[B]04.08.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]Why quota matters[/SIZE]
As the Federal Cabinet decides to extend the quota system for another twenty years, it must be understood that it has to be gradually phased out or reduced in its effect
By Ahmad Nazir Warraich
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Pakistan is a majority constrained federation where all decisions have to be taken in the backdrop of a delicate and fragile union. The echoes of secessionist movements are always lurking in the distant background. This complicates any simple administrative question to be adjusted against multiple considerations, keeping in mind the ‘unequal’ and ‘mutually suspicious federating units’.

Matters are further complicated by the fact that like all ex-colonies, Pakistan inherited a strong civil and military bureaucracy, and for more than half of its life, it has been under military rule. The military is dominated by Punjabis and Pathans, and the bureaucracy by the Punjabis, Urdu speaking and Pathans. This has created a sense of deprivation amongst some of the ethnicities.

All this makes it important to find a way to address the genuine need of the minority provinces to participate and have a role in the governance of the country. Quota system seems to provide one such solution.

Before 1971, it was a question of creating parity between East and West Pakistan. Many of the government officers, hailing from the Muslim minority provinces of India had migrated to one part, thus tilting the balance in favour of West Pakistan. It was to correct this imbalance in the Federal Officers cadre that quota was introduced as an administrative measure in 1949. In the post 1971 era, it became an issue of maintaining proportional parity in the civil services between the provinces of Pakistan, where Punjab dominated.

Gradually, it became an integral part of the recruitment at all levels, to the extent that what started as an administrative order became a constitutional requirement. It was not just included in the 1973 Constitution, but was part of the 1956 and 1962 Constitutions.

The quota system is viewed as an alternative method of participation by the smaller provinces in the governance and policy formulation mechanisms.

Pakistan as a federation began its life with the units having varying degrees of economic, social and educational indicators in 1947. The initial disparity has been narrowed in various ways and to varying degrees, but is still there, and complicated further in the case of Sindh, by the disparity between the urban and rural Sindh. It is in this background that the quota system is in place. Inspite of Article 27 of the Constitution, which states, “No citizen otherwise qualified for appointment in the service of Pakistan shall be discriminated against in respect of any such appointment on the ground only of race, religion, caste, sex, residence of place of birth.” However, as all fundamental rights are generally not absolute, they always have derogation and exception clauses, in this case the exception is provided in the form of reserving quota so as, “to secure their adequate representation in the service of Pakistan”.

The legal argument in favour of this exception seems to be based on the concept of ‘reverse discrimination’. The dictionary definition of reverse discrimination is “the unfair treatment of members of majority groups resulting from preferential policies, as in college admissions or employment, intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities”. The quota was initially introduced for twenty years only, but was extended and is now set to expire next month. The Federal Cabinet has therefore a few days ago decided to extend it for another twenty years. This would require a constitutional amendment.

In addition to regional disparities, quota addresses under-representation based upon gender, minority and disability. To take an example the current quota with regard to CSS exam is; merit 7.5 per cent, Punjab (Including Islamabad) 50 per cent, Sindh 19 per cent, with the share of Sindh further sub-allocated in the urban and rural areas. KPK has 11.5 per cent, Balochistan 6 per cent, Northern Areas and Federally Administered Tribal Areas 4 per cent, whereas Azad Kashmir 2 per cent, and women’s reserved quota of 10%. Women quota is calculated from the share of each province/region.

Pakistan is a developing country where government continues to be both the main employer as well as a source of prestige and upward mobility. This is true for all government services, but is particularly true for the Central Superior Services. Federal, provincial and even local governments are controlled by federal officers which has been further strengthened by the recent changes in the local government law. In addition, policy formulation is essentially in the hands of the bureaucrats; it therefore is in some ways a replacement of the political representation process. This is another reason why quota matters so much.

If policy formulation and governance is through representative democracy, and bureaucracy is only the vehicle for carrying out those policies, smaller provinces may feel less the need to have representation in the federal services, and the federal services may instead come to be viewed as they ought to be, simply as good jobs, and nothing that should particularly matter to the provinces or ethnicities.

All administrative and policy measures require a cost-benefit analysis. Political compulsions aside, there is a reverse side to it as well. The first casualty of quota is merit. This has to have its effect on governance. One option is to peg promotion within service on performance and not treat it as a ‘right’, subject only to the number of years in service. Secondly, we need to assess the efficiency cost of this system, with a view to gradual phasing out of the same through policies that correct the regional imbalances, and thus eventually ensure efficiency in the working of the federation, through merit based selection. This can be done through continuing the political process, encouraging privatisation, as well as resuscitating the private sector.

Let us hope that in the next twenty years these things take place so that we don’t have to extend the quota further, and if it is still required, then quota could be phased out or gradually decreased. The government could for example increase open merit to 20 per cent as a first step and then take it to 50 per cent, so that there can be a balance between the need for merit, and ensuring representation to people from less developed regions.

Quota is a reality and political necessity for the immediate future, but it has to be gradually phased out, or at least reduced in its effect. Quota system is the need of the hour, however, it cannot go on forever. By definition it is meant to correct an imbalance; the government and the state must take measures to address the underlying issues. The issues are of institutional lop-sidedness in favour of bureaucracy and army, of economic development, so that the private sector thrives, and is capable of creating jobs, and the adjustment of the rights paradigm in such a way that the hard working and the bright need not look at government service as of major importance.

[I]The writer is a Lahore based lawyer and political analyst
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[B]04.08.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Redefining strategic dialogue[/SIZE]
Pakistan’s military and new civilian leadership seem united in chalking out new priorities of Pakistan’s relations with the US security establishment
By Syed Hussain Shaheed
Soherwordi[/CENTER][/B]

Pakistan-US strategic dialogue was the brainchild of President Barack Obama who wanted to keep Pakistan in closer contact with the US security establishment. It covers a wide-range of issues from Pakistan’s energy needs, its role during the war on terror to health and education sector woes.

The exchange of ideas was a part of American effort to annul fears that the US might repeat the mistake of the 1980s when it left Islamabad ‘high and dry’ after driving out Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It was also meant to remove the widely held perception that relations between the two countries were confined only to security matters. The process started in 2010 with its first meeting at the Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

The strategic dialogue is unique where we have both uniform military and top civilian officials in one room at the same time to discuss high and low politics between the two countries with their preferences. This undermines the notion that Pakistani civil and military policies towards the US are parallel to each other and do not intersect at any point. It can be substantiated from the fact that the Pakistan Army’s top leadership met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif just before Secretary of State John Kerry’s arrival to chalk out new priorities of Pakistan’s relations as well as take a unified stance during the dialogue with the US.

On the other hand, Secretary John Kerry with a military background has been in official contact with the Pakistani civil and military leadership as former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since long. This makes a solid ground for a successful dialogue between the two countries.

The two historical allies in the Cold War and the war on terror, Pakistan and the United States have encountered many obstacles over the years. Until recently, the two countries had intimate interactions and numerous cooperative endeavours to counter Soviet expansion in the region during later half of the 20th century as well as to contain terrorism during the beginning of the 21st century. However, the relationship deteriorated dramatically over the past few years. Salala incident, Raymond Davis issue, May 2 Operation Geronimo when a US midnight raid in Abbottabad killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, strategic dialogue between the US and India, drone attacks and its civilian killings have indeed maligned relations between Pakistan and the US. Lack of dialogue on these issues, at various levels of government, and the current trust deficit has further fueled the fire.

First Pak-US strategic dialogue took place in Washington DC between the then top US Senator and today’s top US diplomat Secretary of State John Kerry and the then Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi along with Pakistan’s Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ex-ISI chief Shuja Pasha. It was the first time that during a civilian government, the Pakistani Army and the ISI were participating in a dialogue with the United States.

Pakistan’s delegation submitted a 56-page wishlist with a few drastic demands: to acquire drones technology; help in overcoming Pakistan’s energy crisis; civilian nuclear arrangement on the patterns of Indo-US nuclear deal; and curtailing India’s growing role in Afghanistan.

However, with the Salala attack along with preceding irritants, the confidence was shaken badly. Therefore, the process of dialogue was completely broken and hence there was no chance of strategic dialogue taking place between the two countries. Pakistan and the US were showing negligibly little interest in resuming talks.

Finally, long awaited maiden visit of John Kerry as Secretary of State took place last week. He held consultations with the newly-elected government in Pakistan on various issues — eliminate terrorist safe-havens, ahead of the drawdown (and not the withdrawal) of US-led troops, from neighbouring Afghanistan; the drone strikes in the Pakistani border regions; promoting security; strengthening the Pakistani economy; reinforcing people-to-people ties between the two countries and establishing peace in Afghanistan.

The détente between Pakistan and Afghanistan seems part of the strategic negotiations. The new Nawaz Sharif leadership in Islamabad is very keen to develop positive relations with Afghanistan. Sharif stated that a united Afghanistan was in favour of Pakistan’s interests. His envoy and advisor, Sartaj Aziz, visited Afghanistan and had very conducive and conclusive talks with the Afghan administration.

The success of his visit can be gauged from the fact that the Afghan President, who was talking fire against Pakistan, at once agreed to visit Pakistan sooner in the forthcoming weeks. This reflects that the relationship between the two governments have substantially transformed and placed on more cooperative diplomacy.

Nawaz Sharif has moved on by giving clear priority to stability in Afghanistan. Instead of a confused policy, he accords equal weight to the success of Doha process. However, it’s a fact that the Afghan land has been used for subversive activities by Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). RAW, with money and weapons, is supporting terrorist groups operating inside Pakistan via trans-Afghan border. Pakistan, of course, wants Americans, the de facto custodians of Afghanistan’s security, to check growing anti-Pakistan role of India in Afghanistan first and foremost.

Pakistan will continue pushing for better and preferable access of US corporations and financial institutions, American markets, and a preference based trade for its products in the US. This will have a two-pronged effect. First, the rise of Pakistan’s economy due to its massive preferential exports to the US markets will reduce the US foreign aid to Pakistan. Second, Pakistan will emerge as a regional economic power that will reduce militancy due to more employment, industrialisation and foreign investment. There is insufficient US economic interest in Pakistan, with American investment in Pakistan coming too slowly.

Pakistan is currently the 59th largest goods trading partner of the US with $5.8 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2011. Goods exports totaled $2.0 billion while imports totaled $3.8 billion. The US goods trade deficit with Pakistan was $1.8 billion in 2011. Pakistan was the United States’ 62nd largest goods export market in 2011. This statistical data deserves attention of negotiators of the Strategic Dialogue. With political relations, the volume of the trade needs to be lifted for a durable and long lasting strategic partnership.

At the same time, it’s a fact that strategic relations between the United States and Pakistan have expanded considerably. The emergence of terrorism in shape of al-Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) created a scene where national security interests of the two countries converge. Thus, they have important places to cooperate and past mistakes of each other to forget for a smooth sailing in future tactical relationship.

However, Pakistan’s tensions with India for its negative role in Afghanistan pose a challenge for US policy makers. The security situation in Afghanistan is another critical area for both the United States and Pakistan. India poses a major stumbling block in US-Pakistan relations. Pakistan considers India’s growing role in Afghanistan at the instigation of the US just to keep Pakistan on the edge of seat. India cannot support the United States to the extent that Pakistan can and hence Pakistan wants a substantial role in the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan. Neglecting Pakistan at the cost of India will not be in the strategic interest of the US.

In the light of the arguments put forth, following strategic thoughts may be forwarded to Secretary John Kerry for making the strategic dialogue a success:

1. Pakistan’s security interests are different from those of the US. It continues to face the problem of proxy war (sectarian clashes) and terrorism with its neighbours.

2. Since 9/11, the US has become a very important factor in Pakistan’s strategic thoughts in its national security. However, Pakistanis realise that the same degree of importance is lacking in the US strategic thinking. They feel that Americans are taking Pakistan’s sacrifices during the war on terror for granted which in fact frustrates Pakistan’s strategists.

3. The US realised the war on terror as a tool to curtail terrorism for its own national security. However, it does not give equal importance to Pakistan in the same context.

4. The US drone attacks are proving counter-productive due to their notorious number of civilian killings as a collateral damage. Pakistan has been demanding an end to US drone attacks targeting al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, saying it has caused civilian causalities.

5. The US has not applied its own value system in its foreign policy. The invasion of Iraq would have had more legitimacy if it had had an international coalition behind it. Similarly, the Doha process of negotiations between the Taliban and the US would have had more meaningful results if it had participation of other stakeholders like the UN, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries of Afghanistan. Unless the United States is responsive to the concerns of other neighbouring countries, there will be no stability in Afghanistan.

This is the kind of strategic interaction that both Pakistan and the United States will need to keep working at. Candid exchange of ideas, diplomats and people is the key to ensuring that national differences of interests and perspectives do not lead back to the drifting apart that characterised the relationship between the two countries during the 1990s and between 2011-July 2013.

[I]The author teaches International Relations, at the University of Peshawar[/I]

[B]04.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]After the Independence[/SIZE]
“Pakistan: The Garrison State” creates a powerful narrative of the final stages of the Pakistan movement and the fascinating journey just after the Independence
By Helal Pasha[/CENTER][/B]

Dr Ishtiaq takes readers to a fascinating journey of Pakistan just before and immediately after Independence. He has created a powerful narrative of final stages of the Pakistan movement — its strengths, the weaknesses, and the issues faced and dealt by the Muslim League leadership. He pieced a succinct yet all-inclusive chronicle of events together that shaped the country.

The trajectory clearly demonstrates the ideological drift that kept gaining momentum until easily manipulated into a non-democratic thinking that now competes violently for space with democratic norms and disrupts peace in the neighbourhood. Dr Ishtiaq takes an objective look at the process that denied Pakistan its due share in military hardware (including airplanes) distribution per the partition plan. The attempted refusal of financial resource led to a suspicious Pakistan and eventually turned both the countries into hostile and non-trusting neighbours.

Distrust and hostility still persist. The hardliners within Pakistan civil and later military bureaucracy managed that to their benefit in following years. Indian politicians also never failed to take advantage of that when needed.

The war in Kashmir was a misadventure that had roots in Muslim League’s nonchalant approach to Kashmir before partition. Muslim League was ready to go to war after independence, yet before the partition, it was hoping to bargain Kashmir away for Hyderabad. The Nizam of Hyderabad was the primary donor of the Muslim League. The non-feasibility of Hyderabad joining Pakistan along with a growing pressure within Punjab forced Pakistan to seek an improbable support from British Generals and then mobilise the tribes to launch a campaign in Kashmir.

The Kashmir campaign, as Dr Ishtiaq has pointed out, led to first friction within the army and the removal of the ‘Young Turks’ conspiring to make some changes in Pakistan’s political structure. That also allowed an unimpeded ascendency of the West leaning officers in the Army and civil bureaucracy. The Kashmir saga helped built “an honourable strong man guided by religious principles who can take on ten opponents at one time and destroy them all” a simplistic yet, appealing persona of the Army officers and the conscripts.

Dr Ishtiaq has taken a look at Pakistan’s efforts in as he puts it “wooing the Americans”. Though this chapter contributes very little to the overall thrust of the study, still there was clearly a need to look at US-Pakistan relations in details. The US-Pak relations in succeeding years ensured that Pakistan army would be the preeminent political force in Pakistan. The ideological leanings of Pakistan’s founding fathers clearly set the tone, subsequently making it far easier for the Pakistan army to follow in the same direction as the true inheritors of the founding fathers.

Mr Jinnah, throughout his political career, was a conservative. He never contributed to any liberal thoughts; he was not adverse to colonialism. Muslim League from its very beginning was a conservative party and never changed its political ideology. Around the partition, Muslim League had moved to the far right position from a somewhat centric position in 1940.

In view of that, it was not surprising that Mr Jinnah and his colleague in Muslim League favoured better relations with the US and UK over the Soviet Union. Mr Jinnah had made his position clear by sending his confidant Mr Isphahani as ambassador to the US. He also made his policy clear in the cabinet meeting as quoted by Dr Ishtiaq.

In the presence of strong historical records, Dr Ishtiaq reliance on a Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White seems anomalous. Comments in her book reviews included “would have benefitted from more knowledge, and greater objectivity” and “lack of background and biased interpretation” reflected poorly on her scholarship. Mr Jinnah never talked in conspiratorial tones as she implied.

Dr Ishtiaq then makes an observation that the United States remained uninterested, and the US policy of containment was focused on Europe. The published accounts of US strategy in Middle East in 1947, also known as “The Pentagon Talks 1947”, show a different picture. The US and UK from September to December 1947 reviewed their defense strategy for Middle East, Far East, and North Africa.

Declassified in the 90s and available at many libraries in universities, the report displays both the countries decided that excluding Turkey, Iran, and Greece, the UK would remain the primary driver of the policy in the Middle East. During these meetings, UK suggested “the British government entertains the hopes of arriving at a common defense agreement with the dominion of Pakistan as well as with India”. The emphasis was on Pakistan and its position with Afghanistan.

As Mr Jinnah sent his confidant to Washington, Mr Nehru sent a high profile ambassador, his sister, Mrs Pundit to Moscow. It turned out the Soviet Union was not keen on developing relations with both the countries. Mrs Pundit, in one of her dispatch, summarised the Soviet attitude after the first few weeks of her stay in Moscow: “The Soviet leader did not see any real substance in the completed transfer of power, and in spite of repeated pleas of the Indian ambassador for ‘most cordial relations’…this negative attitude was soon to culminate in shrill exposures of the ‘oppressive’ and ‘anti-national’ character of Nehru Government.”

First Nehru visit to Soviet Union was in 1955 after Pakistan had signed Baghdad pact.

[B]11.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Education emergency in KP[/SIZE]
Education for all, gender balance, better equipped educational institutions, new uniform curriculum and much more. Will the PTI be able to achieve its ambitious education goals?
By Tahir Ali[/CENTER][/B]

As per its commitment during elections, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has declared education emergency and planned various initiatives to improve education standard in the province.

The main focus of new projects is to ensure education for all, create a gender balance and fulfil the requirements of educational institutions regarding staff, equipment, furniture, teachers training and essential repairs. It also intends to devise a new uniform curriculum in the near future.

A working group comprising education experts, coalition partners and education administrators deliberated on the problems of education sector and prepared its elaborate recommendations for the sector.

The budget for both the elementary and secondary education (E&SE) and higher education has been increased to Rs29.7 billion against Rs22.12 billion in 2012 with the E&SE being the biggest beneficiary, accounting for Rs24 billion in the total ADP of Rs118 billion.

KP Chief Minister, Pervez Khan Khatak, says schools will be run by Management Councils comprising parents of students, local bodies’ members, elders of the localities, teachers and former students of schools. “It is a revolutionary step, first of its kind in the country. Teachers’ progress will be conditioned with the result of their students,” he adds.

A Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Commission is being formed with eminent education experts as its members who would work for uniform curriculum, transparent examination system and education for all.

For efficient and proper monitoring of schools and offices, a modern monitoring system is being developed comprising 500 impartial monitors with an expenditure of Rs500 million. It will also be supported by a third party monitoring system.

Female education administrative officers will get 50 per cent of their basic pay as incentive in six less developed districts for one year which will be made permanent if teachers’ attendance and performance improve.

Some other schemes include ‘Chief Minister’s Endowment Fund’ for sponsoring higher education of needy students and Iqra Education Promotion Scheme’ for poor children both of Rs500 million each; Expansion of Rokhana Pakhtunkhwa Public-Private-Partnership in Education Programme of Rs800 million; ‘Education Fund’ for establishing private school in areas having no public schools worth Rs500 million; the ‘Stori da Pakhtunkhwa’ initiative worth Rs360 million and increase in the number of beneficiaries from 10 to 20 position holders for all boards of intermediate and technical education.

The E&SE department has asked all the heads of schools to give their demands for staff, furniture, books, funds and other requirements immediately. These, according to an official, will be fulfilled before August 31st.

“The government has asked us to repair and whitewash all the rooms, lavatories and boundary walls around the schools. Water availability must be ensured. We were also asked to get telephone and internet connections and the government says IT teachers and labs will be provided in all schools,” according to a school principal.

Clusters:

“To improve standard of education in public sector schools, clusters have been formed wherein 6 primary and 2-3 middle schools will be given under the supervision of one principal or head master of a high or higher secondary school. The latter will be responsible for monitoring the attendance and working of teachers and will also serve as their salary drawing and disbursement officers,” he said.

“CM Khattak, in his first assembly address, had asked teachers to improve upon their performance or face the music. But education standard could hardly be improved in a situation where schools lack teachers, books, and labs. Also, the head masters/principals will have to be empowered to take appropriate action against the staff found negligent in duties. And political intervention will also have to be eradicated,” added the principal.

Management of a school requires strong commitment and sustained and fullest attention towards it on part of the principals. “We’ll have to monitor the schools, report to district education officers of any irregularity and ask the district accounts officer to issue/stop payment to teachers and other staff at the cluster schools which will consume a lot of our time. Monitoring of schools will take much time especially when there is no transport facility available. Those having no vehicle would either avoid or only nominally do the monitoring job. They should be given vehicles or sufficient travelling allowance. Then, principals and head masters should have vice-principal and assistant head masters at schools,” he said.

Curriculum change:

The PTI government also wishes to change the curriculum. KP E&SE Minister Atif Khan has given a tentative date of March 2014 to enforce uniform curriculum across the province.

The diverse curriculum taught in the public and private sectors and ‘religious’ madaris has divided the nation in water-tight compartments. To promote national cohesion, moderation and tolerance in our society, uniform curriculum is the need of the hour.

Curriculum change is, however, an arduous process that requires strong will and competence on part of executers, billions of rupees, lot of time and mutual consultations and spirit of compromise between coalition partners and stakeholders, political stability and support from the federal government. Will the PTI be able to successfully cope with these issues?

As KP is dependent on federal transfers and donor funding for implementation of its plans and projects, it will have to approach donor agencies like World Bank, USAID, Asian Development and UK’s DFID and the Agha Khan Foundation. Donor agencies are ready to finance the process but they want due representation in the working groups and the committees for the purpose. They would also attach some strings to their support.

The Jamat-e-Islami has been vocal in opposing heavy presence of donor agencies personnel in working groups and authoritative role for them in the process. It fears that giving too much leverage to the donor agencies would give them enough powers to exclude religious contents from syllabi which would be unacceptable. But beggars, after all, can’t be choosers.

While the JI presses for all-encompassing religious contents in curriculum, donor agencies may consider it an attempt to spread extremism.

Curriculum from first to intermediate level was changed by the previous ANP provincial government and the process was to complete in next academic year. The ANP had to face severe opposition from the JI, then in opposition but now a coalition partner in the PTI-led government.

There is still ambiguity whether or not seminaries and their boards and the private schools chains would be included in the process. And whether it’ll be done by banning private schools or by privatising public schools?

There will be opposition from certain quarters. “The elite class and their private education systems, the text book commission mafia and incompetent teachers would resist the move,” a professor said, adding that the government should implement the curriculum in stages.

Hitches

The PTI wishes to introduce uniform curriculum, increase state spending on education to five per cent of GDP, reduce the dropout rate at elementary level by offering incentives, encourage greater public-private partnership in qualitative improvement and quantitative expansion of education. But there are many hitches.

Ghost schools, teachers absenteeism, outdated teaching techniques, low admission and high dropout ratio, dilapidated school buildings with no facilities, outdated curriculum, flawed examination system, faulty monitoring system, indifference of teachers and administrators, overcrowded classrooms, weak supervision, mounting political interference and little attention and resources to developing teachers’ competencies, etc., are some of the main problems in the sector. Without removing these, any hope for improvement in the system will only be wishful thinking.

Teachers’ competencies should be the main focus as high quality teachers are the most important factor in a child’s education. With computer based learning tools, educational institutions can provide the supportive productive environment teachers need to reach, teach, and support each student’s learning needs and potential.

But the KP’s provincial assembly was informed last year that only around 300 high and higher secondary schools in KP had computer labs while around 2000 lacked computer labs and 4,500 computer teachers were needed.

While the government says it will achieve millennium development goals in the educations sector by the end of 2015, KP MDGs Report-2011 says they are unlikely to be achieved in KP by then. The net primary enrolment ratio in 2011-12 was 67 per cent and the Primary Completion Rate and Literacy Rate stands at 67 per cent and 50 per cent against the targets of 100 and 88 respectively.

There should be a mandatory uniform national curriculum from class one to twelve. At the intermediate level, all the students in the country should take a federal examination on the pattern of developed countries.

[B]11.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Gadani’s breaking record[/SIZE]
Gadani ship-breaking industry has immense potential to provide employment to thousands of people and cheap scrap for engineering industry
By Alauddin Masood[/CENTER][/B]

Using a little more than hand-tools, workers at Gadani ship-breaking yard scrap in a calendar year about 100 tankers and ship-liners — many thousand times bigger than their homes — into sheets, angles of metal pipes, machines or gadgets of various types, and thus become instrumental in contributing to the exchequer billion of rupees in taxes and revenues.

Toiling for $2 a day and working in filthy and dangerous conditions, these workers reclaim about a million tons of steel, fulfilling most of Pakistan’s metal demand for the construction sector, while some of them siphon oils left in ship tanks and pack it in steel barrels for sale in the domestic market.

Every morning, these workers swarm a 10-km stretch of sandy beach to do a job which is globally considered as one of the most hazardous work. Here men meet fatal accidents or suffer physical injuries, like fracturing of legs, tearing of muscles etcetera, but the work never stops. It takes, on an average, four months for a ship to be broken here against six months at bigger facilities in the region.

Once considered as the second top ship-breaking yard in the world after Taiwan, Gadani ship-breaking industry hit rock bottom due to official apathy post-1999. However, it has gradually recovered over the last 5-6 years, assuming the position of the third largest ship-breaking yard in the world as a result of prudent official polices and tireless efforts of other stakeholders.

In 1999, which was considered the best year for the ship-breaking sector in the recent past, Gadani ship-breaking industry contributed Rs3.54 billion to the national exchequer, which declined to Rs2.41 billion in 2002. During its hay days, Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry had at its Gadani docks about 40 to 50 obsolete ships at a time for breaking against one ship in 2005. High taxes and machinations of the vested interests, in particular iron/steel importers lobby, had contributed to the downfall of this once flourishing industry.

In the early 1980s, there was constant increase in the number of ships and vessels dismantled at Gadani and also their tonnage: In 1982-83, 156 vessels weighing 964,758 tons were brought to Gadani for dismantling; whereas the number of vessels and their tonnage stood at 146 vessels of 606,174 tons in 1984-85 and 165 vessels of 699,514 tons in 1985-86. Though the number of vessels demolished at Gadani beach increased the number of tankers decreased from 39 weighing 929,713 tons in 1982-83 to 12 weighing 92,259 tons in 1983-84, eight weighing 102,108 tons in 1984-85 and six weighing 76,023 tons in 1985-85.

This industry contributed Rs5.3 billion to the national exchequer in taxes in one financial year during the early 1980s. In addition to high quality steel, the dismantled ships also provided cheapest possible non-ferrous material, like copper, brass, aluminum, machinery, generators, boilers, wood and tools of international standard, for meeting the demand of the country’s industrial and commercial sectors.

In 1985-86, the ship-breaking industry helped the country in making an annual saving of Rs1,500 million, which would otherwise have been spent on the import of iron/steel. It also earned another Rs500 million in foreign exchange through the export of surplus ship-scrap, second hand machinery, generators, air-conditioners and other equipment. During that year, it also contributed to the national exchequer an amount of over Rs1,035 million in customs duty, sales tax and income-tax.

The ship-breaking industry paid Rs2.69 billion in customs duty alone during the period July 1982 to June 1986. Balochistan provincial government earned an annual income of Rs22 million through license fees and lease money during those times; while Gadani Town Committee annually earned over Rs30 million through Octroi duty, making it Pakistan’s richest local body, in terms of population-revenue ratio.

However, lack of state patronage and unfavourable tax regime gave deadly blows to this industry. India, Sri Lanka and Dubai benefitted the most from decline in Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry and consequently emerged as a regional hub of ship-breaking because, after decline of Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry, most of the foreign clients turned to them.

Some measures taken by the government in 2003, in particular cut in duties on import of ships for dismantling, kindled hopes of the revival of this industry as it re-started to attract entrepreneurs. But, the vested interests manoeuvred to get the duties on ships and vessels, which arrived in Pakistan for dismantling, doubled from five per cent to 10 per cent and sales tax increased from 15 per cent to 20 per cent, rendering the business non-viable once again.

After taking stock of the situation, the ECC decided, on January 18, 2005, to reduce the ‘deemed price’ of imported obsolete ships from US$ 400 per ton to US$ 300 per ton and ‘value addition factor’ (for determining sales tax) from 14 per cent to five per cent. These measures not only provided direct relief of about Rs1,350 per ton to the ship-breakers but also a much needed breather to the ship-breaking industry, thus saving it from collapse and thousands of its workers from the imminent danger of unemployment.

