Editorial Dawn
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Trouble in Parachinar[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 20 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The seemingly interminable violence in the Parachinar area of Kurram Agency has spiked once again. This time a water dispute between two of the four main tribes — Bangash and Mangal — has claimed the lives of over 100 people in weeklong fighting that shows no sign of abating. Water, along with other resources such as forests, has long been a source of inter-tribal rivalry in the agency, but what makes Kurram Agency doubly dangerous is that the violence has been thoroughly infused with sectarian hatreds — starting as far back as 1982, though much of the present blame must lie with the ingress of the Taliban in the area in 2007.



For a couple of years the area remained cut off from the rest of Pakistan with the closure of a key road; however, a political agreement signed in Murree and a limited military operation in the area has helped to reopen the Thall-Parachinar road. Limited traffic continues to move on the road, though many people of the area still use the Afghan route to travel to other parts of Pakistan because of the dangers involved. (The Afghan route is no less dangerous: in July, 11 residents of Parachinar who were en route to Peshawar via Kabul were ambushed and killed in Paktia.)

Bringing an end to the violence in Kurram Agency, and the Parachinar area in particular is a matter of the state taking its responsibilities more seriously. The agreement signed in Murree in October 2008 was in part possible because of the initiative of the then political agent of the agency, who has since been replaced. That agreement remains the best hope for the return of peace to the area and as such should be implemented in all earnestness. From the return of displaced persons, some of whom have not returned home since the 1982 violence, to the payment of compensation for property damaged and destroyed to the return of property confiscated, the agreement encompasses many sensible and pragmatic measures. In addition, cellphone services should be restored in the area (at present, locals have to use Afghan SIMs and networks, which adds to the difficulties of life).

By now it should be apparent that the longer Pakistan delays resolving the crisis in Kurram Agency, the more it will slip back towards the sphere of Afghan, and by extension American, influence. Such a development may only further complicate the resolution of the troubles in the area. The sooner the Murree accord is implemented the better. Unfortunately, implementation isn’t the state’s strongest suit.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][U][B]Extreme need[/B][/U][/SIZE][/COLOR]
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Dawn Editorial
Monday, 20 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The link between poverty and acts of violence, including suicide, is well-established. Sheer need can lead people to commit acts of both tragic and horrifying proportions. On Friday, for example, a 30-year-old Karachi industrial worker, Asif Nasir, committed suicide after strangling his three minor sons and wife. In a note he left behind, the worker claimed responsibility for the deaths, saying that poverty and inflation had compelled him to take this extreme step.



While a handwriting analysis is awaited, the police say there is little doubt that the circumstances of the deaths were as they appear. And this is not a stand-alone case. In June in Lahore, a rickshaw driver also committed suicide after poisoning his wife and three of his six children, again because of poverty-driven frustration. There have also been cases of children being abandoned at the doors of welfare organisations by parents who can no longer afford to feed them.

These cases drive home the magnitude of the human cost of poverty. It is not too difficult to imagine the compulsions that led the industrial worker to take a step so telling of utter desperation. The country’s plummeting economy and rapidly deteriorating infrastructure translate to exponentially growing rates of inflation, rising food costs and growing job insecurity. Families that could earlier make ends meet, even send their children to school, are now struggling to fill empty bellies. Friday’s tragedy is a case in point. Asif Nasir was literate and his two older sons were enrolled in school. Clearly, however, his Rs5,000 salary was no longer enough to make the future feel sustainable.



As mental health professionals have been warning for some time now, poverty and related issues are leading to rising depression and emotional ill-health in the citizenry. While the state appears to be doing little to address these issues, there also exist laws that make matters worse for such sufferers, such as one that renders a suicide attempt a criminal offence. The death of Asif Nasir and his family should remind us of the state’s apparent inability to protect the most vulnerable, and constitute a clarion call for immediate action.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][U][B]
Financial crunch[/B][/U][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER]
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Dawn Editorial
Monday, 20 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The vice-chancellors of 71 public universities are threatening to resign and lock up their institutions in protest against drastic budgetary cuts in tertiary education by the government. Ironically, this sector had until recently seen allocations rising from millions to billions of rupees within five years of the constitution of the Higher Education Commission in 2002. But even then there was criticism that the enhancement was made at the expense of primary and secondary education and to the neglect of technical and vocational education. Although the crunch in funding became evident after the current government came into power in 2008, the recent floods have shifted budgetary priorities even more. Increased demands for more effective spending have made it difficult to justify funding this sector on the scale of recent years.

All this, however, is not to sideline the importance of knowledge and the contribution of higher education to Pakistan’s development. But with the squeeze in public funding, the HEC ought to look into ways of economising on costs while our universities should consider adopting alternative methods of income generation through, for instance, public-private partnerships as is done in other countries. The government has suggested the formation of a multi-agency committee, which will include vice-chancellors, to find solutions to the financial problems of our universities.



Whatever the course of action it decides on, it should not have a negative fallout on the less privileged. Our public universities should continue to remain accessible to the under-privileged. Until these universities can generate most of their income on their own and thus prove less dependent on public grants, it should be the government’s responsibility to continue to allocate as much as it can to higher education. The future health and viability of our universities depends on the cooperative effort of all concerned in successfully overcoming the financial crunch.

editorial dawn
 

[CENTER][B][U][SIZE=4]Ahmadinejad’s offer [/SIZE][/U][/B][/CENTER]
[RIGHT]Tuesday, 21 Sep, 2010 [/RIGHT]

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s views aired in the ABC interview on Sunday should not be dismissed merely as a show of one-upmanship. The ideas it contains show the Iranian president’s areas of interest and concerns and, perhaps, constitute a message which the P5-plus-one, and not just the Americans, should be able to pick up. Iran is angry and feels hurt because it has been sidelined on the events in Afghanistan. It has a long border with Afghanistan, still hosts a large number of Afghan refugees and has deep linguistic and cultural ties with its eastern neighbour.



However, its justifiable eagerness to play a constructive role in Afghanistan has been circumscribed by some realities. To begin with, it has very little leeway with the Taliban. Even though Tehran sometimes hobnobbed with the dark horse that is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Iran was closely identified with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and the Wahdat group. Today, the Taliban may share Tehran’s anti-American hard line, but the two have little else in common. Both would be happy to see the Americans quit, but beyond that, especially on the key issue — the post-America scenario — Iran and the Taliban leadership are unlikely to see eye to eye.

There are added problems for Iran when we look at what Afghanistan’s other neighbours, especially Pakistan, want. Again, notwithstanding the traditional friendship that has characterised the relationship between Islamabad and Tehran, it would be wrong to assume that the Ahmadinejad regime doesn’t know what Pakistan’s aims and concerns in Afghanistan are. Those aims are too obvious and stem from the Pakistani establishment’s overt and covert involvement in Afghan affairs since the Soviet invasion of December 1979. Besides, America and Pakistan stand committed to a negotiated settlement, and both can reach the Taliban themselves without Tehran’s intercession.



All one can say is that Mr Ahmadinejad is waving an olive branch and telling Washington he doesn’t wish to upset America’s exit strategy, but as a quid pro quo he wants western concessions on his nuclear programme. Given Israel’s anxiety about Iran’s nuclear programme, it would be unrealistic to expect the US to relent.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][FONT="Georgia"][B][I]Petrol scarcity[/I][/B][/FONT][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 21 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Govt allows introduction of private high treason bill in NA
All around us there is evidence of the government’s failure to protect Pakistani citizens from shortages of every sort. Long grappling with the persistent food and power shortages, the hapless consumers are now faced with the acute scarcity of petrol in major Punjab cities and some so-called remote areas in the rest of the country. Most petrol pumps in Punjab remained closed for the last several days because of the continuing disruption of supplies. At other petrol pumps motorists have been forced to stand in long lines for hours on end to get their vehicles’ tanks filled.



In some cases, according to media reports, the consumers have been forced to pay almost double the price to keep daily life moving. The fact that the petrol shortages have badly hit the low-income segments of society, dependent on their motorbikes, means that many will not be able to go to work and their children will have to skip schools. It also means that the supplies of vegetables, fruit and other items of daily use for urban consumers will be disrupted, pushing prices upwards.

Meanwhile, the government is conspicuous by its absence. There is no effort to alleviate the crisis. Until a couple of days ago it was reluctant to even acknowledge that there was a crisis and claimed that the country had enough petrol stocks to meet its requirements for 18 days. Officials have pinned the blame on the closure of refineries and transportation problems caused by the widespread destruction of the road infrastructure by the floods as well as the failure of oil marketing companies to build storage facilities in petrol-scarce areas during the current crisis. Other factors like the corporate circular debt in Pakistan’s collapsing energy sector are also at work.

Will the government’s intention to deregulate the price of petroleum products, diesel excluded, to allow refineries to ‘improve’ their financial situation help matters? Officialdom contends that this would help streamline upcountry petrol supplies over the next few days. But it is unlikely to solve the problem, at least not immediately. Apparently, the government is using the crisis for the benefit of the refineries alone. It is unlikely the government will take action against marketing companies which have failed to build storage facilities to avert such a situation. We must ask why it is so slow to intervene when those it governs face a crisis.
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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Many faces of PML[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="2"][B]Tuesday, 21 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The news that the Chaudhry Shujaat-led PML-Q has merged with Pir Pagara’s Functional League has been met by many political observers with a sense of bemused scepticism. Pir Sahib will lead the new entity, which has been dubbed the All Pakistan Muslim League. Though political parties in Pakistan split at the drop of a hat, the Pakistan Muslim League is perhaps the party which has seen the most splits, mergers, unifications and factions in the history of this country.



Starting from the Ayub era, the party has been broken up into so many factions that it is difficult to keep count.



Military dictators including Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf have all used the Muslim League banner to cobble together a willing coalition of political malcontents, opportunists and turncoats that could offer a democratic fig-leaf to their authoritarian adventurism. The countless variants of the League have had different shelf lives, with some outliving their patrons politically.

As for the latest development, the PML-N is reportedly keeping a close eye on things. The Q-League has given it a tough time in parts of Punjab and perhaps Chaudhry Shujaat and Mushahid Hussain are trying to create a constituency in Sindh by merging with Pir Pagara’s faction. This is probably not designed to dent the PPP’s vote bank in Sindh but to eliminate the chances of the N-League gaining a foothold in the province. As it is, PML-N has hardly been active in Sindh’s flood-affected areas. There is also the question of name, for the APML tag already appears to be taken: Gen Musharraf plans to launch his own party of that name on Oct 1. Ultimately, it is difficult to see what great, long-lasting impact the merger will have on national politics as none of those involved have sterling democratic credentials.

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Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Karachi’s trauma[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="2"][B]Wednesday, 22 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

IT is now well-nigh impossible to detect a pattern in the anarchy sweeping Karachi. Ethnic, sectarian and political lines are getting blurred and the one consistent reality is the rising number of fatalities. Those who have fallen in several days of violence include activists of the MQM, ANP and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, the new name for the proscribed Sipah-i-Sahaba, besides pedestrians caught in crossfire. On Monday, the violence was not citywide, occurring in some of the most congested zones known to be politically sensitive. But the fallout turned the life of millions of people topsy-turvy, with shootouts and fires blocking traffic and closing shopping centres for hours. On the whole, acts of arson rocked no less than 16 areas, some of them as far away from each other as Malir and Ibrahim Hyderi. Whether the violence in one area was a reaction to similar incidents elsewhere or whether somebody was trying to ignite ethnic and sectarian violence is a question begging an answer.

A new feature of the recent violence was the exchange of fire between the Rangers and a Shia group in Rizvia Society for two hours. This was the day’s second shootout involving the Rangers. Earlier they claimed they had been fired upon at Dak Khana in Liaquatabad and that they had to fire in self-defence. One wishes the Rangers exercised a little restraint, caught up though they indeed are in a difficult situation, whose chief characteristic is the absence of a proactive role by civil society and the people’s representatives. Addressing a press conference, Dr Farooq Sattar blamed the federal interior ministry and the Sindh home department for the bloodshed. While doing so, the MQM leader seems to forget that his own party is part of coalition governments in Karachi and Islamabad and thus should share the blame for what now has become a way of life for most residents of Karachi.

While the security agencies’ failure to anticipate and pre-empt mischief is obvious, all political parties, especially those in power, seem to be mere spectators to the gory drama on Karachi’s streets. On Aug 7, the PPP,

MQM and ANP signed a 10-point ‘code of conduct’ in a bid to rise above petty politics and work jointly to give a sense of security and peace to its tormented citizens. They even pledged to establish coordination committees at local levels. However, the fact that it is gunmen who rule Karachi and hold its people hostage to their criminality confirms that the code was a mere political stunt designed to hoodwink electors.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Power sector reforms[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 22 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Two and a half years since ascending to power, the political government in Islamabad still appears to have little idea about how to address the crisis in the power sector. True, many of the reasons for the crisis are structural and pre-date the present government, but the fact remains this administration inherited a mess that through inaction it has helped turn into an even bigger mess. A report in this paper yesterday suggests that at long last, the next step in the privatisation and deregulation of the power sector may finally be undertaken — though even at this point it is not clear which reforms will be pushed through and which will remain tied up in bureaucratic red tape.



Some history here is necessary. Nearly two decades ago, the government came to the late realisation that a power sector owned and operated by the state was inefficient and resulted in under-investment in power generation, transmission and distribution systems, leading to ‘loadshedding’. It took several more years before the creation of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco), which was tasked with splitting the thermal-power side of the vertically integrated behemoth Wapda into a dozen entities that were to be made ready for self-sufficiency and eventual privatisation.

Fast forward a dozen years, and now there is talk of disbanding Pepco itself — because of its failure to implement the tasks it was charged with and because it has, according to some officials, itself become a roadblock to reform and restructuring. Pepco officials hotly deny such charges, pointing out, with some degree of truth it must be said, that officials of the water and power ministry have frequently interfered in Pepco’s operations and have not allowed it a free hand, in all likelihood because were Pepco to succeed, the influence and power of the ministry, and Wapda too, would diminish. Bureaucratic and political turf wars are of course not unique to Pakistan but the difference here is that the power sector is on the verge of collapse. Plans to restructure the sector already exist. What’s needed is the political will to do so.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Jirga ‘justice’[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][B]Wednesday, 22 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

VIOLENCE against vulnerable sections of society such as women and children, and the denial of their constitutional rights, continues to characterise Pakistani society irrespective, it seems, of all efforts to alter the situation. Often, this is because of lack of awareness and the enforcement of relevant laws. Consider, for example, a jirga convened on Sunday in Kaloo Jatoi village near Shikarpur, which ordered the marriage of two minor girls as a dispute-settlement mechanism. The complainant, a Jatoi tribesman, accused two men of having had an illicit relationship with his two wives, whom he killed a month ago. The jirga decided that two girls from the accused men’s families be married into the complainant’s family as compensation. Consequently, 12-year-old Sadia was forced to marry a man nearly 30 years her senior, while 9-year-old Shami was married to a teenaged boy.

This system of dispute settlement, where women are used as currency, is considered traditional in some areas but can be held to violate a number of laws. These include legislation against underage marriages, specific protection for children and women, constitutional protection of human rights and the legislative freedom to consensual marriage. Additionally, jirgas themselves were branded as unconstitutional by the Sindh High Court in 2004, which ruled that they usurp the power of the state. In the past, there have been many cases where jirga rulings have led to gross rights’ abuses. Almost invariably, the victims have been women and children, though men have suffered as well. Jirgas have ordered murder, rape and public humiliation as ‘fitting’ punishment. These practices will not end until the state makes it a priority to take legal action against those who constitute the jirgas and those who implement unlawful punishments. It is time that laws that are available on the books are stringently enforced.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]NRO travails[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
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Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 23 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Another week and another round in the judiciary-executive clash is unfolding as we speak. The latest revolves around the selection of erstwhile NRO beneficiaries for government-appointed posts and around the leadership of the National Accountability Bureau. By now it is relatively clear the government has little interest in implementing the NRO judgment. If the political difficultly of a PPP-led government proceeding against senior leaders of the party, including the co-chairman and President of Pakistan, is understandable to an extent from a political point of view, the insistence of the government on appointing NRO-tainted officials to important jobs in the public sector is inexcusable. Was no one else available to lead the OGDCL other than Adnan Khwaja? Absolutely not.



Mr Khwaja’s replacement as managing director has already been nominated and appears to have vast experience in the hydrocarbon field. Surely, with public-sector enterprises draining away Rs250bn annually at a time when the state is struggling to rein in the budget deficit, the leadership of such organisations must be of the highest calibre.

Even elsewhere, in the bureaucracy and in advisory roles, the poor state of governance at a critical juncture in the country’s history demands that the age-old political weakness of doling out jobs to favourites be suspended. Unhappily, the government has shown little inclination to do so, leading to embarrassing retreats when hauled up by the Supreme Court. The modus operandi of the government, to the extent that can be discerned, is self-defeating and, from the perspective of the country, is damaging to the interests of the people, who more than ever need the government to focus on doing its job.

Having said that, the Supreme Court must also remain cognisant of the need to play a positive role in the strengthening of democracy in the country. The ghosts of the NRO are periodically dredged up and ad hoc measures are taken to try and get the government to do its job. But the review petitions filed against the NRO have yet to be settled, creating the awkward situation in which the court is demanding the fulfilment of a judgment against which there is pending litigation.



Further, the dogged interest in the Swiss money cases is inordinate and has the potential to nudge the system towards the very clash that many apprehend. The world over superior judiciaries act with the utmost care and after sustained deliberation, particularly when veering on to terrain which may have wider consequences for the political system. There’s already too much speculation in the air. The courts must be mindful of not adding to that burden.[CENTER]
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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Financial cover-ups[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="2"][B] Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 23 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


The lack of transparency in the spending of public funds is deplorable under any circumstances but in Pakistan’s severely cash-strapped situation, it becomes an issue of grave proportions. Not only is there no transparency about where the funds have been spent, it seems that funds are often deliberately placed under heads other than where they have actually been earmarked.



Even more disturbing is the fact that the truth is generally not forthcoming, even upon direct query. Take, for example, the revelation put before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday about an unaccounted for, one-time disbursement of Rs5.55bn to the Inter-Services Intelligence in 2007-08. When pressed for details, Finance Secretary Salman Siddiqui was only willing to say that the sum was paid as a supplementary grant “for the provision of relief”. Mr Siddiqui conceded that the head was a cover-up but refused to give any further details since it was “highly sensitive information”.



In a different regard, another piece of information that surfaced before the PAC was that the pensions of retired army personnel — amounting to Rs72bn in the current financial year versus Rs18bn for retired civilian employee pensions — was shown as civilian expenditure under a 2001 government decision. The finance secretary also told the committee that the government was paying Rs400bn annually under the head of subsidies but the sum actually went towards covering the losses of federal government entities, the recipient of the highest sum of money (Rs183bn) last year being the Pakistan Electric Power Company.

Pakistan cannot afford such financial murkiness and mismanagement. Given the various grim economic realities including inflation, rupee devaluation, debts and repayments, it is vital for the country to spend extremely wisely. Whatever funds are available must go where they are most needed, in a transparent manner and for good reason.



We must remind the authorities that it is well within the domain of the PAC to ask about allocations, given that the ISI and other bodies fall under the purview of the government. The country’s economy is already in dire straits, and matters must not be worsened through cover-ups and denials.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Protecting children[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="2"][B] Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 23 Sep, 2010
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In a society where children are perhaps the most vulnerable of all sections of the population, any effort for their protection is welcome. In this context, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has taken a progressive step by passing the Child Protection Bill 2010 on Tuesday.



The bill is designed to provide care and protection to children “at risk” through the establishment of a child protection court as well as a provincial commission along with other associated mechanisms. A proposed amendment sponsored by the MMA calling for the age limit of children to be lowered from 18 to 15 was rejected and perhaps rightfully so, as according to international norms adulthood is deemed to begin at age 18.



The KP government has taken a bold initiative considering the fact that both the centre and the provinces have been extremely tardy when it comes to legislation designed to protect children’s rights. Laws have been written up but have been gathering dust for years, either waiting to be taken up in the federal and provincial legislatures or their passage has been blocked on procedural grounds. Hopefully Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s move will prompt the provinces and Islamabad to enact similar laws.

Yet, to truly end exploitation and give the children of Pakistan access to education, health, nutrition and a safe and secure environment, laws must be implemented. There are lots of good laws on the books. It is their implementation which is lacking and which is key to achieving the aims for which they were framed.



Also, some experts are of the opinion that the Child Protection Bill 2010 is a little vague when it comes to describing children “at risk” as well as the assessment procedure that would allow the authorities to determine which children are at risk. These concerns can possibly be addressed in future amendments.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Kashmir and global silence[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Friday, 24 Sep, 2010
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Even though a democrat is in the White House, today’s America seems to have forgotten what was the cornerstone of Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy — human rights. No wonder it should take Pakistan’s foreign minister to remind the Obama administration of its moral obligation to break its silence over the gory drama in Indian-held Kashmir.



Speaking at New York’s Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday, Shah Mehmood Qureshi asked Washington to “invest its political capital” in Kashmir the way it was doing in the Middle East to seek peace. The Obama administration, despite its deep involvement in economic and security matters with Pakistan and India, has chosen not to utter a single word of concern much less unequivocal condemnation of gross human rights violations in the valley by Indian security forces armed with special powers. This is all the more surprising because the world has now recognised that the protests in the Kashmir Valley are indigenous and are an expression of the Kashmiri people’s resolve not to live under Indian occupation. This is something recognised even by some of India’s human rights organisations and sections of the media. To allege that Pakistan is behind this popular — and largely urban — round of protests is laughable. As Mr Qureshi told the council, “No one any longer can seriously believe … that Pakistan can orchestrate thousands of people…”

Islamabad must, however, accept part of the blame for the international community’s silence over the intifada in Kashmir, where the state response to popular unrest has resulted in more than 100 fatalities since June 11. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was too mild for the occasion. In a statement on Tuesday, he called for an “immediate end to violence” and pleaded for “calm and restraint by all concerned”, thus equating the people of Kashmir with their oppressors.
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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Defence budget hike[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]
Dawn Editorial
Friday, 24 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


A report in this newspaper yesterday suggests the defence budget has been quietly hiked by an astonishing 25 per cent, from the budgeted figure of Rs442bn to over Rs550bn. As usual, neither the government nor the military has seen fit to divulge any details, making it difficult to comment on the need for such an extraordinary increase.



Surveying the landscape of Pakistan and assessing the security situation, however, provides some clues. For one, the army has been very active in the flood rescue and relief efforts, costly activities that could not have been budgeted for earlier this summer. For another, the military operations against militant groups in the tribal areas look set to continue. North Waziristan remains a hornet’s nest that has yet to be tackled and the other agencies of Fata continue to require the application of force as the security forces struggle to master the clear-and-hold phase of counter-insurgency. So a hike in the defence budget may well be justified.

What isn’t justified is the lack of transparency. At the best of times, there needs to be accountability of the public’s money that is spent by state institutions. In times of crisis, when funds are even scarcer than usual and the state has to make choices between equally pressing needs, accountability becomes an even more pressing factor. Do the armed forces absolutely need Rs110bn more or could they have done with less if belt-tightening had been attempted first? Where will the money go, only to fund essential, emergency needs or also to finance wants that could otherwise be postponed? The public will likely never know.



Even parliament, where in-camera meetings could provide some kind of limited oversight, is unlikely to be given any details. (Earlier this week, the Public Accounts Committee was stonewalled by Finance Secretary Salman Siddique when members demanded details of a one-time Rs5.5bn supplementary grant to the ISI in 2007-08.)

A few comparisons may put the figure of Rs110bn in the proper perspective. Rs110bn is close to half the amount public-sector enterprises rack up in losses each year — a key area of reform and restructuring that the international financial institutions have been emphasising. Rs110bn exceeds the entire gains that the reformed General Sales Tax is expected to make. The sum is also roughly equal to the amount which would be raised by the controversial ‘flood tax’ that has been mooted. One single head of expenditure, then, is already set to absorb all the revenue gains that are expected to be made this year — even before those gains are realised. Surely, the public is owed an explanation.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]‘Plots’ against democracy?[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Friday, 24 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Recent weeks have seen a fair amount of speculation on whether Pakistan’s democratic project is to be interrupted. Much of the confusion has come from the politicians themselves.



Consider the past week alone. On Sept 17, during an emergency high-level meeting, President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani felt it fit to vow to foil any move to derail the democratic set-up. Even the US joined the fray with the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, telling a group of journalists that he did not see “evidence that the government is drowning”. A day later, last Saturday, Prime Minster Gilani cautioned against “conspiracies against the government” and asked whether “those who are thinking to send us packing unconstitutionally” had any possibility of gaining consensus.



Then on Sunday, again in Lahore, he told reporters that a change by non-political means would harm the country. The matter has been raised by opposition politicians as well and finally, during Wednesday’s National Assembly session, the government and opposition joined hands to assert the supremacy of parliament, warning against any encroachment on “our space”.

The citizenry and other shareholders in the democratic process should be forgiven for being bemused. Are there ‘plots’ against the government or not? And who is behind them? In uttering dark warnings against unexplained moves by unspecified actors, the politicians are fuelling confusion and fomenting unrest. If there does exist any evidence that the government faces a credible threat of dislocation or intervention by any body, including the military or judiciary, this should be brought forward so that the matter can be clarified. But if there is no such evidence, then such dire mutterings can only be viewed as irresponsible, for they lead to confusion at home and abroad. The matter has not been helped by the debate being taken up by the media.



The country is facing multiple crisis situations, from militancy and terrorism to a plummeting economy and an unravelling infrastructure. This is no time to indulge in rumour- and scare-mongering, which is what these unsubstantiated allegations must be viewed as unless evidence is presented and specific actors are named.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Competition law[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"]
Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 25 Sep, 2010[/COLOR]

THE passage of the competition law must clear the doubts over the future of Pakistan’s first anti-trust law and boost the confidence of those fighting against unfair market practices. The law will promote competitive and (relatively) fair markets in the country, while encouraging producers and service providers to become efficient and protect consumer rights. The law has drawn vast opposition from corporations since its promulgation as a presidential ordinance almost three years ago. Obviously, corporations don’t enjoy any law that dismantles cartels and curbs the abuse of their dominance in the market. The lobbies representing the interests of the corporate sector in parliament did everything possible to stall the passage of the competition law, or at least dilute it to make the Competition Commission of Pakistan ineffective. When a July 2009 Supreme Court ruling required the government to get a parliamentary seal for the ordinances protected under the Nov 2007 Provisional Constitution Order imposed by Pervez Musharraf, within 120 days of the announcement of the judgement, these lobbies tried to block the law. Since then, it has been kept alive by the repeated promulgation of the presidential ordinance.

