Time to be angryBABAR SATTAR

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:16

Ours is the country where the 15-year old Aitezaz Hussain was left to

engage the suicide bomber heading to blow up a school full of

students. He sacrificed his life in the process. There is need to

honour his courage and his memory. But that is not enough.

We need to ask ourselves how this country became a place so sick that

requires ninth graders to demonstrate such courage? We get angry when

the researchers place Pakistan amongst the worst places for children

to be born. Maybe it is time we get angry at why that is.

Terrorists in Karachi have claimed Chaudhry Aslam, the anti-terror

cop who was the bane of their existence. We can cry hoarse paying

tribute to his bravery and his determination to lead from the front

in full view of death lurking around him.

But he is gone now. He has joined the long list of iconic policemen

like Safwat Ghayyur, Malik Saad, Khan Raziq and Abid Ali who were

undaunted by the TTP-led terror syndicate and unflinching in their

resolve to fight those viciously attacking their compatriots and

colleagues.

Aslam, Safwat and Saad were who they were and did what they did not

because the state incentivised them, boosted their morale and backed

them up, but despite that. They fought tyranny and savagery with the

courage of their conviction in full view of the state that continued

to dither. They stood up for the state even when the state refused to

stand beside them. And that is what makes them true heroes.

Men such as these, who can inspire themselves and everyone around

them amidst complete darkness and despondency, are an endangered

species.

What lessons would a rational law enforcement official draw from

Aslam, Safwat and Saad? That heroism is costly, it claims your life

and leaves your family mourning your loss and wondering for the rest

of their lives how things might have been had you been around. That

there is value in growing old and seeing your kids graduate from

college, settle down, get married and have kids of their own. And

that value of normal life trumps the value of heroism in a country

that has no desire or will to build on sacrifices you render.

Where is the outrage at the tragic loss of Aitezaz or the

assassination of Chaudhry Aslam? What kind of a state is one that can

neither protect its officials nor its citizens and everyone is left

to fend for himself?

It is a state with no red lines. There is no loss that is

unacceptable. We have seen a schoolgirl shot in the head, we have

seen a schoolboy tackle a suicide bomber, we have seen the TTP play

with the severed heads of our brave soldiers and assassinate a

serving general, we have seen policemen die fighting alone. We have

now seen everything.

And we are unfortunately getting comfortable with this ugliness.

Those opposed to the US mission in Afghanistan did not need to attack

Aitezaz and his school. He had nothing to do with the US and its

policies.

Chaudhry Aslam was not a target because he was directing drones to

Fata, but because his job was to protect citizens against terror

attacks and he was doing it well. However this started, there is a

now a war raging across Pakistan wherein terrorists are attacking

innocent citizens and law enforcement personnel trying to protect

them.

In this war you cannot root for both sides. You cannot mourn the

martyred soldiers and policemen who lay down their lives in the line

of duty and citizens claimed by terror attacks and simultaneously

sympathise with those who plan and execute terror attacks within

Pakistan and call them shaheed when killed because they are inspired

by hate for the US. The duty to protect the citizens of Pakistan

rests squarely with the state of Pakistan and is not contingent on

whether the US acts in an agreeable or abhorrent manner.

Whether it is the PML-N or the PTI leadership, it is not OK to

continue trotting the globe and issue platitudes about the rule of

law, tragic loss of life and need for peace while real people

continue being killed in droves. It is also not OK for the PPP, ANP

and the MQM — the so-called centre-left parties — to scoff at pro-

talkers in private and support the lets-talk-the-terrorists-out-of-

terror mantra in public.

A national leadership stricken by fear doesn’t fully explain our

pusillanimous response to terror. It is a combination of fear,

confusion, incompetence and indifference. The pro-talk all-party

conference passed its resolution on Sept 8, 2013. Over four months

later have we moved an inch? Talking to the terrorists can only be

one component of an effective anti-terror policy. Where is our policy

on tracking and eliminating terror funding? Where is our policy on

monitoring and cutting off supply of guns and explosives? Where is

our policy on disrupting the transit of terrorists from Khyber to

Karachi and back? Where is our policy on blockading the supply chain

of terrorists to the TTP syndicate?

