| DWS Monday 30th October to Saturday 3rd November 2012 |
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| NATIONAL NEWS |
Hizbut Tahrir made three attempts to penetrate army By Malik Asad ISLAMABAD, Oct 29: The conviction of Brigadier Ali Khan and four other army officers for their links with Hizbut Tahrir (HuT) was the third attempt of the banned organisation to penetrate into the military in the past 10 years.
On August 3, a military court convicted Brigadier Ali Khan, Major Sohail Akbar, Major Jawad Baseer, Major Inayat Aziz and Major Iftikhar for having links with HuT and sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment for terms ranging from 5 years to 18 months.
Back in 2003, HuT established links with about 13 commandos of the army’s Special Services Group (SSG), in 2009 officers up to the ranks of lieutenant colonel faced court martial for links with HuT and in 2011 a brigadier faced the same charges.Interestingly, in two of these incidents the same HuT members approached the army officers in 2009 and 2011. Although the army authorities have started court martial proceedings against the officers, it appears no action has been taken against them.
According to the documents available with Dawn, HuT activists Abdul Qadir and Ahmed, a doctor, were found to have links with Lt-Col Shahid Bashir in 2009 and Brig Ali Khan in 2011.
Both reports referred to the same activists to establish the case against the officers.
The documents revealed that both activists of the banned outfit had used the same techniques for establishing links with Lt-Col Bashir and Brig Ali Khan as they developed relations with the officers through common friends and then used the two officers to approach other army officers.
According to an investigation report prepared by Major Kashif Saleem of Special Investigation Branch (SIB), Brig Khan, with the help of the four military offices, was planning to target the civilian and military leadership in an air attack to clear the way for establishing the Caliphate governance system in Pakistan.
The report said that Abdul Qadir, Ahmed and Rizwan of Hut met Brig Khan and persuaded him to hatch this conspiracy.
Brig Khan then tried to cultivate other army officers - Brig Naeem Sadiq, Brig Mohammad Amin and Brig Aamer Riaz for the cause.
The inquiry report against Lt-Col Shahid Bashir revealed that Abdul Qadir and Dr Ahmed (the report clarified that his exact name was not known) were also behind the court martial of Col Bashir and a lieutenant colonel.
Col Bashir was charged with acquiring classified information regarding the locations of operational bases for the United States (from which drones operated) inside Pakistan, finding out about the operation in the Malakand division and about the deployment of troops to different operational areas.
He was also charged with persuading nine army officers, including Lt-Col Habibullah, to join his efforts.
Lt-Col Khalid Jamil, Lt-Col Syed Zarar, Lt-Col Mohammad Sanaullah, Major Tariq Saleem, Major Faisal Obaid and Major Ali Akram. Brig (retd) Wasaf Khan Niazi, who was serving in army’s legal wing as judge advocate general in 2009, said that he first heard the names of HuT activists Abdul Qadir and Dr Ahmed during the court martial proceedings of Lt-Col Bashir.
“After my retirement from army, when Brig Ali and four Majors after their detention engaged me as defence counsel in the proceedings of Field General Court Martial (FGCM), I was surprised to notice that the same activists were behind the episode of Brig Khan.”
He said: “I submitted an application before the presiding officer of military court and requested him to arrest these persons because these men were damaging the army and had polluted its officers.”
The authorities, however, did not accept my request, he added.
A retired officer of JAG branch told Dawn that in 2003 HuT attempted to penetrate into army and successfully cultivated 13 SSG commandos into its net.
“HuT was not a banned outfit at that time, but when the army authorities came to know about its efforts then president and military chief Gen Pervez Musharraf declared it a proscribed organisation in November 2003.”
At that time, the army did not commence court martial proceedings against the SSG commandos and instead dealt with them administratively. Their services were terminated, he added.
According to him, the investigators failed to bring the HuT activists to book.
Soon after the arrest of Brig Ali Khan in July last year, the Inter Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence allegedly picked some hardcore HuT activists from across the country.
The activists – Imran Yousafzai, Hayan Dawar Khan, Osama Hanif, Dr Abdul Qayyum and Dr Abdul Wahid and Dr Abdul Wajid – remained missing for some time and their relatives during July and August last year filed habeas corpus petitions in the Islamabad High Court for their recovery.
On August 12, the court referred their cases to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances.
The abductors, however, released Dr Wajid in August, Hayan in September, Osama Hanif and Imran Yousafzai in December 2011 and Dr Qayyum and Dr Wahid in April this year.
When an attempt was made to get the version of Brig Ateeq of the Inter Services Public Relations, he suggested to email queries, but there was no reply till the filing of this report. |
18 militants killed in Khyber, Orakzai By Ibrahim Shinwari LANDI KOTAL, Oct 29: Ten militants were killed when helicopter gunships targeted their hideouts in Bara area of Khyber Agency on Monday, official sources said.
The air strikes were carried out in Nala Malikdinkhel where a large number of militants were holed up, the sources said. The militants had fled the Akkakhel area a week ago and moved to Nala Malikdinkhel. Three hideouts were destroyed in the strikes.
The sources said that bodies of six militants were found from Nala Khwarh.
However, local people said that only one suspected militant, Saidullah Kamarkhel, was killed in the helicopter attack. They said most of the militants had left the area much before the air strikes were conducted.
Three soldiers were killed when militants attacked their convoy in Nala area.
No official details were available about the assault.
The militants, however, claimed to be in possession of the soldiers’ bodies.
Soon after the attack, Shalobar, Qambarkhel and parts of Malikdinkhel were placed under curfew.A search operation was conducted and artillery targeted militant positions in Shalobar, Arjali Nafi and Malikdinkhel.
Three people were injured when a mortar shell landed in a house in Mandi Kas area. The house belongs to Sial Khan alias Sailak.
Troops demolished houses of three militant ‘commanders’ Rakhman Shah, Ayub and Gulabat Khan in Shalobar area. They were believed to be associated with Lashkar-i-Islam and hiding since a military operation started in the area in Sept 2009.
It is learnt that dozens of families who had come to Shalobar and adjoining areas from different towns to celebrate Eid with their relatives are now stranded there due to the curfew and intense artillery shelling.
Meanwhile, eight militants were killed and a security official was injured in a clash in Mamozai area in upper Orakzai on Monday.
Officials said the militants attacked a patrol wounding a soldier.
In retaliatory fire by the troops, eight militants were killed.
The bullet-riddled body of a security official was found in the Sheikhan area.
Troops took the body to the Orakzai Agency headquarters Kalaya.
The militants kidnapped four tribesmen in Sheikhan area, identified as Feroz, Shah Hasan, Dilawar and Ahmad. |
Monster storm lashes US East Coast By Anwar Iqbal and Masood Haider WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Oct 29: Almost 60 million people braced themselves for any eventuality as Hurricane Sandy began to lash the densely populated US East Coast on Monday, bringing tidal waves and gusty winds while incessant rain drenched cities from Boston to Washington.
For the first time since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, the Wall Street also closed its doors. Manhattan looked deserted. The government in Washington shut down. Thousands of schools asked students to stay home on Monday and Tuesday.
And about 150,000 households and shops had no electricity by midday Monday while millions more may be forced to live in darkness on Monday night.
The storm caused the cancellation of more than 12,000 flights in the region, practically closing all major airports on Monday while prospects for Tuesday look equally bleak.
Also, millions stayed home on Monday as work places closed and transports remained suspended.
In Washington, embassies and international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF, closed their gates too.
Authorities in Atlantic City, New Jersey, enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew because Sandy is expected to make landfall near the city late Monday night. Curfew was also imposed in Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, which is close to the landfall area.
Even New York, a city that never stops, gave a deserted look as people stayed off the roads. Authorities closed offices and schools and brought public transport services to the minimum.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered two key tunnels closed, a move that practically shut down Manhattan, the world’s largest commercial district.
The Hugh L. Carey Tunnel that links Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the Holland Tunnel between Manhattan and Jersey City closed at 2 pm.
As authorities began evacuating thousands of people from harm’s way, US President Barack Obama urged them to do what they are told.
In a briefing from the White House, President Obama said: “The most important message I have for the public right now is to please listen to what state and local officials are saying. If they say evacuate, you need to evacuate. Don’t delay, don’t question what they’re telling you.”
The storm will affect an estimated 60 million people; causing widespread power breakdowns, clogging roads, inundating railway tracks and flooding airports. Tens of thousands, who live close to the coasts, are being evacuated.
Virtually all Monday flights have been cancelled in and out of airports stretching from Washington, to Boston, and airlines continue to cancel flights scheduled for Tuesday.
President Obama, who returned to Washington on Monday, and his Republican rival Mitt Romney have cancelled all activities related to the Nov. 6 election and are instead focusing on the hurricane.
Obama declares emergency
President Obama has declared a federal emergency in the states of New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. This authorises local and state officials to use federal resources for dealing with the storm.
Virginia’s governor also has declared an emergency in his state.
The Pakistan Embassy in Washington also issued a statement on Monday, establishing an emergency line to stay in touch with the Pakistani community.
Local authorities in all major East Coast cities have warned the residents that the storm may cause “flooding, power outages, traffic issues, downed trees damaged buildings and more” throughout the affected areas.
“The most significant impact will be Monday morning to Tuesday morning. The storm should completely leave the area by Wednesday afternoon,” the statement said.
In North Carolina, the US Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew members of an abandoned ship HMS Bounty, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts. The Coast Guard continued to search for the two missing crew members.
“Sandy is a category-1 hurricane that is expected to bring life-threatening flooding to the US mid-Atlantic coast and hurricane-force winds from Virginia to Massachusetts, Monday evening and into Tuesday,” said the US National Hurricane Centre in a statement issued on Monday afternoon.
It’s moving at 18 miles per hour towards the east coast and was expected to bring a “life-threatening storm surge”, coastal hurricane winds and heavy snow in the Appalachian Mountains, the NHC said. |
British, UAE ministers visit Malala at hospital LONDON, Oct 29: Pakistan’s interior minister and the foreign ministers of Britain and the UAE on Monday visited the English hospital treating Malala Yousufzai.
Britain’s Foreign Office said the trio also met the father of 15-year-old Malala, who was flown from Pakistan on Oct 15 for treatment at the specialist hospital in Birmingham in an air ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates.
“I visited the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, today to enquire after the health of Malala and to convey messages of good health and best wishes on behalf of the government and the whole Pakistani nation,” said Interior Minister Rehman Malik. “We are grateful to the hospital authorities, especially the doctors treating Malala, for taking care of her in a most professional manner. As a result, she has made very good recovery in the past few days.”
He expressed gratitude to Britain and the UAE for their support for Malala, who needs reconstructive surgery after a bullet grazed her brain in an Oct 9 attack claimed by the Taliban.
“Malala’s incident should not be seen in isolation,” Malik said. “She is a symbol of courage and determination against the forces of extremist ideology.
“The attack on her was also meant to tarnish the true face of Pakistan and to discourage those struggling for human liberties and for the democratisation of our society.
“Let me reassure our international friends that such acts of cowardice will not deter us, and the whole Pakistani nation stands behind Malala and her cause.”
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Malala’s swift recovery was an “absolute priority”. “The people of Pakistan have paid a high price from terrorism and extremism,” he added. “We will stand by all those who, like Malala, are courageously defending the rights of women, in Pakistan and around the world.”
The UAE’s Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, said his government had provided assistance because its citizens were “appalled” by the attack on her school bus in the Swat valley.
“She is in our prayers,” he said. “Malala’s courage inspires us to reinforce our commitment to rejecting ideologies rooted in intolerance and extremism.”
The hospital said the teenager had spent a “restful” weekend surrounded by her family, who arrived in Britain last week. “She continues to make good progress,” it said in a statement.
Pakistan is paying for her care at the Birmingham hospital, which also treats British soldiers seriously wounded in Afghanistan.
Malala has received thousands of goodwill messages from around the world.
Former British prime minister Gordon Brown, now a UN education envoy, has said he will meet President Asif Ali Zardari on November 9-10 to present him with a list of supporters worldwide for Malala’s campaign for education.
November 10 has been declared a global day of action and more than 800,000 people have signed petitions backing Malala’s call for millions of girls to be allowed to attend school.---AFP |
Senior judge, son booked in double murder case By Mohammad Hussain Khan HYDERABAD, Oct 29: Saleem Qambrani, a senior civil judge of Jacobabad district, and his son have been booked for their alleged role in a plot to murder a young couple.
SSP Pir Farid Jan Sarhandi, who had detected the case following a presidential directive, said Samia Detho and her husband Isthiaq Ahmed Sheikh had been allegedly killed by the girl’s parents and their accomplices about two months ago in Mori Mangar area of Tando Hyder. He said the judge’s son, Bilawal Qambrani, had been arrested.
The girl, who was eight months pregnant, had a miscarriage when she was tortured before being shot dead, according to Ismail Sheikh, complainant in the double murder case and brother of Ishtiaq, Samina’s husband.
“We will file an application in the Sindh High Court on Tuesday seeking interrogation of Judge Saleem Qambrani,” SSP Sarhandi said. Police picked up Haji Detho, the main accused, a day before Eidul Azha. He confessed to having killed Ishtiaq, a son of former journalist Ahmed Khan Sheikh, and made startling disclosures during interrogation.
Twenty-two people have been named in the FIR lodged by Ismail Sheikh with the Tandojam police. Three of them, including Bilawal Qambrani, Haji Detho and Mohammad Raheem, have been arrested.
The girl’s father Ahmed Detho and his son Mushaib Detho are believed to be hiding in Islamabad.
Manzoor Wahu, the investigating officer in the case, will move an application in the court for permission to exhume the girl’s body and for DNA sampling.
The accused told investigators that the girl had been buried in a village graveyard, while the body of Ishtiaq, the husband, was abandoned in an uninhabited place.
“The accused told police that after torturing and killing Ishtiaq they threw his body in a jungle. Wild animals have devoured his body and only limbs and bones were found,” Ismail told Dawn at his home in Mori Mangar as tears rolled down his cheeks.
A pall of gloom hung over Mori Mangar village where the Dethos and the Sheikhs live a stone’s throw from each other.
Ismail Sheikh accused judge Saleem Qambrani, who lives next to the house of Dethos, of being responsible for the double murder. “He had been pressuring us since Samia eloped with Ishtiaq on Oct 10 last year. After our family members were picked up by Dethos and released on intervention by elders of the village, judge Qambrani asked us to let Samia return to her parents’ home or marry off two of our women to the Dethos and pay them Rs1 million. We were warned be prepared for the consequences in case we didn’t agree to the conditions,” he said.
The judge also created hurdles in the investigation when Samia’s lawyer filed an application with police for ascertaining the couple’s whereabouts, Ismail alleged.
The families of Ishtiaq and Samia, who had studied together in a government school, had opposed their marriage because the two communities did not have a tradition of unions outside their own clans.
ESCAPE TO KARACHI: The couple fled to Karachi and married on Nov 18, 2011. They were living in Surjani Town. Their families mounted a search but failed to trace them.
On one occasion, Ismail alleged, judge Qambrani had accompanied them to Karachi as he claimed that he had traced the couple through their mobile phone record. “However, we were not able to find them. In that visit the girl’s father, Ahmed Detho, also accompanied us,” he recalled.
Finally Ahmed Detho traced his daughter. He went to Karachi and stayed with the couple for a few days. He succeeded in persuading the couple to return to the village after assuring them that he had no objection to their marriage.
The two were then brought to Hyderabad on Aug 23 this year. Ishtiaq was in touch with his mother and told her everything before returning to the village on that fateful night.
“Ishtiaq even donated blood to Ahmed Khan’s maternal niece who was under treatment at Jinnah hospital. Before coming to Hyderabad he called my uncle because he wanted some money to attend the wedding of Samia’s brother. My uncle gave him Rs5,000 when he returned to our village. Later it transpired that there was no such marriage and it was a drama staged only to bring the couple back to the village for the cold-blooded murder,” Ismail, the brother of Ishtiaq Sheikh, said.
He criticised the role of judge Qambrani and alleged that he was aware of everything. “He (judge Qambrani) even attended a jirga where it was decided that our sisters will have to marry the Dethos,” he said, adding that the judge had even influenced police when they raided Dethos’ homes in the village.
“He (the judge) then told us to marry our sisters off to Dethos to settle the issue,” Ismail said, adding that his son Bilawal was a close friend of Ishtiaq and he was also “aware of the conspiracy”. |
Hundreds protest against Nowshera shrine attack By Suhail Kakakhel NOWSHERA, Oct 29: A bomb attack on the shrine of Sufi saint Hazrat Kaka Saheb on the second day of Eidul Azha, leaving four people dead and 32 others wounded, drew widespread condemnation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Sources said 16 suspects had been arrested during a search operation launched after the blast. But police officials did not confirm any arrest.
Hundreds of followers of the Sufi saint demonstrated in protest against the desecration of the shrine and condemned the incident. Former amir of Jamaat-i-Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmad, PPP’s Mian Yahya Shah, ANP’s Shahid Khan Khattak, PTI’s Mian Jamsahid Uddin and Mian Adnan Shah of JUI-F attended a procession which was brought out from Ziarat Kaka Saheb.
The protesters raised slogans against the government and blocked the GT Road for about one hour.
Addressing the rally, patron-in-chief of Kakakhel Mian Feroz Jamal warned that people would retaliate if militants did not desist from disgracing shrines. “We cannot tolerate the disgracing of religious and holy places. It may be Taliban, Americans or Jews, but we warn them against bombing shrines.”
Qazi Hussain condemned the blast and termed it a conspiracy of anti-Islam elements. He urged the Muslims to shun their differences and forge unity in their ranks to fight anti-Islam forces.
AFP adds: The explosion took place near the main gate of the Kaka Saheb shrine when people were visiting it on the second day of Eid. However, no major damage was caused to the shrine.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said: “According to our initial information it was a remote-controlled bomb, but we are waiting for a final report from bomb disposal officials.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants have frequently targeted shrines. |
Imran completes US tour despite interrogation Dawn Report WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Oct 29: Imran Khan reached Los Angeles on Monday to complete a four-city tour to collect funds for his Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf party, three days after he was offloaded and interrogated by US immigration officials in Canada.
Mr Khan has already held three fundraisers in New York, Seattle and San Francisco, collecting more than $600,000 for his election campaign. He expects to raise another $200,000 in Los Angeles on Monday night before flying out to Dubai.
On Friday, Mr Khan boarded an American Airlines plane from Toronto to New York to speak at a fundraising dinner in Long Island but was offloaded and interrogated for an hour.
“I was taken off from plane and interrogated by US immigration in Canada on my views on drones,” he said in a twitter message on Friday afternoon. “My stance is known. Drone attacks must stop.”
Mr Khan attended a fundraiser in Brampton, Canada, on Thursday night, urging Pakistani-Canadians to support his party’s efforts to stabilise Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the US State Department has said the issue which caused American authorities to offload and interrogate Mr Khan had been solved.
“We are aware that Imran Khan was briefly delayed in Toronto before boarding the next flight to the United States,” a State Department spokesperson told reporters. “The issue was resolved. Mr Khan is welcome in the United States.”
Earlier, US Customs and Border Protection spokesman Joanne Ferreira told reporters there was nothing unusual about Mr Khan’s interrogation.
“Under US immigration laws, applicants for admission bear the burden of proof to establish that they are clearly eligible to enter the United States,” she said.
Although the interrogation caused Mr Khan to miss his flight, he attended his party’s fundraiser in New York.
“Nothing will change my stance. My stand on drones is very clear. I did not say sorry to them,” Mr Khan later told reporters.
Masud Raja, PTI’s finance secretary in North America, said Mr Khan was taken off the plane with Fauzia Kasuri, the president of the party’s women wing.
The Canadian media reported that US immigration officials also questioned him about his views on Jihad and about whether or not he was going to protest in the US against drone strikes.
A vilification campaign preceded Mr Khan’s arrival in North America, mainly by people of Pakistani origin unhappy with his views.
“Will Hillary Clinton do the honourable thing and bar Imran Khan from entering the US and sullying American soil? Will she put an end to the appeasement of Islamists?” Tariq Fateh, a Pakistani Canadian, wrote in the Toronto Sun newspaper, calling Mr Khan a “hate monger” and a Taliban supporter.
The American Islamic Leadership Coalition from Phoenix, Arizona, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week, urging her to revoke the US visa granted to Mr Khan.
“Granting individuals like Khan access to the US to fundraise is against the interest of the people of Pakistan and the national security interests of the US,” the group wrote. |
Balochistan minister Bashardost passes away By Our Correspondent QUETTA, Oct 29: Balochistan Minister for Local Bodies Abdul Khaliq Bashardost died of cardiac arrest early on Monday, family sources said.
He was buried in his ancestral graveyard in Zhob district in the afternoon.
Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani and provincial ministers offered condolences over Mr Bashardost’s death.
Mr Bashardost contested the 2008 election for the Balochistan Assembly’s constituency PB-18 Sherani/Zhob as an independent candidate and won. Later, he joined Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Ideological) but was expelled from the party when he refused to resign as minister in line with his party policy. The JUI-Ideological had opposed the federal government’s decision to reopen routes for trucks carrying supplies for Nato troops in Afghanistan.
