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  #1291  
Old Sunday, December 21, 2014
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A slippery slope


WHILE the intense grief and anger at the Peshawar massacre is understandable, it is disturbing to note the demands for public executions and for the killings of the students to be immediately avenged by the deaths of militants, wherever and whenever. Disturbing too is the role that sections of the media have been playing, acting as cheerleaders for executions, demanding more and lobbying for executions to be broadcast or even carried out in public arenas. What can really be said about those sections of society that appear to want to descend to the level of the Taliban in order to fight them? It is a sad indictment of Pakistan that many citizens now want the equivalent of a `khooni chowk`, a bloody square that Mullah Fazlullah and his men made notorious in Swat at the height of their insurgency.

Surely, the violence of the battlefield should not be replicated by the state under public demand in the form of public executions, whether televised or in front of a cheering crowd. That would not just be the start of a slippery slope, it could spell the end of hope for a civilised, rules-based society where rights are paramount and laws carefully and honourably implemented. Is through the spirit of revenge being so brutally projected in the media and in conversations across the country simply because of fear or is it the sign of some deeper malaise that afflicts Pakistan? At the very least, it appears that neither state nor society, neither the country's leadership nor the average citizen, appears willing to reflect on what has gone wrong and how to find a way back to a stable and secure Pakistan.

Consider that appalling as the massacre was, it did not come out of nowhere nor do the perpetrators reflect a mindset that is not on display in other dark corners of this country. Furthermore, while the problems of extremism and militancy are not one and the same, consider how much of an enabling environment has been created over the years by militant apologists, preachers of hate and even the toxic ideas that pass as mainstream views via textbooks across the country. Can militancy really be eradicated root and branch if the infrastructure of jihad the mosque, madressah and welfare network created and sustained by groups espousing violence against Pakistan`s purported enemies is not also rolled up? The military and political leadership has talked about ending the distinction between good and bad militants, but has it even an idea about how to progressively eliminate the environment that makes any kind of militant possible? The media too must surely shoulder some of the blame. Focusing on the here and now, avenging the sense of grief and loss after Peshawar, instead of asking the tough questions and holding rulers to account will do little more than ease the path to the next terrible atrocity.

Crackdown in Turkey

BY taking arbitrary measures and showing authoritarian tendencies, Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to be vindicating his critics at home and abroad. So far, 24 journalists, including the chief of a television network and the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, have been arrested on terrorism-related charges. Even though the court set free eight of them, including the editor, those still in custody include the television boss and others accused of trying to overthrow his regime in league with Fethullah Gulen, once Mr Erdogan`s friend and now his critic. Mr Gulen lives in self-exile in the US, but Mr Erdogan accuses him of planning his regime`s overthrow by setting up a `parallel state` through a network of cells in Turkey.

It is obvious that the arrest warrant for Mr Gulen is largely symbolic and unlikely to evoke a response from the US, which, in any case, is unhappy with the Erdogan government`s policy on the so-called Islamic State. The European Union, which is unhappy with Mr Erdogan`s Syria policy, denounced the arrests as being incompatible with `European values`.

It is astonishing that a man of Mr Erdogan`s stature should exhibit such paranoia. He created a new party after easing out the late Necmettin Erbekan, won three general elections in a row, was prime minister thrice and is now, after amending the constitution, the president. He has some extraordinary achievements to his credit, including the spectacular growth of the economy and the marginalisation of the military`s role in politics. Yet Mr Gulen seems to have got on his nerves, with Turkish politics revolving round the Erdogan-Gulen rivalry. Hizmet, Mr Gulen`s powerful movement, has branches in over 150 countries and controls a chain of newspapers and television networks, which regularly target Mr Erdogan`s policies. Matters came to a head early this year when Mr Erdogan thought the Hizmet-linked media was using a corruption scandal to overthrow his government and accused Hizmet followers of hatching `a dirty plot` by creating `a state within a state`. Then he upped the ante by booking Hizmet supporters on terrorism-related charges.

He has now defended his action, wondering whether the EU was `competent to make comments` on the raids and said he did not care whether or not Europe accepted Turkey as a member. The issue here is not Turkey`s EU membership but media freedom and Turkish democracy. Mr Erdogan is clearly overreacting to criticism and must show restraint.

Bashing K-Electric

THERE is much to hold K-Electric accountable for. But the gratuitous bashing of the power utility and its private-sector management by the power bureaucracy and its line ministry needs to end. The latest example of trenchant criticism of K-Electric comes from none other than the Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif, who in his testimony before a standing committee, reportedly said that the current privatisation of the entity was `against the public interest`, and that the shareholders had a reputation of doubling their money within a few years and moving out. These are highly unfair remarks. If the privatisation was `against the public interest`, would the minister care to clarify how his own government`s scheduled privatisation of power distribution companies will be different? And given that the current shareholders have held management control for more than six years now, how can he argue that their intention is to double their money in a few years and then move out? Does his government intend to prohibit successful bidders from ever selling their shareholding when they privatise the distribution companies next year? When K-Electric was in government hands, it was vilified for being inefficient and overstaffed and for devouring state subsidies.

Using these arguments, the utility was the first to be placed on the chopping block when privatisation of the power sector began in the early 2000s, and now a new set of complaints is being bandied about.

Yes, the federal government is owed money by K-Electric, but aren't there payments owed to the utility by the government as well? Yes, K-Electric buys electricity from the national grid, but why shouldn't it? Yes, there are inefficiencies and losses, but K-Electric`s record of reducing these is so far better than that of its counterparts in Punjab.

Khawaja Asif should realise that he is responsible for the power sector of the entire country, and not just one province. He should understand that Karachi, as part of the country, does not deserve such one-sided censure.
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  #1292  
Old Monday, December 22, 2014
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Oil price windfall
OIL prices have defied all projections as the downward spiral continues. According to the IMF`s World Economic Outlook, last year the average price of oil in international markets was $104 per barrel, and as of April this year it was forecasting the price would remain at that level throughout 2014 as well, with a small decline to $97 in 2015. Instead, the price has plummeted steadily since June when it stood at $115, accelerating from September onwards. When Opec failed to agree on production curbs in its last meeting in Vienna on Nov 27, the price fell steeply to as low as $51 on contracts for February`s delivery. The declines stem from a glut in the markets, coupled with contracting demand as global growth remains sluggish. More importantly though, increasingly the collapse is being recognised as engineered by Saudi Arabia, the country at the heart of Opec`s refusal to curb production, to hurt Iran and constrain its growing influence in the Middle East.

Pakistan had erred on the side of caution in its last budget and its estimates for oil prices at $109 for the fiscal year 2015 were higher than IMF forecasts. According to that figure, the oil import bill was estimated to come in at $15.5bn for the current fiscal year. The real windfall from this price decrease has yet to arrive since much of the oil landing in Pakistan thus far this fiscal year was contracted before the downward spiral got under way in earnest. Thus far, the reported oil import bill is slightly higher than in the corresponding period last year. But that is now set to change, as oil being contracted today for delivery in the first few months of 2015 is being purchased at prices almost half of what was expected.

