goals. During the Vietnam War, the Soviets encouraged the Vietcong to pedal drugs amongst the US troops in Vietnam so as to demoralise them and sap their fighting capabilities.

In his book “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” A.W. McCoy writes: The growing opium cultivation in Burma and Afghanistan — America’s major suppliers — was largely the product of CIA’s own doings. Although the US maintained a substantial force of DEA agents in Islamabad during 1980s, the unit was restrained by US national security imperatives and did almost nothing.

In recent times, the ‘narco-politics’ made inroads in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the late 1970s (coinciding with the overthrow of Daud government in Afghanistan in 1978) as a result of the CIA’s covert activities. The actual drama started when, in April 1979, the CIA and the Afghan resistance groups started working together, eight months before the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Thereafter, according to Gerald Segal, author of book ‘The World Affairs Companion’, the Afghan war against the Soviet troops was, in part, funded by rebels in the heroin trade.

Before the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, opium production both in Pakistan and Afghanistan was mostly consumed by both the countries for quasi-medicinal purposes. It was in 1986 that Afghanistan first appeared on the list of nations producing opium. Starting production on 9950 Hectares in 1986, Afghanistan’s area under opium cultivation increased to 193,000 Hectares during 2007, producing 8,200 metric tonnes of opium (43 per cent more than 2006), which accounted for 93 per cent of the entire global production of opium that year.

Details about the CIA’s covert operations are startling. J. Cooley, author of book ‘Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism’ writes: After his inauguration in January 1981, President Reagan met Alexander de Marenches, head of the French Secret Foreign Intelligence Service SDEC, in the Oval office. The Count had suggestion for a Franco-American venture to counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan. “Operation Mosquito” entailed using confiscated drugs precisely as the Vietcong did with the US army in Vietnam: secretly, supply the Soviet forces with illicit drugs in order to demoralise them and dissipate their fighting ability.

Interestingly, the USA had waged three ‘Wars on Drugs’ — by President Nixon in 1972, by President Reagan in 1986 and by President George Bush in 1991. Since then, direct US intervention in foreign countries had been predicted on controlling narcotics supply, but when it came to Afghanistan, immediate after US attack, the White House ordered that opium harvest may not be destroyed as that would weaken and destabilise the military government of an allied neighbouring country, writes Michel Chossudovsky in his book ‘Global War on terrorism: Part II.’

Before the US intervention in Afghanistan, following a single verdict by Mulla Omar regime forbidding cultivation of opium, the production declined by 95 per cent and consequently only 185 metric tonnes of raw opium was produced in Afghanistan in 2001. After the US occupation of Afghanistan, opium production increased from 185 metric tonnes to 8,200 metric tonnes in 2007.

The northern alliance, which is supported by the US, produced drugs to procure arms for its armed struggle, earlier against the Taliban and now the al Qaeda. In a detailed report on the drug trade by the warlords of the Northern Alliance, the Daily Mail (London) reported that the warlords exported not opium but heroin, which they prepare on a massive scale not in old kitchen tubs but in proper factories.

The UK, USA and Germany helped the Uzbek Customs Centre at Termez in installing the most sophisticated detection and screening equipment but, according to some British diplomats, the convoys of jeeps running Afghan supplies bypass the screening equipment. Once it enters Uzbekistan, the heroin is trafficked to St. Petersburg and Riga.

In the presence of a comprehensive network of smugglers, interdependent interest of all of its key players and almost identical socio-economic characteristics of the people of the region, the Afghanistan narcotics trade soon spread its tentacles to all the neighbouring countries. In Pakistan, which had no heroin addicts till 1979, the menace grew alarmingly, reaching a figure of about eight million by 2009.

Heroin addiction and drug money also fuel law and order problem, unemployment and allow ethnic/sectarian extremist groups to arm themselves, affecting the politics and economies of the entire region. It has been crippling societies, distorting the economies of the already fragile states and creating a “new narco-elite,” which has been at odds with the ever-increasing poverty of the population. In fact, drugs are now determining the politics of this region as never before.

While poppy production is a source of income for farmers, the manufacture and trade in opiates is believed to be creating huge illegal incomes and profits for the large drug dealers. It is widely believed that smuggling into KPK and other neighbouring countries is used as a means of laundering illegal drug money. The financiers of trade in KPK, as reported by the Customs and verified during field interviews by Sayed Waqar Hussain (author of book “The Impact of Afghan Transit Trade on NWFP’s Economy) suggested that all of them started their business from investment in drugs, first as carriers and later as independent suppliers. To launder their narco-dollars, they switched over to the Bara type business. In the third phase, they erected shopping centres, residential colonies and even medical centres.”

Recent efforts to combat opium production in Afghanistan have been marred by corruption and have failed to prevent the consolidation of the drugs trade in the hands of fewer powerful players with strong political connections, according to a joint report titled ‘Afghanistan Drug Industry: Structure, Functioning, Dynamics and Implication for Counter-Narcotics Policy” jointly prepared by the World Bank and the UN Office on Drug and Crime in November 2006.

About increase in the production and abuse of deadly narcotic drugs, like heroin, political analysts asserted that the drug production and trafficking would never come to an end unless the ‘real politics’ of the mighty nations comes to an end.

The writer is a freelance columnist based at Islamabad. He has served in PNCB for about 5½ [email]years.alauddinmasood@gmail.com[/email]

[B]09.06.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]Literally illiterate[/SIZE]
Besides the governments, feudal lords, sardars and waderas are equally responsible for illiteracy in the country
By Rasheed Ali
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Whenever there is any talk of a literacy rate and education in Pakistan, generally the education authorities are blamed for the dreadful state of affairs. The successive governments are censured, and very low budgetary allocations are criticised. And above all, rulers’ lack of political will and inefficiency of the departments concerned are blamed for low literacy rate in the country.

However, various other factors are mostly ignored, which may be equally responsible for illiteracy and lack of educational facilities in the country. Top of the list should be the behaviour of the chieftains, Zamindars, Sardars, community leaders etc., towards education.

In the following lines, three particular occurrences will be related to explain how the influential people in the country always created hindrances in promotion of education in their respective areas.

There are no two opinions about it that a feudal mindset has always been active against promotion of education in Pakistan since its creation, or even before that. The late Qudrat Ullah Shahab, a civil servant and an eminent Urdu author, penned down an interesting incident that sheds light on this mindset.

In 1952, Shahab was serving as the deputy commissioner of Jhang district of the Punjab. He writes in his autobiography, Shahab Nama (pp.536-37) that one day a Zamindar of the district came to meet him. The Zamindar himself was almost illiterate, but he made a good speech about the importance of education. In the end, he said: “Sir, do this backward district another favour. It will really be a good deed and an act of kindness on your part if you allow the opening of a primary school in my village. And if you permit, this humble servant of your highness may provide the land for that school free-of-cost, 20,000 rupees in cash for the construction of the school building, and one-year salary of one schoolteacher in advance.”

Shahab says he was amazed at this offer. He appreciated a great deal the progressiveness and generosity of that Zamindar.

“A good deed needs no permission!” Shahab told him. All arrangements will be made whenever you want. “Rather, I will try my best that the education minister himself visits your village to perform the inauguration of the school,” Shahab assured him.

The Zamindar went back very happy, praying for the deputy commissioner’s welfare.

Only a week after that, another Zamindar of the same area came to Shahab’s office and started moaning and groaning. “Sir, what have I done wrong that I have been punished so severely?” he asked.

In surprise, Shahab asked him who had done an injustice to him, and how.

In a depressing voice, the Zamindar told Shahab that the man who visited him the previous week, in fact, wanted to open a school not in his own village but in the village of the complainant.

Giving further details, the Zamindar said that the two rivals had been running a feud for generations. Sometime, they would rustle cattle heads of each other, sometime kill tenant farmers, and sometimes destroy standing crops of each other.

“But this time, the old rascal is bent on spoiling my upcoming generations. That’s why he came to you and extracted a promise about opening of a school in my village,” the Zamindar complained in a low voice.

Shahab writes that the strange assertion about the ‘disadvantage’ of opening of a school stunned him for a while. After thinking over the situation, he advised the Zamindar to pay his rival Zamindar in the same coin. “If you are ready to make the same offer and bear all expenses to be incurred on opening of a school, I promise that one school will be opened simultaneously in your rival’s village also,” Shahab told his visitor.

The Zamindar appeared to be a little bit satisfied with the suggestion. But, adds Shahab, none of them ever showed up again with their generous offers.

After some time, when Shahab narrated that incident to his friend Barrister Yousaf Sahib in Jhang, sarcastically he said: “There’s nothing unusual in it. The two Zamindars must have reached a compromise to keep the dangerous common enemy, the education, away from their villages. These big Zamindars and feudal lords still see education as their most destructive and dangerous enemy.”

The second occurrence is a firsthand experience of the writer. In the late 1980s, the Punjab government planned establishing boys and girls high schools and a dispensary in Chak No. 330/HR, Marot, Tehsil Fort Abbas of district Bahawalnagar (Punjab), as the village is situated at a central place. The small village situated deep in Cholistan desert consists of population of over 1,500 small farmers and their families. Only three or four people owned landholdings of over 50 acres each. And the same three, four “Zamindars” refused to allow opening of the schools and the basic health unit in their village. They told the government authorities that their children don’t need education and they also don’t need a dispensary, as they never fall ill.

The education development projects were transferred to some other villages.

Meanwhile, the issue remained under discussion in almost all houses of the village. What the people were told by the “Zamindars” was that the schools and dispensary, if allowed, would have brought great devastation to their families. “After getting education from these schools, boys and girls will start writing ‘love letters’ to each other, which will ruin their character and corrupt them morally and ethically,” they told the village people.

About the dispensary, they believed that some “stranger, namahram male doctors” will sit there and check up women and girls of the village, and it was not acceptable to them at all.

The third occurrence was reported in almost all national dailies four years back. The then Sindh minister for education, Pir Mazharul Haq, informed the Sindh Assembly on June 24, 2009, that more than 1,000 schools had been occupied by Waderas and they have converted them into their Autaqs (guest houses).

Also, the Supreme Court of Pakistan was informed on February 12, 2013, that hundreds of schools in rural Sindh had been converted into cattle pens by Waderas and influential people.

The incidents reported from different periods of Pakistan’s history show that no major change has taken place in the mindset of the influential people of society towards education during the past over six decades.

[B]09.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Taxation challenges[/SIZE]
The new government must take cognizance of disparities in the
existing tax system and ensure redistribution of wealth through
progressive taxation rather than thriving on indirect taxes
By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq[/CENTER][/B]

As the national kitty is empty and economy is in doldrums, the real challenge for budget makers of the new government is to devise a comprehensive strategy to tap the real tax potential of the country, which is not less than Rs 8 trillion.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), despite using all kinds of negative tactics to achieve the target of Rs 2381 billion for the current fiscal year, has now conceded that it would hardly collect anything around Rs 1975-1985 billion. On the one hand, the FBR has perpetually failed to collect the assigned targets while on the other its main reliance remains on indirect taxes, levied even under the garb of income tax, shifting the burden on the poor and favouring the rich. During the last two decades, the FBR has been imposing all kinds of regressive taxes, blocking genuine refunds, raising fictitious demands and fudging figures, yet miserably failed to improve tax-to-GDP ratio, which at 9 per cent is one of the lowest in the world.

There is a consensus amongst all experts that economic viability of Pakistan depends on bringing tax-to-GDP ratio to 15 per cent at least. For this goal, some radical changes are required e.g. running the FBR through an independent board of directors comprising professionals, documenting economy through reduction in the exorbitant sales tax rate, facilitating businessmen to register with the FBR, making tax base equitable and enforcing simpler and fairer tax procedures to encourage compliance. The main emphasis should be on investments and not tax collection as higher growth and enhanced productivity automatically yield more taxes.

Level playing field should be provided to all through transparent procedures and stringent accountability. The new government should reprioritise its goals in the coming budget where tax incentives should be linked with industrial and business growth. There should be an end to issuance of Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs) that promote and protect the cartels.

Prevalent massive evasion in customs, income tax and sales tax can only be countered through implementing an integrated Tax Intelligence System (TIS) capable of recording, storing and cross-matching all inflows and outflows. For ensuring proper tax collection, the following measures are inevitable:

All in-bound and out-bound containers should be scanned/x-rayed to counter evasion of custom duties.

Anybody who pays sales tax and reports the same to the FBR should get refund of 10 per cent of the amount; to be paid directly in his bank account provided he files income tax return. In this way we can achieve optimum tax compliance and documentation.

The procedure for claiming refund should be simple, i.e. payer of sales tax should send invoices to the Central Tax and Refund Depository, which would authorise refund from the nearest branch of National Bank, after verification of genuineness of the invoice (by checking sellers’ registration number). In this way, the FBR can develop a data base regarding sales of all persons and then can cross-verify the same with the particulars declared by them in their sales/income tax returns. Non-filers can be detected. In this scheme, people may choose not to claim full credit of sales tax paid by them since they may not be able to justify the sources of their expenses. To overcome this hurdle, the government can announce immunity for three years from scrutiny of their expenses declared through sales tax invoices alone — it would go a long way to document the economy yielding more and more revenues in the coming years and bringing all people to tax net.

This scheme would encourage people to obtain sales tax invoice for each transaction, which is presently not being insisted upon as evasion of sales tax is mutually beneficial. If sales taxpayers are given the above incentive, they would insist on sales tax invoice and the government, without expending any money or making extra efforts will be able to expand the tax net.

Such schemes were successfully implemented in Taiwan, Turkey and Venezuela. In India, the government of Kerala has introduced five per cent sales tax for all retail sales with incentives to both the shopkeepers and buyers. The shopkeepers get a 10 per cent refund of tax collected/paid to the government and the buyers enjoy coupon of Rs 5 for every purchase of Rs 100. Every week a draw is held and coupons-holders win lucrative prizes. This scheme has boosted retail sales of shopkeepers who voluntarily get registered with the government. There has been tremendous increase in revenues of Kerala after this scheme.

The new government in Pakistan must remember that if taxation is viewed as being unfair or favouring some chosen ones, no reform programme can succeed and voluntary compliance will never improve. Special efforts and rational policies aimed at restructuring the tax system and restoring public confidence in the tax officials are needed. Even a good tax system will not work if the prevalent negative mindset of the tax official remains unchanged. There is an immediate need to improve both the system and the human fabric that controls it.

The tax bureaucrats — sitting and retired — suffer from the all-knowing syndrome. They are, in fact, responsible for the existing pathetic state of affairs. They being defenders of the status quo can never bring positive, pro-growth and business-friendly changes in the existing oppressive tax system. Tax officials, thriving on oppressive system, ensure unchallenged control through complicated laws and cumbersome procedures — nowhere in the world delegated power is available to an executive authority to undo laws passed by Parliament through Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs). This unconstitutional, undesirable, undemocratic and notorious practice should stop once and for all [‘Perils of tax breaks’, The News (Political Economy), February 17, 2013].

The need of the hour is a low-rate but across-the-board harmonised sales tax coupled with automated, speedy tax refund system. The system should be fair and transparent and at the same time its enforcement should be strict and stringent — there should be no sacred cows. The tax base cannot be broadened unless all the goods and services, barring essential eatables, books, children’s garments, educational tools, are brought into the sales tax net. All persons having income of Rs 500,000 or more should be taxed irrespective of source of income and must file returns electronically with declaration of assets and liabilities.

The FBR should publish directory of taxpayers every year so it can be seen how much tax is paid by high-ranking civil-military officials, judges, politicians, public office holders, rich professionals and businessmen and how much wealth is owned by them.

The government must take due cognizance of disparities and dichotomies in the existing tax system, remove them and ensure redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation rather than thriving on indirect taxes. Taxes collected should be spent for the well-being of public and not for the benefits of elites. Taxes, if spent for well-being of the public at large can make the State invincible and if squandered for the luxuries of elites — military-judicial-civil complex, landed aristocracy and politicians-turned-industrialists — are bound to lead to national disintegration, social unrest and economic disaster.

The repressive tax policies of successive governments have pushed millions of people below the poverty line. Whatever is collected from the poor — rich and mighty do not pay taxes in this Land of Pure — is wasted ruthlessly or plundered with impunity by corrupt politicians and state functionaries.

The new government will have to reverse this trend. Collection of taxes matters but the real importance lies in their spending. For strengthening democracy and economic progress, it is imperative to tax the rich, make powerful civil-military bureaucrats accountable to people and ensure equality to all.

In governance, everything is interlinked and interdependent — nothing worthwhile can be achieved without law and order, efficient justice system ensuring rule of law, infrastructure, encouraging business environment and investment in human resource.

[I]The writers are tax lawyers and Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
[/I]

[B]09.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Environmental connectivity[/SIZE]
The state of the environment indicates approaches and priorities not only of nations in global perspective but also of people at local levels
By Mohammad Niaz[/CENTER][/B]

With the advent of the modern era, changes in environmental indicators are noticeable. The relation between man and environment is indispensable. Due to this man-environment nexus, conservationists, biologists, environmentalists, and researchers are highly concerned with the future of the environment and natural resources.

The contemporary environmental scenario and modern concept of development has assumed a new dimension as compared to the pre-industrialization era. The climate change scenario and environmental threats will equally affect human beings, ecosystems, and biodiversity.

Environment connects us all in a number of ways both in global and local perspective. People belonging to different walks of life throng hilly areas or summer resorts where they enjoy naturalness and biodiversity. The aesthetic aspect of summer resorts help attract people and connect them all based on recreation or ecotourism and weather.

Since human beings have direct and indirect connection with natural resources and the environment, therefore, it’s high time that conservation efforts and approaches are geared up and streamlined. A clean environment has positive impacts on human health while a filthy environment will equally have negative impacts on our health and living. In dirty environmental condition, more water borne diseases, skin diseases, and gastrointestinal diseases will affect people to one degree or the other. Similarly, environment whether, clean or dirty, will be equally shared by human beings and biodiversity because we also share the environment with other living creatures such as birds, animals, insects, and plants.

All the biotic components are the essential parts of the environment which sustain the life on Earth. It is impossible to imagine living in isolation of the environment. Where ever we are, we become part of that particular environment. There is an essential interaction of human beings with the environment. The physical environment around us has a direct relationship with us. Our activity influences the environment and the environment influences us.

Environmental deterioration has contributed to depletion of biodiversity and deterioration of human physique. With increase in human population and to cater for their needs, pressure on available resources enhanced and more avenues explored to tap the resources such as coal, petroleum which contributed to the environmental pollution. Development of polymers which is not biodegradable has been a growing environmental challenge.