APP adds: Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf expressed deep grief and sorrow over the passing away of Mr Bashardost.
In a message, Mr Ashraf conveyed his heartfelt condolences and sympathies to the bereaved family. |
Sarkozy aide charged in ‘Karachi’ corruption scandal PARIS, Oct 29: An aide to France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Monday charged in an illegal political funding scandal known as the `Karachi Affair’, a complex probe into alleged kickbacks on arms deals.
Nicolas Bazire, the current number two of luxury group LVMH, was heard by judges for four hours and accused of handling illicit funds used for political campaigns.
A former campaign manager for former prime minister Edouard Balladur, Mr Bazire had been under investigation since September.
Investigators are looking into irregularities in the financing of Mr Balladur’s 1995 presidential campaign. Mr Sarkozy was Mr Balladur’s campaign spokesman and budget minister at the time.
Judges suspect Mr Balladur’s campaign of receiving illicit `retro-commissions’ from the sale of French submarines to Pakistan. Two Sarkozy political aides and a former minister are under formal investigation over the affair.
Judges are also probing claims that a 2002 bombing in Karachi that killed 11 French naval engineers was carried out by Pakistani agents in revenge for the cancellation of bribes secretly promised to officials.
The payment of arms sales commissions was legal in France until 2000, but the payment of kickbacks back to France was and is illegal.
The probe focuses on the 1994 sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia.—AFP |
British expert to brief PCNS on anti-terror laws By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, Oct 29: Members of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) will have an ‘in-camera’ discussion with Lord Carlyle, a British lawyer and an expert on anti-terrorism laws, here on Wednesday.
“The meeting is being held to meet Lord Alexander Charles Carlyle, a practising barrister from the UK and a former independent reviewer of British anti-terrorism laws” and to “discuss legislation with respect to terrorism”, says a notice for the meeting received by the members of the committee headed by PPP stalwart Senator Raza Rabbani and a copy of which is available with Dawn.
But it will be an informal meeting, according to the notice.
The meeting is taking place at a time when the government has already introduced “the Investigation for Fair Trial Bill, 2012”, in the National Assembly “to provide for investigation for collection of evidence by means of modern techniques and devices to prevent and effectively deal with scheduled offences and to regulate the powers of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies” to deal with terrorism.
The bill is pending before the house committee for law and justice and if adopted in its present shape, emails, SMSs, phone calls and audio-visual recordings will be admissible evidence, while suspects will be held for six months after a warrant is issued by a district and sessions judge in his chambers.
The proposed legislation has attracted criticism from some quarters for being too intrusive and against the norms of privacy.
The government has introduced the bill after quietly withdrawing its previous Anti-Terrorism Amendment Bill, 2010, which had been tabled by Interior Minister Rehman Malik in the Senate in July 2010, extending the scope and powers of the law-enforcement as well as investigation agencies for probing and detaining an accused under the act while limiting the powers of the judiciary.
The amendment bill became controversial soon after its presentation because, besides the opposition parties, some members of the ruling coalition and rights activists expressed reservations over its certain clauses. |
Two killed in Pishin clash By Amanullah Kasi QUETTA, Oct 29: Two people were killed and two security personnel injured in an exchange of fire in Malazai village of Pishin district on Monday, sources said.
The incident took place when the police, Levies Force and anti-terrorism force personnel raided a house in the village to arrest some wanted men.
The deceased were identified as Muzaffar and Asmatullah.The injured personnel, Hayatullah and Najibullah, were admitted to hospital.
In another incident, Qari Ziaullah, the prayer leader of Kalat civil hospital mosque, was gunned down.
Police registered a case and started investigation.
HOSTAGES RETURN: Seven people who were kidnapped from Dhadar area of Kachhi district earlier this week returned home on Monday, Levies Force sources said.
Ashraf, Nauroz, Hanifullah, Haji Al Fatah, Barkat Ali, Ghous Bakhsh and Faisal Saud were kidnapped on Oct 23, the sources said.
No details were available. |
Foreign ministry goes to Salman Khurshid: Singh overhauls cabinet; Rahul gets no post NEW DELHI, Oct 29: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh brought seven new faces into his cabinet on Sunday in the biggest reshuffle since his re-election as he tried to revive his party’s flagging fortunes before polls due in 2014.
Singh named Salman Khurshid, 59, as a replacement for the 80-year-old foreign minister S.M. Krishna as he attempted to dispel the image of a struggling government, which recently lost its majority.
However there was no place at the cabinet table for Rahul Gandhi, the 42-year-old scion of the Gandhi-Nehru political dynasty, who once again turned down an offer to enter government.
Speaking to reporters after a swearing-in ceremony for the new ministers, Singh said he expected his new team to remain in office until the next elections.
“Probably this is the last reshuffle,” the prime minister said at the presidential palace in New Delhi. “I don’t see early elections. Elections will be held in due course.”
The law ministry went to Ashwani Kumar, a ruling Congress party loyalist.
The other newcomers include Rahman Khan who was named as minority affairs minister, Ajay Maken who becomes housing minister and Dinsha Patel who is now mines minister.
They would be joined by Pallam Raju, who was promoted to the post of human resources development minister. Harish Rawat was placed in charge of water resources and Chandresh Kumari was appointed culture minister.
Singh named parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal as new railways minister, a post which became vacant following the pullout of a regional ally, Trinamool, from the ruling coalition in September.
The government has been mired in scandal in recent months, most notably by revelations surrounding the tender process for state-owned coal mines.
Economic growth, which had been touching double figures at the beginning of Singh’s second term, has now slowed down to around five per cent.
Trinamool’s pullout in protest at a series of economic reforms means the government is now a minority administration. It is in no immediate danger of falling as it has secured the support of another regional party which is outside cabinet.
India’s two largest opposition parties scoffed at the shake-up, dubbing it a futile exercise by a scandal-tainted government.
“It is a vain exercise by the government to refurbish its image in the face of the corruption charges it is facing,” Rajiv Pratap Rudi, spokesman of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, said. Communists, who have dubbed the recent rush of reforms by the government as “anti-people”, also mocked the long-awaited revamp. “The policies of the government will be the same they have been pursuing,” Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, said.
Analysts too doubted that Sunday’s overhaul would do much for Congress’s fortunes when the country votes in an election scheduled for the spring of 2014.
“The cabinet reshuffle is a wake-up call which has come too late, just as the big-ticket reforms have come too late,” said Ajay Saha, a political scientist at Delhi University.
Khurshid said the new ministers were expected to think “out of the box”. The new foreign minister told reporters that he saw “great opportunities... but also great challenges to peace and prosperity in our world”.
Singh confirmed that he had offered a cabinet post to Rahul Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather all served as prime minister, but the offer was declined.
“I wanted Rahul Gandhi in government but he wants to strengthen the party,” Singh said.
Gandhi currently serves as a member of parliament and heads the youth wing of the main ruling Congress party.
Singh, who turned 80 last month, is not expected to run for a third term in office.—AFP |
RPP case: Turkish firm pays Rs1.6bn, allowed to leave By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: The National Accountability Bureau has allowed a Turkish ship-mounted power plant, Karkay, to leave the country after recovering Rs1.65 billion during investigation into the Rs22 billion rental power projects (RPPs) scam.
“Under a recent agreement between NAB and Karkay, we have received two pay orders amounting to Rs1.65 billion,” the bureau’s spokesman Zafar Iqbal told Dawn on Tuesday.
Under the agreement, he said, the Turkish firm was free to return home.
The firm obtained $79 million as mobilisation advance from the government for setting up the plant to supply 232 megawatts to the national grid under RPPs plan to overcome the power crisis, but did not install the plant within the stipulated time and failed to supply the required electricity. According to a NAB official, it supplied only 60MW
The spokesman said the firm had earlier claimed damages amounting to $291 million and applied for international arbitration but it agreed during the NAB investigation to pay $17.2 million.
“Under the agreement, the firm also assured us that it would not go for international arbitration,” the spokesman said.
He said Karkay had brought four ships to the Karachi coast and two of them were returning to Turkey.
It was learnt that a transmission line costing Rs1 billion installed to provide power to the national grid had also been cut.
The Supreme Court, following marathon hearings into the huge corruption case, had declared the RPPs illegal and ruled that advance payments made by the government should be recovered. |
NY, New Jersey smothered by storm; 38 dead By Anwar Iqbal and Masood Haider WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Oct 30: The silence after the storm was eerie, as if the monster that has been pounding the US East Coast for two days, was giving more than 50 million terrorised residents a respite to count their losses: 38 deaths, 80 homes burned, 7.5 million homes and shops without electricity and more than $20 billion wasted. The death toll, just two on Monday evening, crawled up as reports of damage from this vast region — Carolinas to Maine — piled up.
Most of the deaths happened when people ignored official warning, ventured out and got trapped under falling trees. Two missing members of a 16-men ship were also among the dead. Other 14 were rescued.
Millions across the region spent the night between Monday and Tuesday in total darkness as Sandy, the superstorm that hit the land near New Jersey, also caused massive power breakdowns.
Authorities said more than 7.5 million homes and businesses were without electricity.
Mass transit systems —including America’s largest subway network in New York — remained suspended on Tuesday as well. And the world’s financial headquarters — the Wall Street — also remained closed for a second day on Tuesday. The storm sent a nearly 14-foot surge of seawater into the New York Stock Exchange.
US President Barack Obama received on Tuesday an update from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “on conditions in financial markets and the operations of the financial system”, the White House said.
As President Obama later pointed out, statistics did not convey the fear and apprehension that two days of constant pounding and incessant rains, which started on Sunday evening, caused across the region.
“It can be gut-wrenching to see the reports of what’s happening and feel like you can’t do anything to help. But it’s important to remember that you really can,” said President Obama in an appeal he issued on Tuesday, urging Americans to donate generously to organisations helping the victims.
“But the most important thing at this moment is that you and your loved ones are staying safe, and that the rest of us do what we can to help speed the recovery,” said Mr Obama while asking people to stay home.
Major disaster
The president declared ‘major disaster’ in New York, Long Island and New Jersey, offering federal funding for rescue and rehabilitation.
The low death toll, 38 in a population of more than 50 million, also showed that extensive precautionary measures, initiated at least a week before the storm, succeeded in limiting the damage.
Sandy made a landfall at around 8pm on Monday near Atlantic City, New Jersey, cutting off the city from the mainland.
The storm surge stranded many citizens in Atlantic City and other barrier islands who ignored warnings to evacuate. Hundreds of people were evacuated after a levee broke in the northern New Jersey town of Moonachie. At least three deaths were reported.
The surging sea washed away rail lines. Parts of the coast were still under water.
Power outages in New Jersey affected more than 2.3 million homes and businesses.
The full extent of the damage in New Jersey was still not known.
“It is beyond anything I thought I’d ever see,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told a news briefing on Tuesday. “It is a devastating sight right now.”
New York was among the worst hit as seawater entered homes and offices in Manhattan. A record storm surge, higher than predicted, and high winds damaged the electrical system and plunged millions of people into darkness.
Utilities said it could be up to a week before power is fully restored.
Five storm related deaths were reported from New York.
A fire burned 80 to 100 houses in one flooded section of Queens. Power outages affected more than 1.8 million homes and businesses.
Sea and rain water entered subway and motorway tunnels as well as an under-construction pit at the World Trade Centre.
The storm caused the worst damage to the 108-year-old New York subway system, and there was no indication of when the trains would roll again.
The water also inundated tunnels, subway stations and the electrical system that powers Wall Street. Skyscrapers swayed and creaked in winds that partially toppled a crane 74 storeys above Midtown Manhattan. A large tanker ship ran aground near Staten Island.
A spokesperson for New York’s Mass Transit Authority said draining the tunnels and bridges would be a nightmare.
“We don’t know how long it will take to restore the transit system,” MTA spokeswoman Marjorie Anders told reporters.
In Washington, federal and local governments, courts, schools and the Metro system that serves 1.2 million customers a day remained closed on Tuesday as well.
Power outages in Washington affected 25,000 homes and businesses.
In West Virginia, gusty winds turned into blizzards, dumping more than a foot of snow in some areas. One death reported. Power outages affected more than 128,000 homes and businesses.
Airlines cancelled more than 12,000 flights on Monday. New York City’s three major airports were closed on Tuesday as well. Hundreds of flights to
Washington’s three airports were cancelled on Monday and widespread cancellations were expected on Tuesday too.
The storm put the US presidential campaign on hold just one week before the election day.
As the storm moved towards Midwest, officials issued high wind and flood warnings in Chicago.Weather experts said Hurricane Sandy converged with a cold-weather system in the Northeast, turning into a monstrous hybrid of rain and high winds.
Just before it made landfall, forecasters stripped Sandy of hurricane status, but the distinction did not lessen its ferocity. Weather monitoring services said in some areas they observed the highest storm surges ever recorded.
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CNG price effective till SC decision: Ogra By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: Hinting at the revival of operation cost as legitimate expense on CNG suspended by the government last week, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) announced on Tuesday that the reduced prices for the fuel would remain effective till adjudication of the case by the Supreme Court.
Speaking at the conclusion of a public hearing on CNG prices, Ogra chairman Saeed Ahmad Khan said the regulator had provided a fair opportunity to all stakeholders, including CNG owners and consumers, to present their viewpoints in line with last week’s SC directive to work out a new pricing mechanism.
He said an internal meeting of Ogra had been convened on Wednesday to consider all aspects presented by the stakeholders to finalise a new CNG pricing formula which would be submitted to the apex court on Thursday.
In reply to a question, Mr Khan said the existing CNG price would be in place till Wednesday. The price would be re-determined unless otherwise decided by the Supreme Court.
He said the question about operating expenses for CNG pricing was a genuine issue which fell under the definition of production cost as highlighted by the participants during the public hearing and would be given due consideration while determining the new CNG pricing formula for presentation to the apex court.
Asked when the prices of petroleum products would be revised after the suspension of weekly pricing on the directives of the apex court, the Ogra chief said it was yet to be examined if the revision should take place on Nov 1 or later in consultation with the government.
During the hearing, representatives of CNG station owners accused the government of misinterpreting the court’s order which sought to provide relief to consumers. It was a well-planned “conspiracy to pitch the public against the judiciary” by suspending a legally and mutually agreed memorandum of understanding on the operation cost.
They said they would counter the conspiracy by selling CNG at the reduced prices despite losses, but warned that they would seek compensation for that by presenting facts and legal documents before the court on Thursday, even though the interim rates were unviable.
A representative of transporters accused Ogra and CNG station owners of conspiring against the public. He said the transporters had voluntarily reduced fares by 25 per cent on Tuesday after a reduction in CNG prices.
Malik Khudadad, a representative of the CNG Association, said the 2009 MoU was signed by a committee comprising federal secretaries and Ogra officials appointed by the prime minister. It was a legal document because it was later announced by the prime minister himself, he said, adding that if the document was illegal its signatories should also be penalised instead of targeting the CNG industry.
The MoU worked out the operational cost of converting raw natural gas into CNG and the expenses should be verified by an independent auditor, he said.
Abdul Sami Khan, a CNG association leader from Karachi, said the government had violated the court’s order which sought to reduce the sale price of gas to CNG stations to the level of Rs618.55 per mmbtu as existed on July 1 and work out a new formula. But the government suspended the MoU which had not been taken up by the court, he said.
Mansoor Ahmad, a lawyer representing the CNG owners, said the de-notification of the MoU was not only violation of section 9 of the Ogra Ordinance but also in contravention of articles 4, 9, 10-A and 18 of the Constitution.
He said section 43 of the Ogra Ordinance introduced in 2009 ceased to hold ground after the passage of 18th Amendment and, therefore, CNG was no more a regulated business because the section had fixed 20 per cent operating profit for CNG business.
OGRA UNDER FIRE: Mr Ahmad argued that Ogra had now lost legal standing to hold the hearing for consumer prices, except for fixing the sale price for CNG stations. He accused the regulator of having been involved in illegally fixing weekly CNG pricing without any legal cover by acting as a subordinate to the petroleum ministry against the public interest instead of acting as an independent regulator.
Ghias Abdullah Paracha, chairman of the Supreme Council of All Pakistan CNG Association, said the government and Ogra had not explained to the court that the conversion of raw gas into per kg of CNG involved over Rs25 of operational expense to make it a value-added product. He said the court order did not ask the government to de-notify the operational cost. He said that despite approval of a 20 per cent profit, the CNG industry was allowed only 11 per cent profit even before the court’s order.
Mr Paracha said the government’s decision to suspend the operational cost meant that CNG stations should sell raw gas to consumers, but this would eventually lead to closure of the CNG business. “Through a well-planned conspiracy, the government has made an attempt to pitch CNG users and owners against the Supreme Court which will be foiled by the CNG industry.”
He said the court would be requested to look into the issue and undo an injustice caused by the government. The industry would also seek compensation for the losses incurred because of the sale of CNG at reduced prices. He said the reduction in prices should have been made through restoration of cost of gas sale to CNG stations approved by Ogra through a legal hearing process on July 1, withdrawal of illegal gas infrastructure development surcharge beyond a limit approved by parliament, reduction in taxes and de-linking the price of CNG from that of petrol. |
Presidency to shun political activity, at least officially By Mubashir Zaidi ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: Following orders from the Supreme Court in the Asghar Khan case and Lahore High Court in the case of dual offices of President Asif Ali Zardari, the presidency is trying to limit the political activities for now, at least for the media.
A key presidential aide told Dawn that the regular core committee meetings of the PPP would not be held in the presidency and they had paved the way for informal discussions on lunch and dinner tables.
Presidential spokesman Farhatullah Baber confirmed that the issue of curtailing political activities in the presidency was debated in the party following the Supreme Court verdict in the Asghar Khan case. But he would not disclose what the party had decided.
But sources in the presidency said the mode of the meetings had now turned to informal to deflect the criticism on the presidency for holding party activities. “PPP leaders are still frequent visitors but no press releases of the meetings are being issued. How can anyone stop the party leaders from discussing matters with their acting co-chairperson,” a senior PPP leader remarked.
Last week Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told media in Lahore that the president was a political person and political activities could not be stopped in the President’s House
In the Asghar Khan case the apex court has declared that the holder of the office of President of Pakistan would violate the Constitution if “he fails to treat all manner of people equally and without favouring any set according to law and as such, creates/provides an occasion which may lead to an action against him under the Constitution and the Law”.
President Zardari has faced severe criticism from opposition parties for holding PPP meetings in the presidency.
A larger bench of the Lahore High Court headed by its Chief Justice Umer Atta Bandiyal is taking up the all important case of president’s dual office on Wednesday. Wasim Sajjad, the counsel for federation in the case, has been directed by the court to file a categorical response from the presidency on the political activities the president is engaged in as PPP’s co-chairman.
A contempt petition was also filed on Tuesday by a lawyer-turned-petitioner in the dual office case claiming that the presidency was not willing to shun its political activities thus committing contempt of the apex court ruling in the Asghar Khan case.
But president’s counsel Wasim Sajjad has taken the position before the Lahore High Court that since no political party has challenged the activities of presidency in the court, therefore, the petitions filed by lawyers have no legal value and can be dismissed on the question of maintainability. But the Lahore High Court has sought a categorical response from the presidency. |
Pak cricket team to tour India NEW DELHI, Oct 30: The Indian government has cleared Pakistan’s cricket team to make a short tour in December for three One-day Internationals and two Twenty20 matches.
The Press Trust of India said on Tuesday the decision was taken after a delegation from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) met Union Home secretary R.K. Singh on Tuesday and discussed security and logistical issues.
BCCI senior official Rajiv Shukla was quoted as saying after the meeting that “the tour is on.”
Cricketing ties between Pakistan and India were suspended in 2008 after the terror attacks in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed, straining political relations between the countries.—AP
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24 die in Bahawalpurwagon-truck collision By Majeed Gill BAHAWALPUR, Oct 30: Twenty four people, among them seven women and four children, died and 10 others were injured in a head-on collision between a wagon and a truck near a bypass here on Tuesday.
Seven of those killed belonged to the same family.
According to Dr Asif Rahim Channar, district in charge of Rescue 1122 service, 20 passengers died on the spot and four in the Bahawal Victoria Hospital. The wagon was going to Ahmedpur East. Witnesses blamed reckless driving for the accident. Four of those killed were on the truck.
Rescue workers and administration and police personnel took the bodies and injured to the hospital. The deceased included Muhammad Mobin, Tauheed, M. Imran, Majid, Nasir, M. Jamil, M. Rafiq, Akram, Tauqeer, Rizwana, Rehana, Zara, Pathani Mai, Hasina Bibi, Zara Bibi, Tahira Bibi and wagon driver Rana Sajid. Truck driver Dur Muhammad suffered serious injuries.
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Commission to finalise poll arrangements by Dec 31 By Iftikhar A. Khan ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: The Election Commission plans to finalise by Dec 31 the arrangements for next general election and has directed the relevant institutions to complete the remaining work in this regard.