The bill tries to address the concerns of both the supporters of the competition law and the opponents of any anti-trust legislation through the constitution of an appellate tribunal, which was not provided for in the original ordinance. The CCP decisions could be challenged only before the Supreme Court to ‘minimise’ chances of its work being stalled by the affected companies by going to a high court, as approved by the Senate earlier this year. Now, the affected parties will get an additional forum to seek remedy against CCP actions before going to the apex court. That precludes chances of unwarranted delays in the implementation of the commission’s decisions. While the government should be commended for the passage of the bill, it must be reminded that the country has been without a competition law since Aug 16 because of the lapse of the ordinance. The government must therefore ensure that the president signs the bill at the earliest to provide consumers legal cover against the corporations’ anti-competitive activities.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Aafia Siddiqui[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"]Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 25 Sep, 2010[/COLOR]


FOR the most part, rational debate about the case of Aafia Siddiqui has not been possible. In part, it must be acknowledged, this is because an air of mystery still endures over where Dr Siddiqui and her children were for five long years between 2003 and 2008 and how she came to be ‘found’ in Afghanistan. Here in Pakistan, the vociferous protest about the ‘innocence’ of Dr Siddiqui has much to do with the suspicion that she has been a victim of the ‘war on terror’, a Muslim mother who was somehow targeted by an increasingly Islamophobic West because she proudly wore her Muslim identity. Inside the courtroom, however, such suspicions and fears were largely beside the point:

Dr Siddiqui’s decision to take the witness stand against all legal advice was largely her undoing, there being enough contradictions raised during her cross-examination that reasonable suspicion was created.

In truth, the case of Aafia Siddiqui was wrapped from the very beginning in all the contradictions and suspicions that characterise relations between Pakistan and the US. Post 9/11, the Pakistani state is accused here in Pakistan of throwing in its lot with the Americans, an unforgivable alliance with a superpower that has always been suspected of harbouring anti-Pakistan feelings. But the very same state machinery that is accused do-mestically of being an American lackey is accused in the US of playing a ‘double game’, working to undermine rather than promote American interests in the ‘Af-Pak’ theatre. Trying to reconcile those two positions is well-nigh impossible, largely because both sides are more interested in furthering their ideological and political agendas than the facts. But while polemical debates continue, the facts, the ‘ground realities’ as Pakistanis are wont to say, have continued to nudge this country towards ever more dangerous terrain.

Denialism embedded deep in the public psyche has allowed the real threat to the Pakistani state and society, religious extremism, to grow to dangerous proportions. The ‘impossibility’ of a Muslim committing a crime against another Muslim or the sympathy extended towards those who resort to violence against the West as ‘retaliation’ for its crimes against Islam and Muslims serve to obfuscate the campaign by a militant, fringe minority to hijack a religion of peace. The cancer within grows, ironically even as it is occasionally held up as a symbol of heroic resistance. If the government can, it must try and bring Aafia Siddiqui back to Pakistan, given the unsatisfactory conclusion to her trial. But long after the story of Dr Siddiqui will eventually fade, Pakistan will still be faced with an internal enemy it has not even begun to comprehend.


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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]
Loan write-offs[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"]
Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 25 Sep, 2010[/COLOR]

Rs50bn loans written off in two years
THE disclosure in the National Assembly on Thursday that loans amounting to a little over Rs50bn were written off by commercial banks over the last two years was certainly distressing, but nothing out of the ordinary in Pakistan. It should be remembered that over the past 40 years, loans worth Rs256bn have been written off in this country. The latest figure was made public in a written reply to a question by an MQM lawmaker by the federal finance minister. The reply adds that over 200,000 people and companies have benefited from the banks’ generosity. The names of the banks and the beneficiaries have not been made public.

It may be true that the government was not involved as the write-offs were granted by commercial banks, as argued by the minister of state for finance in parliament. But considering that the State Bank of Pakistan is the nation’s banking regulator, it has a duty to investigate — especially considering the huge amounts involved — to ensure that there has been no financial impropriety. While loans are written off all over the world, it must be ascertained whether the people and firms in question actually went bankrupt or if they had the loans forgiven due to patronage. The names and details of the beneficiaries should be made public and if the amounts were indeed written off due to patronage, there must be action against all involved. Banks often maintain an aggressive posture against defaulters of small loans. A few years ago a man committed suicide in Karachi after being hounded by a recovery team for defaulting on a Rs250,000 loan. The ensuing outrage caused the SBP to caution banks from employing hostile tactics when recovering loans. It is a sad reflection on society when defaulters of small loans are hunted down, while the multi-million rupee loans of the well-connected are written off.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[CENTER][U][FONT=Georgia][SIZE=6][COLOR=Black]Cricket controversy [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/U] [/CENTER]

[LEFT] [SIZE=2][COLOR=Blue]Sunday, 26 Sep, 2010 [/COLOR][/SIZE] [/LEFT]




IN times to come, Pakistan’s 2010 tour of England will acquire, even by the acrimonious standards of this rivalry, a status unmatched. Only relief can greet its ending. That the summer began with such hope, such camaraderie, further sours the aftertaste. Grave implications lie ahead.

First, the spot-fixing allegations: until the investigations of Scotland Yard and the International Cricket Council are complete, the three players are innocent. But we must brace for the worst. Reportedly, the evidence is substantial. We must not seek refuge behind denial and grope for conspiracy. Neither can we impose our own lack of respect for law and due process onto other bodies; the findings must be respected. Instead we must address why Pakistan’s name constantly swirls around whispers of spot- or match-fixing. Why, a decade after the Qayyum commission, are we still here? Another equally critical result is Pakistan’s isolation in cricket. Talk of bans is impulsive and unjustified. A small sport cannot afford to lose a significant member. But thanks to one man, Pakistan stands alone in its hour of greatest need. Ijaz Butt, the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, has made enemies where friends are required. Over two years, Butt has rubbed most cricket boards the wrong way. After his tasteless accusations against England, one more has gone and with it another venue where Pakistan can play cricket. This is not how you respond to an organisation that went out of its way to help, as the England and Wales Cricket Board did. If Butt wanted to fight back, he should have hit the right target: those tabloids that speculated irresponsibly at Pakistan’s expense. The allegations after the Oval ODI, in particular, are sketchy. The PCB is being run as one man does a fiefdom. Butt has presided over two of the darkest years of cricket. For cricket to have any hope, firm action needs to be taken.


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[FONT=Georgia][I][U][SIZE=5][COLOR=Black]Presidential immunity [/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/I][/FONT] [/CENTER]

[B][SIZE=2][COLOR=Blue]Sunday, 26 Sep, 2010 [/COLOR][/SIZE][/B]



IS it really a slow-motion train wreck in progress that the country is watching play out in the Supreme Court over the NRO? Government circles are alternatively adamant and confident: that President Zardari cannot be legally proceeded against while serving as president and that the constitution’s clear wording on presidential immunity underpins the legality of the government’s stance. While rumours of a clash have proved premature before, it does appear that the NRO-related hearings are gearing up for the next phase. Thus far the Supreme Court and the government have engaged in a game of cat and mouse, with the government refusing to say one way or the other what its official stance on the

Swiss matters pertaining to the president would be. Without such a categorical legal statement filed with the Supreme Court, the court has been unable to proceed on the matter. Though, this is also relatively clear: the Supreme Court has itself allowed the matter to stretch out by not issuing a firm ultimatum to the government to file a response.

For structuralists, the part of the NRO judgment pertaining to President Zardari presents difficult questions about the limits of judicial activity, or even activism — by design, the superior judiciary is dependent on the executive for the implementation of court orders, so what happens when the executive does not see it to be in its own interests to implement the court’s orders? Beyond the realm of theory, however, the answer to such questions can have potentially very serious effects on politics and political systems. Independent observers, and more importantly even legal analysts known to be staunch defenders of the present superior judiciary, have voiced unease about the thrust of the court’s efforts to ensure the NRO judgment is implemented in full. They point out that of the 8,041 erstwhile NRO beneficiaries, the vast majority are still unnamed and unknown and appear set to remain so, unless they happen to come into close orbit with the present government. But even if it is selective zest, it can’t be wished away. The government needs to state its position in clear terms before the court and then hope that reason prevails.


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[I][FONT=Georgia][U][SIZE=5][COLOR=Black]Land reforms [/COLOR][/SIZE][/U][/FONT][/I] [/CENTER]

[B][SIZE=2][COLOR=Blue]Sunday, 26 Sep, 2010[/COLOR][/SIZE][/B]



THOSE who have been calling for reforms in Pakistan say that land reforms would be an essential initial step towards the establishment of an equitable order in the entire country, not just in the rural areas. The reasons why we should institute land reforms may have changed over time, as various experts on economy have pointed out. While reforms remain on the agenda of the economic managers, they are equally desirable socially. The latest World Bank remarks on the subject are in the same vein. The Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank says the recent floods offer an opportunity for Pakistan to introduce land and irrigation reforms. Among other things, the World Bank evaluators point to the crucial relationship between the tenants and the notorious revenue officer known as the patwari, the relationship between tenants and landlords, and of course the equation between the big landlord and the small peasant that is increasingly in favour of the large-scale farmer or feudal.

It is unlikely that the World Bank statement is going to draw anything but the standard response from circles that matter here. Once more, we are going to hear that it was agriculture that was sustaining Pakistan, not just economically but also socially, and that it would be dangerous to tamper with it. Then, some agriculturalists would react to the advice about the need for land reforms by flaunting their status as the real sons of the soil who cannot be left at the mercy of a few misguided urbanites occupying the policymaking positions. Contrary to the World Bank calling it an opportunity provided by the floods, there will be resolute voices describing the notion of land reforms in a flood-hit country as cruel, and the floors of the assemblies will rumble with emotional speeches by the proud cultivators. This is how it is going to pan out in the country which, far from speaking of fresh demarcation of land, scoffs at the very mention of taxing farm income. In fact it is typical of how we deal with issues of all kinds. The images of patriots supposedly clinching the argument by dismissing undesirable comments and advice as a foreign conspiracy against Pakistan are routine.

The alternative would be that those who have been opposing land reforms as a foreign idea are asked to come up with their own programmes of addressing the injustices inherent in our agricultural system. Whichever route they take, they will without doubt be discussing land reforms not long after they have begun talking about agriculture in Pakistan in earnest.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[CENTER][COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Introspection required[/FONT][/B][/U][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER]

[COLOR="Blue"][I][B]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 27 Sep, 2010[/B][/I][/COLOR]

The Minister for Defence Production, Abdul Qayyum Jatoi, has been unceremoniously sacked from the federal cabinet after his rather extraordinary outburst against the armed forces and the superior judiciary.

The prime minister’s decision is of course 100 per cent correct, notwithstanding that in private moments the historical role of the armed forces and the judiciary in undermining the democratic process in the country can, and does, rightly come in for some rather serious criticism. Yet, to dwell on the role of other players and institutions isn’t the point here, no matter how relevant to the explanation for all that ails Pakistan. Instead, it is the increasingly tiresome attitude of some in the political class, especially those in and near the orbit of civilian political power in Islamabad at the moment, that needs to come in for some scrutiny.

Consider this. If certain institutions have in the past repeatedly thwarted the strengthening of democracy in the country, going forward they cannot be expected to simply pack up and leave or withdraw from the scene altogether. If democracy is ever to be strengthened in Pakistan, the civilian politicians will need to raise their game to demonstrate that they are indeed capable of responsibly running the state’s affairs. Only that will increase the space for civilian rule, and, conversely, reduce the space for undemocratic forces to operate in the country. True, the present government, parliament and assemblies have taken some very important political steps, and by doing so demonstrated an unexpected political maturity: the 18th Amendment, the NFC award, the Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan packages, etc.

However, it is the governance side that has proved to be disappointing, to say the least. From the handling of the economy to the delivery of basic health and education services to the management of public-sector enterprises to legislative reform, the present government has undeniably had space to act, but, equally undeniably, has bungled each of those opportunities to turn a crisis into something positive. If pressed, analysts and observers of the present government would struggle to identify even a single ministry in a record size cabinet that deserves even a passing grade on its performance so far, even by the relatively low standards of past governments.

When politicians like the now fired Mr Jatoi lash out at other institutions, it does come across as a desperate attempt to cover up the shortcomings of his government. If corruption in other institutions is equally rampant, as Mr Jatoi claimed, then why has the government failed to introduce an effective, across-the-board anti-corruption law? It really is true, you cannot fool all the people all the time.
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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Deepening rifts[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B][I]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 27 Sep, 2010[/I][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The chasm between the western world and Islamic countries seems to be getting ever wider. And while certain elements in the West are indeed guilty of fanning the flames of mistrust through provocation, some leaders and entities within the Islamic world are also responsible for the deepening polarity between Islam and the West.

While addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that most people believed that the US government was responsible for the Sept 11 attacks. He also called for the UN to form “an independent fact-finding group” to investigate the tragedy. Expectedly, the comments outraged the US and European delegations, which staged a walkout. On the other hand in Pakistan, the Jamaat-i-Islami called for Muslim states to use their nuclear and oil resources as a “tool against American expansionism” while advocating that Muslim nations cut off all ties with the US. This was stated through a resolution adopted at a rally in Peshawar on Friday to protest Florida pastor Terry Jones’ proposal, which was eventually abandoned.

This is a difficult time for inter-cultural relations between Islam and the West. The atmosphere has been vitiated by fringe elements such as Terry Jones, while American public opinion is also reflecting an intolerant streak with the vitriolic opposition to Park51, misleadingly dubbed the ‘Ground Zero mosque’. There are also strong currents of Islamophobia in Europe. Yet when Muslim leaders and politicians make statements similar to what the Iranian president said at the UN or what JI leaders expressed in Peshawar, they must also shoulder the blame for adding to the growing intolerance on both sides. Their rhetoric is grist for the mill of hardliners both in the West and in Islamic countries as conservatives are strengthened by this state of confrontation. Continued dialogue and engagement is the need of the moment, not increased hostility. Muslim leaders and opinion-makers should concentrate on the core issues confronting the Muslim world — poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease — rather than baiting the West. Meanwhile, leaders in both western and Islamic nations must continue efforts to forge understanding, so that hardliners are disallowed the chance to exploit differences.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][I][B]Maternal and child health[/B][/I][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][I][B]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 27 Sep, 2010[/B][/I][/SIZE][/COLOR]

There are serious concerns over the management of the Rs20bn maternal, newborn and child health programme (2007-2012) that is supposed to cover approximately 110 million people countrywide.

With just five years left until the 2015 UN Millennium Development Goals’ deadline, international sponsors of the MNCH programme are pessimistic that the latter’s objectives will be achieved, especially if doubts regarding its financial transparency are not addressed. That such concerns have emerged is not surprising. Although several positive initiatives have been introduced under the programme, such as the lady health workers’ and community midwives’ schemes, they need closer monitoring and evaluation. For instance, if those involved do not follow the proper protocol in maternal and child healthcare delivery, it would not only amount to wasted training but also cause more harm than good. Moreover, the delay in reintroducing a proper local government system nationwide has also raised concerns about accountability. The programme is structured as a national-level one, owned and managed by the districts. It is premised on the district health system as the vehicle for continued, integrated care for mothers, newborns and children, although the programme also seeks to make its services accessible at other levels.

It is necessary to monitor the funds for maximum efficiency as well as ensure the timely disbursement of allocations. The mobilisation of additional resources to fund service-delivery gaps is equally important. The latter is particularly crucial given the recent floods. Finally, the government cannot be expected to achieve the MDGs alone. The best way to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality and improve our maternal and child health indicators — amongst the lowest in the world — is to encourage and strengthen public-private partnerships in improving the availability of services for maternal and child health and in increasing community awareness.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Post-flood health needs[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 28 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


It is becoming increasingly apparent that amongst other things, rebuilding Pakistan’s flood-battered healthcare system must become a priority. However, it is also clear that this is a mammoth task. Speaking at a seminar recently, the director-general health said that billions of rupees are needed to repair the nation’s health infrastructure. This includes health facilities such as basic health units, dispensaries and hospitals damaged or destroyed in over 30 districts.



A report by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that about 236 health facilities have been damaged while around 200 have been destroyed in the flood-hit areas. The report adds that the “management capacity of the local health systems in the flood-affected districts has virtually collapsed”. The DG health also observed that the threat of epidemics has been averted thanks to timely interventions. This is largely true, yet it does not mean the state should become complacent. A World Health Organisation bulletin says that 2.2 million cases of malaria are expected in the flood-affected areas over the next six months. WHO figures also indicate that around 500,000 pregnant women are among the affected population. The pressing shortage of skilled healthcare workers — including lady health workers — has made a complex situation more difficult. Sanitary conditions in IDP camps remain a matter of concern.

Yet the state, as well as the world, must respond to these grave concerns and respond with urgency. While it is true that Pakistan’s healthcare infrastructure was not very good to begin with, the floods have exacerbated the situation to an alarming degree. The government must make earnest efforts to rehabilitate the country’s healthcare infrastructure. Considering the magnitude of the disaster, this gigantic task cannot be achieved alone and the international community should play its part to help Pakistan get its healthcare system back on its feet.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][FONT="Georgia"][CENTER][U][B]Incidence of suicide[/B][/U][/CENTER][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][B]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 28 Sep, 2010[/B][/COLOR]


Deafening silence prevails in government circles even as economic hardship and other grim realities drive more and more poor Pakistanis to suicide.



Karachi alone has seen an alarming rise of over 100 per cent in the number of suicides in the first six months of this year, as against the corresponding period last year, according to a report in this newspaper. This is a measure of failure on the part of our economic managers. We say this because economic hardship is the reason cited for most of the suicides attempted or committed. In Karachi, the reported cases of suicide went up from 18 last year to 43 in the same period this year. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher. The recent case of a factory worker in Korangi brings to light the desperate state of mind of the distressed citizen who, before killing himself, also killed his wife and three children. The reason: inability to provide for his family within his monthly income of Rs5,000. Suicide figures cited by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan from across the country are no less shocking: 2,486 committed suicide in 2008, mostly because of economic hardship.

It must be asked as to what the government is doing about this worrying trend, and what is it doing to address the factors that are leading the poor to take their own lives. Runaway inflation stands in double digits as the basic cost of living has risen beyond all sustainable limits. With among the highest interest rates in the world on borrowing, the government has failed to arrest inflation. This is now translating into growing human as well as fiscal deficit. Yet, there is no policy initiative to protect the vulnerable against the onslaught of a cut-throat economic downturn, which is literally stealing the leftovers the poor could put on their plates. The government must show some sense of priority in alleviating this utterly distressed state of affairs. Urgent measures must be taken to control at least food inflation — even as an equally needed, well thought-out economic recovery plan remains conspicuous by its absence.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Crisis averted?[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]
Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 28 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


In the end, common sense prevailed, though perhaps only for a few weeks. The government took a sensible route — the NRO review petition ought to be decided before the issue of implementation can be addressed — and the Supreme Court had the grace to give the government, and perhaps the democratic system, more time to devise a workable resolution to what has become an impasse.



Talk of a ‘final showdown’ and the ‘beginning of the end’ whipped up by the media was not to be, at least yesterday. Ten months since the NRO judgment, and there is little new that can be said about the legal complications and possibilities surrounding the pursuit of cases against President Zardari and his cohorts: ultimately, the Supreme Court must determine what the law is and what must be done. Ultimately, it is the executive, presently led by a PPP government, that must implement what is asked of it by the court. That is the stark reality, as is the fact that the answer to the impasse does not lie in the field of law but at the cross-section of law and politics.

What is worth commenting on at this stage, however, is the increasingly baneful influence of the media, particularly the electronic media. The media is certainly entitled to its opinions, but it is becoming ever clearer that segments of the media are bent on creating their own reality — not so much reporting the news as creating it. Overnight, pundits have become legal experts, reporters fantastical jurists and analysts the reincarnation of Blackstone, Dicey, Marshall and Cornelius all rolled into one. Specious predictions are presented as fait accompli, complicated legal jargon and dense constitutional clauses are bandied about with ease, a certainty of meaning, and prediction, applied that would be the envy of lawyers the world over. Oddly enough, or perhaps not oddly at all, the ones leading the charge of the uninformed are the very same elements that were crusading for democracy just a couple of years ago. The suspicion that the antagonists in the media really want to be the protagonists of democracy — the ones who call the shots, elections and electoral legitimacy be damned — is hardly a suspicion anymore. It is near fact.

All sides have a few weeks to take stock. Perhaps most important here is the government: it needs to understand that there is something more to public office than simply occupying that office: governance matters need to be taken up urgently. At the end of the day, even neutral observers must wonder: what’s the point of having a government, however ‘democratic’, if it does nothing?

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Save the system[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][U][I][B]Wednesday, 29 Sep, 2010[/B][/I][/U][/SIZE][/COLOR]

DID the frenzy of anticipation and apprehension on Monday signify nothing? One answer would be: yes. After all, the government has survived and the Supreme Court has held off on turning the screws. But something did happen on Monday, and it did not help strengthen the democratic project in any way. Little is factually known about what transpired during the meeting between the president, the prime minister and the army chief on Monday, but its significance cannot be overlooked. The two most powerful civilian political figures were in attendance, the supreme commander of the armed forces and the chief executive of the country, but, in truth, all eyes were on the third figure: the army chief. That itself tells a sorry tale about how poorly the civilian government, and other civilian institutions, have managed the transition to democracy. Must every civilian institution always act with the fear of the army bogeyman at the back of its mind? Perhaps not. But civilian institutions simply cannot afford to forget that the infighting which weakens them strengthens undemocratic forces in the country.

Perhaps no side needs to introspect more than the present government. The latest PPP government has confirmed what many long suspected, that the Achilles’ heel of the party is an inability to deliver on governance. Much of the talk about the implementation/ non-implementation/ selective implementation of court judgments would have disappeared if the government had shown some semblance of understanding the structural and long-standing problems that confront the country and had begun to address them. But where commitment of purpose was required, the country got empty rhetoric. Even now, when some of the political ‘crisis’ could dissipate were some of the worst offenders among the outsize federal cabinet to be jettisoned, the government chooses to rule by inaction. Almost certainly, the abject governance record of the present civilian leadership has helped foment the atmosphere of crisis.

However, the onus of shoring up democracy in the country does not fall on the government alone. What is viewed by some as the selectivism of the judicial arm of the state is also a reality that has played its part in the ongoing crisis. This much ought to be obvious: anything that leads the army to intervene in politics, however discreetly, is not good for democracy. The army needs to focus on the security challenges that have disrupted lives across the country, not be sucked into the vortex of politics by squabbling civilian institutions. Unsettlingly, it was not very difficult to tell who among the three pictured at the presidency on Monday appeared the most comfortable.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Children at risk[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][FONT="Georgia"][U][I][B]Wednesday, 29 Sep, 2010[/B][/I][/U][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

IN the event of a disaster, groups that are already disadvantaged, such as women and children, become even more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. In the post-flood situation, apart from the victims’ immediate needs such as shelter, food and medical attention, the protection of children is also a major concern. According to Unicef, out of the 20 million or so people affected by the floods, over half are children. A report by the agency on the floods’ effect on children says that “children have been or are at risk of being separated from their families, they are at risk of abuse … and have witnessed death and destruction”. There are also reports that boys from flood-affected families are being lured into prostitution in some parts.

In the aftermath of natural calamities worldwide we have witnessed elements taking advantage of children. After the January earthquake in Haiti some American missionaries were convicted of illegally transporting a busload of Haitian children into the Dominican Republic without any paperwork. In Pakistan, after the 2005 earthquake the adoption of children was banned to prevent the risk of child abductions. Though people may be well-intentioned in wanting to take children away from the scene of tragedy, it doesn’t justify ignoring due process. In the current scenario the trafficking and abuse of children cannot be ignored as the state grapples with the post-flood situation. In present conditions, protecting the welfare and rights of minors is more important than ever as the chances of their exploitation are far greater considering that the whole social structure in many parts of the country has collapsed. Vigilance is key in this regard.

The state and society — especially rights organisations — must play a proactive role in ensuring the safety of children so that they are kept from harm. It is also important that a child protection law is passed and implemented at the federal level. Presently, such a law only exists in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is essential that the federal government passes a law that can protect children from all forms of abuse both in times of crises and otherwise.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Nato’s stance[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][U][B][SIZE="2"]Wednesday, 29 Sep, 2010[/SIZE][/B][/U][/COLOR]

AFTER initially defending the recent aerial attacks inside Pakistan, Nato appeared to change its stance on Monday evening. More than 50 people have been killed in the three recent air strikes. The Isaf spokesman had earlier invoked the right of self-defence but after Pakistan sent a strongly worded protest reminding the military alliance that its mandate for operations ended at the Afghanistan border, the security force reportedly informed Pakistani commanders that it was trying to ensure that helicopters did not cross into Pakistani territory. That the US-led military alliance appears to have realised its mistake is encouraging at a number of levels. First, the reversal regarding the legitimacy of including Pakistani territory in operations focused on Afghanistan will act as a deterrent to future temptations to resort to the ‘rules of hot pursuit’. As Pakistan has reminded Nato, no such agreement exists and such incursions can only be termed a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Secondly, while it is true that the militants recognise no borders and the terrain is uncertain, it is important for allies to respect each other’s mandate and territory. The only hope for effectively breaking the militant-terrorist nexus lies in close cooperation and coordination among the various stakeholders, including the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is doubly important since Pakistan’s forces are themselves engaged in fighting the militants. Incursions such as these are counter-productive to the aims of both Nato and Pakistan as they deepen public resentment regarding cooperation with the United States. The matter is similar to the controversy surrounding drone attacks inside Pakistan: though the issue has quietened down to some extent, it proved deeply divisive in terms of public opinion.

Thirdly, there has been no dispute that the targeted fighters belonged mainly to the Haqqani network, which shows further recognition that the militancy problem is not Afghanistan’s alone.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]No funds for dialysis[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"][SIZE="2"][B]
Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 30 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Kidney patients in need of regular dialysis have been in the news over the last few years. At one point during the Nawaz Sharif government that lasted until October 1999, government-run hospitals were asked to provide kidney patients with free dialysis.



The rulers afterwards had other preferences even though some patients in need of dialysis and without the means to pay for the expensive procedure were covered by donations or funding by the government under zakat and other heads. But in the absence of a clear directive, patients lived in fear of the facility being taken away from them.