Deterioration in state of the environment connects conservationists, ecologists, environmentalists, and researchers in efforts to mitigate the environmental challenges. International conventions and agreements bind nations to link environment, conservation, and development through obligations and implementation of guidelines.

To mention few, the Convention on Biological Diversity has 193 parties; the Ramsar Convention has 167 contracting parties; the Convention on Climate Change has been ratified by 195 nations; 195 parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification work together around the world; the Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has 197 parties. Similarly, there are Multilateral Environmental Agreements that bind nations towards conservation and management of natural resources and environmental resources.

Moreover, declaration of environmental days by the United Nations have also been instrumental in connecting people with the environmental and biological resources for ensuring a prosperous future both for human beings and ecosystems. All over the world, different environmental days are celebrated on different dates throughout the year focusing on particular environmental and biological entity. Participation of people in celebration of such days indicates the networking approach of the international community to educate and mobilise people in different regions of the world about their role and importance of the resources.

Implementation of a developmental project aimed to conserve biodiversity and environment of a particular area will benefit the local communities who are interwoven in the domain of such projects. An intervention contributing to environmental betterment will collaterally benefit the local communities in the immediate surroundings.

Every one of us registers an impact on the environment in one way or the other. Throwing rubbish in the open and not dumping them in dust-bins is not only environmentally unfriendly but also socially undesirable. There is a common misconception about cleanliness in our society. Mostly people clean their homes and throw trash out on the streets and roads just to keep the domestic environment clean.

While dumping garbage and solid waste in public places, it is very pathetically ignored that it will affect other people. That’s why our drains are blocked, roads are dirty, and picnic parks and places are stigmatised with trash here and there.

Everyone is responsible to keep the immediate environment neat and clean. Maintaining a good environment signifies the approach of people living in a particular place. The state of the environment indicates approaches and priorities not only of nations in global perspective but also of people at local level.

[B]09.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Not so youthful[/SIZE]
Holding youth gatherings and activities may not lead to comprehensive youth development unless an institutionally mechanised structure is formulated
By Salma Butt
[/CENTER][/B]
On June 6, 2012, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced the Punjab Youth Policy amidst 10,000 youth from across the province. The policy envisioned a promising youth development package encompassing youth representation in local bodies, provincial youth festivals, laptops for literate youth, youth internship programme, youth councils at the grassroots level and a youth development foundation to govern all youth-related work.

It is high time to talk about youth issues because Pakistan is a country with a considerable youth bulge. Approximately, more than 30 per cent population of the country falls between the age brackets of 15-29 years. The net youth bulge can be seen as a dividend if addressed and channelised productively. Leaving the same youth astray would eventually bring forth destruction, violence, crime and frustration. We also find absence of civic sense and moral attitude among youth in our society.

We also see that almost all the political parties are focusing on youth, at least, in words. They mobilised youth in the recent elections. But the question is how far these parties are pro-youth development in spirit? Youth development is an integrated approach which requires certain set of expertise, knowledge, information, skills, research and methodology.

The current trend of youth activism through gathering large numbers of youth is leading to the idea of festivity so far. Indulging youth into festivity is not bad, but without concrete youth development programme it may not yield positive results.

Youth is an equal entity of political education, social and economic empowerment and personal development. If we make further sub-categories, it encompasses personal and professional skills, employment opportunities, entertainment with civic sense, moral and ethical education, sense of ownership and trust building.

We have also witnessed an alternative youth policy introduced by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which has focused on youth as a federal subject, whereas in reality after the 18th Amendment in 2010, youth has become a provincial subject. It may not stay viable in essence and spirit.

The PTI has focused on youth in elections 2013 and succeeded in making the KPK government with the most popular slogan of stopping drone attacks. The party, once again, forgot that drone is not a provincial subject. While making promises to youth, the responsible political parties must keep in mind the relevance of promises with the policies. Mere political slogans without ground realities and policy frameworks may mislead the youth.

We have also seen the youth related activities executed by the government of Punjab in the last one year in line with the Punjab Youth Policy. The activities gathered youth from across the province, involved them in sports and entertainment, gave them laptops, but missed the link between the policy framework and execution. All the mentioned activities can be seen in parts, not as a coherent youth package.

The mega youth festival was dominantly taken care of by Sports Board which undermined the role of Youth Affairs Department. Politicians/parliamentarians could not develop ties with the Youth Affairs Department. On the other hand, we can take the example of Sindh Youth Department where Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Programme operates under the umbrella of the department with specific roles.

Punjab Youth Policy promised development of a youth foundation incorporated in its document with the consent of senior bureaucrats, parliamentarians, youth organisations and relevant stakeholders. However, the promised foundation could not be notified even after passing of one year. The development of foundation was part of an institutional mechanism without which the Youth Affairs Department cannot implement integrated youth development in the province.

The Punjab Youth Policy also proposed a committee comprising parliamentarians, youth representatives, civil society and administrative bureaucrats which has not yet been formed. Often such committees are headed by senior-most parliamentarians. The youth policy was formulated after an extensive consultative process across the province by taking all the relevant stakeholders on board.

Summing up the progress and way forward, it can be suggested that holding youth gatherings and activities may not lead to comprehensive youth development unless institutionally mechanised structure is formulated.

[I]The author is a youth development practitioner. She can be reached at [/I]salma_rehmat@yahoo.com.

[B]09.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Hopes and desperations[/SIZE]
Many challenges of irksome gravity will keep the recently
sworn-in government on tenterhooks
By Tahir Kamran[/CENTER][/B]

The completion of a successful transition from one Pakistani civilian government to another has spawned extraordinary enthusiasm in British academia, particularly its component that is engaged with South Asia. Last week, here in Cambridge, the BBC correspondent and the author of ‘Pakistan: In the Eye of the Storm’, Owen Bennet-Jones, came to share his thoughts about the future of democratic Pakistan.

He is known for his nuanced understanding of Pakistani politics with all its convolutions. Invited by Cambridge-based Pakistani cultural historian, Nasreen Rehman, his talk was held under the auspices of Pakistan Students of Cambridge in collaboration with Centre of South Asian Studies.

Contrary to the deprecation and censure that is usually meted out to Pakistan by the Western media as an irresponsible state facing doom and gloom, Owen’s talk reflected hope and sanguinity. This felt like the waft of a gentle, fresh breeze for most of us present. Resplendent over Nawaz Sharif’s electoral victory after the massive turnout in the elections, he saw Pakistan being ushered into an era of political stability.

Many challenges of irksome gravity, he enunciated reassuringly, will keep the recently sworn-in government on tenterhooks, meaning that political stability and gradual economic recovery are no longer dreams that have gone sour. The receding influence of feudal lords in the politics of Punjab and the middle-classes having greater stake in the political system are good omens for the political future of the country, he said.

One of the concerns regarding the Pakistan Muslim League-N government was its markedly ambivalent stance on the question of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. A bit fazed and flustered also over the exacerbating sectarian militancy and the relative nonchalance of the PML-N on that issue is the existential threat that must be addressed with vigour, according to Owen. However, the issues of a vexing nature like power outage or soaring inflation, he only touched lightly during his otherwise brilliant talk.

To make up for that inadequacy in Owen’s talk, Pakistani students Naveed Arif and Tayyab Safdar arranged another panel discussion, “Putting the Economy on the Right Track: Challenges and Opportunities for the New Pakistani Government”. Two extremely bright scholars in economics and financial affairs Adeel Malik from Oxford and Kamal Munir from the Judge Business School, Cambridge, were the speakers, leading what can only be described as a superlative and excellent discussion.

Adeel Malik started off on a positive note, alluding to the expansion of urbanisation, the rapid growth in the size of the middle class and the phenomenal spread in the communication network in Pakistan during the last decade, which are important development indicators in any modern state. He also mentioned the extraordinary resilience of the people against all kinds of adversity, be it natural, such as the floods in 2010 and 2011, or man-made, such as power outages, price rises and terrorism in the name of religion.

Ironically, the state’s ineptitude in providing any relief to the people in times of adversity is as clear as the light of the day. Adeel placed an emphatic stress on the rationalisation of the tax system in Pakistan. It is high time, he argued, for the government to take the tough decision of switching to direct taxation even though such a switch will obviously hit the affluent sections of the society. He questioned whether the PML-N government, being representative of the rich (read trader and merchant class), would be able to take that extremely challenging step.

With the past policies of the party in mind, the answer is probably not in the affirmative. He also suggested the levying of property tax with all earnestness to rein in rent seeking, which has served as a big impediment for economic growth. Rent seeking had virtually become the central economic activity in Pakistan during the Musharraf era, and has continued to hold that position ever since. Alongside this, the phenomenal rise in inflation had been a serious issue for Pakistan for the last five years.

This has all combined to greatly increase the inequality between the rich and the poor, erode infrastructure, and brought the state institutions to the verge of complete collapse. These problems had also encouraged cartelisation, akin to the emergence of mafias, in various sectors like real estate, sugar production and poultry, which has totally strangled the economy. Problem is that the people representing these mafias are in all the parties. In Adeel’s reckoning, the redefinition of the importance that the land holds in the economy of Pakistan, is absolutely vital. Obviously, change in our economic priorities is a pressing need.

The second speaker, Dr Kamal Munir, shared his insights, with his focus primarily on state institutions and the energy crisis. About the desperate state of sectors such as steel and railways and the crisis at PIA, Dr Munir did not advocate privatisation of any of these institutions, arguing that the government must demonstrate the will to reform rather than jettison these non-profit making concerns.

Without the government making any investment, or devising a clear-cut strategic policy, one could not expect these institutions yielding profit. The section of his talk devoted to the energy crisis was extremely illuminating. He traced the history of the problem from mid-1980s in a very lucid manner, underscoring the adverse effect that privatisation had on the energy sector, which culminated in the formulation of the 1994 power policy, the major outcome of which was the shift from hydro to thermal as the main source of energy production. This was to be done on a ‘cost-plus-return basis in US dollar terms’, whereby ‘investors were to be provided a US dollar-based internal rate of return of 15-18 per cent over 25-30-year period of the power purchase agreement after covering the operational costs.’

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems nothing but a recipe for a disaster, and, of course, guaranteed gain for IPPs. When asked if there is any way to wriggle out of it, Dr Munir advocated following the footsteps of Argentina, that very boldly rescinded such agreements, showing that sovereign states do have the capacity to act boldly for the greater good of their citizens. Can we do it, only time will tell.

[B]09.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Towards an egalitarian federation[/SIZE]
Political and financial autonomy for provinces is the only way to remove the sense of deprivation and alienation of the smaller provinces, but how can that be possible in the present mechanism where Punjab alone suffices for the formation of the federal government
By Tahir Ali[/CENTER][/B]

In first glance, the issue may seem outdated. It may well be rejected as anti-Punjab propaganda or an attempt to create new controversies amid too many others. Rather, it is a genuine attempt to highlight the problem of disparity among the federating units of Pakistan which not only goes against the spirit of federation but has also spread hatred against Punjab in smaller provinces.

Pakistani parliament comprises two chambers: The lower chamber called the National Assembly and the upper chamber called the Senate. The former is elected by direct universal suffrage and represents the citizens of Pakistan. The latter is elected indirectly and represents the federating units of Pakistan.

However, like most other bicameral parliaments (with the notable exception of the Italian Parliament), the Pakistani legislature is also not egalitarian.

Most of the powers are vested in the Assembly. It has the sole authority to elect the federal government and pass the budget. But the problem is that its membership is based on population and Punjab enjoys an absolute 55 per cent majority in it while the other three provinces, the federal capital and Fata account for 45 per cent of the body’s members.

The May11 elections proved that a comprehensive victory in Punjab — one of the four federation units in Pakistan — could enable a party to govern the entire federation irrespective of the collective mandate in the other three federating units — Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Punjab dominates the country’s electoral arena and accounts for 148 off the directly-elected 272 seats in the Assembly. The PML-N won primarily from Punjab bagging 129 seats (including 17 independents) there and winning only 16 from other provinces.

“Even if Pukhutuns, Balochs and Sindhis vote for one party, they can’t compete with Punjab. The ratio is 45:55. That’s why the Punjabi leaders don’t need the help of any other province. Only Punjab is sufficient for them. They win election in Punjab and govern the entire Pakistan,” writes a blogger on [url]www.pashtoonsforum.com[/url].

While the PPPP, the PTI and other parties won most of the seats in the other federating units and would represent them in the Assembly, the question is will they, even if collectively, be able to block any law that doesn’t suit their constituency? Another question arises: Is it proper and compatible with the spirit of the federation to give so much leverage to a federating unit against its other counterparts?

Political and financial autonomy for provinces is the only way to remove the sense of deprivation and alienation of the smaller provinces, but how can that be possible in the present mechanism where one province — Punjab — alone suffices for the formation of the federal government. Doesn’t it mean giving undue leverage to it vis-à-vis others? Obviously, when Punjab alone could suffice for capturing the highest slot at Islamabad, every party necessarily and naturally will try to please and win over its electorate at the neglect of other provinces. It explains why there is frequent resort to governor’s rule, palace intrigues and vote of no-confidence to snatch the throne in Punjab.

This doesn’t mean that the financial share of Punjab that has the biggest population and, therefore, needs huge funds for development in health, education and other social sectors should be slashed. It is neither fair nor desired. Neither this writer wants any reduced membership for Punjab in the Assembly. It should have the same number of seats there, even more if needed.

But my point is why can’t they have equal weight and the same authority, power and role in electing the federal government as has been constitutionally ordained for the election of the president and Senate members?

To strengthen the federation, to make the system/constitution egalitarian and to discourage the secessionist tendencies and growing discontent in smaller provinces, provinces need to be given equal weight in the assembly for the formation of the federal government, though they may retain their respective number of seats therein.

Surprisingly, the issue of disparity among the federating units in the ‘king-maker’ Assembly was neglected at the time of passage of 19th and 20th constitutional amendments. There have been demands that to reduce the clout of Punjab and to bring parity among provinces, it should be divided into two or three provinces. It is, however, doubtful the step would solve the problem.

Detractors would argue that the Senate is there with equal representation for the provinces. But it not only has no financial powers but also has no role in election of the prime minister, though it has some ministerial slots in the cabinet.

My point is when in the election of the president and the senate members, all the four provinces have equal share, the difference of their strength in parliament notwithstanding, why this can’t be arranged in the election of prime minister of the country?

In the federal and parliamentary system, normally the second/upper chamber of the parliament is introduced to give equal representation to the federating units. But it must have enough powers to safeguard the interests of federating units against imbalances in their membership in the lower/popularly-elected chamber.

The 1956 and 1962 constitutions of the country too were based on the principle of parity between the then West and East Pakistan and both accounted for half of the membership in the National Assembly. But it was flawed as it gave equal membership to both the wings instead of equal weight to them.

The principle of parity and One Unit was introduced by the West Pakistan politicians with mala fide intentions to bring the two wings at par with each other though East Pakistan accounted for over 56 per cent of the country’s population and therefore deserved greater membership in the Assembly. Against the parity principle, it was not followed in other state spheres such as allocation of defence personnel, equipment and financial assets etc.

Faced with a sense of deprivation and secessionist tendencies amongst its smaller units, Pakistan can/must suit its parliamentary/federal structure to its own needs.

The new parliament should initiate constitutional amendments in this regard. The votes of all provinces in the Assembly should have equal weight in the election of the prime minister just as in the case of the election of the president of Pakistan.

This could be done several ways. One, by giving equal weight to provinces though the present membership of Punjab and other provinces may be retained or increased.

Two, by giving the federating units equal membership in the National Assembly but that would be an injustice to Punjab which deserves greater representation in the National Assembly for its large population.

Three, Senate, with its present limited powers, is of little help to guard against provincial imbalances. It should be made more powerful, especially vesting it with financial powers.

Four, by electing the prime minister the way the president of Pakistan is elected these days where all provinces have equal weight despite the difference of membership in their respective assemblies. Five, by changing the mode of election of the prime minister from the present indirect election to direct popular election.

[B]16.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Education woes[/SIZE]
A peep into history to know what was the educational
philosophy of the fathers of Pakistan, what principles they wanted our educational institutions to be based on and how they wanted it to be organised
By Yaqoob Khan
Bangash[/CENTER][/B]

A few days ago, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa announced that it was going to introduce a common curriculum in all institutions, public and private, in the province from the next academic year. As we await the details of such a revolutionary development, my mind turned to ascertain the roots of education policy in Pakistan. I wanted to know what was the educational philosophy of the fathers of Pakistan, what principles they wanted our educational institutions to be based on and how they wanted it to be organised.

Our current education system is quite simply in crisis. We do not have an adequate number of schools, resources, developed curricula, and teachers. The 18th Amendment to the constitution made education a fundamental right under Article 25A, but even after the passage of a couple of years, proper legislation and processes have still to be formulated to realise this right. But getting students to properly equipped schools is just the beginning of the educational process. Our system is fraught with the problem that our students never learn one language adequately: they mostly cannot read or write their mother tongue, are conversant in Urdu but cannot handle it at a higher level, and a large majority is simply unable to string together a grammatical sentence in English. So at the end of school (or even university) Pakistani students are hardly proficient in even one language.

Therefore, I dug up the speeches of our first education minister, Fazlur Rahman, to determine what were the issues he was dealing with at the inception of the country. What I found was really interesting, and in a way, astonishing, and to a large extent reflected the problems we are grappling with today.

At the creation of the country, education did not get an independent minister, but was given as an additional department to the interior minister, Fazlur Rahman, whose role as interior minister gave greater gravity to his comments on education.

One of the primary concerns of Fazlur Rahman was that he wanted to create a ‘new’ educational system. This notion was predicated in the eagerness of the government to provide a ‘third way’ as Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan argued. For us now it might seem like a distant memory, but in the late 1940s, with the advent of the Cold War, the global battle between Communism and Capitalism was a crucial concern for almost everyone. Therefore, Rahman noted, at the meeting of the Advisory Board of Education in 1949, ‘...my mind is appalled by the extent to which, as a result of the conflict in political faiths, the world has been divided into hostile camps. There is on the one side the old order based on Capitalism and on the other hand a new order based on Communism, with its uncompromising denial of God and the right of private property...Unless we offer to the world an ideology that will provide an effective answer to both Communism and Capitalism, we may not be able to keep at bay the influences that emanate from them. It is my faith and conviction that Islam supplies the ideology we are looking.’

The eagerness to find another option, coupled by a romantic notion of the golden age of Islam, it seems, was the main driving force behind these ministers believing that they had something new, unique and fulfilling to offer to the world. This reminds me of the writings of Saadat Hassan Manto, the famed Urdu writer, where he once noted that when he tried to bribe someone for a ticket he was strictly told: ‘This is not done in Pakistan!’ This sense of being at the threshold of a new age inspired many novel initiatives.