Talking to reporters here on Tuesday, ECP’s Additional Secretary Mohammad Afzal Khan said the commission had not been given any indication by the government about holding the elections in January or any other month.
“We as an election management must be prepared to hold polls at anytime and that is why the work is being sped up.”
He said the term of the existing assemblies would end in the middle of March next year and the commission should be ready to hold elections even before that, if asked.
Work on arrangements for the polls, he said, had been going on since 2009 to eliminate mistakes of the past and make proper arrangements for 90 million voters.
Mr Afzal said a meeting of the commission would be held in the second week of November to review electoral rolls and other election-related matters. The meeting to be attended by officials of the provincial and district election commissions will also discuss the limit for election expenses. Another meeting will be held in the last week of November to discuss the security arrangements. It will be presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim and attended by senior officials of the interior ministry and Frontier Constabulary and inspectors general and deputy inspectors general of the provinces.
Mr Afzal said the commission had decided to give three honoraria to the polling staff. Besides the financial benefit, returning officers would also get certificates.
He said the commission would take up on Wednesday a petition seeking elections for NA-42 (South Waziristan) constituency. It was filed by Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan and retired bureaucrat Dost Mohammad Khan in April.
The polling in the constituency comprising Mehsud-dominated areas could not be held since the 2008 general election because of the poor law and order situation and military operations there.
The petitioners have suggested that the polling should be held in adjoining areas where the people from the constituency were temporarily living.
The commission will also take up an application filed by the Pakistan Muslim League-N, requesting it not to allocate ‘cat’ as an election symbol to any party or candidate because of its resemblance to the party’s symbol of ‘tiger’.
In the application filed in April, PML-N secretary general Iqbal Zafar Jhagra complained that thousands of its supporters stamped impressions on ‘cat’ because of its resemblance to ‘tiger’ in the recent by-election in Vehari.
“The allocation of similar election symbols to competing candidates within a constituency defies the spirit of election laws and has a detrimental effect on the overall democratic process,” the petition said.
Wednesday’s meeting will also discuss registration of 14 new political parties.
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Khar paints rosy picture of human rights in Pakistan By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: While unveiling the country’s national report at the UN’s Human Rights Council (HRC) on Tuesday, the government glossed over bitter facts and painted an overly rosy picture of what cannot be considered an enviable record.
Keen to defend the country’s record because of candidacy for the Nov 12 election to HRC and hopes of qualifying for next GSP+ preferential trade programme, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar herself led the delegation to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva.
UPR is a state-driven process in which every UN member country gets a chance to make a presentation at the council about steps it had taken to address rights violations and fulfil its obligations. Currently the second round of the review, which started in May this year, is under way. The UPR has been heralded as an unmatched international mechanism to monitor rights situation across the world.
Ms Khar based the country’s HR case on a legislation enacted for protection of rights including establishment of National Commission for Human Rights; constitutional reforms; ratification of international HR treaties; visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a number of ‘special procedures’ – Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and Lawyers and Working Group on Enforced Disappearances.
The delegation did take pride in having a vibrant civil society and media and strengthening democracy in the country.
But what the foreign minister either fleetingly addressed or completely ignored – missing persons; blasphemy laws; continued killing of Shias; plight of religious minorities; maltreatment of women; abuses during counter-militancy operations by the military and situation in Balochistan.
The foreign minister spoke about growing extremism and terrorism in the country as a major challenge to national security, attributed it to CIA-sponsored jihad against the Soviet Union, but didn’t have an inspiring story about how the government was addressing the critical issue other than military-run ‘Sabaoon Project’ in Swat.
National outpouring of sympathy for Malala Yousufzai was showcased by the minister as a reflection of the national resolve against terrorism, little remembering that the country even then failed to develop national consensus on taking on the militants.Ms Khar’s description of the situation gave an impression that the terrorists had an upper hand in the fight against terrorism in which 40,000 innocent Pakistani lives have been lost, while the loss to economy has been valued at $70 billion.
“Extremists have targeted hospitals, schools, shrines, mosques, and other places of worship. This has created an environment of intimidation for law-enforcement officials, members of judiciary, members of the media and civil society activists,” the foreign minister noted.
Drone attacks
However, she used the occasion to reiterate Pakistan’s opposition to US drone attacks in tribal areas as violation of national sovereignty.
The statement contained a solid defence of the military that has been accused of having committed abuses during counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.
“Our counter-terrorism response is in compliance with our obligations under international law. Despite this extremely challenging environment, Pakistani law-enforcement agencies have acted with restraint. They maintain high standards of professional conduct and uphold human rights in dealing with militants. Counter-terrorism operations are conducted on specific intelligence with all precautions to avoid civilian causalities. Any complaints against law-enforcement officials are taken seriously by their respective departments, by the parliament and by the courts.”
Religious minorities
While speaking about religious minorities, the foreign minister described them as “an integral part of Pakistani society”. She mentioned the measures taken for their representation in assemblies and the job quota fixed for them.
But there was no commitment or indication about amendment or abolition of the blasphemy laws that have been widely misused not only against religious minorities, but also against Muslims. There wasn’t anything about enforcing the checks existing in the blasphemy laws.
The government has not only failed to protect the threatened groups but has also been failing to amend the law because of the fear of extremists.
Women
Ms Khar flaunted half a dozen laws enacted by the government for protection of women’s rights. She, however, did not say what was being done to ensure the implementation of those laws.
Freedom of expression
Ignoring the fact that Pakistan was one of the deadliest countries for journalists, the foreign minister’s emphasis was on how the media was thriving and social media emerged as a “powerful and influential medium”.
Enforced disappearances
The issue of enforced disappearances came up in Ms Khar’s speech in the context of the visit of the UN Working Group on Enforced/Involuntary Disappearances and was not discussed beyond that. Pakistanis have been very touchy about the issue and the visit of the working group was not only criticised by many political leaders, but several functionaries also refused to meet them.
Sectarian killings
Hundreds of sectarian killings, mostly belonging to the Shia community, did not merit a mention.
Reuters adds: Pakistan, plagued by Islamists militancy, sectarian violence and frequent disasters that push its people deeper into poverty, told the United Nations it is a democratic and progressive state working to protect human rights.
But Western countries and the normally anti-Western Belarus countered that in Pakistan religious minorities were persecuted, that dissent was often brutally suppressed by the army, and that little was done to tackle human trafficking.
Foreign Minister Khar said that Pakistan “is a democratic, pluralistic and progressive state” aiming to create a fair society based on equality, respect for diversity and justice.
“Today Pakistan is a functional democracy with an elected and sovereign parliament, an independent judiciary, a free media and a vibrant and robust civil society,” she declared.
Some Western countries have already indicated they do not see Pakistan as a suitable candidate - although they accept there is little they can do to head off a clear majority vote for it in the UN General Assembly on Nov 12.
Serious concerns
“We have serious concerns about the human rights situation in Pakistan,” US ambassador Eileen Donahoe told the council, referring to army operations “aimed at silencing dissent” in the rebellious province of Balochistan.
She said Pakistan should ensure that those guilty of torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings must be prosecuted, while laws often used to justify discrimination against religious minorities should be reformed.
A British delegate told the council that the recent case of a young Christian girl accused by an imam of burning pages of the Quran showed the danger of the blasphemy law for ordinary Pakistanis, including Muslims outside the Sunni majority.
“Credible elections in Pakistan will require that the rights of women are protected and political participation is ensured,” said the delegate, Phil Tissot. Minorities should also be allowed to vote freely, he added.
The US and British strictures were echoed by Sweden, Switzerland and a range of other European countries. And Belarus, which normally lines up with developing countries in UN bodies, took an even tougher line.
Forced labour was widespread in Pakistan, and punishment beatings of children were legal, said the delegate from the former Soviet state - which is itself widely accused by its European neighbours of serious human rights abuses.
Pakistan should also intensify efforts to fight trafficking of women and children, and to stop sexual exploitation and cruel treatment of children, the Belarus delegate declared.
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CJ favours voting right for Pakistanis abroad By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has suggested that the Pakistanis living abroad should be given the right to vote.
“Prima facie we are of the opinion that they (overseas Pakistanis) should be given the right of franchise,” he observed while heading a two-judge bench that had taken up a petition of Tehrik-i-Insaaf chief Imran Khan for granting voting right to the Pakistanis living abroad.
The overseas Pakistanis shed blood and sweat to earn foreign exchange for the country, the chief justice observed and said that 24 to 25 countries had granted the right to their citizens living abroad through a system of postal ballots.
Advocate Waqar Rana, who appeared in the absence of Hamid Khan, the main counsel for Imran Khan, recalled that at the last hearing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had assured the court of submitting proposals to grant the right to overseas Pakistanis after consulting the federal government.
But no-one from the commission was there on Tuesday to say something about the latest situation in this regard.
“They have gone to celebrate Eid,” the court said. It observed that it failed to understand why the counsel was not showing interest in the matter.
But, the CJ expressed the hope that modalities would soon be evolved to let the Pakistanis living abroad take part in the general election in a transparent manner because the elections were just round the corner.
During the proceedings on Jan 24, the ECP had told the court that the task of granting voting right to overseas Pakistanis seemed arduous because they numbered eight million and lived in different countries.
The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) had stated that it had issued 4.4 million national identity cards to overseas Pakistanis (NICOPs), living in 20 countries. An official said the authority had registered over 1.5 million people in Saudi Arabia, 1.3 million in UAE, 829,080 in UK, 197,540 in US, 19,465 in Germany and 150,020 in Canada.
The figure of 4.4 million did not include the people who had gone abroad from Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, the official said.
Out of the 4.4 million, 3.7 million were men and 612,830 women, he said.
On Tuesday Advocate Rana invited the attention of the court to a petition filed by Advocate Rasheed A. Razvi on behalf of the Jamaat-i-Islami, complaining that the votes of a sizeable number of people living in Karachi had been registered in their native towns — Mingora and other places of Swat — though they had been earning livelihood in the metropolitan city for 30 to 35 years.
The chief justice said those who had been deprived of the right (to vote) should immediately knock on the doors of the ECP to get the situation rectified.
Instead of consuming time here (in the court), he said, they should move applications to the commission individually for the registration of their votes.
The court postponed further proceedings for Nov 7. |
NTDC gets new chief By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: The ministry of water and power has taken back two of the three key positions it had awarded to Naveed Ismail, a former managing director of Karachi Electric Supply Company, and given them to two joint secretaries, it emerged on Tuesday.
For several months, Mr Ismail held three key posts — head of Generation Holding Company, a state-run entity looking after the operations of three Gencos of Wapda, managing director of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) and managing director of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco).
He will continue to work as chief operating officer of the Generation Holding Company. But two other posts he held have now been given to Musaddiq Khan and Shabbir Ahmad.
Mr Khan, who was recently posted as joint secretary for power, will now look after the affairs of the NTDC on an ‘additional charge basis’.
The ministry has already notified the appointment of Mr Ahmad, another joint secretary, as managing director of the defunct Pepco by withdrawing the post from Mr Ismail.
Mr Ahmad will be responsible for resolution of the pending issues of Pepco, which was dissolved about a year ago.
It may be mentioned that Mr Ismail’s remuneration package has been questioned by the board of directors of the Genco Holding Company. |
President for innovative strategies to eradicate polio By Our Staff Reporter KARACHI, Oct 30: President Asif Ali Zardari called on Tuesday for following innovative strategies to reach out to areas which were still serving as reservoir of polio virus and had remained under-served because of various reasons.
Presiding over a meeting held at the Bilawal House to review progress in polio eradication efforts in Sindh, he reiterated the government’s commitment to utilising all possible resources for complete eradication of the crippling disease.
“If effective implementation of innovative approaches with optimum utilisation of resources and proper vigilance are ensured, transmission of polio virus can be contained in Sindh,” he said.
When the meeting was informed that the large number of migrant population was one of the main reasons for many children being left unattended during the vaccination campaigns launched from time to time, the president asked the authorities concerned to consider establishing permanent booths at all transit points in the provinces in collaboration with non-governmental organisations.
He asked why the crippling disease could not be eliminated from the country and said it was former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who had formally launched the anti-polio campaign and the first child to be immunised against the disease was her daughter Aseefa Bhutto Zardari who was now an ambassador for polio eradication.
President Zardari stressed the need for paying special attention to high-risk population where vaccination had remained low. Awareness campaigns should also be launched in far-flung areas of Sindh where literacy rate was low and people did not have access to adequate medical facilities.
Directing the officials concerned to use all available resources to ensure that every child was reached during polio vaccination campaigns in the province, he advised commissioners and deputy commissioners to personally monitor the campaigns.
The president praised the international community for assisting Pakistan in any-polio campaigns and reiterated the government’s commitment to providing security to international health teams engaged in the mission.
The meeting was informed that 33 polio cases had been detected in Sindh in 2011, compared to 27 in 2010. The province has so far reported three type-1 polio cases in 2012 in Hyderabad, Larkana and Mirpurkhas.
The overall provincial vaccination coverage by finger marking in the province was 98 per cent. All districts and towns had 95 per cent coverage by finger marking with the exception of Shikarpur, Karachi and Tharparkar. |
Cabinet briefed on economic situation: Shaikh criticised by ministers over price hike By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh came under severe criticism from his cabinet colleagues on Wednesday over what was termed back-breaking prices of daily consumables.
Mr Shaikh had come to the cabinet meeting upbeat with a claim of having brought down inflation to 8.8 per cent from 25 per cent in October 2008, but he couldn’t impress other ministers.
“We are not interested in these figures. We cannot convince our voters by merely stating that the country’s economic condition is stable when they are finding it difficult to make both ends meet,” a minister said.
If the inflation rate had been brought down to a single digit why it was not translating into reduced prices for people?, another minister asked.
“People in rural areas are least interested in what the government is doing to improve the tax-to-GDP ratio. They want affordable prices of commodities of daily use, which unfortunately have gone beyond the reach of people in rural areas,” he said.
According to a participant of the meeting, even Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf expressed serious concern over sky-rocketing prices of foodstuff with elections round the corner and asked the finance minister to take some corrective measures.
“When we meet our voters they ask a very simple question: what is the government doing for them,” the prime minister was quoted as
saying.
The finance minister had also faced criticism at a meeting of PPP’s parliamentary committee in September.
However, replying to questions at a press briefing later, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said the cabinet held an in-depth discussion on the economic situation and the finance minister faced several questions. He refused to concede that Mr Shaikh had been criticised by cabinet members and said he had duly responded to the questions.
The cabinet was given a special briefing on the Consumer Price Index and informed that the overall price situation had stabilised.
While the government has increased salaries by 115 per cent since 2008, its expenditure has increased only by six per cent against an inflation of 11 to 12 per cent.
During the presentation, it was said that despite serious economic challenges the country had not defaulted on payment of internal and external loans.
The finance minister also boasted about a record 21 per cent increase in recovery of taxes.
The tax-GDP ratio has increased by 0.5 per cent. The government has collected Rs350 billion so far this year.
However, the minister said the provincial governments were showing no increase in tax collection.
He said the federal government was spending Rs220 billion per annum, whereas the subsidy on power sector alone had reached Rs30 billion per month.
He said electricity was being produced at a cost of Rs12 per unit but provided to consumers at Rs9.
If gas was imported it would cost $18 per thousand cubic feet while it was being provided at a cost of $6 only.
Elections on time
The information minister said the government was in no mood to hold early elections. “I have repeatedly clarified that a caretaker set-up will be installed in March, when the National Assembly will complete its term, and will decide to hold elections within 60 days, which will fall in May next year. Now detractors of democracy should accept the fact that democracy is here to stay.”
Referring to media reports about the government working on a plan to influence the elections, he said it was written in the Constitution that a neutral caretaker set-up would oversee the polls and with the independent Election Commission, judiciary and media, who would dare to make any mistake?
Asghar Khan case
Mr Kaira said the government was waiting for the detailed judgment in the Asghar Khan case before deciding about its course of action.
Replying to a question, he said he would check with the interior minister about when the FIA would start investigations against politicians who allegedly were funded by the ISI in the 1990 elections.
When asked if the government was serious about taking action against retired military generals Aslam Beg and Asad Durrani, he avoided to give a direct reply and gave a general statement that all would be held accountable. Mr Kaira raised questions about the legal status of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif’s government which had come into power as a result of the 1990 elections. “If the 1990 elections were fraud then what about actions taken by the government which came into power after those sham elections?”
When asked about taking the matter to the Supreme Court he said the PPP would prefer to take its case to the people’s court.
President’s role
When asked if President Asif Ali Zardari would stop indulging in politics as a result of an SC decision, Mr Kaira reiterated his stance that nobody could bar him from political activities because he was part of parliament. He said a political process was involved in the election of the president.
The minister said the presidency was open to all political parties and if PML-N leaders wanted to visit him they would be more than welcome. |
Ogra works out new CNG pricing formula By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Keeping the prices of petroleum products unchanged for the time being, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) finalised on Wednesday a new pricing formula seeking about 7.85 per cent increase in the price of compressed natural gas (CNG).
An official said the decision about fixing prices of petroleum products on a monthly basis would be taken up by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet and only then it would be clear if the price revision should take place on Nov 22 or Dec 1. But till such time the existing prices would remain in place.
The formula finalised at a closed-door meeting presided over by Ogra Chairman Saeed Ahmad Khan would be presented to the Supreme Court on Thursday for clearance before its formal notification. Ogra had gathered views of representatives of owners of CNG stations and transporters at a public hearing on Tuesday.
Sources told Dawn that the new formula proposes to increase the CNG price for vehicles by about Rs4.85 per kg to Rs66.50 per kg for Region-I (Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Balochistan and Potohar) and by about Rs3.87 per kg to Rs58.03 per kg for Region-II (Sindh and Punjab, excluding Potohar).
The CNG price for Region-I was scaled down to Rs61.64 per kg from Rs92.54 and for Region-II to Rs54.14 from Rs84.54 per kg on Oct 25, following an interim order of the apex court that called for delinking CNG and petrol prices.
Ogra worked out the new formula after disallowing about six overhead charges (operational cost), including costs of maintenance, lubricants, civil works, depreciation of machinery, premises rentals and various government fees, to CNG stations. Thus the operational cost of Rs20.80 per kg has been done away with.
Also the compression cost of Rs8.99 per kg was reduced to Rs5.80 and renamed as ‘production cost’ to compensate owners of CNG stations for converting raw natural gas into CNG.
Moreover, the operating profit or retailer’s margin that was earlier 20 per cent of the total CNG price has been fixed at Rs5.30 per kg, as is the practice with other petroleum products allowing per litre fixed margin to dealers and marketing
companies.
The cost of gas to CNG stations would remain intact at Rs618.50 per MMBTU determined by Ogra on July 1, 2012, that works out at Rs31.09 per kg for Region-I and Rs28.40 per kg for Region-II. The gas infrastructure development cess would also stay unchanged at Rs13.25 per kg for Region-I and Rs9.18 per for Region-II. The 25 per cent general sales tax has been worked out at Rs11.08 and
Rs9.40 per kg for Region-I and II, respectively.
The sources said the petroleum ministry had advised Ogra to present at least three options to the court for CNG pricing and do not allow production cost to retailers by treating them as petrol dealers to discourage consumption of gas in the transport sector, but this was not accepted by Ogra because of legal complications.
The sources said the legal and financial teams of Ogra led by its chairman and members held back-to-back meetings to consider the opinion of the petroleum ministry. Ogra members and officials declined to comment on the new formula because they had taken oath to keep it secret till its submission to the apex court. One of them, however, said the new pricing mechanism was worked out independently and fairly keeping in mind legal and financial issues to protect interests of consumers and investors.
On Oct 25, the CNG prices were reduced by Rs30.90 per kg and Rs30.38 per kg for Region-I and II, respectively, following an undertaking given by the petroleum secretary to suspend a memorandum of understanding with CNG retailers that envisaged Rs20.80 per kg operating cost and 20 per cent profit margin.
The sale of gas to CNG stations was also reduced from Rs700.55 per MMBTU to Rs618.50 and its weekly pricing was delinked from petrol. Under the existing laws, the gas prices are fixed twice a year through a process of public hearings. |
EC code of conduct not a mere showpiece, politicians warned By Iftikhar A Khan ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The Election Commission of Pakistan on Wednesday approved the draft code of conduct for political parties and candidates for the coming general elections and said the document should not be taken as a mere showpiece. It warned that its violators would face legal action entailing trial and subsequent disqualification.
The draft approved by the commission at a lengthy meeting presided over by Chief Election Commissioner Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, will be forwarded to political parties to seek their views in 15 days.
The new rules bind political parties and candidates to abide by all laws, rules and regulations and directives issued by the commission from time to time relating to smooth conduct of elections and maintenance of public order.
The salient features of the draft code are as follows:
*No person or political party or candidate and their supporters shall hoist or fix party flags on any public property or at any public place, except with the written permission from, and on payment of such fee or charges to be paid to, the concerned local government or authorities.