But, this still appears a far cry as Pakistan Ship Breakers Association (PSBA) believes that the working environment for this industry remains far from ideal and that the official apathy was impeding the development of ship-breaking, which is one of the biggest industries of Balochistan. The Gadani town lacks in health facilities and in case of emergencies the victim has to be rushed to Karachi. It is time that PSBA emulates Sialkot Chambers of Commerce and Industry and pools the resources of its members for catering to the needs of their industry on self-help basis.

Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry is spread along Balochistan’s Gadani beach, about 65 kilometres north-west of Karachi. Ship-breaking activity had started at Gadani much before Pakistan’s independence, but the ship-breaking industry registered a spectacular growth after the country’s independence, enabling it to gate-crash, in the mid-sixties, into the club of top ship-breakers of the world.

In the early 1980s, Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry was at its zenith. It provided employment to over 35,000 workers directly, while over 500,000 persons earned their living indirectly, through trade and such industries that used ship scrap as raw material.

How Gadani emerged as the world’s second top ship-breaking centre is an interesting story, which reminds one of the dedicated efforts, perseverance and imaginative thinking of businessmen, who initiated this work in an uninhabited region along the Makran coast.

Prior to Independence, some casual businessmen used to occasionally break a few obsolete ships at Gadani. After Pakistan’s independence, ship-breaking was taken up as a regular business after 1964, when a few vessels were brought to Gadani for breaking. At that time, no ancillary facility needed for an industry of this nature existed at Gadani, save its safe natural harbour and a shallow continental shelf. There was neither communication infrastructure (like roads and telephone) nor arrangements for electricity, drinking water, adequate accommodation for workers or medical facilities.

The place — a nomadic hinterland — was uninhabited and consequently there was an acute shortage of labour as well. Furthermore, majority of workers were uneducated, unskilled and migratory. Even the businessmen, who entered the trade, possessed little know-how of the industry, but they were infused with self-confidence and imagination and had realised that with the introduction of modern bulk carriers and the looming crisis in the international shipping industry, most of the outdated and obsolete vessels would soon become redundant. Besides, the process initiated by many countries for the replacement of their unserviceable WW-II vintage war ships with modern/sophisticated vessels, there appeared an international market, with London (UK) as its hub, for the sale of obsolete ships.

Being imaginative, this group of pioneer ship-breakers had also foreseen that there was definitely going to be an increase in the demand for iron/steel in Pakistan to cater to the needs of its rapidly developing re-rolling mills, engineering and other ancillary industries, which consumed iron, steel as well as other non-ferrous material.

The disruption of normal trade with India following 1965 and 1971 wars, discontinuity in supply of steel/iron products from Pakistan’s only steel mill at Chittagong after Bangladesh emergence and massive devaluation of rupee in 1972 made import of iron/steel products much costlier. This provided a good opportunity to the daring businessmen, who had ventured into the ship-breaking industry, to meet the national demand from the ship-scraps, which provided much cheaper raw material for the indigenous engineering industries.

Although the policy of nationalisation, adopted by the government in 1972, discouraged investment in fixed assets and capital goods, it gave a boost to the ship-breaking industry. Being labour-intensive, it needed neither fixed assets nor capital goods. Naturally, the more imaginative among the businessmen opted for ship-breaking industry.

These businessmen evolved innovative methods that were best suited to the conditions obtaining in Pakistan during those days. They engaged “contractors” to do the job of ship-breaking for them. The contractors also did not adopt modern techniques, nor did they use modern ship-breaking machinery. But, they did possess the knack of getting the job done to the satisfaction of their principals.

In 1978, realising the importance of ship-breaking industry, the Pakistan government announced a number of measures to give it a boost. These included: recognition of ship-breaking as industry, declaring Gadani as a port, reduction in customs duty on ships imported for breaking, provision of telephone connections, increasing the lease period from one year to five years; and appointment of an 8-member committee to solve its other problems. Now, an LNG plant has also been installed in Gadani to provide 20,000 tons of gas to this industry.

The years between 1969 and 1983 are considered to be the golden period of the ship-breaking industry in Pakistan. It was during this period that the ship-breaking activities witnessed a boom and this industry left many of its international rivals far behind as far as the total number of ships demolished and the tonnage of ship-scrap handled was concerned.

The ship-breaking industry has immense potential to provide gainful employment to thousands of persons and cheap scrap for use as raw material by the re-rolling mills and engineering industry. Protecting this industry from the machinations of iron/steel importers, providing it necessary facilities and encouraging the stakeholders to overhaul/update their machinery and infrastructure could revitalise Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry, once again. This would also help stabilise the market price of steel/iron bars, and ease pressure on the construction industry to some extent.

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

[B]11.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Garbage is gold[/SIZE]
Nargis Latif, the founding trustee of Gulbahao, has been exploring the potential of waste as a means of generating livelihoods and eradicating poverty
By Dr Noman Ahmed[/CENTER][/B]

Karachi is a city that is home to people with diverse interests and pursuits. From raw adventure seekers to serene Sufis, the list is endless. But it is difficult to find a waste management activist, if not impossible!

Nargis Latif, the founding trustee of ‘Gulbahao’ — a non-profit organization — is an outstanding mention. During the past 16 years of her most dedicated involvement, Nargis has contributed her untiring efforts in exploring the potential of waste as a means of generating livelihoods and eradicating poverty. With missionary zeal, she is committed to prove that municipal and other forms of solid waste is a resource and can drastically change and benefit the lives of small scale entrepreneurs.

Nargis studied in depth the waste generation, management and disposal in Karachi. She also interacted with various formal and informal stakeholders linked with commercial activities related to waste. Push cart vendors, scavengers, petty contractors, small scale entrepreneurs, agents and suppliers constituted this category.

Through this self-motivated field research, Nargis learned about the untapped economic promise of different types of refuse and rubbish. Her university degree helped her to delve deep into various issues of the subject and generate workable options with the assistance of various experts in the field.

About 100 staff now works for Gulbahao Trust. Nargis has been able to mobilise Rs80 million contributed by various philanthropists and businessmen. She has also exhausted her entire family savings into this noble public cause.

Some of her solutions were extraordinarily simple and easy to adapt for ordinary folks. ‘Cleanliness and Earning Bank’ is one such venture. Through a mass awareness campaign in various neighbourhoods, Nargis promoted the careful segregation of all such waste which possessed a value through re-use or recycling option.

House wives, young people and even elderly folks would bring vehicle loads of such material to her bank which was an open yard for collection. Her staff and volunteers listed, weighed and valued all such articles and opened a ‘waste account’. People were informed about the periodic balance on each deposit transaction. After the account would reach a certain value, she gave away gold coins worth the corresponding value. This extremely popular operation made her coin the slogan “garbage is gold”. Whereas the people had the option of simply receiving cash after depositing waste loads, most of them preferred the gold coin option due to its novelty and attraction.

This project of Gulbahao has been working since 1997. Gulbahao sold this garbage to larger waste procurement enterprises or recycling industries. For organic ingredients comprising kitchen waste, she introduced the option of compost which was also appreciated.

Housewives were encouraged to separate vegetable and fruit peels and trained to put them in a properly sized pit in the garden. With improvised steps of making compost, the housewives and gardeners were able to reduce the household expenses on gardening to a great extent. The growth and performance of plants and foliage correspondingly grew. I discovered many operators of plant nurseries prosper who bought the concept from Gulbahao and used it for their commercial benefits.

‘Silver House’ is another interesting innovation by Nargis and her team. The trust collects defected layers of aluminum foils from various industries. This foil is used to envelop the compressed blocks of waste material through pressing. The mode of construction can also be used with ordinary sand and dry trash. Different type of shelter structures can be developed with minimum skills and props.

Nargis and her team have trained many volunteers who became master trainers for others. During the devastating floods in Pakistan during 2010, Nargis was able to erect a 15 sq. meter room shelter in one day. Hundreds of such shelters were erected in relief camps to provide accommodation to affected population in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab through a massive volunteer operation.

In the wake of World Environment Day in June this year, many of the evidences of Gulbahao’s work were on display under the Rashid Minhas Road bridge precinct in Karachi. Thousands of keen observers came and appreciated her outstanding resolve towards improving the environment.

Pakistan continues to face grave fuel crises. Shortage of fuel is one soaring problem which affects households, businesses and industries. Gulbahao conducted a focused research around the potential of different types of factory wastes and by-products which could be used as alternative. And there came amazing responses.

Years of field research and interaction with stakeholders enabled Nargis and her team to generate ‘fuel pack’. This product is a block weighing about ten kilogrammes. It is composed to clean waste material generated from industries such as bits and shreds of wood, paper and cloth. A protective layer of aluminum foil is applied to maintain its quality before use. By applying compression, the waste material is pressed down in volume, making it effective. The fuel pack can be used in factories with boilers or thermal power chambers. It is also used by brick manufacturing kilns as a better substitute of natural gas or other expensive fuels.

Nargis and her team have spent months to collect the waste from about 80 factories in the industrial locations in Karachi. Her idea is ripe for commercial scale production. Independent estimates inform that it can replace at least ten per cent of conventional fuel. In other words, it has a net commercial potential of Rs 15 billion at the peak capacity.

Why Nargis and her work are important to be recognized? I have five arguments to offer. Waste management is usually considered as the duty of municipality alone, at least in Pakistan. Not much attention is given to the manner in which waste is disposed. The work of Gulbahao has given new dimensions to this approach. It tags waste as a valuable resource which needs to be treated as such. Two, Nargis has introduced a dimension of continuous research to discover doable solutions around waste. Some experts may not entirely agree with the populist style of her field work, but she has credible results to show. Three, her work has generated avenues of livelihoods and entrepreneurship. This can help eradicate poverty by generating employment, albeit at a modest scale. Four, being a women, she has broken the social barrier that the fairer sex cannot undertake tedious field work alongside men. And five, she has displayed unwavering faith in her mission despite hurdles, disappointments and limited response from the government.

The social, political and economic troubles faced by Pakistan has not dampened her spirits. We need many more visionaries like her!

[B]11.08.2013[/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"] Unhealthy trends[/SIZE]
A part of our ‘national fabric’, nepotism is fast replacing merit even in important professional areas
By Syed Mansoor Hussain[/CENTER][/B]

One of the more unfortunate facts of life in Pakistan’s medical institutions is the preferential treatment that children of ‘professors and principals’ of medical institutions get as students. A few years ago there were a series of ‘scandals’ in King Edward Medical College (KEMC), one of which even prompted a student strike when children of faculty members got ‘medals and distinctions’ that other students felt were not truly deserved. Though there are many faculty members that are above such shenanigans, over the last thirty odd years this has been a growing trend. And that in its own way is the story of the deterioration of the quality of medical education being provided in many of our public medical institutions.

I realise that favouritism is present in most educational institutions but it is perhaps more obvious in the medical environment, the reason being that children of doctors choose medicine as a profession with greater frequency than other professionals. As the only son of two doctors it was expected that I would become a doctor. Even as a child, my neighbours would call me ‘chotai’ (young) doctor sahib.

Over the five years I was associated with KEMC and then for a year as a house surgeon in Mayo Hospital, all the principals and many of the senior members of the teaching faculty of KE during that time had children that went through KEMC. Yet not one of them became the ‘best graduate’ and only one got a ‘distinction’ and he actually deserved it. He went on to do a PhD in the shortest time possible from a ‘premier’ US university and is now a full professor in a major US Medical School.

I still remember when I started my fourth year in KEMC, what was then called the final professional, one day I was driving with my father on the way to college, my father said to me, son this is going to be hard work and you better concentrate on your studies. So, I made a promise to him that he would not have to ask any of his friends and classmates from medical school, many of whom happened to by my professors and examiners to ‘take care of me’ as I went through my examinations. And I did that, as a matter of fact one of my professors and examiners had literally brought me up as a child, but I made sure that in his subject I would not be found wanting. During the oral examination (viva voce), he kept asking me questions until he ran out of questions to ask. Then he stopped and looked at me and said, Mansoor when do you get time to study? That was the ethos our generation lived by.

More importantly, any of our professors and principals of the college in those days would probably have disowned their children if they had dared to ask their fathers for ‘help’ during the examinations. And, yes I personally knew most of those students quite well since we the doctors’ children were a rather close knit community. And all of them would not have found the courage to ask their fathers for help either. Here I must admit that some of us did get unasked for ‘help’. In my case the most important ‘help’ I got during my final examination in surgery was because I was dressed properly (I still remember the tie I wore that day!) and spoke good English.

But what has changed? It is the brazen disregard for merit that has now become a part of our national behaviour. The thing that strikes me is that this is not a new problem. After all ‘taking care of your own’ is a longstanding tradition that spans all cultures. And no, it is not something that sprang out of ‘nowhere’ in Pakistan.

MA Jinnah in his famous August 11, 1947 speech, that is so often quoted when the question of religious tolerance is raised, also spent a significant part of his speech talking about corruption. Perhaps that part of his speech devoted to the problem of ‘nepotism’ is worth remembering. This is what he said: “Here again it is a legacy which has been passed on to us. Along with many other things, good and bad, has arrived this great evil, the evil of nepotism and jobbery. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any influence directly or indirectly brought to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it”. Of course by ‘jobbery’ what he meant is what today we call ‘sifarish’.

So, even if we accept that a certain amount of ‘nepotism’ was always a part of our ‘national fabric’, the one thing that has changed is that even in important professional areas, nepotism is becoming more important than merit.

So let me present three possibilities. First an airline pilot that does not really know how to fly a plane well but gets the job through connections, such a pilot would never fly a plane because his own life will also be at stake. The second possibility is of a lawyer who is not too good at what he does. The worst he or she can do is lose the client, some money and possibly end the client up in jail. The third possibility is of a doctor that is not well educated and trained. Such a doctor can actually cause the death or serious disability of a patient under his or her care.

Is there a ‘saving grace’ in this entire situation? Yes there is and that is that almost every student that ends up in our public medical college is a ‘high achiever’ and has done well in school and pre-med before getting into medical college. Most of our medical students that qualify and end up as practicing physicians go on to learn stuff that they were not taught as students. There are exceptions but not too many and that is why even when our medical graduates go abroad they do quite well.

The main problem is that our medical education system does not do justice to the first rate students that enter our medical colleges. But by making nepotism as one of the major determinant of positions and awards as students and then as the primary criterion for providing the best training positions, we undermine the confidence of the ‘ordinary’ students in the system. And we also set a pattern where these students learn early on in their professional lives that to get ahead they will need to have ‘connections’ and that merit by itself will never be enough. If only we could provide good quality education to all our students, treat them according to merit and make sure that the graduates with the best performance go on to get the best training positions; we could in a matter of few years change the entire complexion of the medical profession.

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

[B]11.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]A recipe for local government in Sindh[/SIZE]
Considering Sindh’s prevalent ethnic and geographic schism, the new local government law should focus on effective service delivery
By Naseer Memon[/CENTER][/B]

Supreme Court’s firm orders have rekindled the hope for Local Government elections in the country. During previous five years stint of elected government, no party deemed it necessary to revive local bodies in the provinces under their rule. During recent years, Sindh has been oscillating between the local government law of 1979 and newly introduced Sindh People’s Local Government Act which was subsequently countermanded. The provincial government is mulling over a new law these days.

Considering Sindh’s prevalent ethnic and geographic schism and its uneven demographic composition, the new law should have inclusive characteristics to cement the widening cleavages along various fault lines. Previous SPLGA 2012 was more divisive that triggered a new wave of ethnic acrimony and an otherwise avoidable controversy in the province.

The new law should focus on effective service delivery and good governance for all citizens without any discrimination rather than courting any political or ethnic groups/allies. Karachi and other emerging cities of Sindh should get a fair and equitable treatment. Under SPLGA 2012, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation was accorded an exclusive domain in some of the subjects which disturbed the equilibrium of authority.

In the new law all districts should be given equal treatment in terms of authority and responsibility and mandate. Karachi has five administrative districts that should determine the configuration of Local Government structure for Karachi Metropolitan. The City government model of 2001 systematically deprived rural areas of Karachi from their due share in development resources and process. These rural areas are chronically impoverished and under developed.

Special status should be accorded to these rural areas by allocating dedicated development funds, certain urban based tax exemptions and a reserved share in jobs and admissions in academic institutions etc. For coordination purpose, an apex body in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation should be established to manage inter-district development projects and other affairs.

Elected local government representatives should have authority to take decisions in their respective areas. Bureaucracy should not dominate the elected representatives. A balance of authority should be created. Balance and segregation of power between the two should be amply delineated and demarcated.

Subjects like security, police and land management should not be the exclusive prerogative of the Metropolitan/District Councils. Land, particularly in urban areas, is among the key sources of major conflicts, therefore, its management should rest with the provincial government. Similarly, the police have already been much politicised and has been grossly misused as a tool of control and oppression by the powers that be, therefore, it should be under the provincial government.

An independent Local Government Commission needs to be established under the chairpersonship of the chief minister to look after local government affairs. This high powered body should have the final authority to take appropriate decisions regarding any matters pertaining to local governments.

Women should have at least one-third reserved seats at all tiers of the local government. They should be elected through direct voting and not nominated/selected by the men on the elected councils. Additionally, women should be given party tickets to contest elections on general seats too. Similarly, religious and sectarian minorities, peasants and workers of the labour classes should have adequate representation at all tiers and they should also be elected through direct voting on reserved seats.

Allocation of development funds to the elected councils should be made through transparent, fair, rights-based and needs-based criteria. The moribund SPLGA 2012 introduced principles and indicators like fiscal capacity, fiscal effort and fiscal performance, which have inherent tilt in favour of the big cities where economic activity can generate surplus resources. Principles of provincial finance and budgeting should categorically mention indicators like poverty, gender gaps, geographic backwardness and development gap.

The Human Development Index empirically establishes these indicators. The existing structure of Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) may be reviewed and revised on the aforementioned indicators. Composition of the PFC should include independent and apolitical technocrats to ensure fair distribution of resources.

Under the rescinded SPLGA 2012, councils were allowed to set up any office or undertake any activity which is not decentralised through their own finances. Such provisions can be deleterious in two ways. One; it will benefit only big cities where surplus resources can be generated through additional levies. Second; flexibility of provision for “any office” will allow establishing potentially objectionable offices e.g. armed militia under the garb of local security initiatives. Exploiting this lacuna, powerful vested groups can create their own loyal force on tax payers’ resources.

Sindh is a disaster prone area and during the past three years, the province has witnessed a series of devastating catastrophes. The new law should empower and charge the local governments to develop and execute disaster risk reduction and disaster management plans under the technical guidance and supervision of Provincial Disaster Management Authority.

The right to information is a key to empower citizens and ensure transparency and good governance. Sindh can take a progressive step by introducing right to information clause in the new local government law. Citizens should be given access to information on development planning, budgeting, expenditure, engendering, meeting minutes and other matters of governance at the district level and at the lower tiers.

The new local government law should make a provision for grievance redressal/complaint management mechanism enabling citizens to hold their elected councils accountable to them. This mandate can be given to the aforementioned Local Government Commission. However, access for every citizen should be made convenient through an institutional mechanism. District Ombudsman can be an option with appropriate powers to make local government departments accountable and efficient.

No Metropolitan or District Council should be exempted from accountability mechanism. In the past, a political group managed to evade audits of local government fund in their areas of influence. Local governments should be subject to accountability and transparency under the constitutional and legal framework of the province. District Public Accounts Committee should also be introduced to create a check and balance with a council member of the opposition of repute as its head.

Local governments should be made responsible to issue an annual performance report to the provincial government and also through the mass media. Such public disclosures should also be in the local languages to ensure wider outreach.

An announcement to hold local government elections on party basis is a welcome decision. In order to ensure and promote democratic culture at the grassroots level and to make them directly responsible to people; District, Taulka and Town/Municipal Committee Chairpersons should be elected through direct voting under adult franchises system.

Appointments for the district level bureaucrats of grade-17 and above should be made mandatory for three years unless serious allegations and complaints are established through a committee of elected council members, both from treasury and opposition benches.

A representative and empowered district planning and development committee should be included in the new local government regime with a mandate to plan and monitor demand driven development schemes. The committee should include both men and women members both from treasury and opposition benches and ex-officio officers.

With an objective to make districts and Talukas financially sustainable, appropriate powers to impose taxes and duties at the district level may be ensured to district councils.

[email]nmemon2004@yahoo.com[/email]

[B]11.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Jirga justice[/SIZE]
If informal Jirga is converted into a state-supported institution, it would likely become as ineffective and defamed as other state institutions are
By Prof Dr Muhammad Taieb
[/CENTER][/B]
As the provincial government intends to empower informal Jirga in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), therefore, the following lines are an attempt to highlight the local perspective and the complications likely to arise out of the decision? In the Fata, Jirga functions as a formal state supported institution. However, in other areas of KP, the Jirga is an informal system of conflict resolution.

Principally, KP is a modern state society but practically it hasn’t attained the characteristic features required for a modern state society. It’s still going through the stage of tribal society. The purpose of this discussion is to address the role of informal Jirga in conflict resolution in areas of KP other than Fata.

Informal system for conflict resolution which exists in Pakhtun society is Jirga and Sharia. Jirga is an egalitarian body of influential persons plus other individuals who are known for their skills in negotiation and reconciliation to come together for consultation and find out a solution to a given problem. The influential and neutral local people comprising the Jirga are normally known to all in the area for their honesty, decency, generosity, and piousness.

The basic purpose of the Jirga is to discuss the issue so as to reach a solution to a problem. Jirga is normally organised to plan an activity, to chalk out the strategy of offence and defense against enemy. The purpose of debates at Jirga is to explore the possibilities of agreement and arrive at compromises. The mediation process takes place in community places such as hujra (men house) or jumaat (mosque) and in a manner open to public.

Sharia means to resolve disputes in the light of Islamic Jurisprudence. To opt for sharia is subject to the willingness of the disputants. When disputants agree to resolve the conflict by sharia laws, the case is submitted to a sharia expert for arbitration. The expert is selected on the mutual consensus of the parties. Jirga also plays an important role in the selection of sharia expert, venue, time and date. The sharia expert discusses the case in the presence of eye witnesses. A decision made is brought in writing duly singed by the sharia expert(s), witnesses as well as the disputants. Consensus between parties beforehand over the mode of arbitration itself reflects the binding nature of decisions made by the arbitrators. Informal system of conflict resolution functions in the presence of formal state system.

Formal state system is controlled by formal courts and executives. They are generally responsible to administer official justice system in KP (Pakistan). According to peoples’ perceptions there are different causes of the inefficacy of the formal justice system which include the nature of the law that govern the official justice system and which was imposed by the British Colonial government. Other causes are related to corruption among those running the system. Therefore, justice is accessible only to the influential and those who can pay to buy justice.

As reported by Transparency International (TI) “the other sector in Pakistan which is seen as notoriously inefficient and corrupt is the judiciary. According to TI Pakistan’s 2006 survey, 96 per cent of the people who came in contact with the judiciary encountered corruption and 44 per cent of them reported having to pay a bribe to a court official.”

The decisions made by the formal system are not consensual, hence, are not fit to the psyche of the disputants. Therefore, the decisions of the formal courts are not durable to resolve conflicts permanently. The people then precisely look for an alternative system that should deliver justice in a transparent manner. The alternative system is traditional one which the disputants psychologically own because of their participation in the process and also because it ensures autonomy and shows respect to their social status and glory.

Pakhtuns believe in social equality but the formal laws are not found consistent with the tradition of social equality because in a given dispute formal court, on the basis of evidences, emphatically declare one party as a winner and another as a loser and it did not leave space for collaborative or integrative solution to the problem. Hence, the formal system of conflict resolution needs to be looked in this perspective where one litigant is declared winner and the other as loser.

Traditional system will only break down if state institutions deliver more effectively than a traditional system. But formal court does not operate in cultural framework and studies a case in isolation and does not involve disputants while formulating a judgmental decision. Hence, this nonconformity of people to formal legal system was never resolved and formal justice system has never achieved a level truly reflecting people’s satisfaction.

If we look at the proverbial saying of “the rule of law”, it is inappropriate because there is no rule of law given by the state since the law giver needs to fulfill other prerequisites that make the citizens law abiding. It is because the state institutions do not perform to the satisfaction of people, hence, the weaker role of the state forces the people to look for alternative mechanism.

Hence, instead of relying on the government, people feel secure to get organised on the basis of consanguinity. Murder cases, a prime responsibility of the modern state to resolve, are also negotiated through informal system which depicts no confidence of people in the process and procedure of formal courts. Therefore, people abide by the decision of Jirga and verdict of Sharia which ensures their socio-psychological needs as well as security which they administer themselves.

The efficacy of traditional system is rooted in cultural values because it works in a manner to satisfy the disputants in cultural context emphasising social equality, autonomy and participation.

Formal legal system is fully operational in KP. In case it works and delivers properly, people would need no additional supportive institution like informal Jirga? However, if informal Jirga is converted into a state-supported institution, it would lose its present effectiveness because state supported Jirga would likely become as ineffective and defamed as other state institutions are.

[B]11.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Light at the end of the tubewell[/SIZE]
Farmers in Nankana benefit from a solar tubewell initiative, while others wait for the government’s plans to mature
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
[/CENTER][/B]
Maratab Ali is a progressive farmer in Ahmadwala village in district Nankana Sahib, which is hardly an hour’s drive from Lahore. The village is a sheer victim of excessive electricity loadshedding and its inhabitants live without it for 18 to 20 hours a day. There is no schedule at all for power failures.

The inhabitants of this village are mostly associated with agriculture. They grow cash crops, seasonal crops, fruits, vegetables and so on. As the village lies close to the Grand Trunk (GT) Road and big districts such as Gujranwala and Lahore, its produce has a ready market and it fetches good prices.

This increases the load on farmers, and the fields which have to be tilled repeatedly throughout the year. This is not easy for them in the absence of electricity required to run tubewells. They have to pump out water with the help of tubewells. The canal water is there but it is too scarce and available to farmers in very limited quantities.

Another option is to operate tubewells with diesel-run engines. This is totally non-viable for farmers as the use of imported fossil fuel raises the cost of production alarmingly, and makes their product too expensive.

So, in this situation, one wonders what the farmers shall do to survive or shall they look out for some other livelihood. Farmers of the village formed a community organisation and contributed some money to benefit from a donor-funded solar tubewell installation programme. Today water flows into the fields throughout the day, and above all there are no maintenance costs and exorbitant electricity bills like there were in the past, says Maratab who heads the body.

The total cost of the solar tubewell was Rs16,45,000. The farmers contributed Rs329,000 and the remaining Rs13,16,000 came from the Rural Community Development Society (RCDS) — a Punjab-based non-governmental development organisation. The solar tubewell benefits 40 households and irrigates around 70 acres of land. The per hour discharge of the tubewell is 60,000 liter and it irrigates three to four acres of land in a day with the help of 4-inch wide delivery pipe.

The farmers had to pay a share of Rs4,700 per acre share and the contribution amount per household depended on the size of the land they owned. For example, a family with landholding of four acres paid Rs18,800.

The RCDS got the required funds from Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) which channelises World Bank’s anti-poverty grants through reliable partners at the local level, says Muhammad Murtaza Khokhar, Executive Director RCDS, while talking to TNS. He says they have so far installed four tubewells in different parts of the province, whereas PPAF has provided 49 solar water pumping solutions throughout the country with the help of its partner organisations. In total, these projects have directly benefited 2,582 households and 17,968 individuals.

Murtaza adds the demand for solar tubewells is too high for non-government organisations to fulfill. They can do pilot projects to create awareness and show working examples to farmers, government departments and other stakeholders. The RCDS programme exclusively covers small farmers and releases funds only when organisations are formed at village level. Large-scale farmers and individual applicants are not eligible to benefit from this initiative.

Explaining the whole concept, he says his organisation chalks out village development programmes in the areas where it operates, and reaches out to people through social mobilisers to find out which solutions could help them reduce their poverty. In the case of Ahmadwala, it was observed these people were having difficulty in earning their livelihood — through agriculture — due to non-availability of electricity to run tubewells. “So, they got the solution they needed the most.”

Now the people are enjoying the benefits of solar pumps. Per day benefits to farmers is Rs1,500 to Rs2,000 and they have started sowing vegetables and planting guava orchards. The Village Organisation even has Rs70,000 in its account.

“Farmers were asked to contribute to the cost, just to create a sense of ownership of the project among them. They get water on their turn and each one of them guards the facility at night on different days,” Murtaza observes

Agricultural experts believe this kind of participatory farming is instrumental in publicising the benefits of this expensive technology and making it accessible to small and average-sized farmers. There are working models in many parts of the world where farmers’ contributions comes in the form of work hours they put into setting up facilities and even in kind. They may bring sand, mud and other construction material as contribution from their side.

Muhammad Ramzan, a solar power solution provider based in Lahore, thinks banks, especially those dealing in agricultural credit, must extend cooperation in this regard. No doubt donors and the government are working on this technology but they only support small scale farmers. “Why don’t the banks facilitate established farmers wanting to install solar tubewells?”