In his speeches, Fazul Rahman speaks of the complete transformation of the educational outlook of the country, strictly on ‘Islamic ideology.’ This again is rather interesting since most people in Pakistan believe that the words ‘Islamic ideology’ and its official application are later concepts. However, at the first All-Pakistan Education Conference in November 1947, the education minister had already stated: ‘It is, therefore, a matter of profound satisfaction to me, as it must be to you, that we have now before us the opportunity of reorienting our entire educational policy to correspond closely with the needs of the times and to reflect the ideas for which Pakistan as an Islamic state stands.’

He again emphasised in February 1949: ‘But mere lip-service to Islamic ideology will be as foolish a gesture as Canute’s order to the waves of the sea. We must see to it that every aspect of our national activity is animated by this ideology, and since education is the basic activity of the State, I realised that a start had to be made there.’ Rahman clearly knew what this change meant — it was not a mere realignment but a radical transformation. Rahman noted at the Academic Council of Dacca University in 1948: ‘What is wanted is a complete transformation of the spirit and content of education, and unless the spirit reflects the higher conceptions of Islam, our education will be a counterfeit and a sham.’

These statements, most of which were made during the lifetime of Jinnah, should make us wonder if the often repeated claim that Jinnah wanted to create a ‘secular’ Pakistan is indeed true. Could a minister appointed by Jinnah himself publicly declare that the educational philosophy of the country would now be based on ‘Islamic ideology,’ if the founder of the nation wanted a secular republic? Perhaps we mistakenly lambast General Zia ul Haq and his Islamisation since he was merely following through the wishes of the founding fathers of Pakistan?

The education minister was also clear to the extent to which Islamic ideology should form the basis of education in Pakistan. Elucidating his views on teacher training, he stated that teachers should unmistakably formulate their teaching philosophy on Islamic ideology.

Speaking at the third meeting of the Advisory Board of Education in Dacca in December 1949, he noted: ‘What I mean is that they (the teachers) should study the fundamental principles of Islam on which we have based our educational ideology...I would, therefore, suggest for your consideration that there should be a compulsory paper in the teachers’ training course on the contents of Islamic ideology...Teachers so trained should be asked to prepare definite projects on the basis of the chief characteristics of Islamic ideology so that students in their charge may seek to embody these characteristics...’ Therefore not only should teachers be taught and tested on this ‘Islamic ideology’ they should also ensure that this ideology is lived by their students.

Since Pakistan was a new country, and its founding fathers had a great zeal for giving something new to the world, several new (and novel) ideas were also in circulation at that time. For example, the education minister and a number of others were strongly in support for adopting the Arabic script for all the languages in Pakistan.

In a speech at the second Advisory Board of Education, Fazlur Rahman went through all the scripts of the languages in Pakistan and concluded that ‘...on practical as well as educational grounds...it (Arabic) is the most suitable for adoption as the common script of Pakistan.’ He later gave several more reasons for the adoption of a common Arabic script and noted: ‘...the adoption of the Arabic script will be a potent means of promoting cultural homogeneity and unity of national outlook...’ He therefore concluded: ‘We must, therefore, take immediate steps to introduce this script on a nation-wide basis...’

What the honourable education minister failed to note here is that changing the script of all languages in the country, where a number might use an adapted form of the Arabic script, will fuel linguistic nationalism, since any self respecting people will see such moves as degrading their language and culture. Since Arabic has had no real and direct connection with South Asia (except through its influence on Persian), such an imposition would be surely seen as alien as the imposition of any other foreign script.

These tendencies, as well as, continuous efforts at trying to enforce the abandonment of the Bengali script by the East Pakistanis, led to increased tensions between the two wings of the country, ultimately ending in the vivisection of the country in 1971.

The minister was also very adamant that this ‘transformation’ must be state-led and involve a strong control of curriculum and textbooks. Obviously, if education were to impart one ‘ideology’ and develop a common outlook, a strict control of what students are taught is essential. As a result the minister exclaimed at the first All Pakistan Educational Conference: ‘I am, therefore, strongly of opinion that there should be special governmental organisations to undertake the preparation of text-books. This will not only ensure the observance of approved educational principles on which textbooks are to be based, but will also bring together talent of sufficient width and diversity...’

The ultimate aim, the minister crystallised in his address to the Inter-University Board in June 1948, was that universities and other institutions ‘...have to undertake the immediate revision of their syllabuses and curricula with a view to their conformity with the spirit of that (Islamic) ideology.’ This state control of textbooks and their content has been a major hindrance in the development of education in this country since its inception. Quite simply, any ideological based educational system has to teach one sided versions and undermine other views.

After reading speech after speech by the first education minister, one thing is amply clear to me: that the fathers of the country were clear about their aim of transforming the educational foundation of the country from a secular outlook to a firm Islamic viewpoint. The minister clearly noted this in his preface to this compilation: ‘The theme of Islamic ideology...is recurrent through almost all the speeches.’ Therefore, when certain quarters of the country lament the fact that Pakistan began as a ‘secular’ state under Jinnah, and was later taken over by the religious right, they probably need to rethink their proposition.

Fazlur Rahman was very clear that he wanted to change the system in the country and root it in what he called ‘Islamic ideology’. He noted: ‘...our educational system was not based on any ideology and did not provide for the satisfaction of the spiritual and moral needs of the community.’ However, what this ‘Islamic ideology’ meant always remained vague in his speeches and its fundamentals were only referred to as ‘universal brotherhood, tolerance and social justice,’ which being more of less universal values, do not indicate how ‘Islamic’ this new system was supposed to be. Clearly, once it was settled that ‘Islamic ideology’ set the rules, what the rules actually were could be elucidated according to the will of the lawmaker — be they Islamic in spirit or not.

In February 1835, Macaulay in his most famous ‘Minute’ on Indian education stated that the aim of education in India should be to create ‘a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.’ This minute which was based on Macaulay’s understanding that there was not much to learn in the Orient, and that the Oriental languages were not developed enough to be used for modern scientific teaching, created the oft-repeated educational confusion which I have referred to above — that our students are not proficient in any language by the end of even university education, and that even culturally and intellectually they are torn between their local culture, Muslim culture (in Pakistan), or Western inspired culture.

I do not know what shape the education policy of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is going to take, or for that matter, what policies governments of other provinces or the federation will develop, but let me, at least, argue for non-ideological and ‘liberal’ education. By liberal I mean a broad based system of education which does not pre-decide what the students should believe and follow, but an education which develops one’s intellect to think independently and decide rationally. As one scholar put it, liberal education is: ‘..at once the most enduring and changeable of academic traditions.’ Liberal education, therefore, is something which is not static, exclusionary, or ideological, but literally ‘frees’ the individual to purse the ‘good life’ Aristotle talked about. Only with such a liberal education can a ‘Naya Pakistan’ or any Pakistan develop.

[I]The writer is the Chairperson of the Department of History, Forman Christian College, and tweets at[/I] @BangashYK.

[B]16.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]An austere beginning[/SIZE]
Austerity measures and drastic action against corrupt practices can ensure good governance and economic revival
By Alauddin Masood
[/CENTER][/B]
With the swearing in ministers, at the national as well as at the provincial level, the process of transition from one civilian government to another has almost been completed. Elections for the Presidency will be held when the incumbent completes his tenure in September, this year.

Pakistan’s first ever orderly completion of the democratic process, foiling designs of vested interests to derail democracy, marks an important milestone in the country’s chequered political history. This first transition, under the auspices of a civilian government, has been widely acclaimed both within the country and abroad.

The vested interests, it may be recalled, had fielded an articulate religious scholar as their opening batsman to pave the way for the formation of a non-democratic government comprising technocrats, at least for three years to begin with. But, the masses did not lend support to those elements, paving the way for the May 11 general elections and transition to a new civilian government in keeping with the provisions of the Constitution.

In messages of congratulations to the newly-elected prime minister, the world community has hailed the democratic transition and extended hand of cooperation to the new democratic set-up. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has expressed the confidence that under the leadership of Mian Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan would build up on its democratic achievements.

Mian Nawaz Sharif, in his maiden speech after election as the country’s prime minister, asked the MNAs to make the National Assembly “the fortress to safeguard the democratic order.”

Listing some of the major challenges, including power shortfall, economic meltdown and precarious law and order situation, the PM said, he would not portray any rosy picture to the people, but he won’t disappoint them either, pledging to sincerely put in efforts for the resolution of these lingering issues. He visualised a prosperous Pakistan in days ahead and announced zero tolerance for corruption and pledged to make all appointments purely on merit.

Giving broad contours of the PML-N’s plan for the first 100 days in office, Nawaz Sharif said that they would assign priority to rebuilding basic infrastructure with focus on boosting agriculture and industrial sectors, while work on overcoming the energy crisis has already been put in motion. While the country faced an acute energy shortfall, two stalwarts of the previous PPP regime — Law Minister Babar Awan and Law Secretary Masood Chishti — during their tenure allegedly delayed approval for the shifting of Nandipur and Chicho Ki Malian power plants’ machinery from the Karachi port to the site.

Law Ministry’s Senior Joint Secretary, Dr. Riaz Mehmood, made the startling disclosure before the Supreme Court on June 10, 2013. How unfortunate – rather criminal – that state minions whose job should have been to facilitate installation of new power houses have been creating obstacles even during times when the country was experiencing a deepening shortfall of energy, impelling some industrialists to relocate their factories to other countries?

This brings to the fore the need for curtailing the role of the bureaucracy to the minimum as far as new investment in the country is concerned. Without taking drastic steps, it might not be possible to curtail the scourge of corruption.

Referring to his meeting with the Chinese PM, Nawaz said they had planned to lay a rail track from Kashgar to Gawadar and Karachi. He said that his party was doing the politics of values and that was why they respected the PTI mandate to form the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). In the same spirit, he said, for the first time in the country, a majority party has doled out the slots of CM and Governor to its smaller partners in Balochistan.

The citizens are confident that, under Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan would not only come out of the present economic morass, the country would also start making economic progress, once again. In support, one may refer to the signs of turnaround in the crippled and debt-trapped economy of Pakistan immediately after the PML-N’s electoral victory. The five key economic indicators — stock market, real estate, foreign exchange reserves, dollar-rupee parity and inflow of foreign investment — are showing signs of recovery. According to analysts, these five factors are the foremost economic indicators that show immediate response to economic change: If the economy progresses these indicators rise and if the case is otherwise they start regressing.

The Karachi Stock Exchange benchmark-100 index is setting new records every week. It surged to a record high mark of 22,358.96 points on June 7, 2013 when market capitalisation ballooned to 5.39 trillion rupees from 4.75 trillion rupees in early May, indicating an increase of over 650 billion rupees. Analysts described it as a good omen for the economic revival. While before elections, people were talking about default and economic failure, after the PML-N’s electoral victory they are now talking about economic revival and growth. They cite the inflow of foreign investment as one of the key indicators of economic growth.

After stock exchange, real estate is the second key indicator that immediately reacts to the economic turnaround. In the last two months, the real estate prices, in posh areas, have increased by 10-25 per cent, depending on the property’s location. Similarly, the foreign exchange reserves that were constantly showing downslide before elections have started registering improvement beginning in the third week of May, 2013.

On May 17, the State Bank of Pakistan reported a slight decline in foreign exchange reserves, from US$11.60 billion to US$11.43 billion. However, the situation changed by May 24, 2013, when the SBP reported reserves at US$11.62 billion, from 11.43 billion dollars of the preceding week, showing US$190 million growth despite US$390 million payment to the IMF as loan installment.

Since the flight of capital has stopped and inflow of foreign investment has started increasing, this trend would strengthen the foreign exchange reserves and the value of Pakistani currency against major currencies of the world. Dollar-rupee parity that had crossed 100 rupee mark before elections has reversed to below 100 and it is now hovering around 98.50 to 99 rupees. It is believed that improvement in investment and reserves would further squeeze the value of dollar against the rupee in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the country’s new leaders, it seems, have started proceeding on a course of austerity. To begin with, the PM has trimmed the size of the cabinet of ministers. Against six dozen ministers in the cabinet of the outgoing PPP government, Nawaz has constituted a cabinet of 25, including 16 ministers and nine ministers of state. In addition, he has appointed three advisors and two special assistants to the prime minister.

A ministerial slot, on an average, costs about 12 million rupees annually. This means a saving of about 500 million rupees. Furthermore, the number of ministries has also been slashed, which would result in considerable savings. To curtail administrative expenditure, the new PM has also directed a reduction of 30 per cent in the staff of the PM’s office. On June 10, he advised the members of his cabinet to reduce all non-development expenditure by at least 30 per cent.

Furthermore, corresponding to every ministry, there are committees both in the Senate and the National Assembly. A reduction in the number of ministries would automatically result in the curtailment of the number of parliamentary committees and their chairmen, who enjoy perks and privileges equal to that of a minister of state. In addition, there is a parliamentary secretary for every ministry and reduction in the size of the ministries would mean corresponding decrease in the number of parliamentary secretaries.

As the number of ministers, federal ministries, committee chairmen and parliamentary secretaries decrease, so would the need for providing them limousines. The cumulative effect of rightsizing the cabinet, the parliamentary committees, committee chairmen, parliamentary secretaries and various ministries/departments would result in savings of billions of rupees. Only a popularly elected leader could have taken such bold and drastic steps!

Taking a cue from the helmsman, leaders at the federal and provincial level have also announced to adopt austerity. The PML-N government has reportedly decided to abolish the multi-billion rupee discretionary development funds for the prime minister and also impose ban on the import of luxury Mercedes cars in the budget for 2013-14.

The PM’s discretionary development fund had swollen to a whopping Rs42 billion under ex-PM Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. Federal Information Minister Pervez Rasheed, Chief Minister KP Pervez Khattak and Chief Minister Balochistan Dr. Abdul Malik have expressed their determination not to use secret funds at the initial stages of their new tenures. Interior Minister Ch. Nisar Ali Khan has announced not to use the official car, the official helicopter or aircraft of the Interior Ministry.

These austerity measures are bound to show results, in the shape of accelerated growth, in due course of time.

[I]The writer is a freelance columnist based at Islamabad. [email]alauddinmasood@gmail.com[/email][/I]

[B]16.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Terrorism vs good governance[/SIZE]
The PTI faces tough challenges as it governs the insurgency-hit Pakhtunkhwa
By Raza Khan[/CENTER][/B]

Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) first-ever government has started working in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province as the cabinet portfolios have been allocated after much delay. Irrespective of which party or individual gets what ministry, it would be the overall performance of the government that would be a barometer to gauge the tall claims Khan has been making for many years.

As the PTI has failed to win majority in the National Assembly and is not part of the government in any other province, its government in the KP would also be critical for the future of the party and perhaps democracy in Pakistan keeping in view the party’s slogan of ‘change’ on which it got the second highest number of votes across Pakistan.

The KP is both simultaneously fortunate and unfortunate to have the PTI-led government because the party has a non-traditional political programme, which the province needs the most to sort out its myriad issues. Although the entire Pakistan needs change, the KP needs it the most as the decadent political and economic institutions have almost collapsed due to multifarious factors while the society is experiencing large-scale changes and is in a state of transition. In this situation there ought to be a political force which could not only bring change but also manage change.

The KP, as a society and administrative entity, has had some very critical and peculiar issues and problems. The province is extensively affected by the direct and indirect effects of the unprecedented insurgency-cum-terrorism of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the 30-year-long international conflict plus civil war in the neighbouring Afghanistan. It is important to note that the KP for decades hosted two-third of the 3.5-4.0 million Afghan refugees, the biggest refugee population anywhere in the world, which migrated to Pakistan due to the Soviet-Afghan War and lived there for decades.

A large number of these refugees are still living in the KP. On the other hand, the KP in recent years also experienced one of the biggest internal human displacement in modern world history when due to the TTP insurgency and consequent military offensive around three million residents of Swat-Malakand had to leave their homes to get refuge in rest of the province. Apart from that, presently around a million IDPs from the Fata displaced due to Taliban insurgency are also living in the adjoining districts of the KP.

Terrorism, international conflict and insurgency of such big magnitude and intensity have left the KP government institutions extremely weakened, has significantly eroded the state writ and lacerated the social fabric of the province or more aptly Pakhtoon society. Against this backdrop, what is required is reconstruction and development effort of a gargantuan proportion. It is also a dilemma of the government that it has to reconstruct and develop the province simultaneously.

The incoming government must understand that terrorism in the name of Islam in Pakistan, particularly in the KP, has many causal factors, many of which, like underdevelopment and society’s ultra-conservativeness, have roots in political vacuum and resultant bad policies and governance. Thus terrorism could only be countered through good governance and pro-social change. For this, the province needs a government that is composed of able, educated and erudite people and has cognition of not only the problems but most importantly their solution.

The KP has a strange fate as it has got a government led by a party, which does not have any experience of governance. However, such argument in no way can take the right of governance from the party as it has been given the mandate to rule by the majority people of the KP. At least, the newly-elected Chief Minister of the province, Pervez Khattak, is an extremely experienced and educated man, who has the potential to overcome these challenges and reconstruct the province and put it on the path of development.

Khattak, in his maiden speech to the provincial assembly after election, said that his government has come with full preparation to rule and had ready policies and won’t waste time to think what it had to do. This sounded music to the ears. Because once vision is clear, priorities get straight, policy formulation become rational and their implementation mechanical. During the same speech, one could feel that Khattak as a nominee of Imran Khan had realisation of the situation as he himself said everything in the province had crumbled. “Is there anything in shape,” he questioned.

Apart from the chief minister, there are also quite experienced and educated men in the cabinet like the seasoned campaigner Shaukat Yousafzai, Atif Khan and Sirajul Haq (JI).

Here are some important points, which if taken into consideration, could greatly help the new government to overcome challenges and ensure good governance.

The PTI leadership and everyone else are grossly mistaken when it states that terrorism is the biggest challenge of or in the KP; it is neither. Firstly, it is beyond the capacity of the KP government to address the phenomenon of terrorism in the name of Islam. Secondly, the terrorists have their bases in the tribal areas, a federal territory. Thirdly, the phenomenon of religious terrorism has been the result of decades-old state policies and international intervention in the region and Pakistan.

The KP has not been the mainspring of terrorism but only has been the victim of these forces and policies. So the KP government cannot be expected to resolve these issues unless there is a fundamental change in the state policies and withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. If the provincial government would attempt to eliminate terrorism and bases of its perpetrators by force it would be a grave mistake which the previous provincial government of the Awami National Party (ANP) committed. However, the KP government could mitigate the effects of terrorism. The only way of this is to ensure good governance.