There is a danger that this windfall can lead to complacency and poor utilisation of the resultant savings. If it is true that the declines are due to geopolitical reasons, then it stands to reason that they can reverse very quickly. The IMF, as well as other international agencies, is warning of a price spike due to geopolitical developments in the Middle East. The government must not allow the lower prices to breed a sense of comfort on the reform measures undertaken to wean our economy off its dependence on imported oil. It must also resist the temptation to utilise foreign exchange savings to artificially prop up the value of the rupee. The windfall should be seen as a window of opportunity to take the necessary steps to move towards cheaper fuels, as well as renewable sources of energy instead. A brief spell of respite on the external front is a good opportunity to bring down the external debt service bill, as well as help ensure price stability. That would be money well spent.

Security threat

THE lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty in response to the Peshawar carnage has triggered a serious threat: terrorist attacks to avenge the executions by the state. Already, intelligence agencies are issuing all manner of warnings to possible targets, especially state institutions and security installations across the country, and many educational institutes, including in the federal capital, have closed their campuses indefinitely ahead of the scheduled winter break. Pakistan is bracing for a backlash.

This is the moment in which the performance and capabilities of the intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus across the country will be assessed. Failure could have catastrophic consequences, not just in terms of lives lost and individuals injured but also in terms of the state`s very ability to fight terrorism and militancy in all its manifestations. For, a wave of successful attacks in response to state execution of militants could leave the resolve to fight terrorism in tatters, especially if the forces on the frontline are left exposed and vulnerable. To be sure, in this long fight against militancy, there will be more suffering inflicted on the country. Given the willingness of the militants to attack virtually any target, hard or soft, and the reality that militants are embedded across the country, the possibility of more terrorist attacks is high. But there is, or ought to be at least, a difference between the unexpected attack, the one that slipped through the cracks in the system, and attacks in major cities at a time when the country’s security apparatus is in a state of high alert and mobilised essentially on a war footing.

Yesterday, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan gave his frankest assessment yet of the scale and size of the militancy problem in the country. But it is not enough to call on the citizenry to act as eyes and ears on the ground against militancy. What is the government doing about the militant supporters and sympathisers within the state machinery? Time and again, the infiltration by militant groups into law-enforcement agencies and even the intelligence apparatus briefly emerges as a topic of debate at the national level before being quietly pushed into the background again. Beyond that, where is the public investigation into lapses that have made militant attacks possible and where is the accountability of those who are found to have failed in their jobs? No system anywhere can improve if there is no transparency and accountability. In essence, it is about disrupting the militants` tactics and plans. Studying past attacks and disseminating knowledge within the security apparatus about how attacks are carried out help prevent future attacks but only if the state is willing to adapt and learn itself.

Cricket defeat

PAKISTAN`S preparations for the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 received a setback of sorts with the 3-2 defeat against the lowly ranked New Zealand in the ODI series that concluded in the UAE on Friday. The national team, though clear favorites to win the five-match contest, failed to perform as a well-oiled unit.

Their campaign was further dampened by a spate of injuries to key players including skipper Misbah-ul-Haq, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, Bilawal Bhatti and a few others. The Kiwis, on the other hand, proved a surprise package as they put up a thoroughly professional, highly competitive show. Their comprehensive homework on the strengths and weaknesses of the Pakistan players paid off as they successfully managed to blunt match-winners such as Sarfraz Ahmed, Younis Khan and Mohammad Hafeez in most games. Besides, Kiwi newcomers including Adam Milne, Matt Henry and Anton Devcich did surprisingly well to get the better of their highly rated rivals.

What should be of greater concern to Pakistan is that this is their third consecutive ODI series loss in the UAE, coming on the heels of a 4-1 drubbing by the Aussies two months ago. A similar fate befell the team when it played against Sri Lanka last August. The other major concern is diminishing bowling resources. No team can afford to lose match-winning bowlers like Saeed Ajmal, Junaid Khan or Umar Gul, especially in their build-up campaign for the World Cup which commences in Australia and New Zealand from Feb 12 next year. However, one heartening factor has been the return to form of mercurial all-rounder Shahid Afridi. The seasoned player looked pretty much in his element as he slammed a flurry of sixes and fours to keep the Kiwi bowlers at bay during the series. Along with young Haris Sohail who has clearly come of age, he put in some fine all-round performances giving his fans something to cheer about and, perhaps, providing them with a ray of hope vis-à-vis next year’s extravaganza.
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  #1293  
Old Tuesday, December 23, 2014
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Madressah reform

IN exonerating the majority of madressahs across the country from any involvement with extremism or militancy, Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan may have meant to send a reassuring message to both the custodians of these seminaries and the public at large. Simple maths though suggests that the interior minister instead flagged an alarming problem: if, as he suggested, 90pc of the madressahs in the country are problem-free, then that still leaves thousands upon thousands of seminaries in the country that do have an extremism and militancy problem. The question then should be what the state is doing about the militancy and extremism sponsoring madressahs, although it is a rather pointless query given that the interior minister himself would rather gloss over the fact that there are thousands of madressahs with a militancy and extremism problem.

For too long, the religious right and madressah administrators across the country have resisted state oversight and even registration in the name of religious freedom, the argument ostensibly being that the state is really either trying to slow the growth of madressahs or progressively shut them down in the name of oversight. But that is simply untrue. A conservative population combined with a scarcity of education means that madressahs will continue to exist and even flourish, just like the private sector offering more mainstream education does. Surely though, providing a religion-based education does not or should not mean creating an enabling environment where either radicalisation of young minds directly takes place or militant groups seek out vulnerable individuals to recruit for terrorist purposes. Moreover, why should so many madressahs be able to teach a curriculum that simply does not prepare its student for any aspect of the modern world, leaving them without a set of skills that can help them find any semblance of a job outside the mosque-madressah-social welfare network that many militant groups have assembled? Reforms are essential, but so is extra vigilance and policing in the short term. While only a systematic and exhaustive survey will create a map of madressahs that identifies all the trouble spots, the big problem centres are well known. Whether it is hate speech, off-site recruiting facilitated by madressah administrations or straightforward ties to banned outfits that some high-profile madressahs have, the intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus of the country already has a reasonably developed picture. Now is the time to clamp down on madressahs that are sponsoring hate or promoting terrorism. But that will only be possible if decisiveness is shown by the state. If those such as Lal Masjid’s Abdul Aziz can spew hate and threaten suicide attacks in the heart of the federal capital, then what of the far-flung areas where the state’s writ is weak and local law enforcement very much subordinate to powerful madressahs with all manner of state and non-state connections? Now is the time to stand firm.

Power breakdowns

TWO large power breakdowns that affected huge swathes of the country have occurred within a period of 10 days. In both cases, the restoration of power took many hours. And in both cases the cause of the breakdown laid in the Guddu thermal power station and its transmission lines. Guddu is one of the oldest power plants in the country, and has three large transmission lines that feed its output to Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan. All of Balochistan’s power comes from here, and a large amount of the power consumed in Sindh is also generated in Guddu. Given its importance in our power grid, by virtue of its power-generation capacity and central location in transmission, it is sad to see the plant and its transmission lines sinking into a deplorable state of disrepair. A few years ago, an explosion at the plant occurred in its gas pipelines, again shutting it down and causing a massive power outage. The excuse being given this time is heavy fog, which supposedly caused the line that connects the plant with a grid station at Dadu to trip, and then hampered the movement of restoration teams.