Ramzan says the prices are fast coming down with the arrival of more and more suppliers in the market. These service providers should make arrangements with financial institutions for this purpose. “Paying back these loans would not be a big problem as farmers would save a lot on electricity bills. These savings can also go into settlement of loan amounts,” he adds.

The solution is also highly suitable as different companies give at least 10-year guarantee at the time of their sales. Project components of a solar tubewell are solar panels, submersible pump, inverter, wires and foundations for the solar plates.

The farmers who are not covered under such programmes are looking for the government’s intervention. In case of Punjab, the provincial government has announced that it will give 80 per cent subsidy on solar tubewells to farmers, whose landholdings are less than 12.5 acres in size. They hope the plan undergoes execution within the stipulated timeframe, and does not suffer from delays typical of ambitious government programmes.

[B]11.08.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]Fata needs structural reforms[/SIZE]
The reforms proposed by the Fata Grand Assembly could be instrumental in addressing the multifarious problems of the tribal region
By Raza Khan[/CENTER][/B]

Over the years there have been numerous proposals for rehabilitating, developing and mainstreaming of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), however, none seems to have been adopted and have consequently delivered. The reason is that the earlier set of reforms were proposed by people who did not belong to the tribal areas and thus could not know the peculiar nature of administrative, political, legal and cultural problems and lacuna of in the Fata. In fact, all the previous reforms regarding the Fata had largely been formulated by bureaucrats who never wanted reforms in the tribal areas as it would have been tantamount to giving up the ways and means of making easy money.

The situation, therefore, in the tribal areas has gone from bad to worse with every kind of menace, whether religious extremism or terrorism or drug trafficking, continuing to afflict the region and its residents. Of late, the range of reforms recommended and are being advocated by associates of the umbrella organisation, the Fata Grand Assembly, are significant proposed measures that have come up till date from the miniscule civil society of the Fata. The reforms proposed by the Fata Grand Assembly, if implemented in letter and spirit, could be instrumental in addressing the multifarious and unique problems of the region nationally and internationally perceived to be the base of ferocious non-state terrorist networks.

The reforms included in the so-called ‘Fata Declaration’ were unanimously approved by more than 300 members of the Fata Reforms Councils from all the districts of the tribal areas. The unanimity was arrived at on the proposed reforms after extensive dialogue spanning five years. The dialogue has been focused on addressing the challenges in the implementation of already enacted political reforms in the Fata and recommendations for further reforms.

The Fata Grand Assembly is a conglomeration of political, religious leaders and civil society leaders, as well as students and women and lawyers bodies from the tribal areas. The Fata Grand Assembly also asserted that tribesmen and tribeswomen must be guaranteed the same fundamental rights enjoyed by other citizens of Pakistan.

It needs to be understood that any reforms for the Fata in recent years have aimed at alleviating the woes of the people there; putting an end to militancy and terrorism emanating from the region, initiating the reconstruction, rehabilitation and development process there.

The Fata Grand Assembly was hard-pressed to come up with its own reforms agenda for the region as the reforms process initiated by the state during the regime of Pervez Musharraf and carried forward by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led last federal government could not be fully implemented.

It may be recalled the process driven by the government-appointed Fata Reforms Commission which concluded its report and recommended several political, economic, judicial and social reforms in the Fata, could not be fully implemented while the process on other reforms has been snail-paced. Against this backdrop, notables from the Fata, representatives of political parties, Ulema, lawyers, journalists, students and women from the tribal areas gathered so that their collective voices may be heard at the highest political level.

The importance of the Fata Declaration can be gauged from the fact that within days of their proposing, President Asif Ali Zardari, who constitutionally has the powers to legislate laws and regulation for the tribal areas, invited the leading lights of the Fata Grand Assembly for an audience. During the meeting, President Zardari vowed to implement all the reforms in the Fata proposed by the Fata Reforms Committee. He admitted that the process may have been slow-paced but it would have far-reaching positive implications.

The foremost reform which the declaration emphasised on is the constitutional amendment to allow the Fata parliamentarians to legislate regarding their own areas. It is ironical that the members of the Parliament from the Fata, including both the National Assembly and the Senate of Pakistan, could take part in making laws for the entire Pakistan but not for their own region. There can be no bigger absurdity in the political and federal structure of Pakistan than this. Only the President of Pakistan is ex-officio the sole law-giver law-amender in the Fata. In this context, this is a very sound demand from the Fata Grand Assembly.

The Grand Assembly also asked for the formation of an elected ‘Fata Council.’ The aim of the council is to serve as an executive arm of the government. It would advise the Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), who is ex-officio, the administrative head of the Fata apart from the KP and is the top agent of the federal government for the Fata, in running the affairs of the region. If formed, an elected Fata Council would go a long way in ensuring at least a semblance of good governance in the tribal areas as well as laying the foundation of democratic oversight of the administrative affairs.

Another reform which the Grand Assembly has proposed is that the political administration shall be accountable to an elected local government. This recommendation has a rationale and those who know the tribal areas and the ruthless powers which the top official of each tribal district or agency known as the ‘Political Agent’ has and has been exercising cannot but agree with this demanded reform. For this, there is a need first that each tribal agency must have its own local municipal government and that too an elected one. It seems that the bureaucracy, which has always been the sole power wielder in the Fata, has hijacked the proposed local government system in the Fata conceived by the PPP government.

Division of executive and judicial powers in the Fata is another main recommendation of the Fata Grand Assembly. Since the introduction of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) by the British Colonialists in 1901, the political agent and its subordinate officials have been the repository of all the administrative and judicial powers in the Fata.

The Fata women don’t have any seats reserved for them in the NA. This is despite the fact that a large number of seats are reserved for women in the NA. Ironically, none of the political parties could give a single seat to a woman from the Fata from its quota since the practice started after the 2002 general elections. This credit goes to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which made Ayesha Gulalai from South Waziristan as the MNA. She has been nominated as MNA from the KP quota though she lives in Peshawar. If the process of change has really to be galvanized in the Fata, the region women have to be empowered meaningfully and its greatest indicator is giving them a role in political institutions and then governance.

The Grand Assembly has also proposed abolishment or extensive amending of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). The FCR, the legal-administrative framework for the Fata, promulgated by the British Colonial rulers, has been a draconian law. Although some reforms, including altering its most draconian clauses like the 40 FCR, have already been made by President Zardari, they could not safeguard the rights of the residents of the Fata. The only to overthrow the FCR is to make the Fata a new province.

A very sound reform proposed by the Fata Grand Assembly is the Extension of High Court jurisdiction to the Fata. Never in the history, the Fata had any court.

The Assembly has also proposed promotion of education throughout the Fata. Although this is very general demand, no efforts have been made, claims notwithstanding, for the promotion of education in the Fata. On the other hand, the extremists and terrorists have left no stone unturned by destroying the existing educational institutions in the Fata. So far, the terrorists have bombed more than 600 schools in the Fata.

[I]The writer is a political analyst and researcher:razapkhan@yahoo.com)[/I]

[B]18.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]A flood of challenges[/SIZE]
The current heavy rains and flooding call for comprehensive disaster preparedness rather than inadequate response
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed[/CENTER][/B]

The above normal rainfall in the current monsoon season has once again triggered flash floods in different parts of the country. This has resulted in loss of life and property, severing of communication links, displacement of people in affected areas, loss of livelihood, outbreak of diseases such as diarrhea, burden on the government to rescue and rehabilitate people and so on.

For many, the current floods are a flashback of what happened in 2010 when the country faced one of the worst floods of its history. Though the affected areas are mostly those which faced the brunt of the floods in 2010, there are some new areas like Jhal Magsi, Loralai, Turbat, Narowal, Chitral, Dera Ismail Khan, Peshawar and Karachi which have been flooded this time.

Another notable fact is that the main cities, which would earlier be spared of flood water by diverting it to rural and agricultural areas, came under water due to extraordinary rains. The rains exposed the inherent flaws in the defence mechanisms of these districts and the lack of capacity of the state machinery to tackle the issue. In the case of Karachi, there was no efficient drainage system in place as declared by National Disaster Management Authority Senior Member Kamran Zia.

The real matter of concern is that more rains are expected which will further aggravate the situation. Secondly, the river flooding is another looming threat. It is feared there may be spills or breaking of dykes if level of river waters rise above dangerous levels due to more rains.

Yet another matter of concern is that the already cash-starved government is not in a position to bear the burden of financial resources required to carry out rescue and rehabilitation activities. The international donors and relief organisations are quite understandably shying away from carrying out relief activities in Pakistan. Apart from security situation, it’s the concept of “donor fatigue” which seems to be at play.

This overall situation requires the government and other stakeholders to work on a long-term strategy aimed at minimising the effects of floods. Building of water reservoirs, provision of evacuation routes, construction of retaining walls and diversion channels and training of local communities to effectively handle emergencies are some of the ways to achieve these ends.

Experts in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) suggest that the reactive and response-oriented approach of disaster management bodies should give way to an approach where the disasters are avoided in first place, and in case they are unavoidable the damage could be minimised. They also call for climate compatible development — a concept gaining popularity all over the world. In this type of development, the planners have to design development projects keeping in view the environmental hazards they are exposed to and how capable they are to face them.

On the other hand, in Pakistan, people have the luxury of establishing settlements right there on riverbeds and block natural flow of river and rainwater by building obstructions and encroaching on land.



“Water management best way to tackle floods”

Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, former Director General Pakistan Meteorological Department and Senior Advisor Climate Change Development Network (CDKN) UK, thinks the most important aspect of handling floods now is how to manage flood water. This is quite manageable and not a big task if proper planning is done, he believes. His point is that the weather pattern is going to be totally predictable.

He tells TNS the national Met office released a forecast earlier in the year saying the monsoon rains would be normal. “At that moment, I said there may be heavy rains and everybody should remain prepared for emergencies.” Though the rainfall this year is not as heavy as it was in 2010, it is still heavier than the last two years and there is more to come.

The current patterns, he says, show there would be extreme conditions in years to follow. Either there would be dry seasons or there would be highly concentrated monsoon rain spells, sometimes separated by brief periods of dryness.

This abnormal rain pattern, he says, is primarily due to the climate change the globe has experienced. In the past, there would be evenly distributed rains and the rainfall would be around 20 millimeters to 30 millimeters on a particular raining day. Nowadays, there can be no rain for a week or so and suddenly there is 200 millimeter rain on one particular day. This is erratic but one has to be prepared for this, he says.

Qamar stresses the need for building reservoirs to hold excess water so that it can be used in times of dry spells. Letting it go waste and fall into see is criminal. Besides, in the absence of reservoirs and diversions water overflows embankments and destroys agricultural lands and residential localities.

Qamar also calls for laying of proper urban and agricultural infrastructure. The problem, he says, is that there are no separate arrangements for draining storm water in cities. Unfortunately, storm water is diverted to already choked sanitation channels and the result is disastrous. If such systems are in place, cities can be saved from flooding and excess water can be diverted to agricultural lands through specially constructed channels.

He also urges strengthening of embankments and enhancement in the capacity of headworks. These structures are outdated and not strong enough to survive strong torrents. The headworks hardly survived floods in 2010 and could have collapsed had there been more rains, he adds.



Local remedy

Pakistan is a disaster-prone country vulnerable to several natural calamities. There have been avalanches, cyclones, storms, droughts, earthquakes, floods, landslides, river erosion and tsunamis. These calamities have hit different places at different times. The vulnerability of a place to a particular calamity depends on its geographical location, topography, living patterns of its inhabitants, its proximity to sea, river or hills etc and other factors.

For example, villages situated in riverine areas of Punjab are more vulnerable to floods during heavy rains than cyclones which target coastal areas. This implies different areas of the country have different needs when it comes to disaster risk management and response. This in turn calls for local preparedness, assessment of local needs, financial and administrative powers for local authorities and public representatives and their direct interaction with disaster management authorities, donors, rescuers etc.

During the past and current calamities, it has been observed that local response and preparedness have been the keys to proper handling of floods and minimising damages.

In the absence of local government system in the country, this arm of disaster management and response mechanism is quite weak and need to be strengthened.

Nadeem Akhtar of Doaba Foundation — an NGO working on disaster management in Southern Punjab — tells TNS though the government ignored this part, the UNDP supported District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs) under its special programme. The DDMAs were very effective as they prepared district based contingency plans and coordinated with different departments, NDMA, PDMA, donors and others.

The focal persons of these DDMAs, he says, were on the payroll of UNDP and answerable to DCOs of respective districts. This programme has ended and now it’s at the mercy of bureaucracy. The efficacy of DDMA will further be enhanced once the local government elections are held and powers transferred to public representatives. Availability of adequate funds with local bodies will also help them equip themselves with rescue equipment.

Tasadaq Shah, Adviser on Disaster Risk Management, PLAN International, a global organisation specialising in disaster response, tells TNS that damage is already done whenever response has to come from a centralised management. As communication channels are blocked or become dysfunctional, it is very difficult for rescuers to reach an affected place or transport relief goods. The local machinery and community, therefore, must be capable enough to function as first line of defence while enforcements from provincial and national organisations arrive.

He suggests the locals know their needs the most and should be involved in disaster management planning related to their areas. Citing the example of Rajanpur in Punjab, he says they prepared a rapid assessment report and designed the disaster preparedness and response programmes according to the specific needs of the district, and shared it with the authorities.

— Shahzada Irfan Ahmed

[B]18.08.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Energy vision[/SIZE]
The government has finally chalked out a comprehensive plan for producing 50,000MW energy by harnessing all possible sources, including solar, biomass, biogas, hydel and coal
By Alauddin Masood[/CENTER][/B]

The “power crisis” that the country is currently facing has been in the making since late 1990s, adversely impacting the trade/industrial activities, new job creation, revenue generation and the country’s march towards progress and prosperity. This crisis speaks volumes about the sagacity, foresight and vision of the authorities that had been manning the affairs of the state during all these past years.

There can be no quick fix solutions for an old, chronic and complex problem of this size. However, the nation can brave it for a few years more if the people are convinced that the government is trying to redress the situation and that it has a vision for the future and is now moving in the right direction in a transparent manner.

The word “crisis,” in the Chinese language, means both danger and opportunity. There is an impending danger in every crisis which poses a challenge to the stakeholders — the people, the concerned institutions, the nation and the country. If there is an appropriate response, it means the opportunity has been taken by the forelock. The word “crisis” itself comes from the Greek word “Krisis,” which means decision. It goes without saying that an appropriate response to a challenge depends upon an appropriate decision.

After resolving the Rs480 billion circular debt issue, according to authorities, the country still faces a shortfall though power generation has now peaked to 16,170MW. Realising the gravity of the situation and its impact on the national economy, the PML-N government has attempted to grab the opportunity by taking measures to tackle the energy crisis head-on.

The government is now mulling a 25-year comprehensive plan for producing 50,000MW energy. The plan envisages a number of measures, both short and long-term, to end the lingering energy crisis and meet future needs of the country by harnessing all possible sources, including solar, biomass, biogas, bagasse, hydel, coal, etcetera, for the generation of energy.

In their statements also, the PML-N leaders have expressed the government’s resolve to overcome the energy crisis and make best efforts for generating low-cost electricity. A solution to the energy crisis, no doubt, is a big challenge but the PML-N government seems to have accepted it and appears to be taking all possible measure to overcome the shortage of energy and even to cater for the country’s future requirements over the next 25 years. But, the outcome does not depend upon rhetoric alone, rather on an “appropriate response,” as mentioned earlier. Apparently, the government’s response seems to be pragmatic and prudent, but the result would depend upon the actual implementation and execution of the 25-year plan.

Dr Musadik Malik, special assistant to the prime minister, has explained “the key aim of the power policy 2013” in an exclusive interview to daily The News (August 7, 2013). According to him, its key aim is to “attract local and foreign investments and subsequently expand the country’s power generation capacity with a focus on producing cheap electricity. And investments can only be encouraged if the sector is made attractive and bankable by eliminating all subsidies to prevent circular debt....The tariff escalation underpins the government’s long-term transformation and sustainability goals in the power sector. Altering the energy mix towards less expensive fuels will lead to generating affordable energy.”

A beginning towards the implementation of this plan was made on July 31, 2013 when the Council of Common Interests approved the National Power Policy 2013-18. The plan aims at ending the power loadshedding by 2017, increasing power tariff, eliminating subsidy, in particular for bulk/commercial/industrial consumers, and setting up of utility courts to take the power and gas thieves to task. The tariff increase of Rs2 to Rs6.59 per unit has been made effective from August 1. Defending the decision, Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Muhammad Asif said: “The country will have to confront circular debt again if the power tariff is not raised.”

Two energy parks — one each in Cholistan (Punjab) and Gadani (Balochistan) — are proposed to be set up. The power plants at the Gadani park would use imported coal. Addressing at Gadani on August 1, 2013, Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif said that a similar park needs to be set up at Thar to utilise the huge potential of coal of that region.

The Rs60 billion Gadani park project would generate 660MW electricity. It would include eight projects of independent power producers, including one by the All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association to supply electricity to the national textile industry. Pakistan and China have also signed an agreement to build a coal-based power plant at Gadani. Electricity produced by coal costs less and, according to experts, electricity produced from the local coal could be supplied to the consumers at Rs9 per unit while the energy produced using the imported coal could be supplied at Rs13 per unit.

Presently, coal is providing 26 per cent primary energy and 40 per cent of electricity supply worldwide. Coal has gained special importance due to the growing concerns for energy security prompted by apprehensions about fast depletion of the known resources of energy and abnormal fluctuations in the international prices of oil.

Currently, China is the world’s largest producer as well as the biggest consumer of coal, accounting for 78 per cent of its total energy requirement. Meeting 60 per cent of its energy requirements from coal, the USA is the second largest user of coal on the globe. Ironically, Pakistan meets about 7 per cent of its electricity needs from coal. Pakistan’s continued dependence on imported fuels obliges the nation to make huge annual payments in foreign exchange from its meagre earnings, leading to burgeoning circular debt; while creating jobs and benefits in foreign lands but denying the same benefits to its citizens.

With total reserves of some 195 billion tons, globally Pakistan is the sixth largest coal rich country, having an aggregate energy potential exceeding the combined energy potential of the entire resources of Saudi Arabia and Iran. At Thar alone, Pakistan’s coal reserves are estimated to be over 185 billion tons against India’s total coal deposits of 140 billion tons. Seven other coal fields in Sindh have 8.617 billion tons of coal reserves. These include Lakhra, Sonda-Thatta, Jherruck, Oagar, Indus East, Meting Jhimper and Badin with reserves of 1.328 billion tons, 3.700 billion tons, 1.323 billion tons, 312 million tons, 1.777 billion tons, 161 million tons and 16 million tons respectively.

Other major fields in the country contain reserves of over 533 million tons. These include Khost-Sharig-Harnai, Sor-Range-Degari, Mach-Abagum, Duki and Pir Ismail Ziarat in Balochistan with reserves of 76 million tons, 34 million tons, 23 million tons and 12 million tons respectively; Salt Range and Makerwal-Gullakhel in Punjab with reserves of 234 million tons and 22 million tons respectively; and Hangu in NWFP with a reserve of 81 million tons. In addition to these major fields, there exist minor coal deposits at Badiuzai, Bahol, Bala Chaka, Bhalgor, Johan, Kachh, and Margot in Balochistan; Cherat in NWFP; Choi in Punjab; Khilla (near Muzaffarabad) and Kotli in Azad Kashmir.

It is need of the hour to fully exploit the national coal reserves. To make it possible, the country needs to upgrade and modernise the quarrying techniques, inviting foreign capital and expertise, and train the manpower for this job.

The future energy plan also envisages the setting-up a solar park — Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park — in Cholistan. Spread over 10,000 acres, Cholistan park project is expected to bring about a revolution in the solar energy sector. It is planned to encourage both local and foreign investors to set-up solar power plants in this park.

On August 2, 2013, the Punjab government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chinese company Norenco for the setting-up of a 300MW solar power plant in this park. The MoU envisages completion of this project within 12 months.

The Punjab government has made arrangements to provide one-window facility to investors in the energy projects. In this connection, Punjab has set up a dedicated secretariat for ensuring investment in energy projects, provision of facilities to the investors and rapid implementation on the projects.

A sum of Rs30 billion has been allocated in Punjab’s current budget for the energy sector. Addressing Punjab Energy Investment Conference in Lahore, on August 4, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif called upon both local and foreign investors to come forward for launching coal-based energy projects in Punjab, assuring them that the government would provide maximum facilities and incentives to them. He said that there is a capacity of producing 1,000MW power from bagasse in Punjab and that the bagasse-based projects could be completed within 18 months.

The Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company has announced plans to build a 600MW plant, in 3-5 years, and expand it to 1,200MW. It said the project would yield a power tariff of approximately eight US cents per kilowatt per hour. Three other private sector companies have announced plans to set up five small/medium sized power plants in Sindh with a cumulative capacity of 135MW and an investment of $281 million.

Meanwhile, China Sunec Energy has approached the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) for a generation licence for two of its wind power projects, including a 50MW project in Jhimpir (Sindh) and a 2.4MW project in Naooriabad (Jamshoro-Sindh). It may be recalled that two wind power projects – FFCEL 49.5MW and Zorlu Energy 56.4MW – have already been completed in the province. Another company, JDW Sugar Mills, has approached NEPRA for grant of licences for its two bagasse power plants of 26.35MW each. The sugar mill proposes to set up one plant in Machi Goth (Sadiqabad-Punjab) and the other in Ghotki (Sindh).

NEPRA is reportedly receiving numerous ‘generation licence applications’ from the private sector for small and medium-sized projects, which require less investment and time to complete. Last year, NEPRA processed 14 applications for the generation of 1,343MW of electricity and it issued 12 generation licences.

Work on Rs250 billion 950MW Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project is already in progress and it is expected to be completed by 2017. The government is expected to announce the details of other future projects in its 25-year plan after their approval by the Council of Common Interests.

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

[B]18.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Since Independence[/SIZE]
Confluence of economic and social challenges coupled with the rigidity of religious class pose an existential threat to Pakistan
By Dr Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi[/CENTER][/B]

Most Pakistanis, while not oblivious to the country’s multiple challenges, still think that the country, resting on weak foundations of democracy, conservative religious orthodoxy, and poor economy, remains fundamentally instable. Optimists think the country has survived numerous crises over the past more than six and half decades and there is little reason to think it cannot continue to do so in future. To the optimists, past is the preface. But history is not always a reliable guide and status quo will not be the future.

No single problem in Pakistan is likely to be fatal to the state. It is the confluence of so many challenges coupled with the rigidity of religious class, the sullenness of the society, the escalating demands of the youth, weak and shabby political structure, immature political vision of politicians, and most important, the instability inherent in generational succession that could well prove detrimental to the country.

It is not that Pakistanis are worse off than other neighbouring countries people. They lead more comfortable lives than most. It is not that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been a worse leader of the country than his predecessors. On the contrary, he is more sincere, a man of developmental economics, visionary and benevolent than most. It is not that Pakistan is making no progress. But the confluence of challenges is far greater than any time in the past. More important, the Pakistanis are less patient and more demanding than they were in the past. This can be witnessed from the recent general elections in the country where four provinces experienced four different political parties and alliances. The clergy class, once upon a time both feared and respected, these days is neither. Thus people are neither guided politically by the politicians nor spiritually by the Mullas, which is resulting in a rudderless and aimless nation, trying different experiences and experiments to find a way out for themselves.

Alexis de Tocqueville, in The Ancient Regime, described a kingdom of France “made up from different, disunited orders and from a people whose citizens have only a small number of ties in common. As a result, no one concerns himself with anything but his own private interests.” Louise XVI was the only French king in that nation’s long history to make an effort to unite his people in anything other than “an equal state of dependency”. But after so many years of divide and disunity, the French discovered, de Tocqueville wrote, that “it had been much simpler to divide them than it was thereafter to reunite them.” When Pakistan is seen in its present circumstances in the prism of history, one finds that de Tocqueville could have been describing today’s Pakistan.

At the 67th independence anniversary, Pakistani society is facing multiple challenges. Religion, the glue that kept the society intact, is today a source of division. Different contending religious forces wield the Quran to challenge each other and the regime. Some do not want to join politics but still drop no chance to harm the government and the country. Some cannot join the government and hence out of frustration damage the government and the state. In both cases, religion proves a strong tool to declare their opponent as an infidel.

An overwhelmingly youthful society with its access to social media like the Facebook, Twitter, internet, e mail etc has outside information and influence that challenges the authority of all sorts. The state is amidst a global war on terror and hence is unable to create jobs to absorb the youth bulge. Disappointed youth is ready to follow any political force that gives them a juicy slogan of “change”.

From abroad, India poses a far greater threat to Pakistan than has any foreign power in the recent past. Indo-US nuclear deal, and growing Indian role in Afghanistan will lash back its repercussions on Pakistan. Pakistan is reducing its defense budget due to its economic difficulties. However, Indian defense budget is souring with every passing year. Over and above, Pak-Afghan irritants have also soured the region’s atmosphere. Different terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and threatening Pakistan’s state and society have been funded by the Indian and the Afghan secret services. Moreover, deteriorating Pak-US relations are further fueling the fire. Pakistan is situated in a region where very few neighbouring countries are, in true sense, its friends. Thus the fish is having hard time swimming in an unfriendly sea.

So on the 67th independence occasion, what might the Pakistani government do to resolve some of the Islamic Republic’s challenges? If Arab Spring takes place in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya with no yielded improvements, Pakistan will benefit. As an alternative to any such Spring without reforms and improvements and with bloodshed and destruction, Pakistan is grateful at least for stability. However, instead of banking on failure elsewhere, we need to take initiative to improve our standing.

For starters, the elected government supported by the civil society should codify into law and enforce the modest and modern reforms so that they do not fade away under a new prime minister or a forthcoming dictator. The reforms which are proposed here do not mean the last words. It’s just to begin the debate so that we, as a nation, may start things on these lines. Today debate means tomorrow serious actions. We have to go step by step.

Democracy means Westminster Democracy. However, different countries have trimmed it as per their needs, culture and requirements. If the Pakistani nation is not that patient and if the Pakistani politicians are not that reliable, why shouldn’t we reduce a government term from five yours to three. This will mean lesser time for a government in which she will have to perform more. Their strategies will be quick and swift for achieving victory in the forthcoming general elections. On the other hand, frequent elections means the electoral college (the voters) will be politically more mature and will judge the performance of every government with comparisons and contrasts. Every political party that assumes power will remain at the edge of seat to perform more in less time. This would mean a true welfare state and benefit of the common man.

Pakistan deserves a strong law and order process. Thus law enforcing agencies must be given extensive powers. I know declaring it a police state will have its own negative repercussions. However, this will also strengthen the principle of upholding rule of law. Strong police with latest weapons, more authority, and greater training will serve the purpose. British, German, French, American, and Japanese police can be sighted as a few examples.

Governing a country is too serious a process to be left to the politicians only. Hence, even they need assistance of experts. if half the parliament is composed of technocrats (university professors, subject experts, retired civil and military bureaucrats, eminent Ulema (clergy class), sports legendaries, NGOs, successful business men/women, labour union leaders, house-wives and other sections of civil society), this will give an expert glance to legislation taking place in the house. The law passed by all such sections of society will not only be a pure law but will also be abided by all and sundry. Indeed it will be a law passed by the voice and mind of the people. This will be a way forward, presumably well short of Western democracy, to provide elements of political and societal pluralism that would engage the best and brightest of Pakistani society, not just more and more businessmen/landlords-cum-politicians, in governance.

Local municipal councils have just become a crowning feather into the caps of every government to score more marks in their tenure. But they do not empower them for local development. Funds are still distributed to the MNAs and MPAs. Local municipal councils elected for a term equal to the tenure of a National and Provincial Assembly must be given the right to tax citizens to fund programmes they favour in their own municipality. This would mean local revenues spent at local level. This would result in two-fold benefit: first, the nationalists will be satisfied that their money is being spent in their own area; second local development would mean, at mega level, development and prosperity of the entire country.

Normalisation of relations with neighbours is a prerequisite for peace inside and outside the country. Exchange of status like MFN between India and Pakistan are a good-will gesture which must be copied with other countries like Afghanistan and Iran. More economic ties with neighbours mean lesser political problems. Our foreign policy must be now from high politics to low politics. The world look has changed from security to economics. Hence our every ambassador and diplomat must have some kind of education on economics and its bounties and their performance may be evaluated on the basis of economic agreements between the host country and Pakistan.

Stronger economic relations with other countries will prove cyclical. The industry in the country will be on move. This would mean more employment. Hence the youth bulge will be employed here who would not heed to the Arab Spring in the long run.

The clergy class is left free of the state control. Such freedom has cost us a lot. If it is an Islamic Republic, religion is the part and parcel of the state. Hence, state must be in control of the clergy class. Thus state must issue the Juma Khutba (Friday sermon). Eminent religious scholars must be hired to seek their help in fulfilling such activities with religious zeal and zest.

Since Independence, Pakistan has been wedded to its status quo. Successive administrations found any significant change in that status quo to be so threatening as to be almost unthinkable. But the greater danger now lies precisely in clinging to the status quo, as rapid changes swirl both inside and outside the country.