The worst fears of some 225 registered patients who were receiving free dialysis at Lahore’s Sheikh Zayed Hospital have just become a reality. Having been extended the ‘favour’ on the orders of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani until recently, they have been told that from now on they will be required to bring their own disposable kits for the procedure. This paper reported the rather unfortunate development yesterday and confirmed the reason was the shortage of funds. The same report said a disposable dialysis kit cost around Rs15,000 and many patients required more than one dialysis session in a week.



While there are no official statistics, a senior doctor in Lahore is reported to have said that as many as 150,000 new cases were being added to the list of people suffering from chronic kidney disease every year. This is a daunting figure. The situation is further complicated by the government’s habit of cutting expenditure on health to overcome the cash deficits that it is all too frequently faced with. Much more than medical symptoms, it is this dangerous habit that is in need of an urgent cure since it puts the health of the entire Pakistani population at risk.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Polls postponed[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"][SIZE="2"][B]
Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 30 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

On Tuesday, the Sindh Assembly passed into law the Sindh Local Government (Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2010 effectively postponing LG polls indefinitely. The bill states that it is not possible to hold the polls within a specified time-frame due to the havoc caused by the floods. The law minister told the house elections would be held when the situation became “conducive”, which is an open-ended proposition. As an NPP lawmaker quipped, it appears the government has no intention of holding the polls. Undoubtedly the floods have caused massive destruction, yet there seem to be other causes behind the delay in elections — namely the fact that the PPP and MQM cannot agree upon a new LG law, without which elections cannot be held.

It is clear that in the absence of elected local bodies Sindh is suffering. Observers have said that had local governments been in place the severity of the floods’ destruction could have been lessened. In areas not affected by the floods, such as Karachi, there has been a visible drop in the quality of civic services ever since the nazims were sent home in February. During Tuesday’s session an MP belonging to the PML-Q even alleged that corruption has increased in the absence of local bodies. The local government minister said that the system (adopted in 2001 under Gen Musharraf) had failed to deliver as according to him, 21 out of Sindh’s 23 districts “suffered badly” because of it. If this is true, then the faults in the system should be rectified so that a new law is adopted and polls held. A ‘faulty’ system cannot become a convenient excuse for indefinitely postponing elections and leaving unelected bureaucrats in charge of the districts. The politicians need to reach a consensus and move on. Enough time has been wasted. Giving a time-frame for polls is not an impossible task. The parties must honestly assess the post-flood situation, come up with a new law and set a date for elections.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][U][B]Reformed GST[/B][/U][/FONT][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 30 Sep, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


The debate over the imposition of Reformed General Sales Tax may be at an end. The major sticking point had been the dispute between Sindh and the centre over collection of sales tax on services. At stake was approximately Rs50bn in revenue.



Under the seventh NFC agreement forged last December, Sindh expected to get Rs20bn to Rs25bn more in revenues on account of sales tax on services. However, the federal government backtracked, possibly in violation of its legal commitments. It took nine months to resolve, but it appears the government has finally accepted a cut of approximately Rs35bn in its revenue share, as originally pledged, clearing the way for the introduction of RGST.

It is impossible to summarise the changes expected in this space, but suffice it to say two major improvements are hoped for. One, documentation of the economy will increase (improved documentation makes tax evasion more difficult); and two, many of the special exemptions and concessions which riddled the GST regime and caused an estimated loss of Rs100bn annually will be eliminated. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that experts familiar with the tax system and political economy are sceptical that major improvements are likely. Barring seriousness of purpose and political resoluteness, many of the problems the RGST is supposed to fix could creep back in. That Pakistanis do not like paying taxes (and so avoid documentation) and powerful business lobbies find ways of carving out exceptions (hence the special concessions and exemptions) are the underlying problems, whatever the system in vogue. It remains to be seen if the RGST will be able to withstand those pressures, even a few years later.

The idea behind RGST is simple enough: it is a value-added tax that will be imposed on each stage of production. If the zero-rating on the textile industry goes, as promised, the new regime will look something like this: ginners who sell Rs100 of cotton to spinners will add Rs17 (or whatever the rate of RGST) to the selling price; next, spinners who ‘add value’ to the Rs100 of cotton by turning it into yarn, say they double its value to Rs200, will sell the yarn to cloth-makers for Rs234, but will be eligible to reclaim the Rs17 tax paid earlier; and so on up the production chain. It is a good idea but it remains to be seen if the implementation is effective. At the very least, however, income-tax payers should be relieved that the imminent introduction of RGST has apparently created the space to reduce the severity of the proposed flood tax on incomes.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[FONT="Georgia"][COLOR="Green"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B]Babri mosque verdict[/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR][/FONT]

[FONT="Georgia"][COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Friday, 01 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR][/FONT]

NEARLY two decades after Hindu zealots tore down the 16th-century Babri mosque in the Indian town of Ayodhya, there appears to be some sense of closure to the divisive issue. Or is there? After all, when religion, mythology and politics come together in issues such as this, the mix is nothing less than incendiary. Whatever the debate over the claims that the demolished mosque was built over the janambhoomi or birthplace of Hindu deity Ram, the Allahabad High Court ruled on Thursday that the disputed site would be divided into three portions: two would go to as many Hindu organisations while the third would go to a Muslim group. Perhaps this was the only tenable solution considering the divergent views of the three-member bench: Justice Sudhir Agarwal felt “the building in dispute was constructed after demolition of a non-Islamic religious structure i.e. a Hindu temple”, while Justice S.U. Khan’s findings were that “no temple was demolished for constructing the mosque”. Certainly, at first glance it appears to be a judgment in favour of Hindu demands. However, it is hoped that the demarcation is done amicably and fairly. The Sunni Waqf Board has decided to appeal the decision in the Indian Supreme Court.

For the Congress-led government — under whose watch the mosque was demolished in 1992 (though a BJP government was in power in Uttar Pradesh and the party’s leaders egged on the fanatics) — the verdict must have come as a relief. A totally pro-Hindu verdict would have put a question mark on the government’s secular credentials while a pro-Muslim judgment would have alienated the government from the Hindu majority. The Indian government was taking no chances as nearly 200,000 troops fanned out across UP — 40,000 of them in Ayodhya alone. Perhaps the memories of communal violence in the aftermath of the mosque’s destruction were still fresh. Both before and after the verdict the Indian government fervently appealed for calm. The verdict also comes at a time when the Indian government is faced with a number of security problems, including securing the controversy-plagued Commonwealth Games, unrest in Kashmir and the Maoist insurgency.

Elements within the Indian political spectrum — especially the Hindu right — have milked the issue for political mileage. The first recorded incidents of violence surrounding the Babri mosque did not emerge until the middle of the 19th century. It was only in the mid-’80s that the Sangh Parivar made building the Ram temple its ideological rallying cry. Though what happened in 1992 is inexcusable, perhaps the verdict will be viewed as pragmatic if it soothes communal passions and ensures such ugly incidents do not happen again.
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[COLOR="Green"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Tax reforms[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Friday, 01 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

ON Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and two other members of the Obama administration called for Pakistan to tax its wealthiest elites if it wanted to continue receiving monetary assistance from the United States. At the US Global Leadership Coalition conference in Washington, Secretary Clinton mentioned Pakistan’s low tax rate while referring to the country’s expectation of financial assistance during times of crisis. “When there’s a problem, everybody expects the United States and others to come in and help,” she said. This may cause outrage in some quarters but is nothing less than the truth. Pakistan’s taxation issues are reaching proportions that the rest of the world is not only beginning to notice but also growing impatient with.

With a tax-to-GDP ratio of just nine per cent, Pakistan can hardly be said to be taking steps to lessen its economic crisis. In fact, it is not even making the attempt to do so, considering that important tax reforms such as bringing agriculture and certain other sectors into the tax net have yet to see the light of day, despite being talked about for years. This is an unacceptable state of affairs, particularly given how often Pakistan has to appeal outside its borders for financial assistance. The post-flood situation is a case in point. President Zardari asked the government on Wednesday to impose a one-time flood tax on the wealthy. Fair enough, but the fact that Pakistan can no longer ignore is that the entire taxation sector must be fixed. First, there is the matter of strictly enforcing the laws to prevent tax evasion and fudging. Second, the laws need revision and rationalisation, for it is no secret that some of the wealthiest citizens and enterprises remain virtually untaxed while certain groups, such as salaried citizens, bear the heaviest burden in proportion to their incomes. Third, reforms are needed to bring more sectors into the tax net, the most important of these being agriculture.
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[COLOR="Green"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dengue risk[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Friday, 01 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

NO exact count is available for how many people have succumbed to dengue fever since it first became an issue some years ago, but the number is bound to be considerable. In the current post-monsoon season, dozens of people in many parts of the country have been diagnosed with it, particularly in Karachi. While many patients have recovered, there have been cases of dengue-related death as well. Yet the disease has not received the attention that its life-threatening nature merits, and the health authorities’ attempts to reduce its risk or raise public awareness about it have been piecemeal.

This must be rectified since in the post-flood situation the risk is greater than ever. Dengue fever is transmitted by mosquitoes and one of the consequences of the recent inundation of large swathes of land is bound to be the increased breeding of mosquitoes. Efforts must be made to make available preventative tools such as mosquito netting and disinfectants in high-risk places such as IDP camps. The fever is more likely to strike people with lowered immunities, from which most of the flood-affected people are already suffering. A greater effort must be made to keep camps and cities clean, particularly congested urban areas where stagnant pools of water and heaps of garbage are common features. Furthermore, awareness-raising is needed amongst the citizenry. In particular, people need to be on the watch for the initial signs and symptoms of the disease. Given that these include headaches, exhaustion and muscle pain, they can easily be taken for mild flu or other non-serious conditions. In this illness, as in many others, early diagnosis can save lives. In Karachi on Tuesday, the Dengue Surveillance Cell admitted that there has been a surge in the number of patients. The situation must not be allowed to get out of hand.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Fresh tensions[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]Saturday, 02 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

PAKISTAN-US relations have been, and it seems always will be, fraught with a certain degree of tension and mutual suspicion. But the spike in tensions between the two countries in recent weeks appears to be out of the ordinary. CIA chief Leon Panetta is believed to have delivered a tough message to his interlocutors in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, warning that Pakistan will have to learn to accept US/Nato raids from across the Pakistan-Afghan border and ever-increasing drone strikes if Pakistan continues to do little, in America’s reckoning, to shut down the safe havens Afghan-centric militants enjoy in Fata. For its part, the Pakistan Army has conveyed its deep unhappiness with the helicopter raids in particular. That the Nato supply routes through Pakistan have come under attack and the border crossing at Torkham has been closed appear to be part of a larger scheme of Pakistani ‘protest’ against aggressive US action.

The action-reaction cycle may seem familiar, and to an extent it is, but it is extremely unsettling given the present context. With a crucial review of US strategy in Afghanistan expected to be completed by December, there is almost certainly a great deal of pressure to show results on the counter-insurgency front. Eastern Afghanistan, the stronghold of the Haqqani network, has witnessed fierce fighting in recent months and the insurgency there is believed to have been dented to some extent, but the American side continues to argue that the Haqqani network draws its strength from its bases in Fata. The Pakistan Army appears to have pledged some sort of eventual action against militant bases, in North Waziristan in particular, but thus far has failed to deliver — which is very likely the crux of the dispute at the moment and the reason for the escalating tensions between the US and Pakistan.

Whatever the reasons or justifications on both sides, the US and Pakistan must desist from the brinkmanship on display at the moment. American officials high and low routinely claim Pakistan is a valuable ally in the fight against militancy, but unilateral strikes inside Pakistani territory run completely counter to that narrative. The fact of the matter is that the US, for logistical and strategic reasons, needs Pakistan. That alone should be enough to render ill-advised escalating the pressure on Pakistan because of political timelines that the US has to adhere to for domestic reasons. Pakistan has been no saint in the partnership with the US; however, if the shoe was on the other foot, the US would likely have made many of the same decisions Pakistan has. The pressure must abate.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Lawyers on the rampage[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]
Saturday, 02 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

FRIDAY’S ugly clash between police and lawyers in Lahore was a far cry from the movement for the independence of the judiciary that the city had played its part in only recently. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has been a prime backer of a free and independent judiciary and the lawyers have been the army that the campaign has banked upon. Friday’s clash between the lawyers and the police force under the command of Mr Sharif marked the biggest, if not the first, instance of those in the pro-judiciary camp taking on each other since the movement began in 2007. The face-off and the subsequent arrests came in the wake of the deplorable incident a day earlier in which infuriated lawyers had attacked the chamber of the chief justice of the Lahore High Court. The lawyers had been pressing for the transfer of a district and sessions judge. Many lawyers were booked under the Pakistan Penal Code as well as the anti- terrorism act and some arrests were made. Apparently it was the violent culmination of the lawyers’ rally on Thursday that elicited a sterner response from the police a day later. The inevitable happened. Seeking to block the lawyers’ way, the policemen arrested the participants of the rally and resorted to baton-charge and tear-gassing as the lawyers tried to start the rally, and beat them in the most brutal manner.

Even though some people insist that the attack on the LHC chief justice’s chamber was a conspi- racy to defame the pro- judiciary movement, facts betray a grimmer reality. The attack did not come out of the blue. There was a build-up in which a large number of lawyers were involved. If the lawyers’ leaders were to back the strange conspiracy theory, they would be doing a great disservice to not only their profession but to all those who sided with them in their demand for the rule of law. They must now demonstrate that theirs was a principled campaign directed at a set of judges appointed unconstitutionally and that their anger was not aim- ed at judges per se or judges disagreeing with a lawyer’s argument.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Netanyahu’s intransigence[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]Saturday, 02 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

MAHMOUD Abbas has done well by not walking out of the peace talks immediately, despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision not to extend the freeze on housing. A final decision about continuing the peace talks will be made by the Palestinian president after he meets Arab foreign ministers in Cairo next week. Settlements are one of the key issues which President Barack Obama wants the two sides to tackle so that peace is achieved within the 12-month deadline given by him — a mere dream, considering the fate of previous such plans and hopes. The US, the European Union and all those who wished to see peace in the Middle East expected the Likud government to extend the moratorium, which expired on Sept 26. However, by refusing to extend the freeze Israel has once again demonstrated consistency in its intransigence. When they began talking in Washington last month Mr Abbas made it clear that a renewal of construction activity would sabotage peace efforts, and he would pull out. True to its record, the Likud government allowed the Sept 26 deadline to pass, with Mr Netanyahu saying he would only allow “restricted” construction activity. Palestinian leaders have already said they would not accept a compromise on settlement activity.

While the fate of the talks hangs in the balance, one is amazed to see America pampering Israel with fresh incentives, including arms deliveries and a promise to block any move to bring the Palestinian issue to the Security Council if Israel freezes construction activity. Mr Netanyahu is not likely to do that, taking cover behind the plea that his coalition government is heavily dependent on the religious right. Ultimately, Israel will have its way as it is feared that it will continue settlement activity and still receive arms deliveries and benefit from Mr Obama’s decision to pre-empt a UN referral.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]NAB controversy[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]Sunday, 03 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

THERE is so much wrong with the circumstances surrounding the presidential ordinance to amend the National Accountability Bureau law promulgated some two weeks ago and only coming to light a couple of days ago that it is difficult to know where to begin. First of all, the law ministry’s feeble defence of the ordinance can be sum- marily dismissed. For once, the details matter little — Law Minister Babar Awan has tried to portray the changes as procedural and inconsequential — because the context and the overall picture are what are clearly more relevant and important. Surely the cloak-and-dagger ordinance is in some way connected to the tussle between the government and the Supreme Court over control of NAB (the SC wants a more autonomous NAB, as the law requires; the government, wary of the implications for key figures were NAB to be truly independent, wants to keep NAB under its thumb). To believe otherwise is to stretch the boundaries of credible theory.

Moreover the government’s energies, to the extent they are directed towards putting together a comprehensive, fair and across-the-board account-ability bill, ought to be focused on the legislation for the creation of a National Accountability Commission, as promised by the government but seemingly ignored for some time now. Rather than working on tweaking the NAB law, law ministry officials and the presidency ought to put more effort into addressing the objections of the opposition to the NAC bill languishing at the committee stage in parliament. In any case, presidential ordinances are generally not a good way of legislating — something directly acknow- ledged in the 18th Amendment, which has introduced fresh curbs on the practice. The PPP itself has in the past criticised the practice of using ordinances to bypass recalcitrant parliaments, but appears to have found the convenience of the legislative shortcut too hard to resist now (as, it must be said, have all other governments before it). However, it is telling that Senator Raza Rabbani, chief architect of the 18th Amendment and a PPP stalwart, saw fit to join a walkout in the Senate against the NAB-amending ordinance and that even the prime minister appeared hard pressed to defend the ordinance.

At the end of the day, it is up to the inner core of the PPP leadership to mend its ways. Without a doubt, the government has come under pressure from other institutions, pressure which has on occasion been unfair and unwarranted. However, two wrongs never have and never will make a right. By taking the low road yet again, the government is feeding the very cycle that threatens to consume it.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Deadly virus[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Sunday, 03 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

THE incidence of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever has risen in recent weeks. On Friday, 15 patients believed to be suffering from it were admitted in Rawalpindi hospitals. The sufferers belong to Chakwal and adjoining areas. A day before that, the National Institute of Health said that tests conducted on the blood samples of eight employees of the city’s Holy Family Hospital confirmed that they were suffering from CCHF, probably contracted while attending to two patients, one of whom died on Sept 24. Similarly on Friday, four suspected CCHF patients were hospitalised in Peshawar and the executive district health officer told the media that the NIH had confirmed that the Congo virus was responsible for Dr Hasnain Shah’s death in Abbottabad early last month. There have been similar reports from Karachi too with at least two CCHF deaths last month and other confirmed cases.

CCHF can spread very fast. Caused by a tick-borne virus, fatality rates in hospitalised cases can go as high as 50 per cent. The virus often affects animals including cattle, goats and sheep and can be transmitted to humans through contact with infected animal blood or the virus-carrying ticks. It can also be transmitted through contact with infected body fluids. In hospitals, CCHF has been documented as occurring due to poor sterilisation of medical equipment and contact with infected blood or body fluids. The healthcare authorities need to wake up to the danger. Public awareness needs to be raised, particularly since the symptoms can be mistaken for dengue fever of which many cases are being reported these days. Hospital staff in particular must be made aware of the risks, so that suspected patients can be put in isolation and given suitable treatment. Meanwhile, the use of protection such as insect repellents and fumigation must be promoted.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Musharraf in politics[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]Sunday, 03 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

PERVEZ Musharraf did not ‘enter’ politics on Friday in London; he has been in politics in Pakistan since the day he and his brother generals seized power and overthrew an elected government. His renewed political ambition to seek power through the electoral pro-cess merely constitutes the continuation of a poli-tical career that began with the ‘hijacking from ground’ drama on the evening of Oct 12, 1999. In 2002 he went through the charade of a referendum, which he won and in which he — like Ayub Khan and Ziaul Haq — was the sole candidate. Again, while still in the army chief’s uniform, the commando general was authorised by the Supreme Court of the day to contest a presidential election, to which a retired SC justice lent credibility and sanctity by taking part. Even though he often proved himself to be good at political manoeuvring, the mistakes Gen Musharraf made were stupefying. That he managed to survive as a strongman for nearly eight years was a tribute less to his political skills and more to the power that flowed from the army chief’s baton. He was supported by some seasoned and habitual turncoats who helped him form the ‘king’s party’ which enabled him to have parliament enact constitutional amendments that whitewashed his crimes.

The former president is good at apologising, as he did after the referendum hoax, and on Friday he apologised again, saying men made mistakes. It will now be interesting to see whether his ‘enlightened moderation’ is able to make an impact on the nation’s political scene without the benefit of what he used to call his ‘second skin’. After all he is not the first retired general to enter the dangerous, often fatal waters of Pakistani politics. Gen Musharraf has no constituency, even in urban Sindh, though undoubtedly he has a sprinkling of support all over. He has some sworn enemies, but he also has supporters in the business class, which benefited from the economic boom until the 2005 earthquake. Ultimately, let us have faith in the people of Pakistan. As history shows, they have always shown collective wisdom while voting.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Bar-bench crisis[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 04 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

What began as a bench-bar tussle over a single district and sessions judge in Lahore has quickly snowballed into a welter of fighting, strikes and acrimony making national headlines.

Rumour and allegations continue to fly thick and fast, with conspiracy theorists claiming political ‘hidden hands’ are at work and the protests and fighting in Lahore being seen through the prism of national politics and even the perceived executive-judiciary tensions in Islamabad. The truth, however, appears to be more prosaic, at least to the extent it can be discerned. Unhappiness among lawyers belonging to the Lahore Bar Association with Judge Zawwar Sheikh’s style and manner of conducting business in his courtroom — some of it valid, much of it not to the neutral observer — was the original trigger of the bar-bench problems. But, following the heavy-handed tactics of police to break up relatively non-violent protests last week, the focus has shifted to a wider struggle that encapsulates all that is wrong with the judicial mechanism in Pakistan.

To be sure, none of the protagonists have acted in the wisest of manners. And the politicians sitting at the fringes of this unseemly battle have certainly given the impression that they are not above exploiting the situation where possible. Forgotten among all of this, as usual, is the ordinary public, the very people the judicial system was built to protect and serve. With fresh strikes and protests planned for this week, including today, it seems the disruption, if not total shutdown, of the judicial machine in Lahore and beyond can be expected for some days to come. Matters have come to such a pass that it may not be possible to resolve the situation without at least transferring Judge Zawwar Sheikh to placate enraged lawyers.

Beyond that, in the medium and long term, certain measures have to be put in place to ensure a more transparent judicial process. It is an open secret that senior members of the bar associations usually expect special favours when it comes to adjournments and other friendly gestures for their clients. It is also an open secret that the administrative side of the judicial system is rife with corruption, with peons and other courtroom staffers amenable to bribery. At the same time, a culture of impunity which runs up and down the judicial ladder certainly affects its lowest rungs, encouraging the subordinate judiciary to ride roughshod over the bar. A message needs to go out from the very top that focuses on returning the judiciary to its rightful position of quiet dignity operating discreetly in the background.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Power sector reforms[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 04 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Does the winding up of Pepco, the body entrusted “with managing the transition of Wapda from a bureaucratic structure to a corporate, commercially viable and productive entity”, mark the beginning of a new chapter of power-sector reform or a continuation of the half-hearted, intermittent reform of the past two decades?

Power consumers will hope it is the former, but there are some serious questions. Two and a half years since coming to power, the government in Islamabad has proved singularly incapable of implementing reforms even, as is the case with the power sector, when the reforms were initiated by previous PPP governments. True, the government has taken the politically unpopular step of stripping out untargeted power subsidies — a necessary measure — but there has been little follow-up. Two big things need to happen: one, the generation and distribution companies have to be made commercially viable in order to attract much-needed investment; and two, the regulatory framework for trading electricity among independent, private entities along the entire power sector chain needs to be put in place. Both are tough tasks even at the best of times — Pepco was unable to do much in over a decade of existence — but become massive challenges when a government with seemingly very little interest in reform and regulatory issues is in charge.

And this before the circular debt crisis which threatens to shut down the entire power sector. The government has thrown hundreds of billions of rupees at the problem but appears to have had little success in dealing with the underlying causes, while at the same time adding massively to the fiscal deficit. Why have things come to this pass? Simply, the lack of reforms. Compare the telecom industry with the power sector. Over the past 20 years, one has gone from strength to strength; the other is on the verge of collapse. It is not a coincidence that telecom reforms were mooted, agreed upon and then pursued vigorously while power sector reforms were abandoned midstream. On the plus side, at least the reforms necessary in the power sector are known and understood. The downside? Those in charge of implementing the reforms.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Public-private ventures[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="2"][B]
Dawn Editorial
Monday, 04 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The development of a new commercial area on a 54-acre strip of state land in northern Islamabad is being hailed as the first public-private venture of its kind in town development in the capital city.

The CDA’s declining revenues and the rising cost of developing new sectors for housing, commercial, industrial and other activities, as well as its inability to retrieve public land from encroachers, led the development authority to initiate the above project with a cooperative housing society last year. While the CDA needed to only contribute land, with its partner pumping in over Rs1bn in cost and compensation for native settlers, it will earn revenue from the auction of 57 per cent of developed plots under an agreed 43-57 per cent formula between the housing society and the authority respectively.

Although this type of partnership enables cash-strapped public entities to pursue development and generate funds, it needs to be implemented carefully and in tandem with other kinds of public-private partnership arrangements, especially those in which the government retains ownership of state land while generating a regular income for itself. Examples include service, management and lease arrangements which allow the government to maintain ownership of public facilities and control over public services but also benefit from private-sector management and operation.

Most importantly, the revenue which the government derives from leases, management fees or service concessions can be used to extend and maintain the city infrastructure. While they may no doubt have their shortcomings, the various forms of public-private cooperation are valuable instruments for leveraging the resources of both the public and private sectors in achieving development goals. Cooperative housing societies in particular should be engaged in such cooperation to meet the rising demand for low-cost housing, but only if there is careful planning and implementation. The contracting processes must also be transparent and carefully supervised.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Commonwealth Games[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="2"][B]
Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 05 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


The Commonwealth Games opened on Sunday with a glittering spectacle at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium amid tight security after a controversy-plagued run-up. The event has been touted as proof that India has ‘arrived’ as a global player, yet the preparatory stage saw hiccups aplenty.



There has been wide-ranging criticism — much of it valid — both within India and abroad regarding alleged corruption and mismanagement of the sporting spectacle. Most of it has centred on faulty infrastructure, unexpected delays and less-than-ideal living conditions at the athletes’ village. The fact that many top athletes pulled out added to the organisers’ woes while the fact that Queen Elizabeth II deputed Prince Charles to open the games was seen by some in India as a slight. So loud was the chorus of discontent that at one point there was serious talk of the Games being cancelled. But as the CWG federation president said at the opening ceremony, with the event now open it is time to focus on sport.