The distress at Chaudhry Aslam’s death is fitting. In a fight between

the state and the terrorist when the state itself picks the side of

the terrorist Chaudhry Aslam automatically falls on the wrong side of

the fight. All that is left now for society’s protection are more

Aitezaz’s, till we run out of them as well.

The writer is a lawyer.

sattar@post.harvard.edu

Twitter: @babar_sattar

Legal case for damsAHMER BILAL SOOFI

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:16

THE recently issued Kishanganga arbitration award has again proved

what I have been saying all along: that by invoking the dispute

resolution mechanism of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), Pakistan

cannot halt India from undertaking various upstream hydroelectric

projects and it needs to bilaterally take up this matter. In this

regard, certain observations in the award are actually quite helpful

and Pakistan must make use of them.

But let’s be clear. We can blame India’s conduct as an upper riparian

state only up to a point for our water issues. What of our own

conduct and responsibilities as a lower riparian state? Lamentably,

we have been wasting our water resources with almost criminal

negligence and abandon.

In fact, what Indian scholars highlight in my interaction with them

at international conferences is that Pakistan must share

responsibility for the wastage of water on its territory as its

people and successive governments have failed to undertake effective

measures for the storage of water or its more constructive

utilisation.

Under international law, a positive obligation to not inflict

unreasonable harm on the lower riparian state restricts the

sovereignty of the upper riparian state. However, while the upper

riparian is almost like a trustee for the lower riparian and must

therefore adopt suitable measures to preserve the catchment areas,

its failure to do so does not absolve the lower riparian from its

independent obligation to manage water flowing through its

territories so as to ensure both equitable and reasonable utilisation

of shared water resources.

Crucially thus, the optimal management of water through means such as

storage facilities and dams remains the equal responsibility of a

lower riparian state like Pakistan.

Moreover, international law binds Pakistan to better manage its

territorial water resources in order to secure the right to water of

its citizens under Articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant

on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Pakistan ratified in

2008. Failure to give effect to our obligations under the ICESCR may

now have consequences of its own in the context of recently granted

GSP Plus status by the European Union.

Given this legal framework, the provinces ought to appropriately

approach the matter of management of rain and floodwater as well as

of construction of dams in the light of Pakistan’s legal compulsion

under international water law. Importantly, a possible failure to

reach consensus on the Kalabagh dam should not prevent the federal

government and the provinces from planning and undertaking an

extensive programme of construction of several other dams in order to

fulfil Pakistan’s international legal obligations.

Presently, under the water accord of 1991, the provinces remain

focused on the agreed upon water flows while completely ignoring

Article 6 of the accord which states that “the need for storages,

wherever feasible on the Indus and other rivers was admitted and

recognised by the participants for planned future agricultural

development”. Thus far, the provinces have planned no water storage

pursuant to Article 6. Significantly, this noncompliance by provinces

also hinders the federation from fully performing its international

law obligations.

Since provinces are subsets of the federation, they are also bound by

international law obligations. Therefore, irrespective of Article 6,

the upper riparian province has a responsibility to let flow the

water while the lower riparian province has the responsibility to

preserve and make storages to avoid wastage of water resources.

In addition to the construction of dams for efficient management of

water resources, international customary water law also mandates

Pakistan to preserve water during floods and rains. At present, no

provincial plan for the management of floodwaters exists. In this

regard, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court penned a

highly illuminating judicial inquiry tribunal report in 2010

extensively detailing the reasons and causes of floods. The report

also highlights the critical role of dams in water management and

recommends construction of several dams. The lower riparian provinces

ought to seriously implement the report’s recommendations.

The Kishanganga Award must be assessed holistically in the light of

the above context. If, as the lower riparian state, Pakistan had

taken an early initiative in the planning of Neelum-Jhelum, it would

then have been able to persuade the International Court of

Arbitration to allow more flow of water into Pakistan.

Although this delay has been costly for Pakistan, it also reinforces

the importance of fulfilling our obligations of managing and

conserving water resources as a lower riparian state.