Keeping the Arab Spring in view, especially what happened on last Wednesday in Egypt, any effort to bring reforms through public pressure is bound to backfire. This will doom the reforms with an infidel kiss of death and ruining the country more. Only the government of Pakistan can save Pakistan from the backlash of ‘Pakistani Spring’.

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

[B]18.08.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]The aim of Pakistan[/SIZE]
In this land of the pure, democracy has come to signify a government off the people, buy the people and far the people
By Dr Pervez Tahir[/CENTER][/B]

Pakistan’s independence was the result of a democratic vote. Its founder had declared, in no uncertain terms: “There are millions and millions of people who hardly get one meal a day. Is this civilization? Is this the aim of Pakistan? …If that is the idea of Pakistan, I would not have it.”

The observation was made because democracy is a system of government of the people, by the people and for the people. But in this land of the pure, democracy has been turned on its head. It has come to signify a government off the people, buy the people and far the people. Politicians of all shades and hues had promised that the economic problems of the people would be solved once we say goodbye to military dictatorship and a democratic era ushers in. Five years of an elected government delivered nothing of the sort.

The first two months of a second elected government indicate continuity, itself an achievement in political terms, but not a change as far as the common men and women are concerned.

On the Independence Day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared that the holding of May 11 elections amidst existential threats provided the evidence that the country could rely on the consciousness of the people. For the first time, he promised a progressive rather than an Islamic welfare state. The evening before, his finance minister was on the chat shows painting the worst picture of the state of the economy and the absolute essentiality of the IMF dole. That did not prevent the younger Sharif in Lahore from warning that the country’s very existence would continue to be in jeopardy so long as the Kashkol remained the reason of our fame.

Have the ordinary folks ever figured seriously in the core business of the state? For a basic but dignified existence, the people require food, livelihood, personal security and justice. Sadly, all these went beyond the reach of those at the lowest quintile of income at a time when a party formed in the name of the people ruled the country for good five years. What to speak of actually solving these problems, it seems there was no plan to make life easier for the common man. Presidential immunity and third time premiership were the preoccupations of those charged with the responsibility of delivering governance or hoping to be in that position.

The rulers of the fifties had snatched roti from the poor. Dictators of the sixties took away kapra and makan from the hapless to nurture twenty two families. In the seventies, the party of roti, kapra aur makan emerged with the promise of undoing this historical injustice. Economic conditions of the seventies and present have striking similarities. The first oil price shock contributed to the highest ever rate of inflation of 27 per cent. And yet the party of the people was able to protect the real income of the ordinary people. Poverty declined. There were no queues for atta. Power or gas loadshedding was unknown. After the traumatic partition of the country in 1971, the party of the people picked up the pieces and put them together again.

During the recent rule of the party of the people also, there was again a jump in oil price. Inflation went up to as high as 25 per cent. War on terror, an abiding testimony of the enlightened moderation of the dictator of 2000s, took a heavy toll of life and property. But the experience of the poor was different. Long queues for atta, electricity riots, gas loadshedding and their rising prices, rising poverty and rampant joblessness are only a few facets of an increasingly hard struggle to survive. A large number of earners made less than the lowly minimum wage. While cities experienced increasing homelessness, villages witnessed rising landlessness. Worst of all, any one stepping out of home is not sure of a safe return.

Public sector investment in social is necessary to improve access and quality to the common person. In the post-18th Amendment period, the responsibility as well as resources rest exclusively with the provinces. However, all the failed slogans of the Musharraf decade were adopted by the PPP regime and now by the PML-N regime — uncritically. Without understanding the profound implications of this constitutional change, EDUCATION FOR ALL, HEALTH FOR ALL and DRINKING WATER FOR ALL are touted by the ministers as their preferred programmes. Education ministers promised to take expenditure on education to four per cent of GDP in a few years, oblivious of the fact that it has been under two per cent for over a decade.

The enrolment target for the MDG related to elementary education is likely to be missed by a wide margin in 2015. The largest province, Punjab, has actually reduced the allocation for social sectors in the latest budget. Similarly, the expenditure on health is unlikely to be more than half a per cent of GDP.

In 2015, Pakistan will be among the worst performers in terms of the MDGs regarding infant and maternal mortality. On the basis of figures that no one but the World Bank, trusts, the MDG target of poverty has already been achieved. It seems the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper sponsored by the World Bank was not just on paper. The operation was successful, but the patient died.

Resource mobilisation is the key, but resource utilisation and ensuring outcomes is equally important. The finance minister has promised to raise the tax to GDP ratio by one per cent every year. In an economy failing to grow respectably above the population growth rate, and with the present showing of an under 10 per cent tax to GDP ratio, one need not be a trained economist to see through the wishful thinking involved here. Whatever resources are available, their allocations are poorly planned on an incremental basis, releases are less than allocations and the utilised amounts invariable fail to yield the desired outcomes.

The euphemism for this state of affairs is bad governance. There is no appreciation here of the fact that centralised civil service has become incongruent with the devolution of power under the 18th Amendment. Finally, the non-democratic systems of local governance being legislated by the democratic elected provincial governments of Punjab and Sindh will take us back to the Morley-Minto period.

Should the people despair of the Jamhuriat or democracy? The plain truth is that the alternatives to democracy have been tried four times in our history, each ending with as an unmitigated disaster. The sixties left the people with a widening rich-poor gap and the second partition leading to the formation of the new state of Bangladesh. Social polarisation was accompanied by an economy in tatters. The eighties brought the genie of obscurantism out of the bottle. The chickens came to roost in 2000s, as the war on terror had dire consequences for the economy and society.

The problem with the political regimes has been that these were not democratic enough. Their economic management also left much to be desired. As a matter of fact, the best decade in terms of economic indicators was that of General Ziaul Haq. Economic growth was high, poverty as well as income inequality declined. However, the regime had the worst record of rights poverty. Political regimes, at least, did not leave behind a bleeding state and society. Their poor economic record was explained by their premature termination. Now that a political regime was able to complete its term, we now know that this was not the only factor in the economic failure of political regimes.

What needs to be done is to make Jamhuriat more Awami and to work on a consensus on a charter of economic and social rights. The consensus may be built around the following points, driven by the objective of bringing the people into the economic and political sphere by ending the elite capture of the state. These include:

Full democratisation of local governance.

Reservation of seats for workers, peasants and youth in all elected bodies.

Electorates’ right to recall a representative not performing to their satisfaction.

Decentralisation of economic planning.

Decentralisation of the centralised services such as DMG, PSP, etc.

An autonomous FBR, placed under the CCI, with members from all the provinces.

Provincial sovereignty over their natural resources.

Land reform to end rural poverty, together with crop and livestock insurance.

A fully funded mass programme of demand-driven skill formation to end urban poverty and a minimum employment guarantee.

An unequivocal financial commitment to universal, free, compulsory and quality education up to intermediate level; selective, merit-based and quality higher education.

State-supported universal health insurance as part of a Social Protection Floor.

A medium term strategy to go all out for the indigenous development of solar energy.

Regional peace and mutually beneficial flow of goods, services and people.

[B]18.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Taxes for what[/SIZE]
The government’s yearning for “more and more taxes” has become a point of irritation for the citizens who argue where are the entitlements promised in the Constitution as quid pro quo
By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq[/CENTER][/B]

Successive governments — military and civilian alike — have failed to convince the people that payment of taxes is their collective responsibility. The major reason for tax defiant culture in Pakistan is abuse of taxpayers’ money by Riasti Ashrafiya (state oligarchy) — militro-judicial-civil complex and public office holders — for plots, perquisites, personal comforts and luxuries.

People say if the government cannot protect their life and property, it has no right to collect taxes. In a democratic polity, taxes are collected for providing the citizens universal entitlements e.g. health, education, housing, transport, and civic amenities etc. The valid argument against paying taxes in Pakistanis is that it constitutes extortion by the ruling oligarchy for perpetuation of its control over resources.

The government’s yearning for “more and more taxes” has become a point of irritation for the citizens who argue where are the entitlements promised in the Constitution as quid pro quo? Excessive taxation without growth and equity has only compounded our economic ills — look at the number of fiscal deficit, quantum of internal and external debts, rate of inflation etc.

Voicing his concern, Nadeem-Ul-Haque, former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, in Reform or face fundamental ascendency, emphasised, “the state must first provide the social contract i.e. good law and order and security of life. It must dismantle the rent seeking that protects the rich….. Rent seeking relies on three main components: state subsidies, licensing and regulation; special perks and privileges for ministers and army and civil service employees and land distribution system that allows the poor man’s land to be acquired for the elite especially the army and civil service”.

An equitable tax system requires payments linked with benefits received from government services — the Scandinavian social democracy model is a good example to quote. In social democracies, the cost of government services are apportioned amongst individuals according to the relative benefits they enjoy. In economic terms, this is called “benefit principle” that presupposes determination of the incidence of public expenditure before deciding distribution of tax burden.

Tax policy should be aimed at achieving the cherished goal of distributive justice. The government should launch programmes financed mainly through taxes, to solve the twin problems of unemployment and poverty. These welfare-oriented schemes may also include free medical and educational facilities, low-cost housing, and drinking water facilities in rural areas, land improvement schemes, and employment guarantee programmes. Once people see the tangible benefits of the taxes paid, there will be better response to tax compliance.

Taxes cannot be collected through harsh measures and irrational policies as has been done recently by Ishaq Dar. The government, by its actions, must demonstrate to the citizens that money collected from them is spent for collective welfare. Presently, the ruling oligarchy is enjoying innumerable tax-free benefits from money collected from the masses, which get nothing in return. This is worst one can think of in any system of government.

It is an irrefutable fact that despite resorting to all kinds of negative tactics, blocking of bona fide refunds, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has failed to improve tax-to-GDP ratio. It declined to 8.2 per cent during the financial year 2012-13 from 9.2 per cent in the immediate preceding year. With failure to collect target of Rs2381 billion, the fiscal deficit jumped to nearly Rs1700 billion proving that irrational tax impositions cannot avert fiscal disaster.

In 2004, the FBR promised 0.2 per cent per annum growth in the tax-to-GDP ratio for the next five years while submitting ‘tax projections’ and ‘revenue-to-GDP ratio’ to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the conclusion of 9th review under the Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF). The FBR informed the IMF that it would increase tax-to-GDP ratio from 9.2 per cent to 10.3 per cent in 2008-09 — in reality there was a decline of 0.4 per cent! Even the funding by World Bank for reforms (sic) of the FBR could not bring desired results as there is perpetual decline in tax-to-GDP ratio.

Economy as a whole in a shambles — growth in real terms is negative, debt burden is increasing monstrously, fiscal deficit has reached 68 per cent of GDP, inflation is again in double digit, taxes are evaded by the rich massively and whatsoever is collected is mercilessly wasted by the state oligarchy — who really matter in this Land of Pure.

Riasti Ashrafiya is thriving on the taxpayers’ money — they are the main beneficiaries of all the state’s resources. The list of tax free perquisites available to them is baffling and shocking — Perils of tax breaks, The News, February 17, 2013. The government’s kitty is empty because of wasteful spending on the perquisites of a handful few, on useless state enterprises and financing the monstrous government machinery that is both inefficient and corrupt.

The colossal wastage of taxpayers’ money on unproductive expenses gets further compounded when there is no will to take advantage of vital natural and human resources on the part of Riasti Ashrafiya. What makes things worse is the fact that many powerful political figures, in government and opposition, and strong men in khaki and mufti have stacked billions of dollars abroad when their fellow countrymen are dying of hunger — Our money, their banks, The News, July 7, 2013. These classes pay miserly tax in Pakistan but enjoy unprecedented tax-free benefits financed by the common people!

The ruling elites, representing militro-judicial-civil complex, industrialists-turned-politicians, absentee landlords and unscrupulous traders, are owners of huge movable and immovable assets created out of untaxed money. The issue of Pakistan is how to make tax incidence equitable and just. It is not possible unless all the generals, judges of higher judiciary, high-ranking civil officials get ‘consolidated pay packages’ and pay tax on that just as other employees do. These packages should be market-oriented but not tax-free.

The government, if sincere in collecting taxes from all, should immediately withdraw all exemptions and tax whitening schemes [section 111(4) of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001], enforce agricultural income tax on absentee landlords earning net income of more than Rs400,000, reintroduce wealth tax on the super-rich and immediately legislate for asset-seizure law to counter money laundering, tax evasion and rent-seeking.

It is admitted by the FBR that even after “great efforts” (sic) less than 1.5 million filed income tax declarations for tax year 2012. In Pakistan, the total number of mobile users alone is 125 million, out of which 5 million are rich and pay more than Rs40,000 as annual bill — they are potential taxpayers. Why have they not been compelled by the FBR to file returns? It testifies to the FBR’s inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

These days, the FBR is taking undeserved credit for a new initiative (sic) by establishing the post of Commissioner (Headquarters) Broadening of Tax Base given the task of adding a few thousands new taxpayers this year. This Commissioner sitting right in the FBR is completely oblivious of ground reality that how easily we can raise the number of tax filers to 4 million, if not more — presently 50 million plus are paying adjustable income tax for usage of mobile service and selecting from them who earn taxable income, but not filing tax declarations, is not a difficult task. But the FBR wants many new posts to do it! It can be done with a simple software application — Member IT of FBR can ask service providers to identify who are paying Rs40,000 or more per annum.

[I]The writers, tax lawyers, are Adjunct Professors at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) [/I]

[B]18.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Tackling terrorism[/SIZE]
The national counterterrorism draft policy to be announced by the end of the month is five pronged — to dismantle, contain, prevent, educate and re-integrate
By Raza Khan
[/CENTER][/B]
Eventually Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has announced that the basic structure of the proposed national security policy would be ready by the end of August. The minister said this on August 13 after presenting a draft of the new policy to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The draft policy is relatively a detailed one; however, it cannot be termed as comprehensive. Nevertheless, to start with it is good to have some policy instead of none as there is always room for improvement and adjustments.

Most importantly the draft policy titled National Counter Terrorism and Extremism Policy 2013 seeks to achieve the huge task of counterterrorism through large-scale reforms in the education system, police, judiciary and the foreign policy. This is something very realistic because the phenomena of extremism and terrorism in Pakistan or for that matter in any other country cannot be treated as isolated trends. They are definitely linked to the wider socio-economic and political developments prevailing and taking place in the country.

In so far as the education system is concerned not only the madrassas but the mainstream education system has also significantly contributed to the rise in extremist views, particularly in the name of Islam, Pakistani nationalism as well as sub-state nationalism. The public sector education system has been producing extremely narrow worldviews among the students. This has mainly been due to the reason that merely job-seekers have been joining teaching profession. On the other hand the curricula of the public sector schools lack quality and scientific education which could develop critical faculties among students. Resultantly, these schools could not produce students who could be of value to the state and society. Noticeably, half of Pakistani population is illiterate, they could not even get the basic education to understand their environment and unfolding trends. Consequently, these people have been highly gullible and susceptible to every kind of propaganda.

Indubitably, the extremely narrow base of Pakistan’s foreign policy and its unrealistic objectives warranted toleration rather facilitation of extremist groups operating in the name of Islam. This in turn significantly contributed to the rise of extremism and terrorism in the country. Most of these groups which were first allowed to operate by the past governments transformed into terrorist groups. It is important to understand that from the standpoint of terrorism studies most often than not terrorism is the result of a protracted process of radicalisation. Terrorism in Pakistan has been its typical example.

Pakistan’s policy over the decades rather from the very outset has been focused on the single objective of seeking strategic security. Our decision-makers and strategists could not understand the concept of security itself. Security is holistic concept and has various aspects like economic security, political-constitutional security, environmental security and so on apart from geo-strategic security. Without having security on all fronts a country cannot have geostrategic security at all. In modern states the economic and political security must first be achieved so as to have geostrategic security. Ironically, in Pakistan our foreign policy has always considered other aspects of security of least importance. As a consequence today we neither have political and economic security nor strategic security; terrorist groups are threatening the very survival of the state from within while enemy states are jeopardising the state from without.

While one cannot say anything about the reformation of judiciary, specific judicial structures like the anti-terrorism courts need to be restructured. More importantly the implementation on laws regarding anti-terrorism must not only be ensured but also expeditious trials as the Anti Terrorism Act 1997 envisaged (allowing only seven days for the trials of accused) must also be stringently implemented.

The draft policy is relatively extensive in the sense that it seeks to counter extremism and terrorism through five prongs that is to dismantle, contain, prevent, educate and re-integrate. Given the elaborate nature and extensive structure of various Pakistani terrorist groups operating in the name of Islam and their ferociousness, dismantling the terrorist networks would both require super, highly coordinated intelligence.

It is good that the draft policy focuses on eliminating all terrorist networks through counter-insurgency, intelligence, police and prosecution. Equally important is the aspect that the policy rules out reconciliation with the leadership of terrorist groups but gives ample room for pardoning the files or ‘foot soldiers’ — provided they respect the state authority.

The formation of a joint intelligence secretariat as envisaged in the draft policy in this regard would be instrumental provided the intelligence inputs are treated expeditiously by the security forces. Thus the role of the combat and special forces would also be very important. The draft policy also includes the raising of a counterterrorism rapid response force. However, the force comprising of 500 personnel either serving or retired army or police personnel, would first be formed in the national capital and then to be replicated in the provinces. As terrorism in Pakistan has affected three of the four provinces the most; therefore, the policy must go for simultaneous raising of counterterrorism rapid response force in Islamabad and provinces.

If terrorist networks have to be dismantled it would require complete clarity of policy whether the state and its interests still need these networks as has been the case. This in turn would require a total consensus between the political government and the civilian-military bureaucracy. One is afraid there are many disconnects between the two aspects of the state apparatus. So it remains to be seen how the political government would exercise its authority and convince the civilian and military bureaucracy of the rightness of its policy.

It also needs to be understood that the terrorist networks over the years have got themselves well-entrenched. Therefore, their dismantling would need a gargantuan effort not only by the law enforcement agencies but also by all the government departments. Now it would depend on the quality of leadership and the nature of governance which the leadership would provide which could bring all the government departments in one line in the pursuit of the policy objectives. Dismantling terrorist networks and groups by any measure is a daunting task.

Containing terrorism focuses on the three main parts; security against attacks; emergency response and victim management. Containing extremism and terrorism would require all out efforts by the key government and state institutions including the bureaucracy, the military, the media, the religious community and the academia. The government must engage all these institutions in the formation of final draft of the national security policy and its execution.

Preventing extremism and terrorism is a complex, sustainable and knowledge-based process. It requires complete profiling of the terrorist networks, their strength and weaknesses as well as the resources particularly human and financial at their disposal as well as their sources. Against this backdrop the draft policy calls for ‘periodic assessment’ of the terror threat by the National Counter-Terrorism Authority in coordination with intelligence agencies. I don’t think this would work and needs to be reassessed.

The role of education in both contribution to and countering of extremism and terrorism has been discussed above.

Reintegration is always an important aspect of counterterrorism as well as anti-terrorism strategy. Terrorist groups may be dismantled but all their members cannot be eliminated. The policy takes this aspect into consideration but the formulators must understand that before reintegration there is a need of large-scale and scientific de-radicalisation of the members of the terrorist groups.

Hopefully, the final draft of the national security policy would be comprehensive with space for adjustments in order to make it flexible and responsive. This would be the first test in the sustainable process of countering extremism and terrorism as the real test would come when the policy would be implemented.

[email]razapkhan@yahoo.com[/email]

[B]18.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]The ‘curse’ of English[/SIZE]
Even after more than six decades of Independence, what is real learning and knowledge, and hence education, still evades us
By Yaqoob Khan Bangash
[/CENTER][/B]
We have all heard the oft repeated refrain against the dual system of education where some students get educated in English and others in Urdu or one of the other vernaculars, and how that spreads elitism and inequality. We have all complained that this system is the product of the Raj where English was preferred over local languages. We have also often said that if we had not inherited such a distorted system, maybe our literacy rate would have been higher and Pakistan more developed etc.

In my own teaching, I have also lamented the fact that Pakistani students never learn a language well enough to be completely proficient in it — they usually do not know how to read or write their mother tongue, only know school level Urdu, and can mostly just memorise things in English. Therefore, when they come to university, which requires a higher level of language skills, they are largely at a loss and cannot completely grasp the subject matter in any language.

Not knowing too much about the development of the education system in the Punjab (my only real experience in Pakistan), I simply blamed this complication on the inheritance of the Raj, till I actually read what they were thinking and trying to do.

A few weeks ago I began reading the official Punjab government reports on education from the Raj. Where it had the usual statistics and general comments, in the first few decades of the Raj, there was a lot of interest in education policy, not only among those in-charge, like the Director of Public Instruction or the Inspector of Schools, but also the Lieutenant Governor and other officials. Therefore, the reports gave me an insight into how the ‘modern’ system of education was created in the Punjab after British annexation in 1849. Obviously, as I am still reading the reports, these are preliminary remarks, but even so they counter several of the misconceptions we have accrued about the educational system we inherited from the Raj.

The education system adopted by the Punjab after annexation was that of the North Western Provinces (modern-day Uttar Pradesh, and erstwhile Agra and Oudh). This was primarily done because of ease — the British had ruled those territories for some time and had already established a semblance of civil government, and therefore the system was imported into the newly conquered territory. However, very soon, it was apparent that the imported system did not suit the needs of the Punjab.

In the report of 1860-1, the Lieutenant Governor deliberated “whether the prescribed course of study, borrowed as it were from the North Western Provinces, may not give an artificial prominence to Urdu, which does not naturally belong to it in these Provinces. His Honor is convinced that this is the case as respects the Mooltan, Derajat and Peshawaur Divisions; and observing that, except at Delhi, Persian is preferred in all the private schools to Urdu, he thinks that it may be so in other divisions.”

Therefore, the long presence of Urdu in the Punjab can easily be traced to its import from the North Western Provinces, where it was increasingly becoming the lingua franca. In the Punjab, as the statistics of the government show, for the first few decades after 1849, students of Persian still far outnumbered students studying Urdu. It was only towards the 1890’s and later that the study of Persian declined.

What is further interesting from the above is the fact that nowhere in the reports are the real ‘vernaculars’ — the mother tongues of the students actually discussed. It is as if the choice in the Punjab was between either Urdu or Persian, or later English — Punjabi rarely featured in the discussion even though it was the first language of a large majority of the people. The reason for this, of course, is the legacy of ‘education’ in South Asia, which was largely based on learning in the ‘classical’ languages — mother tongues, the easiest and best way of initial learning never largely featured.

Therefore, Muslims mainly studied in either Persian or Arabic and Hindus focused on Sanskrit learning, even though, except for Persian to an extent, none of the languages were widely spoken in India. Education was considered an elite preoccupation and was conducted in elite languages — the association of the masses, as it were, was considered, in some cases, even defiling. Even in the ‘Punjabi’ reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, even though Punjabi was widely used and garnered respect, Persian was still kept for official purposes and its elite status never declined. Therefore, when the British arrived in this part of India, they did not ‘invent’ a new style of education, but simply continued to work with the previous models (in the North Western Provinces Urdu was then becoming the elite language — the language of the ‘ashraf’).

With English becoming the new ‘elite’ language, naturally people wanted to grasp it, so that they could interact with their new masters and gain government employment. And so the tale goes that the British imposed this language on the hapless Indians and further confused them. However, while reading the reports it is clear that the British were very much aware and wary of this ‘interest’ in learning English, and reluctant to allow it to replace education in the vernacular.

The covering note from the Government of India in 1864 noted: “With the desire springing up among the people for knowledge of English, and the ample encouragement of Government, it is not to be wondered that the number of English scholars has greatly increased during the last few years. A doubt may perhaps occur, whether the Punjab government, while rightly encouraging the study of English, may not be losing sight in some degree of the necessity of guarding against the tendency which has been found so prejudicial in Bengal viz: of substituting a smattering of English, for a sound practical education conveyed through the medium of the Vernacular. This doubt may particularly arise with reference to the scheme of attaching ill-paid English Teachers to Vernacular Schools, and thereby offering and inducement to these schools to divert their attention from the more important object of a useful education, to the more attractive one of an acquaintance with English.’ It seems that something like this could have been written today, rather than over 150 years ago!

Even today, the emphasis in a number of schools throughout Pakistan is to give pupils a smattering of English by ill-equipped teachers, and no attention is given to ‘sound practical education conveyed through the medium of the Vernacular,’ as noted above. People in Pakistan still think that speaking a grammatically bad sentence in English is still better than actually knowing about, for example, the Shahnama or Gulistan. What is real learning and knowledge, and hence, education, still evades us.

The Director of Public Instruction underscored the importance of education in the vernacular in his 1867-8 report and said: “The absolute necessity of a knowledge of English to everyman, who aspires to an education of the highest order, is fully recognised, but it is thought desirable that all instruction should be conveyed as far as practicable through the Vernacular and that till the student has thoroughly mastered the English language, it should not be made the medium of instruction.” Again this is something which still evades the creators of education policy in Pakistan.

The recent revision of curriculum has made English the medium of instruction in most of Pakistan and especially in the Punjab where at least Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies are taught in English even at the primary school level. This clearly exhibits that we still have not internalised the critical importance of initial learning in the mother tongue. As far back as 1868, the British were aware that: “It must be evident that when an abstruse subject is taught and written examinations are conducted through the medium of a foreign language, which is but imperfectly understood, the difficulties of the student are greatly increased, and the natural result is a general want of accuracy not only in the subject studied, but also in English composition.” No wonder then our comprehension and attainment levels are still so low!

So what did the British think was the ultimate aim of an education where the vernaculars would have almost equal (dare I say) space with English? Referring to the proposed new university in the Punjab in the 1860’s the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, Sir Donald Friell McLeod, noted: “The object of the system of education is desired to establish, to facilitate and stimulate the communication of Western knowledge by raising up of a class of men at once imbued with the science and literature of the West, and at the same time commanding the respect of their fellow countrymen by their proficiency in Oriental studies...” In other words, Sir Donald wanted the educated class to be at once at ease with Western scholarship and Oriental knowledge.

In a discourse which is often dominated by Macaulay’s Minute of 1835 where he almost rubbished Oriental learning and wanted to create only ‘Brown sahibs,’ it is very interesting, and important, to note what the people on the ground — those actually implementing policy — thought. The views of McLeod were perhaps the most enlightened and sensible for its time.

I am still reading these education reports, and of course things did change in later years, but two things are clear from the above quotes. First, that there was no whole-scale imposition of English. The British obviously supported English, but they did not want it to ‘substitute’ (to use the word used by the Director of Public Instruction) the vernaculars. Hence they did not want all education in English. Secondly, and most importantly, they wanted the vernaculars and ‘Oriental learning’ to have prime place together with the learning of English and the acquisition of Western knowledge. The attainment of these twin objectives was, in their opinion, the aim of modern education in the Punjab.

It is, unfortunately, the ignorance of the above two principles which mars our educational system even today. Even after more than six decades of independence, neither is there a move to make the vernacular the medium of instruction at lower levels, nor is there any emphasis on learning the best of our own indigenous scholarship. In terms of language of instruction, our only move has been to replace English by Urdu without realising that Urdu is still not the mother tongue of more than 90 per cent of what is now Pakistan, and we only get ideology-driven Muslim (read highly Arabised) scholarship — our students have never even heard of some of the great texts written by South Asian Muslims, let alone people of other religions.

It is often claimed that the study of history is important because it helps us understand the past and plan for the future. In the case of education policy, perhaps, we need to now take lessons from over 150-year old texts written by long dead Englishmen who perhaps understood education better than our current masters.

[I]The writer is the Chairperson of the Department of History, Forman Christian College, and tweets at @BangashYK. He can be contacted at: [email]yaqoob.bangash@gmail.com[/email].[/I]

[B]18.08.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]More mouths, less food[/SIZE]
Traditional sources of livelihoods are fading away quickly in Sindh, giving considerable impetus to poverty
By Altaf Hussain[/CENTER][/B]

Livelihoods of the people in Sindh, specifically in rural area, are squeezing as traditional sources of livelihoods are fading away quickly, together with lack of sustainable policies for rural development and ineptness of the government in creating alternate sources of employment. This situation has pushed a large portion of population into very complex social situation, giving considerable impetus to poverty.

A livelihood as defined encompasses capabilities, assets including both material and social resources and activities required for a means of living. Persistent under-development, reduction in agriculture produce, droughts and floods, spongy infrastructure, deplorable education and health systems and increasing poverty and unemployment have been main reasons behind poor livelihood resource base for the people despite the fact that the province is blessed with rich resources that contribute to a significant proportion of provincial and national income. Proportion of population falling below the poverty line in Sindh is estimated at 31 per cent.

More than 70 per cent of the rural population derives their livelihood from agriculture, livestock, forestry, and fishing, which provide about 30 per cent of provincial gross domestic product (GDP). Services, manufacturing, construction and other sectors share 30 per cent of the population’s livelihood source.