It was pleasing to note that the crowd gave the Pakistani contingent a warm welcome on Sunday night. Yet Pakistan’s participation was not without controversy, as there was disagreement about who would carry the national flag at the opening ceremony. Shujauddin Malik, a gold medallist weightlifter, was supposed to do the job but the head of the contingent, who is also Sindh’s sports minister, decided to carry the flag himself. The weightlifters threatened to go home, but thankfully the issue has been resolved and they are ready to compete. Tennis stars Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Aqeel Khan have their sights set on a medal while Pakistani athletes in other disciplines are also hoping to bring home medals. Beyond politics and controversies, the Games will hopefully turn out to be a showcase for sporting ability and memorable performances.
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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="2"][B][U][CENTER][FONT="Georgia"][CENTER]Dr Farooq’s courage[/CENTER][/FONT][/CENTER][/U][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 05 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Shocking though Dr Mohammad Farooq Khan’s assassination was, it was not surprising. There is a pattern to it: the religious militants do not tolerate criticism from Islamic scholars. This doesn’t mean they accept, much less welcome, criticism from others. They know that opinion across the political spectrum is against the Taliban, for people are simply appalled at their cold-bloodedness, especially at the conscience-less ease with which they bomb schools, mosques and religious processions and spill the blood of innocent men, women and children.



Neither do they tolerate criticism from an Islamic scholar who argues that their murderous philosophy is against the fundamental principles of Islam and goes public with his disapproval of the militants’ perverted concept of jihad. Mufti Sarfaraz Hussain Naeemi, a respected scholar, was assassinated by a suicide bomber in a Lahore mosque in June last year. A scholar of repute, Mufti Naeemi was a firm believer in sectarian unity and was highly critical of the very concept of suicide bombings and, in spite of threats, used to condemn religious militancy in his Friday sermons. The Taliban could take it no longer, and a suicide bomber was sent to silence him

Like Mufti Naeemi, Dr Farooq was an Islamic scholar and was vice chancellor of the Swat Islamic University. A psychiatrist and former member of the Jamaat-i-Islami, which found it fit to expel him for ‘ideological’ reasons, Dr Farooq authored six books, denounced suicide bombings as un-Islamic, spoke his mind in television talk shows and remained unruffled despite threats to his life. Finally, the militants had their way when they assassinated him and one of his assistants at his clinic in Mardan on Saturday. Dr Farooq will be remembered for the courage he showed by refusing to surrender to terrorist threats. His valour and sacrifice are in sharp contrast to the behaviour of some other, less bold clerics who denounce suicide bombings in principle but do not have the courage to specifically censure Pakistan’s countless militant outfits, which consider violence and the murder of civilians as their weapons in the jihad against Islam’s perceived enemies.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]The forgotten floods[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 05 Oct, 2010
[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

This summer the worst humanitarian crisis to have hit Pakistan — a country which has seen earthquakes, floods, droughts, insurgencies small and large and the loss of territory to date — in its entire history took place. But listen to the comments of politicians, glance through a newspaper or watch the news on television and it would seem like nothing of the sort took place over the summer.



Instead, political non-events, a judiciary-executive ‘clash’, a sporting scandal and sundry other, more minor, issues have combined to push the floods and their aftermath off the national radar. Where once politicians rushed to be seen among the ‘20-million’ flood victims, where TV anchors jostled to report breathlessly on the damage caused to hundreds of thousands of homes and rural infrastructure, where newspapers reported gravely on the destruction of millions of acres of standing crops and hundreds of thousands of livestock lost, now there is nothing. And ‘nothing’ is really not an understatement.

With the floodwaters having receded in most areas, excluding some significant parts in downstream Sindh, the emergency relief phase ought to be moving into the medium- and long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction phases in most flood-hit parts. But Pakistanis at large, other than the actual victims of the floods one presumes, know very little about what is being done by the state or international aid agencies or even the private sector here. It is as if the greatest natural disaster to hit this country, or most other countries for that matter, never really happened. Surely, with the nation’s attention diverted towards the theatre (or is it farce?) of politics in Islamabad, the on-ground realities of the flood victims and their future is being adversely impacted. To say this is not gratuitous criticism, but to know that even where the full attention of the state and society is applied to a problem, the desired outcomes are rarely achieved.

The point here is not to specifically criticise a particular government, a broken bureaucracy, an apathetic state, a disillusioned public or a cynical media. It is a collective failure that something so spectacularly disastrous as the floods was unable to jolt nation and state into paying close attention for more than a few weeks. The failure here is of the national consciousness. Investing in improving the human condition, especially of the underclass, has never been a priority in Pakistan, be it in terms of health and educational facilities, economic opportunities or life-saving interventions to recover from disasters, natural and man-made. State and society need a radical reorientation, a revolution of the mind, as it were, more than of the system.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Foreign militants[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"]Wednesday, 06 Oct, 2010[/COLOR]

AMERICAN drones rain down missiles in record numbers in North Waziristan Agency, the stamping ground of the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and sundry foreign militants. The US issues a travel advisory to its citizens travelling to Europe, urging them to be cautious in public places because of the possibility of an attack by Al Qaeda. On Monday, eight militants, including several ‘Germans’, are allegedly killed in a drone strike in Mirali, North Waziristan Agency. Do the dots connect cleanly or is this just another series of data points that can be connected in myriad ways? To be sure, a US travel advisory concerning Europe is rather unusual. Europe is not Pakistan or some place the average American travels to infrequently. Then again,

The Wall Street Journal had this to offer on Monday: “Several intelligence officials have privately challenged the quality of the US information, describing the US alert as an overreaction. One intelligence official said the decisions to issue the alerts were based in part on the bureaucratic need to ‘be on record with an alert to the threat’ rather than a belief that a threat is imminent.”

What is clear is that Fata generally and North Waziristan in particular continue to play host to foreign militants. The most well-known and numerous group consists of the Uzbeks, who attracted the ire of the Pakistani state because of their desire to attack it. Other, western and European, nationalities are also believed to be operating here from Turks to Germans. They do not consist just of men of Pakistani or Arab or other Muslim origin, but also of converts to Islam. The German Eric Breininger, who died earlier this year, and the American Adam Gadahn, Al Qaeda’s ‘spokesperson’ and media manager, are two of the most famous converts believed to have made their way to Fata. Al Qaeda, which fights against both the Pakistani state and western nations, is also believed to be active in the agency. Here foreign militants are not limited to a few areas or the Haqqani network-controlled swathes of territory, they are believed to have fanned out across the agency, including Mirali, where the Germans were alleged to have been killed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Pakistani state appears to have few ideas about how to tackle the menace of foreign militants. Enforcing a uniform, zero-tolerance policy towards foreign militants in Fata is difficult because local commanders and groups often make use of the services of foreigners and offer them protection in return. But doing nothing is not an option: a strike in the West traced back to Pakistani territory could have devastating consequences for us.
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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Power shortages[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"]Wednesday, 06 Oct, 2010[/COLOR]

PAKISTAN has always been electricity-starved. Over half its population remains without electricity connections. The other half faces 10 to 16 hours of power cuts a day. As our policymakers daydream of attaining a double-digit economic growth rate, the industry faces closures due to power (and gas) cuts. The situation will get much worse in the next few years because the country needs to “add 20,000MW of new generation capacity by 2010 to overcome shortages with the main focus on indigenous resources” — water and coal. The cost will be a whopping $32bn. Even the most optimistic will not bet on the plan.

The government will bear 53 per cent of the cost and the private sector the rest of it. Where will the government get the money when it does not have enough to end the power sector’s circular debt? Private investors appear little inclined to invest in power generation. Domestic investors do not have the kind of money or capacity to undertake mega projects. Foreign investors are not interested. The reason is obvious: our power generation and distribution system is flawed, inefficient and corrupt. Governance issues and terrorism will also keep foreign investors from making long-term investments. The future of the power sector reforms being undertaken under the pressure of multilateral lenders is uncertain. Thus, there is little chance of private parties investing in generation, at least not until governance issues are resolved, the law and order situation improves and power sector reforms begin to show results.

The reality is that electricity shortages are here to stay for a very long time. Even if we assume that the country will overcome its electricity troubles in 10 years, we still need to devise some practical ways to tackle the shortages in the interim. The distribution losses must be brought down to the minimum and the existing generation capacity should be used in a cost-effective manner. More importantly, we need to give up luxurious lifestyles and start saving electricity. We can begin by making maximum use of daylight. Hopefully, a little change in our attitude can solve some of our problems related to the power crunch.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Children’s literature[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"]Wednesday, 06 Oct, 2010[/COLOR]


Raushni is one of the increasingly few publications that are oriented towards young minds. While Pakistan has a reasonably vibrant literary industry in Urdu and even publications in English by Pakistani authors are increasing in number, the needs of children remain unmet. In neither language, let alone the provincial languages, are there enough locally written and published books for children and teenagers — despite the fact that the link between reading and honed intelligence is well-established.

Some may argue that if internationally published reading material is available in locally accessible languages, there is no real need for a Pakistan-based children’s literature industry. This assessment misses the point. Reading material that is written by Pakistanis and published in the country is not only culturally relevant, it is also likely to be more affordable. Meanwhile, the lack of diverse reading material further discourages children from reading. The reading habit is already on a trajectory of rapid decline in the country, aided in no small part by factors such as the lack of public libraries and the temptations of computers and the Internet. Tomorrow’s Pakistan will need citizens who are not just literate but also world-aware. For that, the children of today need both fiction and non-fiction books, neither of which are being produced in significant numbers. Pakistan must encourage writers, poets and scholars to turn their attention to children’s needs. Meanwhile, the publishing industry should realise that this is an untapped market. At the policy level, it should be understood that higher education reforms will not count for much unless they are bolstered by improvements at the lower levels.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="5"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]A pointless resolution[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]Thursday, 07 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

IT is like flogging a dead horse. On Tuesday, the Punjab Assembly passed a resolution asking the federal government to develop consensus among the federating units for building the Kalabagh dam at the “earliest”. The Punjab lawmakers should know that there is little chance of the Kalabagh dam being built. If they are unaware of this aspect of Pakistan’s politics of hydrology, it is time they registered it and reconciled themselves to it. The dam’s rejection by the other provinces is categorical, with three provincial assemblies and politicians of all hues joining hands to form a united front to meet the perceived threat to their share of the Indus waters, besides having ecological concerns. Even the money needed for building a reservoir of that proportion is not likely to be available because foreign donors have made it clear they are not going to fund a politically controversial project. That the Punjab Assembly still believes the construction of the dam is possible shows how detached it is from reality. More mind-boggling was the PPP’s support for the resolution. The motion was passed unanimously because no PPP member was present at the time. Yet, extraordinary as it sounds, it had the blessings of the PPP’s parliamentary leader, who said he saw in the resolution nothing that went against his party’s policies.

The resolution is a commentary on the political acumen of the two leading political parties. The country is groaning under the weight of problems ranging from whopping inflation and the gigantic task of post-flood reconstruction to the state of war in which the nation finds itself because of the Taliban insurgency. A new addition to Pakistan’s problems is the crisis that has developed in relations with the US and Nato following the menacing rise in the number of drone attacks and the violation of Pakistan’s territory by Nato-Isaf helicopters. The gravity of the situation demands national unity and a mobilisation of the people’s energies to pull Pakistan away from the brink. Instead, the assembly of the country’s most populous province wastes its time in passing a resolution that adds to the nation’s misery instead of mitigating it.

From the PML-N’s own point of view, the resolution couldn’t be more counter-productive, for
instead of creating space for itself in the three other provinces, the PML-N resolution has handed the nationalist parties a new opportunity for Punjab-bashing. In Sindh especially we can expect a new round of protests and rallies against a project which, despite being dead, will come in handy as a rallying point for all nationalists, thanks to Tuesday’s pointless resolution.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="5"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Clarity needed[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]
Thursday, 07 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

AS Isaf convoys bound for Afghanistan continue to be attacked in parts of Pakistan and one of the two entry points at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the Torkham crossing, remains closed, it has become increasingly clear that the latest rise in tensions between the US and Pakistan is not likely to abate any time soon. Predictably, the blame for this unfortunate, and potentially dangerous, state of affairs must be shared by both sides. The Isaf helicopter incursions into Pakistan and missiles fired from across the Afghan border were simply bad ideas. Worse, Isaf/the US have shown a reluctance to disavow the attacks themselves and have gone only as far as to show some sympathy for the loss of Pakistani soldiers’ lives in one attack in Kurram Agency. It is clear that American frustrations with the slow pace of Pakistan’s efforts to dismantle, or even aggressively tackle, the militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan Agency have reached a new high. But whether the frustrations are justified or not is beside the point: in foreign policy and particularly in the midst of a war, states should always focus on outcomes, not avenues for expressing counter-productive frustrations. Few neutral observers would give the American sabre-rattling much chance of success, given that Pakistan has counter leverage (impeding non-lethal Isaf supplies’ delivery) and that its strategic choices have not bowed to political timelines in Washington over the last decade. So it makes little sense to vitiate the atmosphere between the two countries further when there is little possibility of inducing a serious shift in policy through such tactics.

On Pakistan’s part, there is a need to bring some clarity, in public as much as possible, on its partnership with the US in the fight against militancy. What is the policy on drones? What is the policy on cross-border ‘hot pursuit’ or other raids? Are there special exceptions for the very highest of high-value targets, such as Bin Laden, Zawahiri or Mullah Omar? The benefit of having clarity on such issues would be that the Americans would not be able to unilaterally amend the rules when it suits them.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Outdated stereotype[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"][B]Thursday, 07 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

THE sentencing of Faisal Shahzad on Tuesday to life imprisonment is a reminder of how the stereotypes and political discourse surrounding militancy and extremism are out of sync with reality. Traditionally, militancy of the variety witnessed in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been understood as a phenomenon linked to poverty and political disenfranchisement. Extremist ideologues, it is argued, use these social issues as pegs to challenge existing power structures and view the ranks of the poor as recruiting grounds. This may still be true but it does not apply to persons such as Faisal Shahzad with roots in the secular, upper middle class who first went to the US in 1998 to study for a university degree.

He showed no remorse during court appearances, reportedly telling investigators that he had hoped to pull off a second bombing. Worryingly, evidence has emerged that he received cash and advice from the TTP. In terms of his background, Faisal Shahzad is not alone. Young men with similar profiles have been found to have participated in a number of terrorist attacks in recent years, including 9/11. Omar Saeed Sheikh, who studied at Lahore’s Aitchison College and the London School of Economics, is another example. Clearly, extremism is an issue that is no longer confined to minds that have been rendered susceptible by poverty, or the lack of awareness and education. This aspect of the matter merits attention, because the new breed of terrorists comes not from the tribal areas but from cities, including western ones. The West must ask itself why increasing numbers of people are succumbing to extremist ideologies and quoting perceived western inequities as their motivating force. Faisal Shahzad told the court that he had acted in reaction to US military action in Muslim countries; why is this becoming an oft-repeated statement in the context of terrorism?

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Unclear strategy[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Friday, 08 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Media reports of American contacts with the leaders of the Afghan insurgency have grown from a trickle to a torrent in recent days, suggesting something may be about to change, for better or worse, in Afghanistan in the near term.

Or is it? Virtually nothing concrete is known about the contacts with the Afghan insurgency and the American strategy is anything but clear at this point. The only thing that can be discerned with any degree of confidence is that the American side, for long the lone voice opposed to talks, or even talks about talks, with the upper echelons of leadership of the Afghan insurgency, appears to be slowly coming around to the idea of the need for discussions sooner rather than later. Beyond that, little can be said with any certainty. It appears all sides — foreign, Afghan and insurgent — are hedging their bets, calculating that while something is likely to change come next July (the date when President Obama has pledged to begin the drawdown in Afghanistan, if some as yet unknown conditions are present) there is little certainty about which way the war in Afghanistan will break. In this atmosphere of strategic uncertainty it makes sense for the warring sides to initiate some back-channel discussions, even as they fight each other fiercely on the battlefield.

Much will depend on certain variables. For example, can the Taliban leadership ever be convinced to work inside a governance framework that may also be acceptable to the West and the non-Pakhtun constituencies in Afghanistan? There are two opposing views on this. One camp believes the Taliban’s millenarian ideology is simply incompatible with anything resembling a modern state and no middle ground can ever be found. The other camp believes that the roughest edges of the Taliban — a wholesale rejection of anything even remotely modern, amputations, stoning, other such punishments, etc. — can be smoothed out.

Also, what could ever persuade the Taliban to stop fighting, nearly a decade into a war they are clearly not losing (which means, in the upside-down logic of counter-insurgency, they are winning)? Again, there are competing views. Some believe war fatigue may be a factor: the American war machine has certainly dented Taliban ranks and possibly sapped morale. Others say the Taliban are a nationalistic force which only wants that Afghanistan be cleared of foreign forces — and if that is worked towards, then the Taliban could decisively break from Al Qaeda, the original target of western forces in Afghanistan. The months ahead may reveal the answers to some critical questions. Until then, we can expect more conflicting signals from all sides.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Welcome addition[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Friday, 08 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

With the newspaper industry across the world going through tough times, it is gratifying to see a new English daily hitting the newsstands and enlivening the media scene.

Pakistan Today, which follows the Express Tribune launched some months earlier, has come at a time when the world of print journalism is in danger of being overshadowed by the WikiLeaks-like revelations on the new media. Even though Pakistan’s economy is not fully integrated with the world’s financial system, our media has not escaped the adverse effects of the international economic crisis, for advertisement revenues have fallen.

The reduction in the number of pages, the rehash of pagination schemes and the shrinkage of the size of the page have meant a regrettable fall in the quantum of news and views for the reader. Of late, there have been redundancies in the electronic media too because the channels’ mushroom growth that was characteristic of the first half of this decade has come to a halt. Today, the print medium in Pakistan has to compete with TV and the Internet, with the young ones abandoning grandpa’s breakfast table to spend more time on Facebook and Twitter.

Because of a literacy rate that has barely crossed the 50 per cent mark, and the absence of the reading habit, Pakistani newspapers, even those in Urdu, have a low circulation in proportion to the population. The problem gets worse when we realise that the market for English newspapers is already choked. For new ventures to come out under such circumstances is encouraging, for they create jobs for media professionals and add to the reader’s choice. We hope our new competitors will uphold the standards of journalism and contribute to the strengthening of press freedom at a time when it is under attack not only from the government but also from non-state actors, the latter life-threatening.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]A level playing field[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B]
Dawn Editorial
Friday, 08 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

After spending three years in limbo in the shape of an ordinance, the competition law is finally on the books. Following a somewhat bumpy ride through parliament, the Competition Bill 2010 received presidential assent on Wednesday, thereby giving the Competition Commission of Pakistan a permanent, statutory status.

The CCP had become defunct since mid-August when the Competition Ordinance 2009 had lapsed. Its revival is welcome news in a country where big business tends to manipulate the market at will and where cartels gang up to squeeze the consumer by increasing prices. The law is designed to protect consumers from monopolies and cartelisation. Certain corporations — those most threatened by the CCP — had tied up the commission in a web of litigation; constitutional status will now allow the watchdog body to defend itself and its actions more robustly in court. The CCP had given those businesses suspected of involvement in unfair trade practices sleepless nights. It had investigated and taken action against several sectors that included the cement and sugar industries as well as banks for fixing prices and monopolising the market. Hence it is no surprise that business lobbies flexed their muscles and through their friends in parliament, particularly the Senate, attempted to block the passage of the law while trying to reduce the CCP’s status to that of a toothless tiger.

The government must now take steps to set up an appellate tribunal, as envisaged by the law. This will allow those business concerns censured by the CCP an opportunity to plead their case, while it will also take the pressure off an already overburdened judiciary. However, the tribunal’s decisions should be relatively swift so that corporations don’t find a loophole in the form of initiating a never-ending appeals process, thus nullifying the CCP’s efforts to maintain a level playing field and punish violators of the law. It is ultimately hoped that this development will encourage fair competition, help control prices and create a more consumer-friendly atmosphere where the rights of small businesses and consumers are protected from the avarice and dubious trade practices of major corporations.

9th OCT 2010
 

[B][SIZE="5"][CENTER]Along communal lines[/CENTER][/SIZE][/B]

HE judgments delivered on Sept 30 by three judges of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court put the stamp of judicial approval on the conversion of a historic mosque of 500 years into a temple. During the night of Dec 22-23, 1949, idols of Ram were placed surreptitiously inside the precincts of the mosque.
All the three judges rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh lie that the idols miraculously ‘appeared’ inside the mosque. All accept the Muslims’ stand that they were placed there. But they ignore the moral and legal effects of the crime. The only just order by a court can be one for their removal.

A sub-inspector of police Ram Dube filed an FIR on Dec 23, 1949, which recorded “a group of 50-60 persons had entered Babri Mosque after breaking the compound gate lock of the mosque or through jumping across the walls (of the compound) with a stair and established therein, an idol of Shri Bhagwan and painted Sita Ram, etc., on the outer and inner walls. … Ram Das, Ram Shakti Das and 50-60 unidentified others entered the mosque surreptitiously and spoiled its sanctity.” The deputy commissioner of Faizabad, J.N. Ugra, filed this statement in court on April 24, 1950, on behalf of the state of Uttar Pradesh: “The property in suit is known as Babri Masjid and it has been for a long period in use as a mosque for the purpose of worship of the Muslims. It has not been in use as a temple of Shri Ram Chandraji. On the night of Dec 22, 1949, the idols of Shri Ram Chandraji were surreptitiously and wrongly put inside it.” Section 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code provides a summary remedy for correction. A magistrate inquires into “the fact of actual possession” and orders restoration of the property to the party “forcibly and wrongfully dispossessed”. The aggressor is free to file a civil suit based on title to the property.

Section 145 was used, instead, to legitimise the crime. On Dec 29, 1949, the magistrate attaches the masjid, appoints a receiver who provides a scheme for its administration. On Jan 19, 1950, a civil judge issues an injunction restraining removal of the idols and interference with their puja. On April 26, 1955, the Allahabad High Court confirmed the injunction. The Muslims were driven to file civil suits.

On Jan 25, 1986, the district magistrate ordered opening of the locks to facilitate the puja. Muslims were not heard. It was inspired by the centre. On Dec 6, 1992, the mosque is demolished. The government of India gets enacted an act for acquisition of the land which carefully preserved “the position existing” before the act. The criminals had planted idols at the site of the mosque after its demolition.

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court splits on communal lines. The majority upheld the act and the Hindus’ right to worship the idols. Justice A.M. Ahmadi and S.P. Bharucha ruled it invalid.

All five agreed that a provision for abatement of the civil suits was unconstitutional because it deprived one side (the Muslims) of a legitimate defence — adverse possession for 500 years. They declined to give an advisory opinion on the question, the president had referred to the court: “whether a Hindu temple … existed prior to the construction of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid … in the area on which the structure stood?” The Supreme Court rightly held the question to be irrelevant. Yet on March 5, 2003, the Allahabad High Court ordered excavation of the land and revived this irrelevant issue. Excavation was performed by a controversial agen cy. Its report was attacked by foremost archaeologists. The rulings on Sept 30, 2010 came as no surprise. Justices D.V. Sharma and Sudhir Agarwal held that the central dome of the mosque was the birthplace of Ram.

In the entire litigation in the 19th century, Hindus sued for permission to build a temple on a chabutra (platform) within the compound of the mosque. They did not claim the mosque. Two of the judges partitioned the mosque into three parts assigning one to Muslims, a plea none had made.

Faith was injected into judicial reasoning. Justice Sharma said, “The disputed site is the birthplace of Lord Ram. Place of birth is a juristic person and is a deity. It is personified as the spirit of the divine worshipped as birthplace of Lord Rama as a child.” Sixty-two of India’s foremost historians, economists, political scientists in a joint statement con demned the judgments “as yet another blow to the secular fabric of our country and the repute of our judiciary. Whatever happens next in the case cannot, unfortunately, make good what the country has lost”.

The case of the Masjid Shahidganj at Lahore is a refreshing contrast. There was an incontestable waqf deed of 1722 by Falak Beg Khan dedicating land to build a mosque. After 1762 the Sikhs occupied it. The district court, the high court and the Privy Council, rejected Muslims’ suit on the ground of adverse possession.

The premier of Punjab Sikandar Hayat Khan rejected Barkat Ali and K.L. Gauba’s bills to override court verdicts. “It would provoke similar bills in those provinces where the non-Muslims are in a majority”. On March 21, 1938, the Muslim League’s Council endorsed his stand. So did Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The Gurdwara Shahidganj stands today in Lahore — undemolished. ¦ The writer is an author and a lawyer.

[CENTER][B][SIZE="5"]The party of the old guard

By Irfan Husain[/SIZE][/B][/CENTER]

ONE striking aspect of the last US presidential election was Barack Obama’s ability to connect with young Americans, and draw them into the political process. Alas, this kind of political engagement is entirely missing in Pakistan.
In a recent article in the monthly Newsline, Ayesha Siddiqa, a defence analyst, cited a survey of young Pakistani students at elite educational institutions in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. While the size of the sample is quite small (608), it nevertheless offers an insight into what educated, well-to-do young Pakistanis think about important national and global issues.

For me, the most depressing finding of this survey was that 67 per cent of the respondents said they would not become members of any political party, and over 80 per cent said they would not contribute funds to any party.

This confirms my personal observation about the depoliticisation of an entire generation of young Pakistanis. When you look at our politicians, the first thing you notice about them is their age. Just as they cling on to their party positions, very few young people are coming through to challenge them. The few who do have been anointed by feudal politicians who pass on their political fiefdoms to their sons as part of their inheritance.

On the national scene, it is the PPP that probably has the most elderly leadership. Over the last two decades, it has been steadily squeezed out of Lahore and Karachi by the PML-N and the MQM respectively. Now reduced to a largely rural presence, it no longer commands the loyalty of young urban members. While I have no figures to support my assertion, a rough reckoning shows the party to be in terminal decline in the major cities of Pakistan.

A major reason for this lack of interest in politics among educated young Pakistanis is the constant hammering of politicians and the ramshackle democratic system by the electronic media. Day in and day out, retired bureaucrats and generals, as well as outof-power politicians, are invited to TV studios to abuse the government of the day.

Apart from being a destabilising force, this drip-dripdrip of venom understandably turns young people off politics. They do not have the experience to discern between genuine criticism and a campaign inspired by dark, cynical forces.

Another reason — and one that we often do not take into our calculation — is the ban on student politics issued by Zia over 30 years ago. Until he cast his malignant shadow over the land, our campuses had a lively bunch of budding politicians representing different strands of thought. Many political careers were launched from colleges and universities. But after the ban, only the Jamiat, the student wing of the Jamaat-iIslami, was allowed to function and take over the country’s campuses.

This far-reaching policy effectively marginalised leftwing, liberal campus parties, and gave rise to the dominance of reactionary groups. These elements now support religious forces and conservative political parties like the various permutations of the Muslim League, including Nawaz Sharif’s faction.

A major casualty of this one-sided ban was the National Students Federation (NSF) that had once incubated and encouraged a generation of student activists who went into politics after graduation. Many of them joined the Pakistan People’s Party, fired up by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s populism and radical rhetoric. Others gravitated to even more leftist parties.