I am afraid that the failure of the federal and provincial

governments to plan for construction of dams and water reservoirs

will legally and politically weaken our stance against India which is

unabatedly constructing several more dams in a far smaller catchment

area than ours.

Whereas India has built 63 large dams in its northern areas in the

last 30 years, Pakistan has only built two large dams along the Indus

passing through a stretch of over 2,000 kilometres on its territory.

There is no question that we have been acting as an irresponsible

lower riparian state.

In the wake of greater provincial autonomy after the 18th Amendment

to the Constitution, it is imperative that provinces demonstrate

greater responsibility and resolve in managing the country’s water

resources. Extensive plans for the management of Indus waters as well

as flood and rain waters must be developed and initiated without any

delay.

The writer was a caretaker federal law minister.

ahmersoofi@hotmail.com

Groaning in GhazniZARRAR KHUHRO

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:16

POOR old Mahmud of Ghazni has been so many things in his afterlife.

He’s been a rabid religious fanatic bent on physically eliminating

Hindus. He’s been a glorious champion of the faith, saving souls

wherever he went. He’s been (thanks to the great Khan for the

chuckles) a revolutionary who freed the oppressed masses of Sindh.

He’s even been a nuclear-capable missile, an avatar in which he’s

graced not only silos but also many a roundabout in many a Pakistani

town.

What he never is, is what he really was: an opportunistic conqueror

looking to pay a fairly large army and appease a notoriously fickle

populace the easiest way he knew.

The easiest way for Mahmud to appease his local constituency (all

politics is local) and fund his military machine was through largesse

and loot, and the means to that end — the path of least resistance —

happened to lead south towards the unimaginable wealth and relatively

less ferocious armies of the various Indian kingdoms.

Along the way, as conquerors are wont to do, he killed a whole bunch

of people. That’s par for the course. Naturally, that’s not going to

endear him to those he slaughtered and looted, but if you ask around

Ghazni, they’ll have a very different story to tell. While to India

he is justifiably a plunderer and killer, to his homeland he is a

hero, a builder, a patron of the arts.

If Mahmud was out to convert the infidels, as the religious right

claims, he may have stuck around and set up shop. Instead, the only

region he retained a hold on was Punjab, and that only because it

served as an effective forward base for future raids.

Those who claim he was some kind of Islamic hero also ignore that he

spent most of his time fighting his co-religionists in Central Asia

and Persia. It was the loot from the Indian invasions that

conveniently happened to bankroll these expeditions.

Some historians even claim that, in his final years, he planned to

conquer territory belonging to the Abbasid Caliph, his nominal

suzerain. Then there’s the small matter of Tilak, a Hindu general in

his employ who, according to contemporary sources, held a fairly high

place in his military councils. When it came to both allies and

enemies, Mahmud was pretty darn secular.

But what then about the general massacres of Hindus, destruction of

idols and religious rhetoric? Surely that’s a definite sign of

religious zeal? Well, while some lip service to an aggressive holy

war was no doubt paid, the first is very likely for the simple

objective of cowing the populace and also ensuring that resistance

the next time around would be less.

It’s not a pretty strategy and is certainly in violation of the

Geneva Conventions but it is, in cold-blooded medieval military

terms, the sensible thing to do, especially when you have no real

intention of settling in that land. The terror remains long after the

armies have left.

The second rises out of a simple need for plunder. Temples were major

repositories of wealth, as the recent discovery of treasure worth

some several billion dollars at an ancient Kerala temple indicates.

Now that’s a temptation that any conqueror would find hard to resist.

After all, war is generally all about the money, honey.

As for the rhetoric, well, as Napoleon once said, “a man does not

have himself killed for a halfpence a day and a petty distinction;

one must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.”

A mostly Muslim army would respond to that kind of motivation, and it

would also provide some kind of moral cover and motivating factor for

their actions. After all, it’s much easier to commit atrocities if

one does it in the service of a higher cause. Or then again, maybe he

was just a tad guilty about that whole thing with Ayaz and thought he

should try and score points with the divine.