Historically, the performance of Sindh’s agriculture sector remained very good with wheat and rice production. Agricultural production remained at 3 per cent per annum during the 1986 to 2000 period. Production of wheat and rice that was 28 and 17 per cent of total area under cultivation, respectively, grew at a trend rate of 2 and 3 per cent in the same period (1986-2000) as has been put by different government reports.

However, agriculture production reduced sharply in the successive years with rice and wheat being hardest hit due to droughts in earlier 2000s and floods in last three consecutive years.

The United Nations Development Progarmme, UNDP’s Millennium Development Goals 2013 provincial report reveals that “the loss of livelihoods was devastating for the province; more than 90 per cent of livelihoods from agriculture were affected as a result of the floods in the flood affected areas. Over 93,000 large animals, close to 82,000 small animals, and over 6.8 million heads of poultry also perished.”

Fishing has been affected due to the water shortage resulting from lack of water inflow in the River Indus. Construction of barrages also reduced the flow of water in the sea severely affecting the breeding ground for many fish species and impacting the Indus delta. The fishing industry was also dented after the tenant communities shifted their livelihoods from the coastal areas after millions of acres of land was taken away by sea intrusion.

Food security, therefore, continues to be one of the major challenges of Sindh. Considerable number of people is living below poverty line and cannot meet their basic needs of food. The National Nutrition Survey 2011 has also listed the food security as a major challenge for Sindh claiming that 72 per cent households in Sindh are food insecure.

Moreover, education and health indicators also paint a miserable picture of the province. The UNDP, MDG 2013 report has revealed that Sindh has 59 per cent literacy rate which is far behind the targets set under MDGs, including the health which is also in doldrums. Illiterate and unskilled youth becomes burden on the families. Similarly, poor health services also consume available resources putting pressure on the households for maintaining their livelihoods.

Though Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been implementing programmes to provide livestock to the poor, introduce drip irrigation system, replace local seeds with the hybrid seeds to increase the crop productivity, sensitise the communities on alternate employments etc, these projects with limitations cannot cover large chunk of the population. Also some experts raise their eyebrows over the sustainability of such programmes and the benefits they can extend to the people.

Responsibility of enhancing livelihood resource base rests with the government. However, successive governments in the province have failed to deliver on this front. The government should focus on introducing programmes which could ensure cash earnings on sustainable lines, access to basic facilities including health and services, reduce vulnerability of the poor through better access to resources, improve situation of food security through financially empowering the people and reducing and regulating the commodity prices, giving people property rights which include land and shelter. In addition, the government needs to raise the budgetary allocation for social development and Annual Development Plan (ADP).

[B]25.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]New security paradigm[/SIZE]
While the ruling party underplayed the issue of terrorism during its election campaign, two months in power have demonstrated that governing Pakistan without a redefined national security paradigm will not be possible
By Raza Rumi[/CENTER][/B]

Pakistanis have been informed that there will be a new security paradigm that would drive the policy and strategy of the federal and provincial governments in countering terrorism and extremism. This is good news for Pakistanis given the high levels of insecurity as well as repeated attacks on the state and its key institutions.

Nearly 50,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives in the last decade including thousands of security personnel. While the ruling party underplayed the issue of terrorism during its election campaign, two months in power have demonstrated that governing Pakistan without a redefined national security paradigm will not be possible. Sixty terror attacks in first two months could shake any government let alone a civilian administration that enjoys side support in the parliament.

One of the key features of the National Security Policy (NSP) will be the establishment of a Joint Intelligence Secretariat, which will comprise all civilian and military intelligence agencies, with the primary job of coordinating intelligence operations and sources of information. The Interior Minister, Chaudhry Nisar, has assured that the secretariat will start working within six to seven months.

The NSP will also establish a Counterterrorism Rapid Deployment Force at the Federal level, which will eventually be replicated at the provincial levels. Staffed with serving and retired military personnel, this force will be 500 strong and over time shall increase to 2000 serving personnel, with the primary job of securing and responding quickly to terror threats.

The lame duck institution, National Counterterrorism Authority (NACTA), is being envisaged to act as a focal point of the new security policy. Increasing its capacity and making it fully operational has rightly been identified as one of the first few steps.

The NSP will also be divided into two broad sections: one that deals with internal threats and another that deals with foreign threats. The draft NSP also aims to deweaponize Quetta, while at the same time providing police in Balochistan with over 5000 SMGs and the requisite training to use them in fighting terrorist and sectarian elements.

Though the formulation of a NSP is vital and has been long overdue, criticisms of the scope of the NSP have been widely expressed. The proposed NSP postulates that with NATO troops’ withdrawal, terrorists in Pakistan will cease to function as effectively as they do now. This postulation however, as Ayesha Siddiqa argues, does not take into account the existence of sectarian and extremist networks in Punjab that have operated independently of the TTP and Afghan Taliban.

By claiming that terrorism in North Waziristan drives extremism in Punjab, an erroneous narrative has been constructed which ignores the devastating reach and impact of localised sectarian and militant groups. These groups are now a substantive threat since they are propelling communities in these areas towards radicalisation.

Siddiqa has also argued in a series of articles that the NSP fails “…to see the growing trends of radicalism and radical movements in non-Pashtun Pakistan that takes various shapes and forms.” (Fighting Terrorism, August 7, 2013, Express Tribune). There is little (if any) focus on the NSP in this regard, with networks such as Hizb-ut-Tehrir (HuT) — which perhaps don’t encourage violence, but financially support other organisations and disseminate religious literature, which seeks to radicalise middle class elements in the society.

Though the NSP contains provisions for capacity building of the police forces, it needs to include broader reforms to include the judiciary and anti-terrorist courts. That said, however, there are still not viable methods the NSP lays out that deals with those who are sympathetic to militancy within the police or the judiciary.

The assumption that US exit from Afghanistan will tackle the issue of extremism is flawed at best. A recent report prepared by the Home Secretary, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also advised against the idea that NATO troops withdrawal will lead to reduction in terrorism, arguing instead that the withdrawal will be seen as a victory for the Afghan Taliban and would further boost the morale of Pakistani Taliban (TTP). Azam Khan, the architect behind the document, argues that, “With the departure of the US troops, the TTP and its multiple partners will pursue their ‘jihad’ with renewed vigour under the banner for setting up a true Islamic Caliphate in Pakistan.”

The TTP, as KP’s secretary argued, are, firmly entrenched in the region and have institutional support from the Afghan Taliban, since the Taliban do not recognise state boundaries due to their belief in the idea of a borderless Caliphate. Additionally, they are organised and have specialised wings for training, finance, operations and justice, and are likely to pursue their stand against a Pakistani government they view as unIslamic.

It is vital to expand the scope of NSP with a view to correct the civil-military imbalance. The key institutions such as the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) and the Defence Council, both of which are almost permanently handicapped due to the lack of a permanent Defence Minister, need to be reconsidered. Though the DCC is criticised as not having any military representation, the Defence Council makes up for that by being the primary advisory body to the DCC and having more than adequate military representation.

As envisaged by the constitution, the existence of these two bodies is perfectly workable with a few changes. First and foremost, a permanent Defence Minister is required so as to alleviate the PM of contrasting and contradictory roles — e.g. the PM cannot make recommendations to himself nor should he be expected to sit in advisory board meetings.

Secondly, both bodies have separate secretariats (the Joint Chiefs have their own, while the National Security Adviser has his own) and their resources should be pooled together to undertake policy recommendations made and enacted by the DCC. If comprehensively implemented, these reforms would help provide the National Security Adviser and the PM with detailed, expert and comprehensive analysis of defence — and foreign policy — issues.

Similarly, there is a broad need for institutional policymaking arrangements that bridge the civil-military divide and leads to greater coordination between the two spheres of government. Currently any coordination between the two exists on a purely informal basis, with the Joint Chiefs’ meeting the PM and the President directly, rather than through institutions such as the Defence Ministry.

Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, a noted expert in this area, has observed that the appointment of a permanent National Security Adviser, as an autonomous civilian position rather than a military one, would help further civilian ownership of Pakistan’s internal and external security policies as it would require interaction with the Joint Chiefs and keeping the PM abreast of all recommendations and analyses.

The Ministry of Defence also needs to be strengthened, particularly by stripping it of its military inflexions and running it in an autonomous manner. Since the Defence Council is headed by the Defence Minister, it is imperative that civilian bureaucrats run the Ministry so as to effectively analyse and implement recommendations made by the military. Think-tanks and other research organisations that pepper Islamabad should also be used as viable platforms to explore and research policies.

The time has come when the civilian government needs to take charge of the security policy and take it beyond the military domain. Pakistan needs to move towards a human security paradigm where public welfare, justice and inclusion gain precedence over containing the archenemy India and the three decades long policy of acquiring ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan. A security policy is much needed but as the Prime Minister said recently in his address to the nation, our foreign policy requires a radical review. We need to focus on the region and building economic ties rather than remaining in a state of perpetual conflict and fear.

[I]Raza Rumi is a policy advisor, writer based in Islamabad. He is the author of “Delhi by Heart: Impressions of a Pakistani Traveller” (Harper Collins, 2013). [url]www.razarumi.com[/url][/I]

[B]25.08.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]The status of Fata[/SIZE]
Despite promises that the process of reforms in Fata would continue to integrate tribal people into the mainstream of national life, the reality is so far removed
By Ashrafuddin Pirzada[/CENTER][/B]

Amendments in the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) on August 12, 2011 were no small event in the history of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) of Pakistan.

The reforms package came after years of deliberations by legal experts and political workers from Fata to improve the FCR, which would eventually bring the people of Fata into the national mainstream — by securing their legal, constitutional and basic human rights.

The 2011 FCR reforms, promulgated by the PPP-led government, included the extension of Political Parties Order (2002) which was not only warmly received by much of the Fata people but was accompanied by the demand for speedier changes to the century-old set of British-era legal regulations.

While the overarching structure of the FCR and its legal concepts remain intact, some of the changes introduced in the 2011 reform package were: protection of women and children under the age of 16 and tribesmen above the age of 65 from arrest and detention under the FCR act of “collective responsibility” clause; prohibition against arresting an entire tribe under the “collective responsibility” clause; appellate authority power to review and revise decisions and orders; provision for an independent appeals process; strengthening of the newly-established Fata Tribunal; reference to “Qaumi Jirga” (council of elders); fixed time limits for the disposal of cases; power to transfer cases to the assistant political agent; introduction of the concept of bail; introduction of jail inspections; fines on communities in the case of murder; acceptance of local customs and traditions; checks on arbitrary powers to arrest by the political administration; compensation for false persecutions; audit of political agent funds by the Auditor General of Pakistan.

Although the FCR amendments were viewed by many as insufficient and additional reforms continue to be demanded, it was hoped that if the 2011 reforms were implemented in their true spirit, the reforms package would bring about a positive change to the existing governance system in Fata.

But, these aspirations of the people of Fata are far from being fulfilled.

More than two years since the enactment of 2011 reforms, political agents across Fata continue to wield unbridled powers and tribal people are still waiting for justice. Thousands of diverse cases await disposal at the offices of the political administration while the concerned officials fail to show any interest in addressing them on a speedy basis, as is advised in the 2011 reforms package.

Hundreds of tribesmen are waiting to get their civil documents like domicile, Nikahnama, birth and death certificate etc. issued but the political muharrers in Fata and FRs (Frontier Regions) either do not know how to prepare these documents or are not willing to serve dozens of applicants.

Zahir Shah Afridi, senior journalist based in Khyber Agency, says none of the reforms brought in 2011 were implemented in Fata, except the Political Parties Act, in the 2013 elections.

“Hundreds of appeals against false judgments issued by the political administration are filed with the newly-established Fata Tribunal on weekly basis, yet the locals have seen not a single case whereby an aggrieved party has been compensated,” Afridi tells TNS.

Wali Muhammad Shinwari, chief executive of Rural Community Development Organisation( RCDO) says lack of awareness about reforms in FCR is the main hurdle in its implementation. “Tribal people have no clear idea about the reforms,” he further adds that the political administration has not formally implemented reforms because “a few days ago the Khyber Agency administration arrested a child of 9th grade during search operation in Jamrud subdivision.”

Shinwari says awareness sessions and seminars across Fata are being held to build consensus to pressurise the concerned authorities to implement reforms in full spirit.

According to the political party leaders and some of the local elders, despite recommendations in the 2011 reforms package, political agents are either not ready or not willing to surrender the powers.

A hand-picked pro-government tribal Maliks continue to enjoy political privileges. In fact, they consider the 2011 reforms as infringement on the privileges they receive from the political administration. As a result, many Maliks oppose changes to the FCRs and the extension of the Political Parties Order. They supported independent candidates in the May 2013 general elections.

Malik Darya Khan, who belongs to Zakhakhel Afridi tribe and is a Awami National Party (ANP) leader, says the Fata people are still victims of the draconian British-era regulations.

On the other hand, some pro-administration tribal elders are awarded a majority of the development funds allocated to the region via the Fata Secretariat and elected Fata members of the National Assembly. The political agents in Fata rely solely on this closed group of local allies to resolve all major tribal issues.

Further, the political agents rely on the much-abused system of “nomination” (selecting preferred contractors) and ignore prescribed rules for inviting open tenders for all development projects. Many of these contractors are the same pro-administration elders mentioned above and are more than happy to engage in quid pro quo to secure their share of development projects. As a result, the quality of construction for most development projects is poor. In some cases, projects only exist on papers while no work is actually done on ground.

Tribesmen welcomed the exemption of elders from arrest under the FCR “collective responsibility” clause. They were equally pleased with the new prohibition on sealing or confiscating residential and commercial property under the same clause. Unfortunately, however, tribesmen are still intimidated and penalised under this notorious and abused clause.

Prior to the announcement of the 2011 reforms package, the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari enacted another regulation on Fata governance. In June 2011, the Actions in Aid of Civil Power Regulation was decreed, thereby empowering security forces to arrest any tribesmen on suspicion of his or her association with an outlawed militant group or suspicion of involvement in any terrorist-related act.

The promulgation of this Civil Power Regulation cancelled the prohibition against arresting elders as was enacted in the amended FCR “collective responsibility” clause. In the intervening years, a number of Fata people have disappeared, whose relatives are still searching in vein for clues as to their loved one’s whereabouts.

Local political party leadership has also been unable to see the benefits of 2011 reforms, perhaps due to the strong opposition from the Fata status quo supporters.

Besides, the political leadership feels insecure in the current law and order situation and therefore rarely organises meetings or assemblies.

Akhunzada Chattan, former MNA from Bajaur Agency, says low levels of literacy and political awareness have also meant that most of the Fata residents are not aware of the 2011 reforms package or its detailed contents.

He says this political ignorance can be gauged from the fact that six out of the ten MNAs elected from Fata in 2013 were independent, not belonging to any political party. After the elections, he says, one independent MNA from North Waziristan joined PML-N while the remaining five chose to remain independent, pledging to work for strengthening the existing “tribal system”.

Despite assurances in the 2011 reforms package, the government has thus far failed to conduct an impartial audit of the funds accumulated and utilised by political agents in Fata. Neither do tribesmen in the area have access to administrative records nor are they permitted to challenge powers of political agents regarding the utilisation of funds.

Tribal elder Malik Ikramullah Jan alleges that corruption at all levels of the political administration is rampant. “The Khasadar and levies forces are not concerned. They fleece local residents at security checkpoints rather than provide security to the local people,” he says.

Jan says it is no secret that the money collected by Khasadar forces at the security checkpoints is distributed among political administration officials, while this collection is supposedly for the Agency Development Fund. “No receipts are issued for money collected,” he adds.

It is also no secret, Ikramullah Jan says, the post of political agent is auctioned and rewarded to the highest bidder.

Mosam Khan, PML-N central council member, says the condition of lock-ups and prisons in several agencies is pathetic — as prisoners are often kept in inhuman conditions, provided sub-standard food and provided limited access to medical facilities. “There is no centralised jail facility in any part of Fata and all prisoners are sent to Peshawar, Haripur, D.I. Khan or other central prisons in settled districts,” he says.

He adds an independent committee of local elders, media persons and political leaders should be constituted to regularly report on the reforms being implemented.

The PML-N leader says Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority (PEMRA) laws have not been extended to Fata and thus it is not permissible to publish any newspaper or journal in the tribal areas. “This is an obvious affront to the democratic principles of access to information and freedom of speech,” the PML-N leader adds.

To guarantee basic human rights and fundamental constitutional rights in Fata, urgent action must be taken to ensure the true implementation of the 2011 Fata reforms package and the enactment of substantial additional reforms for the tribal areas.

Contrary to the views of the political leaders, tribal elders and civil society members, assistant political agent in Khyber Agency, Jahangir Azam Wazir, tells TNS they have directed the administration staff to follow the reform package. “We are producing arrested persons in court within 24 hours. We are avoiding arrest of elderly persons and children less than 16 years of age.”

[B]25.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Education, not a priority[/SIZE]
Budgetary allocations for education show lack of political commitment
By Sajjad Malik[/CENTER][/B]

In terms of commitment and spending, education sector traditionally stands at the lowest rung of priorities of politicians and bureaucrats in Pakistan. The present governments, federal and provincial, are not much different from the previous when it comes to improving the state of public education. Some of the parties made tall promises during election campaign before May 11 polls to invest in education for building a quality human capital. It seems they have forgotten all this and once in power they think in the same rotten pattern which helps strengthen the “national security state” syndrome at the cost of millions of “brilliant youth” who are utterly useless to the country as majority of them are not educated or trained to contribute in the gigantic but important task of national development and progress.

The federal government used to take lead in education in the past but after the 18th amendment, the provinces have control over education, especially the primary and secondary education, as the higher education is still controlled by Islamabad through Higher Education Commission (HEC). The federal government has allocated total Rs. 67,415.07 million for education for 2013-14 fiscal which includes 46,317.39 million for current expenses and 21,097.68 million for developmental purposes.

Bulk of the money — 39 billions — will go to the higher education and given to HEC to spend for universities and scholarships. The total education budget is far below than the defence budget which is 627 billion after 15 percent increase to the previous year allocations. The education budget has also been increased from the previous 52 billion but there is no comparison between the defence and education spending of the federal government.

The provincial governments are not encumbered by the defence like expenditures and it is their primary responsibility to divert more money to education and seriously try to address the perennial issues of “quality and quantity” in education. Some of provincial governments are headed by leaders from the political parties that have been highly critical of previous regimes.

For example Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf of former cricketer Imran Khan controls the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in the north-west. Khan in many tv interviews and election speeches said that a uniform and quality education system will be introduced if his party won the polls.

PTI’s government allocated 83,678.09 million for education in 2013-14 budget, which includes 69,848.40 million for current and paltry 13,829.69 million for development expenditures. The total allocation is higher than the previous year but the allocation, apart from school education and higher education, also includes budget for district education and provincial programs which will eat away vital resources for basic and higher education. Another drawback in allocations is that lump-sum amounts have been placed on the discretion of finance department including 3.14 billion for School Education, 200 million for Provincial Programs, and 762 million for General Colleges without mentioning of the nature of their usage. The discretionary use of funds is highly problematic and dependent on vagaries of the disbursing officers.

In the biggest province of Punjab the total budgetary allocation in the current years for education is 73,720.58 million, which is lower than both Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, and only higher than Balochistan, which is just a fraction of Punjab in terms of population. The province has set aside 38,314.95 million for current and 35,405.63 million for development sectors. Budget books of Punjab do not provide District Education Budget, so it is not included in this figure.

While the Education budgets of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa include district budgets as well. But the Punjab education budget includes spending for Special Education, School Education and Higher Education. In Punjab, the ratio in development and current expenditures is not wide which shows that more money will be available for new initiatives.

Sindh is leading the rest of the county in education budget with 131,985.58 million. But the problems is that hefty 118,743.13 million are just for current expenses like salaries etc and only 13,242.45 million have been spared for development which also means fewer new institutions or minimal additions to existing facilities. Another serious problem with this “huge allocation” is that the current budget of education as reflected in the Budget books of Sindh also includes 519.79 million for Culture and Tourism, 3636.02 million for Health and Medical Education, 268.47 million for Antiques Department, 280.66 million for Planning and Development department and 215.39 million for Chief Minister. Deducting these bring the current budget for education to 113,822.8 million and total education budget to 127,065.25 million.

Balochistan has allocated 34 billion for education which shows the highest 42 percent increase in terms of allocation for education in any province as compared to previous years. But the problem with the province is rampant corruption and dominant tribal and religious mindset, which in the past created hurdles in the spreading education and improving its quality. Only effective and targeted use of money can help increase literacy in the province.

Pakistan’s total education budget though higher than the outgoing fiscal year is still far below the minimum 3 percent of GDP target which is considered as the first step towards official realisation of importance of education. The political bosses should know that the allocation itself is not a guarantee to mass literacy and improved higher education unless the micro managements of expenditures is done properly to account both for quantity and quality. They should realise that it is equally important to provide funds for district education officers to travel to remote areas carry out unannounced visits and monitor the teachers in villages, along with hefty allocation for setting up computer labs. Regular revision and updating of syllabus is also important to keep pace with the needs of changing world. So far it is not clear whether the new budgetary allocations for education provide any money for research to improve the syllabus.

The political parties should create liaison with the civil society which can play vital role in increasing enrolment, imparting training to the teachers and improving the standards of education. Non-profit organisation like Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) are active in education and can help government efforts. Serious efforts are needed to fulfil the constitutional requirement of providing compulsory uniform and quality education to the poor people of this country and can only be done by the joint efforts of government, media, donors and civil society.

[I]The writer is a journalist and researcher and can be reached at [email]sajjaad@gmail.com[/email][/I]

[B]25.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Backbone of medical care[/SIZE]
While surfing around for a hospital for treatment of a complicated medical problem the more important question is what hospital has the best
nursing care available
By Syed Mansoor Hussain
[/CENTER][/B]
Whenever we think of medical care we think mostly about doctors and what they do. If any one comes to me to ask for a recommendation for a surgical procedure, the one thing they want to know about is the reputation of the surgeon and his results. Of course most major medical centres in Pakistan as well as those in more advanced medical countries thrive on the reputations of specialist physicians on their staff.

Every so often, magazines in the US put out lists of the ‘best’ doctors in a particular state who are then parlayed into advertisements for the medical institutions where these doctors practice.

Physicians who develop a reputation for excellence more often than not deserve it. But then as the saying goes, behind every successful man there is a woman, and for successful doctors it is often not just one woman but many; these women are called nurses.

Medical care is no longer a one-man show. The days when Avicenna or Al Razi strode the earth as giants of medicine are long gone. Even in their times these great physicians needed apothecaries to compound the medicines, tinctures and elixirs they ordered; if the apothecary did something wrong, the great doctor’s attempts at healing could fail.

Modern medicine has advanced to the point where it has become a ‘team effort’. The doctor, or more often the senior doctor or surgeon, is still the person in overall charge of a patient’s care, but he or she needs a lot of help and support to take care of a sick patient. In most major multispecialty hospitals, especially teaching hospitals, there are many junior doctors besides the senior doctor who work under supervision to provide direct care.

Besides these junior doctors, perhaps the most important component of direct medical care is the nurses. Without good nursing care, patients cannot do well. In addition there are now other very important parts of the health care team: the pharmacy department that that fills out the prescriptions, the laboratory personnel that perform all the tests required for diagnosis and treatment, physiotherapists, social workers, dieticians and the entire maintenance crew that keeps the hospital working and the machines humming.

But it is about nurses I want to write about today. More than forty years ago when I started my house job in Mayo Hospital, out of curiosity I looked at the ‘note book’ one of the student nurses was carrying. On the first page, on the very top in bold letters she had written: “You will obey the doctor’s orders at all times”. That was the nursing paradigm then; the nurse’s primary function was to carry out the orders she received from the physician, even the lowly house physician. Even so, many basic medical activities like starting intravenous solutions, drawing blood for blood tests, giving injections, inserting feeding tubes etc. are things I learned from the nurses. And the experienced nurses, especially in the operating theatres, were really a major learning resource for junior doctors like me.

Within a year I was in the US, starting my training as an ‘intern’. There also nurses were still pretty low in the medical hierarchy but there was an important difference. In Pakistan most nurses were from the poor segments of society and often from minority classes. However, in the US, many nurses came from the well established middle class families and quite a few were daughters of physicians. So perhaps there was a cultural difference.

The major difference I noted, however, was that nurses were much better educated and trained in the US and their services were valued at a much higher level. Frankly, during my ‘internship’, it was the nurses who taught me about the basics of medical care in the US. Over the next couple of decades nursing developed rapidly and soon we were seeing nurse clinicians, specialist nurses and eventually nurse practitioners. The latter in the US today fulfil many of the ‘primary care’ functions that doctors used to provide just a few decades ago.

I remember a time during the 1980s when I was running an intensive care unit (ICU) for cardiac surgical patients, some of my training fellows, especially those from the Subcontinent and the Middle East would often complain to me about the ‘haughty’ behaviour of nurses towards them. I had to explain to them that it took the hospital at least a couple of years to train a specialist (ICU) nurse and then we expected her to work for us for five or more years so the hospital would very much like to retain them while the ‘fellows’ were there for only a year or two. So from the hospital’s perspective as far as patient care was concerned, a well-trained ICU nurse was more valuable than a trainee doctor! Frankly a well-trained nurse was hard to come by and trainee doctors were easy to find.

Fast forward a couple of decades and I am running the department of cardiac surgery at Mayo Hospital in Lahore. The first thing I noticed was that the nurses were no longer primarily from a minority community but a majority were Muslims from an emerging lower-middle class. Even so, most of them still suffered from considerable gender discrimination. Often the nurses complained to me that the doctors treated them badly.

As I compare nursing in the US with that in Pakistan today, two differences are obvious. First, the nurses are not as well-trained or educated as they are in the US and second, women whether they are nurses or not are still held to be of an ‘inferior’ position in our society. Some progress has been made in this regard but obviously not enough.

Going back to the beginning, medical care is a team effort in the modern world and nurses are one of the most important part of such care. When somebody asks me which hospital they should they go for treatment of a complicated medical problem, as far as I am concerned, most doctors are within a couple of percentile points as far as ability is concerned; so a patient will probably get a doctor who can diagnose and prescribe appropriate treatment in most well staffed hospitals. But for me the more important question is what hospital has the best nursing care available. That said, sadly nurses are not provided the educational opportunities or professional support that can make them feel confident enough to act like the important medical care-givers that they really are. Let us not forget that for a patient lying in a hospital bed the nurse is the person who provides direct and immediate bedside care.

So, if we really want to improve the quality of care in our hospitals, we must make sure that nurses are well-trained and above all get the respect they deserve as medical professionals.

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

[B]25.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]In the name of honour[/SIZE]
Four recent cases of honour killings in KP call for removal of loopholes from the law and amendment in provisions which go in favour of alleged killers
By Akhtar Amin[/CENTER][/B]

Despite hard work of numerous legislators and human rights activists, cases of ‘honour killings’ keep coming up. Four honour killing cases were reported in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa within one and a half month.

In three honour killing cases, fathers were the killers of their daughters along with their boyfriends and others. The first case was reported at Mardan district on August 11, 2013. According to first information report lodged at Ghari Kapora police station, one Abdul Zaman, son of Abdul Manan and resident of Ghari Daulatzai shot dead his young daughter Afshan along with her lover Rizwanullah when he found the boy at his house along with his daughter.

After killing his daughter and her boyfriend, the accused went to the police station and offered his arrest along with the pistol. The police booked him in double murder case.

The second honour killing case took place in Dera Ismail Khan on July 27. A man killed his daughter and her alleged boyfriend after he found them in a room inside his house in Kathar Yanwalla Mohala.

A city police official, Ghulam Abbas said that the father came to the police station following the incident and confessed his crime. Abdur Rauf Khattak told the city police he woke up to go to the washroom during the night when he saw a light switched on in one of the rooms. When he entered the room, he saw his 15-year-old daughter, Sabina, sitting with an unidentified boy. Seeing this, the father got furious and killed them both.

The accused said he suffocated the boy to death using a pillow and strangled his daughter using a rope. The boy was later identified as Asad Abbas, 20, a resident of Gass Mandi Mohala. The fatha is currently being held in a lock-up at the city police station and a murder case has been registered against him.

The third honour killing case was reported from Swabi district on June 26, 2013, in which Gul Rehan allegedly shot his daughter along with her husband and father-in-law in Chauta Lahor tehsil.

According to Chauta Lahor police official Fazal Malik, police were informed of a shootout in Bazaar Kallay that Sabz Ali reported Gul Rehan, Mustafa and Yousaf, residents of Manki, allegedly barged into his house and opened fire at Rehan’s daughter Shaista, Ali’s brother Sadiq and father Abdur Rasheed, killing them on the spot.

Sabz Ali explained that Shaista had eloped with his brother Sadiq three years ago and they got married in Karachi. The couple had recently returned to their village when her father allegedly killed them both along with Ali’s father Abdur Rasheed. The three accused escaped after the incident.