Desire for having good governance was the very reason which motivated most of the people to vote for the PTI in the province because the party, claims notwithstanding, does not have any coherent political ideology.

Taliban have got most of their supporters and fighters among the extremely poor and unemployed youth. Thus poverty and unemployment along with structural underdevelopment and, above all, profound social-psychological conservativeness in the KP have been some, not all, of the main contributing causes to the phenomenon of religious extremism and terrorism. Therefore, if the provincial government come up with such policies that could address these critical issues then it would do its part to counter terrorism in the province.

Thus the challenges which the new government of the PTI in the KP have to face, including effects of terrorism and economic meltdown, are huge but they can be adroitly managed provided the government has the vision, comprehension and solution. With the popularly-elected, experienced and dedicated government of the PML-N at the centre and the PTI-led government in the KP, hopefully the country would see qualitative improvement in governance.

[B]16.06.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]Heart-to-heart[/SIZE]
A guidebook for all with heart complications
By Syed Mansoor Hussain[/CENTER][/B]

At almost every dinner I attend, when people find out about my area of expertise in medicine, whether I like it or not, I often have to spend much of the evening talking about heart disease especially blockages of heart arteries. And the reason is that there is always somebody around who has had treatment for blockages of these arteries.

First, a quick primer on disease of the heart arteries (coronary artery disease-CAD) is in order. As anybody who read ‘biology’ in high school knows, the heart is an organ made up of muscle. It receives ‘impure’ blood from the body through ‘veins’, pushes it into the lungs to be ‘purified’ and then gets it back and pumps or pushes it into the rest of the body through blood vessels called arteries. But, the heart also has to supply itself and this is done through the coronary arteries.

Almost all arteries in the body can develop narrowing or blockages and so can those that supply the heart. Once the arteries of the heart start developing blockages (CAD), problems occur. The heart, after all, is an organ that cannot rest and must keep on beating about seventy times a minute for as long as a person is alive. And has to beat harder during exercise or any form of physical exertion. So if the heart arteries are narrowed, during exercise, parts of the heart muscle might not get enough blood producing heart pain also called angina. Most often the first time a person seeks medical help for CAD is after developing angina. If, however, a heart artery gets completely blocked it can lead to damage of the heart muscle supplied by that artery. This is called a heart attack or a myocardial infarction (MI).

The ‘risk factors’ for developing CAD include inherited tendencies, high blood fat concentration, presence of other medical problems like Diabetes (high blood sugar), and high blood pressure and then there are life style choices like high fat diet, lack of exercise, smoking and putting on excess weight. The important thing to remember is that not all patients with the risk factors mentioned above will develop CAD and that some patients without any known risk factors will go on to develop serious blockages. However, an important part of cardiac medicine is devoted to controlling and minimising risk factors, but that is a topic for another time. Today, I just want to mention what treatments are available for those that have actually developed CAD and have developed problems due to it.

Before any actual treatment is initiated, the first step is to establish that the problem is really due to arterial blockages. An electro-cardio gram (ECG) is often the first test. This shows the electrical heart action and can help determine if a person has had a heart attack in the past or is having one at the time of the test. Other than that, it has limited use. Most tests used to establish the presence of CAD depend on some sort of exercise or medicines that increase heart function during which time either an ECG is performed (stress test) or special medicines are injected and pictures of the heart are taken to see if the heart is getting enough blood during increased activity.

The ultimate tests remains the ‘angiogram’ where a thin tube (catheter) is passed up through an artery in the arm or the leg into the heart, placed in the coronary arteries and a special ‘dye’ is injected and X-Ray pictures are taken. This shows the actual arteries and confirms the presence of blockages. An alternative test that is being used frequently is called a ‘CT angiogram’ where a special dye is injected in a vein and then a multiple rapid X-Ray images of the heart are made and a computer generates a three dimensional picture of the heart and its arteries.

Once it is determined that problems are due to significant blockages of heart arteries, two types of treatment are possible. First are medicines that decrease the activity of the heart so that it can function with less blood that is available. This is referred to as medical treatment. The other option especially in patients at increased risk of developing a heart attack is to increase the amount of blood that is passing through the heart arteries. This can be done by two methods. First and the older treatment is called a bypass operation in which arteries or veins taken from other parts of the body are attached to the heart arteries beyond the blockages so as to ‘bypass’ the blockages. This is a major operation and carries some risk and possibility of complications.

An alternative that is more frequently being used now is opening up the blockages from the inside. This is called angioplasty and ‘stenting’. Angioplasty is performed during an angiography mentioned above. Once a catheter has been placed in the obstructed artery, then under X-Ray control a thin wire is threaded through the catheter and is passed through the obstruction in the artery. Once this wire is across the obstruction another catheter with a balloon attached to its tip is passed over this wire, the balloon is placed at the site of the obstruction and distended to open up the obstruction. However, angioplasty is rarely done by itself anymore and almost always once the obstruction is opened up, a small tubular metal mesh is placed at the obstruction site to keep the artery open. This metal mesh is called a stent.

Newer types of stents have the metal coated with special medicines that decrease the chance of the obstruction from recurring. The stents without such medicine are called ‘bare metal stents’ (BMS) and the ones with the medicines are called ‘drug eluting stents (DES). Once these ‘stents’ have been placed, a lifetime regimen of ‘blood thinners’ is often necessary to improve the chance that these stents will stay open. The modern term used for all catheter based treatment of coronary blockages and associated conditions is “Percutaneous Catheter Intervention’ (PCI).

Finally, to the extreme form of artery blockage that produces a heart attack. Complete blockages of heart arteries are usually due to a blood clot at the site of a partial obstruction. If the victims of a heart attack reach a well equipped hospital with a few hours of developing a heart attack, they will often be given a medicine into the blood stream to dissolve the clot. The medicine most often used in Pakistan is called Streptokinase (SK). However, over the last decade or so, a PCI or a catheter based opening of the blockage combined with medicines to dissolve the clot are becoming the preferred method of treatment for appropriate patients.

All the descriptions mentioned above are for information rather than as recommendations for any type of treatment.
[I]
The writer is former professor and Chairman Department of Cardiac Surgery, KEMU/Mayo Hospital, Lahore:[/I] [email]smhmbbs70@yahoo.com[/email]

[B]16.06.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]The ‘Big’ problem[/SIZE]
Awareness about the negative consequences of population growth is severely lacking and has been replaced by myths of obscurantism
By Tauseef-ur-Rahman[/CENTER][/B]

Being with family, especially with kids, always make people cheerful. But this does not happen to Bizwar Khan. After being displaced from Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency against the backdrop of consecutive military operations, his large family, comprising 22children (12 girls and 10 boys) and three wives, witnessed a division — 10 of his family members shifted to Jalozai camp established for internally-displaced persons while the remaining 16 still reside in Bara.

His displaced family is braving scorching heat while sitting in a makeshift tent after the mercury jumped to 42 Celsius at Jalozai camp. The camp, situated in Nowshera district, has accommodated tens of thousands of tribespersons uprooted from various tribal agencies of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

“I cannot bring all of my children to the camp because the ration given at the camp is not sufficient enough to meet the requirement of such a large family. At the same time, owing to the law and order situation, I am worried about the safety of my family which I left in Bara,” Bizwar Khan, 40, tells TNS.

“I strive hard”, he adds, “to make both the ends meet but it has become increasingly difficult for me due to ever-surging prices of daily-use items.”

The family of Bizwar is one of the many in Pakistan who are faced with many problems due to their large families. Experts say that population explosion has its own dynamics essentially embedded in ignorance, lack of social vision and the complications and consequences caused by population overgrowth.

There are three views on population and economic development — Pessimistic View, Optimistic View and Neutralist View. The Pessimistic theory says that population growth has negative impact on economic growth while the optimistic theory states that population growth promotes economic activity while the neutralist theorists are of the opinion that population growth is independent of economic growth.

Whatever the optimistic theorists state about the benefits of the population growth, it is an ascertained fact that it has negative effects on economic growth, education, health, food and environment. It also increases poverty and in certain cases triggers international migration.

With limited resources in hand, fewer opportunities to earn and living a hand-to-mouth life further worsen the already deteriorated plight of the children.

Since its inception, the population of Pakistan increased with a remarkable pace and from around 33 million in 1947 it has reached, according to a rough estimate, to 180 million in 2012. Currently, Pakistan is the sixth largest country of the world and also one of the poorest as well. With the same pace of growth, Pakistan’s population is expected to touch the mark of 210 million by 2020.

According to recently issued World Development Indicators by World Bank, 60 per cent of Pakistanis are living below the poverty line. The international poverty line is two dollars a day or an income of Rs 200 per day. The report tells that 21 per cent of Pakistan’s population lives below $1.25 a day.

It further states that 30.9 per cent of the children under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition and underweight while mortality rate under five is 72 per 1,000 birthrate and maternal mortality ratio is 260 per 100,000 births.

The population growth rate in Pakistan is 2.03, the highest in South Asia, while the fertility rate is 3.4. The contraceptive prevalence ratio is 27 per cent and if the trend continues Pakistan’s population will double by 2046.

This huge burden of population has adversely affected almost every sector of the country, be it education, health, infrastructure, environment, energy, sanitation, sewage, unemployment, transport, to name a few.

Education is getting expensive with every passing day; the increased number of children limits the access of these children even to primary level let alone higher levels. It results into increase of uneducated mass which has its own detrimental complication for the society at large.

The healthcare of such huge families has also been compromised. Immunization becomes patchy which results in an alarming increase in infant mortality. Children of large families are also prone to communicable diseases. The public sector health outlets are overburdened and cannot cater to the needs of the public which results in dependency on private sector and puts immense financial pressure on people like Bizwar Khan who has to cater for 22 children.

The burgeoning trend of child labour in the country is also attributed to the rapidly growing population.

Besides, awareness about the basic facts and consequences of population growth is severely lacking and has been replaced by myths of obscurantism. “The basic duty of the society and the government is to create awareness through print and electronic media and community participation,” says Tahirullah, an official of the Rahnuma Family Planning Association of Pakistan.

[B]16.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]The roots of violence[/SIZE]
Zia Ur Rehman’s book “Karachi in Turmoil” is a
telltale of social and economic motives behind unceasing violence
By Ali Arqam
[/CENTER][/B]
The unceasing violence in Karachi has many facets. It has been, for the last few years, in the headlines for periodic waves of violence due to varying reasons. Sometimes, a political assassination has flared up the turbulence or a fiery political statement has led to violent responses resulting in losses of innocent lives, torching of vehicles and devastation of valuable properties.

Amidst all the political antics of making and breaking alliances, joining or quitting coalitions, calling on the supporters for strikes, protests and days of mourning, accusations and allegations of foul play, the unremitting saga of killings of political workers from all the political parties continued without a break.

The story of these turbulent years, different players who have contributed to the turmoil, political, social and economic motives behind this and the repercussions and implications of this are paraphrased well in the book by the Karachi-based journalist and researcher, Zia Ur Rehman, in his book, “Karachi in Turmoil” published by the Narratives Islamabad.

In the beginning, violence was attributed to the ethnic tensions between Urdu speaking community represented by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Pashtuns whose support was divided proportionally among different secular and religio-political parties. But in the 2008 general elections, Awami National Party (ANP) projected itself as the representative party of the Pashtuns by winning from two provincial constituencies.

For decades, Karachi has been a centre of gravity for the labourers from all the provinces due to its commercial and industrial importance. War, insurgency and military offensives against the militants have escalated the process of migration towards Karachi. Outskirts of the city have seen a rapid growth, many of the goths around were included in the city to meet the growing demands of lands for residential purposes.

The author has provided statistics showing trends of migration during these decades since partition till the recent years, and highlighted how these migrations have changed the demographics of the city and have greater implications over the politics in the coming years.

During these years, new forces have joined the rumble. The infamous gangs of Lyari have gained notoriety by engaging in more barbarous and ferocious acts of brutalities against their rivals and political opponents. Lyari is the oldest locality of Karachi and home to indigenous Baloch and Sindhi people who have consistently voted for the PPP. A larger group of Lyari gangs put on a political avatar of People’s Aman Committee (PAC) and served as a subsidiary of the PPP initially. After violent clashes with the MQM and targeting of members of Katchi community, mostly the PPP supporters, realisation in the PPP ranks led to a ban on the PAC.

Furious over the developments, the PAC looked around by making contacts with other political parties including the PML-N and later formed Karachi City Alliance with Pakistan Awami Tehreek, Jamat-e-Islami and other groups. The author has painstakingly collected informations over the inception of the PAC and provided a detailed profile of the notorious outfit.

It will be interesting to note that apart from all the criminal activities, criminal gangs in Lyari are intolerant of and against the influence of Baloch nationalists groups. Mir Sohaib Mengal, international representative of BSO (Azad), has stated that Uzair Jan Baloch-led faction has been involved in repressing the activists of Baloch nationalists groups.

With the emersion of anti-Shia outfit Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), violence against members of Shia community too escalated. Scores of Shia professionals have been killed while ASWJ too has faced reprisal attacks.

The author has gathered views and opinions on different aspects of anti-Shia violence. He also referred to the popular perception of Saudi-Iran proxy war behind these killings, though one can hardly find any substantiated argument supporting these claims.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan too has left its mark in the city. Most of the outskirts of Karachi are virtually under the control of the TTP. The TTP has been using Karachi as its financial jugular by resorting to land grabbing, kidnappings for ransom and collecting extortion money. The author has shed light on these criminal practices utilised by all the political and religious groups at different levels.

At the end, Zia Ur Rehman has made it very convenient for the students of politics, those interested in the city’s tumultuous politics and researchers who want to understand the roots of chronic violence in the city.

[B]16.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Misplaced priorities[/SIZE]
Building human resources and generating
productive social capital should take precedence over building of roads and bridges
By Tahir Kamran
[/CENTER][/B]
Mega projects serve the public good and also serve as monuments, as instruments for self-serving rulers wanting to immortalise themselves. The obsession for such mega projects was quite rampant during the medieval ages, when kings sometimes conceived projects as large as a full-fledged city, as the engineer King Shah Jahan did by building Shahjahanabad, on the outskirts of Delhi, to perpetuate his own memory.

Similarly, the primary motivation to build the Taj Mahal might have stemmed from Shah Jahan’s proverbial love for his queen Arjumand Bano, commonly known as Mumtaz Mahal, but his hankering to have that monumental mausoleum built must have also been designed to help the King transcend the confines of mortality. Thus, these practices were the bequest of an autocratic and monarchical dispensation where the persona of the King was held sacrosanct.

The ruler, as a person, held precedence over institutions — indeed it would not be unfair to say that the all-powerful ruler embodied all sorts of institutions. This essentially medieval trait has sustained itself to this day, when the collective will of the people is supposed to prevail, but in most cases does not. Instead, the idiosyncratic fantasies of elected rulers refuse to usher themselves into the era of modernism. Their conceptions of mega projects, which they want to flag as monuments, such as metro buses or bullet trains, in a third world country hobbled by resource constraint, is a reflection of misplaced priorities. Now is the time our political elite should think far beyond such shenanigans, beyond the distribution of favours just to win elections.

Going back to the theoretical aspect of mega projects, attention should be turned to projects far larger than those mentioned above, which were planned and executed in the modern era, projects with a very different aim and spirit behind them. One cannot credit any one person from among the British administration for the canal network which, to many scholars, is no less than a miracle. The same can be said about the railway network, the settlement process in the trans Ravi Punjab and the methods of revenue documentation and its collection. Such feats came about as a result of institutionalised practices, performed to ensure effective governance.

One Viceroy, during British rule, would initiate a certain policy which would then be carried on as a legacy by his successors. Continuity in the policy invigorated the administrative structure under the British. That was how it (administrative structure) endured even to this day, although in a deformed and mutilated way. It is, however, quite obvious that the imperial interests were latent in all such undertakings. Here the point worth pondering is as to why our rulers have not embraced that British legacy.

What we can learn from the successful democracies is a pressing need to strengthen our state institutions, which is the only way to achieve political stability and economic viability. Personalised rule erodes the institutions and unleashes anarchy. The over-exuberance demonstrated with impunity in administering the Punjab has proved counter-productive. Let the heads (read bureaucrats if you like) of government departments handle affairs in the way they think is proper. Meaningful reform in the administrative structure is a commendable and essential undertaking.

It requires soul searching and introspection by those conversant with the nitty-gritty of various systems working in different countries with the same historical experience as has Pakistan. However, instead of taking that route, the iron man of the Punjab juggles officers around at will, which has proven and will continue to prove perilous. One cannot expect effective governance and efficiency in an ambience plagued with uncertainty. It is, therefore, imperative that the one holding the reins of power builds confidence among officers. Efficiency and personal integrity ought to be the criterion, rather than personal likes or dislikes.

What is of utmost importance is the shifting of the focus from the development by building road and bridges to the human resources, so that social capital can be generated. It is the social capital that forms the core of any society. In order to do that the mediocrity that is pervasive to an alarming extent in our institutions for education and healthcare will have to be tackled at the earliest. Any clear vision regarding education or health is conspicuously missing from the agenda of the government. Several universities are finding it difficult to fill the professorial positions which does not bode well for the future of higher education.

Similarly, the public school system is in a shambles and no one seems to be mindful of that dereliction. Now that education is a provincial subject, it should figure among the top priorities of the government. Some task force needs to be instituted and the ailments afflicting the education and healthcare should be identified and subsequently addressed.

Public schooling of Finland and national health service of the United Kingdom may impart us some lessons in this regard. Surely enough nations sustain and thrive because of the social capital which comes about through investing in education and health services instead of ostentatious projects conceived and built on the shifting sands of time. Our leadership must come out of the fantasies of medieval ages to confront the challenges of the modern age.

[B]16.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Transport troubles[/SIZE]
Karachi needs appropriate planning and efficient implementation of transport policies
By Dr Noman Ahmed[/CENTER][/B]

The Sindh Chief Minister announced the revival of Karachi Circular Railways at the humungous cost of $2.6 billion during a high level meeting in Karachi on June 07, 2013. With assistance from Japanese agencies at various levels of its planning and development, the project has already seen several bouts of cost escalation.

Experts say that the operation of KCR will have an in-built subsidy — as income from passenger fares shall not be enough to shoulder the running of the train service even for a day! At a time when the Sindh and federal governments are both cash-strapped, the investment in a system with an in-built need of a cash injection every year may not be a wise option. So what is the answer?