We don’t really know for sure, though a lack of knowledge never

stopped anyone from making sweeping assumptions and then defending

them as gospel truth. But history, as Romila Thapar put it, speaks

with many voices, and we should really try to hear at least a few of

them before drawing conclusions with a permanent marker, because a

little knowledge is as dangerous as a man who’s only read one book.

Yes, the tyranny of the present compels us to fight our battles on

the fields of the past. Yes, political expediency tempts us to press

the long-dead into our service. I understand that sometimes you may

need to murder history to suit your interests, but must you also

exhume and dismember the corpse? Can you at least not take a selfie

while doing it?

The writer is a member of staff.

zarrar.khuhro@gmail.com

Twitter:@ZarrarKhuhro

Digital snoopingMOAZZAM HUSAIN

Share

 Email

0 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:16

IMAGINE viewing the digital log of your daily life. Your day started

with the alarm going off on your smart phone. You squinted at the

text message from the boss informing you about shifting of the

meeting venue. As you were brushing your teeth you flicked the city

traffic channel on your digital set top box. As you drove to work,

your GPS tracked the route you took. Your debit card has logged the

time of your coffee break downstairs.

Among other such mundane items, your day’s digital log also contains

your browsing history (even though you took care to delete it from

your computer), the Google searches you conducted and all those who

called you.

Broadband internet was introduced 14 years ago. Smart phones followed

a few years later. Then came 3G and now with 4G, the slope of the

technology curve — and rate of innovation — keeps getting steeper.

And with that, the rate of diffusion of new devices and applications

has become mind-numbing. Each time you log in, download, view a

photo, you are leaving a digital fingerprint. What many of us may not

realise is how commercially valuable this data is.

Today technology companies are positioning themselves for what will

be the grand finale of all marketing battles. Unlike the past when

customer numbers and market share were contested, the coming battle

is about whose operating system emerges dominant ie whose rules

everyone else will play by. Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook are

the frontrunners in a race. The ‘also ran’ list includes IBM, Hewlett

Packard and Bell Labs (UNIX) who have now fallen behind.

What is certain is that operating systems will gradually eclipse more

and more of our lives. An increasing range of items and gadgets —

which may include cars, kitchen appliances, home-lighting, even

eyeglasses that can self-adjust in shade and power — are going to run

on operating systems in future.

What these companies are vying for is not simply to become the master

of one box or one device, but to become the operating system of our

lives. That will be a position from which they can manage, monitor

(and ultimately monetise parts of) the data flow of everything we do.

Google reads your emails before you do, technically that is, when its

robots crawl through the content and serves up ads that it thinks are

most relevant to the content of the message.

But it appears your daily digital log has more than just commercial

value. Whistleblower Edward Snowden gave us a glimpse of how the US

National Security Agency (NSA) has been hacking into servers to

collect whatever it could lay its hands on. From breaking into the

computer network of Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras, to

monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, to

sweeping up millions of French telephone records.

The documents Snowden passed onto the Guardian and the Washington

Post also describe a secret project called PRISM, which is the cover

name for collection of user data from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple

and five other US-based companies.

Because obtaining this data directly from the servers of the Silicon

Valley giants would involve cumbersome US legal procedures, the NSA

(and its British counterpart) under another project code named

MUSCULAR is pirating telephone traffic and internet data from

interception points — that are outside US jurisdiction — such as

undersea fibre optic cables.

Once acquired, the raw data is dumped into NSA’s massive data centre

in Utah. The documents show that Pakistan is one of the two countries

(Iran being the other) from which the largest amount of data has been

taken in. Quite surely, US spooks have been listening in to Al Qaeda

chatter as well as keeping an eye out for a nuclear warhead going

astray.