Under Zia, however, the NSF was targeted by university authorities and Jamiat hoods, backed by the police and the army. Many NSF activists were jailed; others went underground. Soon, liberal students, with no group to join, were bullied into silence by the Jamiat. Liberal faculty were often subjected to threats from the administration, as well as from reactionary thugs who ran amok on our campuses.

This systematic ganging up on young Pakistani liberal students effectively cut them off from politics: unwilling to join the Jamiat, and unable to express their political views, many were subdued into silence. Swiftly, campuses became graveyards for liberal and left-wing views.

The biggest loser of this reactionary onslaught was the PPP. Already hounded by the police and the army across the country, it lost much of its urban support from student activists. Worse, even when Zia finally left the scene, it was the religious parties who had trained young cadres to continue to destabilise and harass a fledgling democracy headed by Benazir Bhutto.

Another beneficiary of this rightward tilt is Nawaz Sharif. With his deeply conservative mindset, he has attracted many young people who have been influenced by the Jamiat as students. Although they might not have become members themselves, they are attracted to a politician who once wanted to declare the Sharia the law of the land to replace the constitution, and was on the verge of declaring himself the amir-ulmomineen, or commander of the faithful.

The PPP, for its part, has neither analysed the problem, nor has it sought to reach out to the young. It seems to assume that its vote bank will last forever, and that somehow, it has the trust of its supporters unto perpetuity. And then, of course, it suits the old guard not to have to fend off the challenge of young politicians who want to get to the top.

All too often, I am on the receiving end of angry emails from young readers who demand to know how I can support corrupt politicians, and why I defend democracy when it produces leaders like Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. This attitude demonstrates their concern for Pakistan, as well as their confusion. When I ask them if they are for dictatorship, they are usually clear they are not. Through a lack of a political understanding of the situation, they know what they are against, but don’t know what they are for.

Without a charismatic leader to inspire voters, I do not expect the PPP to activate its base in the next election. For the foreseeable future, I can see it decline into irrelevance. While it will form a vocal opposition, I don’t think it will be a serious contender for power any time soon.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s increasingly conservative urban population will continue to provide new recruits to Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League faction. Thus far, the PPP has branded itself as the party of the poor. It is now in danger of becoming the party of the elderly. ¦ [email]irfanhusain@gmail.com[/email]


[B][SIZE="5"][CENTER]A dastardly attack[/CENTER][/SIZE][/B]

THURSDAY evening’s suspected suicide attack on the revered mausoleum of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi was not the first time extremists have targeted a Sufi shrine in Pakistan. At least nine people, including children, were killed while scores were injured as a result of the twin blasts, believed to have been carried out by as many suicide bombers. Considering the mass of humanity that gathers at the shrine on Thursday nights, it is a miracle the number of dead was not greater. The attack bore a disturbing resemblance to July’s bombing of Data Darbar in Lahore, which also targeted devotees gathered on a Thursday evening. Though there were incidents of violence in the city, thankfully the situation did not spin out of control.
There are strong suspicions that the TTP is responsible for this latest outrage. The TTP has evolved into a conglomerate that serves as a platform for a number of violent jihadi and virulently sectarian militant groups. As per the militants’ philosophy, attacking anything that falls within their definition of ‘unbelief’ is perfectly kosher: western targets, the Pakistan Army as well as security agencies and Shias top this list. Moderate Sunnis, specifically of the Barelvi persuasion, are recent additions to the list of ‘enemies’. In fact, anything that serves as a symbol of Islamic interpretations beyond the narrow confines of the extremist canon is a legitimate target. That is why Ashura, Chehlum and Eid Miladun Nabi processions, Shia rallies and Sufi shrines are all fair game. Hard-liners have never had any love for Sufi shrines as they regard them as carrying the vestiges of polytheism. Yet the opposition to them has taken a very bloody turn, since it is now actually okay to destroy them. The attacks on Data Darbar and Rehman Baba’s tomb as well as Thursday’s incident all point to this.

In the context of Karachi, several conflicts are already brewing in the metropolis. Apart from the ethnic, political and sectarian fault-lines, a new front seems to have opened up in the city: that of intra-sectarian conflict. This has pit a minority of extremist Sunni outfits against moderate groups of the same persuasion. The attack on Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s shrine appears to have links with this emerging conflict. In the aftermath of the bombing, the Sindh administration has said that all shrines in the city shall be closed until new security arrangements are put in place. Hopefully, this will happen soon as closing shrines and preventing devotees from visiting them is not the answer. It sends the wrong message and gives the extremists what they want. Ultimately, it is the state’s duty to provide protection to its citizens.

[CENTER][B][SIZE="5"]Kashmir’s status[/SIZE][/B][/CENTER]

INDIAN-held Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah ruffled quite a few feathers when he said what must have appeared as heresy to New Delhi. Speaking in the legislature of the disputed territory on Thursday, the chief minister scuttled the very basis of the Indian case in Kashmir when he emphasised two points: one, Jammu and Kashmir never merged with India and two, it was an international dispute. No wonder this earned him the immediate wrath of the rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party, which accused him of being anti-national. Mr Abdullah said Kashmir was a dispute between two neighbours and the explosive situation in the valley needed a political solution. This extraordinarily blunt talk goes against New Delhi’s decades-old official line — that Kashmir is an ‘integral part’ of India. While the analogy he drew between Kashmir on the one side and Hyderabad and Junagadh on the other doesn’t concern us here, what deserves to be noted is the background against which Mr Abdullah seems to have been forced to utter words that under normal circumstances he would not have considered prudent to go public with. But such is the impact of the protests now rocking Indian-held Kashmir that the chief minister had no choice but to say something off the beaten track to serve as a sop to the valley’s angry youth.
One major concern for Mr Abdullah must be the realisation that men like him are in danger of being swept away if they do not appear to be sympathetic to the current sentiments in Kashmir, the people’s total disillusionment with Indian rule and the fatalities which have reached more than 100 since the current wave of protests began on June 11. That he was critical of the Indian authorities’ reliance on force to tackle the protests was obvious when he said the situation needed a political solution. Kashmir, he said, was a political issue, and “it cannot be addressed through development, employment and good governance”. This is the crux of the matter. The political issue Mr Abdullah spoke of revolves around a principle which cannot be denied to the Kashmiri people — their right to self-determination.



[B][CENTER][SIZE="5"]University reforms[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]

Universities in Pakistan suffer from serious structural problems.

By Dr Sohail Mahmood

THE recent protests by university teachers and students over faculty salaries have focused attention on the issue of reforming Pakistan’s universities.
Serious shortcomings are apparent in the universities’ performance, and at present the system is being neglected to an extent never seen before.

A country cannot develop without reasonably educated and trained human resources, which raises the need for good universities. Generally, Pakistan’s universities suffer from serious structural problems and the revamping of the higher education sector is urgently required. Nothing is more germane to Pakistan’s future. The reform process must be initiated on an emergency basis; we can no longer afford to be lax.

First, the thrust should be on quality education. Pakistan needs to consolidate the recent expansion witnessed in university set-ups and concentrate on quality rather than quantity.

The Musharraf era saw a rapid increase in the number of universities, both public and private. Only 59 universities existed in 2001, but by 2009 the figure had increased to 132. Thus, the enrolment numbers also increased significantly. The number of PhD degrees also increased from 176 in 2000 to 624 in 2009. However, the overall quality of university education remained pathetic. The issue needs to be debated.

Second, money matters must be resolved. The education sector’s paucity of funding must be taken care of immediately. The current government promised to allocate four per cent of GDP to the education sector in the next budget. The current allocation is less than two per cent. Yet even earlier promises have not been kept. Although the development budget increased significantly during the Musharraf regime, the current government failed to keep pace.

The higher education sector’s development budget for the current year is only Rs15.7bn. During the last financial year, the government released a mere Rs11.5bn against a commitment of Rs22.5bn, thus the recent demand for the release of a further Rs7bn.

These realities must change, even if it means cutting the allocations of other sectors such as defence. Pakistan must develop its human resources on a priority basis. It has done wonders in developing a strong military; let us now develop the higher education sector.

The current government’s new mission should be excellence in university education, with the highest priority being given to the financial management of our universities. There is ample evidence of irregularities and corruption in this area. It is now time to put our house in order. The main requirement, of course, is money on the table, for without money no reforms are possible.

Third, the current hodgepodge of various models must be changed so that all universities in the country, whether public or private, conform to one basic model. This is required for greater transparency, accountability and effectiveness. Structures need to be reformed to create a desired culture of excellence, and the unnecessary intrusion of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in university affairs should be checked. Universities need a greater degree of autonomy in the running of their affairs.

One option to explore is a powerful board of governors that is involved in the actual supervision of university affairs. This board could have ex-officio representation from the federal education ministry at the level of a federal secretary.

Renowned educationists should be placed on the board with nominations coming from not just the federal education ministry and the HEC but also parliament. (There would, however, be no need to place politicians on these boards since Pakistan’s universities are already unduly politicised.) These governing boards would allocate sums for the running of universities’ departments, centres and institutes. Such allocations should be made on a two-year basis instead of the current one-year basis.

Governing boards need to be far more involved in the running of universities. A board meeting held once a year is not enough. The board can meet three times a year so that university affairs can be supervised more effectively and various committees could be established, an example being a curriculum reform committee.

The point is to have effective control over and above the university administration. The governing boards must have the independence to take decisions pertaining to university affairs. The present prerogative of the president of Pakistan to appoint university heads must be handed to these governing boards and sound international practices adopted to reform our university system.

Fourth, our universities need permanent sources of funds for development purposes for which endowments funds can be established to invite the private sector to contribute. The HEC must be taken out of the funding issue altogether and university budgets approved by the provincial assemblies.

Fifth, the government must concentrate on the development of faculty which has so far remained a neglected area.

Motivated and knowledgeable teachers are essential for quality education. Therefore, good teacher training programmes are needed urgently.

Concurrently, the status of the teaching profession must be raised and teachers given adequate compensation. The HEC tenure-track system needs to end and universities ought to be able to decide salary issues independently. The governing boards could be empowered to have the final say. This would allow market needs to determine salaries — one size fits all does not make sense.

Sixth, universities need better facilities, with wellstocked libraries. It is not possible for faculties or students to conduct research without good libraries.

Currently, the future of Pakistan’s university system appears dismal. Too much time has been lost and Pakistan has been left behind. The higher education sector requires urgent reform, and the current focus of attention on university issues should be used as a stimulus for change. The very existence of a stable democratic system is dependent on an enlightened youth. The government must find the will and commitment to reform the sector. ¦ The writer is head of the department of international relations, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Moving in circles[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 10 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


The surprising appointment of Misbah-ul-Haq as captain of the national cricket team appears to have more symbolic value than anything else. Apparently, the Pakistan Cricket Board management wants the world to believe that it has moved on after the disastrous England tour.



The appointment of Shahid Afridi, as was being suggested in official loud-thinking sessions, would have negated that impression. Many may ask if Afridi has merit-based claims to the title, but once Salman Butt was out of the picture, there had to be someone else in the hot seat. From that perspective — though a narrow one — the PCB decision makes some sense. Beyond that, however, it is a continuation of what the board has been doing over the last couple of years: lurching from crisis to crisis and managing the team in a style that involves moving in circles. The return to the fold of Intikhab Alam as manager and the constant denial of access to Younis Khan are just two examples that suffice to prove the point. The man who should have led the side even on the English tour is forced to play first-class cricket because he is not in the good books of the PCB supremo.

Intriguingly, the latter has adopted different methods to deal with various individuals who have been slapped with fines and bans in the same case. This is hardly the stuff one would find being taught in a human resource management class, but the PCB chief has gotten away with much more. In the interest of Pakistan cricket, one would like to hope for the best and see the team doing well in the matches ahead. But under a captain who has been plucked out of the wilderness to fill the gap this may well prove to be a tough task.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Probe into abuse video[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 10 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


The anonymity of the Internet helps whistleblowers leak information regarding human rights and other abuses. Pakistan is no different. Worryingly, some video footage has surfaced that appears to show soldiers of the Pakistan Army using illegal and coercive methods in their ongoing operation against militants and terrorists in the north-western parts of the country.



Earlier, a clip posted on the Internet appeared to show soldiers beating two civilian men. An inquiry into the matter was promised but if it was indeed conducted, the results did not reach the public domain. Recently, a five-minute clip was posted on the Facebook page of an obscure group, the Pushtuns’ International Association, which shows six men being executed by a firing squad that appears to be comprised of army personnel. On Friday, army chief Gen Kayani ordered an investigation into the matter to be conducted by a board headed by a two-star general.

Ideally, such a probe ought to be carried out by an independent team that is not associated with the military. As matters stand, however, it is vital that no delay be brooked in constituting the investigation team as ordered by Gen Kayani. The results must be made public and strict action taken if the authenticity of the footage is verified. This is not the first time that the slur of rights’ abuses and extra-judicial killings has been raised in the context of the military’s operation against terrorists in the north-west. The issue has been referred to by organisations including the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the international Human Rights Watch.



The Pakistan Army’s success in its fight against militancy is of crucial importance, and allegations or suspicions of extra-judicial killings, detentions or other rights’ abuses undermine its credibility. Furthermore, the rules of engagement must be respected under all circumstances. The difference between law-enforcers and law-breakers such as the militants lies in the fact that the former adhere to the rule of law and the principles of justice. The army must clear any doubts that it is resorting to tactics used by the militants with whom it is engaged.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]NAB controversy[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 10 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


NAB has a new chief, at least for now. Justice Deedar Hussain (retd), a former Sindh MPA elected on a PPP ticket, is certainly a controversial choice for an accountability head. The PML-N has suggested it may challenge the appointment in the Supreme Court, while a petition against the appointment has already been filed in the Lahore High Court.



Curiously, or perhaps not given the expediencies of politics here, the PML-N once regarded the retired justice as an honest and upright man, but that was in another lifetime, when the PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif was battling the ‘hijacking’ case filed by the government of Gen Musharraf (retd). Whether the PML-N’s objections to the appointment of Mr Hussain are legally valid or not is a question of law, which ultimately the SC may have to decide. That is where a further complication arises, a complication that the PML-N will surely have understood and relished. The very search for a new NAB chief was triggered by the SC’s desire to have an ‘independent’ NAB chief.

But that desired independence only appears to go to the extent of non-interference from the executive so as to allow the accountability bureau to reactivate corruption cases against President Zardari and a select few NRO beneficiaries.

Notwithstanding the potential for serious political instability to result, the element of farce is difficult to ignore. NAB is supposed to be a ‘dead’ entity, a failed attempt at fair and transparent across-the-board accountability that the entire political class has pledged to replace with a new body. But the creation of a National Accountability Commission is in the doldrums, both the opposition and the government seemingly content to ignore resolution of disagreements on the underlying legislative framework. Perhaps the PML-N is content with the existing NAB having become a millstone around the government’s neck, especially given the SC’s interest in old corruption cases. And perhaps the PPP is content to engage in destabilising skirmishes with the SC over NAB because it fears a new accountability law and commission would lead to fresh investigations and, potentially, prosecutions. Better to deal with the old than to create the space for new troubles, the PPP thinking may be.

What will happen next is difficult to predict. The government has indicated it has no intention to reopen cases against President Zardari come what may. But the SC has doggedly pursued the implementation of its NRO judgment of last December. Both cannot win here. The country must wait and see if the new NAB chief will become yet another aspect of the executive-judiciary ‘clash’.

[SIZE="5"]NRO saga[/SIZE]
Dawn Editorial
Monday, 11 Oct, 2010
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In a political milieu of sub-optimal outcomes, it is perhaps too much to hope for a party to walk into a hostile forum and prove its purported innocence, but then again, someone at some point will need to rise above the pettiness of politics here if Pakistan is ever to reach the goal of a democratic polity in which there is political stability and a regular, peaceful transfer of power through the ballot box. Keeping in mind the cast of characters involved, though, that is perhaps a forlorn hope. - Photo on file
Pakistan
SC rejects govt plea to change lawyer in NRO case
CAFE BLACK
Faith in democracy

[SIZE="5"][B]Torkham reopens[/B][/SIZE]
Dawn Editorial
Monday, 11 Oct, 2010
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An Afghan police officer gestures to an oil tanker, carrying fuel for NATO forces, enters Afghanistan through Pakistan's border crossing in Torkham, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010. Pakistan reopened the key border crossing to NATO supply convoys heading into Afghanistan on Sunday, ending an 11-day blockade imposed after a US helicopter strike killed two Pakistani soldiers.

With the reopening of the Torkham route, after an 11-day closure, the latest spike in tensions between the US and Pakistan should begin to abate. However, as the US closes in on a review of its Afghan strategy in December and the beginning of some kind of drawdown of forces next July, the contradictions in the Pakistan-US relationship will almost surely be tested, and tested severely, again. To avoid, or at least mitigate, future crises, both sides need to do some introspection.



First, the US must put its own house in order. Everything points towards there being strategic confusion in the American camp. President Obama’s overarching goal — to ‘disrupt, dismantle and destroy’ Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and by extension in Fata and Pakistan — does not really provide an answer to where along the continuum between nation-building and full-blown counter-insurgency at one extreme and a narrow counter-terrorism approach at the other end does the ‘right’ strategy lie.



The US administration decided to try and dent the Afghan insurgency before opening negotiations for a political settlement, but that has proved difficult — possibly because the Afghan Taliban are a nationalistic force implacably opposed to deal-making with those they perceive are trying to subjugate them. Could the threat Al Qaeda poses be defanged by trying to separate the ‘globalists’ among the jihadis from the ‘nationalists’ in Afghanistan? Perhaps. But confusion and doubts in the American camp about such matters have led to self-defeating and contradictory signals, especially about the timing and scope of a political settlement being initiated.

At the end of the day, it is difficult to ask Pakistan to try and help smash the Haqqani network before inviting it to the negotiating table so that an exit plan for the Americans can be fashioned. Meanwhile, Pakistan needs to decide on its relationship with the US. If India is indeed ‘Enemy No 1’ then Pakistan does not have the capacity to deal with it alone. America can play a role there, but that would require building trust in the Af-Pak region first. For that to happen, the brinksmanship and petulance needs to be curbed.

The interminable NRO saga — though no heroic achievements to be found here — continues to drag on. But is it really the case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object? Despite predictions to the contrary, the Supreme Court and the PPP-led executive have thus far refrained from taking their ‘clash’ to the next level. For the Supreme Court that would require moving up the chain of responsibility until it eventually finds itself knocking on the door of the prime minister in search of answers to why the NRO judgment has not been implemented.



But such an escalation could prove counter-productive as it would drag the court onto political terrain where controversies can flatten all protagonists regardless of blame. Indeed, there are plenty of signs that some in the government’s legal team would not mind such an escalation at all, given that they are past masters at political dogfights and know a thing or two about how to navigate such treacherous terrain.

Yet, the government’s ‘strategy’ may be too clever by half. As long as the letters ‘NRO’ stay in the headlines, the government’s reputation will continue to take a knock. Rightly or wrongly, this particular government’s perceived reputation for corruption drags down the government’s chances of completing a full term in office. Perhaps nothing elicits more contempt from indignant and righteous elements in the media, the opposition and, most importantly, segments of the public as reminders of the NRO do.



In a political milieu of sub-optimal outcomes, it is perhaps too much to hope for a party to walk into a hostile forum and prove its purported innocence, but then again, someone at some point will need to rise above the pettiness of politics here if Pakistan is ever to reach the goal of a democratic polity in which there is political stability and a regular, peaceful transfer of power through the ballot box. Keeping in mind the cast of characters involved, though, that is perhaps a forlorn hope.

Even so, a fatal clash is not necessarily inevitable. Almost certainly the government’s legal advisers would have worked through the implications of certain steps, trying to assess how to fulfil the requirements of the NRO judgment (and so ‘comply’ in a narrow legal sense) while avoiding the outcome of a president being proceeded against in a foreign country while still in office. As for the government’s opponents, they may calculate that periodic lacerations from the NRO saga will keep the government off balance enough to make it politically useful. Hardly ideal and not quite détente, but it may just prove workable.

How to Combat Terrorism?
 

[B](By Junaid Kamal)[/B]



The term terrorism was first used during French Revolution in 1789. It refers to use of violence against non-military targets for political ends. It is also an expression of revolt and anger against the dominants.

Terrorism is not a new concept to us; rather it dates back to an unknown history. The revolution brought in by the media has made us familiar to what this exactly is. History is full of such kind of so called terrorist groups all over the globe, such as Mau Tau in Kenya, LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealum) of Srilanka, which surrendred to Srilankan army and there are so many others. Suicide bombing was first used by LTTE against civilians.

Al-Qaida was unknown to most of us before 9/11. This group was initially in Yemen, then moved to Sudan and further immigrated to Afghanistan after the establishment of Taliban government there.

Terrorism is a burning issue of the whole world. However, in current scenerio, Pakistan is a major theatre of the so called ‘war on terror’. The irony is that the circle of terrorist attacks has been widened from government assets to educational institutions and innocent citizens. Now, the question that is still unanswered is, ‘’ who is a terrorist and who is a legitimate fighter?’’ Those who call themselves freedom fighters are terrorists and desperadoes for others.

The need of hour is to encounter terrorism and to eradicate this evil from our motherland. It has a very simple solution; i.e. If and only if injustice is eliminated from our society, terrorism can be uprooted. No doubt there are militants who are making harm in our country by using voilence, but it is also a fact that we have killed so many of our innocent citizens as well. Our leadership goes on requesting US authorities to stop killing our people, let us be provided the drones so that we can fight better, but all is going unheeded.

May ALLAH save our country. (Ameen)

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Change in Pyongyang?[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 12 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Black"][FONT="Georgia"][B]
Very little is known about North Korea’s internal situation due to the Stalinist state’s isolationist tendencies. What the world does know is a mix of conjecture and propaganda sprinkled with a bit of fact. But over the last few days all eyes were on the North to witness the presumed dynastic passing of the torch from ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-il to his youngest son. There had been speculation about who would succeed the elder Kim, who himself took over after the death of his father Kim Il-sung. But the appearance of Kim Jong-un at a huge military parade in Pyongyang alongside his father on Sunday appears to have confirmed speculation that the young man will be North Korea’s next ruler. The 20-something was also recently promoted to four-star general.

Why is North Korea’s internal politics so important to the world? Because it is a nuclear-armed state with highly unpredictable men at the helm. It has also suffered from devastating famine and the planned economy is stagnating. When everything is added up, a post-Kim Jong-il government meltdown in Pyongyang has the potential to destabilise the region. The leader is said to be ailing and presumably wants to ensure a smooth transfer of power.



The North’s neighbours are also keen to see a smooth transition. The region is already tense. After a decade-long thaw under the ‘sunshine policy’, the North’s relations with South Korea are extremely frosty. Seoul accused the North of sinking a warship earlier in the year, a charge denied by North Korea, which exacerbated tensions. Observers will continue to keep an eye on Pyongyang to see which way the untested younger Kim steers the North if he does indeed take over. It is hoped the leadership change will result in opening up the reclusive state to join the international community.[/B][/FONT][/COLOR]

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Peace council[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 12 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


An old name from the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is back in the news: Burhanuddin Rabbani, heroic Islamic warrior to many, perpetrator of war crimes to others, is to be the head of the Afghan High Peace Council, a 68-member group brought together by President Hamid Karzai to help the process of negotiations with the Taliban. Given Mr Rabbani’s status as a Mujahideen hero, he is likely as good a choice as any to head the peace council — though, it must be said, the Taliban are unlikely to accord Mr Rabbani any special favours or concessions because of his past contributions to an Islamic struggle. Some background to the creation of the peace council is necessary.



Last June, the National Consultative Peace Jirga held in Kabul made several recommendations, a key one of which was to replace the Peace and Reconciliation Commission, which sought to reintegrate Taliban fighters who agreed to lay down arms, with the new High Peace Council convened last week to elect a leader. The earlier commission, headed by the leader of the upper house in the Afghan parliament, Sebghatullah Mojaddedi, had proved largely ineffective in working towards the goal it was tasked with, thereby triggering the demand for a change.

What exactly Mr Rabbani and the High Peace Council he now leads can achieve is uncertain. President Karzai has been the foremost proponent of beginning the process of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban immediately, but it remains unclear whether there is appetite for such deal-making on the other side. While there has been some speculation that war-weariness and a new crop of commanders have made segments of the Taliban leadership more amenable to thinking about a negotiated settlement, the fact remains that in nearly a decade of fighting a ‘reconcilable’ Taliban leader with genuine and current clout has yet to emerge. Perhaps the best way of looking at the High Peace Council is that it is yet another attempt in a long list of attempts by the Karzai government that have borne little fruit. But past failures should not mean giving up altogether.

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Long march threat[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 12 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Whatever one’s priorities for Pakistan — eliminating terrorism, reviving the economy or launching the post-flood reconstruction in earnest — consolidating democracy ought to fall somewhere on the daunting list. Yet neither the government nor the opposition has acted in a way that would make the nation believe that reinforcing democratic values is among their priorities.



The PML-N may don the mantle of opposition in the federal government, but its rhetoric is antagonistic and makes one wonder whether the party realises that it is running the country’s most populous province. Both the PPP and the PML-N claim to have rendered sacrifices for the cause of democracy. Yet what they say and do would hardly demonstrate a love for democracy. On Sunday, Shahbaz Sharif declared that his party would launch a long march if the PPP government did not stop naming controversial figures to head the National Accountability Bureau. Coming from the Punjab chief minister, the statement is surprising and seems to rule out a political solution.

Retired justice Deedar Hussain Shah’s appointment has already been challenged in the Lahore High Court, and the PML-N itself said the other day that it intended to move the Supreme Court. Last week, the PML-N appeared to have adopted a political line of action by questioning the merit of the appointment and claiming that it had not really been consulted. Chaudhry Nisar, the PML-N’s point man in the National Assembly, later released the letters he had written registering his objections to the appointment. Given this approach, Shahbaz Sharif’s threat of undertaking a long march and the ‘disclosure’ that it would be led by the elder Sharif would appear to signal a departure from the political path. Emboldened, wrongly, by the success of the pro-judiciary long march, the PML-N leadership seems to forget that street power is a double-edged sword.