The Sindh Chief Secretary, during the same presentation, gave some revealing figures. The city transport comprises 47.3 per cent motor cycles, 36.5 per cent private vehicles, 4.5 per cent public transport, 9.9 per cent para-transit and 1.7 per cent contract carriages. Ironically, 4.5 per cent public vehicles carry 42 per cent passengers while 36.5 per cent private vehicles carry only 21 per cent commuters.

It is a common observation that rising number of private vehicles is the key reason of transport system inefficiencies in the city. Excess consumption of subsidised CNG fuel option; high occupancy of operational road shoulders; formidable utilisation of road space/vacant lots for parking; pressure on city administration to facilitate fast movement through de-signalisation and grade separated crossings; swift usurpation of pedestrian spaces and sidewalks and spiraling atmospheric pollution are some of the common problems generated by exponentially increasing private vehicles.

The rising statistics for fatal accidents and other damages to human life are other mentions that impact our urban living due to rising number of private vehicles. While a rational support to domestic automobile industry is a good policy, the decision to allow import of motor cars is neither solving transport problems nor helping employment rise beyond the conventional limits.

When the need-demand combine is suppressed beyond logical limits, it bursts at its seams to evolve rather unique solutions. The swarming rise of the three-wheeler vehicles operating on busy Karachi roads is an unavoidable phenomenon. Qingqi, CNG rickshaws and other improvised vehicles of the same range constitute this category of popular transport. It is capable to carry as many as 5-12 passengers on board at a time depending upon the make or seating capacity design.

A study conducted by Nabeel Ajaz of NED University in Karachi on urban planning revealed that easy availability, opportunity to sit and travel in relative comfort, prevention from thugs and thieves (who now hold up bus and mini bus passengers on a routine basis), low fares and uninterrupted operations during political strikes are some of the comparative advantages that have made Qingqi a very popular mode of transport. Housewives, school children, college and university students, white collar workers, labourers and a host of other categories of people use this transport.

Women find it a more comfortable mode due to limited or no chances of lecherous treatment by operator. However, there are many disadvantages also. A sizable number of drivers/operators are under-aged and have no proper driving licence. The vehicle design is also inappropriate for broken roads with potholes. These instances lead to road accidents causing injuries to riders. The relatively low velocities and unavailability of dedicated lanes impact their optimum performance. However, it may be taken into account that these tri-wheelers, like other modes of public informal transport, are entirely financed by the operators themselves. No bank loans or subsidies are available to them, a small proportion of loans from micro finance institutions notwithstanding.

On an average, a three wheeler costs Rs 200,000 as against Rs 4.5 million for a public bus. This enormous advantage in terms of starting cost of the transport business is a core factor behind the phenomenal rise of tri-wheelers. Besides the safety factor during riots and unrest is another consideration. Dozens of buses and mini-buses have been routinely torched during the previous years under political, ethnic and sectarian strife in the city.

It is important to revisit the wisdom behind the development of signal free corridors by the erstwhile City Government of Karachi. Among the various benefits that were highlighted for going ahead with the multi-billion rupee projects was the relative efficiency that was ensured for buses, mini-buses and wagons.

The KCR option must be examined minimising its cost factor by intelligent and smart options of investment through private sector. Similarly, a mini bus and bus system that augments the KCR routes may be contemplated. An integrated transport system is the one which optimises efficiencies by collaborating linkages with multiple modes of transport.

As Karachi has grown as a consequence of urban sprawl, there will remain ample business potential for multiple modes of transport. And announcement and focus on one project alone cannot solve commuting problems of a city of Karachi’s magnitude. Critical analysis, appropriate planning, efficient implementation and dispassionate monitoring and evaluation of transport approaches can formulate logical answers to complex problems that the city is grappling with.

[B]23.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]The old and the new in Naya Pakistan[/SIZE]
The results of the May 2013 elections in Pakistan have challenged and altered old ideologies and outcomes. The public discourse of politics has also undergone change while the social media has formed false and comfortable ideologies and self-indulgent self-believers. Whether such articulation, expectation and promise bring about a new Pakistan remains to be seen
By S Akbar Zaidi[/CENTER][/B]

The main slogan for the May 2013 Pakistan elections was one of change, for a naya or new Pakistan. In important ways, the 2013 elections were as important and as critical as the 1988 elections which began the process of electoral politics — albeit not democracy — in Pakistan after a long, dark and cruel military dictatorship. This time while the transition, the first ever from a democratically elected government to another is very different compared to 1988, the importance of a break from the past is perhaps more powerful than that of the 1988 elections.

Breaking from the past

There are numerous obvious examples of what is new in these elections and the many breaks from the past. Perhaps the most important aspect of these elections was that for the first time a democratically elected government held free and fair elections in Pakistan — albeit with allegations and proof of rigging in some polling stations. Moreover, the democratically elected government of 2008-13 willingly accepted its failure and congratulated the winning parties and for the first time in Pakistan a fully civilian government — no signs of Pakistan’s model of praetorian democracy at play here — handed over power as per the constitution to a caretaker government which in turn passed it on to the elected government. Given Pakistan’s histories of military intervention, control, meddling, oversight, and much else, all these “firsts” are by themselves a remarkable achievement. While perhaps anticipated and somewhat expected in many ways given the apparent trends and signs since 2007 and again in 2010, nevertheless it is still surprising in Pakistan’s context that this process happened without the military’s interference.

What is also new is that Nawaz Sharif was sworn in as Pakistan’s first prime minister to be elected to that office for the third time, a record which is unlikely to be broken soon. Equally refreshing is the fact that the military general who removed Sharif from office in October 1999 and became Pakistan’s chief executive forcing Sharif into many years of exile is today in a Pakistani jail. It is not often that one can celebrate the fact that Pakistan’s former president and former chief of the army staff (Pervez Musharraf) is under arrest and investigation by Pakistani courts, ironically by many of the lawyers of the Supreme Court who sanctified his coup in October 1999. While there is speculation that Musharraf will be allowed to “get away”, even this temporary judicial and public humiliation is an important first in Pakistan.

New, also, is the fact that almost all experts got the results of the elections wrong. Barring just a handful, the predictions by a large and wide variety of analysts all suggested that no single party would win enough seats to form a government on its own; and like the two previous governments Pakistan’s next would also be a coalition government. Sharif surprised everyone by winning enough seats in the end to form a government on his own supported by a few new entrants who joined him after the elections.

One can also argue that Nawaz Sharif is probably — one should always be cautious about making predictions about Pakistan — the first prime minister since Z A Bhutto in 1971 who ought to see a full term of five years ahead of him. All elected governments after Z A Bhutto — there have been seven — have been sworn in and functioned under the dark clouds of the Pakistani military, often with a serving general as president of Pakistan or with help from the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Sharif, at the moment at least, seems to be free of such fetters, again, a novel way to start the term of a democratically-elected government in Pakistan.

Other equally new developments include the rise and fall of two parties, one new, the other old. For the first time since 1968, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) did not have someone leading it into the elections, the 10th since 1970. Not only was there just no leader, there was no Bhutto to lead the party, clearly one of the two factors which led to the party (again for the first time) receiving the third, rather than the second, highest number of votes. Since 1970, the PPP has been either in government or in opposition as a formidable force led articulately by a Bhutto. Likewise, probably the newest of all new trends of the 2013 elections not seen since 1985 when what was then called the Muhajir Qaumi Movement became a major political force in Karachi, has been the emergence of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

The fact that 56 per cent of the electorate voted, the highest proportion since 1970, must rest on the emergence of a second (or third) force on the political map of Pakistan. The PTI received 18 per cent of the popular vote, converting into 24 National Assembly seats with the capacity to form a government in the highly important and sensitive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This from a party which had only one member in the National Assembly and only one member of the Provincial Assembly in 2002, and none in the previous elections of 2008 as the PTI boycotted Musharraf’s elections. By all accounts, much credit for bringing out the elite as well as “the youth” as voters goes to Imran Khan’s highly motivated and inspiring political campaign although perhaps not so much his political imagination.

The PTI also deserves credit for becoming one of the few political parties to confront the major political force in Karachi, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Others have arisen and failed, yet numerous members contesting elections on the PTI ticket from Karachi were brave enough to challenge and confront the hold of a party variously described in the past as “militant”, “authoritarian”, and “fascist”. It is certainly no mean achievement to stand up to the MQM in Karachi, suggesting perhaps that the party may be losing its hold on the city. The fact that the PTI received as many as 30,000 votes from the heartland of the MQM in Karachi signifies a shift in the city’s politics, and that even entrenched political parties can be challenged.

The End of Ideologies?

In the past, it has been possible to see some sort of ideological divide between political parties in Pakistan. The PPP was seen to be “progressive” by many, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PMLN) to be socially conservative with an Islamic bent, and the Awami National Party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the nationalist Pakhtun party of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his heirs, and of course, the Islamists parties as just that. The 2013 elections have blurred the boundaries, and what is “leftist”, “rightist”, and especially “conservative” has become far more complicated.

Take the argument doing the rounds in Pakistan that suggests that a “rightwing wave” has swept Pakistan’s recent general elections. The arithmetic based on the numbers of seats won and votes cast would suggest that conservative parties have won the election and this in turn would also suggest, at least at first glance, that Pakistanis have consciously shifted to and chosen conservative and right-wing candidates. Clearly, such analysis simplifies electoral choices and does not fully explain Pakistan’s apparent and differentiated turn to the right.

By all accounts, the numbers are persuasive and do support these conclusions. At the national level, Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N has received 35 per cent of votes and the PTI has got 17.8 per cent. If we add some of the Islamist parties such as the Jamaat Islami (JI) and Fazlur Rahman’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUIF) (not counting the minor parties) then the total votes received by parties which are conservative — and there ought to be no two views about them being conservative — at least 57 per cent of the votes cast went to such parties, whether overtly Islamist or conservatives of a different kind. If one wants to distinguish the non-conservative parties, and include the PPP, the ANP and the MQM in this group — it is highly problematic to call them “liberal” and “secular” given the nature of their politics — just for the sake of the argument it is noteworthy that these three parties received a mere 23 per cent of the popular vote.

Such analysis ignores many of the nuances which have had an effect on Pakistan’s elections. One needs to examine the votes cast in the light of broader factors. Take the case of the PML-N. It won resoundingly in the Punjab, perhaps not because there was a sudden lurch towards conservatism, but because the previous PML-N government in the province was seen by the voters as a party worth investing in again. Re-electing a political party is not an ideological swing, it just reaffirms faith in that party. The PML-N was re-elected in the Punjab because the perception of the electorate was that the party had delivered whatever they thought was necessary. Of course, there was also a strong anti-PPP sentiment for its failure to govern at the federal level, which added to the PML-N getting more votes overall. The PPP in the Punjab was also a leaderless party, which did not help its cause much. The bastion of the PPP, southern Punjab, also collapsed on account of poor politics and poor governance.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the PTI made extraordinary inroads, it is again difficult to sustain the argument that these were consciously political choices in favour of an Islamic conservatism. Having dismissed both the last two elected governments in 2002 and 2008, the Pakhtunkhwa electorate has only shown its commitment to address problems of Islamic militancy in the province, by choosing the party it best feels able to do so. The fact that their choice is the conservative PTI is a reflection of how the PTI has promised to deal with drones, the Taliban, and other militant factors. To suggest that this is also an ideological “right-wing” choice is only partially correct.

A distinction needs to be made between the different types of conservatism in Pakistan and the electorates’ choice of such politics. For instance, there is no doubt that Islamic political parties, such as the JUI-F and the JI, are conservative because of their understanding and politics based on religion. About the PML-N, one is probably not wrong in assuming it is on the lines of the European Christian Democratic party or one closer to Turkey’s AKP, the Justice and Development Party, rather than to the Muslim Brotherhood. The PTI, most of the time exudes the worst forms of conservatism and in many ways is an English-speaking Jamaat Islami, but also talks about issues not very dissimilar to those of the PML-N. In terms of administrative reform and governance, it sounds more like World Bank rightwing technocratic crusaders, rather than Islamist ideologues, although by joining its twin (the Jamaat Islami) to form the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa it revealed its true colours.

The so-called corporate “good governance” conservative agenda of both the PML-N and the PTI — which none of the so-called liberal parties articulated — distinguishes them from Islamist political conservatism, and may have been a choice of the electorate in terms of service delivery. It is different from what is normally called conservatist politics in Muslim majoritarian countries. Moreover, specific and local issues of politics may have also had a strong impact on how voters cast their votes.

The argument that Pakistan has moved to the right politically, or that the elections show a rise of politically and ideologically conscious conservatism, needs to be differentiated for its layered distinctiveness. Moreover, which party supports which ideology, also becomes a little problematic. For instance, the PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is imagined as a largely conservative political party, while it is seen as being “progressive” and “enlightened” by many who voted for it in Karachi. However, even if voters did not make a conscious choice for conservatism, whether Islamic or of the “good governance” variety, such choices bring numerous unintended consequences which have far-reaching ramifications on society and politics, and perhaps the distinctiveness of ideological moorings will be better exposed as political praxis proceeds. Nevertheless, questions about which party supports which political ideology remain largely unclear in the naya (new) Pakistan.

Remnants of the Old

If one was tuned into Pakistan’s growing and vibrant virtual social media at that period, the verdict was clear: Imran Khan would sweep the elections and become prime minister. Not just social media, but the electronic media too, was caught up in a hype of the PTI, where the potential election tally was raised each passing day as Imran Khan became perhaps the most vibrant and potent symbol of Pakistan’s elections. Nevertheless, his tsunami turned out to be a virtual wave, rather than a real one. As some bloggers have confessed, social media is an echo which simply repeats itself and gives itself self-importance, believing only in itself. Anyone following different products of the virtual media would have indeed been led to believe that this new form of politics – if one dares to call what happens on social media political – trumped the old form of real and hard campaigning and contact with real people. However, in the last elections, in the real world, it was the old, real, form which scored over the new, the virtual.

Despite Sharif’s resounding victory, the electoral map of Pakistan continues to show a highly fragmented picture of regionalisation. Although the PML-N can claim that it has won seats in all four of Pakistan’s provinces, its victory in Pakistan rests almost exclusively on its victory in the Punjab. Similarly, although the PTI has won 27 seats, 16 of these are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. With the MQM and PPP in Sindh, the PML-N in the Punjab and the PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan’s politics reflects a deep fragmentation. Balochistan, as always with the lowest turnout from any region remains even further fragmented with no single party anywhere near a majority unlike the three provinces. With the lowest of the voter turn-out, in some constituencies politicians were elected with less than a thousand votes.

New Expectations from the Old

Nawaz Sharif is not the fresh face of the elections which supporters of the PTI had hoped for. He has been in electoral politics since 1985 and is an old hand, if ever there was one, having been dismissed twice as prime minister of Pakistan. The last time he even had a so-called “heavy mandate”, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament. However, Pakistan has changed fundamentally since Sharif was prime minister last in significant and perhaps, permanent ways, some better and some which clearly reveal retrogression of the worst kinds. Despite being an “old hand”, indications so far are that Sharif has changed radically since his earlier days as Pakistan’s prime minister.

The terms being used in the media to describe Sharif compared to 14 years ago, include those which suggest that he has matured, learnt his lessons, become wiser, more accommodative. There is ample evidence that these flattering terms are well deserved. Not just in 2013, but since 2007 when he returned to Pakistan after his exile, and especially as Pakistan’s “friendly opposition” during the last government’s tenure, Sharif has done as much in protecting Pakistan’s fragile democracy as has Asif Ali Zardari. Both have put their personal differences aside and have been committed to strengthening democracy against all kinds of hostile forces, such as the Islamic militants and Pakistan’s military establishments and its many surrogates. The past history of the PPP and Sharif throughout the 1990s was one of putting each other down, and looking to the military to oust the incumbent and replace it with the ever-ready opposition in-waiting. Perhaps Pakistan’s democrats have learnt some lessons.

When one thinks of the “old” Pakistan, perhaps the one single institution which comes to mind is the military. It has ruled Pakistan directly for 33 years, and indirectly for another 11. In the last five years, since 2008 its overbearing presence in the political life of Pakistan has been partially marginalised at least for the moment. Nevertheless, despite the rise of new institutions such as the media, judiciary and Parliament, few would be hasty in dismissing the military as a powerful, perhaps even the most powerful institution in Pakistan. Hence, Sharif’s pronouncements of how he is going to deal with the military, suggests a confidence not shown by any leader in the past except Z A Bhutto. This is probably not simply bravado and there have been enough indications from Sharif that he expects to be the civilian head of all institutions in the country. Whatever be the eventual outcome the old seems to be looking like something new.

Linked to it have been his announcements, frank and outright, that Pakistan will befriend India perhaps like never before. It is important to point out that India does not feature in the politics and electoral politics of Pakistan. It did not in either the 2002 or 2008 elections, and given Pakistan’s numerous and multifaceted problems, one did not hear much of India in the 2013 elections either. If anything, the right-wing press castigated Sharif for being soft on India. Much of the old does change.

Conclusions

To say that the 2013 elections have been the most fascinating since 1988 is an under statement. Even though some parties which had been in power in the past were re-elected, one cannot deny that even the old is now showing numerous signs of newness. Whether it is Nawaz Sharif, or even the MQM in Karachi embarrassed and in retreat, or the military in retreat, or the PPP which has been completely decimated, electoral politics in Pakistan has had a significant impact on challenging and perhaps even altering old ideologies and outcomes. The public discourse of politics in Pakistan has also undergone change. The virtual sphere has formed false and comfortable ideologies and self-indulgent self-believers, and terms which existed in political circles for many years, particularly amongst the lower and middle urban classes, and perhaps particularly in Karachi, highlighting social, cultural and class distinctions, such as “burger and bunkebab” have found widespread expression in the political public sphere as well. Pakistan’s political discourse and even its narratives have also been changing.

Whether such articulation, expectation and promise bring about a naya Pakistan remains to be seen. The more important question, however, knowing that not all newness is necessarily desirable — and clearly, there is much in the new which one would rather not have — is what exactly will be this naya Pakistan? With the clear absence of left-leaning and progressive alternatives similar to those which appeared after years of military dictatorship and after some initial years of conservative and right-wing democratic politics across Latin America one fears that the best naya Pakistan might do is look a little like Turkey and not at all like Brazil.

[I]The writer [/I](sakbarzaidi@gmail.com) [I]is a social scientist currently teaching at Columbia University, New York. This article has already been published by EPW.[/I]

[B]23.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]A budget by the rich, for the rich[/SIZE]
Economic justice is still a far cry as the new government has failed to tax the rich and give relief to the poor
By Huzaima Bukhari
&
Dr Ikramul Haq[/CENTER][/B]

A friend has asked to outline as to what should be an ideal budget for Pakistan. Our answer is simple: the one that deals justly with all economic classes within the society. It must focus on welfare programmes — to help those lagging behind, enabling them to move up economically. It must resent the sight of rich families staying at the top and impose on them high taxes in order to redistribute wealth and income in the society. All our budgets, including the latest one announced by Ishaq Dar, are designed for benefitting the affluent classes — these can be safely be called “budgets of the rich, by the rich, for the rich”.