Earlier, Rehan had demanded the family return his daughter to him, said Ali. According to him, Abdur Rasheed refused and replied Shaista was now his son’s wife. Ali alleged Rehan had then threatened to kill the entire family.

In the fourth honour killing case on August 16, in Swabi district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three people, including a woman and her daughter were killed in the name of ‘honour’ in Kala village.

The Swabi City Police Official Akhtar Syed Ghani Asghar, a former army serviceman, gave his arrest to the police and confessed he suspected his wife Rukhsar Bibi of having an illicit relationship with Inayat Rahman who lived in the neighbourhood.

To confirm his suspicion, Asghar told his wife and daughter Zahra that he was going to Rawalpindi for some work, but instead went and hid on the roof armed with an AK-47. Around 12:30am, Rahman knocked at the gate and his wife let him in, Asghar claimed.

When the two were in the garden, Asghar opened fire on them. Hearing the gunshots, Zahra also came out of her room, where she was sleeping, and was shot accidently, Asghar said.

All three were killed on the spot after which the accused handed himself over to the police. The AK-47 was seized from him.

Legal experts dealing with criminal cases say that the Pakistan Penal Code does not contain any provision which can mitigate the offence of murder committed in the name of honour. The PPC was enacted in 1860. Earlier, Section 300 of the PPC contained a provision of ‘grave and sudden provocation’ that provided lesser punishment for crimes committed in the name of honour.

To check honour killing the parliament enacted the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2005, through which amendments were made in some provisions of the PPC and the Criminal Procedure Code.

For the first time a definition of honour-related crimes has been incorporated in the PPC, which now provides: “Offence committed in the name or on the pretext of honour means an offense committed in the name or on the pretext of Karo Kari, Sipah Kari or similar other customs or practices.”

Following this amendment the courts are now bound to sentence to death or life imprisonment a person after he/she is proved guilty of murder on the pretext of honour. However, still in different cases the courts adopt lenient view towards perpetrators.

An amendment has also been made in Section 311 PPC dealing with the principle of Fasad fil Arz (mischief on earth) and the courts have been empowered to sentence a person to over 10-year imprisonment in honour-related offenses. The offense shall also be considered as Fasad fil Arz. That provision has also been rarely invoked by courts.

Legal circles believe that the legislature should remove loopholes from the law and amend provisions which go in favour of alleged killers. They believe that existing provisions of the law should also be fully implemented.

The HRCP in its annual report 2011 mentioned that at least 943 women were killed in the name of honour. The report stated the purported reasons given for this were illicit relations in 595 cases and the demand to marry of own choice in 219 cases. In 180 cases the murderers were brothers and in 226 cases husbands of the victims. Only 20 women killed in the name of honour were reported to have been provided medical aid before they died.

Advocate Noor Alam Khan said that some segments of the society still support this practice. He said there is difference of opinion on this issue, which is evident from judgements of the superior courts.

The lawyer said that in some cases the courts favoured the accused on the grounds of “grave and sudden provocation”, whereas in other cases the courts didn’t accept this ground for an honour-related murder. He said the provision of “grave and sudden provocation” had been omitted from the law, but the judges of superior courts often extended concession to the accused on the same grounds.

The Aurat Foundation conducted a study on honour killings in Pakistan in 2012 which showed that many cases were not reported to the police and if reported, were not classified as honour killings. The study said the courts usually gave verdicts in favour of the killers by invoking the provision of “grave and sudden provocation”.

[B]25.08.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Setting a high aim[/SIZE]
Universities are not in a good shape financially and call for a serious look into how the situation can be reversed
By Dr Noman Ahmed[/CENTER][/B]

As reported in the third week of July 2013, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has informed the University of Karachi that the university will not get the required funds this year to cover the salary bill of its employees.

Similar response is given to other universities, many of which are facing grave financial problems due to multiple reasons. Increase in the number of students and teaching departments, rise in the number of employees, overall inflation and price hikes in goods and services consumed by universities are some of the reasons.

The previous government had advised the universities to raise their own finances. The staff and management of universities replied that such a move will take some time. Development projects, programmes of faculty development and research initiatives were drastically affected.

In the present budget, allocation for higher education has been only marginally raised. The momentum of growth and progress in the expansion of research work certainly received a big shock. It was particularly harmful for such departments that deal with research, engineering, medicine and applied knowledge, etc. The staff unions are still protesting to restore the old format of university support as existed in the Musharraf regime.

The prevailing situation demands a dispassionate review of the situation and what is expected to come. The federal government, which has spent only few weeks in the power corridors, is reported to have paid circular debt of the power sector. It has also made headway in respect to the affairs of Pakistan International Airlines and Pakistan Railways, two important but financially ailing state bodies.

The government is reported to be planning initiatives to bail out crucial sectors and enterprises. It will be appropriate if a bailout package for public sector universities and degree awarding institutions may also be considered.

This move will have multiple impacts. These institutions extend affordable education and prospects of educational qualifications to the youth even from most disadvantaged backgrounds.

As a country, which has a majority of its population belonging to the young people, increase in this investment is desirable. Two, the relative neglect experienced during the past five years by the universities has contributed to the accumulation of financial liabilities. If this stalemate persists, the quality of education imparted to our future generations shall be affected.

Three, the opportunity of subsidised higher education is perhaps the only worthwhile support from the state to the deserving but needy youth of the society to socially develop and position them to compete for a career.

If the universities are incapable of educating the poor youth, the social frictions in the society will continue to haunt us. And four, with the passage of 18th Constitutional Amendment, provinces shall have the ultimate ownership of higher education sector.

The federal government will do well to scale up the financial health of universities to set a healthy benchmark for centre-province cooperation. If deemed appropriate, a special parliamentary committee can be constituted to look into this matter and submit recommendations to the federal cabinet.

Universities will have to raise their competence level for getting more financial resources on their own. A tried and tested recipe for financial health of universities is the creation of endowments and trust funds.

Almost all the top universities in the world have resorted to this approach. Harvard University had an endowment worth more than US $ 32 billion in 2012. This amount is about twice the foreign exchange reserves of our country. The National University of Singapore has also established sizable endowment finances.

There are at least half a dozen universities in Pakistan that have an existence originating from the British India. Multiple types of endowments can be considered after an intensive interface with prospective philanthropists and donors.

Certain prerequisites need to be fulfilled in this respect. The respective provincial legislatures and governors will have to be approached through the right channels to promulgate necessary bills and statutory instruments to steer this process in a smooth manner after the administrative spade work is done.

Generation, management and release of funds will require utmost transparency and fund management skills to attract progressive donors. There is enormous expertise available in the corporate and even public sectors which can be approached for advice.

Universities imparting technical education have the unique advantage of connecting with corporate magnets. There are many corporations and groups that benefit from the universities in various ways. Induction of young professionals, conduct of basic events and provision of technical advice are a few examples. A more meaningful relationship with the corporate sector can be envisaged by drawing common agendas.

A two-way need analysis to examine the needs and requirements could be the first step. After consulting with institutions, such as the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, (FPCCI), mechanisms can be evolved to develop mutually beneficial collaborations. Assorted consultancy assignments, product development and extending innovative ideas to corporate sector are some of the possibilities.

Every university possesses well-developed space and software, which could be rented out for revenue generation. Auditorium complexes, exhibition halls, video conferencing infrastructure and sophisticated IT hardware are a few examples.

The HEC can convene a series of meetings to gather ideas and feedback for evolving a worthwhile strategy in this direction.

[B]25.08.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Spatial shrinking of the government[/SIZE]
A validation of the proposed plan of spatial reorganisation of the Punjab Government through automation with some added suggestions
By Asif Mehmood
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This follows a recent media report that the Punjab Government is set to slash its staff strength of around 0.8 million people working in different departments at various levels. The initiative that is in the pipeline aims to increase efficiency and to cut its administrative expenditure.

If productivity and austerity are the goals, there is another way out too; that is to think about spatial shrinking of the government — from real to virtual space. Imagine a compact civil secretariat at the same location housing all the ministries with paperless offices; you will be half way out of the maze of Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the largest province of the country.

Today, there are 38 departments, 27 attached formations and an increasing number of autonomous and special institutions scattered all over Lahore. In many cases, even one single agency is located at different points. Many ministries occupy vast estates in the heart of the city and others pay heavy amount to house their portfolios in rented buildings e.g. almost all the arm’s length bodies and project management units (PMUs) etc. Even in the Secretariat, irregular and unjust internal distribution of space and resources among various departments further reinforce thick layers of hierarchy and favouritism instead of cultivating good working environment.

The problem is worsened by the existence of huge dry record and manual handling of files and dossiers in every department that are a source of corruption. For evidence on the case of complex dynamics of space, secretarial records and (in)efficiency, a short random visit to a government department is suggested for the reader.

The net impact of this enormity and fragmented existence is reflected in (i) ever-growing operational costs arising out of inefficient use of resources i.e. from stationery to energy and (ii) undesired low productivity of daily business because of redundant procedures, lack of inter-agency coordination and consequent lack of motivation besides other factors.

The ongoing personnel rationalisation would not prove to be a wholesome policy solution. Consider merger of Energy and Mines and Minerals Departments, the resultant abolition of slots and redistribution of tasks will not reduce costs to a considerable size. Both the ministries will still retain their spaces and use the resources being allocated to them.

The answer lies in reducing real space of these enterprises through automation of records and daily business which will automatically rationalise the staff strength. Shifted to the electronic transactions, you will not need adaftri, a diary clerk, a stenographer and a personal assistant any more in a standard section of a department. The same pattern will go to the top.

Broadly, an administrative department carries out four functions; internal administration, human resource management, budgeting and developmental planning. The first two are its original tasks. The latter pair is compilation and review of the data received from the field formations. It is relatively easier for these policy exchanges to be shifted to electronic mode as informed civil servants are involved in these transactions. Piloting of the project, the smaller departments should be taken in the first phase.

Still the sailing is not so smooth. The departments will have to decentralise powers to their directorates that interact with public for policy implementation. The existing pool of civil servants will have to accommodate innovation in the public interest and to be ready for training to make this policy a success.

Probably, the biggest challenge would be the new staff rationalisation being born out of new administrative tools and technologies. It would follow massive surplus and lay-offs that have obvious political consequences. The new slim size of the government will also bring in a fresh cadre rift between the federal and provincial services.

Obviously, the trade-offs involved are tough to choose but the outcome is highly desired. The economic situation of the country calls for an immediate reduction in non-development expenses. The donors always press for institutional restructuring and the public wants a speedy delivery. Against the odds of bureaucratic resistance, this is an ideal time for the political leadership to go ahead for such kind of redesigning.

The good news is: the government is already on its way to accommodate innovation in its administrative design. For example, creation of public sector companies to handle policy implementation with a corporate outlook, public private partnership, land record automation and stakeholder consultations in urban affairs are laudable steps. The proposed plan of spatial reorganisation of government through automation would also be a great leap forward.

[I]The writer is an urban policy analyst[/I]

[B]01.09.2013[/B][B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"]The talk over talks[/SIZE]
The Hamid Karzai-Nawaz Sharif talks may not have achieved much in matters concerning security, but progress was made in terms of economic cooperation
By Rahimullah Yusufzai
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President Hamid Karzai’s keenly awaited visit to Pakistan had raised expectations, particularly in Afghanistan, of a breakthrough in repairing the strained ties between the two neighbouring Islamic countries, but there is no indication yet that it has achieved something tangible.

Sooner rather than later, we could again start hearing complaints from Kabul that Islamabad wasn’t cooperating in stabilising Afghanistan by putting pressure on the Afghan Taliban to join the peace process.

That has been happening for some years now and could happen again as Kabul’s expectations are far beyond Islamabad’s capacity to deliver.

Realising the complexity of the relationship with Pakistan, Karzai had tried to play down the expectations by remarking before his departure for Islamabad that he remained hopeful but wasn’t sure of the success of his visit. He extended his one-day visit by a day and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif promptly decided to host him in the serene and pleasant environs of Murree to provide a better setting to their talks.

It was obvious that both sides made efforts to make the visit successful, but the deep mistrust — between the two governments and their security institutions — cannot be overcome in one visit and a few sittings.

Since his installation as President in December 2001 by his US-led allies, Karzai had paid 14 visits to Pakistan. His 15th visit was undertaken after 18 long months, unlike his previous trips that were made at regular intervals. However, the two countries weren’t so estranged then and there were hopes that something better would emerge from their frequent engagement with each other. That promise didn’t materialise as the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated due to the strengthening Taliban resistance despite the gradually expanding presence of the Nato forces.

After Sartaj Aziz, advisor on foreign affairs and national security to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had personally delivered an invitation to the Afghan President to visit Pakistan, reports from Kabul indicated that Karzai was reluctant to undertake the trip unless there was an assurance that it would be beneficial. Eventually, he agreed to come to Pakistan as a new government had been installed after the elections and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had made positive statements with regard t o improving ties with Afghanistan.

Afghan government officials, however, insisted on having a proper agenda for the talks addressing Kabul’s concerns.

They argued that there had been much talk and little action by Pakistan with regard to closing the safe havens for the Afghan Taliban on its soil and pushing the Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar to agree to peace talks with the Afghan government. Pakistan’s protestations that it was doing everything within its means to help restore peace in Afghanistan and bring the Taliban to the negotiation table fell on deaf ears in Kabul.

In fact, the situation was hardly conducive for the Karzai visit. It became possible on initiative of Nawaz Sharif, who after his decisive victory in the May 11 general election appeared to be in a hurry to initiate steps to mend fences with both Afghanistan and India.

In context of Afghanistan, he felt Islamabad needed to play a more active role in the Afghan peace process — not only to stabilise the war-ravaged country but also to reduce its negative fallout on Pakistan.

However, the repeated anti-Pakistan statements by Afghan government functionaries created bitterness prior to the Karzai visit. The Afghan National Army chief General Sher Mohammad Karimi argued that everything was in Pakistan’s hands as the Taliban were under its control and there would be peace in Afghanistan if Islamabad so desired. Karzai’s close aide Karim Khurram alleged that the opening of the Taliban office in Qatar in which Pakistan and the US played a role was aimed at dividing Afghanistan.

One of the expectations from the visit was the release of more Afghan Taliban leaders being held in Pakistan as a follow-up to Islamabad’s decision last year to free 26 of them on the request of the Afghan High Peace Council. Salahuddin Rabbani, the son and successor of the council’s founder Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani who was killed by a Taliban suicide bomber, had publicly stated that he would be seeking release of the remaining jailed Afghan Taliban leaders, including the movement’s former deputy head Abdul Ghani Biradar.

As Pakistani officials had already promised to release him and others, there isn’t any visible hurdle to freeing them except the concerns by the US that they could return to the battlefield and, therefore, a system needed to be devised to keep track of them. The detained Taliban could be freed in due course of time once the modalities have been worked out.

The suggestion in sections of the media that Biradar would be handed over to Karzai and flown to Kabul was naïve because Pakistan risked annoying and alienating the Taliban if he was given into the custody of his Afghan enemies. If Islamabad has its way, it would insist on releasing the rest of the Taliban leaders in Pakistan and leaving it to them whether they want to travel to Afghanistan and hold talks with the Afghan government. None of the 26 previously freed returned to Afghanistan or held talks with Kabul. There is little possibility that Biradar and the rest would do so once they are freed. Besides, one has to keep in mind that the Taliban leadership doesn’t allow any of its freed men to represent it at any forum even if they held top positions in the movement in the past.

The visit may not have achieved much in matters concerning security, but progress was made in terms of economic cooperation. Nawaz Sharif made particular mention of this aspect of the Pak-Afghan relationship during his joint press conference with Karzai, who focused more on Kabul’s expectations of Pakistan’s cooperation in the Afghan peace process. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and his Afghan counterpart Hazrat Omar Zakhelwal signed an agreement to carry out joint projects and increase trade and economic cooperation. A significant joint initiative is building a hydel-power project on the river Kunar. Earlier, there were reports that India could be asked to build this dam. This had upset Pakistan. This project would also hopefully resolve the issue of water-sharing of river Kabul and mutually benefit from their water and hydel resources.

Other proposed projects include building a motorway from Peshawar to Kabul and expediting work on laying railway track also from Peshawar to Kabul. Pakistan promised to complete development projects that it had earlier promised. This includes the construction of the second Torkham-Jalalabad road as Pakistan has already built one such road. Pakistan would also build power lines to bring electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgystan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. On its part, Afghanistan promised to facilitate Pakistani exports through its territory to the Central Asian states.

Pakistan promised to address Afghanistan’s concerns with regard to the existing trade and transit issues within two weeks.

One would have to watch out for any progress on the security front as it is possible some understanding was reached but wasn’t made public. In Kabul, a meaningful statement was issued by Karzai’s spokesman to the effect that the Afghan government was looking forward to the implementation of the decisions made in the Karzai-Nawaz Sharif meetings.

With only seven months left in his second term as President of Afghanistan, Karzai is desperate for access to the Afghan Taliban leaders so that he could hold talks with them in the hope of peacefully ending the Afghan conflict. He believes Pakistan is the key to peace in Afghanistan, though there is little evidence to suggest that the Taliban would take dictation from Islamabad and take care of Pakistan’s interests rather their own.

[B]01.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Rethinking anti-terrorism strategy[/SIZE]
The government is still struggling to come up with a coherent strategy that could define the approach that many different government agencies need to follow
By Helal Pasha[/CENTER][/B]

Amid certain hesitancy, numerous approaches, number of drafts, and advices from various defense analyst and public intellectuals, the Prime Minister Nawaz government is still struggling to come up with a coherent strategy that could define the approach that many different government agencies need to coordinate and follow in the field. The problem is that the government has embarked upon such a long spiel that it has lost the way. The policy does not need a long preamble explaining the causes of terrorism in Pakistan. Most Pakistanis already know them.

The purpose of the policy should be defining actionable plans to counter the domestic terrorism effectively. The domestic terrorism does not require a counter insurgency strategy; neither does it need the whole population to get ready to scarify its time and lives defending the motherland from terrorism. All it needs is creating awareness in the general populace and developing a system that people can understand and know whom to contact upon watching some suspicious activity. The army’s intervention is mostly not required. The civilian law enforcement agencies can be sufficiently trained to handle individual suicide bomber or a terrorist attack by a few individuals.

Over the years, successive Pakistan governments have looked at domestic terrorism as insurgency in a foreign land. The US was dealing with the insurgency in two foreign lands, while for Pakistan no terrorist is foreigner. They are all homegrown, and they should have always been treated as such.

The defense analysts, in their borrowed wisdom, also fall in the same trap. The analysts want to follow the US COIN model or other counter-insurgency programmes, where the US army takes the primary role. They completely ignore the US domestic counter-terrorism approach that has no role for the army. That should have been the model for Pakistan from day one.

Pakistan’s terrorism problem is three and half dimensional. The first dimension and the most prominent group is Pakistani Taliban from Fata. The second and half dimension is Punjab-based sectarian outfits and former Jihadi who took part in battles in Kashmir. The last dimension consists of various warring groups including the Taliban and sectarian militants based in Karachi. There might be some splinter groups, but all law enforcement agencies are aware of these groups. Knowing their background and ideological commitment is completely irrelevant from the law enforcement point of view. They are all involved in terrorism and should be treated as terrorists.

Now look at the approach the US took after the heinous attacks on September 11, 2001. The US first decided to beef up its internal security system. The US national anti-terrorism policy has two aspects: visible and invisible.

Visible features were not about creating roadblocks at every turn or stationing ill-equipped police officers to search the cars. The US instead created a highly visible airport security system under Transport Security Administration. To enhance the public awareness, the US government initiated a colour-coded alert system that was given prominence in the media. As the colour codes moved up, more people showed interest in their surrounding. The people, within a short period, were fully attuned with the government efforts in national security.

The airport security system was not catching many terrorists. The system instead alerted everyone including the would-be terrorists that the internal security is always on high alert and they have a little chance of getting away with anything evil. Any report of mistreatment of passengers at the airports that appeared poor public relations, also sent a message to bad guys that the security personnel at the airport are no-nonsense and discourteous bunch that do their job no matter what.

The visible aspect of security worked as significant psychological deterrence. The invisible part actually grabbed the suspects before they could even get close to doing anything.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was the lead agency aided by several other non-uniform agencies and the local police that took part in the invisible side of the counter domestic terrorism policy. The agencies first identified potential groups that could be, for various reasons, inclined towards terrorism. Once identified, the congregation places of these groups were first placed under surveillance. The second part was penetrating the groups.

Both the surveillance and penetration identified the individuals for careful monitoring. New York was the focal area of this programme, but over years the programme was implemented all over the country.

The US have many right wing groups involved in domestic terrorism; they were all brought under this programme. With this tight programme hardly any would-be terrorist got out of the civilian agencies’ sight. Some individuals managed to fall through the surveillance programme, but they were far and few. Overall the US has been successful in controlling domestic terrorism to almost zero in the last 12 years.

Pakistan clearly does not have the resources that the US can muster. Pakistan does have a civilian intelligence network. Pakistani police has deep reach in the communities. Given some confidence and resources, they can deliver suspects before they turn into hardened criminals. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is right in lifting the ban from hiring in Intelligence Bureau. These are the intelligence units that need patronage from the state.

The agencies in Pakistan have many advantages. They already know the groups, where they live, operate, the masterminds behind the terrorists, and their local patrons.

With nearly all Pakistan now covered with radio, television network, it is not difficult to set up a visible terrorism awareness programme to increase citizen’s participation.

Provinces have a greater role in law and order maintenance. They cannot be left alone to deal with terrorism. The federal government has to step in and ensure that they are actively pursuing and have the resources to catch the terrorists before any possible act. The Punjab government cannot sit silent while the Punjab-based sectarian groups create mayhem in Balochistan and Sindh. Punjab should tighten the noose around the areas where terrorists congregate and recruit. Those areas should be blanketed with intelligence, police and armed paramilitary forces.

Similarly, Sindh and Balochistan governments should take an identical approach. KPK has major problems. The federal government will have to make sure that all known or unknown crossing points from Fata are monitored adequately. Satellite monitoring and quick response units should be established for KPK and Fata.

Finally, please do not throw ill-equipped police officers at the mercy of terrorists at roadblocks. Have some experts design the roadblocks in such way that no vehicle comes in direct contact with police officers until all its occupants have stepped out and are at a safe distance from the police officers.

[B]01.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Chronic ‘debt dependence’[/SIZE]
Bailouts by donors will not serve the purpose unless the government puts its own house in order
By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr Ikramul Haq
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All is set for the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (MF) to consider Pakistan’s request for a fresh bailout package on September 4, 2013 after Islamabad has purportedly “fulfilled all prior requirements” — the IMF has already circulated amongst members the Letter of Intent (LoI) it received from Islamabad. Reportedly, though the IMF has agreed to provide $6.6 billion under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Islamabad is insisting on $7.3 billion confirming its insatiable ‘debt addiction’.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, in a news conference on August 26, 2013, revealed that “in the first year, the IMF will give $2.2 billion while we have to pay back over $3 billion.” He conceded that Pakistan had no option but to borrow $12 billion “to retire its previous debts”. Dar said the “most vital precondition of the IMF for broadening of tax base was fulfilled as the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had already issued 15,000 notices to potential tax dodgers.”

The lingering and deepening economic crisis, especially bourgeoning fiscal deficit, has been eroding Pakistan’s capacity to repay huge external loans of over $60 billion with fast diminishing foreign reserves. The IMF, having enormous stakes in Pakistan before agreeing for fresh tranche, expressed anguish and dissatisfaction over the FBR’s performance — in particular what it calls fixing ‘ambitious targets’ and then missing the same with a wide margin every year. The dismal performance of the FBR — it collected only Rs1940 billion against the original target of Rs2381 billion for 2012-13 pushing the fiscal deficit to 8.8 per cent of GDP — worried the IMF about repayment of its outstanding debt of $6.4 billion. The fresh bailout is, thus, nothing but to thwart the obvious default.

The IMF’s compulsion to offer yet another EFF to Pakistan is inevitable as foreign exchange reserves are dwindling and agreed schedule for repayments of $7.6 billion till the end of 2014-15 by Pakistan is in jeopardy. Pakistan’s $11.3 billion Stand-by Arrangement (SBA) with the IMF expired on September 30, 2011 with last two tranches of $3.7 billion could not be paid following Islamabad’s failure to implement key reforms coupled with fudging of revenue figures.

Pakistan opted for $11.3 billion SBA in 2008 and got disbursements of about $7.6 billion, but failed to get the remaining $3.7 billion due to lapses in performance criteria, leading to suspension of the programme in May 2010, and final unsuccessful ending on September 30, 2011.

In the current fiscal year, the FBR is assigned a target of Rs2475 billion. Like previous years, the FBR is claiming to cross the target! Experts are doubtful in view of recession and weak enforcement capabilities of the FBR. The track record of the FBR shows that it has perpetually missed targets for the last five years. The performance of the FBR is puzzling for the IMF and other donors as in the past World Bank provided $100 million for five-year-long Tax Reforms Administration Program (TARP) and on conclusion tax-to-GDP ratio declined from 11 per cent to 8.2 per cent and tax gap increased from 75 per cent to 150 per cent.

Strangely, after wasting billons in the name of reforms, the FBR is showing helplessness to enforce tax laws. Every now and then the FBR’s big bosses claim “we possess data of all the rich persons who spend millions but have never filed tax declarations.” Why they do not take action against these tax cheats is best known to them. They admit in private that about 70 per cent of legislators are tax cheats.

Pakistani tax cheats have just to approach money exchange companies that fix fake remittances for a small premium and no question can be asked by tax authorities about the source — in the presence of such a facility, their claim is why we should pay tax at the rate of 25 per cent! Tax evasion has legal protection in Pakistan and legislators are to be blamed as well.

There are about 125 million mobile users in Pakistan, out of which at least one million, if not more, expend Rs60,000 or above per annum but never bother to file tax returns. If they are taxed on their real incomes, total tax from them would not be less than Rs5000 billion. The real tax potential of Pakistan is not less than Rs8 trillion — direct taxes of Rs5 trillion and indirect of Rs3 trillion — but the government is begging for money both externally and internally. Nobody questions the enormous tax benefits available to Riasti Ashrafiya (State Oligarchy) — ‘Public parasites’, The News, July 21, 2013.

No doubt that the FBR should improve its enforcement capacity to detect tax losses, but it suffers from “helplessness” caused by obnoxious provisions like section 111(4) of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. The corrupt legislators through such provisions protect themselves — their main assets are banami [in fake names]. With such laws and innumerable Statutory Regulatory Orders [SROs] they serve the interests of mighty segments of society.

Ordinary people ask why they should file tax returns when their president, prime minister, ministers, governors and elected representatives give damn to it. The outgoing president, since his election on September 6, 2008, never bothered to inform the nation from where he got $60 million (unfrozen in Switzerland), let alone pay any tax on this colossal amount. Before taking oath of president, he did not declare his assets and liabilities and evidence of payment of taxes wherever due. The same is true with present rulers and many other politicians. We have written time and again in these columns that the tax culture in Pakistan will never take roots unless tax and asset declarations of all the mighty segments of society — politicians, high-ranking military and civilian officials, judges and all public office holders — are made public [Taxation challenges, The News, June 9, 2013].

There should be a public campaign that absentee landlords, most of whom are members of parliaments and their siblings are members of militro-judicial-civil complex, should reveal how much agricultural income tax was paid by them and their near and dear ones. All the judges, high-ranking public servants, including serving and retired generals, should also be required under the law to make public how many plots they received during service, what are total assets owned by them and their family members and how much tax was paid annually.

Any person who is a tax delinquent or has been beneficiary of any loan write-off should be debarred from contesting elections. All kinds of exemptions and concessions provided under various tax codes should be withdrawn.

The tendency to squeeze more and more from the existing taxpayers and giving a free hand to non-filers has eroded the tax system to an extent where voluntary compliance and tax enforcement have lost their relevance. The present tax system imposes greater and undue burden on the poor and middle-class people (e.g. 17 per cent GST takes larger portion of low-income groups compared to high income groups). The rich and mighty are not paying agricultural income tax and income tax on their non-agricultural income. Most of them are landowners-cum-industrialists-cum-politicians and are engaged in massive tax evasion — case of cartelisation and tax evasion bonanza in sugar industry is a classic example.

Adding insult to injury, the tax collected from the citizens is wasted on unprecedented privileges and perquisites meant for elites — militro-judicial-civil complex, landed aristocracy, industrialist-turned politicians and unscrupulous businessmen.

We will not come out of present mess unless control of resources vests with people instead of elites. Institutions like the FBR serve the interest of mighty classes. They would continue to do so till the time people of Pakistan exert pressure on provincial governments to devolve fiscal and administrative powers at grass root level to local self-governments. Fiscal decentralisation and municipal self-governance can end dependence on federal government that is epitome of bad governance.

As regards reforming the FBR, as a first step the posting of chairman and members should be made through public hearings by a joint committee of Senate and National Assembly and not on the whims and dictates of the ruling political party headquarters. All kinds of loopholes in tax laws should be plugged by proper legislation. No executive authority should have powers to amend tax laws through infamous SROs.