Agreed that Mr Shah’s appointment is more than political gaucheness; it is on the apart of the PPP an act that would seem to mock the higher judiciary and the opposition. But then there is more to life and to Pakistan than the credentials of a NAB chief. Ultimately, all controversy surrounding the NRO and NAB zeroes in on President Asif Ali Zardari, and that’s where the two leading parties seem to have been bogged down. A NAB nominee acceptable to the PML-N is not going to be the end of the matter. It is a continuing melodrama with little bearing on the life of the common man — the latter should be, but is not, the reference point for the elected.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]The saviour complex[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 13 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Eleven years ago yesterday, the country was plunged into its fourth round of direct military rule. The ‘decade of democracy’ which preceded that fateful day had proved to be a governance disaster, clearing a path for yet another would-be saviour in uniform to rescue Pakistan from the clutches of venal, incompetent and corrupt politicians.

But by the time Gen Musharraf was hounded out of office in August 2008, it seemed at long last Pakistan and Pakistanis had embraced the only form of governance that has never really been given a shot: a democratic form of government built around a succession principle allowing the regular, peaceful transfer of power between political parties. Worryingly, however, this time too the memory of institutions, the media and the people has proved short-lived. If another coup seems unlikely today — which it does, notwithstanding all the political rumour and gossip — it has little to do with a love for democracy. The three strongest arguments against a coup today are: one, the army has its hands full fighting a fierce internal insurgency; two, the political government has surrendered control of foreign and national security policies, matters the army cares about the most; and three, no acceptable political alternative to the present government is available to the extra-constitutional powers-that-be. Hardly the kind of arguments that make for a resounding defence of the democratic project.

So, unhappily, there is little reason to believe the days of would-be uniformed saviours are a thing of the past. A report in this newspaper yesterday, outlining the story of the short-lived ‘army chief’, Ziauddin Butt, who temporarily replaced Gen Musharraf on Oct 12, 1999, suggests how fine the line is between an apolitical chief and a would-be saviour. Ziauddin Butt may have reasons to exaggerate or distort history, but it is telling that to this day rumours persist that the army under Gen Musharraf had in principle decided it was time for the civilians ‘to go’ and only the details were left to be filled out by circumstance. True, Nawaz Sharif eventually obliged the army by trying to get rid of yet another chief, but Mr Sharif did not create the institutional mindset of the military which made the Musharraf coup possible in the first place.

Equally, however, if a certain kind of military mindset is ever to be defeated, the civilians will have to raise their game. Ceteris paribus, the political government’s staggering indifference to issues of governance and policymaking has done much harm to the prospects for democracy. The villain cannot be expected to just bow out gracefully; it will need to be out-thought and outfoxed.

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[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Financial misconduct[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 13 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Financial crime may be a problem worldwide, but vulnerable economies like Pakistan are more prone to feeling its ill effects especially when elements within the state are accused of monetary misdeeds.

According to a report in this newspaper, officials managing a housing scheme for National Assembly employees in Islamabad are believed to have embezzled millions of rupees. This emerged when a parliamentary committee began probing the scheme. According to Sheikh Waqas Akram, the MNA heading the committee, efforts are being made to cover up the scam as witnesses are being guided on what to say before the committee. Another news report says that the Ministry of Housing & Works has detected alleged embezzlement of Rs62m in a project to build a federal lodge in Nawabshah. Upon the project’s completion it was revealed that Rs84m had been spent on it (Rs38m was originally earmarked for the scheme) while an additional Rs16m was required to make the building “liveable for government functionaries”.

These two recent examples of murkiness in financial affairs are perhaps only the tip of the iceberg. One can safely assume that financial mismanagement and lack of clarity on funds is the order of the day in government circles. Not too long ago it was reported before the NA’s Public Accounts Committee that a staggering sum of Rs5.55bn — all unaccounted for — was disbursed to the ISI during 2007-08. Can Pakistan afford such financial indiscipline?

The floods have pummelled the economy; the government is oversized while the ruling elite live ostentatious lives; the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes and the overall fiscal outlook is bleak. In such a scenario, embezzlement of this nature is simply inexcusable. All organs of the state — the federal and provincial governments as well as the army and security establishment — must crack down on fraud, embezzlement and all other financial crimes within their ranks. In the short term all cases of financial irregularities involving public funds must be thoroughly investigated, while in the long term a new fiscal regime with better documentation and fewer loopholes and leakages needs to be implemented by the state.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Israel’s condition[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"][SIZE="2"][B]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 13 Oct, 2010[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


There is no end to the tricks Israeli leaders have up their sleeves to obfuscate the Palestinian issue, to prolong the negotiating process and to use the time thus gained to build more settlements.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament he was “willing to convince” his cabinet that the moratorium on housing should be extended if the Palestinian leadership recognised Israel as a Jewish state. The hard-line Likud leader has repeatedly asked for Israel’s recognition as a Jewish state, but this is for the first time he has made it a condition for halting settlement activity. Recognising it as a Jewish state may rule out the return of Palestinian refugees — one of the key issues which President Barack Obama wants to be solved during the present, and suspended, talks that began so hopefully in September after a 20-month suspension.

What should be noted is that even if, for argument’s sake, the Palestinian Authority recognises it as a Jewish state there is still no guarantee that Israel, given its track record, will pursue the talks to their logical end and agree to what has been the ultimate aim of all peace moves — Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the coming into being of a sovereign Palestinian state. Incidentally it is worth our while to note the way a US news agency AP reported the Netanyahu speech. Instead of reporting his words objectively it lauded the Israel prime minister’s speech by saying it was an attempt “to deliver a creative way” to end the impasse. If at all it is ‘a creative way’ it is one that attempts to sabotage the US-brokered talks ‘creatively’ by continuing with colonisation to alter the demographic and cultural character of Palestinian territory and make an Israeli pullout an impossibility.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]MQM’s land bill[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Thursday, 14 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

THE Muttahida finally submitted its land reform bill in the National Assembly on Tuesday, with Dr Farooq Sattar conceding it would be difficult to plough the bill through a parliament dominated by the agriculture lobby. The MQM, which has been talking about such a bill for quite some time, seems to have done its homework, for the draft law suggests 36 and 54 acres of irrigated and rain-fed land respectively as the minimum cultivable unit that would be economic. A party with its base in Sindh’s urban area, the MQM has nothing to lose if such a bill is passed, because nobody in this world legislates against one’s class interests. The aim behind the proposed law is laudable: it seeks to break up large landholdings to give the tenant-farmer the land which he and his forefathers have tilled for centuries. The landless peasant toils in the burning sun and creates wealth out of which he himself gains nothing. He remains perpetually dependent on the feudal lord for his very survival.

Land reforms have been talked about in Pakistan since the latter’s formation, and there has been no dearth of ideologues, firebrand leftists, drawing room revolutionaries and, undoubtedly, some sincere and dedicated activists who paid with their lives for their crusade. Nevertheless at least three serious attempts were made to reform the anachronistic pattern of landownership that has been the single biggest cause of the country’s failure to develop a thriving middle class with a stake in the democratic process. The land reform by Ayub Khan and the two bouts of it by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had only a marginal impact on rural society because the feudal lobby, well-entrenched in state structure and society, managed to evade implementation. The scheming that went into evading the reforms is a story unto itself. Unfortunately, the reform was nullified, with the rich landowners continuing to control all levers of state power and society. The most obvious indication of the landowners’ power and greed is their shamefaced refusal to pay tax on agricultural income, while making the middle and lower classes pay taxes through their noses. This lobby has a vested interest in a continuation of the socio-economic status quo.

The MQM will have to face the lawmakers of this class while piloting the bill through parliament. Theoretically, no one is likely to oppose the bill, for the MQM’s pro-reform resolution was passed unanimously by the National Assembly on Sept 3. But the true face of Pakistan’s Junker class will be seen when the two houses discuss a bill that strikes at the very basis of its power and privileges.
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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]NRO hearings[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Thursday, 14 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

AN unmistakable pattern appears to have emerged in the manoeuvrings between the government and the Supreme Court over the NRO judgment of last December. Every few weeks, as the next court hearing nears, all manner of political instability is predicted and feared. But D-day never quite occurs and each hearing passes quietly with no discernible escalation in the judiciary-executive ‘clash’. The country should be grateful for such small mercies, for there is little good that can come from such a clash. Yesterday, too, little of substance occurred in the latest NRO-related SC hearing. Perhaps of most significance was that the court mentioned the need for abiding by previous case law which purports to give the SC chief justice a role in the appointment of the NAB chairperson. But that is not especially troubling from the perspective of political stability: as long as court and executive are debating the legal process for certain appointments, there is still some time and space before they arrive at the crucial stage — what the appointees are supposed to do with their powers. The SC wants certain measures taken against President Zardari and some other erstwhile NRO beneficiaries but it does not have the power to take those measures directly, hence the anterior struggle over the appointment of officials who have the relevant powers.

Like it or not, the extra-slow game of chess between the court and the executive appears set to continue. Barring capitulation to the court’s demands, the executive has few options other than to draw the process out and buy time for itself in small increments, as it has done in various ways since last December. The court, meanwhile, cannot risk running onto overtly political terrain. For example, if the court does summon or move against a minister, or ultimately the prime minister, for being in contempt of the court’s orders, what happens if even that were met with defiance from the executive? A legal ‘loss’ could well turn into a political ‘triumph’ for the politicians if that were to happen. So more time may well suit everyone at the moment.
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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Sehwan incident[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Thursday, 14 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

IT is a sad reflection on Pakistani society when sectarian differences and schisms begin to affect Sufi shrines, long considered bastions of tolerance and communal harmony. The golden-domed mausoleum of Syed Usman Marwandi — better known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar — in Sehwan had to be sealed on Tuesday to prevent a clash between two groups of devotees belonging to different sects. Locals say this is the first time in its history that the shrine had to be closed. The saint is held in high esteem not only by Shias and Sunnis, but also by members of the Hindu community. Devotees flock to Sehwan from across Pakistan as well as different parts of the world, especially during the saint’s annual urs. Tension started mounting when the brother of Sindh’s senior minister announced that a majlis would be held in the shrine’s Dhamal court. This provoked members of the Sunni community, who also revere the qalandar. They said they would organise a strike if the religious event went ahead. The authorities decided to seal the shrine to avert a confrontation and police contingents had to be brought in. The shrine has reopened amidst tight security though the situation remains tense.

Sectarian tensions in Sehwan have been growing over the past decade and a half. Observers say there was an agreement between the Shia and Sunni communities that no majlis or maatam would be held within the mausoleum’s courtyard; all such religious activities are supposed to take place near an imambargah attached to the shrine. A clash occurred last year when a section of the Shia community organised a similar gathering in the courtyard. It is hoped that the opposing factions sit down and sort out their differences so that communal harmony can be restored and disagreements of this nature are not exploited to provoke wider sectarian unrest.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Missing weapons[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
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Dawn Editorial
Friday, 15 Oct, 2010
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Even though there is little that surprises people at this juncture, the report that no less than three million weapons have disappeared from official warehouses in Punjab is appalling.

The details are shocking and give us an idea of the layers of corruption in the law-enforcement structure in the country’s most populous province. Yesterday, this newspaper carried a report based on an official document that revealed the ways in which weapons including grenades and Kalashnikov submachine guns seized from criminals and terrorists went missing: one, not all the arms seized by the police from individuals and gangs were deposited in the district and provincial malkhanas; two, no less than three million of a bewildering variety of arms deposited in the two categories of malkhanas and arsenals of the official bomb disposal squad disappeared.

The Punjab home department must be commended for preparing the report. In fact, it must have been shocked by the contents of the finding. It is a mystery though why the Punjab government did not deem it fit to order an inquiry to fix guilt and take action against those involved in a criminal enterprise of such dimensions. While the details of the weapons that have disappeared have been covered in the Dawn story, it bears repetition to recall that the number of lethal weapons which have gone missing include 3,454 grenades and 4, 490 of the killing machines that are Kalashnikovs.

One can only guess the modus operandi and motives behind the weapons lost. A large number of the weapons must have been sold to criminals by men who are supposed to guard the arsenal, and many others must have been gifted to terrorist outfits. If this is established, this could well mean the Taliban and a large number of other terrorist militias have sympathisers and activists well-entrenched in the provincial law-enforcement machinery.

The disappearances could also mean that Punjab warehouses are one of the terrorists’ major sources of arms — and not only in Punjab. The meticulous details in the report about the number of weapons deposited with the provincial warehouses and the arms which are still there with the malkhanas show on the whole that some people in the provincial law-enforcement agencies and their overseers do after all care about their job. That in spite of this record-keeping the weapons should disappear is indeed ironic. We expect the Punjab government to release the inquiry report, if and when it is ready, and hope this will prompt the other provinces to take stock of what they have and what they have not.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Remarkable rescue
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Dawn Editorial
[COLOR="Sienna"][COLOR="Black"][SIZE="2"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Friday, 15 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR][/COLOR]


Tears of joy and thanksgiving prayers greeted 33 rescued miners on Wednesday after their 69-day ordeal within the depths of a Chilean copper mine.

For several weeks the San José mine, located in the barren wastes of the Atacama desert, had been in the media spotlight as the world waited to see what would become of the trapped miners. The mine had collapsed on Aug 5 and for the first 17 days all the miners were believed to be dead, until they sent up a note attached to a probe indicating they were okay. Hundreds of journalists converged on the mine to capture the dramatic rescue effort and relay it live to audiences worldwide. The remarkable story of how the miners survived the ordeal and the ingenious rescue operation is one of hope and inspiration. It shows what the human spirit is capable of when put to the test. It is also a heart-warming example of how a nation can come together and show unity and resilience in times of adversity — and Chile has had its fair share of these, from the dark days of the Pinochet dictatorship in the ’70s and ’80s to the earthquake earlier this year.

After the initial euphoria wears off, there will be a need to reflect on safety practices in the global mining industry. The San José mine, which first opened in the late 19th century, has a history of mishaps while the private company that runs it does not have a very good safety record. The facility was shut in 2007 after a miner died in an accident. The Chilean president has ordered an overhaul of mine safety regulations. Hopefully, this event will prompt governments around the world, especially in countries like Pakistan, to review safety protocols in order to protect the lives of miners.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Mobs and the police[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="Purple"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Dawn Editorial
Friday, 15 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Few situations are more terrifying than a lynch mob. But when law-enforcers instigate or abet the violence, it raises fears about the speed at which the rule of law is being eroded in Pakistan.

At least three incidents of mob violence have come to light in recent months, in all of which police personnel either stood by or contributed to the violence. In mid-August, two brothers were beaten to death by a mob in Sialkot while the police watched. A month later, a man was bludgeoned to death in Gujrat and policemen at the scene refused to come to his rescue. Now, video footage has surfaced showing a body being triumphantly carried out of a Dera Ghazi Khan police station by a mob, which then set fire to it. The incident is said to have occurred in March. The victim Abdullah Chandia had allegedly committed murder and then turned himself in at the Choti Zaireen police station. The victim’s younger brother told this paper on Wednesday that he had witnessed DSP Iqbal Chandia shooting his brother in the head and SHO Noor Ahmad Chandia firing shots into the body before handing it over to the mob outside.

In all cases the victims were set upon by people that were, in other circumstances, ordinary citizens. The propensity of a mob to descend into barbarity is encouraged when law-enforcers do nothing or, as in the D.G. Khan case, apparently lead the charge. It is not enough to merely order an inquiry, as the Supreme Court did with regard to the Sialkot murders. The results must be made public and strict action must be seen to have been taken. In the D.G. Khan case, the two police officials accused of being involved were initially booked for murder but absolved after a departmental inquiry. This type of investigation is hardly enough for a crime of such proportions, and of such far-reaching societal consequences. Unless the role of the police in these incidents is thoroughly investigated and those found guilty are given exemplary punishment, there is every likelihood that we shall see more such gruesome spectacles.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"][I]Crisis at the SC[/I][/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 16 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

An alleged ‘plot’ by the government to send the Supreme Court packing was breathlessly released into the 24-hour TV-news cycle Thursday evening. The report rapidly metastasised and within hours the SC swung into late-night action and announced a full-court hearing for Friday morning. The government has now been ordered to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the news reports and to affix responsibility — the court having made clear it believes there is some truth to the allegations.

Three players are involved in this sordid tale of rumour and intrigue, and all need to reflect on their behaviour. First, the media. That there are tensions between the government and the superior judiciary is undeniable, and if a news organisation has a story of public interest regarding the perceived judiciary-executive ‘clash’ then it has a right, even a duty, to broadcast or publish the story. But there are journalistic responsibilities, too, and those include needing to be reasonably sure of the veracity of allegations that are to be made public. And when the allegations have the potential to irreparably rupture relations between two institutions of the state, the journalistic responsibilities increase manifold. Were the appropriate and necessary steps taken to ensure the reports aired on Thursday night reflected the factual position? Was the manner of the coverage in keeping with the ethics of a profession that is supposed to strive to report the news, not make the news?

Next, the judiciary. To be sure, given recent history and the personal price many of the judges of the SC have paid to create an independent judiciary, to some extent it is understandable the justices may feel a heightened sense of pressure and threat to their position. However, a judiciary is supposed to add to the dignity and poise of the state, not add to a sense of national political crisis. Setting aside the matter of intention for a moment, it seems fairly obvious the chances of a government-sponsored move to disband the entire SC succeeding are quite remote. So middle-of-the-night meetings and full-court emergency benches are perhaps unnecessary, there being less disruptive ways and means available to the court to ensure its independence.

Finally, the government. Would it harm the government to once in a while take the high road? With emotions running high in the SC yesterday, the responsible, stability-enhancing thing to have done was reassure the court. Alas, common sense appears to be in short supply in Islamabad.


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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]American pressure[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 16 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


North Waziristan Agency continues to be a hotbed of militancy. The Haqqani network and its allied al Qaeda affiliates have been using Mir Ali and its adjoining areas in the tribal agency to plan and execute terrorist operations in Afghanistan and beyond.

To that extent, America’s anxiety is understandable. What is not is the way it is handling matters, particularly in the context of its public outbursts against Pakistan at regular intervals. America must realise that the pressure it exerts on Pakistan to take action in North Waziristan makes things that much more difficult for Islamabad. Such pressure is counter-productive and adds to the existing US-Pakistan trust deficit on an issue where there is basic agreement in terms of the final aim, even if there is a difference in approach. The prime minister did well to make it clear that, one, army chief Gen Kayani gave no assurance to the US military that Pakistan would launch an operation in North Waziristan, and, two, if at all Pakistan were to undertake this task it would be Islamabad that would decide on its timing and scale.

While the US does at times demonstrate its realisation of Pakistan’s problems in North Waziristan, there is often an inexplicable demonstration of impatience on its part, meant really for domestic consumption. In his latest statement, Defence Secretary Robert Gates appeared aware that a number of army personnel were involved in flood relief operations But a military strike in North Waziristan, a Haqqani bastion and with the largest concentration of foreign militants, involves more than troop availability. Considerations such as the talk of negotiations and the planned start of US withdrawal next July must be factored in.

Moreover, there are contradictions in US policy. While it urges Pakistan to take up the North Waziristan task, America has gone public with its approval of President Hamid Karzai’s peace initiative. Pakistan has vital stakes in a post-America Afghanistan. For that reason it cannot afford to be reckless. A military operation in North Waziristan at this stage also risks public alienation because the government would be accused of surrendering to America’s wishes.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Rescued falcons[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 16 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The Punjab Wildlife Department deserves praise for preventing the smuggling of 53 Siberian falcons to Qatar.

The officials made their move when they received a tip-off that the falcons were being booked at Islamabad airport and were destined for the Gulf state. Among the recovered birds are those belonging to the Saker falcon species, which is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The birds come to the Cholistan area every year to winter. The way these majestic birds of prey are treated after they are captured is truly barbaric: their eyes are stitched while they are deprived of sleep in an attempt to tame them. Of course there is a very lucrative reason why unscrupulous people capture falcons and thereafter try to smuggle them out of the country. The birds are allegedly sold to Arab princes and potentates who use them during hunting trips.

Observers say the most prized falcons can fetch prices ranging in millions of rupees, while even average birds can sell for hundreds of thousands of rupees. It is tragic that the smuggled falcons are brought back to Pakistan by the sheikhs to hunt down the hapless houbara bustard, which is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN.

The rescue of the falcons once again highlights the issue of the smuggling of threatened species. Observers say that though such smuggling continues, efforts are being made to crack down on it. Wildlife officials in Balochistan claim to have dismantled several traps recently while flooding in Sindh has brought a temporary halt to the trapping of threatened species in the province. The state needs to remain vigilant and continue its efforts to counter the smuggling of animals. Pakistan’s fragile biodiversity is under attack due to a range of factors: illegal hunting, poaching and smuggling are just a few of these.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Brussels meeting[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 17 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Friends sometimes have to tell each other hard truths and, unhappily for Pakistan, the Friends of Democratic Pakistan have decided now is the time for tough messages. Unhappily only to the extent that many of the measures suggested by the group are ones the government here should already have taken.



Five broad areas of reform appear to have been recommended: transparency and efficiency in the use of foreign flood aid; meaningful tax reform that widens the tax base; rationalisation of non-flood-related expenditures to keep the budget deficit from exploding; power sector reforms; and laws to strengthen the independence of the State Bank, which is currently being forced to make highly inflationary loans to the government. Will there be any movement on these reforms? Perhaps some, eventually, but it’s difficult to predict how much and how soon.

When discussing economic reforms, or any type of reforms for that matter, some context and background is necessary. Pakistan isn’t at the point it has reached — dire economic straits — because of the policies of the past two, five, 10 or 20 years. It is a collective failure, of governments military and civilian, over much of this country’s history that has led to the present state of affairs. To say this isn’t to absolve any particular government of responsibility, but simply to point out that there are institutional and structural problems that go beyond the capacity of any one government. Having said that, the spectacular indifference to issues of governance among government circles at present is numbing. Concern with the ways of the government is not limited to outside critics and opponents — long-time supporters of the government are also increasingly worried about what they see as unprecedented levels of indifference, even by the relatively low standards of previous governments here.

Consider just the issue of post-flood reconstruction and rehabilitation. After Friday’s meeting in Brussels, it was reported that the members of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan ‘appreciated’ the government’s commitment to ‘ensure transparency, accountability and effective utilisation of resources’.



But official, public language often masks serious private concerns. A report in this newspaper recently highlighted the group’s worry that the monitoring mechanism put in place by the government in the shape of the National Oversight Disaster Management Council is inadequate and flawed. Clearly, the victims of the floods should not be punished for their government’s sins, so the international community should avoid making onerous and unreasonable demands. Equally, however, the government cannot be allowed to get away with a business-as-usual approach. More transparency and more accountability are needed, and if it takes foreign assistance to ensure that, so be it.
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[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Degrees once again[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][FONT="Georgia"][B]Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 17 Oct, 2010[/B][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

There is a distinct sense of déjà vu associated with all aspects of Pakistani politics. This assumption certainly rings true when the issue of the authenticity of lawmakers’ degrees keeps coming up after brief lulls. It has emerged that the prime minister, the leader of the opposition and a slew of key federal ministers are among those whose degrees have not been verified by the Higher Education Commission.



According to reports this is so because the said politicians have not submitted their intermediate and matriculation certificates. The total list of those with unverified degrees tops 400 and apart from the above-mentioned persons includes senators, MNAs and provincial legislators from all four provinces, cutting across party lines. The Election Commission had recently written to the lawmakers asking them to submit the paperwork in order to complete the verification process.

Regardless of the propriety of the Musharraf-era law that is at the root of the present impasse, the fact remains that it was on the books when the 2008 election was held. Therefore the need to complete the process, as mandated by the Supreme Court, and move on is essential. Pakistan currently faces a number of complex challenges — post-flood reconstruction, a floundering economy, terrorism, political intrigue — hence unnecessarily prolonging the degrees’ issue will not be very productive. This procrastination undermines not only the personal reputation of all the politicians involved, it also sullies that of parliament.



Of course we are not questioning the authenticity of the degrees of the politicians in question. But until the lawmakers clarify the situation by submitting their documents doubts will linger. Also, it should be considered that if such top-ranking politicians as the prime minister and opposition leader are seen to be dillydallying on the issue, it will give a convenient cover to their more junior colleagues in parliament to dodge the process. The senior leaders need to set an example. The verification process is due to be completed by Oct 24; it is sincerely hoped that the politicians involved submit their documents before that date so that the issue can be resolved.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Child custody[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][FONT="Georgia"][B]Sunday, 17 Oct, 2010[/B][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Separation and divorce represent the death of a marriage but for a child caught in the middle and too young to understand the significance of visitation rights it could mean the ‘death’ of a parent. The tearful reaction of a six-year-old girl to the Supreme Court’s decision to hand her back to her Tajik-origin mother after the little girl was recovered from the estranged Pakistani husband highlights the emotional turmoil that a child is usually subjected to in legal custody battles. In a case last year, a nine-year-old boy reacted in similar fashion when a court decided to restore custody to his French-origin mother.

Such incidents have raised the question of whether traditional court litigation, as provided for under the Guardians and Wards Act 1890 — the major law governing child custody in Pakistan — is the best approach to family-conflict resolution. There is nothing wrong with its principle that the welfare of the child is paramount when deciding custody. Nor is there anything intrinsically wrong with its general rule, i.e. mothers be given preference in the custody of minor children whether male or female.



But quite often such litigation proves damaging for both the children and the parents. In considering the rights of mothers and balancing those of the father, what is due to the child, i.e. the right to go with the parent he or she prefers, is often overlooked. Elsewhere in the world, estranged parents are increasingly being encouraged to resolve child custody issues through mutual agreement. This is usually done through out-of-court (though with legal help) dispute-resolution processes like mediation and collaborative law. The latter is a relatively new legal approach to family-conflict resolution involving lawyers and family professionals, and is increasingly gaining acceptance in many countries. Encouraging such non-traditional processes would warrant a review of the 1890 act.

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Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]PM’s speech[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Monday, 18 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

SPEAKING on national television last evening, Prime Minister Gilani attempted to draw a line underneath a judiciary-executive crisis which began last Thursday on television. The prime minister was firm: his denial Thursday night of the rumour the government was planning to de-notify the March 2009 order restoring the judges should have been enough to end the matter there — and that to dismiss or reject or doubt the public statement of a prime minister was tantamount to undermining the system of parliamentary democracy. If common sense is allowed to prevail, the matter should now be put to rest. The judiciary has made its point, demonstrating a fierce resolve to protect itself from executive ‘adventurism’; the government has categorically and publicly denied the allegations against it; and the media has not been able to find any merit to the original reports — surely, only those hoping for more instability and uncertainty would want this particular issue to drag on.