“No relief for the poor” was the instant reaction of most of the Pakistanis after hearing the budget speech on the evening of June 12, 2013. There is consensus amongst experts that “the tilt of the budget is towards the rich.” Shahbaz Rana, a noted journalist covering economic matters, concluded: “Due to uneven rates, the tax liabilities of the lowest income group having annual income of Rs400,000 to Rs500,000 will be increased by 22 per cent when compared with the liabilities of this year.” The move by the government, he says, “is contrary to the claims of taxing the rich to overcome the economic crisis as it has increased the tax burden on the salaried class by a third, while the tax burden on the non-corporate business class — also known as association of persons — has grown three-fold”.

According to economist Dr Kaiser Bengali, the new government has missed an opportunity to take necessary steps like reintroducing wealth tax in its first budget. He is of the view that “if the government desired to generate revenues in an equitable manner, it should have reintroduced wealth tax to target 700,000 families that have been identified by National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as affluent but avoiding taxes.

Dr Bengali opined: “Nawaz Sharif won with a clear mandate at a time when “everybody knows that Pakistan is in serious economic crisis. As such, the country was prepared to accept a ‘harsh’ budget, but the government has attempted to present a populist budget — one that would have been presented if elections were round the corner”. He advised the government to amend the Constitution and bring all kinds of income, including from agriculture, within the federal ambit. He said that everyone should pay income tax in Pakistan, irrespective of the sector.

He strongly criticised revenue leakages through the FBR and said that “Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs) are a major source of revenue loss, but this matter has been swept under the carpet by placing it with a committee to be headed by the chairman of FBR — the very organisation that has vested interest in the whole SRO business.”

Bengali said that “though the budget speech was eloquent regarding relief for the corporate sector, the most damaging part of revenue-generating exercise was the increase in general sales tax to 17 per cent from 16 per cent. This will hit the industry and may hamper job creation.” The budget speech, he said, had a good share for the industry and corporate sector, but it did not mention labour issues.

The Economist (May 27-June 2, 2006) published two studies showing how the Nordic countries have achieved social mobility and economic justice by taxing the rich to raise money for a welfare state. The studies say that “these countries help the children of the poor to do better than their parents.” One might expect social mobility and economic flexibility to go together — in fact, to be two sides of the same coin.

Our budget makers are not inclined towards promoting social mobility taking tough redistribution policies, particularly benefitting those who are at the bottom. There is no desire to follow the Nordic countries where a more supple and less class-ridden education system runs from top to bottom. Education in Pakistan is not only very expensive and a flourishing business industry but it is also pathetically poor in quality and class-ridden. If we judge our economic policies in the perspective of Article 3 of the Constitution, it can safely be concluded that Budget 2013 is totally oblivious of redistributive fiscal policies and social welfare programmes for social mobility.

The finance minister, in his budget speech, noted that “incidentally, the three main subjects of human development, namely education, health and population welfare have been devolved to the provinces under the 18th Constitutional Amendment. However, the responsibility for higher education, regulatory responsibilities and international coordination remain with the federal government. I would like to mention the following initiatives that will be undertaken for the promotion of this sector:

A sizeable allocation of Rs18 billion has been made for the Higher Education Commission, which will support development plans of different universities all over the country. It may be noted that on the current side also a hefty allocation of Rs39 billion is made for HEC. Thus a combined outlay of Rs57 billion will be made for higher education.

The enrollment in higher education will increase from 1.08 million students in 2012-13 to 1.23 million students in 2013-14, showing an increase of 14 per cent in the population of students pursuing higher education.”

The honourable minister forgot that in areas administered by the federal government, law and order and education is still their responsibility. We know the pathetic law and order situation in these areas — especially blowing up of the female schools by the miscreants. The federation has not bothered to develop these areas. In his budget, Dar has proved that education is at the lowest level in our state policies. He ignored the command of Article 25A which says: “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.” Can the worthy finance minister tell how much allocation is made to fulfill this Constitutional obligation for Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), Islamabad and other areas falling under the control of the federal government?

Our education system, if there is any, is worthless. The federal and provincial governments do not realise that it is not only spending more money on education that matters but how to use the entire system as an effective tool for social mobility. There is a complete lack of understanding of this perception on the part of our politicians and the result is that poor segments of society are condemned to remain mired in abject poverty and their children have no chance to move up as education is either not available to them or is of no practical use. Budget 2013-2014 is lacking this perspective is yet another routine exercise of balancing the books (that too by window dressing).

Pakistan needs meaningful redistribution policies that can uplift the downtrodden. There is nothing in this budget towards this goal — like all previous ones, it is a disappointing document.

[I]The writers, tax lawyers and authors of many books on Pakistani tax laws, are Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).[/I]

[B]23.06.2013 [/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]History and archives[/SIZE]
Archives are not only important for the training of historians but also for practitioners in various disciplines of the social sciences
By Tahir Kamran[/CENTER][/B]

History offers a raison d’être for state and society: therefore history is vital for humans as social beings. The sensibility emanating from history not only helps in determining the future, but also has the capacity to provide an ambience of social camaraderie whereby diverse groups come together and form a polity. Thus, history is far too important to be left in a state that it is in, at present.

In Pakistan’s socio-cultural plurality, history becomes even more important. Hence, Ayesha Jalal’s concern, which she articulated quite succinctly at F.C. College, Lahore, a few months back, regarding the dismal state of history as a discipline in Pakistan’s educational institutions, makes absolute sense. Academic rigour, a trait of any historian of international repute like Ayesha herself, is a fundamental need which regrettably is starkly missing among Pakistani historians.

It was reported that she also alluded, during her exhortation to the young scholars, to the importance of archives in particular for nurturing and encouraging new generations of historians. Making access to archives easier, in the face of strenuous and arbitrary rules, was brought sharply into focus. Historians are trained only through archives, a fact that needs to be emphasised to the people at the helm.

As things stand, the making of history is becoming an occupation only for the affluent, who can afford to go abroad and consult archives at Kew Garden, London or the British Library. This is the reason that the most credible histories are being written outside Pakistan. Archives must be put in order, properly catalogued, perhaps digitised, and made more easily available to a wide public, says Dr. Kevin Greenbank, a historian and archivist at the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. The Punjab Archives, in particular, could attract many international scholars if the rules of access and use were rationalised.

Some regulations, such as the requirement for visiting scholars to have a research visa (a category that does not even exist in many of Pakistani embassies around the world) or asking them to seek permission from the Home Ministry, are bizarre. Such regulations discourage scholars from travelling to Pakistan, and as a consequence the country is becoming academically isolated. Furthermore, such rules give leverage to the concerned official to use his personal discretion.

A scarcity of trained archivists in Pakistan is also a big hazard. Essential conservation and preservation of documents requires trained staff. Similarly, as Dr Greenbank revealed, the maintenance of environmental conditions in an archive is important to safeguard the longevity of archived documents. To regulate the temperature and other environmental factors in an archive store is very expensive, warned Dr. Greenbank, but is very essential for fostering scholarship. It, therefore, requires the government to invest substantial amount of funds for the purpose of preserving the archives. Equally important is to equip the people working at various archives with proper training.

Another aspect that has drawn the attention of scholars is the de-classification of state documents after a stipulated time (either 30 or 50 years). Ironically, that exercise is conducted without any input from any serious academic, but is presided over by a joint secretary-level official, contrary to usual practice anywhere else (like the United Kingdom for instance).

Archives, in fact, should be made independent from any state’s interference. A separate service structure has to be devised for archivists and their attendant staff. Leaving archives at the mercy of disgruntled civil servants is counterproductive. Generally, an officer, who incurs the displeasure of his boss, is deputed to look after the archives. Besides being housed in the premises of the Punjab Secretariat, it serves as an obstruction to ready access for scholars. Therefore, the Punjab government should provide a separate place where archives are kept and preserved.

The way these documents of immense value are currently shelved and the overall environment of the archives are not at all conducive for the long-term safety of the records. Hence, they are rotting in dilapidated structures built 150 years ago.

Archives are not only important for the training of historians but also for practitioners in various disciplines of the social sciences. The structures conjured into existence by the British scholars, whether political, economic or social, still have a profound bearing on our lives. In order to make any sense of those structures, perusal of the records at the archives is imperative. Even if we want to jettison those structures put in place by the colonial power, acquainting ourselves with the system of governance etc. is absolutely essential.

Thus, archives are important in order to have an indigenous perspective of various social sciences. The government, therefore, is urged to draw some concrete plans to preserve the extremely important repository of knowledge that are our provincial archives. One is consoled by the fact that the archives at Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are relatively better managed. However, much needs to be done to bring them into compliance with international standards.

[B]23.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Who help themselves[/SIZE]
All the chambers of commerce and industry in the country can emulate Sialkot in resolving the problems and issues besetting the trade and industry
By Alauddin Masood[/CENTER][/B]

To protect export industries from the ill-effects of prolonged loadshedding and further losses, Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) has announced to establish its own power generation and distribution company — Sialkot Electric Power Company (SEPCO), on self-help basis, for meeting Sialkot city’s electricity needs.

Exporters from Sialkot would invest in this SCCI supervised project, announced SCCI President Sheikh Abdul Majid while talking to the media in Sialkot in mid-May, this year. Earlier, this city’s exporters had successfully completed a number of mega projects, setting unique examples of self-help for their counterparts elsewhere to emulate for resolving problems facing trade and industry and spurring economic growth. Amongst others, these projects include: Sialkot Dry Port Trust, Sialkot Export Processing Zone (EPZ), Seerat Study Center Sialkot Cantonment, construction of all the main inter-city roads under Sialkot City Development Package, Sialkot Business and Commerce Centre for display of products under one roof, Sialkot Public School, Sports Industry Development Centre, Sialkot Tanneries Zone for treatment of the effluent besides establishing Rs2.6 billion Sialkot International Airport — the first international airport in the private sector in the whole of South and West Asia. It is handling both passenger and cargo services for the golden triangle of Sialkot, Gujrat and Gujranwala.

The establishment of a private dry port in Sambrial was also a trend-setting step undertaken by the SCCI. One of the busiest dry ports in Pakistan, the Sialkot Dry Port is handling about 55,000 tons of cargo valuing over Rs45 billion. This dry port has its own fleet of bonded vehicles. In order to keep pace with the technological advancements, this solitary privately running dry port in the country also provides Online Tracking Facility to its customers. With regional offices in Lahore and Islamabad and terminal office in Karachi, the Sialkot Dry Port provides in-house facilities free of cost to Customs, clearing and forwarding agents, government agencies, banks and the National Logistics Cell. The dry port has proved to be a source of employment for thousands of people directly or indirectly, while having 300 regular employees.

With the highest per capita exports, Sialkot is often called “Pakistan’s export capital”. Sialkot city’s industry holds many lessons for achieving accelerated economic development. Three industries — surgical goods, sports goods and leather goods — dominate exports from this city.

Sialkot produces over 2,000 different types of surgical instruments, mostly from stainless steel, for worldwide export. The city’s surgical goods industry accounts for 75 per cent of Pakistan’s engineering goods exports. With a 20 per cent share of the total world surgical goods exports, surgical instruments made in Sialkot are used by surgeons, dentists and veterinarians throughout the world, and these are considered second in quality only to Germany.

Sialkot is a well-known name in the world of sports goods. Numerous famous brands of the world, like Nike, Adidas, Puma, Umbro, Grays, etc have set up their supply chains in this city.

Sialkot was selected to supply footballs for the 1994 and 1998 Football World Cup tournaments. The 1994 Football World Cup in the US culminated in a year of frenetic activity when the city’s industry turned over 20 million footballs to cater to the excitement created by publicity surrounding the mega event. In addition to top brands, like Adidas, Nike and Puma, major sports clubs around the world sourced footballs from Sialkot. One of the popular burger chains reportedly took a planeload of footballs to be distributed as souvenirs during the tournament.

Recorded history of Sialkot sports industry goes back to the year 1895 when the city started becoming famous for its tennis racquets. By 1903, cricket bats were being crafted from imported English willow and gradually exported to different parts of the South Asia Subcontinent and beyond. Over the years, the industry grew to include a variety of wood and leather based sporting equipment, and diversified into related industries, such as sports apparel and riding equipment and even Scottish bagpipes. The city’s sports goods industry is primarily cottage based, employing around 20,000 workers.

Over 10,000 registered firms are working in the city. In addition to sports goods and surgical products, these firms mostly deal in leather products, musical instruments, cutlery, knives, martial arts products, rice and cotton rags. Sialkot earns over one billion dollar annually through export of goods and services.

Located 130 kilometres northwest of Punjab’s provincial capital of Lahore, Sialkot represents an economy and a class of entrepreneurs different from that nurtured by the State apparatus over the years.

With a population of about 0.75 million, Sialkot’s culture of enterprise and contribution to the national economy and improving the quality of life of the society is unmatched by any other city in the country.

In many ways, Sialkot is a unique city in Pakistan. It epitomises the industrial bourgeoisie of Pakistan, a class that has created “pockets of efficiency and opulence” in the national economy. A strong export and entrepreneurial culture, combined with widespread availability of sub-contracting arrangements, has resulted in low barriers to entry and a proliferation of small and medium scale ventures, mostly financed from family savings. These undertakings compete by remaining lean, with low and shared overheads. They thrive through a network of sub-contracting, which allow each enterprise to specialise in only a part of the overall chain.

These companies are also deeply embedded in the socio-economic context in which they exist. The trickle down effect in terms of information, skills, and wealth are innumerable in sharp contrast to the relatively insular circuits of power and wealth promoted by the vertically integrated organisations, which have developed elsewhere in Pakistan.

When ventures work in international market, they face multiple issues and challenges, mostly related to compliance, infrastructure and new technology or skills. Generally, firms use the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for tackling those challenges with collective wisdom and efforts to fulfill the requirements of customers and get better results.

Child labour, changing technology and customers’ preferences, investment and management issues remain Sialkot’s prime concerns. As an institution, the SCCI identifies emerging problems and comes up with pragmatic solutions to solve the social and industrial issues.

Taking a cue from the folk-saying that you only find a helping hand at the end of your own arm, if all the chambers of commerce and industry in the country emulate the SCCI and start resolving the problems and issues besetting the trade and industry in their respective regions, on self-help basis, an economic revolution can usher in Pakistan within foreseeable future.

The infrastructure development projects undertaken by the chambers of commerce and industry would not only cater to the trade and industrial needs of their respective regions, they would also accelerate the pace of economic growth while providing gainful employment to the people near their home towns.

As a result of the cumulative efforts by both the government and the chambers for the rapid development of infrastructure and the national economy, the day would not be far when Pakistan would appear on the global economic map as a fast emerging economy.
[I]
The writer is a freelance columnist based at Islamabad. [/I]alauddinmasood@gmail.com

[B]23.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Lessons from neighbours[/SIZE]
Pakistan can follow China and India to reform its energy sector
By Dr Vaqar Ahmed[/CENTER][/B]

China represents 21 per cent of global energy demand and its energy consumption is growing four times faster than rest of the world. The country is due to become the world’s energy production hub by 2020. More importantly, the country is trying to position itself as a regional provider of greener energy in the future.

While the transition from fossil fuels to green energy may take decades, however, the state-owned enterprises in China have already started to shift from dirty coal to liquefied natural gas, and also benefiting from imported gas from US where shale gas revolution is being witnessed.

India is the 4th largest consumer of energy in the world. After the blackouts of July 2012, which affected nearly 680 million population of northern India, the country is now simultaneously improving its portfolio in all its energy sub-sectors. This includes planning and investment in over 8 dozen coal-fired plants, expansion of solar power systems, hydroelectric dams and various renewable energy resources.

Currently three per cent of India’s energy needs are being met through renewable sources (this excludes water). However, the country plans to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix to around 17 per cent by 2030. This will largely involve increasing the share of wind and solar energy. There is also a plan to amend the building codes in a manner that prevents energy wastages. This is intended to save USD 42 billion in the energy sector annually.

There are four key messages for Pakistan from the energy development in China and India. First, both countries (China and India) stand ready to inject or modify reforms that can enable private sector participation in energy sector. This is not just confined to the local private sector and there is aggressive pursuit of foreign direct investment in this sector. Second, both the countries are trading heavily with their neighbours and beyond in energy and energy products. In fact, India has also offered Pakistan electricity through transmission lines across Wagah-Attari border. Third, both the countries are continuously trying to lower prices of energy for all consumer types. While for a domestic consumer, this may imply lower inflation however for the external account of a country this will imply greater competitiveness. Finally, both the countries are trying through demand-side and price reforms to drive energy mix away from i) expensive sources (e.g. fossil fuels) and ii) polluting sources (e.g. coal).

The key question now is how to enable the institutions dealing with energy governance in Pakistan to undertake the sort of initiatives that our neighbourhood has already adopted. With a fragmented energy sector governance comprising 29 departments in total and with lack of coordination between these bodies, it seems unlikely that any integrated energy planning could take place. In fact, some well-intentioned energy reforms under the Integrated Energy Framework developed under the previous government died before they could even be placed in an implementation matrix.

The moral then is to bring all departments related to energy under either one federal ministry or authority so that issues such as fragmented decision-making, rent-seeking and lack of accountability can be done away with. The new government has already tipped three things they aim to do in the short to medium term i.e. managing circular debt, reduction in loadshedding by around 30 per cent and in the longer run privatising several components in energy supply chain, for example distribution companies (DISCOS). However, energy experts are expecting a more comprehensive plan which is reforms-based and can ensure that Pakistan comes out of darkness in the longer term. What are these reforms?

First, apart from the consolidation of energy decision-making bodies into one authority, it is also essential to build the regulator’s capacity. Both Nepra and Ogra have been termed toothless on several occasions. Their lack of capacity to regulate has even invited the Supreme Court of Pakistan to intervene on certain occasions. Furthermore, necessary legislative changes should be undertaken so that the government in power should not intervene in regulatory matters. This includes postings and transfers at the regulatory bodies.

Second, the government is expected to devise policies and programmes which exhibit a longer term vision. However, executing such plans requires technical capacity which is missing at both ministries dealing with energy at the federal level. It is surprising to see that despite the availability of computation infrastructure, the transmission optimisation is conducted through manual methods. It has also been difficult for both ministries to attract and retain professionals from a technical background. However, the lack of career planning in federal administrative structure prevents such professional from joining these ministries.