If what Snowden informs us is correct, then all your and my daily

digital logs for the past several years may be available with NSA. As

NSA’s robots crawl through the data, they look for any unusual

pattern. So for example, if you were using a disposable mobile phone

and switching on only long enough to make brief calls and afterwards

switching off the phone, then that pattern would certainly mark you

for special scrutiny. As technology improves, NSA would doubtless

also be able to predict future behaviour and emerging patterns. Given

the already hysterical levels of anti American frenzy in this

country, it is important to remain steady when digesting this

information. With the copious amount of data it has collected, NSA’s

search engines and crawlers can pull out the digital log on any

target — politician, government official, diplomat or private

citizen. And whereas an “arms race” with NSA cannot be won, not even

by Google, a complete review of our government and military

communications procedures would be in order.

The writer is a strategist and entrepreneur.

moazzamhusain.com

Digital snoopingMOAZZAM HUSAIN

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:16

IMAGINE viewing the digital log of your daily life. Your day started

with the alarm going off on your smart phone. You squinted at the

text message from the boss informing you about shifting of the

meeting venue. As you were brushing your teeth you flicked the city

traffic channel on your digital set top box. As you drove to work,

your GPS tracked the route you took. Your debit card has logged the

time of your coffee break downstairs.

Among other such mundane items, your day’s digital log also contains

your browsing history (even though you took care to delete it from

your computer), the Google searches you conducted and all those who

called you.

Broadband internet was introduced 14 years ago. Smart phones followed

a few years later. Then came 3G and now with 4G, the slope of the

technology curve — and rate of innovation — keeps getting steeper.

And with that, the rate of diffusion of new devices and applications

has become mind-numbing. Each time you log in, download, view a

photo, you are leaving a digital fingerprint. What many of us may not

realise is how commercially valuable this data is.

Today technology companies are positioning themselves for what will

be the grand finale of all marketing battles. Unlike the past when

customer numbers and market share were contested, the coming battle

is about whose operating system emerges dominant ie whose rules

everyone else will play by. Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook are

the frontrunners in a race. The ‘also ran’ list includes IBM, Hewlett

Packard and Bell Labs (UNIX) who have now fallen behind.

What is certain is that operating systems will gradually eclipse more

and more of our lives. An increasing range of items and gadgets —

which may include cars, kitchen appliances, home-lighting, even

eyeglasses that can self-adjust in shade and power — are going to run

on operating systems in future.

What these companies are vying for is not simply to become the master

of one box or one device, but to become the operating system of our

lives. That will be a position from which they can manage, monitor

(and ultimately monetise parts of) the data flow of everything we do.

Google reads your emails before you do, technically that is, when its

robots crawl through the content and serves up ads that it thinks are

most relevant to the content of the message.

But it appears your daily digital log has more than just commercial

value. Whistleblower Edward Snowden gave us a glimpse of how the US

National Security Agency (NSA) has been hacking into servers to

collect whatever it could lay its hands on. From breaking into the

computer network of Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras, to

monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, to

sweeping up millions of French telephone records.

The documents Snowden passed onto the Guardian and the Washington

Post also describe a secret project called PRISM, which is the cover

name for collection of user data from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple

and five other US-based companies.

Because obtaining this data directly from the servers of the Silicon

Valley giants would involve cumbersome US legal procedures, the NSA

(and its British counterpart) under another project code named

MUSCULAR is pirating telephone traffic and internet data from

interception points — that are outside US jurisdiction — such as

undersea fibre optic cables.

Once acquired, the raw data is dumped into NSA’s massive data centre

in Utah. The documents show that Pakistan is one of the two countries

(Iran being the other) from which the largest amount of data has been

taken in. Quite surely, US spooks have been listening in to Al Qaeda

chatter as well as keeping an eye out for a nuclear warhead going

astray.

If what Snowden informs us is correct, then all your and my daily

digital logs for the past several years may be available with NSA. As

NSA’s robots crawl through the data, they look for any unusual

pattern. So for example, if you were using a disposable mobile phone

and switching on only long enough to make brief calls and afterwards

switching off the phone, then that pattern would certainly mark you

for special scrutiny. As technology improves, NSA would doubtless

also be able to predict future behaviour and emerging patterns. Given

the already hysterical levels of anti American frenzy in this

country, it is important to remain steady when digesting this

information. With the copious amount of data it has collected, NSA’s

search engines and crawlers can pull out the digital log on any

target — politician, government official, diplomat or private

citizen. And whereas an “arms race” with NSA cannot be won, not even

by Google, a complete review of our government and military

communications procedures would be in order.