In a sense, the ageing plant and its transmission infrastructure are a perfect metaphor for the advanced state of disrepair of our power infrastructure and the outdated control systems being used to operate it. For instance, it is astonishing to think that our transmission system cannot handle much more than 15,000MW and that it is laid out in a way that causes severe bottlenecks at critical junctions such as Guddu. It is also astonishing to note that fog can cause a massive transmission line to trip, and that the tripping can then cascade through the entire provincial transmission system, shutting down the country’s largest city for the better part of the day. The repeated breakdowns are a powerful reminder that our power crisis does not stem from a lack of generation capacity alone, but a poor transmission system, as well as woefully outdated systems to manage potential breakdowns and not allow their consequences to affect the entire system. It is high time we tackled the problems plaguing the power sector in a holistic manner rather than remedying each defect on its own in an ad hoc fashion. Until then, we can only hope that breakdowns of this sort are not going to become a regular feature of our lives the way load-shedding has come to be.

Tunisia’s example

IT is in the fitness of things that the country where the Arab Spring first blossomed should attempt to take the latter to its logical conclusion. Even though incumbent president Moncef Marzouki had yet to concede defeat to Beji Caid Essebsi at the time of writing, the victory of a presidential candidate belonging to a secular-leaning party within months of a parliamentary election shows Tunisia’s commendable progress towards a democratic dispensation. The first indication of Tunisia’s opinion swing came in October’s parliamentary election when the Islamist Ennahda Party lost to Nidaa Tounes. In the 2011 election, Ennahda had won and formed government, followed by amendments to the constitution.

Nidaa Tounes`s parliamentary victory and the success of Mr Essebsi underline a democratic transition of power something that no other Arab country Iraq’s is a complicated case witnessed. In fact, there has been a deplorable relapse into authoritarianism and anarchy. Egypt showed some promise when Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, followed by a fair election that brought Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood to power. His overthrow by then army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has landed Egypt back into a dictatorship that is seen as worse than that of Hosni Mubarak. Great tragedies occurred in Syria and Libya where the Arab Spring gave way to a multilateral civil war in which fundamentalist militias and several Al Qaeda offshoots have been waging savage battles for aims that have nothing to do with what the Arab Spring was originally meant to achieve. The ultimate sufferers are the people, especially in Syria, where more than 200,000 civilians have been killed and millions displaced. The most disturbing element has been the rise of the so-called Islamic State whose stunning military victories seem to threaten the Middle East’s century-old borders.

Observers had doubted whether Ennahda would give up power easily, though there is no doubt one reason for Ennahda’s cautious governance was the lesson it must have learnt from the way the Muslim Brotherhood lost power in Egypt. Nevertheless, the ease with which the transition has taken place holds out hope.
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  #1294  
Old Wednesday, December 24, 2014
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Militancy in urban areas

PRIME Minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed to take the fight against militants to cities and villages across the country, pledging to stamp out terrorism wherever it exists. In clear and unequivocal words, Mr Sharif has not only accepted that urban Pakistan has a significant militant problem, his statement is a vast improvement on the old formulation that whatever the terrorist and militant presence in urban Pakistan, it is a function of individuals and small splinter groups, and not a systematic, organised presence across the provinces. Yet, there is much more clarity that the government needs to bring to the issue publicly. In condemning specific atrocities and vowing that those responsible will not be allowed to repeat their crimes, the prime minister left out a significant part of the explanation: identifying the groups involved.

Without identities revealed, groups named, organisations described and methods exposed, the prime minister’s vow will amount to little more than a seemingly firm but in reality nebulous promise to stamp out terrorism wherever it is found.

Terrorism has a face. It has an identity. The militant groups that organise in the cities have physical networks and infrastructure. It is not just nameless men killed in alleged encounters with the police, as happened in the Sohrab Goth area of Karachi again this week. If terrorism is to be defeated, it has to first be identified. Names have to be named, networks have to be publicly declared and the full spectrum of extremism and militancy laid bare. But none of that has occurred so far. Why, for example, does the government not state which groups are active in Punjab, name the leadership, explain the connection between extremist religious centres and terrorist recruiting, and, more to the point, make clear the measures the state is taking to progressively shut down the terrorist and militant organisations that have been identified? The same applies to the other provinces. Is the federal government able to do more than simply talk about cooperating with the province in counterterrorism efforts? As ever, few details were given by the prime minister.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the state’s, particularly the political government’s, approach to counterterrorism is to co-opt certain sections of the police and civilian-run intelligence to fight a dirty, clandestine war against unnamed terrorists. All that the public is ever told is that militants and terrorists are killed in encounters where independent witnesses are nearly never present. But that has not and cannot prove to be a successful strategy -let alone a remotely ethical or legal one because it is simply about cracking down on visible sides of militancy, not the roots that help grow new cells, more fighters and fresh ideologues. The prime minister needed to speak firmly and a worried nation needed to hear of the government’s resolve. But what is the plan?

Drug pricing

AFTER more than a year of delaying the matter, the government is finally gearing up to pass a drug pricing policy.

Currently, drug prices, which continue to be administered by the government, are being adjusted under ad hoc mechanisms since the last price adjustment was done in 2001. This is an extremely sensitive matter in a country where proper healthcare and medicines are already beyond the reach for a large segment of the population. Adding to the complications are the concerns of the drug manufacturers, who feel they have been pushed against the wall by a 13-year-long delay in the revision of drug prices while their production costs escalate rapidly. According to pharma industry representatives, three large multinational manufacturers have already left the market since 2008, with the latest exit in the last few months. The pharma industry had been ramping up its push for a pricing policy since last year, and finally managed to obtain a directive from the Sindh High Court giving the government the deadline of Dec 29 to produce a comprehensive policy.

As the deadline looms, wheels have finally begun to turn. A series of meetings of the policy board, tasked with producing the policy, have been held and input sought from industry stakeholders. Three separate pricing mechanisms are being debated. They are cost plus pricing, average pricing, and reference pricing. Industry favours reference pricing that would peg the prices of drugs to a basket of prices from other countries of a comparable socioeconomic bracket. Average pricing makes little sense since it does not factor in quality differences between the same medicines in different price ranges. Cost plus pricing is already proving too difficult for the government to administer in other areas, notably power and gas. It has serious transparency issues, and opens the door to graft. Reference pricing would see prices rise across the board, something the government is very nervous about. It is important to keep the interests of the poor in mind when dealing with drug prices, and it is also important to ensure whatever pricing methodology is ultimately agreed on carries an automatic adjustment mechanism in it to ensure transparency and reduce the potential for allegations of graft. The government has wasted too much time on this important issue. It is time to bring closure to it and produce a drug pricing policy that does not cause a flight of investment while safeguarding the right of access to quality medications for the poor.