Through public debates and democratic processes, the Parliament should pass rationale and workable laws after taking inputs from all the stakeholders and experts in the field. There should be zero tolerance in respect of enforcement of tax obligations across the board without any fear or favour. Tax collected should be spent for the welfare of the masses and not for the luxuries of state oligarchy.

[I]The writers, tax advisers and author of many books, are Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)[/I]

[B]01.09.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Politics of flood[/SIZE]
A large number of families in kacha areas use fishing boats to get ration as there is no land route. They need help to come out as water level may rise again
By Jan Khaskheli[/CENTER][/B]

Nobody knows the pain of discrimination more than Daya Ram, belonging to low-caste Kolhi community, who luckily received a shelter in donation near the embankment of Kalri Baghar Feeder, a canal feeding the Karachi city. His family was among hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the flood in 2010.

A 50-year-old father of seven, Ram works in agriculture fields on daily wages. “I cannot remember living in one place for more than five years,” he said, adding that it is common situation for the peasants, who always face hostility of landlords and relocate from one place to the other.

However, he still lives in the donated hut and feels safe for his family, which never imagined to have their own permanent shelter in a newly built village.

There might be a small number of people like Daya Ram who were displaced by the floods and got shelters for resettlement. Otherwise, hundreds of families, displaced by the flood, are still living an insecure life in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and other urban areas.

Flood emergency has been declared again in the entire River Indus catchment area (Kacha) for the fourth consecutive year. Rehabilitation of victims of previous year floods still remained a question even after the passage of three years. This lackluster attitude of the government authorities sends a depressing message to the humanitarian organisations of the world. According to an Irrigation Department report, the katcha area is spread over 1.5 million acres, where an estimated five million people live as the land is fertile and hub of livestock.

The intensity of recent rain and flood emergency 2013 can be gauged from the fact that during the recent by-elections held on August 22, 2013 neither candidates themselves nor the government officials could manage to bring voters to cast their votes at four polling stations in Shikarpur district. These polling stations, comprising several scattered villages, include Kutib Ali Darogho, Sobdar Khan Jatoi, Babar Bagani and Abdul Karim Kosh. More than 12,000 voters, living in the kacha area after displacement, could not cast votes.

“The 2010 flood had destroyed all the school buildings, health and water supply facilities in the entire kacha area, which have not been rehabilitated, so far. The reason is that the government and NGOs, both national and international, preferred to support the people living in accessible areas and discarded remote villages,” said Parial Mari, executive director Insaf Social Welfare Association (Iswa), which has been involved in relief and early recovery projects in Shikarpur district.

Azhar Tanwri, former coordinator to Sindh Relief Department, who led the relief work in the 2011 and then 2012 floods, says the entire worst affected kacha and flooded areas near the river remained deprived in terms of relief and early recovery.

“The Sindh government was reluctant to let the humanitarian organisations initiate rehabilitation projects in the kacha areas in 2011. The reason remained unascertained. It was nothing but politics of legislators to help their own people. Ministers and parliamentarians had their own set targets instead of helping the poor at this difficult time,” he said.

Azhar Tanwri accused legislators and ministers, who got funds but could not utilise the same to help the flood victims. Former advisor to Sindh chief minister on relief, Haleem Adil Shaikh, led the volunteers with relief goods and helped the people in several affected areas. Adil Shaikh has also launched Pakistan Relief Foundation (PRF) which is busy in relief and rescue work in Kashmore, Jamshoro and Hyderabad. “It was the government’s responsibility to help the people in this difficult time. The ministers claiming to have strengthened embankments should realise the vulnerability of dykes and the communities and take precautionary measures before fresh rain spells and floods hit again,” he said.

An official of UN agency, asking not to be named, told TNS that NGOs involvement with foreign donors started in 2011. “The plan was to engage the affected people by offering them cash for work to repair roads, streets and drain out stagnant water near their areas. Besides distribution of food supplements among the affected children, temporary learning centres were also set up to entertain children. At that time food insecurity was the major threat to these people,” he said.

A spokesman for the Sindh People’s Commission on Disaster Prevention and Management, a network of 35 humanitarian organisations which responded effectively to help the affected people in 2011 and 2012 emergencies, in a statement said, “during the last three years’ floods, the performance of the Irrigation Department has been continuously questioned, both because it was unable to maintain necessary structures to prevent destruction from floods and also because it never had any coherent policy to respond to the fast changing hydraulic environment of the province. Its failure to maintain dykes and embankments has caused much irreparable damage to the province in the form of repeated flooding.

Presently, the water level in the river stream is increasing, forcing people to leave for safer places with families and livestock. During a visit to several areas along the river embankments, it was observed that majority of the local people have shifted to safer places.

However, ministers and elected representatives are claiming to have been in the field, demanding to utlise funds to benefit their supporters, instead of those more vulnerable. Despite tall claims there was no relief camp in any of the affected area. A large number of families in kacha areas are surrounded by the flood water, using fishing boats to move out for getting ration. There is no land route. They need help to come out as water level may increase further following the forecasts of heavy rains next month. But since there is political nepotism, these people living in inundated villages may pay more price of government’s indifference.

[B]01.09.2013 [/B][B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Fighting to lose[/SIZE]
With Egypt’s foreign reserves fast depleting and foreign investment shrinking, people will soon feel the financial brunt of continuing unrest
By Dr Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi[/CENTER][/B]

Egypt, a nation of 82 million people strategically situated at the crossroads of North Africa and the Middle East, is passing through an unprecedented series of revolutions for civil and democratic rights. Last time, the entire nation was fighting against Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorial regime. Now it is the Muslim Brotherhood, whose democratically elected government under the leadership of President Morsi was overthrown, and hence they are demonstrating for their civil and egalitarian rights.

The difference between the two revolutions is that the first one was not handled by the use of force. But the later was dealt with an iron hand — a blatant and blunt demonstration of shameful gun power. Muslim Brotherhood officials say adamantly that “they were willing to ‘die for their cause’ if that’s what it came down to.”

A peep into the Egyptian society shows that it’s a competition between minority and majority. Majority came into power on the basis of ballot. Muslim Brotherhood was a legitimate custodian of the country as per norms of democracy and rule of law. However, military rule does not care for any law or democratic norms. They rule country undemocratically in the name of democracy and play havoc with the rule in the name of law. The ‘us versus them’ narrative propagated by both sides is becoming entrenched and what little middle ground left is further eroding.

For Egypt, the situation has gone out of Arab nationalism and Arab Spring. Almost the entire world has condemned the carnage in Egypt. US President Obama also came out with blunt statement condemning Cairo killings and cancelling the US-Egypt joint military exercises which were scheduled next month in Egypt.

The Brotherhood has been painted as an internal security threat with global tentacles. At this stage, President Obama was very right in clearing the doubts by saying: “We don’t take sides with any particular party or political figure.”

It is very easy to give a colouration of foreign hand in debilitating domestic problems of a third world country. Same is the case with Egypt. The disparagement of the Brotherhood as terrorists funded and supported by foreign countries has been an easy sell across much of the Egyptian society. One cannot ignore the judiciary factor which worked hand in hand with the military regime in starting the bloody crackdown. It has had nothing short of an antagonistic relationship with the Morsi regime which took over numerous judicial powers from them to strengthen presidency.

The Muslim Brotherhood blames the Christians’ financial ties to the West which are alleged to be behind the demise of the Morsi regime. Thus Christian churches, homes, and businesses have also been burned in retaliation. Making up only 10 per cent of Egypt’s 86 million people, Christians are easy targets for majority of the Brotherhood supporters.

Denmark suspended economic aid to Egypt. The United States — which provides about $1.6 billion in annual aid to Egypt — is continuing to review such programmes ‘in all forms’, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. If Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins continue, it will also be an international embarrassment that will keep away tourists; much needed foreign capital and investment. Thus state will be economically affected and ultimately people will bear the brunt.

The foreign direct investment is now down to zero. Egypt’s foreign reserves are fast depleting. There was a strong and energetic tourism industry, which employed 2 million people. All of them are sitting idle with tourists continuing to shun their visits to the country — that is $1 billion of lost revenue every month. If Egypt’s economy remains in deep troubles, the boss of IMF will soon reach Cairo to fix their economy. He would ask for economic reforms, devaluation of currency, more taxes, reduced public subsidies and privatisation of industries. Thus Egyptians will have to take the devil’s kiss for their beleaguered survival.

Egypt has turned into an extremely polarized society. Contempt and hate between the security forces and the Brotherhood will lead to further clashes without any heed to their economic and political losses. This would mean more killings, more curfews, more emergency and as a result more damage to the country as a whole. It will be a lose-lose game. Only Egyptians will have to decide as the ultimate winners or sufferers will be themselves and none else.

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

[B]01.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER] [SIZE="5"] Radicalisation sans borders[/SIZE]
In its current form, radicalisation is no more a localised issue of tribal areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The US and Europe are now facing a serious internal challenge of containing extremism in their own cities
By Naseer Memon[/CENTER][/B]

If anything that has gripped the whole world with alarming intensity, it is nothing but a rapid rise of radicalisation. It is no more confined to Islamic countries of Asia, Africa and Middle East. The so-called free world is emerging as a hotbed of radicalisation.

The post-9/11 war against terrorism has in fact provided it a new impetus and the world has witnessed a far more violent form of radicalisation in the recent years. It would be unrealistic to trace the genesis of this phenomenon in a single incident. In fact, an assortment of complex historical and socio-political factors has shaped and nurtured the current wave.

In its current form, radicalisation is no more a localised issue of tribal areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Although these areas are believed to be epicenters of Islamic radicalisation, Europe and the US cannot be fully absolved of their role, specially in the context of Pakistan that was chosen as a surrogate battlefield for their wars in Afghanistan.

The US and its allies even circumvented their much avowed affection for democracy and human rights by underpinning unconstitutional military regimes in Pakistan during 80s and 2000. Their myopic and strayed foreign policy has actually done a disservice and culminated in a global whirlpool of extremism. The US and Europe are now facing a serious internal challenge of containing extremism in their own countries. Thickly populated Muslim cities and neighborhoods in these countries engendered various forms of extremism that occasionally erupt into violent incidents.

Dream city of London can be a pertinent example to cite. Visiting the salubrious city as a tourist is a feast but peeping into lives of Pakistani community dampens the verve of recreation. Pakistani immigrants’ neighbourhoods paint a grim picture, where one finds all reasons of consternation. Retrogressive social milieu prevails even after decades when first generation of Pakistanis arrived here. During those heydays, Pakistani community earned respect for their hard work and amity.

Pakistani students were known for their stellar performance. Gone are those old good days and almost everything has degenerated. Pakistanis are now besmirched and stigmatised with social and political ills. Youth delinquency has surged, religious extremism has skyrocketed, women fenced in four walls, education attainment on rock bottom and social integration is unraveling at alarming pace. Seminaries are multiplying and formal schooling is being eclipsed by substandard teachings. A generation is growing in social seclusion of Pakistani and Muslim enclaves where identity crisis looms with all perils. Equally appalling is the situation in other cities like Bradford, Manchester etc.

France has the highest Muslim population among European countries, where some six million Muslims are living, mostly with North African origin. Social indicators of French Muslim are believed to be a major cause of disgruntlement. From education to employment, Muslims are disadvantaged. As a consequence, Muslim identity is proliferating with an alarming vengeance.

The post-9/11 developments have globally demarcated new borders between Muslims and the rest. Uncanny strategic shift of super powers between 1979 and 2001 wars triggered ideological tremors. The jihad espoused by the US and West coddled during the cold war era and patronised more vehemently in 80s refused to wilt with the demise of socialist Soviet Union.

As Allies failed to produce one right out of two wrongs, extremism found new legitimacy among the faithful in the wake of post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even second and third generation of European and American Muslims obviously could not remain insulated from the tide. Gradually a piqued Muslim identity started obscuring other domains of social fabric in these countries. Organic process of assimilation rapidly reversed over the years and now vanishing with the speed of light.

A survey of British Muslims conducted in October 2006 found that 82 per cent of respondents believed that the British Muslims have become more politically radicalised and 81 per cent believe the war on terror is really a war on Islam. Several other surveys confirm a similar trend among British Muslims. An abominable carnage of 7/7 that claimed more than 50 lives sent shockwaves throughout the Europe that did not fully recover from the nightmare of 9/11. The gruesome incident proved that security shields alone can’t clamp religiosity and the Britain is infested with radicals whose machinations could outsmart its fastidious systems.

Radicalisation among Muslim youth is not confined to Britain only; it has straddled across other European countries. According to a recent report of the International Herald Tribune, a large number of young Muslims with Western passport are sneaking into Syria to reinforce rebel crusaders who have waged a war against the government of Bashar al Assad. Some European and American Intelligence officials claim that more Westerners are fighting in Syria than have fought in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. Various sources estimate that the number of fighters from Europe, North America and Australia fighting in Syria is more than 600. French Interior Minister Manuel Valls termed it a “ticking bomb”.

The phenomenon of radicalisation in Europe is not so simple and does not have single complexion or a linear trajectory. A research report “Radicalisation of Muslim Immigrants in Europe and Russia: Beyond Terrorism” (PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 29) challenges the notion that radicalisation is merely an outcome of social disintegration among various ethnic communities in Europe. In fact it implicitly berates the approach and quotes examples where well-integrated second and third generation citizens were found involved in terrorist acts.

The report postulates that the issue is intertwined with global political panorama. The report reads “while some of their own socio-cultural experiences may prepare them to advance what they believe is the cause of fellow Muslims suffering around the world, violent Islamists frame their actions in a quasi-religious, politicised, and almost “neo-anti-imperialist” discourse of global confrontation with the West, shaped and visualised, above all, by what they see happening daily in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.”

These factors are creating a new gulf among Muslims and other communities, which leads towards a precarious disintegration and friction. A radical Muslim identity is snowballing with every passing day and Nato’s exit from Afghanistan in 2014 would inculcate a sense of triumph and bestow it with a new pinnacle.

Islamic extremism is also breading a reciprocating anti-Muslim extremism. According to surveys, perceptions about Muslims among non-Muslims have grown. In 2008, 52 per cent in Spain 50 per cent in Germany, 38 per cent in France and 23 per cent in the UK felt negative about Muslims, considering them a threat to Western civilization.

Vagaries of the US and European foreign policy have resulted in this unmanageable global chaos. For decades, religiosity was eulogized as a bulwark against communism. Muslim countries were made a dumping ground of religious obscurantist elements, without realising that it will not remain in endless hibernation. It resurrected with ferocity of inconceivable proportions and now refuses to recoil.

In a globalized world, it is impossible to preclude tenacity of such congenital sentiments. In fact post-cold war follies of the West have revived the Pan Islamist fervour with a profound gusto. Religious radicalisation seems to have dwarfed all barriers and poses far reaching ramifications for posterity.

[I]The author is an analyst and civil society activist: [email]nmemon2004@yahoo.com[/email][/I]

[B]01.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]The creation of Swat State[/SIZE]
This obsession with a straight-jacket definition of a ‘Pakistani’ and ‘Pakistani nation’ has mired us in a complex web of, simply put, catastrophes, but we are still oblivious to its fatal effects
By Yaqoob Khan Bangash[/CENTER][/B]

The more I study Pakistan the more fascinated I get by the diversity and complexity of its regions, peoples and cultures. Unfortunately, for most of Pakistan’s history the focus of the central government has been to ignore and suppress regional identities, rather than make them an integral part of the national identity.

Therefore, we had the failed experiment of the One Unit system which tried to wipe away any distinctions between the different provinces of Pakistan; we still try to impose Urdu as the ‘national’ language and practically ostracise regional languages; and, most dangerous of all, we still attempt to impose one version of Islam on the whole country.

This obsession with a straight-jacket definition of a ‘Pakistani’ and ‘Pakistani nation’ has mired us in a complex web of, simply put, catastrophes, but we are still oblivious to its fatal effects. I shall spare the reader the obvious comparison with India, and its comparatively successful experiment with diversity and multiple expressions of nationhood and ‘Indian-ness,’ to focus on the creation of one erstwhile princely state in Pakistan — Swat.

Today Swat is simply a district in our northern province, and only became newsworthy recently due to the Taliban takeover there a few years ago, but till March 1969 it was a princely state and internally autonomous. It was a fascinating state since not only was it the last state to be formed and recognised in the British Indian Empire, it was a peculiar example of state formation in this region. What follows below, therefore, gives us an insight into the complex state and social structure inherited by Pakistan, and should, I hope help us to appreciate the diversity of our country.

Swat State was a creation of the lack of centralised control in the aftermath of the fall of the Afghan and Sikh empires. The history of the Swat is inextricably linked to its neighbouring states of Dir, Chitral and Amb, and the adjoining tribal area, but its foundation was very distinct from the other states. Whereas in the other Frontier states, chiefs of locally powerful tribes rose to such prominence that they became the rulers of the state, in Swat, the rulers did not consolidate the state on the basis of tribal leadership alone.

At the time of the British occupation of Peshawar in 1849, the Swat valley was mainly inhabited by Yusufzai Pathans who were enjoying virtual independence after the demise of the Durrani Empire. The Sikhs had not ventured into the area and so the administration of the area was on primitive tribal lines. When the British sent an expedition to pacify certain border tribes in the Swat valley, the Swatis responded by creating a joint front of tribes against the British attack. The tribal jirga also ‘elected’ Syed Akbar Shah as ‘King of Swat’ in 1849, creating, for the first time, some form of unitary government and authority in the valley.

Syed Akbar Shah immediately set upon organising a revenue and administrative system in the state and created a standing army. However, soon it was clear that these unifying measures were unacceptable to the local population and resentment grew against the ruler. As stated by Abdul Wadud, the later ruler of Swat, ‘the people, who were accustomed to self-willed, independent ways and disorganised life for quite a long time, found it difficult to submit to the checks and restrictions imposed by the new government.’ In 1857, therefore, this unwillingness to be ruled brought about the effective end of the first ‘State of Swat.’

The real power broker in the Swat valley, however, was not the elected king, but the ‘Akhund’ [a type of a religious leader] of Swat, affectionately called Saidu Baba. It was due to the influence of the Akhund that Akbar Shah was elected in 1849 and it was again through his influence in 1857 that Akbar Shah’s son was expelled from Swat and the state collapsed. The later rulers of Swat were then descendants of the Akhund.

The Akhund ‘whose real name was Abdul Ghafur, was born in 1784 of Safi Mohammad parents, probably in Upper Swat. He emigrated at an early age to the Yusufzai tract of British India, where he acquired great reputation for sanctity with the title of Akhund.’ As attested to in government documents, the Akhund was the leading man in Swat throughout his life ‘a position he owed rather to his great spiritual reputation than to any attempt to exercise temporal authority.’

After the death of the Akhund in 1877 the valley relapsed into factional fighting with a section led by his eldest son, Abdul Hanan, called the Miangul. Swat also got embroiled in the power struggles in Dir and Chitral. The end of the Chitral Expedition of 1895 and the restoration of Sharif Khan as the Chief of Dir did not end factional fighting and now the grandsons of the Akhund began jockeying for power in the valley. Meanwhile, in 1915, the tribes of Upper Swat elected Sayed Abdul Jabbar Shah as their ‘king’ mainly to fight against the Nawab of Dir. Abdul Jabbar Shah did manage to oust the Nawab of Dir from most of Swat in 1915, but could not defend the territory in a counter attack in 1916. Chaotic anarchy then ensued resulting in a jirga being called in September 1917 in Upper Swat, which decided to oust Abdul Jabbar Shah as king and appointed Miangul Abdul Wadud, one of the grandsons of the Akhund, as king.

Miangul Abdul Wadud spent the next three years consolidating the state, part of which was still under the control of the Nawab of Dir. He inflicted a crushing defeat on the Nawab of Dir in August 1919 in the Adinzai Valley, but the British political authorities prevailed upon him to abandon the Adinzai valley in favour of Dir through a tripartite agreement in 1922. Thereafter, Miangul Abdul Wadud focused on Buner and Chakesar and successfully annexed that territory from the Nawab of Amb in 1923.

Despite being in control of most of the Swat area by 1923, the GoI still had not recognised Miangul Abdul Wadud as a ruler, and Swat formally as a princely state. This was only sanctioned in March 1926, and in May 1926 the Chief Commissioner of the NWFP visited Swat and held a public Durbar at which the Miangul was proclaimed the Wali of Swat with an annual allowance of Rs10,000 from the Government of India. It is significant that even though Miangul Abdul Wadud was elected ‘king’ and locally known as ‘Bacha’ or ‘Badshah,’ the GoI only granted him the title of ‘Wali,’ which meant a religious ruler. This was obviously with reference to his descent from the Akhund of Swat.

Miangul Abdul Wadud wanted to retain the title of ‘Badshah’ or ‘Bacha’ but this was flatly denied by the political authorities on the basis that no ruler in India was a ‘king,’ and that only the King-Emperor in Britain had the right to be styled in such a manner. Miangul Abdul Wadud again petitioned the government for the title of ‘Bacha’ in December 1927, but the request was again declined.

Swat was a very peculiar state in terms of its origin and rulers. It was the only state in the Indian subcontinent which had thrice elected its own ‘king,’ and deposed two of them on account of unsatisfactory rule. While the use of the title ‘king’ was also certainly distinctive in India, as no ruler after the Mughals [bar the Oudh Nawabs very late in their rule] had employed that title, it is clear that the tribal jirga which elected these kings was not conferring full sovereignty on the thus chosen king.

The ‘king’ was to exercise power subject to the jirga, which was seen as the highest sovereign and judicial body. The title of ‘Wali’ which signified a religious connection was also singular in its application as even in Hindu principalities, where the religious and secular role of the prince was often inextricably linked, such a title or a similar one, was never used. In practice, however, none of the Wali’s of Swat indulged in religious affairs.

Despite the late recognition of the state, anthropologist Barth, who worked extensively in Swat, emphasises that “It is a notable fact that the state was an indigenous, not a colonial creation; it reasserted previously unsuccessful efforts of centralisation during the nineteenth century and seems to have arisen without external support and subsequently to have relied only marginally on colonial and post-colonial national establishments.”

The small state of Swat survived the Transfer of Power in India in 1947 and acceded to Pakistan in late 1947. Since its ruler, Miangul Abdul Wadud, and later his son, Miangul Jehanzeb, were very loyal towards Pakistan, the central government allowed them a large measure of autonomy. As a result, Swat became a model of development in the then-North West Frontier area.

For example, in education the central government’s Inspector of Schools had noted in 1957: “I am glad to remark that the educational progress of the State in all its activities under the able guidance and sympathetic patronage of its talented Wali is really appreciable…” As a result the literacy rate of the state increased from below 2 per cent in 1951 to nearly 12 per cent in 1961. However, soon the life of the state was cut short and it was merged in the erstwhile NWFP during the martial law regime of General Yahya Khan (for more details on the Swat State see my forthcoming book on the princely states, and that of Sultan-e-Rome on Swat).

Therefore, yet again, a ‘different’ state formation, a ‘different’ way of doing things came to an end in Pakistan, despite the fact that in terms of welfare provision (not democracy though) the state was well ahead of its peers at that time.

When will our obsession with uniformity end, I wonder....

[I]The writer is the Chairperson of the Department of History, Forman Christian College, and tweets at @BangashYK. He can be contacted at: [email]yaqoob.bangash@gmail.com[/email].[/I]

[B]01.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Prisoners of artificial boundaries[/SIZE]
The poor fishermen are left languishing in jail without any reason or ground of detention, and without jurisdiction or lawful authority. The state thus treats them like prisoners of war and political pawns, deprived of any right to a fair trial
By Shaffaf Shahid[/CENTER][/B]

The escalating arrests of fishermen inadvertently crossing the Pakistan-India maritime border, and their prolonged and unlawful detentions have compelled civil society organisations to step in to counteract the egregious lapses on the government’s part in securing the safety and liberty of its citizens.

On July 23, Indian border security forces arrested Pakistani fisherman Gul Bahar in the Sir Creek area, in response to which the Pakistani Acting Deputy High Commissioner in New Delhi served a démarche.

Although the respective Foreign Ministries’ have issued timely joint statements agreeing on recommendations for the release and deportation of detained fishermen, state agents have, otherwise, remained resolutely silent on the issue.

While the media may rejoice over the release of any detained fishermen, such sporadic releases are usually meant to be expressions of good-will, or they merely mark the ‘successful end’ of the most recent round of political talks between India and Pakistan — not unlike the release of a few celebratory fireworks — and they need to be guaranteed and not left to the political/diplomatic whims of the few.

Nevertheless, such discrete acts reveal the inherently paradoxical nature of the nation-state as on the one hand it promises to protect the life and liberty of its citizens, and on the other it validates the use of violence in state surveillance to protect its ‘sovereignty’. There are two interesting aspects to this; first is the absurdity of the artificial creation of physical boundaries specific to and constitutive of modernity, and second is the act of privatisation of seas and oceans by creating these boundaries, which necessitates the use of force by the state to protect its ‘sovereignty’ and to reinforce itself, leading to the subsequent militarisation of these seas and oceans.

The marginalisation of traditional fishermen is then inherent in the very imagination and conception of the nation-state and the concomitant reconstruction of space, as the inadvertence on the part of the fishermen is translated into a deliberate attack against the myth that is the nation-state.

Multiple factors can be attributed to the straying of fishermen into foreign waters, including lack of navigational tools and depleted resources forcing them to tread out into deeper waters for a better catch. Another reason is the dispute over the maritime border at Sir Creek at the Rann of Kutch, which flows out into the Arabian Sea. Pakistan claims possession of the entire creek through the Bombay Government Resolution of 1914, while India insists on a mid-channel border on the basis of the Thalweg Doctrine in international law.

However, while the dispute might be a reason for the accidental straying of fishermen, there is another cause underlying their arrests and detention, which began in the 1980s: that reason is the creation of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which, ironically, provides against the arrest or detention of such fishermen.

Pakistan signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on December 10, 1982, and ratified it in 1997, in order to establish a legal order for the seas and oceans, as recognised by its preamble. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) prescribed by UNCLOS hammered the final nail as it created a 200 mile zone over which the state exercises special rights of exploration of marine resources, stretching out from the coastal baseline beyond the customary territorial waters.

With the disputed area at Sir Creek transformed into a zone of exclusive economic rights, the Pakistani state associates any breach of the border as a threat to its sovereignty. The Atlantique incident of August 1999 is another example of the militarisation of the space, when a Pakistani naval aircraft was shot down over Sir Creek by the Indian Air Force, allegedly for violating its airspace.

Henceforth, straying Indian fishermen became a national threat. On the other hand, Pakistani fishermen straying out of territorial waters have been deemed disposable, for as Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argued, modernity is constituted by the boundaries erected between the normative and the disposable.

This narrative verbosely plays out in our laws — or at least in their interpretation. Indian fishermen, including juveniles, are arrested by the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) and prosecuted and convicted under the Foreigners Act, 1946, and orders for their detention are made “in the interest of the security of Pakistan”. Although the statute also provides that such detentions shall not exceed two months, renewals are sought after every three months, and the poor fishermen are left languishing in jail without any reason or ground of detention, and without jurisdiction or lawful authority. The state thus treats them like prisoners of war and political pawns, deprived of any right to a fair trial and to be released only in exchange for the release of Pakistani fishermen detained in India.

It is interesting to note that following the latest meeting in May 2013 of the Indo-Pak Joint Judicial Committee, a committee constituted in 2007 to expedite the release of detained fishermen, some news articles reinforcing the state narrative were published. The articles termed the efforts of civil society organisations as misguided and claimed that Indian fishermen were poachers causing huge losses to Pakistan’s fishery resources. One wonders why our fishermen would live in such abysmal poverty or be compelled to tread out into deeper waters to fetch a decent livelihood when our waters are teeming with resources attracting these exploitative and scheming Indian fishermen.

Regardless, how can a misinterpretation of the law and the degradation of imprisonment be justified and seen to be proportionate when the PMSA can simply direct them back to Indian waters? As per a report in the Indian daily The Hindu, the recently arrested Pakistani fisherman Gul Bahar was heavily manacled by Indian forces on his arrest “in the manner of a dreaded outlaw”, despite the Supreme Court forbidding manacling except in some “rare and extreme cases” — cases of rogue fishermen, one assumes.

As far as relief is concerned, the executive has been erratic at best and motivated by political interests. One of the statutory functions of the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) is the protection of fishing vessels and crew against any threat. The PMSA needs to devise a mechanism whereby Pakistani fishermen are prevented from straying out into disputed waters or are guided back to safer waters. Moreover, it needs to engage with the Indian Coast Guard to draft a ‘release at sea’ policy for the prompt release of fishermen accidentally entering disputed waters.

The Foreign Office must also work to obtain information of missing/arrested Pakistani fishermen and make all efforts to engage with the Indian authorities for their release and deportation. It also ought to abide by its part of the Consular Access Agreement of 2008 and enforce the recommendations of the Indo-Pak Joint Judicial Committee, which are within its power to do so, regarding detained Indian fishermen. The judiciary has played a somewhat more active role and has directed the government to release Indian fishermen on several occasions.