The writer is a strategist and entrepreneur.

moazzamhusain.com

The eternal mistrustFROM THE NEWSPAPER

Share

 Email

1 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:32

THE views of former US defence secretary Robert Gates on the mistrust

between Pakistan and America shouldn’t surprise us. It has been there

even when this country was America’s most “allied ally” and the US

had a base in Pabbi. Those were the mad Cold War days, with a commie

behind every bush. Pakistan then considered itself at the centre of

several concentric circles and enjoyed its self-assumed importance.

It had a bilateral defence pact (MDAP) with the US, was a member of

the Baghdad (later Cento) pact and was considered a ‘link’ in the

worldwide US-led chains of anti-communist alliances because it joined

the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation, too. Later, along with

Turkey and Iran, it adhered to the Eisenhower Doctrine. Yet America

never fully shared Pakistan’s view of India, even though secretary of

state John Foster Dulles termed neutrality — which the US press

called ‘Nehrutrality’ — immoral. Islamabad likewise felt piqued by

the massive doses of economic aid which Washington continued to gift

to New Delhi. The first major breach occurred during the 1962

Himalayan war when Pakistanis thoroughly enjoyed the drubbing the

Indian military received from China. President Kennedy felt Pakistan

had not behaved like a US ally, and began rushing American military

hardware to India. The split was complete.

The 1965 war widened the rift with America, which would rediscover

Pakistan’s strategic importance a decade and a half later when

Brezhnev invaded Afghanistan only to be humiliated. It was then left

to the OBL hijackers to effect a rapprochement. Eleven years have

passed and they have continued to cooperate while secretly and often

publicly bemoaning each other’s duplicity. Yet both realise the

geopolitical consequences inherent in mutual abandonment. No American

strategist would ever think of walking away from the Gulf and

southwest Asia where the US has vital economic and geopolitical

interests, nor does common sense suggest Islamabad show a red rag to

the superpower bull. It is their destiny to cooperate while grumbling

and murmuring. Memoirs of a secretary at war, the second Gates book,

however, shows a consciousness of Pakistan’s problems when it speaks

of safe havens on both sides of the border. In spite of the eternal

mistrust, and to repeat a cliché, what unites them is greater than

what divides them.

Ban on arms, pillion-ridingFROM THE NEWSPAPER

Share

 Email

0 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:32

ANOTHER spell of high security and another meaningless move by the

Sindh government. With Eid Milad-un-Nabi falling tomorrow amid fears

that there could be violence, the provincial administration has

announced a ban on the carrying of weapons and on motorcycle pillion-

riding in five cities, including Karachi. Till Jan 15, special

permits to carry arms have been cancelled, and any motorcycle

carrying two or more male passengers risks being stopped by the

police. And stopped they will be, since regrettably many policemen

consider pillion-riding bans as manna from heaven. In a country where

the shortage of public transport means that millions ride motorbikes,

the citizenry often has no choice but to double-up. Over the next few

days, that is reason enough for them to be harassed; many will not be

able to avoid paying up. As for the ban on arms, suffice it to say

that we are certain that all the law-abiding citizens who have taken

the trouble to obtain licences will be dutiful and lock up their

weapons. It can only be hoped, though, that all the criminals and

violent extremists that keep peace at bay in this country are

similarly conscientious. Perhaps they only need telling that their

arsenals are best kept out of sight and, preferably, out of use too.

(Pillion-riding might not be an issue for many of them since, they

say, crime pays — especially in a place with prosecution rates as low

as in Pakistan.)

Why should the Sindh government be singled out, though, for its

predilection for cosmetic measures that produce little good and act,

instead, as yet another inconvenience for millions of people, another

reason for them to feel harassed by a state that ought to be on their

side? All the provinces and the centre regularly resort to similarly

pointless moves, a notable one being the trend of shutting down the

mobile phone network during periods of insecurity. Pakistan’s

security issues are grave indeed. When will the state start taking

them seriously?