Forced conversions

WHEN Narendra Modi won the elections last year, many wondered whether he would act to dispel the impression created in part by his own association with organisations that actively propagate Hindutva that India`s constitutionally mandated secular character was under threat. Unfortunately, to date his government has done little to check the rise of aggressive Hindu nationalism. In one of the most recent examples of this, multiple reports have emerged of `forcible conversions` of Christians and Muslims to Hinduism, achieved apparently through methods ranging from offers of free food and education to outright threats of violence.

These conversion ceremonies, perversely called `homecomings` in an allusion to the `original` nature of Hinduism, have taken place at the hands of hard-line Hindu groups that are allied with the ruling BJP and that, along with corporate India, played a key role in its electoral success. The prime minister, meanwhile, has observed a deafening silence on the issue. On Monday, however, his reticence precipitated a storm of criticism in the Indian parliament from opposition lawmakers demanding he take a stand against the growing incidence of these conversions.

Tainted as he was by the horrific Gujarat riots that occurred on his watch as chief minister of the province in 2002, despite having been cleared of culpability by a Supreme Court investigation, Mr Modi’s election to the highest office in the land was viewed nervously by the minorities. As prime minister of the world’s largest democracy, it behooves Mr Modi to alleviate these fears aggravated by the strident patronage of `cultural revivalism` by some quarters. So far, his hands-off approach has sent the resurgent right into overdrive, rewriting school textbooks and calling for the Bhagwad Gita to be declared the national holy book. The conversions are the latest, most ominous portent of a deepening sense of alienation among minorities in the country. A chauvinist incarnation of Hinduism is on the march. India need only look across the border to see the devastation that can result when religion becomes the business of the state.
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Old Thursday, December 25, 2014
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Larger military role

IN the fight against militancy, the military has and will have an important role to play given that counter-insurgencies still need to be conducted across swathes of territory in Fata and the movement of militants across the Pak-Afghan border in both direction needs to be curbed. Beyond that, however, an expansive role for the military would represent a renewed militarisation of security policy that will have far-reaching, hard-to-reverse consequences. Consider the call by Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan yesterday for Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh to not only keep army personnel already deployed in those provinces on security duties but to extend the cover of Article 245 to army operations inside those provinces. It is striking that while the interior minister flatly claimed that the police forces of the country were not trained or equipped to deal with counterterrorism problems, his request to the provinces outside Punjab indicated a belief that somehow the military is trained and equipped to deal with counterterrorism operations. But is that necessarily the case? While the military has introduced training for counter-insurgency environments, has it really both the resources and the training to deal with terrorist networks in urban environments? No one appears to have thought to ask that question.

Far too often, when the civilian side of the state is known or believed to not have the required capacity to deal with a particular problem, the military is automatically assumed to already possess those capabilities. Sometimes that leads to truly alarming decisions, such as the one taken by parliamentary leaders yesterday that military courts be instituted across the country to try terror suspects.

While the country is facing an unprecedented threat, is the impulse to draw the military further into the fabric of urban, and even rural, administration a remotely good idea? Military courts have different standards of proof, offer fewer protections to the accused and when its relatively abrupt systems are applied to a civilian environment can lead to gross miscarriages of justice. The country has already seen in the case of missing persons that simply because the military believes someone to be a militant or terrorist, the individual is not necessarily proved to be one.

Does it make sense to bypass altogether a well-developed, civilian-led judicial system simply because that system’s implementation may be flawed? Would it not be far better to urgently consult the judicial and legal community and draw up a list of measures that can be taken to make way for a more responsive criminal justice system that ensures terrorists are convicted without sacrificing the principles of a civilian-led democratic polity, no matter if that polity is dealing with a fundamental threat to its existence? In such matters, doing the right thing is often harder than simply bowing to the logic of expediency. But the country should not give up its democratic core to fight the enemy.

A new resolve
HAD they had the wisdom years ago to do what they seem to have resolved finally to do now, Pakistan and Afghanistan would have been much better off in terms of their ability to crush a common enemy. The fact that Isaf commander Gen John Campbell and Afghan army chief Sher Mohammad Karimi should have come together to meet army chief Gen Raheel Sharif shows the realisation, albeit late, that only a joint strategy and coordinated action undertaken with sincerity can produce results and eliminate the safe havens which enable the Taliban on both sides of the Durand Line to spread death and destruction. Tuesday’s meeting between the three generals comes in the wake of several high-level sessions held to chart out a new course at a time the stakeholders consider ideal to undo the follies of the past. The first of these was Afghan President Ashraf Ghani`s visit to Islamabad and his meetings with the Pakistani political and military leaderships; then we saw American Secretary of State John Kerry`s meeting with Gen Sharif in the US, and lately, the latter`s dash to Kabul in the wake of the massacre at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The last visit was especially significant because Gen Sharif reportedly shared with Kabul incriminating evidence Pakistan had obtained about the involvement of the Afghanistan-based TTP leadership in the Dec 16 carnage. An even more significant development was the Afghan National Army`s operation earlier this week against the Taliban militants in the Dangam district of the Kunar province bordering Pakistan.

By any standards this is a good beginning, which needs to be built upon. While the world had legitimate concerns regarding the presence of militant sanctuaries on Pakistani soil, Islamabad’s protestations that there were safe havens on the other side, too, seldom evoked a sympathetic response. With Hamid Karzai gone, there are reasons to believe that President Ghani is sensitive to Pakistan’s concerns and realises that the common enemy cannot be neutralised without wholehearted cooperation at the political and military levels. The latter breaks down into details that include operational matters and intelligence sharing. Afghanistan is in transition in more ways than one, so it would be naive to believe that there is going to be total harmony between Islamabad and Kabul on the shape of things to come.

But elements that have the frightening potential to divide them are less pervasive than the multiplicity of common interests uniting them.

Afridi's retirement

SEASONED all-rounder Shahid Afridi`s decision to retire from One-Day International cricket after the ICC World Cup 2015 is widely seen as a timely one by his critics while it has left a large number of his fans disappointed. The dashing player who is known for his exhilarating brand of cricket be it his batting, leg spinners or his breathtaking catches has enthralled cricket fans all over since his debut in 1996. However, the cricketer says he wants to leave the game while he is still on top and would prefer to concentrate on the T20 format until the 2016 ICC World T20 in India where he will be leading the Pakistan team. One of the most experienced players on the international circuit today, Afridi’s exploits over the past decade and a half have propelled him into the ranks of the finest all-rounders the game has ever seen.

With a number of records already under his belt, he is now eyeing the feat of completing 8,000 runs and 400 wickets during the upcoming World Cup in Australia and New Zealand before bidding farewell to the 50-over format. Though Afridi has been in the spotlight for the past year and a half owing to his chequered performances, he recently overcame a bad patch when he turned in a solid all-round show in the five-match series against New Zealand, which has ensured him a place in the squad for next year`s extravaganza. Having led Pakistan a number of times including during the 2011 World Cup, Afridi has had his share of controversies.