*All political parties, candidates and their supporters shall scrupulously avoid activities deemed offences under the election laws, such as bribing and intimidation of voters and canvassing within 400 yards of a polling station, including setting up of camps and holding public meetings during the 48 hours ending at midnight before the poll.
*Incitement to violence or resort to violence during public meetings and processions or polling hours shall be strictly avoided by political parties, candidates and their supporters. They shall publicly condemn violence and intimidation and shall not use language that might lead to violence. No person shall in any manner cause injury to any person or damage to any property. Wall chalking as part of an election campaign shall be prohibited in all forms.
*Political parties, candidates and their supporters shall not indulge in offering gifts or gratifications or inducement to any person to stand or not to stand as a candidate, or to withdraw or not to withdraw his candidature.
*Political parties, candidates and their supporters may announce their overall development programme, but after the announcement of the election schedule till the day of polling, no candidate or any person on his behalf shall openly or in secret give any subscription or donation, or make promise for giving such subscription or donation, to any institution of their constituency or to any other institution, nor shall commit to undertake any development project in the constituency.
*Political parties, candidates and their supporters will be free to criticise the policies of other parties but will be barred from criticising anybody’s private life.
*Political parties, candidates and their supporters or other persons shall not encourage or enter into formal or informal agreements debarring women from becoming candidates or exercising their right to vote. Political parties shall endeavour to provide equal opportunity to its members, both men and women, to participate in election process.*Issuance of an advertisement in newspapers and other media at the cost of public exchequer and misuse of official mass media during the election period for partisan coverage of political news and publicity shall be avoided by the federal, provincial and local governments.
*There will be a complete ban on carrying and displaying weapons and firearms in public meetings and processions and on the polling day and till 24 hours after the consolidation of official results by the returning officer. Aerial firing, use of crackers and other explosives at public meetings and at or near polling stations by political parties and candidates shall not be allowed.
*The president, speaker/deputy speaker of National Assembly, chairman/deputy chairman of Senate, prime minister, federal ministers, ministers of state, governors, chief ministers, provincial ministers and advisers to prime minister and chief ministers and other public office holders shall not combine their official visits with an election campaign. This provision will also be applicable to the members of the caretaker set-up.
*Political parties and candidates shall hold rallies and public meetings only at the places and routes specified for the purpose. Such places and routes shall be pre-determined in every city and town by the district and local administration in consultation with representatives of major political parties and shall be notified for public information. Processions shall not be taken out by one party along places at which meetings are being held by another.
TRASPORT FOR VOTERS: Talking to reporters after the meeting, Justice (retd) Ebrahim said it would not be possible for the commission to provide transport to voters.
“We are bound to follow all directives of the Supreme Court and there is no doubt about it”, he said, but added that there was a difference between a directive and an observation. He said it was not humanly possible to provide transport to all voters which, according to estimates, would cost Rs12 billion.
Answering a question, he said (the issue of) the president’s dual office had nothing to do with the commission, adding that he had made remarks about the dual office case in his personal capacity.
Responding to another question, he said the commission was ready, if asked, to hold local government elections before the general polls. But, there was no such indication from the government.
Terming credible electoral rolls as the first step to free and fair elections, he said the accuracy of voters’ list was necessary for fair polls. He asked political parties to mobilise their workers to check their entries in the list. He said any amendments to the electoral rolls were possible till the announcement of the election schedule. |
SC questions constitutional authority of Balochistan government By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Apparently frustrated at unending strife and lawlessness in Balochistan, the Supreme Court bluntly asked the provincial government on Wednesday if it was really discharging its duties constitutionally.
The court then turned to Attorney General Irfan Qadir and asked if he would be happy if the court ordered the freezing of federal funds meant for Balochistan since both the federal and provincial governments had failed to curb lawlessness in the province.
A two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja had taken up a petition of the Balochistan High Court Bar Association on the law and order situation, human rights violations, target killings, kidnappings for ransom and missing persons.
The stern observation was made by the chief justice against the backdrop of non-filing of fortnightly report by the interior ministry in compliance with an interim order issued by the court on Oct 12.
In the order issued after hearing the case at the Quetta registry, the court had asked the Balochistan chief secretary and Interior Secretary Khawaja Siddiq Akbar to submit fortnightly reports.
It had observed that except for deploying FC troops, the federal government had failed to protect the province from internal disturbances. Similarly, the provincial government also lost its constitutional authority to govern the province as violation of fundamental rights continued.
On Wednesday, the court noted that its earlier directions had not been complied with, although a report was submitted by the provincial chief secretary through Additional Advocate General Mohammad Azam Khan Khattak.
The court asked the AAG under which constitutional authority the provincial government was discharging its functions.
Mr Khattak said the provincial cabinet was in session and sought time till Friday so that the government could explain its constitutional position.
It all started when the attorney general informed the court that the federal government would submit its report by Monday.
The chief justice referred to Article 148(3) of the Constitution and said the
federal government was not providing due assistance and what legal authority had been left with the Balochistan government to function.
“No constitutional authority has been left with the provincial government. Besides, the federal government has also failed,” the chief justice observed.
Article 148(3) emphasises the responsibility of the federal government to protect every province against external aggression and internal disturbances and to ensure that every province is governed in accordance with the Constitution.
“I believe the court has transgressed much beyond in this case,” the AG retorted and said the provincial government would soon file a petition seeking review of the Oct 12 interim order.
Mr Qadir claimed that the law and order situation was far better in Balochistan than in Punjab.
“It is your right to move a review petition, but till the time the petition is moved the court can ask for the interim report,” Justice Khawaja said, adding that even now people were being killed in Khuzdar, Quetta, etc.
“The level of interest in Balochistan is for everybody to see,” Justice Khawaja observed.
“Khuzdar has been shut for all practical intent and purposes,” the chief justice said.
The attorney general said courts and governments could not be closed and both had to go on. When the court observed that its orders were being taken lightly, Mr Qadir said the government always respected the court.
The bench regretted that the writ of both the federal and provincial governments had eroded and asked whether the AG would be happy if the court ordered the freezing of consolidated funds as long as the Constitution was not followed in letter and spirit.
The court ordered the AG to explain the steps taken by the federal government in terms of Article 148(3) after the interim order was issued. The case will be taken up on Nov 2. |
Railways land allotment case: NAB summons 3 retired generals By Syed Irfan Raza ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The National Accountability Bureau issued summons on Wednesday to three retired generals to record their statements in a case related to alleged fraudulent allotment of 141 kanals of Pakistan Railways land to a golf club in Lahore, reportedly causing a loss of over Rs10 billion to the national exchequer.
The case is being discussed or investigated at different levels since 2007, but it is for the first time that the generals have been summoned by an investigating agency.
The summons have been issued to Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi, Lt-Gen (retd) Saeeduz Zafar and Maj-Gen (retd) Hassan Butt.
“We have summoned three retired army generals who have to appear before an investigation team of the bureau on Thursday,” NAB spokesman Zafar Iqbal told Dawn.
He said the three were accused of illegally allotting railways property to the management of Royal Palm Golf Club at a discounted rate.
He said a new agreement had been signed in September this year between Pakistan Railways and the club’s management on the directives of NAB under which an additional amount of Rs16 billion was being paid to the PR.
But the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly in its meeting on Sept 14 called for the cancellation of the controversial agreement. It recommended a fresh bidding for the land and also called for strict disciplinary action against the former bosses of the railways, including the three retired generals, who had endorsed the agreement.
On a suo motu notice, the Supreme Court completed hearing on the case in March last year, but it has yet to issue a judgment.
When asked what NAB investigators will do when the three generals will appear before them on Thursday, the spokesman said: “The NAB team will record their statements and ask certain questions in the light of allegations levelled against them.”
He said questionnaires might be given to the generals for their comprehensive replies.
Mr Iqbal said NAB had almost settled financial liabilities and started the process of fixing criminal liabilities. “They (the people involved) can be civil bureaucrats and retired military generals,” he said.
A comprehensive report issued by the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Railways a few months ago on the allotment of land for setting up Royal Palm Golf and Country Club in Lahore reveals a number of financial and administrative irregularities and recommends prosecution of all members of PR’s executive committee.
On the committee’s directives, the Federal Investigation Agency started the investigation, but later the case was referred to NAB.
The special committee’s report said the land had been allotted at a nominal price, causing a huge loss to the exchequer because the land utilisation charge was reduced from Rs52.43 per square yard to only Rs4.
The report said construction of a hotel was not mentioned in the terms of reference (TOR) completed on April 20, 2001.
“There was no mention of construction of a hotel in TOR evaluation form filled between April 17 and April 20, 2001, and on the basis of this evaluation the land was awarded to the lessee as the executive committee’s approval was given on the same date,” the report said.
The NAB has arrested PRs’ General Manager (Maintenance & Services) Naeem Malik and Additional General Manager (Mechanical) Mian Ahsan Mahmood in another case for allegedly playing a key role in the purchase of spare parts worth $15.6 million for 69 Chinese locomotives. |
Israrul Haq elected SCBA president By Wajih Ahmad Sheikh LAHORE, Oct 31: Mian Israrul Haq swept to victory on Wednesday in the election for the Supreme Court Bar Association and notched up the president’s slot for 2012-13.
He defeated Ahmad Awais of the Hamid Khan-led Professional Group by a comfortable margin of 287 votes.
Israrul Haq was the candidate of the Independent Lawyers’ Group, led by SCBA’s former president Asma Jahangir. Pakistan Bar Council members Ahsan Bhoon, Azam Nazir Tarar, Ramzan Chaudhry, Burhan Moazam Malik, Akhtar Hussain and Mian Abbas were among the chief campaigners of Mr Haq.
Out of nine polling stations set up across the country, Mr Haq won in six. He obtained 1,019 votes against 740 bagged by Ahmad Awais, giving a third successive defeat to the Professional Group in SCBA elections over the past few years.
According to unofficial results, Mr Haq and Mr Awais secured 548 and 414 votes respectively from Lahore, 193 and 116 from Islamabad, 143 and 135 from Karachi, 21 and 25 from Abbottabad, 22 and 32 from Bahawalpur, 68 and 63 from Multan, 73 and 46 from Peshawar, 75 and 33 from Quetta, and 19 and 11 from Hyderabad.
Javed Iqbal Raja of the Independent Lawyers’ Group notched up the slot of secretary by defeating Mohammad Sohail Dar of Professional Group. Raja bagged 1037 votes and Dar 835.
Mohammad Tahir Chaudhry was elected vice-president from Punjab, Ain-ud-Din from Sindh and Abdullah Kakar from Balochistan. Jamal Khattak was elected vice-president unopposed from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Abdul Majeed Khan of the Independent Lawyers’ Group was elected additional secretary. He defeated Saleheen Mughal of the Professional Group. Abdul Rasheed was elected finance secretary.
Political analysts of the legal fraternity said the position of Israrul Haq was strong, but an alliance of lawyers belonging to the PPP, PML-N and Jamaat-i-Islami had played a key role in his easy victory.
They were of the opinion that the PML-N and JI had supported Mr Haq because Mr Awais was a candidate of Hamid Khan, who held a senior post in the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf. Leaders of the two parties thought that Mr Awais would toe the PTI agenda if he won the election.
Addressing lawyers at the Lahore registry of the Supreme Court, Israrul Haq vowed to play his role in upholding democracy and strengthening institutions in the country. He said welfare of the legal fraternity would be his top priority.
Asma Jahangir said the intervention of political parties and judges in bar politics was not acceptable to lawyers. She rejected an allegation about the government’s involvement in the bar election and said lawyers were not a “saleable commodity”. The losers should accept defeat with open heart instead of levelling “baseless allegations”, she added.
Ms Jahangir said her group would continue to struggle for independence of the judiciary and the bar.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf called Israrul Haq and greeted him on his victory. The prime minister praised the SCBA for holding elections regularly. He also praised outgoing SCBA president Yasin Azad for his efforts for the wellbeing of lawyers. |
Riaz-Arsalan case: Commission issues contempt notice to FIA director general By Mubashir Zaidi ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The commission investigating the high-profile case involving property tycoon Malik Riaz and Arsalan Iftikhar, the son of chief justice, has issued a contempt notice to Director General of Federal Investigation Agency for replacing two senior officials who were investigating the case.
The commission has also accused the interior ministry of not complying with its orders for putting the names of Malik Riaz and Arsalan Iftikhar on the Exit Control List.
In a letter to FIA’s director general Anwar Virk, the commission observed that transferring two senior officials of the agency investigating the case would hamper the pace of the ongoing proceedings of the commission and the ‘willful defiance’ shown by the FIA is tantamount to contempt.
“DG FIA is required to immediately cancel these transfer orders or submit his written reply in three days as to why contempt proceedings may not be initiated against him for impeding the work of the commission,” the notice said.
The commission said that two senior FIA officials, Shahid Nadeem Baloch and forensic expert Muhammed Akram, had been transferred from their posts overnight to scuttle the probe.
Interior Ministry has already filed a reply before the commission on putting the names of Malik Riaz, Arsalan Iftikhar and others on the ECL and said the matter is under active consideration of the law and interior divisions. “Ministry’s position shall be made known on the issue involved after receipt of Law Division’s reply within a couple of days,” the interior ministry said in a letter dated Oct 19. But the commission has not received reply till now.
Malik Riaz is currently in the UK and is expected to arrive in two days. However, he has refused to appear before the commission despite repeated orders citing his petition in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of the commission.
A two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Jawad Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif will take up the application of Malik Riaz next week.
Selective media leaks which created a storm in the country suggested that the property tycoon had allegedly paid millions of rupees to the son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry in an apparent attempt to influence the superior judicary. Arsalan Iftikhar has denied the allegation claiming that he did not take any money from Malik Riaz.
Meanwhile, the Federal Board of Revenue has provided the income tax returns and business details of Malik Riaz and Arsalan Iftikhar which, according to officials of the commission, are being examined by chartered accountants. |
Cabinet ratifies visa accord with India By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Seven weeks after the government signed a new visa regime with India, the federal cabinet on Wednesday finally ratified the agreement, thus paving the way for its implementation by the Pakistani side.
Accompanying the nod for the visa accord was the approval for four other agreements inked by Pakistan and India — three of them related to trade and the fourth one to cultural cooperation.
As expected, the ratification of the visa agreement, aimed at easing travel restrictions on senior citizens, businessmen, etc, stole the spotlight.
On Sept 8 Pakistan and India signed the agreement on liberalising the visa regime and creating four new visa categories during the then Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna’s visit to Islamabad.
Soon after signing the accord India began implementing it, but the process in Islamabad took much longer because of delays at the interior ministry. However, the time taken by the ministry to put the agreement — previously approved by the ministers and signed by the two countries at the ministerial level — for ratification before the cabinet was shorter than the months-long delay experienced after the two countries had agreed to initial it.
Earlier this month Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had informed the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Relations that delay at the interior ministry was because of procedural matters.
But, insiders said that strong reservations expressed by the intelligence and security agencies had caused the delay. The agencies said they had not been fully consulted before the signing of the agreement. They also claimed that they did not have the capacity to deal with an enhanced inflow of visitors once the new regime took effect.
The three trade-related agreements ratified by the cabinet were signed on Sept 21 after the meeting of the commerce secretaries of the two countries.
One agreement is about cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters while another one is aimed at redressing trade grievances. The third agreement, between the Bureau of Indian Standards and the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority, pertains to conformity of standards in the two countries.
Pakistan and India have covered a lot of ground for normalising bilateral trade. Islamabad is set to accord Most-Favoured Nation status to India in December.
The two sides are also working on opening of bank branches and allowing investments. The fourth MoU confirmed by the cabinet provides for enhanced exchanges in the fields of music, dance, theatre and visual arts. The signatories to the agreement are the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and Pakistan National Council of Arts. |
US envoy Olson assumes office By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Newly-appointed US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson formally assumed the office on Wednesday with a pledge to build mutually respectful relationship.
Ambassador Olson presented his credentials to President Asif Ali Zardari at the Governor’s House in Karachi.
Credentials for new envoys are usually received at the presidency. It was one of those rare occasions when a special ceremony was arranged in a provincial capital to receive new ambassadors.
The diplomatic ritual of presentation of credentials was followed by a meeting between President Zardari and Mr Olson.
The president expressed grief over the loss of lives and huge destruction in the US caused by Hurricane Sandy.
Mr Zardari hoped that the ambassador would help in cementing the bilateral relationship.
Mr Olson, who replaced Ambassador Cameron Munter, arrived in Pakistan on October 27 to take up the new assignment.
His predecessor had earlier this year quit prematurely after he was overruled on critical issues, including drones and apology for deaths of 24 Pakistani troops in the Salala incident.
A diplomatic source opined that the new envoy was a good choice and had the combined strengths of his two immediate predecessors — Ambassador Munter and Ambassador Patterson.
He has a vast experience of working in countries with conflict.
The source said Mr Olson was ‘well connected’ with the influential corridors in Washington and has the ability to work affably with interlocutors in the host country.
The advice Mr Olson got from his Pakistani friends was not to bunker himself inside the embassy.
In his first public comments on arrival the ambassador had also expressed his desire to reach out to the people of Pakistan. “I want to see as much of this beautiful country as possible and meet its talented people,” he said.
Mr Olson strongly believes in improved Pak-US ties.
“The United States has a clear interest in supporting a stable, sovereign and democratic Pakistan at peace with itself and its neighbours,” he had said at his confirmation hearing in the US Senate.
Mr Olson’s focus would be on counter-terrorism cooperation; getting clear support from Islamabad for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan; and working for democratic and economic stability in Pakistan.
Prior to coming to Pakistan, Ambassador Olson served as the coordinating director for development and economic affairs at the US Embassy in Kabul from 2011 to 2012. He was ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 2008 to 2011. |
New York getting back on its feet; storm hits Canada By Anwar Iqbal and Masood Haider WASHINGTON/ NEW YORK, Oct 31: Thicker than usual traffic heralded the beginning of the first working day in New York as Hurricane Sandy weakened and moved over Canada, leaving a trail of deaths and destruction in north-eastern US.
So far, US officials have confirmed between 40 and 50 storm-related deaths, including 18 in New York, which was among the hardest hit.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg reopened the New York Stock Exchange, after a rare two-day closure. The mayor said damage in the city was extensive.
Also on Wednesday, the US Navy moved three ships towards New York and New Jersey to be ready to act if the storm-struck states asked for help.
The federal government has already declared New Jersey and New York disaster-hit areas as they struggle to deal with severe flooding and power outages.
The USS Wasp is a landing helicopter assault ship that resembles a small aircraft carrier. The USS San Antonio and the USS Carter Hall offer similar facilities.
In New Jersey, where the storm made a landfall on Monday evening, President Barack Obama toured the affected areas with Governor Chris Christie, a firebrand opponent. The tour aims at sending the message that Republicans and Democrats are united to cope with the disaster.
The storm destroyed Atlantic City, devastated New York, shut down the federal government in Washington, forced Wall Street to close, and caused the cancellation of more than 12,000 flights. It also caused more than 7.5 million students to stay home as schools across East Coast closed.
But these happened on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was a different story.
A bright sun greeted more than 56 million East Coast residents as the region resumed its first working day after four weekend and storm-related offs.
In New York, rush-hour traffic was thicker than normal as a closed subway system forced people to rely on motor vehicles. “The rush is unbelievable,” said a commuter, “bumper to bumper on all major roads”.
New York Mass Transit Authority says it may take them up to a week to restore the subway, a 108-year old train system which is also one of the world’s largest.
In Washington, where the Metro rail resumed after two days of storm, the road traffic was light. Fallen trees have closed some roads and side streets and forced people to rely on the Metro.
Officials in Washington are now preparing for a possible flood as one of the region’s largest rivers, Potomac, is overflowing with rainwater.
Officials have warned that the water level may rise up to 15 feet, highest ever, by Thursday when water from the surrounding hills fills the river.
In New York, some bridges that link the island-city to the mainland reopened on Wednesday. But the flooded Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, and the Holland Tunnel, between New York and New Jersey, remained closed.City officials tried to compensate train commuters by offering free rides on buses to all citizens until the subway is restored.
New York’s three major international airports – including JFK, where flights from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh arrive, were reopened, too, but were not yet fully operational.
Across the Hudson River in New Jersey the prospect of a quick return to daily routines remains bleak.
On Wednesday afternoon, President Obama and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie began a two-hour aerial tour of damaged areas.
Although an outspoken critic of Mr Obama’s policies, Gov. Christie praised the president’s leadership during the hurricane. He also said it could be months before the state could recover from the “unthinkable” damage sustained in the storm.White House spokesman Jay Carney, who accompanied the president, declined to speculate how the storm might affect the election campaign. “This is not a time for politics,” he said.
Other north-eastern states, although not as badly hit as New Jersey, are also struggling to deal with Sandy’s aftermath. More than 6 million people in these states remain without electricity a day after the storm.
Thousands of shops along the eastern coastline have been washed away.
Many private businesses, damaged in the storm, also remain closed.