SBP: expats’ woesFROM THE NEWSPAPER

Share

 Email

1 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:24

I AM an expatriate and would like to know why the SBP is working so

hard to ensure that Pakistanis abroad keep their funds away from

Pakistan.

According to SBP regulations, banks have to do the following to all

accounts whose holders are non-residents: — Disable transactions

through online banking. Who needs online banking more desperately:

those who are in the country or who are abroad? For those in the

country, it might be a luxury or convenience, but for those who are

abroad, it is a necessity.

If I need to make a legitimate bank-to-bank payment to anyone in

Pakistan, I cannot simply click and pay. I need to write a cheque and

mail it to the other party.

-- Disable ATM transactions on my Pakistan rupee account. I am not

talking about a credit card where there might be a risk of default. I

am talking about a basic ATM card. So when I visit Pakistan, what

does the SBP require me to do? Does it want me to hand-carry foreign

currency and then convert through a money changer and perform all

transactions in cash? Consider the security (or the lack of it),

consider the hassle (large numbers of notes due to inflation), and

consider undocumented transactions (I guess SBP doesn’t care about

this).

— Disallow me to write cheques. My cheques get bounced as it requires

a form A-7. For each cheque I need to fill a form and get it approved

by the SBP. The SBP wants me to catch a flight and get its approval

to let my cheque get cleared.

With such tough controls, I am forced to explore unofficial channels.

Sending money through an official channel means that they go into a

black hole, and I will be denied the right to use it or even withdraw

it.

Can some SBP official enlighten me what is the wisdom in making the

lives of non-resident Pakistanis so difficult?

Faisal Siddiqi

Doha, Qatar

E-electionsFROM THE NEWSPAPER

Share

 Email

2 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:24

IN Pakistan, conventional and outdated ways are used to conduct

elections. There are several bottlenecks in our polling system.

Joint polling booths and female polling booths have high chances of

rigging. A female voter casts several votes on the CNIC of other

females apart from her own by wearing a veil.

The presiding officer cannot challenge the identity of a female as

this is deemed an assault on her honour. The CNIC of deceased voters

are also used at the polling booths.

There is no mechanism to verify whether the person who comes with a

CNIC to cast vote is the real voter. One is always sceptical about

the credibility of elections in Pakistan.

The votes cast in a constituency are never verified independently to

ascertain whether they are genuine. As a result, the people who are

not the real representatives reach the corridors of power.

Technological advancement has curtailed the deceptive tactics greatly

in almost all sectors. Pakistan needs to replace its conventional

system of conducting elections with that of e-election.

It is a mechanism that enables the voter to cast vote through

electronic machines. It is almost similar to ATM. For this, we need

to adopt a piecemeal approach. First, the system should be launched

in urban areas where the literacy rate is better and later on this

can be done in rural areas, once training is imparted to the voters.

An account of the vote cast in a constituency must be maintained

online so that voters can view and check if the results are tampered.

They can lodge a complaint to the quarter concerned if they find

rigging.

It will surely minimise the chances of rigging, besides upholding

transparency and credibility.

Kaleemullah Shakir

Quetta

A grand slam?FROM THE NEWSPAPER

Share

 Email

0 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:24

PRIVATISATION has arrived. What are the safeguards for public-

interest? None. We must remember that this is a bridge game with the

four aces: Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and

Hamza Sharif.

Take your choice of the four kings and four queens from the

following: Ahsan Iqbal, Mushahid Ullah Khan, Khurram Dastagir Khan,

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Ishaq Dar, Khwaja Asif.

You can arrange the other leaders -- not of the Nawaz family -- in

your choice of kings and queens and you will see that it is a deck of

at least 32 points. It is a grand slam; who can stop it? There is

space here also for four jokers. Add all this up. It is a laydown

grand slam.

For this contract to fail, it will require someone to have a void in

a suit and a partner who can feed him the lethal card. Who could it

be?