And yet, one must give him credit for surviving it all on the dint of his abilities and fervour that have allowed him to make a comeback each time the critics wrote him off. The game of cricket today needs personalities like Afridi; unfortunately, with hardly a suitable replacement in sight on the domestic front, Pakistan cricket will be poorer without a player of Shahid Afridi`s calibre and charisma.
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Old Friday, December 26, 2014
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Military courts

THAT these are trying times was fully evidenced by the presence on Wednesday of all the political parties around the table for an emergency discussion on the ways to deal with the monster of terrorism. Ultimately, it seems, they were required to be there to endorse the setting up of special courts to be headed by military officials. Some of the parties present agreed with the idea readily. Others took their time, but in the end were made to see `reason` and agree to a controversial mode of `speedy justice`. True, the civilian justice system is flawed and tardy in the dispensation of justice. But what will military courts achieve, given the increasing possibility of miscarriage of justice that experience has shown they bring with them? They not only encroach on the civilian domain of justice, they often render it redundant.

The Supreme Court judges had also assembled in Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss ways of streamlining the trial proceedings and meet the demand for expeditious justice. But by the end of the day it was clear that their effort was deemed insufficient for dealing with terrorism if not altogether irrelevant. Notwithstanding the unusual circumstances and the justifications that have been given for the military courts, this was not a happy sight. It was not a happy sign for those who had been pursuing the cause of an independent judiciary. It was the confirmation of the worst fears of those who have been accusing the governments of neglecting the job of building upon the free-judiciary theme to a point where the judges could be fully empowered. In what could lead to greater complications, these civilian courts may now be asked to adjudicate on the validity of the military courts.

A few politicians at the meeting in which the consensus on setting up the special courts was reached did express their reservations, but apparently that was more out of ritual. It was clear that the army leadership which was also present was not going to settle for anything less than military courts. Some of the politicians were keen on making an impact on the proceedings, and they insisted on a time frame for the law. The emphasis was not needed since everyone knew that the military courts would come with a time frame. Then apprehensions were expressed about the possible misuse of the law against political workers whereas there should have been concern about it being used against people in general above political affiliations. The politicians were there not in the interest of the parties, but to give their feedback on how the superimposing of the military over the civilian will by and large affect the system that they have a responsibility to run and improve. Back in the comfort of their camps, they should be asking themselves whether they fulfilled this responsibility.

Friday sermons

SHOCKING though it is that it took savagery on the scale seen in Peshawar last week to shake Pakistani society out of its stupor regarding the spread of violent extremism, there does now seem to be some introspection under way. At the level of the state, the government has made a renewed pledge to fight this hydra-headed monster, and while the wisdom of some of the moves announced is being challenged, there is no doubt that such political consensus and will is urgently needed. At the societal level, too, several hard, ugly realities that have gone largely ignored by the majority are being confronted, even if reluctantly. Foremost is the one that is also perhaps the most ironic: that religion and the pulpit have been hijacked by groups and individuals intent on spreading mischief and sowing divisions; society itself has been infected by deep-rooted extremism that is exacerbating already dangerous divisions. This may not necessarily lead individual citizens to resort to physical violence, but it certainly constitutes the bed from which the seeds of intolerance and bigotry take nourishment; the fact that extremist views are rife in society explains why it has taken Pakistanis so long to recognise the problem, despite suffering years of witnessing innocents being slaughtered.

Like all societal malaises, the path to redemption is fraught with challenges, but some measures are readily apparent. These should apply immediately to the misuse of mosques in general, and in particular to the Friday sermons in which views that are divisionary and that often amount to outright hate-speech or incitement to violence are disseminated. These must be curtailed. One solution can lie in crowd-sourcing: citizens can be encouraged to report violations, with the state then stepping in to investigate and apply the law. All mosques and their khateebs should be registered with the government, and the merits of requiring religious figures to apply for a licence to deliver the Friday sermon, which goes out over loudspeakers, can be considered. It is already the case that the Friday congregations can only take place in some, and not all, places of worship; the oversight net can be tightened by the law requiring that all sermons be recorded and the records kept in order and be readily available. To stem the tide of extremism in society, extraordinary measures are needed. Perhaps even more than the state, it is the people themselves that need to step up to the challenge.

A sombre Christmas

IN the shadow of the Peshawar school massacre, the air of festivity that prevails at this time of year both in connection with Christmas and the Quaid`s birth anniversary is conspicuously absent. For although, for a very long time now, each year in Pakistan has borne witness to much spilling of innocent blood at the hands of violent extremists, this was one depredation too many, the cost it exacted too monstrous, and its timing too recent, to make the display of anything resembling good cheer seem appropriate.

Christmas celebrations yesterday were therefore low-key, almost sombre. Members of the Christian community had, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, announced its intention to tone down the day`s commemorations. A number of them several dressed as Santa Claus had taken out a rally in Karachi to express solidarity with the rest of the country, holding placards saying `united we stand in grief and sorrow` The question is, how far does the majority stand united with them in their time of grief and sorrow? After the bombing of the All Saints Church in Peshawar in September 2013, there was undoubtedly an outpouring of sympathy for the Christian community, but it was all too brief. Three weeks later, Eid was celebrated across Pakistan with `customary fervour`. Newspapers reported that transporters fleeced commuters by hiking fares, buyers at cattle markets were made to pay illegal exit fees, and outlawed outfits also collected animal hides. In short, all was well with the world. There were no special prayers for the community, no indication that the recent loss of around 80 precious lives was remembered. This year, among other incidents, has seen the horrific lynching of a Christian couple in Punjab on allegations of blasphemy, more evidence that laws pertaining to it disproportionately impact the minorities. Jinnah`s Pakistan was to have been a very different place. If one thing is clear after so many years of bloodletting, it is that no Pakistani whether Christian, Hindu or Sikh should feel marginalised for his faith.
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Old Saturday, December 27, 2014
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Missing Benazir

IN a country caught in a vicious circle, a good amount of time is spent pondering over `what could have been`. Just a few days ago, we spent Dec 25, the Quaid’s birthday, imagining what Pakistan’s founder could have achieved had he not died so soon after the country`s birth. On Jan 5 which is Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto`s birthday the topic will be the late leader`s contribution to popular politics, his successes and blunders, and, of course, his unfulfilled promise. Today, on Dec 27, on the seventh death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, the talk will focus on how we lost her just when she showed signs of a maturity worthy of national leadership. It is not a question of comparison with other popular leaders of the past; the feeling, compounded by the wide posthumous approval of Benazir, is that she was brutally taken away from us at a time when the country was in dire need of her.

Much of this approval can be ascribed to our tendency to accept the merit of a politician when he or she is no more. All three politicians mentioned were less controversial, in fact the subject of unconditional reverence, when they were not there to counter anyone`s politics.

So what is it that we now surmise Benazir could have achieved had she taken up the reins of government in 2008? There is agreement that as the force behind the Charter of Democracy she would have shunned confrontation (of the 1990s, lest we forget) and promoted reconciliation. But then, despite all the respect that she has received in recent years, there is some truth to the argument that it was she who initiated compromise and a taming of the old PPP, manifest in her `deal` with Pervez Musharraf. Her heir, Asif Ali Zardari, it is argued, was only following her lead when he solicited partnerships with political opponents of all stripes and when he made `ideological adjustments` Yes, Mr Zardari lacked Benazir`s charisma, and even more importantly, her reputation.