Various private agencies have estimated that the storm would cost approximately $20 billion in damage and between $10 and $30 billion in lost business. Flight cancellations will cost another $15 billion.
Ontario paralysed
After overwhelming the US East Coast, the storm passed over to Canada, bringing rain and gusty winds to southern Ontario and Quebec.
Although it weakened significantly before entering Canada, the storm caused ice rains and snow and brought down the temperature significantly.
On Wednesday morning, Environment Canada warned the wintry precipitation was likely to continue into the night across broad swath of north eastern Ontario.
Residents in some areas were reminded to keep their mobile phones charged and their three-day emergency supply stocked in the event Sandy’s remnants cause any more problems.
Most of the weather warnings issued ahead of Sandy’s arrival in Canada have, however, been cancelled.
In Toronto, a woman died after struck by a wind-blown sign.
Sandy also paralysed the province of Ontario, the most populated in Canada, causing power outages that forced 150,000 people to live in the dark. It also left more than 210 homes and businesses without power in Quebec and Nova Scotia. Gusty winds fell trees and demolished electrical posts.
Bad weather conditions also forced Air Canada, West Jet Airlines and Porter Airlines to cancel 150 flights at two airports in Toronto, considered the financial centre of the country. Schools were also closed for a day. The local government urged people to stay indoors. |
Speaker declines to convene assembly session: Balochistan govt in tumult as Raisani faces revolt By Khawar Ghumman & Amanullah Kasi ISLAMABAD/QUETTA, Nov 1: Balochistan finally took centre stage on Thursday but for what appeared to be an intra-party struggle.
The crisis was triggered by a decision of the PPP Balochistan chapter to suspend the basic membership of its member and provincial Chief Minister, Nawab Aslam Raisani, on charges of corruption and failing to deliver as the chief executive of the restive province.
The decision was taken by Rafiq Sajjad, PPP’s Kalat division president, and supported by Sadiq Umrani, its Balochistan chapter president.
It was then reported by TV channels that Speaker Mohammad Aslam Bhootani had turned down a request of the chief minister to call a session of the Balochistan Assembly.
The speaker said he had received a letter from the chief minister asking for the session to be called on Wednesday.
He not only refused to summon the session but also asked the provincial governor to determine the legal status of the Raisani government after the Supreme Court’s interim order issued on
Oct 12.
Mr Bhootani told a news channel that until the legal position of the provincial government was determined he would not budge, adding that the government had lost its constitutional authority after the court’s order.
The Supreme Court had ruled that the Balochistan government had failed to fulfil its constitutional duty and protect basic human rights in the province.
It also called upon the federal government to step in and play its constitutional role in the face of the failure of the provincial government.
In an equally serious move on Wednesday, only a day before Mr Raisani’s suspension, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had censured the federal government for not implementing the Oct 12 order and sought a clarification from the attorney general over the constitutional authority of the provincial government.
Raisani strikes back
Before the commentary on these developments had been exhausted, Mr Raisani, who is known to spend most of the time in Islamabad and not Quetta, called a press conference in the capital.
In his trademark style, which combines a rustic wit with a bluster, he told journalists that he had decided to appear before the Supreme Court on Friday, along with his coalition partners, to defend his government in the case based on a petition filed by the Balochistan High Court Bar Association on the law and order condition and human rights violations in the province.
It is noteworthy that the chief minister has so far not appeared before the court in the case.
Mr Raisani dismissed the suspension order as well as the financial controversies surrounding him that have made it to newspapers and news channels recently. He claimed that he continued to enjoy the confidence of the majority in the provincial assembly and that there was no threat to his government.
Without naming anyone specifically, he accused his detractors of launching a propaganda campaign against his government. He then offered an award of a whopping ten rupees to the person who could throw him (Raisani) out of the PPP.
By the time the press conference had ended, most observers were certain that what appeared to be an intra-government or intra-party dispute was inextricably linked to the SC order. Some went so far as to say that this was a move from within to finally remove a controversial figurehead from a key position.
According to political insiders and analysts, Mr Raisani’s suspension from the party membership may lead to some change within the provincial set-up.
PPP’s Raisani worries
A federal minister said the PPP leadership had not been happy with Mr Raisani for quite some time for a number of reasons; he had failed to improve the situation in the province despite billions of rupees that had been poured in under the Aghaz-i-Haqooq-i-Balochistan package, his lack of interest in governance and constant presence in Islamabad which was now being discussed openly.
Over the past few weeks, criticism had also been directed his way for a compensation package given to his family that was determined by his own government and for a plane that he had purchased for his use as chief minister.
The federal minister pointed out that even the PPP leaders from Balochistan had criticised Mr Raisani. Balochistan Governor Zulfiqar Magsi repeatedly suggested that the PPP co-chairman should replace him (Raisani).
This is lent credence by the reaction to the chief minister’s suspension. Sadiq Umrani, president of the PPP’s Balochistan chapter, endorsed the suspension of Mr Raisani’s basic membership and demanded that the party leadership remove him as chief minister.
Mr Umrani supported the SC judgment and levelled serious allegations of corruptions against Mr Raisani.
Cracks within
Soon after this, ANP’s Balochistan president Aurangzeb Kasi directed his party’s parliamentary leader in the provincial assembly, Zamarak Khan, not to appear in the Supreme Court, along with the chief minister.
He said Mr Zamarak’s announcement during Raisani’s press conference that he would accompany the chief minister to the court was his personal decision and not party policy.
In fact, the reports about cracks in the coalition supporting Mr Raisani were also rife in Quetta. This week alone, a cabinet meeting had been announced and postponed twice, although officials claimed it was because of Mr Raisani’s ill health. Some politicians said it was because it would have allowed the differences within the cabinet members to be raised at an official forum.
A political commentator well versed with the politics of Balochistan said there were both chances of an in-house change or governor rule in the province. However, he added that it would not be easy for the PPP to take such radical steps so close to general elections.
The mystery may clear up during the court proceedings on Friday.
Court order revisited
Referring to the Article 148(3), the SC in its interim order had reminded the federal government of its constitutional duty “to protect every province against external aggression and internal disturbances and to ensure that the government of every province is carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution…”
After ruling that the provincial government had failed to discharge its constitutional duties, the two-judge bench headed by the chief justice had categorically asked the federal government to intervene. The judgment said: “However, if situation arises that the internal disturbances are of such a serious nature that the provincial government has failed to control them or that it is unable to manage it then federation may take steps to protect the province from such internal disturbances.”
The SC in its interim order had not just found the provincial government to be a failure it also pointed out that provincial ministers were accused of being involved in kidnapping for ransom and corruption. |
Entire govt responsible for power crisis: Shaikh: Sector needs Rs150bn in next five months By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: The government should acknowledge that it has failed to bring about any improvement in the power sector even after pouring a staggering sum of Rs 1.4 trillion, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh is reported to have advised the government.
On top of that, the government estimates that the power sector will consume about Rs150 billion in the coming five months to ensure a supply of about 13,000MW to offset an expected decline in hydropower generation and gas shortages.
A senior finance ministry official in a background briefing said this would be one of the key factors in expanding the country’s fiscal deficit, which had provisionally been estimated at about 1.3 per cent of GDP in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, almost at the same level in the last financial year that finally concluded at 8.53
per cent.
He said that while inflows of about $680 million from the United States on account of coalition support fund was certain to materialise during the current fiscal year, the realisation of over $800 million estimated on account of auction of third generation telecom licences remained a question mark.
“They (the telecom ministry and regulator) let us down last year and are moving on the same pattern,” said the official, adding that the team working on auction of telecom licences had not been able to appoint even a consultant for the exercise despite a lapse of over five months.
In reply to a question, the official said that a tax amnesty scheme proposed by the Federal Board of Revenue for whitening of black money that was estimated to yield over Rs170 billion had not taken off so far “because it was insufficiently developed” and required a lot of homework.
He said the scheme had still not been presented to the finance minister in a manner that could even be considered for formal discussion and approval.
The amnesty scheme involved legal and practical ramifications that could not be cleared for implementation by the finance minister alone unless approved by the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet or the federal cabinet, he added.
The official said that during a discussion on the economic situation at a meeting of the federal cabinet, some members suggested providing diesel and fertiliser at cheaper rates to support the farming community as was being done in some of the neighbouring countries.
GENEROSITY: He quoted the finance minister as telling the cabinet that different governments had different economic priorities. In Pakistan, the government had provided over Rs1.4 trillion to the power sector and even then the situation could not improve. “We should collectively take responsibility for this failure,” the minister was quoted to have said.
This was too big an amount and Pakistan was being dubbed as overgenerous in providing subsidies by international agencies.
Hence, the government decided to identify the poor for direct financial support and adopted the Benazir Income Support Programme. The scheme was providing cash grants to over 3.5 million
families.
Moreover, it was a collective and well-intentioned decision to provide over Rs800 billion additional funds to four provincial entities to strengthen the federation and improving living standards at the grassroots level.
The official said hydropower generation was expected to drastically come down to about 1,000MW against a capacity of about 6,700MW when the provinces went on an annual canal closure from Dec 25 to Jan 31. At the same time, the domestic demand for natural gas would also increase manifold, creating a wide gap which would need to be bridged through additional imports of furnace oil.
A committee, led by the finance minister, has been asked by the prime minister to take stock of the situation on a fortnightly basis and finalise by next week how much of additional quantities of furnace oil would be required to maintain a power generation level of 13,000MW.
Initial estimates put an additional fiscal requirement of about Rs150 billion for winter. |
SC freezes CNG prices till 19th By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: Consumers will continue to get CNG at the existing reduced prices determined by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority on Oct 25 as the Supreme Court ordered on Thursday to freeze them till Nov 19.
And when the court will take up again the issue of gas pricing on Nov 19 the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) will apprise it of the measures they have taken to check the UFG (unaccounted for gas) losses.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja spoke about measures to check allegations relating to gas theft and pilferage the cost of which the consumers had to pay in the shape of UFG losses.
After the recent reduction of prices by Rs30.84 per kg, the CNG is being sold at Rs61.64 in Region-I (Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Balochistan and Potohar, including Rawalpindi-Islamabad and Gujar Khan) and at Rs54.16 in Region-II (Sindh and Punjab).
During the proceedings, Justice Khawaja observed that the CNG association had become a cartel and regretted that the government signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) with it. The MoU determined the operating cost and profit of CNG stations by almost Rs30 per kg which was suspended by the government on Oct 25.
Advocate Wasim Sajjad, representing the Sindh CNG association, conceded that the government had not only supported the cartel but also recognised it, adding that the government should be directed not to coerce the CNG owners.
The observation about the association having become a cartel was made when Petroleum and Natural Resources Secretary Waqar Masood candidly accepted before the court that the (CNG) mafia was pressurising the government.
The chief justice observed that the mafia could not dictate the court because it had no business with them.
Mr Masood also informed the court that the matter of petroleum levy was pending before the Lahore High Court. The LHC had issued a stay order a year ago.
At this the apex court asked the authorities concerned to request the LHC for an early hearing and observed that determining prices of petroleum products was the job of Ogra, and not of courts.
The court took notice of a statement of Adviser to the PM on Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain in which he had expressed his helplessness in a talk show. Dr Asim claimed that the petroleum mafia had deferred to the petroleum policy under the court’s orders. The court asked the adviser not to be scared of the mafia’s threats and praised the government for reducing the gas price.
“The credit goes to the government,” the chief justice said, adding that the prices had been fixed by the government and not by the Supreme Court. “Even those bar members who were criticising the role of the court in reducing the prices should read our order first.”
The court directed managing directors of SNGPL and SSGC Arif Hameed and Azeem Iqbal Siddiqui, respectively, to undertake an exercise by following a procedure of forensic cost audit of prices of the gas per kg as well as mmbtu (million British thermal unit) and assist the court in determining how much the consumer is paying for using the gas.
According to the price fixed by Ogra on Oct 27, the SNGPL was receiving gas from the wellhead at Rs18.04 per kg and SSGC at Rs16.48 per kg.
It is equally important to understand, the court noted, how much cost is being borne by the companies by supplying natural gas to CNG stations. The court also noted that the daily production of natural gas in the country totalled approximately 4,000 mmcf (million cubic feet) while the consumption is a little over 3,500 mmcf, though in winter the shortfall sometimes reached 1,100 mmcf.
The fixation of the CNG prices is governed by these factors, the court observed, and ordered the petroleum secretary and Ogra Chairman Saeed Ahmed Khan to submit by Nov 19 details about the gas supplied to different sectors — domestic consumers, industries, IPPs (independent power producers), CNG stations and fertiliser units. |
Kaira urges judiciary to exercise restraint By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: Federal Minister for Information Qamar Zaman Kaira expects that the Supreme Court will avoid wading into political waters while dealing with issues of public interest, as did the US Supreme Court which upheld President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.
Talking to journalists after attending a function here on Thursday, Mr Kaira refused to comment on the SC’s decision to reduce CNG prices terming the matter sub judice. However, he advised the judiciary to exercise restraint on ‘political matters and issues of public interests’.
Replying to a question about reported remarks of Lahore High Court chief justice stressing the need for consensus on the controversial Kalabagh dam, the minister said only elected forums could take decisions on these issues.
“Involvement of judiciary in such matters should be avoided as it would not serve any purpose,” he added. At the same time, he suggested that as a nation “we should also try not to drag it (judiciary) into political matters”.
Citing an example of the US Supreme Court he said that in its recent ruling on the issue of a hotly-debated healthcare bill it had declared that courts should not get involved in matters of public interests on the basis of which people made decisions at the time of voting.
Mr Kaira’s comments came a day after the two former presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association — Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan and Asma Jahangir — objected to SC’s involvement in ‘petty’ issues like prices of CNG and sugar.
Mr Ahsan, who is also a PPP senator, had expressed reservations over suo motu notices saying in such cases the defendant party lost right to appeal.
Similarly, Asma Jahangir had stated that the Supreme Court was not meeting all requisites of justice and said if judiciary remained stuck to gas and sugar prices, who would dispense justice to commoners.
HAMEED GUL CRITICISED: Mr Kaira also lashed out at former chief of the ISI Gen (retd) Hameed Gul for his role in the formation of the anti-PPP Islami Jamhoori Ittehad in the 1990 elections which had been declared manipulated by the Supreme Court in the Asghar Khan case.
The information minister said Mr Gul’s institution should take notice of his activities during service as he himself had confessed that he had formed the IJI in his personal capacity and as a serving general what was his personal capacity.
Hameed Gul, he said, had created a lot of problems for the nation in the past and now he should refrain from issuing irresponsible statements. The minister said the IJI had been formed to steal the mandate of the people with ulterior motives by depriving the PPP of its election victory. |
Ex-generals appear before NAB probe team By Syed Irfan Raza ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: Former railways minister and ex-chief of ISI Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi lost his temper and misbehaved with journalists outside the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) headquarters on Thursday where he and two other retired generals had gone to record their statements in a land fraud case.
The three had been summoned by NAB for their alleged involvement in leasing out 141 acres of railways land in Lahore to a private club in 2001.
When Gen Qazi came out of the NAB headquarters he tried to avoid reporters and TV cameras and just said ‘no comments’ when several thorny questions were asked.
But he lost his temper when asked why he was avoiding the media after having brought the railways to the verge of collapse. “Shut up, …”, he said to a reporter, pushed away the mike and boarded his car.
Lt-Gen (retd) Saeeduz Zafar also tried to avoid talking to reporters but later lashed out at politicians.
“Can politicians be accountable for their deeds?” he said when asked about accountability of political leaders and generals.
He said military generals had been facing a media trial for 11 years.
He advised people to vote for a transgender leader, Almas Bobby, instead of politicians in the next general elections.
The third retired army officer, Maj-Gen Hamid Hassan Butt, managed to leave unnoticed because journalists did not recognise him.
The three recorded their statements separately before NAB investigators and pleaded innocence.
“Each of them sat before the NAB team for more than one and a half hours and recorded his statement,” the bureau’s spokesman Zafar Iqbal said.
“Two civilians — Khursheed Ahmad Khan, former finance member, and Iqbal Samad Khan, ex-general manager (operations), of Pakistan Railways — have also been summoned to NAB headquarters on Monday,” he said.
The spokesman said the investigation being conducted on the directives of the Supreme Court would be completed soon.
The case has been discussed and investigated at different levels since 2007 but it was for the first time that the retired generals appeared before investigators.
The fraudulent land deal reportedly caused a loss of over Rs10 billion to the national exchequer.
Replying to a question, the NAB spokesman said the investigation was in the final stage and the bureau would take a decision on the statements of the three retired generals in a month. “It is up to the investigators whether they fix criminal liabilities on them or not,” he said.
According to NAB, a new agreement has been signed in September this year between the railways and the management of the club under which an additional Rs16 billion is being paid to the PR.
However, a federal minister who had headed a special committee of parliament and issued its report on the controversial land deal said he believed that the bureau was trying to give a clean chit to the generals in the case.
“In the light of the findings of parliamentary committee, we had recommended that all the property and cars of all the accused, including military generals, should be confiscated and criminal liabilities fixed on them,” he said.
According to reports, the land had been leased out at a nominal price, causing a huge loss to the national exchequer, by reducing the land utilisation charge from Rs52.43 to only Rs4 per square yard.
He said NAB had recently reshaped the agreement between the railways and the management of the golf club under which an additional Rs16 billion would be paid in two to three decades.
The Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the case and completed the hearing in March last year, but is yet to issue a judgment.
On Sept 14, the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly called for cancellation of the lease agreement. |
PML-N challenges Altaf’s credentials By Iftikhar A. Khan ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: The main opposition Pakistan Muslim League (N) and a key component of the ruling coalition, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, have a history of engaging in war of words in and outside the parliament, but the two political rivals are set to fight, probably the first-ever significant legal battle.
PML-N’s Senator Zafar Ali Shah filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday a petition challenging the command and control of the MQM by Altaf Hussain on the grounds that he was a foreign national and for-bidden under the law to become a member of the parliament.
Observers are of the opinion that the timing is significant because the petition had been filed when the general election is round the corner.
The two parties were coalition partners before the Nawaz Sharif-led government was overthrown in a bloodless coup by General Pervez Musharraf in October 1999.
Political differences between the two parties started when the MQM joined the military-led government and touched new heights during the movement for restoration of the judiciary in 2007.
When the PML-N joined the PPP-led ruling coalition after the 2008 general election, the MQM was in the opposition led by the PML-Q.
When the PML-N parted ways with the PPP accusing it of backtracking on its commitment for reinstatement of the judiciary, the MQM switched to the treasury benches.
Since then the PML-N and the MQM have never let go any opportunity of criticising each other. Their lawmakers not only exchanged hot words in parliamentary sessions but on occasions also reached close to physical brawl.
The most recent difference of opinion between the two parties emerged over the issue of dual nationality. While the MQM defends the right of overseas Pakistanis to take part in national activities on the grounds that they send billions of dollars in remittances which strengthen the country’s economy, the PML-N is of the opinion that the constitutional provision on dual nationality must be respected.
Senator Zafar Ali Shah told Dawn that he had filed the petition in his personal capacity. He said he had chosen the timing because the Supreme Court recently disqualified about a dozen members of parliament and provincial assemblies for holding dual nationality.
The PML-N leader said important legal questions had been raised in the petition which, if not addressed, would create imbalance in politics and jeopardise the national interest.
He said the Constitution barred the holder of dual nationality from becoming a member of parliament and asked how could a person living abroad in self-exile and holding a foreign passport be allowed to influence legislation and policymaking in Pakistan through lawmakers belonging to the party he headed.
“It is not legally and constitutionally plausible for a foreigner to influence the lawmaking process in Pakistan while sitting abroad,” Senator Shah pleaded in the petition.
He said dozens of members of parliament and the Sindh Assembly were bound to obey the command of Altaf Hussain under the constitution of MQM. Even under the Constitution of the country, they would face disqualification if they betrayed their party chief in the elections for the prime minister and chief minister and in no-trust motions, on money bill or a constitutional amendment bill, he added.
The petition also questioned the legality of telephonic addresses of Mr Hussain broadcast live by a number of channels and contended that the government was duty bound to stop such speeches and political activities.
The petition requested the apex court to order the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) not to allow or facilitate the broadcast of Mr Hussain’s speeches.
Sindh governor
The continuation of Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad for almost 12 years has also been criticised and the petition said he had been appointed by then president Gen Pervez Musharraf on the last day of 2002. “When the president cannot be elected consecutively for more than twice, how can his nominee retain the office for 12 long years?”
It requested the court to declare null and void the Dec 31, 2002 notification appointing Dr Ishratul Ibad as Governor. Dr Ibad also held dual nationality and, therefore, should be disqualified from holing the office of governor.
Besides Altaf Hussain and Ishratul Ibad, the petition claimed, a number of MQM lawmakers were also holding dual nationality and truth of the fact should be inquired from the interior ministry.
The federal government, Cabinet Division, Election Commission, Ministry of Interior, Pemra, Altaf Hussain, Ishratul Ibad and over 80 members of parliament and Sindh Assembly belonging to the MQM have been made respondent in the petition.