Third, there is a strong desire from all stakeholders that pricing structure in the energy sector should be deregulated. This will not only correct the incentives structure in this sector but also improve position of receivables. This reform will also require phasing out of cross and hidden subsidies which are nothing but cost of inefficiency. Subsidies should be targeted and only for the poorest of the poor. Untargeted subsidies must be laid to rest. The provincial government, after the 18th Amendment, should also be held accountable for administrative losses (including power and gas theft). These governments can be facilitated through smart metering system; a proposal towards such a system was developed by the Planning Commission and is still pending with the Ministry of Water and Power for over 12 months now.

Fourth, one of the key successes that Pakistan can learn from India has been the role of private sector at the distribution level. This has brought greater certainty in the supply side of the power sector in India (particularly at the state level). For this to happen in Pakistan, the new government must initiate privatisation of DISCOs which will not only reduce the burden of future circular debt but also drastically bring down the administrative losses.

Finally, we also need to challenge our existing power generation entities. Gas allocations should strictly be on the basis of efficiency exhibited by generation units. This will imply that if a generation entity continuously indicates relatively lower efficiency levels, its gas allocation should be cut down until the time there is some proven improvement.

Similarly, price paid for oil to generation units should vary with the quality of oil provided to the generation entities. Currently, same price is paid even for the lower quality oil supplied to power generation sector. There is also a need to look into the potential of coal water slurry which is being advocated by experts as a more cleaner and cheaper substitute of oil.

The above mentioned reforms are certainly not untested. Most of them have already been in vogue in our neighbourhood. We have enough evidence and documented practices to learn from. It is now for the new government to show its will to act on its own manifesto which puts energy sector reform on top of its priority list.

[I]The author is at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). [/I]vaqar@sdpi.org

[B]23.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Flood of negligence[/SIZE]
Are the governments and flood-control authorities prepared to deal with
looming threat?
By Altaf Hussain[/CENTER][/B]

Before the current spell of rains started, it was being speculated by the international humanitarian agencies that this time around Pakistan may witness greater glacier meltdown and unprecedented monsoon rains which will ultimately affect the entire regions of Pakistan from the mountainous areas of Gilgit-Baltistan to the plains and sea shores of Sindh.

The recent rains in the upper parts of the country have caused rise in the flows of Kabul River which has resulted in inundation of many areas of the province and compelled the populations to flee and settle in camps and other high terrain areas. The glacier meltdown has also started which has caused flooding of many parts of the Karakorum Highway.

Rising water in River Swat is also an indication of another possible flood during this monsoon season. This situation has caused concerns among the people across the spectrum in Sindh that any possible flood will have devastating impact over Sindh that is still battling the effects of past floods.

The United Nations Office for Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Operations Director John Ging this month warned the government of possible disaster this year and expressed his concerns over the lack of funding for the emergency preparedness. “We may be called upon in a couple of weeks to support the Pakistani authorities in responding to flooding,” he said. “That has been the pattern over the last number of years so we need to be prepared. And yet, the emergency stocks are not there.”

The case of Sindh is of particular attention because of the fact that it was the most affected province in the 2010 floods; the entire right bank of the river Indus was devastated by floodwaters that displaced more than 7 million people — hundreds lost their lives, millions of acres of standing crops were destroyed and thousands of livestock perished.

Floods in 2010 left deep imprints on the socio-economic dynamics of the province. Is the government ready for another flood? The embankments of canals and barrages, including FP and Suprio embankments, haven’t been plugged yet. Though the government has initiated stone-pitching of dykes, the pace of work remains slow. “Plugging and stone-pitching of the Tori dyke is not satisfactory,” says Parial Marri, President ISWA. Also other embankments of canals in Shikarpur, Larkana and Sukkur have not been fully plugged yet. This year again, 45 places have been identified as weak if water level rises in Indus.

It is noteworthy that the four-member Inquiry Commission formed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan had also pointed out brazen negligence of irrigation officials in the breaches in the River Indus. According to the Commission’s report the Chief Engineer, Guddu, and his team were directly responsible for consequential losses in Sindh and Balochistan. The Supreme Court, in the light of findings of the Commission, ordered the government of Sindh to suspend these officials. The Sindh government did suspend these officials, but reinstated them after some time owing to their political influence.

The government of Sindh and the Forest Department have been unable to remove the encroachments along these rivers. The issue of encroachments in River Indus and other water channels was raised during a recent meeting, but the CM Sindh, instead of taking stern measures, said the issue of encroachment would be resolved in consultations with local MPAs and MNAs.

Irrigation expert Idrees Rajput says it is the responsibility of Irrigation Department Sindh to be fully prepared and vigilant to cope with any flood because control of the mighty Indus rests with the Irrigation Department. Provincial Disaster Management Authority’s role starts if any emergency erupts.

The other question which is also equally important is the case of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are still living in camps in different parts of the country, particularly in Sindh. According to UNOCHA, “About 1.5 million people in southern Pakistan are still highly vulnerable and require livelihood assistance as they try and recover from the impact of floods.” In addition to that, cash support initiative of Watan and Pakistan Cards has been lost in the wilderness.

Month of July may witness wide-spread monsoon rains and rise in the flow of Indus River. The government must publicly announce the measures it will be taking to avoid the possibility of floods. The Irrigation Department, the PDMA and DDMAs must come up with tangible contingency plans and avoid repeating the past mistakes.

[B]23.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Going English in Fata[/SIZE]
The government has decided to convert a number of schools to
English medium to improve the standard of education and restore the trust of the people in public sector institutions in the tribal areas
By Javed Aziz Khan
[/CENTER][/B]
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) has one of the lowest literacy rates for lack of attention by the respective governments, headed by the President of Pakistan through the Governor of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The entire tribal area, comprising seven tribal agencies and six Frontier regions, is one of the least developed parts of the country. Fata is troubled for the last many years with a number of militant groups operating in the area, from South Waziristan to the Bajaur Agency.

Besides killing of a large number of people in suicide attacks, bombings, rocket barrages and ambushes, the people of the area suffered badly for having their schools bombed during the last over seven years. With the bombing of a large number of schools, hundreds of other institutions had to be closed for security reasons, directly affecting the already neglected education sector in the Fata.

Presently, 1880 boys and 617 girls’ schools in tribal areas are functioning without boundary walls, 2303 boys and 1246 girls schools do not have the facility of drinking water, 2126 boys and 1024 girls schools are without electricity while 2585 boys and 1095 girls schools have no proper toilet facility.

The overall literacy rate in Fata is 24.05 per cent, out of which the male literacy rate is 36.66 per cent and female literacy rate only 10.5 per cent. There is no university, no medical college in the entire Fata.

“The President of Pakistan has recently approved the charter of the first Fata University which is to be built in the Frontier Region Kohat this year. The Fata Medical College has been approved in Bajaur Agency while IT University is to be established in the Parachinar town of the Kurram Agency,” Abid Majeed, Principal Secretary to the Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told The News on Sunday.

The official continued that the Cadet College Razmak, Wana and Spinkai, are providing top of the line education to students from Fata and rest of the country. Land for cadet colleges in Bajaur and Mohmand has just been acquired and these institutions will start functioning during the coming financial year. Property in Kurram and Khyber is also about to be finalised. Several steps are being taken to improve the standard education in the remote and neglected tribal areas.

According to the statistics of the Education Directorate of Fata, there are a total of 5,625 government-run educational institutes in Fata out of which 4,442 are functional (including 2614 boys and 1828 girls) while 1064 are non-functional (578 boys + 486 girls) and 119 are closed. However, institutions which have either been destroyed or located in troubled areas, their students and teachers have been shifted to nearby buildings, hujras or tents. The 1064 non-functional schools are mostly located in turbulent areas from where people have migrated to safer places as internally displaced persons.

“Out of the 4442 functional educational institutes, 2963 are government primary schools, 136 are mosque schools, 607 are community primary schools, 39 are IHC Schools, 391 (252 male + 139 female) middle schools, 255 (212 male + 43 female) high schools, 14 (10 male + 4 female) higher secondary schools, 33 (22 male + 11 female) degree colleges and 4 (3 male + 1 female) elementary colleges. In addition to those, 3 cadet colleges are working in Fata with an intake of around 150 students per year from class 8 to 12,” Hashim Khan Afridi, Additional Director Education Fata, told The News on Sunday.

Among the 1064 non-functional institutes, there are 927 (482 male + 445 female) primary, 98 (67 male + 63 female) middle, 33 (26 male + 7 female) high, 2 (1 male + 1 female) higher secondary schools and 4 (2 male + 2 female) degree colleges. Students of all the colleges have been adjusted in colleges within the agency or, in case of Mehsud area of South Waziristan, in evening shifts in colleges of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts.

The authorities have decided to convert a number of schools to English medium to improve the standard of education and restore the trust of the people in public sector institutions in the tribal areas. “A total of 69 schools in Fata have been converted into English medium, 52 of them this year. The conversion has been from class 6 where mathematics, social studies and general science is taught in English. We are currently in the process of finalising ten schools in each agency and four in each Frontier Region with equal number of girls and boys’ schools, for conversion into English medium from primary level. That only requires teachers’ conversion training for which the summer vacations is the best time after which 94 primary schools would be converted into English medium,” Abid Majeed maintained.

The statistics show that the overall enrollment in government institutes is 589,083, with 407,008 students (69 per cent) enrolled in primary, 65,929 (11 per cent) in middle, 89,877 (15 per cent) in high, 7,816 (1.3 per cent) in higher secondary schools while 18,453 (3 per cent) are enrolled in colleges. The primary to middle schools ratio should ideally be 3:1 but it is in fact 8:1, indicating unplanned investment in primary schools. Similarly, the middle to high school ratio should have been 2:1 but is actually 4:1.

One of the reasons for dropouts from schools is simply that there are not enough higher level schools. Overall dropout rate from nursery to class-5 in primary schools over a period of six years is 61 per cent in which 62 per cent is of boys and 58 per cent girls. The dropout rate from class-6 to Class-10 in schools over a cycle of five years is 72 per cent in which 68 per cent is of boys and 78 per cent is of girls.

One reason why dropout ratio in Fata schools is higher than the others is the absence of teachers. “Strict disciplinary action is being taken on absence with deduction of pay. Since April 2013, 1251 teachers have had their pay deducted for one day or more of absence. However, it has also been realised that female teachers face transportation problems. A donor assisted project already in field is being strengthened to make arrangements across Fata for transport of female teachers from their hostels to the educational institutions,” said the principal secretary to the KP Governor.

There are a total of 22361 teachers in Fata (15033 males + 7328 females) out of which 11509 (6709 male + 4800 female) are in primary, 4495 (3076 male + 1419 female) are in middle, 4932 (4238 male + 694 female) are in high, 490 (368 male + 122 female) are in higher secondary schools while 935 (642 male + 293 female) are in colleges.

The average number of students in a primary school is 85 while at secondary level schools the number is 206. Teacher student ratio is 1:37 in primary and 1:18 in secondary schools while teacher, classroom ratio is 1:42 at primary and 1:26 in secondary schools.

Instead of concentrating on new primary schools, the focus has been shifted to strengthening and rehabilitation of the existing facilities. “Based on the data of Education Management Information System, schools where the students surpass the standard number are being provided with additional classrooms. In order to make these schools attractive to children of impressionable age, small playgrounds with swings and classrooms with charts etc are being introduced. The educational pyramid has to be set right by bringing the ratio of primary, middle and high schools upto the standard 6:2:1,” said Abid Majeed.

To encourage the girl students, an exclusive stipend scheme has been introduced under which a girl will be paid Rs 200 per month for having attendance of at least 20 days a month. “We are also working on a proposal to have radio programmes on PBC run radio and Fata radio stations concentrating on primary education where the elders could also listen to these educational programmes.”

The government is also concentrating on religious schools in Fata where over 50000 students are presently enrolled. The government is focusing on a partnership with registered seminaries in Fata where they could be provided support in infrastructure, scholarships for introducing science subjects, languages and computer classes.

Recently, 156265 students of Fata have been provided scholarships, from class 8 till post graduate level, amounting to Rs 717 million in the last 5 years. With further increase in the scholarship a student of post graduate level will now get Rs 6000/ per annum, the student of degree and inter level will get Rs 5,000 while trainees will get Rs 3000 per annum. Free laptops will also be provided to those getting first three positions in any agency at high, inter and degree level.

[I]The writer can be contacted at [email]javedaziz1@gmail.com[/email] and followed on Twitter at JavedAzizKhan[/I]

[B]23.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Changing strategies[/SIZE]
Civil-military coordination is essential to win the anti-militants war in tribal areas
By Dr Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi
[/CENTER][/B]
Pakistan is writing a classic military history of the blow-by-blow fighting against insurgents. Military law enforcement operations in Waziristans, Swat, Dir, and recently in Tirah valley make an irrefutable case for where the laurels lay for the victories and where the blame lies for the retreats. Lack of civil-military coordination and gap of communication or information sharing is hurting the cause of the military. Pakistan Army deserves civilian support. However, that is possible once common man knows what’s happening on the front.

In most of law enforcement operations in Pakistan’s tribal belt, army is asked for a solo flight. This breaks the civilian relationship between the tribal and settled areas. To keep both wings balanced and to have a successful ‘National Counter-Insurgency Strategy’, there should be ‘military operations and civilian provincial development support’ going side by side. This strategy will keep law enforcement operations reinforced and simultaneously maintain a link between civilians of both areas.

With the inception of the 18th Amendment, the provincial government will feel more responsible in assisting the federal government for any development support that it can extend for the uplift of tribal areas. It will be a joint civilian and military effort that will enlist provincial, federal bureaucracy, political acumen, and military officers to build hospitals, schools, roads, and other infrastructure to win over the hearts and minds of not only tribal but also settled areas’ people. Any grand strategy which entails deployment of army with its solo flight in tribal areas will be a strategic failure as it has proved in South Waziristan.

No strategy is possible without the involvement of local tribal leaders. Hence, working closely with the tribal chieftains, the army needs to make overtures to the tribal leaders in the newly established Taliban-free areas. Their support and consent will further strengthen steel curtain against the insurgents.

History is a witness that the people from the areas like Tirah have proved to be very good soldiers and officers. Hence, there is a dire need for the construction of Cadet Colleges in these areas so that this may not only prove a hub of army recruitment, but may also contribute to the direct establishment of the writ of the government. More students from the region in such colleges will not only uplift this area, but would also bring obedience and order into the lives of the people around such establishments.

At the moment, consolidation of the army bases and bridging the gap between the local people and the army must be the main thrust of the strategy. This may require a troop-intensive strategy. But in the long run, this may be committed to shrinking it.

We need to take personal interest in tribal areas as these are the centerpiece of our border strategy. For that matter, as I normally write that Pakistan needs a Deforeign policy (a blend of defense and foreign policies) that will keep the Foreign Office and the GHQ on the same page. Both will hold responsibility for military strategy and foreign policy, the combination of which will bring some changes at the policies execution level. Saying it enough just might make it so, especially if it caught on the Prime Minister’s House which is now occupied by Nawaz Sharif — one of the guarantors by the TTP for negotiation process.

When an insurgent realises that he cannot defeat regular army in the battlefield, he turns up to an urban terrorism campaign. This involves, bombing civilian and military targets (attacks on election rallies, bazaars, Mehran airbase, GHQ, Kamra etc), kidnapping of renowned and rich people of a locality, gaining ransoms to fund their organisation and resultantly acquiring weapons, and having imprisoned important governmental functionaries (kidnapping of VC of Islamic College University Peshawar, Ajmal Khan) exchanged for hostages. In the circumstances, tracing down the hatchery of the insurgents is the best military strategy. This would be followed by “isolate, weaken, fight”.

In case of insurgents in tribal areas of Pakistan, it’s a well known fact that they have been supported by a few foreign agencies. Hence, first, any such life-line that is supplying them money, material and weapons must be cut-off. Similarly, the other life-lines of the insurgents must be trimmed before going for an all-out operation.

Take the example of Tirah valley. In Tirah valley, the most important link that supports and keeps the insurgents breathing is their life-line back into Afghanistan. All bridges that link Afghanistan with Tirah valley must be guarded and filtered that the army believes eased al-Qaeda and the TTP mobility. Later troops move into one village after another. Such move will enable Pak Army to make a steel curtain in the valley which will keep the insurgents away from settled areas like Peshawar. This will isolate them. Then, it’s important that the public opinion in the region must be molded. This is possible by pamphlets and different other means in which writ of the government must be explained in the light of Quran and Sunnah.

This will not only help in winning hearts and minds of the people, but would also weaken the insurgents’ grounds. Now as the insurgents will be internationally isolated and locally weakened, a minor strike of ‘fight’ will bring the entire edifice down. In the meanwhile, troops must concentrate inside Tirah. To make fortification faster, troops must bring disposable and quick-fit equipment and materials necessary to austere operating base.

If the insurgents agree to negotiate, negotiate along with political parties’ representation. This will make it multilateral talks which will give a serious look to the public. However, negotiation must be followed by rebuilding tribal areas. Using backwardness as a reason of their backwardness is enough. There must be a change in tribal areas. Construction of roads, schools colleges and offices related to the governance of tribal areas must be established in the vicinity. This would mean “negotiate, rebuild and educate”.

There is a strong correlation between public opinion in war time and the effects of casualties on the part of Pak Army. Human loss is acceptable to the public if it thought the Pak Army could and should win. Such sentiment is possible only and only if the gap between military operations and public awareness is shrunk. For that matter, establishment of a strategic planning cell for civil-military understanding (that would take a long-term look at security issues for both’s understanding) is a prerequisite.

Moreover, functions like the recently held Yom-e-Shuhada are extremely necessary. Likewise, there is a need to establish a ‘counter-insurgency academy’, to share civilian approach with the commanders. This will also contribute in bridging the gap between the civilian and military opinions. The idea is to inform people what had gone wrong till now and provide clear benchmarks for the public to measure progress, like the growth of insurgents, their supporting groups and countries which assist them to carry out their subversive activities in Pakistan. The public would be shown that Pakistan’s law enforcing agencies are making headway; deflating the pressure from Afghan border. The goal would remain the same: a united, resilient and democratic Pakistan. The Pak Army does not need to come up with a new strategy, but would do a better job by describing the strategy already in place.

In a country where military takeover has been a routine, this might be considered a step towards militarisation of democracy. However, we need to grow up to differentiate between a peacetime military takeover and a wartime civil-military relationship. Military is not a national institution to be scared of. It’s the custodian of a country’s borders and during counter-insurgency, it deserves our full and unconditional support.