That has led to comparisons between his recent troubled stint, and how it could have been had Benazir been there to spearhead this country through a full term in office, something she was never allowed to do.

But more than that, what many are missing is Benazir Bhutto the opposition leader. It was a role in which she made so much sense just like her party which has since been replaced by Mr Zardari`s passive PPP, which offers the people across Pakistan little in its latest avatar. It is a more fearful than careful player who is too wise for its own good. Meanwhile, a very large number of Pakistanis would find it difficult to even imagine Benazir abstaining from opposition politics which had been the PPP`s forte. Every time Mr Zardari so proudly claims to be not doing politics he creates a longing for the past and for what could have been.

Gasping for gas

THE gas shortages in Punjab have created a dire situation where people have to manage without the fuel to cook food or heat homes and water when temperatures are hitting lows of four degrees Celsius. The situation was aggravated in the past seven days due to an outage at the Sui gas field that caused a drop of almost 250 million cubic feet of gas per day in the system, although that problem appears to have been rectified as of Thursday. But the shortages are growing by the year. In December 2011, for example, the size of the nationwide shortfall crossed a benchmark of one billion cubic feet per day. This winter it crossed 2bcfd, meaning it doubled in three years. At least a quarter of this growth in demand was the result of new gas connections granted by the previous government. The present government has also abandoned any effort to freeze the grant of new gas connections, because the pressures creating the demand are too powerful to resist through simple executive actions. Only a few days ago, the MD of SNGPL said he had a backlog of 1.5m applications for new connections. By all accounts, demand for natural gas will continue to grow exponentially in the years to come.

But all is not lost. Some steps to increase supplies are seeing credible movement. An LNG import terminal, with a capacity of 600mmcfd, is scheduled to become operational by end January. A pipeline to bring an additional 1.3bcfd from Turkmenistan is moving ahead as well, although a significant question mark hangs over the project. But even in the best-case scenario, these projects will plug today`s shortfall by 2017, by which time the gap would have grown bigger still. In fact, all steps being taken to increase supplies will always lag behind the pace of demand. Therefore, it is important to realise that the shortages have become a permanent feature of our lives. In an era of ever-dwindling supplies, it is necessary to think about adapting to the shortages in addition to increasing supplies. Reducing leakages from the distribution system and urging efficiency in the utilisation of gas is crucial. But these priorities need to be supplemented by proper pricing reform as well as improved building codes to ensure that new homes are more heat-efficient.

Weaning ourselves off our addiction to natural gas will not be easy, but it is the only way forward.

Picture of hunger

WEARY years of experience have taught Pakistanis that there is often a huge gap between the good intentions of the government of the day and its ability to mobilise the political will required to actually produce tangible improvements on the ground. For this reason, while the establishment of a federal-level National Food Security Commission must be welcomed, we must also stress on the need for it to truly prove its mettle over the coming months and years. Headed by the prime minister and with a federal minister as the deputy chairman, the plan to set up such a commission was announced as part of the 2014-15 budget. As reported, the commission has well-defined areas to work on: from getting the centre, the provinces and the administrative regions to agree on a policy for food security, to directing resources for the development of agriculture, strengthening the export infrastructure, and ensuring sufficient nourishment for vulnerable segments. As in other areas of devolution, in the case of agriculture too, it seems that the centre and the provinces have not been able to coordinate paving the way for hunger and malnutrition for large sections of the population.

It is to be fervently hoped that this commission proves of more value than others of a similar nature that have been seen over the decades. The fact of the matter is that despite being a country with agriculture as the base of its economy, there are legions of poor that do not have enough food. Indeed, surveys have shown that around 60pc of the country’s population could be food insecure with women and children bearing the brunt. From food scarcity to the rising prices of edibles, and from malnutrition to outright hunger, Pakistan desperately needs to address its food security issues, to say nothing of updating and making more productive the agricultural sector which continues to depend on outmoded practices that do not have ideal cost-benefit ratios. The problems are many and critical; will the commission prove itself up to the task?
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Old Tuesday, December 30, 2014
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Nato withdrawal

THAT the Kabul ceremony marking the official closure of Nato`s mission in Afghanistan should have been held in secret speaks volumes for the end-result of America’s 13-year war in that country. The war cost nearly a trillion dollars and human lives whose number is yet to be assessed. Launching Operation Enduring Freedom on Oct 7, 2001, in the wake of 9/11, former president George Bush Jr. said the aim was to stamp out Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. He believed he would succeed because America was `supported by the collective will of the world`. Thirteen years later, the bloodshed and destruction dominate far more than Washington’s military successes. The Taliban have not been beaten, America’s diplomatic somersault adding to their leadership’s morale. Having for years denounced the Taliban using the choicest adjectives, the US entered into `secret` talks with them in Doha without being clear about its goals. Then, as the end of the drawdown neared, the Pentagon announced it would not target Mullah Omar, the man whose head had a prize, and other Taliban so long as they didn’t pose `a direct threat` to the US. Now President Ashraf Ghani and his advisers should join heads to wonder whether an attack on Afghan security forces and civilian targets falls within the category of `a direct threat` to the 12,000 troops the Pentagon has left behind.

Speaking at the ceremony held in a gymnasium, Isaf commander Gen John Campbell declared, `We have lifted the Afghan people out of the darkness of despair and given them hope for the future`. The reality is the Afghan people were probably never in greater despair than they are now, and the hope the general talked about appears nowhere on the horizon. Instead, a bigger and more frightening question mark hangs over the country`s future. Is the `system` America has left behind capable of survival, stamping out militancy and launching Afghanistan`s post-war reconstruction? Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, on whom the Americans relied for 13 years in a vain attempt to give democracy and stability to Afghanistan, was seen as corrupt and inefficient. He lacked the qualities expected of a wartime leader who could bring his country`s disparate ethnic groups together, effect a grand reconciliation and heal the wounds of war to pave the way for a peaceful post-America Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is just one milestone in America`s foreign misadventures. Despite commanding enormous economic, military and technological power, US actions created chaos in Libya and Iraq, throwing both into anarchy the fundamentalist forces were quick to exploit. The Taliban also gained from the trust deficit between Pakistan and America. The least Washington can do now is to strike some understanding with Afghanistan`s neighbours, especially Islamabad, to ensure peace and a semblance of political order in a country that has been a war theatre for more than three decades.