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Power sector losses increase to 45pc, NA committee told By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Nov 1: Nearly half of the electricity produced in the country ultimately goes down the drain because of system losses and non-recovery of bills, according to a government testimony before the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Water and Power.
The testimony gave reason even to PPP parliamentarians attending a committee meeting on Thursday to express no-confidence in the ability of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf to resolve the power crisis.
The committee led by Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah was dumbfounded when Water and Power Special Secretary Himayatullah Khan testified that the power sector losses stood at about 45 per cent.
The committee was also informed that about 12,000 connections, out of the 28,000 public sector connections of Sindh government, did not even have meters and the provincial government owed Rs50 billion to the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company.
Ejaz Virk, the PPP member whose Faisalabad residence was attacked not long ago by a mob protesting against loadshedding, was particularly harsh in his criticism of the government.
He said that loadshedding was a stigma for the PPP government but the party’s leadership hardly realised what kind of problems the power outages and shortfall were creating for its legislators.
“Raja Pervez Ashraf is the prime minister today. What else does he want us to do? We cannot make him a prophet. He remained power minister and knows everything about the crisis. But their activities suggest they are ‘Disco Diwane’,” Mr Virk remarked. When confirmed by the special secretary that the government had injected Rs1.4 trillion into the power sector over the past four years, Mr Virk lamented that the situation had not changed during the period and the parliamentarians were raising the same questions that they were four years ago.
“This is a huge amount. Even the Arabian Sea could have started providing electricity with this kind of money.”
Giving details of the losses, Special Secretary Khan attributed 3 per cent each to transmission and generation, 10 per cent to distribution, 15 per cent to theft and 14 per cent to non-recovery of bills.
He also conceded that a large number of consumers were using ‘kundas’ in connivance with the staff of utilities to steal electricity.
While the losses were a cause of concern for the parliamentarians, equally disturbing was the revelation that the ministry of water and power had put a ban on allowing poor consumers to pay their bills in instalments or after the due date even in hardship cases while industrialists continued to use electricity after defaulting
on payments.
The committee unanimously asked the government to withdraw the ban and provide relief to the poor people who wanted to pay their bills in instalments. Mr Khan confirmed that the ban had
created a lot of problems for the people and the ministry was already considering reviewing it.
A general manager of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company confirmed that system losses in his utility hovered around 45 per cent and added that theft was one of the key factors in this regard. He said the Sindh government had defaulted in payment of Rs50 billion to Hesco and the stock had been built up mostly in the past four years.
After a lot of debate, the provincial government had recently made a nominal payment, of Rs800 million, he said.
He said that out of 28,000 public sector connections, the Sindh government was acknowledging only 16,000 connections and disputing the remaining 12,000. He said an independent consultant had recently been hired to verify and reconcile these connections.
He explained that most of the public sector connections did not have meters and the bills were issued on the basis of sanctioned load. But now the provincial government was also disputing the load factor.
The special secretary informed the committee that overall cost of generation stood at about Rs12 per unit against its sale price of Rs8.88 per unit, leaving a gap of about Rs3 per unit. “This is why the circular debt refuses to go away,” he said. |
PML-N slams Malik over ISI case probe offer By Our Staff Reporter LAHORE, Nov 1: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz criticised Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Thursday for ‘overstepping’ his mandate by offering the PML-N leadership people of its choice to investigate the issue of ISI funds in the Asghar Khan case.
“As FIA rules and regulations do not allow the minister to appoint any investigator in the cases tasked to the agencies, Rehman Malik is misusing his office to make such a statement for cheap publicity,” PML-N media coordinator Mohammad Mehdi said at a press
conference.
Mr Mehdi also chided the minister for asking the Sharifs to quit politics because of the Supreme Court verdict in the case and said Mr Malik himself was the only person declared not truthful (sadiq) and trustworthy (ameen) by the apex court and hence he had no moral grounds to raise his finger at others.
Referring to central Punjab PPP President Manzoor Wattoo’s claim of ‘conquering’ the province for the party, the PML-N leader said Mr Wattoo had earlier tried to ‘conquer’ Punjab with the help of PPP in 1993-95 but then he had to seek refuge in the Sharif camp.
“Mr Wattoo must keep in mind that he might have to seek shelter again after having been (mis)used by the PPP.”
Mr Mehdi also criticised Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf and said the ‘fan group’ had failed to implement its announcement of protesting outside UN offices in New York on Oct 24 against drone attacks in the country. |
Durand Line is international border, says US diplomat By Ismail Khan PESHAWAR, Nov 1: A senior American diplomat in Pakistan said on Thursday the United States recognised the Durand Line as an international border and if Afghanistan had any other interpretation, “that’s certainly their business”.
“The existing border is recognised as an international border. Now if the government in Kabul has other interpretation, that’s certainly their business,” Richard E. Hoagland, US Deputy Chief of Mission in Pakistan, said at a media roundtable here.
Mr Hoagland was responding to a question on Kabul’s rather angry reaction to US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman’s, comments on the border which Afghanistan has long considered a contentious and un-resolved issue.
Durand Line draws its name from Mortimer Durand, the Foreign Secretary of British India, who demarcated the 2640-kilometre-long and porous borders between Pakistan and Afghanistan following a treaty with Afghanistan’s Amir Abdur Rehman Khan in 1893.
The joint survey team took two years to complete and covered some 800 miles of the borders.
Pakistan as a dominion to the British India inherited the treaty which Afghans believed was imposed on them through coercion.
The Afghans say the treaty — a single page containing seven clauses, was written in English which late Amir Abdur Rehman Khan could neither read nor understand. Pakistan says the border between the two countries is a settled issue and not opens to discussions.
“Look, this is not the Line of Control. This has been recognised as an international border for a long time. I understand that certainly Kabul may have a different point of view and they are certainly well within their right to explain their point of view,” Mr Hoagland maintained.
Pak-US relations
The US diplomat quoted Ambassador Grossman as describing his recent visit to Pakistan as “the best visit he has had” and said that his meetings with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and military chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and their staff had been “very good”.
“It was a discussion. It wasn’t just one side making their statements and the other side making their statements and then saying ‘okay, thank you, and goodbye’.”
He said that the meeting with Gen Kayani in Rawalpindi had been equally positive and that both countries were trying to identify clearly where the interests were common, things they could work on together, things that could benefit both countries and their people.
“It was a very positive visit. It was positive in the sense that it was part of redefining our relationship,” he said.
He said Pakistan recognised the importance of fighting terrorists and the United States wanted to help Pakistan fight terrorism.
“The sooner we can contain terrorists and begin to defeat terrorism, the more peaceful the region will become,” he said.
He acknowledged that 2011 was a very difficult period for US-Pakistan relations, followed by what he described as the “strategic pause” in the first half of 2012 which did not see “too many decisions” made about the relations.
But he said that behind-the-scene discussions on the three parts of the relations; the civilian-diplomatic relations, military-to-military relations and relations between intelligence agencies.
“We have gone through a difficult period,” he said, adding that both sides had begun to re-engage. “It’s going to be a more mature relationship. It might be a little bit more restrained but that’s good. Its good because what we will do is identify where are the areas that are of mutual interests to both sides.”
Drone strikes
He declined to discuss the drone issue “on the record” but said that it was important for the two countries to discuss it.
He said that both countries were looking for the best possible way to make sure that they were working together on this.
But he disagreed with a reporter who asked if he agreed with the drone strikes’ critics that innocent were being targeted in the drone strikes. “I don’t agree,” he said.
Imran Khan
The US diplomat denied that the Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman was taken off the plane in Toronto but acknowledged that he was not allowed to board the plane. He said that no-one was ever stopped by the US immigration for his political beliefs or public statements.
He said that a lot of stories that went out were inaccurate and played out for political purposes.
He also denied that Khan was stopped because his visa status did not allow him to raise funds for his party in the US. He said that Khan was welcomed in the US but he refused to go into details about the reason for stopping him from boarding the plane to the US, citing American privacy laws on the issue.
He said that stopping Imran Khan was a standard procedure and as soon as he went through the process, he was allowed to proceed on the first flight available.
Ghulam Ahmad Bilour
Asked if Washington would follow London on banning Railway Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour from visiting their country for announcing head money on the anti-Islam filmmaker, he said: “We are still reviewing the situation, we will be prepared to make the decision within the next several days.” |
Judges ignore plea to undo interim order: SC ruling on Balochistan flawed: govt By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Nov 2: The Supreme Court’s hearing on Friday provided the government an opportunity to hit back after two weeks of silence on the apex court’s Oct 12 interim order on the situation in Balochistan.
Referring to the court’s severe criticism of the Balochistan government’s lack of governance, the federal government made it clear that it found the order flawed and that only the president had the right to intervene in affairs of provinces.
The interim order had said the provincial government’s failure had undermined its constitutional authority.
But the government’s attack achieved little and the bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja said the interim order remained intact.
The bench is hearing a petition of the Balochistan High Court Bar Association on the law and order situation and human rights violations in the province.
Although the statement was read out by Attorney General Irfan Qadir, Interior Minister Rehman Malik also turned up in the court in defence of the government.
Mr Malik admitted that he had not seen the report submitted by his Secretary Khawaja Siddiq Akbar and then tried his best to impress upon the court that the interim order should be shelved because it was creating difficulties for normal functioning of the government and was also a source of embarrassment.
But to no avail. The court remained impervious to his pleas.
In fact, when the minister tried to say that Balochistan was in grip of an insurgency, he was immediately contradicted.
“It’s not insurgency, but lack of good governance,” the chief justice observed. He said Baloch people had played a role in the creation of Pakistan and cited a report of the Balochistan IG in which he had conceded that the Frontier Corps (FC) was behind some of the disappearances.
The chief justice also asked the interior minister to read a confession in the court record in which a provincial minister had pointed a finger at his cabinet colleagues for their role in kidnapping for ransom. “Kidnappings have become a hot trade in the province,” the CJ added.
The court, however, ceded to a request of the Balochistan government and adjourned the hearing for two weeks to enable it to do the needful.
Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani attended the proceedings, along with almost all his cabinet colleagues. He sat in the front row in the courtroom No 1.
The bench asked Mr Malik to go to Balochistan and recover missing persons if he really wanted to prove government’s efforts to rectify the downslide in the province and show how many criminals involved in terrorism, kidnapping and killing of FC and police personnel had been arrested by the government for trial.
Advocate General of Balochistan Amanullah Kinrani insisted that the responsibility for internal disturbance in Balochistan rested with those who had killed Nawab Akbar Bugti, and not with the chief minister. He reminded the court that Article 58(2b) under which presidents used to send governments packing had been deleted from the Constitution.
The interior ministry’s report said it was the sole prerogative of the federal government to determine scope, scale, extent, suitability and adequacy of intervention in the affairs of the Balochistan government on account of internal disturbance to ensure that the government was run in accordance with the Constitution.
“Determination of the legitimacy of a provincial government is a domain which has been clearly defined in Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution by virtue of which the president is the sole authority to decide on the fate of the provincial government. This right is absolute and lies only with the president and nobody else,” the report said.
It questioned whether the court was proclaiming an emergency as envisaged under Article 232 when it was a sole discretion of the president. Apart from law and order, political considerations were the foremost consideration before reaching a decision for disposal of the provincial government, the report said.
“The present popularly elected democratic government is about to complete its tenure in office in a few months and it is a landmark in our political history which is unprecedented, singular and most individual achievement associated with the present government,” the report said.
The government would not like to taint or tarnish its fair image by invoking its powers to pack up a provincial government and send it home on a limited local issue of discontentment and dissatisfaction of some so-called nationalist elements who held divergent views best suited to their interest.
The report said: “It is difficult to conclude that the provincial government in Balochistan has failed or lost its constitutional authority when it is discharging its functions and duties as any other provincial government or administrative unit in the country.
“Its (Balochistan’s) offices are functioning, its courts are being conducted and its administration of criminal as well as civil justice is taking place, schools are open, hospitals are treating patients, social sector programmes are being undertaken and development activity is in progress. Thus the pronouncement of failed provincial government is not easily understood and hard to agree with.”
The report cited the example of Swat and Malakand operation in which more than 200,000 people had been displaced, causing a huge problem for the provincial government in terms of their resettlement and rehabilitation. At no point in time was it ever considered to declare an emergency or to regard the disturbance in the two divisions as alarming or gigantic enough to take recourse to drastic measures like envisioned in the apex court order.
The report called for benefiting from the Indian experience and said in the disputed states of Kashmir, East Punjab, Nagaland, Asam and Mizoram, armed insurgency and partial breakdown of government machinery had taken place for several years, but still democracy and successive elections afforded the people and the government a good chance to overcome their difficulties and defeat militants with political process which was allowed to continue unhindered and undisturbed.
Both the provincial chief secretary and federal interior secretary will continue to submit fortnightly reports about the situation in Balochistan.
PSDP FUND FROZEN: The same bench in a different case ordered the authorities concerned to freeze a fund of Rs24 billion allocated for 739 non-development projects under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) in Balochistan.
The court had taken up a petition of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party leader Abdul Rahim on misuse and embezzlement of government funds.
The court asked the provincial government to constitute an independent commission for a forensic audit of all PSDP schemes undertaken over the past four years in Balochistan.
Advocate General Amanullah Kinrani informed the court that the provincial government had issued a notification for constituting a three-man commission to investigate the alleged corruption in non-development projects which, he alleged, had been committed by the previous government.
The case will be taken up after four weeks. |
PPP, PML-Q to revisit election accord By Zulqernain Tahir LAHORE, Nov 2: The PPP and PML-Q agreed on Friday to revist the seat-adjustment formula they had earlier worked out for coming elections and start finalising candidates for constituencies in Punjab.
Top PML-Q leaders — Chaudhry Shujaat Husain and Deputy Prime Minister Pervaiz Ealhi — did not attend the meeting held at the Governor’s House giving credence to reports that they are not willing to discuss the seat-adjustment formula with Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo, the new president of Punjab PPP.
The Chaudhrys authorised MPA Moonis Elahi, son of Pervaiz Elahi, to head a five-member Q-League committee to hold talks with the PPP’s four-member team led by Mr Wattoo.
Senator Kamil Ali Aga, Basharat Raja, Chaudhry Zaheeruddin, Nasir Gill and Amir Kalal are in the Q-League team members while federal ministers Qamar Zaman Kaira, Nazar Gondal and Imtiaz Safdar Warriach are assisting Mr Wattoo.
Sources said that PPP leaders were expecting the elder Chaudhrys to hold talks with them but they were told (by PML-Q) that they were not supposed to come here as they would talk to PPP leaders of their stature.
Though Mr Wattoo has already clarified that he had no issue with the PML-Q, the absence of the elder Chaudhrys indicates that Mr Wattoo still had to do a lot to allay their ‘misunderstanding’.
A source in the PPP said there had been a disagreement between the two parties over the existing seat-adjustment formula which says that the winner of a provincial and national assembly seat will have the first claim to it and in case of the PPP or PML-Q being runner-up in any constituency, the ticket for the seat in question will go to it.
“I think we should revise it under the current political scenario. As we both are going into the next election jointly it will be better to find ‘winning candidates’ on those seats where the PPP or Q-League remained runner up and even in a case where a winning candidate of PPP or PML-Q had defected to other parties we should look for a strong candidate instead of giving the ticket to a weak candidate of the winning party (PPP or PML-Q),” a participant of the meeting said. Most members agreed to the proposal.
The PPP agreed that none of its members would contact aspirants for PML-Q tickets. Earlier, the Q-League had expressed apprehensions to President Zardari that the new PPP leadership in Punjab had been trying to rope in some Q-League and its runaway leaders.
Although the meeting agreed to work together to ‘snatch’ Punjab from Sharifs’ PML-N, a participant said: “Wattoo sahib knows this is not the politics of 1990s and a new strategy is required to manoeuvre things.” |
18 die in fire caused by gun attack on bus By Amanullah Kasi QUETTA, Nov 2: At least 18 people were killed and five others injured when a bus was attacked by gunmen on the outskirts of Khuzdar on Friday.
The attack on the bus which was at a fuel station ignited petrol drums which caused a massive blaze that claimed most of the lives.
According to District Police Officer Fasihuddin, the bus had stopped at the station for refuelling when it came under attack.
The fire also engulfed adjoining shops and other vehicles.
The dead included eight women and four children.
Passengers who suffered burn injuries were admitted to hospital. A woman who was in a serious condition was taken to Karachi.
Some of the deceased who were identified are Dawood, Rehan, Waris, Haji Mohammad, Yasir, Reza Mohammad, Gul Bano, Hureen, Rashida, Kulsoom Bibi and Khatoon Bibi.
Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani called the Khuzdar deputy commissioner and sought a report.
According to a statement issued here, the chief minister expressed displeasure over growing lawlessness in the district and directed the provincial home secretary and Inspector General of Police to visit the city.
AFP adds: Senior local official Abdul Mansoor Kakar said four gunmen had opened fire on the van with automatic rifles.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
A number of stalls selling petrol smuggled from Iran were engulfed in the fire, Mr Kakar said, with stallholders among the dead.
“Four attackers riding motorbikes opened fire on these petrol stalls and ran away after the attack,” he said.
Dr Akbar Harifal, the top administrative official in Khuzdar, confirmed the death toll.
Eleven of the 18 bodies have been identified, Mr Kakar said, but hospital officials reported that some were burned so badly that recognition was difficult. |
New pricing formula suggested for CNG retailers By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Nov 2: Amid closure of CNG stations by some protesting owners, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) has decided to allow retailers a gross share of Rs8.70 per kg in the final price of compressed natural gas, down from their previous share of Rs32 per kg, subject to clearance by the Supreme Court.
According to the revised CNG pricing formula submitted to the apex court, Ogra has decided to treat CNG operators as petrol pump owners by allowing them a fixed Rs 2.95 per kg as dealer’s margin instead of the previous margin of 20 per cent of gas price, which translated into a per kg return of Rs 11.20.
Likewise, Ogra has done away with operating expenses of Rs 11.80 per kg in the price of CNG to retailers and reduced their compression cost of Rs8.99 per kg to Rs5.75 per kg by renaming it as production cost, suggested a copy of the formula available with Dawn.
Of the operating expenses, the CNG station owners used to get varying degrees of cost allowances in the form of seven different heads like costs for maintenance of machinery, lubricants, civil works, depreciation on machinery, labour, taxes and fees and retail commissions to oil marketing companies. All these costs, if any, would be borne by the CNG operators.
The revised formula also restored the sale of gas price to CNG stations to Rs618.50 per kg as it stood on July 1 after bi-annual determination of gas prices by Ogra. As a result, the cost of gas had been worked out at Rs31.09 per kg for Region-I (Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Potohar) and Rs28.40 for Region-II (Sindh and Punjab).
The final CNG price for sales to end consumers has, therefore, been worked out as Rs64.12 per kg for Region-I and Rs55.68 per kg for Region-II — about Rs2 per kg higher than current prices fixed after Oct 25.
The gas infrastructure development cess has been protected at the existing level of Rs13.25 per kg and Rs9.18 per kg for Region-I and II respectively.
Likewise, the 25 per cent general sales tax has will also remain unchanged at Rs11.08 and Rs9.40 per kg for Region-I and II respectively.
The CNG station owners have opposed the new formula and had in fact demanded a total share of about Rs37 per kg that has already been rejected by Ogra. While various CNG associations have announced continued sale of CNG rates at reduced levels, they are reported to have encouraged operators to take individual decisions to close down their operations if they felt they were incurring big losses.
COERCION ALLEGED: In a letter to the Ogra and ministry of petroleum on Friday, the All Pakistan CNG Association (APCNGA) alleged that district coordination officers throughout Pakistan were forcing them through threats of penalties and cancellation of licences to continue sales at a loss.
It said they were selling CNG at reduced rates for a number of days and “the continuation of this loss shall result in insolvency and the shutting down of CNG stations”, adding it would be beyond the capacity of almost all owners to continue to subsidise the shortfall from their own resources.
“By compelling station owners to sell CNG by incurring heavy losses, Ogra and the Petroleum Ministry are convoluting the orders of the Supreme Court and transgressing and violating the fundamental rights of the CNG owners enshrined in articles 4, 8, 18 and 24 of the Constitution”, the letter said.
The APCNGA said the court had objected to operating costs of the CNG and profits because of lack of legal powers of the Ogra that did not mean there were no operating expenses and owners were not entitled to any profit but the government and the Ogra were misusing powers and misinterpreting court observations.
The CNG association called upon the government and Ogra to implement a commitment made by the secretary petroleum before the apex court to bring the price of CNG to the level that was fixed for CNG sector after the determination of the price by Ogra for six months starting on July 1, 2012. It claimed the price determined for CNG sector had taken into account the operating costs and profit margins for retailers which could not be withdrawn through an executive decision.
The government and Ogra, said the APCNGA, were “bent upon reducing the cost of CNG by passing the burden of such reduction entirely to CNG station owners”, which in fact should be brought down by also “re-addressing and revising downward the other components of the CNG price”.