The straying of fishermen is an issue that needs to be depoliticised, and straying fishermen need to be protected and not continually treated as Bauman’s ‘waste products of globalisation’.

The political nature of such detentions is also evident from the fact that we don’t have any bilateral agreement with India under the Transfer of Offenders Ordinance, 2002, although similar ones have been signed with Thailand, Sri Lanka, and the United Kingdom. The State also needs to be careful when bandying the term ‘sovereignty’ about — while the killing of innocent civilians by drone strikes does not deserve a response, apart from formal condemnations, the straying of poor Indian fishermen into Pakistani waters is a national threat and demands instant retribution — in either case, it is the poor citizens that lose out.

[B]08.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]A middle class kingdom[/SIZE]
Considered as backbone of market economy and democracy in a globalised world, the ‘new’ middle class in Pakistan seeks good governance, meritocracy and end to corruption
By Dr Pervez Tahir[/CENTER][/B]

A debate is raging about the nature, size and the role of the middle class in Pakistan. Like the Chinese view themselves as the middle kingdom or the centre of the earth, the only definite thing about the middle class is that it lies between the poor and the rich. The measurement of its size is as suspect as the count of the poor. Both are based on the same survey, Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM).

Analysis based on the 2010-11 survey shows that only 12.9 per cent of the population is poor. At least this is what page 158 of the Annual Plan 2013-14 indicated, before it was removed from the website of the Planning Commission. The proportion of the rich has to be smaller than the poor. The rich and the poor thus leave too large a space between them to make sense, especially in terms of the Weberian continuum of wealth, power and prestige.

The self-view of the members of the middle class is one of having been crushed by inflation, low economic growth, poor formation of human capital and the elite capture of the state. “I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality,” said Bernard Shaw. Not quite. Consumerism, or Veblen’s conspicuous consumption, is the reigning morality.

In countries with high levels of poverty and large populations, the multinationals and the local assemblers of consumer durables eye a segment in the middle that can afford to buy their products. Growth in India is said to be spurred and sustained by this class of consumers.

According to the estimate being debated, Pakistan has a middle class larger than that of India as a proportion of population, and rising. The services-led, consumption-based growth of the Musharraf period is said to have been driven by the same middle class. That the Musharraf bubble burst too soon and the Indian bubble is bursting before our eyes is not much of a concern.

In popular political discourse, the failure of a strong middle class to emerge has always been described as a destabilising factor. More interesting than the economistic views of a growing middle class are the social and political interpretations. One theory is that a growing middle class proves that the current wave of obscurantism, religiosity, anti-modernism and Islamic militancy is a passing phase. The “progressive” middle class is expanding regardless. Just as Pakistanis have never voted the religious parties into power, the middle class consumerism will drive the militants out of the market place of ideas and influence. The proponents seem to disregard the fact that jihadis do not seek any vote. It took one all powerful dictator to sow the seeds of the crop being harvested now. At any rate, the jihadis view democracy as a Western implant. Power to them flows out of the barrel of a gun, not votes.

A connection is made with the diaspora also. Educated, innovative, upwardly mobile overseas Pakistanis imbued with democratic ideals and modernist perspective are said to be an influence on the rising expectations of the middle class back home.

Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf is viewed as representing the aspirations of the emerging middle class. His maverick thoughts on ghairatmandi and Taliban are seen as an anti-imperialist (read anti-American) stance, which reflect the anti-Western streak that the diaspora develops once its members find that the road to the top is closed to them in their host countries, sometimes in formal and at others in informal ways. In their reactive nationalism, which in the case of Pakistani Muslims assumes an Islamic dimension, they perceive that the people in the homeland also think like them or should think like them if they don’t. Many actually joined Jihad and are surprised why the majority of Pakistanis are not doing the same.

Commonly known as the party of big business, the current debate attributes the PML-N’s electoral success in the last elections to the middle class disillusionment with the misgovernance of the PPP, a party of the feudals masquerading as the party of the poor. The MQM, which has always defined itself as a secular party of the lower middle class, and the Jamaat-e-Islami drawing its followers from the religiously inclined lower middle class are less prominent in the debate than the uppish middle class followers of Imran Khan. Some economists think the middle class is the backbone of market economy and democracy in a globalised world. Others link it with faster growth, especially in countries with ethnic homogeneity. The parties leading the middle class in Pakistan have autarkic preferences, anti-market and anti-democracy tendencies. Ethnic heterogeneity and sectarian polarisation are not good for growth.

Too much is thus being read into the role of middle class in political and social change. Irked by Obama’s frequent references to middle class, former Republican Senator Rick Santorum castigated the term as “Marxism talk” of the liberals. Marx used the term middle class, even a lower middle class, but did not see it as a “class” with revolutionary potential. Class to him was a category in the relations of production — the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in conflict.

Middle class was placed in the relations of distribution, or what then was described as unproductive labour. It could play a revolutionary role only by de-classing itself. The political aspirations of the middle class in Pakistan have been to see technocratic setups in place, be it a military-bureaucratic regime or a prolonged caretaker setup.

What the “new” middle class seeks is good governance, meritocracy and end to corruption. The lawyers movement, an activist judiciary, high density of social and electronic media, free press and a youthful population have all contributed to these yearnings. In Aristotle’s “perfect political community”, the middle class was “in control” and larger than other classes. However, the Pakistani middle class is neither in control nor large enough to assume the role described by the economic historian Landes in 18th and 19th century Britain.

A middle class kingdom is an unrealistic dream. The middle class tendency of seeking upward mobility rather than aligning with those down below through political mobilisation acts as a counterrevolutionary force.

[B]08.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Policing the police[/SIZE]
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has taken a number of measures to reform police. Will it bring a real change or just prove another cosmetic effort?
By Javed Aziz Khan[/CENTER][/B]

Just imagine the pleasure of getting your complaint registered with the police comfortably sitting home and without facing the haughty and fearsome police walas in police stations. Police stations have virtually become a place known only for maltreatment, corruption and injustices.

Most of the criminal cases go unreported because of the typical police attitude and the treatment an ordinary man gets at the police station. The general impression about the police force is that it causes more problems to the public instead of doing their duty of providing security and helping the aggrieved party. For many, the force is infamous for corruption, misuse of power, supporting the mighty and suppressing the weaker. This may not be correct for the entire police force, but there are a number of policemen from top ranking officers down to constables who are doing no good to the society but only minting money by misusing their unlimited powers.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has recently taken a number of measures to bring improvement in the system and give some relief to the general public. Though the ideas are new and being appreciated all over, it is to yet to be seen as to how much commitment the police force and the government authorities show to really reform the force instead of making cosmetic changes.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has taken the lead recently by introducing the online FIR system for the public under which one can now register a complaint or initiate lodging an FIR while sitting miles away from the concerned police station. The system is initially working well in the province where the new provincial government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is claiming to be completely reforming the police force.

“Now everyone can lodge a case from his or her home. He or she does not need to go to the SHO who have already been directed to register each and every FIR when someone approaches them,” the inspector general of police Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ihsan Ghani told TNS.

According to the official statistics a total of 309 online complaints were received from July 1 to August 20 out of which 44 were converted into FIRs and 177 others were lodged in daily diaries. As many as 54 complaints were being worked upon while the rest were rejected or the callers could not be traced.

Besides the online FIR system, a toll free phone number has been introduced where one can call or SMS to get immediate police help in case of any crime, terrorism or complaint against policemen. “The cops will immediately rush and check the nature of the crime and respond accordingly,” claimed the IG KP.

Women counters at over 60 police stations have started receiving complaints and delivering justice. The authorities have set up women counters in at least three police stations of every district so that women, hesitant to visit male cops, would freely come to these desks to lodge their complaints and FIRs.

“We are receiving a number of females. They feel happy when they find a policewoman waiting for them to listen to their complaints and deliver justice with the support of the SHO and other staff of the police station,” Afshan, the in-charge of female desk in Kalu Khan Police Station of Swabi district told TNS. Afshan had registered five cases during the first one month of her duty. Most of the cases coming to the female counters are those of domestic dispute.

“We have deployed around 116 policewomen on women counters so that female complainants can come and discuss their cases without hesitation. The response is tremendous,” said IG Ihsan Ghani. The official added the female counters will be provided all the basic facilities including vehicles to immediately respond to complaints. To overcome the shortage of policewomen, the quota of female cops has been increased in the new recruitment from five per cent to 10 per cent.

“A number of steps have been taken that needs to be appreciated. However, the main thing is the proper implementation of various announced projects — like female counters must not be restricted only to a desk at a corner of the police station with a policewoman behind it. The female counters need to perform independently and not become a deadwood like that of the women police of the province,” Qaisar Khan, a local journalist covering the affairs of police and crime, told TNS.

Highlighting the measures taken for reforming the police force, the IGP said that at least two police stations in every district have been declared model police stations, which will be having all the basic facilities as well as proper working conditions. To overcome the workload on the cops, shift system has been introduced, initially at moharrar and their assistants’ level, while later it will be implemented in the entire force. The bosses of the police force are looking to have solar system at all the police stations, more explosive detectors and scanners, wireless sets and well-protected police stations and posts.

To ensure the smooth flow of traffic through an improved traffic system, the KP police are looking for amendments in rules to get well-educated sub-inspectors as traffic wardens. The traffic police force will be trained on the pattern of the National Highways and Motorway Police. Also, sub-inspectors are to be recruited as specialist investigators to improve the investigation system of the force.

“Teams under DIGs will visit the site of a terrorist attack or a major crime immediately not only to properly follow the case but to find if the cause was any security lapse. Also, teams have been formed for surprise visits of police stations to check irregularities and illegal detentions,” said Ihsan Ghani.

Colleges of investigation, traffic courses and others have been set up to impart short refresher courses to polish the skills of policemen. For monitoring the police station, CCTVs are being installed at all the police stations of the province.

“The CCTVs of all these police stations will be connected with the central police office in Peshawar and the offices of the respective district police officers. The project has been started by installing CCTVs at Gulbahar and East Cantonment Police Stations. I can monitor these police stations on the screen of my cellular phone wherever I move, even abroad,” revealed Ihsan Ghani.

Checking corruption by cops is a real challenge for the PTI government as well as the police chief. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, while expressing dissatisfaction over the performance of police force, had warned all the corrupt police officers against corrupt practices. “Those involved in any kind of corruption will be sent behind the bars,” Pervez Khattak told media persons. Khattak paid surprise visits to three police stations of Peshawar on different occasions and suspended the concerned SHOs for negligence and other issues.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police have established a commission at the provincial level and other committees at range level to go after the corrupt cops. All the officers and SHOs have been directed to submit details of their assets within 15 days after which intelligence agencies will probe about what they and their families own and what they had on the day they joined the force. The corrupt and strong mafia within the force, however, will not easily surrender to the new policies and will definitely create hurdles in the anti-corruption drive.

Tariq Waheed, a journalist, believes the government must go after the corrupt cops who are only minting money. “The proposed vigilance committees must have people of good reputation. In the past, only the blue-eyed of SHOs and DSPs (who were having criminal background) were inducted in such committees that did no good to the force and the society but only misused their powers,” said Tariq Waheed. He opined that it will not be easy for the bosses of the force to go after the powerful corrupt mafia within the force. “The commitment of the government and police bosses, however, can really reform the 80,000 force of the troubled province to give relief to people.”

[I]The writer is senior reporter The News at Peshawar and can be contacted a [email]javedaziz1@gmail.com[/email] and followed on Twitter at @JavedAzizKhan[/I]

[B] 08.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Hounded labour[/SIZE]
Brick kiln workers see hope as Supreme Court fixes responsibility of their exploitation on DPOs
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed[/CENTER][/B]

Ever wondered how it feels like trading in human slaves and making them work for you for peanuts, and a few morsels of food? Just talk to some contractor who manages workforce for brick kiln owners and buy these workers and families like cattle, to have an idea of the situation.

A surprise visit to a typical brick kiln would reveal that these people are under a different type of detention and cannot move from the place till they pay their outstanding debts. In many cases, these debts have been passed on to generations after generations, and the poor workers have no option but to pay back these amounts through deductions from their meager wages.

Though by law, owners cannot extend advances (peshgi) having value more than two-week wages of a brick kiln worker but unfortunately this practice goes on unabated. This peshgi system is the mother of all evils, says Safdar Mahar of Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF), while talking to TNS. He says the poor brick kiln workers do not have access to any basic facilities and are highly underpaid. They have to take loans from the brick kiln owners whenever there is a financial emergency, health issues, injuries, illness, marriage or death in the family.

The owners are always waiting for such moments, he says, adding they waste no time in extending loans to them. This makes it is easy for them to retain their services as they know these people would never come out of the debt trap. Besides, they know the debt would keep on increasing over the time.

So, what then is the solution to this problem? The answer comes from the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) which has strictly ordered Social Security Departments to register bonded labour and extend them due benefits under the concerned rules.

It all started with the habeas corpus complaint of a lady, Rasoolan Bibi, which she had filed in the court against a brick kiln owner. The court took immediate action and sent instructions to the Punjab Police Inspector General. These instructions were supposed to be circulated among all the law enforcement agencies and District Police Officers (DPOs). The court made it clear that in case a bonded labour incident is found or if a similar complaint of habeas corpus is received in future, the DPO concerned shall be held responsible for the violation.

To uproot peshgi system, the court has directed all the concerned departments to register all the labourers at brick kilns with the Social Security Department and given them a deadline of September 30 to return with positive results.

The social security card entitles its bearer to benefits like medical treatment, maternity care, death and disability grants, marriage and dowry grants, free education and so on. Once they have the social security by their side on all these occasions, they would never have to seek advances from the brick kiln owners, says Syeda Ghulam Fatima, secretary general of BLLF. She says the brick kiln owners should not worry about the nominal contribution they have to make to the Social Security Department. Even if they register the family heads, the dependents would automatically be covered, she adds.

Fatima and her team is aggressively pursuing the case and working on a project titled “Support Social Protection and Decent Work,” run jointly by his organisation, ActionAid and the European Union.

She tells TNS her team held many sessions with Sialkot DPO Muhammad Gohar Nafees and sensitised him about the grave human rights and labour laws violations at brick kilns. The DPO, she says, arranged a campaign through police and civil society organisations and discovered that 379 labourers were detained at brick kilns for not paying back the peshgis given to them, their parents or their forefathers.

The Sialkot police, under the command of DPO, got all these labourers released and registered about 150 cases against the brick kiln owners who had detained them and submitted their challans in courts.

A major problem, she says, is that the brick kiln owners do not get their employees registered for the reason that they want to avoid documentation of their businesses. Under the existing laws, workers can be registered only once their employers have confirmed they are working for them.

However, in this particular case the court has shifted the onus of eradicating bonded labour on the DPOs concerned. The situation across the province is that DPOs of different cities are running after Social Security Department officials, brick kiln owners and other stakeholders to meet the target of getting at least 15,000 social security cards issued to labourers by September 30, 2013.

The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1992, talks about introduction of vigilance committees at local level so that they can identify cases of bonded labour in their vicinity. This is not possible in the absence of local government system, says Salman Abid, Punjab head of Strengthening Participatory Organisation. Local councilors can reach everybody in the area and knows such issues very well. “Therefore, my request to the government is to hold local government elections as early as possible. They can play a great role in different fields at the grassroots level.”

Punjab Employees’ Social Security Institution (PESSI) Director General Tariq Bajwa tells TNS they are going to register brick kiln workers at any cost. Though they can do that forcefully, they are negotiating with brick kiln owners and asking them to do that voluntarily. He adds this September is very important for the department as the deadline given by Supreme Court is about to end, and they are far from meeting the targets.

He tells TNS that the PESSI is taking steps to issue maximum number of social security cards to workers. Besides, he says, they have organised mobile teams which visit different places and register employees right there and then. They have also equipped their staff with cameras so that they can take pictures of labourers to be used later as evidence, he concludes. The PESSI is going to issue around 15000 social security cards to the brick kiln workers before September 30, 2013.

[email]shahzada.irfan@gmail.com[/email]

[B] 08.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Early warning[/SIZE]
Efficient and simple use of information technology, such as through a mobile phone, can make a difference in floods warning system
By Akseeb Jawed[/CENTER][/B]

News items about flood victims have been the highlight of media in the past few weeks. Despite all the loss of life and property, nothing substantial seems to have been done in this regards so far.

As a result, the damage in terms of infrastructure and casualties is escalating. This situation is due to the fact that the flood management systems in Pakistan have always been more focused in the rectification of the after-effects of flood disaster rather than building up community resilience through participation and by setting up people-centered-flood early warning systems.

In this respect, the use of Information Technology can play a crucial role during the flood season. We can remember that mobile phones proved helpful in providing early warnings during the floods of 2010. SMS or calls proved to be an efficient and cost-effective way of disseminating early warnings during the monsoon season.

Since monsoon is a yearly occurrence in Pakistan and floods can’t be prevented entirely, a lot can be done to lessen the damage. For this reason, important changes are taking place the way floods are managed around the world, for instance, in United States of America, United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Switzerland, and Asian countries like Japan and Bangladesh have advanced IT-based flood early warning systems installed.

Information technology has been further developed by an Environment Agency, Halcrow, (UK) which is a licensed flood-warning service provider. They have developed Flood Alert, smartphone flood warning applications, which enable the users to get real time updates on flood warning in England and Wales.

In Pakistan, mobile phone use has quadrupled in the last decade both in urban and rural areas. One of the effective uses of mobile technology in flood early warnings was observed in Muzaffargarh district during 2010. Ameer Pur of Muzafargarh Tehsil faces frequent flooding because it is situated along the eastern bank of river Chenab.

Doaba Foundation surveyed this area and conducted a workshop to educate the locals about early warnings. As per the requirement for the area, the foundation formulated early warning committee that was responsible for issuance of warnings during flooding events.

An inhabitant of Ameer Pur, Sajjad Hussain Bhatti, reported that he got flood early warnings through mobile phone and was able to take necessary measures well in time to save not only people’s lives but also their crops by making dykes of 6 feet height and 8 feet width (this became possible with the collective efforts of 5 villages).

He further added that the people of his locality were given proper training to use the people-centered flood early warning system. Some of the people were given responsibilities to get information about the water level and in case of any emergency report back to the people via mobile phone.

As compared to previous techniques, the integration of IT in flood early warning systems proved to be more effective and less complex.

There are many proposed and on-going projects on the use of mobile phone in flood early warning systems. One such example is the FloodSMS, a modular flood early warning application proposed by ekgaon technology.

Such a technology would be able to give flood early warnings to a number of people that are in the range of/access to mobile phone/networks. The range of the network could be improved by making use IT-based technologies discussed above. The system would be able to handle multiple languages to overcome the communication barrier in the way of flood warnings.

There are number of mobile phone companies working in Pakistan. The government and the concerned authorities should encourage and support these companies in this venture of issuing flood warnings through mobile phone. This would not be a difficult task because the cell phones are equipped with number of applications and Internet facility as well.

There is need to install flood warning software which is most commonly used in the smart phones and ipods. There is diversity in culture of Punjab therefore; things could be further simplified by integrating a flood alarm bell in the cell phones so that illiterate, blind, old people, etc could understand the warnings.

Moreover, the PMD should enhance the potentiality of the existing commercial cellular network by increasing the storage for data and voice, introducing new handsets that have long-battery lifetime, more data capacity, and advance functions. For instance, 22 new sets of HF radio sets have been installed to improve communication of the meteor burst telemetry stations however, this could further be improved if technically advanced cellular network in installed.

In Pakistan the weakest element in the flood management activities is the dissemination of early warnings. In many areas warnings were either not issued or didn’t reach vulnerable population on time. The flood warning system could be further enhanced by integrating IT in the flood early warning system as people are now more familiar with different shades of technology.

So to speak, every other person have the availability of camera phones, internet availability on the cell phones, ipods, electronic gadgets, wikis, the web, voice email, voice messages, and text messages.

Channeling these resources properly can proved to be a valuable source of information and possess a great commitment for providing early warnings (particularly in initial response stages) to disaster managers. People could be actively engaged by recruiting them to assist in disaster response; keeping them informed as how to and when to relatively act. In addition, they could be vital auxiliary IT resources as it’s evident that traditional sources are mostly banged by a disaster.

IT mechanisms that amalgamate disaster response agency information systems to interactive public communications channels such as internet, or wireless communication could collectively provide an information gathering and dissemination mechanism that could give a considerable space to the agency being overload by the affected population seeking situational information.

The above given approach would increase the reliability of the communications, improve the performance of assistants, and develop public perception of appropriate actions. Some of the genuine concerns about the authenticity of information have restrained any major mileage towards integrating entirely the mentioned changes. Some important part of usage of IT technology may be missed as various individuals are involved in improvement of technology and during the filtration process some quality of technology may not be applied as the public officials usually have limited resources.

[I]The writer is a researcher based in Islamabad[/I]

[B] 08.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Historical roots of Pak-Afghan mistrust[/SIZE]
Pakistan and Afghanistan ought to change their old policies of strategic depth and territorial claims for better relations
By Raza Khan[/CENTER][/B]

The recent visit by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Pakistan, after initially raising hopes of a thaw in Kabul-Islamabad bilateral relations, cut no ice in finding a solution to the Afghan problem. The statement by Afghan President Office at the conclusion of President Karzai read: “The Pakistani side is expected to take specific and practical steps in accordance with the decisions made during these negotiations.”

Karzai, who agreed to visit Pakistan after a flurry of diplomatic effort by Islamabad and nudging by the United States and the United Kingdom, wanted some sureties from Pakistan. These included making stability in Afghanistan, Islamabad’s real priority; releasing rest of the incarcerated Afghan Taliban commanders and using its influence over Afghan Taliban to negotiate peace with Afghan High Peace Council. Reportedly, Pakistani interlocutors could not promise handing over of some top Taliban commanders like the group No. 2 Mullah Ghani Biradar as well as ensuring Afghan Taliban talks with the Afghan peace body citing its incapacity in this regard.

Pakistan, according to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz, succeeded to convince the visiting Afghanistan president that Pakistan did not have control over Afghan Taliban. It meant Islamabad could not compel the insurgents to negotiate with Afghan High Peace Council. Afghanistan’s charges against Islamabad for supporting Afghan insurgents may be an immediate reason for strained Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, but the tension and mistrust between the two countries have roots in the history.

In recent years, the main complaint of Afghanistan has been that Islamabad is supporting Afghan Taliban with cash and kind due to which Afghanistan remains highly unstable and the global war on terror in the region totally ineffective. President Karzai had stated “Pakistan was nourishing ‘snakes’ on its soil.” However, the Afghan government could not substantiate its charges making it extremely difficult to ascertain the level of substance in Karzai’s charges.

On Islamabad’s part, no amount of refutation and justification by its authorities has convinced the World and Afghanistan that the Pakistani soil is not being used against the interest of Afghanistan. If one analyses the present situation between Afghanistan and Pakistan in historical context, the reasons of strained relationship have always remained the same.

It has always been at the back of the mind of Pakistani establishment, public posture notwithstanding, that Afghanistan is an unfriendly country and has always been on the lookout to hurt Pakistan’s interest. The historical irredentist claim of Afghanistan on Pakistani territory has always been cited as the root of mistrust between the two states. Noticeably, no Afghan government ever renounced its one-sided claim on Pakistani territory. Even the Taliban regime, despite under great pressure from Pakistan, did not recognize the Durand Line as the permanent border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This in a way supports Islamabad’s contention that it does not have control over the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan ruler General Zia-ul-Haq (1977-88), after sensing that Afghanistan would never be able to fulfil its revanchist claim by force, thought it adequate to make Afghanistan its ‘strategic depth’ vis-à-vis India. This Pakistan attempted by flaming religious feelings in Afghanistan and the anti-Soviet war came in handy to do so. However, this policy worked in the short run during the Soviet-Afghan war and to some extent afterwards, but it backfired as it was myopic and against the international cannons. The present state of relationship and Afghan accusations are the direct result of this policy of Pakistan.

Afghanistan has also stuck to its old claims over territory on our side of the Durand Line without realising fundamental changes in the ground realities. For instance, Pakhtoons are the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan and there are few desirous among the Pakhtoons of Pakistan to join Afghanistan. The continued Afghan recalcitrance over the Durand Line issue has also made things difficult for Pakistan.

So if Afghanistan and Pakistan want to allay their mutual mistrust they ought to change their old policy regarding one another. For this to happen, Pakistan must change its policy of making Afghanistan its strategic depth while Afghanistan must renounce claims over Pakistani territory.

The latest point of friction between Islamabad and Kabul is the manner and nature of peace process in Afghanistan. However, it is unfortunate that the US and its European allies have found Kabul’s stance more credible than that of Pakistan. It is important to note that Kabul has been accusing Pakistan of sponsoring Afghan Taliban insurgency.

In the present tense environment, no meaningful peace process is possible inside Afghanistan and there can be no improvement in the relations between Kabul and Islamabad. President Karzai started levelling increasingly serious charges against Pakistan as part of a well-orchestrated strategy. The foremost motive of this strategy is that Karzai is desirous of winning the hearts and minds of his people. Pakistan-bashing has been an attractive slogan inside Afghanistan for politicians and rulers to rally public support particularly at a time when they lack legitimacy.

Afghan self-imposed president Sardar Daud in the 1970s also resorted to unprecedented anti-Pakistan propaganda and launched the Pakhtoonistan stunt in order to get political legitimacy inside Afghanistan. Daud did so because he had dethroned the legitimate Afghan King Zahir Shah and had usurped state power. So in order to cultivate political constituency and to get legitimacy, he adopted a profoundly anti-Pakistan stance.

Karzai, seemingly, is replicating Daud’s tested strategy for internal consumption. Karzai would have to relinquish power at the end of his second presidential stint early next year. Although under the Afghan constitution he cannot be elected for the third term, he wants to be known as a ‘successful’ president and ‘architect of new Afghanistan’ and for that he needs to do something and the soft target, as always, is Pakistan. This does not mean that Pakistan has never been negatively engaged in Afghanistan. However, accusing Islamabad for Kabul’s own incapacity and failure has been an important tactic and feature of the Afghan rulers.

On its part, Pakistan has been coming up with plans and strategies to bring peace to the war-ravaged country, but the Afghan rulers never let Islamabad to implement these plans effectively. For instance, in 2006 Pakistan had successfully negotiated a peace plan with Mustapha Zahir Shah, the grandson of late King Zahir Shah. According to the peace plan, Mustapha would have to play an instrumental role in a newly-launched peace initiative. He would also have to occupy a key place in the new dispensation comprising all ethnic groups of Afghanistan. The plan envisaged that Pakistan would help bring a consensus political dispensation in Kabul comprising all ethnic groups.

[I]The writer is a political analyst and researcher: [email]razapkhan@yahoo.com[/email][/I]

[B]08.09.2013[/B] [B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]Educational challenges[/SIZE]
Different schemes to improve education standards need continuous monitoring
By Afsheen Naz
[/CENTER][/B]
The education sector in Punjab is experiencing a number of positive interventions by the government of Punjab. Universal Primary Education survey and Universal Secondary Education survey are amongst the educational schemes which are aimed to enhance admission rate and ensure enrolment of all school going age children.

With remarkable achievements in the education sector, these schemes have certain bad effects on female teachers as well. This task (of survey) ended up with increased burden on teachers which is other than their basic duty of teaching. Teachers have to work extra hours and out of track. Thus, efficiency and focus of the teachers to teach is disturbed. The government should appoint volunteers or local persons of the community to conduct surveys.

Another step of the Punjab government to increase the quality and quantity in education is “monitoring and evaluation system”. This system has resulted in enhancing quality of education in all tiers of the school education. However, with all its positive aspects over education sector, pressure on teachers has also been increased. Since, M&E officers require a number of evidentiary documents to be produced and certain requirement to be completed, teachers use some improper ways to complete the M&E files which actually do not bear fruits.

Despite efficient steps by the Punjab government in the field of education, rural urban gap is still prevailing in service delivery, access and quality. There is a need to concentrate more on the schools in rural areas to attain a balanced literacy rate in terms of access, quality and quantity. Proper implementation of rationalisation policy can prove to be a good cure for the problem.

Gender gap in education also contributes to rural urban gap. The phenomenon is present in both rural and urban areas, however, it is more intense in rural areas. To cope with the issue, certain schemes are being implemented. Female stipend programme is one of these schemes and is subject to female student’s 80 per cent attendance. However, socio-economic conditions of the masses are hurdles in any government step to improver female literacy rate.

All the above information is based on research conducted by SDPI in Ilm-ideas project. Thus, to conclude, situation of education sector has somewhat improved. The government has taken some rigorous steps to improve the quality of education and literacy rate. However, continuous monitoring, with proper check and balance, of such steps is needed.

[I]The writer is Research Associate at SDPI and can be reached at [email]afsheen@sdpi.org[/email] [/I]