Resurrecting Nacta

THE revival of the National Counter-Terrorism Authority, lying dormant under the PML-N government, as it did during much of the last PPP government`s tenure, is a seemingly welcome move. For long, the country has needed a counterterrorism think tank, as it were, as well as a body that could play a coordinating role among the myriad intelligence agencies and sub-agencies that exist at the national and provincial levels. However, in the so-called reinvigoration of Nacta may lie the authority`s quick irrelevance. For one, the issue of keeping Nacta subordinate to the interior ministry the interior minister via the Nacta executive committee has not been revisited in the flurry of legislative and administrative debates that have taken place since the Peshawar carnage. What that effectively means is that Nacta will take its place alongside, rather than higher in, the administrative chain that comprises the very agencies whose performance it is supposed to help improve. Moreover, it seems quite unlikely that as the head of the executive committee, the interior minister will allow the Nacta coordinator to have a powerful or assertive role. History suggests that interior ministers by and large prefer yes-men to senior officials with an independent streak.

There is though an even bigger problem apparent: the National Action Plan and the two-tiered committee system that the prime minister has introduced has almost completely replicated the job of Nacta. From recommendations on how to fight sectarianism and hate speech to creating committees that will coordinate how to improve the law and order situation in Karachi and tackle the militant infrastructure in parts of Punjab, the NAP system that has been created will be doing virtually everything that Nacta is meant to do.

Will Nacta own those decisions or try and reverse some of them? Will the interior minister use the Nacta umbrella to try and revive his own master plan, the National Internal Security Policy that had largely been forgotten? Most importantly, will Nacta be able to develop any institutional role to ensure that military-run intelligence agencies cooperate with it and allow Nacta to play a bridging role between the military and civilian-run intelligence arms of the state? Perhaps the government has a plan that will make the various parts of the counterterrorism machinery come together as a cohesive whole. But if that plan does exist or is in the process of itself coming together, the nation is none the wiser.

Karachi fire

IT is a mercy that no loss of life was reported in the huge fire that engulfed Karachi`s Timber Market area late Saturday night, for the damage sustained is immense. While the cause of the conflagration is as yet uncertain the Sindh government has constituted an inquiry committee by the time the flames were brought under control 12 hours later, some 400 shops, flats and godowns, including three multi-storey buildings, had been destroyed and the lives hundreds of people shattered. Women watched home and hearth go up in smoke, and traders and manufacturers stared into a financial abyss. Could the uncontrolled spread of the fire have been halted sooner? Had the fire department responded promptly and fully equipped, perhaps yes. There are complaints that initially it faced issues regarding manpower, poorly maintained equipment and water shortage, and reinforcements from organisations such as the Pakistan Navy and the KPT had to be called in. Meanwhile, firefighters say that they faced challenges of access given the narrowness of the streets and alleys, and because of the manner in which structures in this densely congested area are huddled one on top of the other.

Will any lessons be learnt? The fire department obviously needs to up its performance. Then, calling for city governments to ensure that adequate fire safety measures are available in all buildings, and to enforce the rules regarding haphazard construction and encroachments would be natural. But such demands appear utopian in the context of Pakistan, where what little is planned is regulated even less. What is required is not just a concerted push at the administrative level, but also the understanding and collaboration of the people themselves, who need to see regulation as something that is in their own interest. In hindsight, it is possible to speculate on the many measures that could have saved more infrastructures at the Timber Market. But all of them begin with people submitting themselves to the rules the state imposes, and structures of governance showing the mettle to handle crises.
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Old Wednesday, December 31, 2014
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Military courts: a wrong move

PAKISTAN should not have military courts, not in the expanded form envisioned by the military and political leadership of the country, not to try civilians on terrorism charges and not even for a limited period of time. Military courts are simply not compatible with a constitutional democracy. In the immediate aftermath of the Peshawar school massacre, politicians and the military leadership rightly came together to respond urgently to the terror threat that stalks this country. What they did wrong was to decide on military courts as the lynchpin of a new strategy to fight terrorism. Perhaps with a country convulsed with grief and the PML-N government on weak ground given that until recently the party was insisting on dialogue with the elements behind the Peshawar calamity there was little resistance to the military’s demand that terrorist suspects be tried in military courts, and presumably summarily executed thereafter. Perhaps also the full range of opposition political parties present were overawed by the presence of the army chief and DG ISI in Peshawar, and those opposed to military courts decided that it was futile to oppose them in the circumstances.

Whatever the thinking of the political leadership that has brought the country to the verge of amending the Constitution and sundry laws to allow military courts to try terrorism suspects, it was unquestionably wrong. Belatedly, some conscientious members of the political leadership have begun to speak out, led by senators who are perhaps less encumbered by party discipline than members of other legislatures. When a new system of so-called justice requires overriding constitutionally guaranteed rights and the independence of the judiciary, surely that is no solution even to terrorism and militancy. There is a further problem, one mostly left unsaid: military courts are a populist move, meant to show a frightened public that the state can still be relied on to keep the peace and secure the nation. Such populism often only begets more populism, leading to more deviations from the democratic path until there is no democracy left, not even in name. This country has travelled down the path towards authoritarianism and dictatorship too many times, with too many disastrous consequences, to countenance deviations from a constitutional democracy today.

The question that should be asked is why is the criminal justice system so poor at convicting the guilty? There are really just three steps: investigation, prosecution and judicial. While the courts are often maligned for allowing the accused to walk free, it is at the investigation and prosecution stages that most of the cases are already lost. And where the judiciary is at fault, it is often because of a lack of protection offered to trial judges. Can those problems not be urgently fixed in Pakistan? Does not a democratic system exist to strengthen and buttress the democratic system? Military courts are certainly not the answer.

Taxing oil

EVER since the oil subsidy was eliminated in FY2009, the government has been reaping an unexpected windfall in the form of higher revenues from oil as the rising prices also increased the amounts realised through the general sales tax and development surcharges on oil. In FY2008, the federal government collected Rs14.5bn under the petroleum development levy. The next year, as all oil subsidies were withdrawn and prices at the pump soared, the same collection came in at Rs112bn. GST collections experienced a similar windfall, prompting the government to congratulate itself in the economic survey that year for `the significant improvement in fiscal performance in FY2008-09.` As oil prices remained persistently above $100 over the years since then, the windfall gains on the revenue side became a permanent assumption underlying our fiscal framework. Additional benefits came to the government in the form of spiralling share prices and profits of stateowned oil and gas firms, and the dividends they were able to pay.

All of that is now changing. Now that oil prices have started plummeting in international markets, the government has passed on some of this decrease to the pump, but is caught in the consequences of the fiscal framework. Reliable data on the revenue impact of declining oil prices is not available. There are widespread suspicions that officers of the Federal Board of Revenue are trying to show revenue weaknesses from other areas as losses on account of the reduction in oil prices. What is reliably known, however, is that the government is feeling the pinch and has therefore notified an increase in the rate of GST applicable to oil sales, taking the rate from 17pc to 22pc. This is a regrettable step, especially since no such effort was made to cushion the impact of spiralling prices for consumers when the upward climb in oil prices began back in 2008.

The step to notify an increase in the GST rate shows how dependent the government has become on the easy revenue windfall that came with high oil prices. The decline in oil prices ought to be passed fully through to the consumer, just like the increases were passed through fully in 2008. If the fiscal framework is constrained as a consequence, the government should walk the hard road of tax reform rather than lean so heavily on withholding taxes to shore up its revenues.

Fire tragedy compounded

ANOTHER inquiry committee has been constituted, compensation announced, and good intentions expressed.