It argued that natural gas as an entry forms part of Part-II of the federal subjects in the Fourth Schedule of the constitution and thus subject to supervision and control over Ogra of the Council of Common Interest and not only the federal government. It warned the government to desist from compelling CNG owners to operate at a loss and refrain from imposing penalties or other coercive measures against CNG owners who were unable to operate during the pendency of the court proceedings. |
Notices issued to over 20 cricketers for tax evasion By Mubarak Zeb Khan ISLAMABAD, Nov 2: The income tax department has issued notices to over 20 cricketers who were found to have evaded taxes over the past two years. More than Rs100 million is expected to be recovered from them in back taxes.
This is the first time that notices have been issued to cricket celebrities who will be grilled about tax liabilities.
The investigation department has already compiled the tax profiles of 21 cricketers on the basis of information collected by the income tax intelligence directorate of the FBR.
A senior income tax official told Dawn on Friday that the Regional Tax Office (RTO), Lahore, had issued notices to Umer Akmal, Misbahul Haq, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razaq, Mohammad Hafeez, Azhar Ali, Imran Farhat, Rana Naveedul Hassan, Saeed Ajmal, Taufiq Umar and Wahab Riaz.
In most cases, the cricketers have their tax deducted at source. They did not file tax returns and found legal ways to pay less by fitting themselves in the category of low tax liability.
According to the official, most of them paid tax at the rate of six per cent (minimum slab) which is a violation of the income tax ordinance. In accordance with their income they should have been in the higher tax slab.
The official said that an amount of Rs7.5 million was expected to be recovered from Umar Akmal alone.
RTO Karachi issued notices to Shahid Afridi, Younus Khan, Abdul Rahman, Asad Shafiq and Tanvir Ahmad; RTO Sialkot to former captain Shoaib Malik and RTO Peshawar to Umar Gul.
According to the official, RTO Rawalpindi has finalised notices to be served on Shoaib Akhtar, Sohail Tanveer and Yassir Arafat.
And six cricketers -- Rana Naveed-ul-Hassan, Wahab Riaz, Asad Shafiq, Tanvir Ahmed, Yassir Arafat and Kamran Akmal -- do not figure on the tax roll at all.
Among the 15 prominent players on the tax roll, seven did not file tax returns in 2010 and 2011, although they might have earned huge amounts of money during that period from domestic and international cricket. They are: Imran Farhat, Saeed Ajmal, Taufiq Umer, Umer Akmal, Abdul Rehman, Umar Gul and Sohail Tanveer.
Misbahul Haq, who was captain during the recent series against Australia, filed only an employer’s statement about his earnings in 2010, but nothing the following year. Muhammad Hafeez, who captained the T20 matches in the same series, did the same.
Senior cricketers Mohammad Younus Khan and Shoaib Akhtar have been found to have done the same.
Last but not least, none of the cricketers has filed wealth statement.
Under the income tax law, it is mandatory for a person paying more than Rs35,000 in income tax a year to file the wealth statement. |
Govt plans to bring bill against death penalty By Syed Irfan Raza ISLAMABAD, Nov 2: The government plans to introduce a bill in parliament which will convert death penalty into life imprisonment, informed sources told Dawn on Friday.
The bill is likely to be tabled in the coming session of the National Assembly.
The sources said that President Asif Ali Zardari was taking keen interest on the issue and wanted to see the conversion of capital punishment into life imprisonment before the end of the PPP government in March 2013.
“A recent party meeting decided in principle to go ahead with the bill,” a source said, adding that its coalition partners had also been taken into confidence over the issue.
President’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said: “The government is considering converting death sentence into life imprisonment and is taking appropriate legislative measures for the
purpose.”
He said the prime minister had constituted a committee comprising minister for interior, minister for law, attorney general and representatives of provincial governments to make recommendations.
When contacted, Attorney General Irfan Qadir the committee had not yet presented its recommendations to the government.
The law of capital punishment in Pakistan is believed to be one of the hurdles in the way of signing extradition treaties with counties where there is no law for death penalty. The United Kingdom is one such country.
The sources said Pakistan and United Kingdom were quite close to signing an extradition treaty last year but the law of death penalty in Pakistan blocked the process.
The sources said that because of non-abolition of capital punishment and absence of extradition treaties, hundreds of Pakistanis were languishing in jails in different countries.
On Dec 18, 2007, Pakistan had voted against a resolution on a moratorium on the death penalty in the UN General Assembly. |
Pakistan and Australia hold security dialogue By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Nov 2: Pakistan and Australia held talks on security matters on Friday and discussed prospects for expanding defence cooperation.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen Khalid Shameem Wynne co-chaired the sixth round of Pakistan-Australia Defence and Security Talks and the third round of Pakistan-Australia 1.5 Track Security Dialogue with Australian Chief of Defence Forces Gen David Hurley in Canberra, Australia.
“During the talks matters relating to mutual cooperation between the two armed forces came under discussion with special reference to the region and upcoming transition in Afghanistan,” a military spokesman said in Rawalpindi after the talks.
The two countries have been holding bilateral defence and security talks since 2006. The 1.5 Track Security Dialogue was initiated in 2010.
The talks involve the two governments, while the 1.5 Track Dialogue involves a number of key decision makers and think tanks from both sides.
Defence cooperation has increased considerably as a result of the two mechanisms. The focus of cooperation has been on training programmes.
During the talks the two sides discussed the security challenges confronting Pakistan, particularly the rise of violent extremism and how Canberra could help Islamabad in countering it.
“Gen Khalid Shameem Wynne elaborated upon the militant threat being faced by Pakistan and the sacrifices rendered therein by Pakistani people and the armed forces in fighting terrorism,” the military spokesman said.
The situation in Afghanistan and the challenges facing Isaf forces as they withdraw from the country also came up during the discussion.
Australia has lost 39 soldiers and spent $10 billion in the war in Afghanistan. |
Senate panel seeks report on prisoners freed on parole KARACHI, Nov 2: The Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights sought on Friday a report from the Sindh government about those prisoners who had been released on parole during the past 10 years.
A meeting of the committee presided over by its chairman Afrasiab Khattak was held at the office of the Sindh chief secretary.
The senators expressed concern over the law and order situation in Karachi. The meeting emphasised the need for conceiving a concentrated intelligence sharing system among the provinces as a means to improve law and order.
Mr Khattak said that political parties should play their role to establish lasting peace in the city. He said there was a need for legislation for issuing arms licences and for recovery of illegal weapons.
He said the committee would prepare its suggestions for improving the law and order in the city and send the same to the federal and provincial governments.
Sindh Additional Chief Secretary Waseem Ahmed, Sindh Rangers DG Rizwan Akhtar and Additional IG of Sindh Police briefed the meeting about the violence in Karachi.—APP |
Pakistanis in US show soft corner for Obama By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON, Nov 2: After the prayers at one of the largest Eid gatherings in the Washington metro area, about a dozen young men got up and started distributing pamphlets supporting US President Barack Obama’s re-election bid.
Most people quietly accepted the pamphlets. Some even put the Obama-Biden badge on their coats. Then one bearded man got up and threw away the pamphlet and the badge given to him.
“I am a Republican,” he declared in Urdu and then repeated himself in English, although less than 25 per cent people in this large crowd were non-Pakistanis. “My values do not allow me to support Democrats because they back gay rights,” he said.
Some teenagers made a ring around him and started making fun of the only vocal Republican in the crowd. The man got so annoyed that he stood on a raised pavement and roared: “Remember, we are Muslims. We cannot support liberal values. We do not want our children to go astray.”
A few years ago, an emotive speech like this would have gathered a crowd around him, particularly in a mosque or an Eidgah. But the times have changed. Now most Muslims, Pakistanis included, seem more concerned about their immediate problems, jobs, immigration reforms and acceptance in the larger society.
Although there have been no exclusive poll of Pakistani-Americans, recent surveys of Muslims living in America show that a vast majority of them supports Democrats. They believe that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to bring in the reforms they need.
And this is also obvious in the Pakistani community. Since the election campaign began early this year, about a dozen Pakistani-American organisations are actively campaigning for President Obama.
“Do not forget to register,” was the common message from groups like Pakistani-American Congress in the early stages of the campaign when most people believed President Obama would have an easy victory.
It changed to frantic appeals for votes for Mr Obama as the race tightened. “I believe most Pakistanis like President Obama but fear that like previous years, they may not come to vote,” says Syed Fayyaz Hassan, a Pakistani community leader in Houston, who is also a member of the Texas Muslim Democratic Caucus.
Mr Syed, however, acknowledges that this year their effort to register Pakistani-American voters has been very successful. “People are excited. There is a growing realisation that they need to participate in American, rather than Pakistani politics.”
Khalid Tanvir, a northern Virginia resident, noted that unlike Pakistan, where only 11pc respondents to a recent poll supported President Obama, most Pakistani-Americans want him re-elected on Nov 6.
Shahid Ali, a Chicago resident who watched all three presidential debates at the city’s famous Devon Avenue, said this year many Pakistanis also watched the debate.
“I never saw so many Pakistanis watching the debate before,” he said while pointing out that “Devon is the nerve centre” of the Pakistani community in Chicago, and “Devon is for President Obama”.
Devon has hundreds of Pakistani and Indian shops and restaurants where many people watched the debates.
But Republicans have their supporters among the Pakistanis too. Recently, BBC recorded a family discussion at the residence of Zulfikar Kazmi, a known Democrat in Woodbridge, Virginia. He expected it to be a smooth endorsement for Mr Obama as he believed that because he was a Democrat, his family was too. He was wrong.
As the debate began, his wife spoke out: “No, I am not. You never cared for my political views but I have my views too,” she said. “I believe Republicans are good for Pakistan, so I will vote for Mitt Romney.”
Mr Romney won over some Pakistanis in the last presidential debate on foreign policy. He described Pakistan as an important country and stressed the need for staying engaged with it.
Although Mr Romney also endorsed President Obama’s drone policy and pledged to continue the attacks if re-elected; his rhetoric reminded some Pakistanis of the Reagan and Bush days when Republican administrations strongly backed Pakistan.
“It is right though, is it not?” asked Zahid Khawja, a Baltimore, Maryland, resident after watching the third debate. “Republicans are good for Pakistan. I will vote for Mr Romney.” |
Romney-Biden administration possible? By Our Correspondent WASHINGTON, Nov 2: “On Jan 20, Mitt Romney takes the presidential oath of office. Standing close by is his new vice president, Joe Biden,” predicted a story by a prestigious US news agency, Bloomberg.
Although the agency’s owner, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg backed President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney, journalists working for him disagreed.
Mr Bloomberg, a Republican, said he believed the incumbent Democrat would bring critically needed leadership to fight climate change after the East Coast devastation wrought by hurricane Sandy.
The endorsement from the politically independent and nationally recognisable mayor was a major boost for Mr Obama but the Bloomberg article argued
the election on Nov 6 might lead to a tie, with both
candidates getting 269 electoral votes each.
The tie would trigger the US Constitution’s 12th Amendment, asking Congress to choose the new president and the vice president.
Under this arrangement, the House of Representatives selects the president while the Senate selects the vice president. Since the Republicans are likely to retain the House, they will select Mr Romney.
The Democrats, who are likely to retain the Senate, will then select Mr Biden.
“A Romney-Biden administration is perhaps the oddest potential outcome to what could be a complicated finish to the presidential election,” the article said.
Other media outlets, however, did not share this view.
The Washington Post noted on Friday that some recent developments favoured Mr Obama and therefore he was likely to win.
The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, found that 79 per cent of voters believed the president had done a “good’ or “excellent” job responding to the storm, Sandy.
Among those voters is New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie, who made national news with his praise of Mr Obama.
Mayor Bloomberg’s endorsement, the Post noted, would also help the president.
And on Friday morning, the final pre-election jobs report from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics said the economy had blown through expectations to add more than 171,000 jobs in October, and would add 84,000 more jobs in August and September.
“That is, by any measure, a good report, and one that crucially deprives the Romney campaign of ammunition in the final days of the race,” the Post noted.
The New York Times noted that the jobs report showed persistent economic growth.
“None of this makes for a game-changer in the presidential election ... but it appeared to provide some relief for President Obama,” NYT said.
A nationwide USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll, also released on Friday, estimated that 90 million Americans won’t vote this year. Two-thirds of those unlikely voters registered to vote, and 80pc said they believed the government played an important role in their lives. But they also said they would not vote.
Many said they lacked enthusiasm for either candidate.
Although 2008 saw the highest voter turnout in any presidential election since 1960, nearly 80 million eligible voters didn’t go to the polls.
And American voters haven’t broken the 60 pc mark since 1968. |
Bilour cannot travel to UK, PIA told By Mohammad Asghar RAWALPINDI, Nov 2: In line with a “carrier alert” issued by the Home Office of the United Kingdom’s Border Agency for Federal Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour regarding cancellation of his five-year visa, the Pakistan International Airlines has been intimated that the minister is no longer eligible for travel through the UK.
The decision is applicable to flights passing through UK’s airspace as well as those having a stopover in that country.
Informed sources told Dawn that a letter issued to the PIA contained directives from the British secretary of state saying that the five-year visa for UK of Mr Ghulam Ahmed Bilour carrying passport # AM-3792052 issued on May 21, 2008, had been cancelled.
“He is not eligible for carriage even in direct or transit through the UK,” the letter said.
The letter issued to the PIA also contained the photograph of the minister. |
Editorial NEWS | No lessons learnt COMING as does on the heels of a factory fire in Karachi’s Baldia Town that killed at least 258 people, the inferno that decimated another factory in SITE over the Eidul Azha holidays was a stark reminder of how unprepared the authorities remain. While it was a relief that no loss of life was reported, it should be noted — as witnessed earlier — that fires at such locations can spread at a horrifying pace and prove very difficult to bring under control. The fire fighters that first reached the scene realised that they would be unable to contain the situation, which rapidly reached the level of a third-degree inferno — no doubt partly because of the highly flammable contents of the warehouse. An SOS resulted in fire tenders arriving there from across the city, including PAF fire tenders from the nearby Masroor Airbase. Even so, it took around 30 hours to contain the blaze, with the fire fighters finally leaving when it was feared that the building would collapse.
That there was no loss of life was sheer providence and not a result of any safety measures being put in place. Hundreds of people worked in the building, and had the fire broken out during a working day rather than on Eid weekend, when it was empty, the possibility of another catastrophic event could not have been ruled out. In the wake of the September incident, vociferous commitments were made by various administrative quarters to concentrate on improving safety standards in industrial units and to reinstate the factory inspection process. A little over a month later, however, the matter seems to have been swept off the radar. While legal proceedings against that factory’s owners are under way, the much more crucial issue of rendering workplaces safe and ensuring the availability of adequate escape routes, fire extinguishers and fire hydrants etc is not receiving due consideration.
For obvious reasons, the importance of protecting workers, whether at industrial units or elsewhere, cannot be overemphasised. Wherever people find employment, it is the employers’ duty to ensure that neither life nor limb is at risk, and the responsibility of the state apparatus to make certain that rules and regulations are followed. Safety standards in general are lax in Pakistan, and the state does little to intervene. In order to alter this trajectory, a pressure lobby needs to be built up in society, with the aim of not just prompting the administration to act but also to raise the workers’ awareness level. Strong unions could have a much-needed effect in this regard. |
Slaughter season OF what use are bans when they are not put into effect? Flouting all local and international laws that prohibit the hunting of the endangered houbara bustard, the authorities have issued at least 30 hunting permits to Arab dignitaries to further reduce the numbers of Pakistan’s annual winter visitor. This number is up from the 25 or so permits granted during the last hunting season. Attempts to soften the blow by issuing a code of conduct and monitoring a bag limit of 100 birds may not be the answer either, especially when the greed of local officials or their lack of clout allows them to look the other way when the rules are not adhered to. Given that the hunting continues unabated, studies claim that the houbara population, which has been driven to extinction in Arab lands, may not survive beyond another 15 or 20 years. This would be a great pity, and for Pakistan its loss would deal a further blow to the dwindling number of migratory birds wintering in the country.
A related controversy has been the trapping of young peregrine and saker falcons (migratory species) that are used to hunt the houbara. A number of local lager falcons are used as bait to capture the former varieties. This results in the death of a large number of local falcons. For the returning hunters, though, it means the acquisition of a younger peregrine or saker falcon that they can take back — on the same permit that allowed the older falcons to enter the country. There can be no excuse for such unethical practices, which, if not checked in time, will only increase and cause extreme damage to Pakistan’s biodiversity. It’s about time our government and wildlife officials woke up to the larger concerns posed by natural habitats under threat. |
Still far behind WITH three years left to go to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, Pakistan’s performance doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. There has been some criticism of the MDGs, including that they are too basic or that some indicators are difficult to measure. But for a less developed country like Pakistan, they provide a reasonable framework for assessing progress in fundamental areas of concern including poverty, gender equality, health and education. The UNDP claims that “sufficient progress has only been made on about half of the targeted indicators”. But a closer look at the organisation’s own assessment of Pakistan’s progress paints an even bleaker picture. There has been movement in a handful of areas, including the Lady Health Workers programme, women’s political participation and treatment of tuberculosis. But the literacy rate, for example, was 54 per cent in 2008-09, according to the UNDP, versus the goal of 88 per cent in 2015. Only 30 per cent of those living in high-risk areas are receiving malaria treatment and prevention versus the goal of 75 per cent. Poverty ranges from 17 to 35 per cent of the population depending on whom you believe, compared to the 13 per cent goal for 2015.
Speak to experts about why Pakistan is not making better progress, and the answer usually depends on what organisation they come from and development theory they buy into. There is the view that only economic growth will lead to better socio-economic indicators. Others argue that the government has to provide a social safety net to improve the lives of citizens and the quality of the workforce. On both counts, the country is failing. Last year’s GDP growth of less than four per cent was far below the seven to eight per cent needed to employ the country’s growing population. As far as the state goes, beyond the reasonably successful Benazir Income Support Programme, it is entirely unclear what other large-scale projects the government has undertaken.
Real progress towards the MDGs requires a concerted effort on a number of fronts: better preparing the provinces to take on the recently devolved health and education sectors, increasing the budget for development, continuing to include the MDGs in economic planning — the latest Economic Survey and growth framework do not incorporate them — and involving the private
sector and civil society. Even spreading the word would be a good place to start; shockingly few parliamentarians, citizens, businessmen and members of the media are aware of what the MDGs are and what is being done to achieve them. Without a genuine campaign on the issue, Pakistan has no hope of even coming close to the goals for 2015. |
The virus within THREE attempts by the banned fundamentalist group Hizbut Tahrir in less than 10 years to launch a coup against the military and civilian leadership and establish a modern-day caliphate in Pakistan — the details as revealed in a report in Dawn yesterday are disturbing enough. More worrying is that little is known even today about the true scale of the fundamentalist threat within the armed forces and what steps have been taken to purge them of extremist, anti-state elements. There is little doubt that a stealthy campaign by Hizbut Tahrir and other extremist groups to penetrate the ranks of the armed forces is ongoing. But both the facts and the strategy to combat the threat, if indeed there is one, have been shielded from the public. In the absence of any public scrutiny of what are admittedly sensitive security matters, the chances of repeat offenders cropping up and mistakes being made in tracking down dangerous elements within the armed forces cannot be downplayed. Why, for example, were the same HuT activists able to establish contacts within the armed forces in two separate instances in 2009 and 2011? Was there no way to prevent this? And what has become of the HuT activists detained after the arrest of Brig Ali Khan last year and then released after pressure from the courts over illegal detentions? Does anyone in the intelligence wings of the armed forces know where the released detainees are and if they are trying to lure fresh recruits from the armed forces? .
From the narrow issue of disabling the particular activists identified and suspected of involvement in plots to overthrow the state, the broader issue of a missing counter-extremism strategy cannot be separated. Hizbut Tahrir survives and thrives in Pakistani society and is able to try and recruit from among the armed forces because there is no attempt to develop a counter-narrative against violent jihad and assorted militancy. Perhaps closer vetting and surveillance of the armed forces could prevent a devastating plot but if the ideological virus continues to spread, will the failure of HuT and likeminded groups still be guaranteed? |
Judicial backlog IT appears as if the country’s superior judiciary is more interested in pursuing high-profile cases, guided by a sense of ‘judicial activism’. While this approach may have its merits, there is an equally important need to fill the vacancies in the provincial high courts and thereby clear the huge backlog of cases pending before the courts. As reported in this paper, only 24 out of a sanctioned strength of 40 judges are hearing cases in the Sindh High Court. Around 50,000 cases are pending before the court, some of which have not been decided for over 15 years. Reportedly, over 200 cases are fixed before an SHC bench per day; it is humanly impossible to plough through all the cases during the working day. The situation in the other three provincial high courts and Islamabad High Court is no different; all are operating below strength. The dearth of judges is one of the main reasons for the tens of thousands of pending cases before the high courts, the bulk of them in Punjab and Sindh. A lack of infrastructure — not enough chambers and courtrooms — has also been cited as an impediment.