If the Pak Army is in the midst of this war, the people of Pakistan must be given this realisation. Soldiers cannot win a war on the front which is not known to their supporting countrymen.

[I]The author teaches at the Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, [email]syedshaheed@hotmail.co.uk[/email][/I]

[B]30.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Negotiating for peace[/SIZE]
Talks are not about surrendering to the militants. They are about taking the lead in developing a strategy to resolve the problems
By Helal Pasha
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In his speech at the National Defense University on May 23, this year, President Obama touched on many issues. From drones to his commitment to help other nations “modernise economies, upgrade education, and encourage entrepreneurship,” and “connect with people’s hopes, and not simply their fears” everything he said, had implications for Pakistan. Pakistan needs to modernise its economy, upgrade education, encourage entrepreneurship, and find a way to deal with drones. The newly elected government should focus on these tasks.

Pakistan, for the last three decades, has tied itself up in knots so comprehensively that these modest aspirations appear unattainable ideals. The two dilemmas that Pakistan state needs to come to grips with –– the power supply and terrorism –– should never be the priority of any government. Pakistan needed to put systems in place that managed these issues on a permanent basis rather than slapping Band-Aids around as needed. While the power supply issue takes up time, the issue of terrorism is the one that will make or break the government and perhaps the nation with it too.

Dwelling on how Pakistan got into this quagmire has no significance now, finding a way out should be the primary focus. Terrorism and the militant groups affect the common folks the most; it is the middle classes and the elite that control the debate. The Muslim League government has promoted dialogue as the primary means. The chattering groups vehemently disapprove of and exert enormous pressure on the new government against dialogue.

Many public intellectuals have spoken out against the dialogue. The principal arguments are; the offer to talks would place the country in a vulnerable position, and all dialogues should be from a position of strength. Chattering classes consider dialogue identical to surrender to the militant groups. Positions of strength or weakness are merely tactical side of any strategy. In the absence of any cohesive strategy, to combat terrorism, debating tactics is akin to putting the probabilistic cart before the horse, amounting to skirting the issue.

Pakistan faces multifaceted problem involving many countries including the US that have prime interest in any position Pakistan takes vis-à-vis the militants. The problem is not about some business deal or a loan from international banks where strength and weakness matter; it is about the economic future and the survival of the State.

Pakistan estimated a loss of nearly $90-100 billion in the last several years; it did not deal with the issue proactively. The economic bleeding and the loss of human lives must stop before the US forces leave the area. The opponents of dialogue do not identify any alternate to dialogue explicitly. Between the lines, they favour a military solution to force the militants in a weaker position.

The support of a military solution first glosses over the history of the problem. Taliban showed up on the radar in 1994. They were in charge of Afghanistan before the people of Afghanistan even knew who they were. Similarly, the Pakistani Taliban, an alliance of several groups, sprung up while a military general ruled Pakistan. Had the army been capable of dealing with the issue, it would have done that a long time ago. Instead, the US, Afghanistan, India, and many other countries believed that the Pakistan Army had close ties with these groups. The US, for years, pursued many diplomatic and financial initiatives to encourage the army to resolve the issue; none succeeded.

Talks and negotiations are not about surrendering to the militants. They are about taking the lead in developing a strategy to resolve the problems to find a comprehensive solution. The Taliban and the other terrorists in Fata are not separated conundrum. It involves many layers of interrelated complications. The relations with Afghanistan, the US, India, and Iran are part of the whole enchilada. The local and international groups that operate from Fata are of foremost concern for Central Asian countries as well as Russia and China. The drones are part of this problem. Pakistan never gained any traction against the drones in the world, including with China and Russia, as all see the drones a result of Pakistan failure to be proactive to handle the militants in Fata.

Except for Pakistan, civilians lead every country involved in the larger issue of terrorism. The US civilian administration calls the shot on Fata and Afghanistan, not the US military. The White House has come down hard on any transgression. The civilian government in Pakistan should have the lead role. In a broader context of terrorism, it is largely a political and diplomatic issue.

As we have seen in the past, the Army is unable to find a large-scale military solution to the problem. The resolution of regional issue should rest with the civilians and the army should only support the civilians and follow their lead. The army approaches the issue as a security issue. The issue is about national interests of Pakistan. Security interests are one aspect of national interests and should not dominate the economic and business side of national interests of the country. Terrorists in Pakistan are not one entity; there are several groups involved in terrorism. Talks and negotiations symbolise exploring other options that include isolating the militants gradually to render them ineffective.

The US administration is looking towards the civilian government in Pakistan to take the lead. It knows that without a broader public support in Pakistan, terrorism and militancy will continue to bleed the region and the US would not be able to reduce its military involvement.

Pakistan’s primary interest is promoting business, industry, and investments in the country. Without peace in the region, Pakistan will not succeed in promoting its interests.

[B]30.06.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Another deadline expires [/SIZE]
Afghan refugees’ stay in Pakistan beyond June 30, 2013, will be illegal unless the government frames a new policy
By Alauddin Masood
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The legal right to stay in Pakistan of the registered Afghan refugees, under the Afghan Management and Repatriation Strategy 2010-2012 (AMRS), expires on June 30, 2013. Well before the expiry date, the government should have revisited the AMRS to formulate a new policy for the management and repatriation of the Afghan refugees beyond the deadline that has expired today. However, for some reasons, the outgoing government could not do so. Now, the PML-N government needs to chalk out a policy framework for regulating the stay of Afghan refugees beyond June 30, 2013, and also fix a target, in consultation with the government of Afghanistan, for the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees in 2013 and beyond.

Despite return of over 3.8 million Afghan refugees to their homeland since 2002, there are still over 1.6 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan. In addition to the registered refugees, there are about 300,000 Afghans whose registration needs validation, while over one million unregistered Afghan refugees are also residing in the country.

Over 85 per cent of the registered Afghan refugees are Pashtuns, while the rest consist of Tajiks, Uzbeks and other ethnic groups. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province hosts over 62 per cent of the Afghan refugees, followed by over 20 per cent in Balochistan, some 202,832 in Punjab and about 50,000 in Sindh. The registered Afghan refugees comprise 283,337 families. Some 52.6 per cent of them are males and 47.4 per cent females.

With a refugee population exceeding 1.7 million (mostly of the Afghan origin), Pakistan continues to host more refugees than any other nation in the world. It may be recalled that more than one-third of the total population of Afghanistan was forced by the circumstances and domestic unrest, following the Soviet intervention in 1979, to migrate to the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran. At one time, the number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan had reportedly swelled to around seven million.

AMRS is a tripartite agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) governing the repatriation of Afghan citizens living in Pakistan. Signed on May 7, 2010, AMRS aimed at voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees, temporary management of refugees residing in Pakistan, border management and development of host communities.

The deadline for the return of the Afghan refugees has been extended many times and the latest one expires on June 30, 2013. Earlier, the government of Pakistan and the UNHCR had signed an agreement in March 2003, according to which the repatriation of all refugees had to be completed by the end of March, 2006.

In a report to Pakistan government in June 2005, the UNHCR informed that of the total refugees, 1,565,095 were repatriated in the year 2002, some 343,074 in 2003 and 338,598 in 2004, while 108,134 were repatriated in 2005. For the repatriation of the remaining refugees, when the Population Census Organisation of Pakistan conducted a census in 2004, it reported that the previously estimated number of 1.1 million refugees had increased to 3.04 million.

Acknowledging the need to reinvigorate efforts to seek solutions for Afghan refugees, a quadripartite consultative process began in May 2011 between the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran and the UNHCR to develop a multi-year strategy with a focus on voluntary repatriation, sustainable reintegration, and support to host communities. Pending repatriation of the Afghan refugees, the Solutions Strategy underscored the need to complement the AMRS by innovative assistance and empowerment projects designed to facilitate voluntary repatriation of the refugees and capacity enhancement of the concerned institutions in dealing with issues associated with the refugees’ management.

The strategy recognised that numerous challenges continue to hamper its implementation, including the need for increasing coordinated efforts between Pakistan and Afghanistan for creating demand and pull factors for the Afghan refugee so as to facilitate their voluntary repatriation.

The Solutions Strategy agreed upon by Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran also recognised the need for provision of social services to both the refugees and the host communities. It underscored the need to invest in the human capital development in both the communities (the refugees and host communities) with focus on such livelihood opportunities in Afghanistan that facilitate the Afghan refugees return. It also recognised “the need to enhance the development and reintegration potential of high return communities in Afghanistan, particularly in the sectors of livelihood..., in order to create communities that are viable in the long-term, which will help returnees remain in Afghanistan and support the increased return of refugees from the host communities.”

To facilitate the work, the ILO and the UNHCR designed various project components, including two baseline research studies in Quetta and Peshawar, and holding a series of consultation meetings with the parliamentarians, employers, workers and the media. The studies carried out in Peshawar and Quetta noted poor social and economic indicators for both the Afghan refugees and host communities.

In addition to high illiteracy rate, both communities were earning less than the minimum wage and were also experiencing child labour and decent work deficits. Amongst the decent work deficits, the most notable ones included: freedom to form association, negotiate wages and terms of employment, fair treatment, equal opportunities for promotion and social security benefits to workers and their families.

Given a weak bargaining position to negotiate the terms of their employment, a vast majority of Afghan refugees — around 90 percent — had no formal or written employment contracts and also appeared to be unaware of the present minimum wage level.

The areas affected by the prolonged stay of Afghan refugees as well as those who continue to host the Afghan refugees in Pakistan are typically those with poor infrastructure, acute shortage of basic services and lack of economic opportunities, thus providing a case for investing in social assets, like education, health, skills enhancement, etcetera for their empowerment and development.

[I]The writer is a freelance columnist based at Islamabad.
[/I]
[email]alauddinmasood@gmail.com[/email]

[B]30.06.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Water bodies[/SIZE]
Farmer organisations can manage water resources well if empowered and purged of political influences
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
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Agriculture is the mainstay of Pakistan as it caters to the economic and dietary needs of its population as well as feeds it overwhelmingly agro-based industry. The success of the textile sector which contributes major share to the country’s exports is also dependent on bumper and high-quality yield of cotton crop.

The largest share of agricultural produce comes from Punjab province which fortunately has one of the largest contiguous irrigation systems in the world. The distribution of surface water among farmers is managed through a huge network of main canals, branch canals, distributaries and so on.

With the passage of time and increase in population, the demand for irrigation water has increased tremendously. Besides, the cultivation patterns have changed drastically. Today, the landholders are putting their lands to maximum use through multi-cropping strategies and are least willing to leave them unused or underused during any time of the year. In terminology used by agriculture and irrigation experts, the pressure of food and fibre is too much to sustain.

This situation has led to aggravation of water shortage issue and calls for proper management of water resources and maintenance of the existing water distribution infrastructure. The need to check non-judicious use of water, its theft and non-payment of provincial taxes such as abiyana (water cess) becomes more important with the resource becoming dearer.

These were some of the points which the government wanted to solve with the help of institutional reform process it initiated in 1997 and the legislation it did to form the Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA) Act. There were suggestions from several international donors to bring all stakeholders, especially the farmers, on board to manage water resources properly.

The PIDA — a body formed under the Act — introduced several reforms in the irrigation sector but the one about management of water distribution systems through Farmer Organisations (FOs) was the hallmark of its achievements. In 1997, there were a few FOs formed under a pilot project. It was in 2005 when the FOs initiative was expanded, under a comprehensive irrigation sector institutional reforms programme.

The roles assigned to FOs, which manage distributaries, include equitable distribution of canal water among farmers, checking of water theft, recovery of water cess, dispute resolution, maintenance of infrastructure falling within their jurisdiction. The FO office-bearers are elected by farmers for a three-year term and the organisation should ideally be free of any political influence. The FOs are imparted relevant training and taught courses on different technical, revenue and administrative issues pertaining to the irrigation sector.

Over the years, the FOs have performed well and many of them have succeeded in achieving above 90 per cent cess recovery levels. They have confronted influential farmers habitual of water theft and solved disputes related to water and farms issues.

However, a review of the whole programme highlights certain issues that need to be tackled on an urgent basis. Ignoring them will lead to undoing of the benefits of this reformed water management initiative. The said issues are:

First, the government should direct the local police to cooperate fully with FOs regarding running of their affairs. What happens is that police are reluctant to register criminal cases against water thieves. This encourages them to operate with immunity and make mockery of the belittled FOs.

Second, the FOs should be given back up support to proceed against the defaulters who do not pay water cess or any other irrigation related dues. Currently, they cannot get hold of culprits, and have to rely on the communication skills of social mobilisers.

Third, the taking over of FOs’ role by administrators comprising Irrigation Department officers during transition periods inflicts the maximum harm. Instead of transferring power from one FO after completion of its 3-year term to the newly elected ones, administrators are appointed who remain there for a year or years on different grounds. When the new FO takes over, a lot of damage has already been done.

Four, the rate of abiyana should be increased rationally. Currently, it is only Rs85 per acre per year for Kharif season and Rs55 per acre per year for Rabi. If added, the amount comes to Rs140 per acre per year. This amount is not enough to even buy one and a half litres of diesel. It is unfortunate that farmers are ready to buy diesel worth thousands to run their tubewells but not willing to pay meager cess amount.

Five, so far the FOs have been formed in only five of the 17 circles and Area Water Boards (AWBs) of the country. They should be introduced all over the province as early as possible. Some say the government is short of funds, and some hold the powerful agricultural elite responsible for keeping the FOs away from intruding into their domains and encroaching upon their powers.

Six, a large number of PIDA officials have not been regularised. They are trained by international bodies including JICA and know the details of the irrigation reforms project. How can they deliver and coordinate with FOs if they are not sure about their very future? They should be regularised to make the programme more productive and sustainable.

[B]30.06.2013[/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"] Poor on the cards [/SIZE]
What exactly will the proposed ‘healthcare cards’ do if there is no availability or access to
medical care to start with?
By Syed Mansoor Hussain
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Recently the government of Punjab floated the idea of a ‘healthcare card’ that would allow ordinary people to receive ‘free’ or at least subsidised healthcare. The problem is that at the present time, most patients are already supposed to receive free or subsidised medical care in the public sector hospitals and health centres in rural areas. What would a card do is debatable.

The problems facing poor patients especially in rural areas that seek medical care are at three levels. We might refer to these as the three ‘As’. First is availability, then accessibility and finally the ability to pay. All three of these are serious problems but before any attention is directed towards the ability to pay, the Punjab government must first take care of the problem of the availability of healthcare starting from the Basic Health Units all the way up to the larger health centres and hospitals.

At the present time, a majority of rural patients do not have appropriate healthcare available and most of them out of necessity resort to ‘non-formal’ medical practitioners or else ‘quacks’ without any medical training that pose as doctors. This leads to multiple serious problems. First, many sick people get worse without appropriate treatment and end up in the public healthcare system with advanced medical problems overburdening an already fragile medical environment. A problem that might have required minimal treatment ends up consuming scarce resources and often with an unfortunate outcome. While working in Mayo Hospital in Lahore, I saw many patients turning up in a serious condition after being treated by non-qualified medical practitioners for an extended period of time.

The second problem is that many patients receive unneeded injections given to them by these ‘practitioners’. Besides the usual problem of improper treatment the real danger is that needles and syringes are reused without proper sterilisation leading to spread of blood borne diseases especially Hepatitis B and C. As it is, anywhere between five to ten per cent of our population is already infected with these possibly lethal diseases. If ever the AIDS virus enters this patient pool, the spread of that disease through these inappropriate injections can become a horrendous public health problem. As such the provision of proper medical care at the local level must also be combined with the elimination of unqualified medical practitioners.

The next aspect of medical care for many patients, especially those from villages and small towns, is the question of accessibility. This becomes important in patients that are seriously sick including small children. The ongoing ‘Measles’ epidemic makes this pretty obvious since many of these small children arrive in major hospitals in a serious condition after being treated inadequately by local non-qualified practitioners. Some obvious categories that would benefit from quick access to appropriate medical care are women in ‘difficult’ childbirth, patients with surgical emergencies, trauma patients and patients with cardiac emergencies. In my opinion this is one of the more difficult problems that rural patients face.

The obvious way out is an efficient system of transport through well-equipped ambulances stationed in the DHQ hospitals, but that is an expensive alternative. As far as communication is concerned, virtually everybody has access to a cell phone these days.

The other option is to provide a higher level of care in the Rural Health Centres as well as the Basic Health Units. This again is a matter of resource management that requires careful evaluation and manpower allocation. I have discussed this in a previous column. Clearly the need to strengthen, fully man and equip the local health care system must be the priority of any government that wishes to improve healthcare delivery for our rural and semi-urban population. However, even if we are able to provide an efficient ambulance system as well as improve local healthcare, there will still be patients that ‘fall through the cracks’. Often this is a combination of lack of education and cultural constraints about transporting women for medical care. This last problem is a complicated one requiring a multidisciplinary approach through education and a reliable network of midwives that can act as facilitators.

And now something about the ability to pay for medical care. In a country where a majority of people subsist at or around the poverty level, even the very basic types of medical care can throw a family into total penury. Many families with patients that require daily medications and regular ‘tests’ will often have to make a choice between paying for medicine or food. The choice for them is obvious.

When it comes to more expensive types of treatments including surgery or treatment for heart problems, cancer and trauma, the costs can be prohibitive and I often heard of families that sold their homes, their daughter’s dowries, cattle or other important assets to pay for such treatment. It is, therefore, imperative that most of the treatments for such conditions should be provided free of cost. An added but rarely discussed cost to patients and their family besides loss of work is the fact that many family members accompany these patients to the hospital and have the added burden to feed themselves and pay for a place to stay during prolonged course of treatment.

Mayo Hospital has two large ‘musafir khanas’ (traveller’s homes) for such families but then, during my years in Mayo Hospital I rarely saw the families use these facilities and they often preferred to camp out in the hospital lawns and hallways creating serious public health issues. Whether this is a socio-cultural problem or was due to some problem with living in these premises is difficult to say but still is an important issue that should be considered and addressed.

Now back to the question of health cards that we started this discussion with in the first place. So what exactly will these cards do if there is no availability or access to medical care to start with? And then, how much of the actual cost of treatment will be paid by the government, all of it or some of it? And what will determine the amount to be paid, the income level of the patient or some other criterion and who will determine what those criteria should be and enforce them?

It is a difficult problem but with proper resource management and increased funding a lot more can be done than is being done right now.

[I]The writer is former professor and Chairman Department of Cardiac Surgery, KEMU/Mayo Hospital, Lahore: [email]smhmbbs70@yahoo.com[/email][/I]