Is there any hope, though, of the root causes of the problem actually being addressed? The fire that broke out in Lahore’s congested Anarkali Bazaar on Monday evening rapidly engulfed the Alkareem Market Plaza, leading to the loss of at least 13 lives and considerable damage to merchandise and infrastructure. This occurred just a day after Karachi`s Timber Market area was similarly burnt to ashes. The causes have yet to be ascertained, but the lessons remain the same. Coordination among civic agencies such as the fire department and rescue squads needs urgent improvement; tight alleyways and multifarious encroachments that characterise Anarkali, Timber Market and other such venues across the country pose a formidable challenge of access to firefighting and rescue teams; and most importantly, the need for public buildings to be constructed to at least some modicum of safety standards, with much stricter regulation. Reportedly, there was just a single entry-exit door at the multistorey Alkareem Market Plaza which housed dozens of shops. The fact that most of the deaths occurred as a result of suffocation tells its own tragic tale.

On paper, the solution is simple and in some cases, already required: fire exits, multiple entrances, the availability of firefighting equipment, etc. In reality, though, the efforts made by toothless civic bodies are often nullified by a citizenry that refuses to see safety regulations as protections that benefit primarily itself. From both recent tragedies, there is a lesson to be drawn, too, about systems of governance. When the latter is remote, as is the case in the absence of local government systems, there is risk of a huge distance between intentions and the effect on the ground such as the preparedness of firefighting departments or the will to remove encroachments.

Local governments, however, put administrators in close proximity with the people they are accessible and accountable. The path to correction must be taken at multiple levels, top-down and bottom-up.
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The prime minister’s role

PRIME Minister Nawaz Sharif has been shuttling from meeting to meeting, speech to speech, prepared comments to prepared comments in recent days, all with the purpose of keeping his government’s and the nation’s focus on the fight against militancy.

Through it all, the prime minister has rightly insisted that the nation and the state need to be united in confronting militancy. But consensus-building is more than simply rallying a nation in grief and shock by vowing to crush the enemy. Ultimately, there needs to be consensus on how to fight militancy because no strategy will work if the tactics are controversial and divisive. In, for example, opting for military courts, the government did reflect the political consensus in the immediate aftermath of the Peshawar school massacre, but was it really a consensus or consent under duress? Now, with the trauma and shock in the days after Peshawar giving way to more measured thinking, there are voices calling for revisiting the lynchpin of the government’s new strategy to fight terrorism, military courts.

Perhaps what the prime minister should be considering then is to revisit that most controversial of decisions, i.e. military courts, via a gathering of the political leadership once again. Given the proliferation of committees, the breadth of recommendations on various aspects of the fight against militancy and extremism the government is receiving, and the range of actions the government will be required to take in tandem with provincial governments and the military, it would hardly amount to a setback if some of the more controversial aspects of the early plan, devised in a matter of hours in a single meeting in Peshawar, are opened for debate again. Consider that when military courts were first mooted, perhaps many in the political leadership and certainly many among the public would have been unaware of the far-reaching consequences even a limited era of military courts would have. The enemy must be defeated, but surely not at the cost of eroding the very constitutional democratic process that the state is fighting to defend. The government would do well to reopen for debate a decision taken in haste with profound consequences for state and society itself. Military courts should not be considered a foregone conclusion.

There is another aspect where Prime Minister Sharif could demonstrate better leadership: communicating with the public. For all his visibility in recent weeks, the prime minister has only once addressed the nation. This, in the prime minister’s own reckoning, is a nation at war. Nations at war need their leaders to address them, to communicate with them and to explain clearly what is being considered in their name and what is to be done. Far too often, the prime minister and his team appear to believe that PR moments can make up for direct communication with the public at large.

Verification of SIMs

THE government is asking cell phone operators to re-verify subscriber data for all prepaid SIM cards within 28 days.

Industry estimates say there are 100 million prepaid SIM cards in circulation, which would mean verifying almost 2,500 SIMs every minute for 24 hours a day for 28 days continuously to achieve the goal. Clearly, the deadline is unrealistic and shows a disconnect between what the state authorities are wishing for and what is actually possible. The repeated demands from the government for telecoms to set up new systems for monitoring the issuance of SIMs is a further indication that the government acts in ad hoc haste when trying to devise a plan for countering the use of SIM cards in incidents of terrorism, as opposed to developing a well-thought-out plan that can remain in place for years at a stretch. SIMs need to be re-verified, but the deadline ought to be more realistic and the exercise accompanied by a large campaign, funded by the telecoms, to let the people know that their SIMs will be disconnected if subscriber data has not been re-verified by a certain date.

How do other countries with endemic insurgencies and security issues deal with the question of issuing SIM cards? Such a study needs to be conducted to learn from the experience of others who have faced similar challenges. Figures need to be generated giving us a comparative idea of the number of `ghost` SIMs floating around as a percentage of the total, as well as unverified ones so that we have a clearer picture of the situation in our country regarding the potential for abuse of the telecom infrastructure for terrorism purposes. Thus far the government and the telecoms have failed to develop a proper equation with each other when it comes to putting in place a sound framework for preventing the abuse of telecom services. And this failure is visible every time telecom services have to be shut down altogether in large parts of the country in an effort to guard against a violent incident. It is high time both parties came to an agreement on how to prevent the misuse of telecom services for terrorism and crime purposes. But for that to happen, the government will need to bring its own expectations in line with reality before making demands of cellphone operators. Controlling this menace ought to be a shared priority for both parties.

Words that wound

THE past few days have seen criticism against content aired on a recent episode of Geo`s Subah-i-Pakistan programme hosted by Amir Liaquat in which clerics invited on the show made several unpalatable accusations against the country’s already stigmatised and persecuted Ahmadi community. Following a show cause notice by Pemra, the channel apologised for its editorial lapse, stating that `In live programmes it is often difficult to control the crowd and the guests who speak their mind`. Certainly, there are constraints in live programming which have, on earlier occasions too, resulted in hate speech being aired without check.

However, there are ways to circumvent these constraints. One is by including a time delay in such programmes and by carefully vetting potential guests. At the same time, it should be pointed out in the interest of accuracy that on this particular show Mr Liaquat made no attempt to steer the discussion in another direction and instead, most regrettably, led the applause in what can only be interpreted as appreciation of the remarks.

By its very nature, the media has a multifaceted relationship with society: it reflects its mood, and also impacts the tenor of its discourse. Which is why, understandably so, there is much focus on the media’s role as part of the response to the collective realisation post-Peshawar that we as a nation have been drifting along a ruinous path. In these circumstances, the media must be doubly conscious of its responsibilities, among which an important one is to lead and reinforce a counter-narrative that eschews divisive religious rhetoric, without exception and without any ideological bias.

In an environment bristling with many self-righteous `protectors of the faith`, words even carelessly uttered can have dire consequences. While there appears no direct link per se between the offending TV episode and the murder of an Ahmadi five days after it was aired, the oxygen that peddlers of hate speech have long enjoyed at various levels of society must be turned off forthwith.
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