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.
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.
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.
Twitter:@ZarrarKhuhro
Digital snoopingMOAZZAM HUSAIN
Share
0 Comment(s)
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
1 Comment(s)
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
0 Comment(s)
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
1 Comment(s)
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
2 Comment(s)
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
0 Comment(s)
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
0 Comment(s)
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
0 Comment(s)
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.
Top Related