Imran Khan, assisted by Dr Tahirul Qadri, who leads into his hand and

down goes the contract and bye-bye grand slam?

Could it be the Taliban who will take the card table with them and

there will be no game? Could it be Musharraf and his followers and

the one-sided trial?

There are many voids, many possibilities. This grand slam may still

fail. My profound apologies to those of my readers who are not

familiar with bridge. It is a fascinating game. Do learn and play it.

Parting advice to Nawaz Sharif: “It is not the handling of difficult

hands that makes the winning player. There aren’t enough of them. It

is the ability to avoid messing up the easy ones.”— Alan Sontag

Iqbal Ismail

Karachi

A grand slam?FROM THE NEWSPAPER

Share

 Email

0 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-13 07:39:24

PRIVATISATION has arrived. What are the safeguards for public-

interest? None. We must remember that this is a bridge game with the

four aces: Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and

Hamza Sharif.

Take your choice of the four kings and four queens from the

following: Ahsan Iqbal, Mushahid Ullah Khan, Khurram Dastagir Khan,

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Ishaq Dar, Khwaja Asif.

You can arrange the other leaders -- not of the Nawaz family -- in

your choice of kings and queens and you will see that it is a deck of

at least 32 points. It is a grand slam; who can stop it? There is

space here also for four jokers. Add all this up. It is a laydown

grand slam.

For this contract to fail, it will require someone to have a void in

a suit and a partner who can feed him the lethal card. Who could it

be?

Imran Khan, assisted by Dr Tahirul Qadri, who leads into his hand and

down goes the contract and bye-bye grand slam?

Could it be the Taliban who will take the card table with them and

there will be no game? Could it be Musharraf and his followers and

the one-sided trial?

There are many voids, many possibilities. This grand slam may still

fail. My profound apologies to those of my readers who are not

familiar with bridge. It is a fascinating game. Do learn and play it.

Parting advice to Nawaz Sharif: “It is not the handling of difficult

hands that makes the winning player. There aren’t enough of them. It

is the ability to avoid messing up the easy ones.”— Alan Sontag

Iqbal Ismail

Karachi

Punjab confronts BilawalFROM THE NEWSPAPER

Share

 Email

0 Comment(s)

 Print

Published 2014-01-12 09:48:48

BILAWAL Bhutto Zardari, the PPP, Punjab. Or should the order be

Punjab and the PPP followed by the inevitable BBZ label? The argument

says Punjab should be craving the PPP and not vice versa. Whatsoever

the formulation, great importance is attached to Bilawal’s inaugural

visit to the province since his coming of age as party chairman. PPP

circles have time and again announced possible dates for the visit

and the latest information says that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari may be

coming to Punjab in February. Party officials have expressed the

confidence that the tour will revive the PPP’s fortunes in the

province which it once ruled and where it has been slipping fast

since its defeat in the 1988 general election to Nawaz Sharif. But

they may nurse no illusions about their young leader coming and

conquering this all-important territory. He is no Benzair Bhutto. He

is not even Asif Zardari.

Ms Bhutto sought to connect herself to her father’s last days. Mr

Zardari strived to gain sympathy by invoking the final image of his

wife and her sacrifice. For a PPP chief in the process of taking

charge, Bilawal’s is a much tougher task as compared to the ones

undertaken by his parents. He has to revive a party which is arguably

passing through its worst-ever phase. Fresh in the people’s memory

are not pictures of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto being executed by a dictator

or Ms Bhutto being felled by the militants. Imprinted on the people’s

minds is the PPP’s failure to deliver during its latest term. By the

end of that term last year, the PPP was reduced to a regional party,

the debacle in good old Punjab sounding alarm bells about its loss of

relevance in national politics. The PPP had lost badly in 1997 too,

but back then its return to relevance in Punjab was helped by the

absence not only of the Sharifs but also of any third option. Since

then, the PTI has captured much of the anti-PML-N ground and the

Sharifs are present and active to safeguard their interests. Strong

opponents contrasting with the PPP’s own weak state in Punjab should

dictate a patient, assiduous approach by Bilawal. He must not expect

a bang.