There are, however, clear lessons to be drawn from the latest near-upheaval in the country, if such incidents are to be avoided. First of all, the media regulators, industry-run and public, need to conduct a thorough inquiry into the events leading up to certain news channels airing the de-notification claim. The results of the inquiries should be made public, not just to ascertain what happened that fateful evening, but to prevent recurrences. The media — which now appears able to wield political power of its own — must open itself up to fair and proper scrutiny.

Next, the superior judiciary must reflect on behaviour unbecoming for an institution which is supposed to be cloaked in an air of calm and dispassion. Flip through news channels day or night and one is likely to find some outrageous news or the other that is soon either denied officially or quietly taken off the airwaves. Anything is possible in Pakistan, but some things are less likely than others. A judiciary which even a military dictator could not sack is unlikely to be undone by a weak political government saddled with fractious coalition partners and surrounded by opponents. Politics does not happen in a vacuum. Finally, the PPP-led government. Its bona fides would not be so casually suspected if it were serious about governance and developed a reputation for smart but fair play. The party may feel aggrieved, but that is part of the reason a media rumour can instantaneously turn into political ‘fact’ in the minds of many.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Political restraint[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][FONT="Georgia"][B]Monday, 18 Oct, 2010[/B][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

GIVEN the mayhem all around, one cannot have a very high opinion of the quality of political rhetoric in Pakistan. Missing all along are rudimentary concepts of restraint and responsibility so essential to political discourse. Nevertheless, realisation seems to be dawning on some of our senior politicians of the consequences of an unrestrained outpouring of political venom. This attempt to inject sanity into politics deserves to be welcomed. On Friday, the PPP and MQM, coalition partners in the federal and Sindh governments, agreed to a political ceasefire after the two sides had issued some wild statements in the wake of targeted killings in Karachi. A day earlier, Mian Shahbaz Sharif apologised to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for the derogatory words uttered by a PML-N leader about the Bhuttos. Statements counselling restraint have also come from PPP leaders, including the prime minister.

While it would be difficult for us to pinpoint a specific era when political rhetoric started assuming the shape of animosity, the year-long campaign for Pakistan’s first general election in 1970 — when the nation stood polarised in the putative battle between ‘Islam’ and ‘socialism’ — will be remembered for its viciousness. The level of debate plunged to new depths during the 1977 PNA movement when there were focused attacks on some political personalities and their families. Following Ziaul Haq’s military coup, even sections of the media contributed in no small measure to the continued degeneration of political debate. The same hyperbolic style was witnessed in the political era between 1988 and 1999, with politicians discovering crimes and conspiracies by their opponents, staging ‘long marches’ and inviting the army to ‘do its duty’. This might have served transient purposes, but it was democracy that lost. Now that we have a democratic dispensation once again it would be a tragedy if irresponsible statements, threats of street agitation and unrestrained malevolence in utterances were to sabotage democracy. From this point of view the awakening of a new spirit of self-restraint deserves to be watched with the fond hope that expediency does not make our politicians oblivious to what should be the lodestar for them all — the public good.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]A stagnant industry[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="2"][FONT="Georgia"][B]Monday, 18 Oct, 2010[/B][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

THE Ministry of Culture’s recent effort to force cinema-goers to watch Pakistani films was bound to fail. Directives were issued to cinemas to put up Pakistani films only for the weeks preceding and following Eidul Fitr, despite the objection of cinema managements. However, the ministry conceded recently to a Senate standing committee on culture that the four Punjabi films screened in major cities had seen an “embarrassing attendance”. Obviously, audiences will watch films of their choice and the Pakistani film industry has been in the doldrums for decades. While there have been a few notable exceptions, on the whole the quality in terms of production, scripting, editing, acting and music, etc has remained poor. The rest of the world has moved ahead. We have remained stagnant, both technically and in the quality of storytelling.

The solution does not lie in reducing viewers’ choices by screening only Pakistani films or banning Indian and other films as some committee members suggested. Indeed, Indian film imports were banned for years, resulting in a boost to the pirated video and DVD market. In order to improve, Pakistan’s film industry requires investment, incentives, training opportunities and, crucially, political will. Promises must translate into action. The culture ministry also reminded the committee that it continued to await the Rs50m that the industry was promised by the prime minister some months ago. Similarly, Baitul Maal funds are yet to be diverted to technicians and musicians, who are integral but ignored parts of the industry. The Punjab government has taken a commendable step by abolishing the entertainment tax. However, far more needs to be done. The film industry can still be revived through measures such as providing funds, setting up training institutions, offering tax incentives and easing visa restrictions to promote co-productions with India and other countries.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]A familiar cycle[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Edtorial
Tuesday, 19 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The politics of Karachi has hardly ever been a tame affair. The struggle for power has resulted in the city suffering from regular, exceedingly bloody bouts of violence. In the period between Saturday evening and late Sunday, over 30 people were killed while nearly 50 were injured as violence broke out in the city, linked to a by-election for a provincial assembly seat from the Orangi Town locality. The seat had fallen vacant when MQM lawmaker Raza Haider was gunned down in August. The polling itself was relatively peaceful, and unofficial results showed that the MQM candidate won comfortably. The ANP had boycotted the poll as it wanted the army to supervise it.



Meanwhile, in Islamabad a related political drama was being played out on Sunday as the MQM threatened to quit the government; hectic politicking prevented the supposed collapse of the coalition. The MQM had accused elements within the Sindh government of supporting ‘criminals’.

Though the Orangi Town seat is considered a safe one for the MQM, changing political trends in Karachi need to be considered if one is to understand what lies at the root of the political violence. The ANP’s profile is steadily rising in the city: it won two Sindh Assembly seats from Karachi in the 2008 election and wanted to put up a challenge to the MQM in the by-election. The Muttahida, on the other hand, presumably wanted to demonstrate that despite the ANP’s rising graph, its vote bank in Karachi was still secure. As is the nature of our political culture, parties make their mark not by implementing progressive agendas, but through displays of street power, which easily descend into violence.

The role of the Sindh government, particularly the PPP, in controlling the violence has been disappointing. Many lives have been lost but the government remained quiet, with both the chief minister and the home minister maintaining a largely hands-off approach. This was also true in the events following Raza Haider’s assassination, in which nearly 100 people were killed. It appears that the PPP is not interested in quelling violence in areas that don’t form part of its vote bank. The president rightly asked the MQM and ANP to stop issuing inflammatory statements against each other. But this is hardly enough. Political stakeholders in Sindh need to practically show that they are committed to maintaining the democratic process and eschewing the politics of the gun. The violence surrounding the by-election does not augur well for democracy; the visceral hatred political parties have for each other makes people question the democratic process itself.

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[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Right step[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 19 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Transperancy has never been a high point in Pakistan’s electoral history. This has been an unfortunate element of our national existence and the country has suffered many a time on this count. It is against this backdrop that one must acknowledge and appreciate the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to introduce electronic voting machines in the next general election. Getting rid of the ballot box is indeed the right step forward.



As envisaged in the plan, a pilot project will test the system during the next election for the local bodies. Feedback thus accumulated from all stakeholders will help fine-tune the mechanism for election day. Along with error-free computerised electoral rolls, prepared with the help of the NADRA database, the route adopted by the ECP towards minimising, if not eliminating altogether, the menace of rigging appears to be in line with global and regional trends.

Those who argue against its efficacy in a country with a debatable literacy rate would do well to remember that in this particular case, raising public awareness about the procedure is the key; literacy is not. If the Indian example is anything to go by, effective media campaigns can, and do, break such barriers quite easily. Besides, the cost factor may also raise a few eyebrows, especially in a struggling economy. Potential benefits, however, make any cost worth the exercise.



Transparency in polling and simultaneous counting will only quicken the pace of results that currently take up to two days. Electronic voting should, therefore, take care of most of the accusations and counter-accusations linked to the traditional ballot counting process. With a bit of transparency at its own end in the acquisition of superior technology and infrastructural networking, we hope that the ECP will soon be in a position to deliver.
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[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Strategic dialogue[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 19 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Another round of the US-Pakistan dialogue is scheduled to kick off in Washington, and yet again it comes at a time that relations between the two countries are strained. The fiasco over attempted US cross-border raids ratcheted up pressure that was already being felt because of the lack of movement, from the American perspective, against militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan Agency.



But there are serious gripes on the Pakistan side too. A report in this newspaper yesterday highlighted the concerns in the Pakistani camp: that all ‘fresh’ US aid, even emergency, flood-related aid, is being subtracted from the Kerry-Lugar money already pledged, thereby diminishing the latter’s impact. The other concerns are that there has been no movement on trade-related agreements with Pakistan, whether in terms of more access for Pakistani textiles or Reconstruction Opportunity Zones, and that Pakistan’s worries regarding India are not being addressed.

To the extent that the purpose of the strategic dialogue was to create an ongoing forum in which Pakistan and the US could exchange ideas, and complaints, airing the Pakistani concerns at this point makes sense. There is very much a sense that the ‘transactional’ American approach of old to relations with Pakistan continues to hold and that the US tries to give the least amount possible for the maximum concessions wrested from Pakistan. This needs to be flagged and highlighted wherever and whenever possible.



Yet, there are other concerns which require Pakistan to look inwards for improvements. The demand for trade agreements with faraway American markets should be pursued, yes, but there are markets right on our doorstep — India and China — that Pakistan does not adequately tap. Why? The answer to that lies within Pakistan, not outside.



Moreover, if preferential access to American textile markets, for example, is to be had, then certain congressional barriers have to be overcome, and that requires a concerted strategy of lobbying with many tiers and branches of the US government. Merely complaining at strategic dialogue meetings is unlikely to produce the desired results. The point is, complaints are often necessary, but those alone will not produce change. Better strategising is needed.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Complaints’ forum[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 20 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Two recent disputes have highlighted the need for Pakistan to have an independent, professional media complaints’ forum. First there was a series of advertisements and programming to which the PPP took exception. Then last week saw a crisis of sorts emanating from televised news reports that the prime minister had withdrawn the 2009 executive order reinstating the superior court judges sacked by Gen Musharraf during his 2007 proclamation of emergency. The reports prompted members of the judiciary to hold a midnight meeting and later demand a written assurance from the government that no such step had been taken. Committees have been formed to ascertain the facts in both cases.

Under the circumstances, the setting up of inquiry committees is, perhaps, the best that can be done. However, such a solution is far from ideal and can only be seen as an exercise in damage control. With Pakistan’s media industry growing by the day and competition becoming increasingly fierce, there is a great need for a forum that can adjudicate on complaints against and disputes with news organisations both print and electronic. The dearth of such forums, other than the courts, is symptomatic of the manner in which the country’s media industry has grown over the past decade. At the end of the millennium, the country had but a handful of major newspapers and one state-owned news television channel. Today, there are dozens of channels and a fast-expanding print industry. In many cases, the print and electronic streams of the media are owned by the same groups. While this is not in itself objectionable, disputes are bound to arise and the need for forums that can be approached with complaints ought to be considered.

Such a media complaints’ commission would have to be independent and funding for the secretariat could come from the media groups’ owners, for it is their organisations that stand to gain the most. A ‘jury of peers’ deciding whether or not the limits of journalistic ethics have been breached would in fact constitute the first substantive step towards self-regulation. With media owners on board, the complaints’ committee would exercise ethical power over what is suitable and what is not, thus bolstering the credibility of media houses. Disputes taken to court enter a new level altogether, and are often costly and long-drawn-out. By contrast, a media complaints’ commission could settle matters swiftly and fairly, and could be approached by any aggrieved party, particularly ordinary citizens. What the commission would lose through bypassing legal proceedings would be sentencing power, but this would be more than compensated for through the ethical authority it would wield.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Welcome development[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 20 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]


A favourable climate seems to have been created for the November talks between Iran and the five-plus-one, going by some positive developments. On Monday, an Iranian delegation attended Afghan talks in Rome, and officials in Washington said America had withdrawn its objection to Tehran’s participation in the conference. Attended by 46 nations, including nine representatives of the Organisation of Islamic Conference, the talks in Rome are not high level, and Iran was represented by Tehran’s envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan.



However, the declaration by Richard Holbrooke, America’s point man for the Af-Pak region, was categorical when he said in Rome that Washington had no objection to Iran playing a role in a final settlement of the Afghan question despite US reservations about Tehran’s nuclear programme. This is not the first time America has gone public with its welcome stance that Tehran deserves to be at the table when Afghanistan is on the agenda. Even the Bush administration, despite its hawkish stand on all international issues, had declared that it would welcome Iranian participation when the final peace talks took place to decide Afghanistan’s future. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is now working for the two sides to agree on Vienna as the venue, while Italy’s representative for Afghanistan said Iran was “too important to be excluded”. On Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad adopted a pro-talks stance but said the six powers — five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany — had no choice but to negotiate.

The talks on Iran’s uranium enrichment programme have remained suspended since October last, but are scheduled to begin next month. However, given the fate of previous such negotiations, one doubts whether the process will inch forward at Vienna. Often there appears to be more of posturing than substance when it comes to dealing with such a sensitive issue as Iran’s nuclear plans. Both sides refuse to relent. It is true that sanctions have not made oil-rich Iran succumb to the pressure, but Tehran should realise that tough posturing and regular anti-western rhetoric only add to existing tensions and hinder the search for a peaceful solution.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Minimum wage[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 20 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Though successive governments have announced a number of steps for the benefit of workers, the lack of implementation renders these good intentions useless. The fact that the government has been unable to enforce the minimum wage is an example of this. The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights was recently told that the majority of industrial units were not paying their workers the minimum monthly wage of Rs7,000 as decided by the government. The committee was also told that many workers had no access to healthcare, education and social security. The minimum wage had been increased from Rs6,000 earlier this year.



While announcing the increase at a May Day event in Islamabad the prime minister made a number of lofty promises to ensure the welfare of workers. Yet very few of these pledges have been fulfilled. Raising the minimum wage was a laudable step. But unless both public- and private-sector employers are made to follow this rule, how will it benefit the workers?

Inflation is already high. The IMF predicts that it may soon hit 13.5 per cent. Considering galloping inflation and the consequent high cost of living the present minimum wage is quite low. However, if it is at least implemented across the board it could provide some relief to workers. Though this may be wishful thinking considering the current state of the economy, the government and its financial planners should give some thought to eventually transforming the minimum wage into a ‘living wage’ for workers’ benefit. This should be a long-term goal with an accompanying mechanism to ensure employers are paying this wage. For starters, the government should set up the committees tasked with enforcing labour laws — with specific reference to the payment of wages — that the prime minister had said would be established.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Terrorised Karachi[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 21 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Army not being called in Karachi, says PM
Paksitan must be one of the few countries in the world where gunmen can routinely rampage through city streets and kill scores of people without the slightest fear that they would have to answer for their crime.

The residents of Karachi have seen their unfair share of violence in the past few decades. In recent times, matters appear to have spiralled out of control altogether. Between Oct 14 and Oct 19 nearly 80 people lost their lives in the metropolis, falling victim to ‘targeted killings’. One of the most gruesome events of this bloody series occurred on Tuesday, when at least 12 people were mercilessly gunned down in a scrap market in the city’s Shershah area.

It is unclear who exactly is behind the Shershah killings. The MQM has blamed elements involved in the Lyari ‘gang war’, while a police official has said criminals involved in the extortion racket are responsible. It is widely believed that criminal groups are taking advantage of political rivalries while parties are providing cover to criminals. All parties appear to be involved in this double game, though they make themselves out to be innocent victims. For the sake of peace in the city, this suspected nexus between politics and crime must be investigated thoroughly. The president has ordered the interior minister to submit a “comprehensive report” on the situation. What we would like to know is what has become of all the previous reports and investigations ordered whenever Karachi has descended into an orgy of blood and fire.

Certain leaders from the PPP and ANP have called for the army to step in. The prime minister shot down the idea on Wednesday, saying that politicians were capable of handling the crisis. Though it is the right of an elected government to call out the army in aid of civil power, this might not be wise in Karachi as all those in Sindh’s coalition government are believed to be involved in the violence. Calling in the army without punishing rogue political elements involved in stoking the violence will be counter-productive. The politicians must realise that if the army is put in the driving seat it will handle the problem in its own way and the situation will slip out of their hands. The military has its hands full elsewhere and army intervention in Karachi’s affairs has previously failed to substantively quell violence. So before turning to the army, the politicians should try to sort out the situation themselves by letting the law take its course and punishing the criminals involved in terrorising the public.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Tax woes[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 21 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


The country’s tax woes are evidently myriad and multi-faceted. On Tuesday, the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee was informed that the Federal Board of Revenue was mired in superior court litigation against thousands of alleged tax evaders.

According to the FBR, some 6,000 cases are awaiting hearing and these collectively concern a staggering sum of Rs100bn that the board claims is owed to the national exchequer. An estimated Rs37bn is stuck in litigation in the Supreme Court alone. FBR officials told the PAC that there was little they could do other than await the verdicts on all these cases, adding that the chief justice had been requested to constitute a special bench for the speedy disposal of cases that could, upon being resolved, result in a significant sum being added to the exchequer.

That so many cases collectively concerning such a large sum of money are in limbo is indefensible. Given the stark implications of a sinking economy coupled with the country’s post-flood needs, the exchequer needs every penny it can get. The FBR’s claims about tax defaults can only be proved through courts of law, and recovery of the money depends on the decision of the courts. Leaving the cases hanging amounts to depriving the exchequer of funds that are owed to it at a time when money is needed most. Already, the government is estimated to be losing around Rs500bn a year in taxes, a fact that was ceded by the FBR chairman before the PAC on Tuesday.

The slow-moving justice system notwithstanding, it is imperative that efforts be made to resolve all these cases and recover the taxes that are due. Tax issues have been discussed in the country for decades. Of late, the matter has also become a point of concern for the international community to which Pakistan has appealed for help in the post-flood situation, with the Friends of Democratic Pakistan raising the issue in Brussels recently. The country cannot afford to dillydally any longer on the issues of tax reforms, collection etc. Meanwhile, the courts must swiftly turn their attention to all pending cases concerning tax disputes.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][I][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Farooq Leghari[/FONT][/B][/U][/I][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 21 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Farooq Leghari’s death on Wednesday brings to an end a public career that saw him rise from a civil servant to a politician who ultimately became president. Mr Leghari remained loyal to the PPP it even during the Zia regime when the party was persecuted unabashedly.

When Mr Bhutto was arrested Mr Leghari became head of the party, with Gen Zia putting him under house arrest several times. However, he did not succumb to the pressure. Elected senator in 1975 during the first PPP tenure, he later won National Assembly seats on the PPP ticket thrice — 1988, 1990 and 1993. He was the man behind the PPP’s ‘long march’ during the Nawaz regime and was beaten by the police. His elevation to the presidency in 1993 was the culmination of a cabinet career that began in 1975 when he became a minister in the first PPP government, later holding several portfolios, including those of finance and, briefly, foreign affairs.

Even though he was put in President House by the PPP he developed differences with Benazir Bhutto and dismissed her government under the now defunct Article 58-2(b). He tried to strike a working relationship with Nawaz Sharif but was alarmed by his plans to assume absolute power through the Eighth Amendment. Mr Leghari then sought Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah’s help in resisting Nawaz Sharif’s ambition, but Mr Sharif made them both go.

In his post-presidency period, Mr Leghari’s career was lacklustre, marked by stupefying changes in loyalties. Like Ghulam Ishaq Khan he could have retired from politics. Instead, he formed the Millat Party and merged it with the seven-party National Alliance to oppose Gen Musharraf, but later joined the PML-Q, with his son becoming a minister in the Musharraf government. The post-presidency period hardly added to his stature.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Supreme Court order[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Friday, 22 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

AFTER months of suspense (including that pertaining to Article 175A itself), the Supreme Court has handed down an interim order which appears to clear most of the clouds hanging over the 18th Amendment. While over two dozen petitioners and applicants had moved the court against various provisions of the 18th Amendment, the four-month long proceedings made clear the crux of the challenges, and the focal point of the court’s interest, lay in the new process to appoint superior judges set out in Article 175A. So perhaps it is not surprising the 18-page long order focuses almost exclusively on Article 175A. Cutting through the legalese, it appears the SC has dictated a constitutional judicial appointment process under Article 175A that will feel very much like the old process even if it is dressed up in the new clothing of the Judicial Commission and the Parliamentary Committee. Under the old process, the chief justices of the SC and the high courts were the central figures in the appointment process, wherein the nominations could not be rejected by the prime minister/president without giving reasons.

Now, post the SC order of yesterday, the appointment process will once again be controlled by the chief justices, something arguably at odds with the language of and intention behind Article 175A. The names of candidates for appointment to the superior judiciary will now be ‘initiated’ by the chief justices, while the chief justice of Pakistan is to ‘regulate’ the meetings and affairs of the Judicial Commission. At the next step, the Parliamentary Committee will have to meet in camera and, in the case of rejecting a nominee forwarded by the Judicial Commission, will have to register its reasons for doing so — reasons which will be justiciable by the SC. In effect, the old process has been fitted into the new language of and bodies created under Article 175A. At this point, it does not appear clear if parliament will even necessarily need to change the language of Article 175A — the new process (with the old configuration of power) is operational forthwith and unless parliament wants to challenge the SC on the matter (something which seems unlikely) the issue stands settled.

Because a detailed judgment has not been given, it is difficult to comment on the legal rationale of the changes. It appears the SC has discerned some kind ‘fundamental principles’ (perhaps even basic features) of the constitution that are inviolable, though rather than striking down an amendment on the touchstone of those principles it has found a middle ground of tossing the matter back in parliament’s lap. More will be known in January about this interesting shift in constitutional jurisprudence.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]
New task force[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Friday, 22 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

IT is not clear how the task force proposed by the government will be able to tackle the hydra-headed phenomenon that is corruption. Every change of government in Pakistan is succeeded by sombre pledges of a war on graft. This, in turn, is followed by the enactment of new laws and the establishment of new bureaus and commissions. Yet when the government exits it leaves behind a greater mess. Leaving aside the societal factors that are crucial to an understanding of the corruption phenomenon one cannot ignore the lack of sincerity on the part of those promising a cleaner society and government. All governments have used the shibboleth that is ‘accountability’ to persecute the regimes’ opponents. The most brazen use of the sacred word ‘accountability’ was made by the Ziaul Haq regime, which often couched its political aims and the legal means to achieve it in religious terms. However, it used the harsh martial law regulations to persecute its political enemies. The same phenomenon was seen during the Musharraf regime when politicians known for corruption, and with references pending with the accountability bureau, were accommodated in the military-led power set-up.

Announcing the proposal to set up the commission, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said it would comprise officials from the FIA and Intelligence Bureau and it would start working in 15 days. One doubts whether the commission would succeed in purging officialdom of corruption. Do we really need new laws or commissions? The laws are already on the statute books; such law- enforcement agencies as we have and the existing judicial system can cope with the problem if political considerations do not subvert due process. Special accountability courts and the summary military courts, in addition to the judicial pyramid, have failed to make the creaking and ponderous officialdom honest. Some of the most corrupt ones are in the bureaucratic and political establishments, and it is unlikely that a new commission will be able to get them. Accountability should be a continuous process. It doesn’t need new laws and commissions, provided those undertaking the task of accountability are themselves honest and impartial.
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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]A strange world[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Friday, 22 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Perphaps only in this befuddled and paranoid age would a Christian man avoid visiting a Sikh temple for fear of being labelled Muslim.

This is exactly the case with US President Barack Obama who has, according to reports, cancelled his planned trip to Amritsar’s Golden Temple. The trip was supposed to take place during Mr Obama’s upcoming visit to India, but aides got jittery when they realised that the US president would have to cover his head while visiting the temple. The Obama camp felt that pictures of the president with his head covered could fuel rumours that Mr Obama was Muslim. The rumours have been dogging the American president since as far back as 2004, when he was campaigning for the US Senate. Though Mr Obama has emphasised his Christian faith the rumours refuse to die down, kept alive as they are by conspiracy theorists and American right-wingers. According to recent polls, some 20 per cent of Americans think that their president, whose middle name is Hussein, is Muslim.

Barack Obama grew up in a non-religious environment, although both his Kenyan father and Indonesian stepfather were Muslims by birth. The president is a practising Christian, yet fringe commentators would have us believe he was educated in an Indonesian madressah and concealed his Islamic faith for decades just to infiltrate the White House.
Progressive American commentators have asked what difference it would make if Mr Obama had indeed been Muslim, considering that in America there is a separation of church and state. But the reality is a little more complex.

The attempts to paint Barack Obama as Muslim and his assiduous denials perhaps reflect the deep mistrust and fear that characterise relations between Islam and the West today.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Karachi operation[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]


[COLOR="Sienna"][B][SIZE="2"][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 23 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/SIZE][/B][/COLOR]

Now that the dust appears to have settled on the latest grisly bout of violence to hit Karachi, the coalition that rules Sindh is talking about ways to prevent the recurrence of such bloodshed.

A crackdown against elements responsible for the violence is on the cards and a decision to this effect was taken at a late-night meeting on Thursday at Governor House, attended by senior leaders of the PPP and MQM. The ANP — the third component of the triumvirate that rules Sindh — also seems to be on board, with the caveat that the crackdown should be non-discriminatory. The paramilitary Rangers will be given more powers while the interior minister has said “small-scale operations” will be carried out.

Though it has been reported that the crackdown will focus on “criminals, terrorists” as well as members of the “drug, land and extortionist mafias”, the coalition partners need to have perfect clarity about the nature of the operation. They must decide who exactly it will be against since targeted killings are a political crime and cannot be lumped together with ordinary crime, which also needs to be dealt with. All political parties need to be on board and need to stay on board in the long run; when action is taken against suspects with political affiliations the parties should not jump in to bail them out. Due process must be allowed to take its course and if those with political links are found guilty they should be punished without fear or favour. The politicians should not threaten to break up the coalition if the law-enforcement apparatus ends up netting their supporters.

As for involving the Rangers, we have said before that this is not a long-term solution to Karachi’s law and order problem. We believe a depoliticised police force armed with good intelligence-gathering capabilities and using scientific investigation methods can provide much more effective law enforcement and yield better results than depending on the army or the Rangers. Also, politicians and government officials should be more careful when using words like ‘operation’ and ‘curfew’. These should not be used loosely as they end up adding to the fears of an already edgy population. We must remember that the people of Karachi have lived through the violent ‘operations’ of the ’90s and have no desire to endure a repeat performance. Meanwhile, irresponsible statements can stoke tensions in the metropolis. Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour should have known better than to have said that members of an ethnic community in Karachi were being forced to take up arms. The idea is to calm down passions not inflame them.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Ensuring transparency[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 23 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

In emphasising the need to channel flood rehabilitation efforts through government machinery and infrastructure, Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has raised an important point.

As Pakistan seeks an additional $3bn to cope with post-flood reconstruction needs and schemes, growing concern is apparent amongst aid-giving governments and organisations about the transparency with which the funds will be utilised, if channelled through government machinery. The fear is that the inflow of capital may provide opportunities for mismanagement, corruption and nepotism, particularly given the government’s poor track record and weak monitoring capacity. This has led some international agencies to suggest that the rehabilitation projects be outsourced and they be allowed to become directly involved in on-the-ground implementation, including the process of awarding contracts.

However, at a news conference in Islamabad on Thursday, Ms Khar took a strong line against this, saying that there must be a unified development agenda spearheaded by the government and that “we cannot outsource the government functions simply because of a weaker monitoring and evaluation system”.

It is true that mismanagement and corruption are endemic issues and irrespective of the government in charge, the country’s track record has been poor. However, the answer does not lie in bypassing the administration or government. It lies in ensuring transparency to the satisfaction of the donors, improving efficiency and taking a strong line against any mismanagement. Referring to this, the minister of state said that Pakistan was ready to improve its system of monitoring and evaluation “to the satisfaction of all”. This is the crux of the matter. Can Pakistan come up with the political will and administrative means to ensure that the funds provided are not mismanaged? If it can, the government will earn the respect of the international community as well as the support of the local population. Moreover, the injection of funds may be just the pivot required to reverse the popular perception of the state machinery as being ponderous and inefficient. If, however, the government is unable to meet this challenge, it will compromise its credibility even further to the ultimate detriment of the state and society.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Heritage preservation[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 23 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

There can be nothing more valuable for a modern city like Islamabad than the remains of a 2,500-3,000-year-old piece of heritage in the form of caves situated at the base of the Margalla Hills.

And there can be nothing more important for Islamabad’s posterity than the restitution and preservation of these caves. But is a civic agency like the Capital Development Authority best qualified to do the job? Local studies in the area have confirmed the historical significance of the remains in the village of Shah Allah Ditta. Archaeological evidence indicates that the caves and the platform-like formations surrounding the area were first used for meditation by Buddhist monks and later by Hindu sadhus before Muslim ascetics took over during the Mughal period. This is the second heritage site in Islamabad which has been targeted for preservation; the first was the historical Saidpur Village, also situated at the foothills of the Margallas.

That the restitution of Saidpur Village was done by a civic agency like CDA rather than the Department of Archeology and Museums had invoked allegations of over commercialisation. Similar concerns, despite CDA’s reassurances, have been raised about the preservation work in the cave area. Particularly worrying is the apparent likelihood of one of the platform-like formations being converted into a restaurant. Moreover, CDA says it plans to develop a ‘Sadhu ka Bagh’ adjacent to the caves, although the development of historical/archaeological gardens, like the treatment and restoration of antiquities, is supposed to be a function of the archaeology department. Similar controversy surrounding the role of different agencies has marred the preservation of other heritage sites in the country. A review of the Antiquities Act 1975 is needed to resolve the question of which organisation is responsible for preserving heritage sites and to ensure that the job is done professionally.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]The Iraq files[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 24 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE]


In what is the largest leak of classified material in US history, WikiLeaks has made public over 400,000 documents concerning the war in Iraq.


Four times more than the material contained in WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan files, which shocked the world in July, the documents indicate that the US military was aware of, yet did nothing about, the torture carried out by Iraqi and other security agencies. It seems that hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed at manned American checkpoints between Jan 1, 2004 and Dec 31, 2009, the period the leaked papers correspond to. Not only does the civilian death toll far exceed previous estimates, it now appears that contrary to its repeated denials, the US maintained a casualty count. The information contained in the documents is nothing less than sickening, with reports of severe torture, rape and summary detentions and executions.

It will take months or even years for the full effect of these documents on policy and public opinion to emerge. However, some questions should be posed now. First, while the Pentagon has condemned the leaks for potentially putting the lives of soldiers in danger, no denial of the apparent facts has been forthcoming. The Pentagon has neither contested the veracity of the leaked documents, nor the information contained therein. The world must ask, why was there such tolerance of what appears to be the wanton killing of civilians? Regarding US awareness of the manner in which detainees were being abused, many of the leaked reports are marked ‘No further investigation’. Why not? Why were these atrocities not considered worthy of attention, and what did the US do to end them? The US must now consider its position carefully. Torture is a crime against humanity that has universal jurisdiction. The issue of complicity in torture or ignoring it is covered by a range of internationally applicable conventions regarding war and conflict situations, as well as by US and Iraqi laws. The moral degradation of American policies in the post 9/11 era was already abundantly clear, but these latest revelations provide evidence of America’s legal culpability and complicity in crimes against humanity.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Terrorism ‘suspects’[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 24 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


If the circumstances surrounding it weren’t so grim, the bizarre situation would be almost comical.


A man from the Punjab town of Daska, thought to be one of the suicide bombers who had blown themselves up at Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s shrine in Karachi earlier this month, returned home on Friday. Ishtiaq Zaffar, who had been missing for two months, claimed he had been living in Sialkot and had never visited Karachi. Involved in substance abuse, he was unaware of the fact that TV channels had flashed his picture and cited intelligence reports claiming he was one of the bombers. It is unclear how the security agencies arrived at that conclusion, yet officials misbehaved with Mr Zaffar’s mother and reportedly forced her to admit that the head of the suspected bomber belonged to her son. Interestingly, a day after the blast the interior minister had proclaimed in the National Assembly that one of the bombers was a Mehsud tribesman. The ‘bomber’ turned out to be a teenaged boy who had run away from his Karachi home. He soon returned after watching reports that his family had been arrested. The minister’s premature statement had caught investigators off guard and caused a fair bit of embarrassment.

These gaffes reflect two things. First, that officials make half-baked, hasty claims to assuage public anger over security failures; second, that the criminal investigation process in Pakistan is an incredibly flawed one. Government and law-enforcement officials need to seriously rethink their habit of immediately jumping to conclusions and publicly revealing the names of suspects every time there is a terrorist attack. The public has every right to know but shoddy claims not only hamper the investigation, they put potentially innocent people’s reputations — and lives — at risk. The media must also ensure that the facts are beyond doubt before naming names in such sensitive matters.

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[COLOR="Sienna"][SIZE="6"][U][CENTER][B][FONT="Georgia"]Troubled ties[/FONT][/B][/CENTER][/U][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 24 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


The third round of the US-Pakistan ‘strategic dialogue’ completed in seven months has as usual sent mixed signals on the security front, the focal point of the relationship.


Most of the positives tend to be on the rhetorical or the minimalist side of things. A much-trumpeted $2bn five-year military aid package is actually an extension of the Foreign Military Financing programme overseen by the US State Department and amounts to a 30 per cent increase over a similar five-year package which expired recently. Everyone present at the concluding press conference must have struggled to keep a straight face as Secretary Hillary Clinton praised Pakistan, saying: “The United States has no stronger partner when it comes to counter-terrorism efforts against the extremists who threaten us both, than Pakistan.”

The negative column was, as usual, filled with more meaningful details. The Washington Post reported that President Barack Obama repeated the warning that the US would be “forced to respond” against Pakistan if a terrorist attack on US soil was traced back to this country. The New York Times meanwhile reported that US military assistance to unspecified units of Pakistani security forces is to be cut off in the wake of videos showing alleged summary executions carried out by members of the Pakistani security forces. Make no mistake about it, the relationship is a troubled one, strategic dialogue or no strategic dialogue. The working groups tasked with looking at areas beyond narrow, though central, strategic concerns — there are working groups on women’s empowerment, water, health, education and energy — often produce results which speak for themselves. The last round in Islamabad ended with the announcement of, among others, a plan to upgrade three hospitals and a project to test and implement ‘new logistics software’ at the Karachi port. This time nine of the working groups met in Washington, and simi- lar steps are likely to be announced in the days to come.

The basic problem for any dialogue between the US and Pakistan is that the two countries remain as strategically far apart as they perhaps ever have been. A relationship of necessity based on fear of the other can never be the starting point for a true and meaningful partnership. Consider that bey- ond non-proliferation and counter-terrorism — both ‘negative’ reasons to cooperate — there is little that can be seen as long-term areas of cooperation in the strategic dialogue. Nevertheless, dialogue is always good. At least now the US and Pakistan have a regular forum to meet and discuss issues at a high level — if nothing else, they may begin to understand each other’s security concerns better.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]A chance to govern[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 25 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

A showdown between parliament and the judiciary over the 18th Amendment has been averted; the judiciary-executive clash has been paused for a few days; the Pakistan Army under Gen Kayani has arrogated to itself the national security and foreign policy domains, but appears willing to give the political government genuine space in other governance matters; and the political opposition led by Nawaz Sharif appears content to fire sharp verbal salvos at the government, but do little in meaningful terms to disrupt the government in Islamabad. Whether by design or by accident, the PPP-led government seems more likely to continue in power for the time being than not. So perhaps now is the time to chart a mid-term change in course for the government, emerging from a defensive, politics-oriented mindset and moving towards a more proactive, policymaking mindset.

There is clearly no shortage of opportunities. The power sector was an early area of focus — though only to the extent of rhetoric and band-aid treatment — but it remains in serious trouble, with the problem of circular debt literally growing by the day. Elsewhere, Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh pledged in his budget speech to try and plug the Rs250bn hole that public-sector enterprises make in the federal budget each year, but little has been heard on this front. Pakistan Railways, for example, continues to lurch towards financial collapse, with ‘emergency’ packages and measures doing little to address the underlying problems. Pakistan International Airlines, meanwhile, continues to be one of the most inefficient airlines in the world, with a wildly disproportionate employee-to-aeroplane ratio. As winter approaches, the country is once again reminded of an acute gas shortage that is set to grow exponentially worse in the years ahead, and yet external or fresh internal supplies are not being pursued with the vigour that the crisis demands. All of these present real opportunities for the government, areas in which genuine progress can be made if policymaking is taken seriously.

In the midst of a political crisis, with passions running high and uncertainty everywhere, rational decision-making is often the first casualty. But in this period of relative quiet, the cooler heads in the government could chalk up a plan to complement the political rhetoric with genuine governance results. Playing the victim or politics card is easy enough; addressing or pre-empting problems requires real effort.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Ministries’ merger[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 25 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The proposed creation of a new ministry of energy by integrating the similar, overlapping functions of the Ministry of Water & Power and the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources is expected to help the government frame and implement a coherent and long-term policy to overcome its growing energy problems.

Moreover, the merger should also take care of many of the issues relating to the rundown energy sector that often arise because of the two ministries’ lack of coordination and their differing, sometimes conflicting, priorities. The suggestion is part of an Integrated Energy Sector Recovery Report and Plan developed by the Friends of Democratic Pakistan with assistance from the Asian Development Bank. Under an agreement with the FoDP, according to a report in this paper, Pakistan will set up the energy ministry by merging the power-related functions of the two ministries. The task will be completed by January 2012. There will be a separate ministry to look after the water sector. The creation of the new ministry will eventually be followed by the merger of the two regulators of power and oil and gas into a single, autonomous energy regulator. Hopefully, the new regulator, unlike the existing regulators, will be given sufficient powers to protect the rights of all stakeholders.

The country is facing acute energy troubles because of the absence of a coherent and long-term vision and policy. Energy shortages are already dragging down economic growth and resulting in industrial closures and unemployment. The government will be forced to spend twice its current export earnings on imported energy five years from now. It is feared that the problems will grow more complex in the near future if concerted efforts are not made to attract private investment in this sector. But private investment will not come unless the government overhauls its energy sector from top to bottom and develops and implements an integrated energy policy, puts in place fair and effective regulations, removes unproductive subsidies and assures the investors of policy continuity and reasonable returns. The merger of the overlapping functions of the two ministries will be the first step in a long journey.

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[COLOR="Black"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Anti-dengue strategy[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Monday, 25 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Over three weeks ago when our editorial on the dengue risk appeared, no exact count on dengue cases was available. Today, the number of confirmed cases is nearly 2,000 in the country, with the majority in Sindh.

Although it is unclear how many of these relate to the more severe dengue haemorrhagic fever, the fact that a local study found the incidence of DHF here to be higher than the world average is alarming. Moreover, dengue patients cured of the infection transmitted by one strain of the virus are at high risk of developing DHF if they are infected with any of the three other strains. Since there is no vaccine to fight dengue or DHF, the rising number of cases in recent years requires that we adopt a strategy to control the vector — the Aedes aegypti mosquito — that extends beyond reliance on insecticide fogging or fumigation.

Apart from the need to strengthen surveillance for dengue infection, our authorities should, as per the recommendations of international health organisations, adopt a community-based approach involving local leaders and inhabitants in cities and towns to control the transmission of dengue and DHF. Since densely populated areas offer more opportunities for mosquitoes, control programmes to limit water sources that sustain them, e.g., covering of water containers, storage tanks, etc., should target crowded areas.

The anti-dengue strategy must also include a countrywide epidemiological survey for the four dengue strains as well as clinical studies for a better understanding of the range of infections, endemic patterns and genetic susceptibility. No anti-dengue strategy would be complete without a plan for increasing the number of blood banks and blood cell separators in our hospitals. The latter machines are particularly important for DHF patients. Only through such integrated vector management and partnership among stakeholders can we hope to successfully battle the infection.

Editorial: DAWN
 

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Hope for pipeline[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 26 Oct, 2010
[/FONT][/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

While it would be premature to talk of a breakthrough in the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project, one can, nevertheless, detect a subtle, positive change in the American attitude.

Along with terrorism, a sinking economy is Pakistan’s biggest problem, and it goes without saying that without addressing the acute energy crisis it would be futile to hope for an economic turnaround. Against this background one should welcome the report by an international task force because it seems to realise the vital role gas from Iran could play in stabilising Pakistan’s energy situation. Prepared by the Asian Development Bank and Pakistan’s Ministry of Water & Power, with representatives of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan very much in the picture, the energy-sector task force recommended “fast-track cross-border pipelines” to meet Pakistan’s grave energy crisis. The plural — pipelines — covers the Turkmenistan-Pakistan pipeline via Afghanistan also. But given the war in Afghanistan and the insurgency in Fata, the task force obviously had the Iran pipeline in mind when it said that gas import via the cross-border pipeline must be available in 2014-15.

The Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline has fallen victim to geopolitics, especially to America’s insistence that commercial transactions with Tehran amount to a violation of the several layers of sanctions the UN, US and the EU have slammed on Iran. India’s withdrawal under American pressure complicated the matter and seemed to jeopardise the entire project. However, it goes to the credit of the regimes in Islamabad and Tehran that they have managed to keep the project alive. The key issue is funding, and there are at least two reasons why one can hope money will be coming in. One, the task force consisting of countries which hold the purse strings would not have made a recommendation for “fast-track pipelines” unless they were aware of their obligations. Two, the presence of Mr Richard Holbrooke on many of the task force’s meetings indicates that the recommendations of the sort made by the task force would not have been possible without America’s nod.

The pipeline project is a decision by two sovereign and neighbouring countries to enter into a mutually beneficial enterprise. Iran with its vast gas reserves is in a position to export it. Pakistan’s potential gas reserves have still not been exploited, thus increasing the gap between demand and supply. If the situation is not tackled on a priority basis, then, according to the task force, the gap could increase further, thus making economic recovery virtually impossible. Already, the gap for 2010-2011 stands at 1.3 billion cubic feet per day.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Baba Farid blast[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]
Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 26 Oct, 2010
[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The extremist onslaught on Sufi shrines in Pakistan continues. The latest shrine to be targeted is that of Fariduddin Masud Ganjshakar, the revered 13th century mystic referred to by devotees as Baba Farid, whose mausoleum is located in the Punjab town of Pakpattan.

The blast outside the shrine early on Monday morning — around the time for Fajr prayers — claimed at least four lives while several people were critically injured. Initial reports suggest a remote control device attached to a motorcycle parked near one of the mausoleum’s gates was used in the attack. It is too early to pin responsibility on any one group. But such attacks are not unexpected given that several militant organisations harbour an extreme dislike for Sufi symbols and any interpretation of Islam other than their own orthodox one.

In fact, Sufi shrines all over Pakistan have been attacked over the past five years. They have been targeted by a mix of sectarian and jihadi militants, whose interests have increasingly begun to dovetail. In 2005 a suicide bomber struck the Pir Rakhel Shah shrine in Balochistan’s Jhal Magsi area killing over 30 people, while the same year a suicide blast targeted the Bari Imam shrine in Islamabad. In 2009 militants attacked the mausoleum of Pushto mystic poet Rehman Baba while 2010 saw the devastating attack on Lahore’s Data Darbar in July as well as the one targeting the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi earlier this month.

But the militants’ wrath has not been limited to Sufi shrines as mosques, imambargahs, churches and Ahmadi places of worship have all come in the line of fire, along with government buildings and those belonging to the security forces. Media reports quoted one of the caretakers of Baba Farid’s shrine as saying that security cameras installed at the mausoleum were not in working condition, while lax security protocols at the shrine have been highlighted by observers in the past. The law-enforcement agencies need to overhaul security procedures at shrines and other places of religious importance to protect the lives of citizens. Acting upon credible intelligence in a timely manner is crucial key to preventing such attacks.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Absurd logic[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 26 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Politicians across the world are known for coming up with bizarre ideas, and members of the Pakistani political class have proved — time and again — that they are second to none in this regard.

Azad Jammu & Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan’s contention that ‘illiterate’ individuals were ideal recruits for the police and army certainly falls within this category. The premier, speaking at an event in Muzaffarabad on Sunday, called for a 10 per cent quota in the above-mentioned services for uneducated people. That in itself is not objectionable, but Sardar Attique’s logic behind it certainly is. He justified his bizarre proposal by linking the success of the erstwhile British Empire to the existence of such a quota in the army and police. Uneducated recruits, the AJK prime minister argued, were perfect for the job because they quietly followed orders without asking questions. He also observed that in South Asian history uneducated individuals had fared better than those who could read and write.

Discipline is undoubtedly key to the successful functioning of any army or police force. But to suggest that soldiers and policemen should be mindless automatons — which Mr Khan essentially did — is absurd. We are not suggesting that society and the state should discriminate against those who have not had access to education. Rather, we take issue with the idea that the underprivileged should be exploited as cannon fodder. If Sardar Attique had said that the uneducated should be accommodated in the armed forces and police to help improve their lot, it would have been perfectly acceptable. But his outrageous comments suggested otherwise. It is unacceptable that while some committed individuals and institutions in both the public and private sectors are working hard to eradicate the bane of illiteracy from Pakistan, some elected officials are promoting retrogressive ideas.


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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]State Bank report[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 27 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

The State Bank of Pakistan’s annual report for the last fiscal year (2009–2010) makes a fair assessment of the state of the country’s economy in the wake of the recent flood disaster.

It reprimands the government for failing to push key economic reforms and address the structural weaknesses and rigidities at the expense of growth. Most macroeconomic targets for the current financial year have already been missed because of extensive flood-related damage to infrastructure and agriculture. The report projects annual inflation this year to average between 13.5 and 14.5 per cent against a target of 9.5 per cent. The fiscal and current account deficits will be around five to six per cent and three to four per cent of GDP, considerably higher than the original targets. The flood losses, according to the bank, indicate that the “repercussions will continue to stress the economy for many years”.

The economic impact of the floods has once again brought into focus the government’s unwillingness to initiate action to remove fundamental structural weaknesses in the economy. The government continues to delay the imposition of reformed GST to raise tax revenues and to reorganise public-sector enterprises to plug the fiscal haemorrhage. Its cash-flow problems notwithstanding, the government is not prepared to mend its ways and plug slippages on the expenditure side. Spending on subsidies is increasing while there has been little progress on resolving the circular debt in the energy sector and improving electricity supply. As the report indicates, there are significant rigidities in government spending, including debt servicing, defence and the salary bill. “But there appears little evidence of efforts to contain the growth in even the discretionary components.” The economy will continue to suffer unless these structural bottlenecks to growth are removed.

Yet the bank forecasts that the economy will expand by two to three per cent in the current financial year, down from the original budgetary target of 4.5 per cent, despite the post-flood challenge. While there is little reason to dispute the assessment, there are caveats. The industry, which grew by approximately five per cent last year on the back of greater manufacturing and construction activity, is threatened by growing energy shortages. The gas shortage, for example, is resulting in substantial production losses and threatening industrial closures in Punjab. The soaring cost of credit is thwarting fresh investments in the manufacturing sector. The services and the industrial sectors are feeling the impact of the flood devastation on agriculture. In these circumstances, where will economic growth come from? If the future defies the sceptics, it will be a real blessing.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Unlikely partners?[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 27 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]


Presidential aide Babar Awan’s meeting with PML-Q leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Monday has drawn expressions of vindication and condemnation.

The ‘vindicated’ include those PPP deserters who had seen wisdom in joining hands with Mr Elahi and Gen Musharraf in 2002, long before the PPP resigned itself to sharing power with the latter. Then there is a group which is keen on reminding the PPP leaders how they lost an opportunity to snatch Punjab from the PML-N’s grasp by not agreeing to an alliance with the PML-Q after the 2008 polls. Among the critics of the Awan–Elahi meeting are those who oppose the idea of a PPP-PML-Q union on ideological grounds. Pakistani politics has seen enough of odd alliances to be chasing after such adolescent dreams. We need not go beyond the current power dispensation to reinforce the point: the PPP is simultaneously an ally of and at odds with the MQM and the PML-N. One theory holds that the entry of another member into the fold cannot make matters worse for the PPP, and can, in fact, help the party effectively handle the pressure being applied by the MQM. The move may also be an attempt to mount a challenge to the PML-N in Punjab and to influence the ongoing efforts to unite the various PML factions.

The strong reaction Monday’s contact has generated is based on the assumption that the PPP and PML-Q are close to forging a partnership. Nothing can be ruled out in politics, but it is difficult to see how Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi can shepherd the PML-Q as a whole into mingling with the PPP. A day after the meeting, Faisal Saleh Hayat, a former PPP member who is now a top PML-Q politician, spoke passionately against a partnership with the ‘corrupt’ and troubled PPP government. This could well be a danger sign for the PML-Q leaders, who have already lost a large number of their members to the PML-N. The bogey of a possible PPP–PML-Q pairing will surely be used to inspire a coming together of the various PML factions or Leaguers.

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[COLOR="DarkOrange"][SIZE="6"][CENTER][U][B][FONT="Georgia"]Questionable ‘justice’[/FONT][/B][/U][/CENTER][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[COLOR="YellowGreen"][SIZE="2"][B][FONT="Georgia"]Dawn Editorial
Wednesday, 27 Oct, 2010[/FONT][/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]

Due to a legal system that is viewed by many as too slow and too complicated, jirgas, though illegal, seem like an ideal remedy. Perhaps that is why, despite being declared unconstitutional by the Sindh High Court in 2004, jirgas continue to exist in the province.

This newspaper reported that police have registered an FIR against Rahim Bux Bozdar, a serving MP in the Sindh Assembly, former district nazim and tribal chief Ali Gohar Mahar and 38 others for holding a jirga. The jirga was convened in Khangarh town after a dispute arose in which the family of a slain man accused members of the police force of killing him in a staged encounter. One of the accused policemen was handed down a fine by the jirga. In another report, a woman, Parveen Mahar, who married of her own choice, claimed that a tribal jirga had ruled that she and her husband should be buried alive.

Though alternative dispute resolution methods are employed and given legal cover the world over, the experience with jirgas in Pakistan has been a largely negative one. They are often used to enforce mediaeval, patriarchal mores, and many of the decisions they hand down are abominable and severely violate the human and constitutional rights of those on the receiving end. Jirgas also allow individuals to usurp the authority of the state.

The fact that an MPA was allegedly involved in one of the jirgas mentioned above makes it even more condemnable; if anything as an elected official he should have used his influence to ensure the dispute was settled through legal means. While there must be a greater effort by the state against jirgas, realistically speaking we cannot expect them to disappear until the courts and the entire legal system start to deliver.

State Bank report
 

[B][COLOR="SlateGray"][SIZE="5"]
State Bank report[/SIZE][/COLOR][/B]

The State Bank of Pakistan’s annual report for the last fiscal year (2009–2010) makes a fair assessment of the state of the country’s economy in the wake of the recent flood disaster.

It reprimands the government for failing to push key economic reforms and address the structural weaknesses and rigidities at the expense of growth. Most macroeconomic targets for the current financial year have already been missed because of extensive flood-related damage to infrastructure and agriculture. The report projects annual [B][COLOR="darkRed"]inflation this year to average between 13.5 and 14.5 per cent against a target of 9.5 per cent[/COLOR][/B]. The fiscal and current account [COLOR="darkred"][B]deficits will be around five to six per cent and three to four per cent of GDP[/B][/COLOR], considerably higher than the original targets. The flood losses, according to the bank, indicate that the “repercussions will continue to stress the economy for many years”.

The economic impact of the floods has once again brought into focus the government’s unwillingness to initiate action to remove fundamental structural weaknesses in the economy. The government continues to [COLOR="darkred"][B]delay the imposition of reformed GST[/B][/COLOR] to raise tax revenues and to reorganise public-sector enterprises to plug the fiscal haemorrhage. Its cash-flow problems notwithstanding, the government is not prepared to mend its ways and plug slippages on the expenditure side. Spending on subsidies is increasing while there has been little progress on resolving the circular debt in the energy sector and improving electricity supply. As the report indicates, there are significant rigidities in government spending, including debt servicing, defence and the salary bill. “But there appears little evidence of efforts to contain the growth in even the discretionary components.” The economy will continue to suffer unless these structural bottlenecks to growth are removed.

Yet the bank forecasts that the [COLOR="darkred"][B]economy will expand by two to three per cent in the current financial year[/B][/COLOR], down from the [COLOR="darkred"][B]original budgetary target of 4.5 per cent[/B][/COLOR], despite the post-flood challenge. While there is little reason to dispute the assessment, there are caveats. [COLOR="darkred"][B]The industry, which grew by approximately five per cent last year on the back of greater manufacturing and construction activity,[/B][/COLOR] is threatened by growing energy shortages. The gas shortage, for example, is resulting in substantial production losses and threatening industrial closures in Punjab. The soaring cost of credit is thwarting fresh investments in the manufacturing sector. The services and the industrial sectors are feeling the impact of the flood devastation on agriculture. In these circumstances, where will economic growth come from? If the future defies the sceptics, it will be a real blessing