Efforts have been made to fill the vacancies, but the process needs to be streamlined and speeded up. Each provincial chief justice sends his recommendations to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan, which forwards these to a parliamentary committee. Of course the vacancies cannot be filled overnight, for selection must be a careful process as only individuals of sterling credentials should be appointed to these key posts. Yet there needs to be a sense of urgency so that the delays in the selection and appointment process of high court judges can be reduced. Both the Judicial Commission and the government need to make greater efforts to fill the vacancies so that justice can be delivered to the people in a timely fashion. |
Apolitical office THE Supreme Court has issued an order, the Lahore High Court has weighed in too and now the presidency appears to be responding: official political activities at the presidency have been curbed and more informal meetings are taking their place, according to a report in this newspaper yesterday. The presidency is doing the right thing. The constitution may be silent on whether a president can continue to hold an official position within a political party but the office of the presidency does at the very least seem to be apolitical in its design. Much can be made out of the unnecessary and excessive needling between the government and the superior judiciary but in the case of political activities at the presidency, a central fact ought to be kept in mind: whatever the precise legal and constitutional position, the presidency ought to steer clear of partisan politics, particularly given the unfortunate use of the presidency over the decades to further narrow political and personal goals.
In structure at least, President Zardari has unquestionably ceded powers to parliament and the prime minister. The 18th Amendment has put in place a system wherein parliament and the prime minister theoretically enjoy paramount power and over the course of time that theory can become practice as the democratic project continues to develop. While President Zardari is the unquestionable boss of the PPP and as such any prime minister from his party will defer to him if deemed necessary, there have been signs — though admittedly not robust signs — that an internal party dictatorship is not totally skewing the desired structure of the state and political government. For while former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani eventually sacrificed himself defending his boss against action by the Supreme Court, the strained relationship between the president and Mr Gilani was also undeniable. The tension has been attributed to President Zardari’s unhappiness with some choices and policies of Mr Gilani while he was prime minister. So it does appear that the presidency is not exercising its veto as blatantly as it could, nor is it totally running roughshod over the various ministries, though Mr Zardari still has the unfortunate habit of referring to ‘his’ ministers when in fact they are technically the prime minister’s.
Still, much more needs to be done. And perhaps also it is time to start thinking about a hitherto taboo subject: President Zardari’s parallel role as co-chairman of the PPP. The co-chairmanship came at a time of wrenching change in the PPP, but nearly five years on, the democratic project could be strengthened by a further noble gesture. |
Miles to go AT the UN Human Rights Council this week, the foreign minister presented a brighter picture of the human-rights situation in Pakistan than many would be willing to accept. But quick as we are to critique the country’s performance on this front, it’s only fair to acknowledge the progress that has been made. An elected government is about to complete a full term. The 18th Amendment and the reformulated NFC award have strengthened democracy and given increasing rights and resources to the provinces. Pro-women legislation has been passed, including against sexual harassment, acid throwing and forced marriages. While there is a long way to go to reform the legislation that governs Fata, the extension of the Political Parties Act to the tribal areas and the weakening of the Frontier Crimes Regulation were steps in the right direction. Any analysis of Pakistan’s human-rights record wouldn’t be a balanced one without factoring in the progress made in terms of constitutional and legislative reform.
The problem, of course, is that the proof of any of this lies in implementation, which ranges from successful in a handful of cases to piecemeal or nonexistent in most. And none of it negates the very real problems many groups of Pakistanis face, among them attacks on just about every religious minority, including a rash of Shia killings; enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings; the harshness and misuse of the blasphemy laws; and the condition of IDPs fleeing militancy and natural disasters. Both state and society have become desensitised to the value of human life and the rule of law, and it is hardly surprising that calling Pakistan “pluralistic and progressive”, as the foreign minister did, was met with disbelief from her audience. If there is one bright spot, it is that the Pakistani media continues to report more rights violations today than it ever has before. There was a time when this kind of news came from foreign sources. Though at the cost of too many journalists losing their lives in the process, today the country’s own media is at least able to report on much of the abuse that takes place. |
Missing the bus LAHORE’S already famous Metro Bus System excites and exacerbates. The Punjab government is possessed by this pre-poll wonder in the making and the media comes up with one aspect after another related to the initial 27-kilometre stretch that is being built day and night. The chief minister is always around proudly talking about the project amid less-than-cautious calculations which say that while officially this is a Rs24bn venture, in actual terms it may cost the taxpayers up to Rs70bn. Buses, said to be 18 metres in length, are being manufactured; a Turkish team which is to run it for some time is being awaited, all kinds of construction, even mazaars and bazaars, standing in the way have been razed and billboards celebrating the development strategically placed. Amid this excitement there are anonymous officials out to inflict their scepticism on everyone. Some of them told Dawn that they couldn’t quite fix a date for the realisation of Mr Shahbaz Sharif’s Turkish dream.
Officials say the minimum time required for the project was two and a half years. The chief minister, they maintain, wants the work done much faster. No one has specified a deadline — and no one, it seems, has anticipated the problems. Unforeseen difficulties have held up progress from time to time, yet the fanfare accompanying the work is sending out the message that the job could be completed overnight. People are getting impatient and they are talking about how the money lavished on the MBS could have been better spent elsewhere. This view can only be countered by giving them the opportunity to experience the facility firsthand and then decide on its merits and flaws. Until then, an honest estimate of how much and how long it will take could have the needed calming effect on proceedings. |
Joint effort WITH Pakistan mere steps from the finish line — an election that could mark the country’s first uninterrupted transfer of power from one democratic government to another — the conduct of the polls will be more important than ever. If carried out reasonably fairly and transparently, they could mark another milestone in the evolution of Pakistani democracy. Which is where the Election Commission of Pakistan’s code of conduct for political parties, a new draft of which was issued this week, comes in. Most of the restrictions — whose violation the code claims should be met by legal action and possible disqualification — are reasonable. They are calculated to avoid law and order problems, ensure that voters and electoral staff are not pressured, and that citizens and local administrations aren’t inconvenienced by campaigning. But historical experience suggests that many of the rules will be ignored, which is why the ECP must focus on two things.
First, getting buy-in from the political parties. The draft has been circulated to them for their comments — a useful first step. And this ECP has already demonstrated its willingness to compromise; the previously prescribed campaign expenditure limits of Rs1.5m for a National Assembly seat and Rs1m for a provincial assembly seat are being revisited because of feedback that they were unrealistic. This consultative approach between the Commission and the parties on formulating the rules should pave the way for the second key step: a good-faith effort by the ECP to actually enforce them, which is important not just for the outcome of this election but for the authority of the ECP over future polls as well. Wall chalkings and larger-than-prescribed posters might not call into question the fairness of elections, but such violations as pressurising voters and preventing women from voting both sully the polls and diminish the ECP’s authority if no action is taken against them.
This leads to another task that political parties and the ECP must focus on together — getting added to the voter list the up to 20 million Pakistani adults who remain unregistered. Nadra and the ECP have taken a transformational step by linking voter registration to CNICs, but without a noticeable public information campaign and reaching out to citizens in rural and remote areas, many will remain unregistered or will be registered at the wrong addresses. The ECP did hold a day
of awareness last month, but that campaign wasn’t enough and voter lists aren’t accessible as widely as they should be. Nor can the ECP ensure all adults are registered without the help of political parties, in whose own interest it is to get more people on the rolls.
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Scenes of anarchy CAUSE for serious concern should be read into the rising number of cases of mob violence in Pakistan. There have been several instances where incensed individuals, often egged on by malicious elements, have united under perceived common grievances to take the law into their own hands. One such incident, too heartbreaking to be forgotten, was that of two brothers being beaten to death by an enraged mob near Sialkot in August 2010. Now we learn that on Wednesday, a large number of protesters gathered in Lahore’s Ravi Road area after rumours of an act of blasphemy started swirling, and turned violent. Holding off both police and the fire brigade, they set alight three buildings of a private school — whose staff was implicated in allegations of blasphemy — and torched the owner’s car. Reports suggest that activists of some religious groups were among the mob, no doubt adding fuel to the fire.
Whether or not blasphemy was actually committed is a matter for investigators acting under the mandate of the law to decide. What is undeniable, however, is that vigilante action is simply unwarranted in the context of any norm of justice or, indeed, of civilisation itself. Regardless of the enormity of the perceived provocation, under no circumstances can individuals or groups be allowed to take it upon themselves to deliver their version of ‘justice’. Such incidents constitute dangerous precedents and only embolden future offenders that nurse anarchic tendencies. To avoid sending out the signal that the state and its justice system are either blind to or tolerant of such behaviour, the administration must act fast — and come down with a heavy hand on the perpetrators. The ringleaders of the mob need to be identified, investigated and prosecuted, sending out the message in no uncertain terms that the law will not stand by while citizens’ rights are violated by those who have no authority to act in the matter. In the case of the Sialkot lynching, several men were eventually sentenced to varying degrees by an anti-terrorism court last year. A similar procedure needs to be initiated and expedited in terms of the Ravi Road arson too. |
Learning from Sandy PAKISTAN must learn from America’s Sandy experience, especially how, in spite of the deadly potential of the superstorm, human suffering was reduced to a minimum. Weather warnings helped. But what mattered greatly was how the people and the emergency ser-vices reacted to minimise the storm’s ravages. The administration and relief agencies seem also to have learnt from Katrina and acted with speed and planning. As TV images showed, conurbations along the long coastline were pounded by walls of killer waves, and houses were simply smashed and washed away. But because the evacuation of the coastal communities was done well in time and the people cooperated with the relief agencies there were very few casualties. The people also heeded the authorities’ warnings to keep off the roads — there was no panic and no one called 911, unless there was a life-threatening situation.
In drawing lessons from Sandy, we have to be mindful of the obvious differences between a developed country and any Third World nation. The absence of a well-oiled rescue machinery and a late, inadequate response tend to aggravate the misery. Also militating against a scientific response to disasters and contributing to chaos are features typical of developing countries — unplanned housing in depressions or close to coasts, lack of discipline among communities with little education, the absence of unity in cities teeming with migrants and the lack of mutual trust and sympathy between the victims and help providers. The trauma of the 2005 earthquake and the havoc wrought by the devastating floods in 2010 and last year are fresh in the people’s memories. We do not know how the monsoon will behave next summer, but it is time the National Disaster Management Authority learnt its lessons and prepared itself in advance for any disaster that may strike Pakistan. |
Balochistan crisis THE shambles that is the Balochistan government has taken yet another turn for the worse this week with Chief Minister Aslam Raisani under siege from rivals within his party, the speaker of the Balochistan Assembly and the Supreme Court. Citing an Oct 12 Supreme Court interim order, Speaker Aslam Bhootani has turned to the governor for constitutional advice on whether Mr Raisani’s government is still intact and if a session of the Balochistan Assembly can be convened as demanded by the chief minister. Meanwhile, the Balochistan chapter of the PPP has suspended the membership of Mr Raisani on grounds of various allegations of corruption and incompetence against the chief minister. But so far the central command of the PPP has not weighed in on the matter. In the murky world of Balochistan politics all is rarely as it seems. Both the speaker and the PPP Balochistan leader, Sadiq Umrani, are believed to be upset with the chief minister for political reasons — supporting rivals, manoeuvring a caretaker set-up in place to favour Mr Raisani, etc — and that may have much more to do with the crises that now confront Mr Raisani. The chief minister is expected to survive his political challenges in the age-old fashion of Balochistan politics: wheeling and dealing and reassurances given to wary and suspicious allies.
Yet, the central problem remains: the Balochistan government is dysfunctional and Balochistan continues to suffer
all manner of problems. Added to this is the searing scrutiny of the Supreme Court which, while by and large beneficial to putting Balochistan back on the national agenda, has introduced an unpredictable element in the provincial equation. If there is any part of the country that desperately needs fresh elections and a new political leadership, it is Balochistan. But provincial elections are now synchronised with the federal elections and both are very much on the horizon. So an intervention for rapid elections in Balochistan at this late hour may actually create more problems than it could solve. Better then to focus on creating a fairer electoral environment. The caretaker set-up, the participation of all parties in the election and a polling machinery that better represents the will of the people — all are areas that need serious attention.
The pressure on Mr Raisani, then, could serve some useful purpose in perhaps forcing him and his government to make better decisions in the crucial months ahead. It may seem like a forlorn hope given the appalling record of Chief Minister Raisani & Co, but nothing concentrates the mind of a politician like a battle for survival. |
Collective failure FINANCE Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh is correct to remind his cabinet colleagues that the failure of this government to resolve the power crisis is a collective one, that they must all share the burden of accountability. The figures given by the minister tell us the scale of this failure. Despite pouring Rs1.4tn into the power sector since this government was elected, the scale of the crisis has only grown. It’s also important to note that the same time period has seen power tariffs climb by almost 75 per cent, by some estimates. Where did all this money go? And the power crisis is not the only failing for which the government needs to be collectively held responsible. The finance minister was compelled to remind his colleagues of their joint responsibility after they had reacted with displeasure and disbelief to his admittedly rosy take on the state of price inflation in the country.
It is true that problems like power shortages and price inflation are beyond the scope of any one ministry to address. In the power sector for instance, a proper execution of the right policies will need tight coordination among the ministries of petroleum, finance and water and power. It is a mystery why the government has not appointed a strong and credible minister to head the water and power ministry. The same applies to price inflation. The finance minister has a large role to play in maintaining fiscal discipline, which is essential for price stability, but his role must be matched by the rest of
the government that must draw up proper spending priorities. If the cabinet fails to pull together in setting and executing the policy agenda the result will inevitably be failure, in spite of the best efforts of individuals. And that is the biggest letdown on the part of this government. It has not been able to come together to draw up and execute a policy agenda that addresses key problems. Instead its approach has been piecemeal and ad hoc. As a result, its performance has been chaotic. That failure belongs equally to each member of the cabinet. |
Death in custody THERE are conflicting claims regarding the death in an alleged encounter on Tuesday of Azizullah Janwari, the prime suspect in last month’s armed attack on a PPP meeting in Khairpur. A number of people were killed in that incident. The suspect was held in a police lock-up near Sukkur after being arrested from Bahawalpur. The police claim members of the suspect’s community tried to free him from detention, which resulted in a shootout with the law-enforcers. However, Mr Janwari’s clansmen have alleged that the suspect was eliminated in a staged encounter. Several questions about the ‘encounter’ need to be answered, namely how come the injured attackers managed to flee and no police officers were injured in the ‘shootout.’ Also, serious allegations — reported in a section of the media — that a ruling party lawmaker wanted the suspect killed in an encounter need to be addressed by the government. Considering that elections are close, it is essential that this case is investigated to unearth exactly who attacked the PPP meeting and why, as well as the circumstances behind the suspect’s death in custody.
Custodial and extrajudicial deaths are unfortunately quite common in Pakistan. One of the main reasons for this is that the legal system has failed to deliver. Since the courts take too long to try suspects or free them on bail, eliminating ‘troublesome’ suspects through encounters is seen as an easy solution by the law-enforcers. This is totally unacceptable. As stated countless times, the system of investigation and prosecution needs to be overhauled while the culture of tolerating — or even encouraging, as it has been alleged — extralegal killings by the police must be done away with. It is for the courts to decide who is guilty and who should be punished. Condoning extrajudicial and custodial killings will further speed up our descent into lawlessness. |
Columns and Articles | The people’s court? By Umair Javed IN the coming week or so, much will be written about the Supreme Court’s (SC) latest involvement in the domain of governance — this time in the shape of CNG prices — and the legal premise upon which this intervention was based.
Leaving jurisdictional analysis to those best suited for this task, there are several other facets of the court’s role and our recent political history, which when elaborated upon, will offer a more coherent picture of why the Supreme Court acts on certain issues in certain ways.
As a preamble to the larger discussion, it’s important to highlight that over the last five years, the law has been accorded a technical, apolitical status in public discourse.
The SC, the apex body of our legal system, often talks about interpreting the law over and above the domain of politics, and within the domain of justice, and it’s this particular portrayal that often finds its way in mainstream media analysis of the higher judiciary as well.
In our case, especially in the aftermath of such judgments, most acts of the judiciary are explained in terms of its legal stature, by invoking the principle of jurisdiction, and by elaborating on its interpretations.
A complementary explanation though, one that is seldom given, would be to conduct a more sociological analysis of the court’s power, specifically by looking at
the relationship between its public interactions and politics.
The higher judiciary and the army are both institutions which, regardless of their bureaucratic nature, are operating in the public domain. They communicate with the public through a wide variety of ways — press releases, media statements, admission of petitions, public appearances — and offer viewpoints on matters of public
importance.
In each interactive instance, there is a particular kind of politics that is being generated, simply by the response it elicits from political representatives, and the public at large.
If the SC rules that the existing mechanism of setting the price of CNG is baseless, and that the current rate is strangling consumers, it is not only preventing another public actor — in this case the executive — from exercising power, it is also encouraging a response from the people — in this case ‘consumers’ — by according them a central status in its decision.
This is politics 101.
In fact, looking at our judicial institutions — the post-restoration version or earlier editions — as being somehow above the domain of politics is a view that runs counter to our political history and especially to events of the past few years.
Starting from the post-hoc legitimisation of the dissolution of the constituent assembly, down to the approval of every provisional constitutional order till 2007 in the name of national interest, each act was crucial in informing the larger debate of who is allowed to hold ‘legitimate’ political power in the name of the people.
So to hone in on Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s court, the one thing that needs to be reiterated is that its immediate power, in the eyes of both political parties and the citizenry at large, can be traced to a very public, very political, restoration movement.
Moreover, it is completely plausible to argue that the rhetorical respect for rule of law — a popular slogan in 21st century Pakistan, and a major source of the Supreme Court’s popularity — is itself a political agenda.
In 2007, the movement to restore the chief justice, depending on whom you talked to, was taken as a movement in favour of rule of law, a movement against arbitrary rule by a dictator, a movement to bring justice to the masses, and a movement to create a more equal society.
Hence the appeal that rule of law currently enjoys amongst the citizenry is not because law has some transcendental, God-given charm, but because people, especially the urban middle class which formed the core of the pro-judiciary movement, now see law, its interpretation, and its implementation as an instrument of rectifying perceived ills and wrongs.
In the same vein, the messianic status of the higher judiciary is not solely because of its legally defined role as the guardian and interpreter of law and the constitution, but because it elicits popular appraisal through its intervention in governance, by admitting petitions on matters of public interest, and by its very public, and at times confrontational application of law.
In fact, one could reasonably argue that the popularity of the court, amongst certain segments of society, continues to exist because it knowingly and actively chooses to circumvent decisions made by a government that happens to be unpopular in the same segments.
Through their public interactions, in the shape of the lawyers’ movement, and by consistently invoking the plight of the common man in their judgments, the SC has cultivated a constituency within the Pakistani polity, and has worked actively to keep a hold of it.
Rhetorically speaking, however, the court continues to present itself as a supra-political, national interest-serving institution, and one that is never bogged down by the parochialism characterising politics in contemporary Pakistan.
For the sake of analysis and discourse, both mainstream and alternative, the accuracy of this self-assessment needs to be rigorously tested and critically examined.
To continuously see the court’s actions as ‘legal’ rather than ‘political’ betrays a blind spot on our part, and looks eerily similar to occasions when segments of the intelligentsia nod along in tune to the supra-political, national interest-serving claims of another state institution.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
umairjaved87@gmail.com |
Politics: music to the ears By Asha’ar Rehman LAHORE had an early Eid this time around with a youth-inspired mela from where a Guinness world records adjudicator escaped with only a few records unbroken.
He saw the longest national flag unfurled and heard the loudest national anthem sung.
Had the Guinness guy chosen to stay longer he would have most certainly run into the man who can juggle 18 hats or more simultaneously. Wonder if he noticed that at least one old record found a new voice during the festival here — the voice belonging to none other than the chief minister of the province.
It is such a relief to have all these politicians singing in Pakistan. We have had Gen Pervez Musharraf crooning to his heart’s content, even if his detractors in the PML-N consider his notes no match for those of the old popular practitioner Mian Nawaz Sharif.
MQM Quaid Altaf Hussain is not averse to occasionally saying something in a tune of his own, while the PTI offers famous professionals such as Abrar ul Haq to inspire impromptu and planned concerts for its fans.
As a self-acclaimed custod-
ian of the country’s culture, the PPP’s contribution to the cause of melody and music leaves a lot to be desired. The bands which would once travel around with Ms Benazir Bhutto are nowhere to be seen.
One music tradition is in danger as motivational, devotional songs created in various languages hailing various feats by the Bhuttos are no more to be found in shops, at least not in the ones in Lahore.
But all said and done, the PPP’s Sharmila Farooqi does participate in this ongoing all-politicians’ music conference when she overcomes her shyness and eventually concedes to actor Shaan’s request to hum a number from his film during a recent television show of his.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has done his reputation as a sincere pursuer of tasks no harm by taking his singing more seriously than most other politicians.
In aid of everyone’s effort to pull Pakistani politics out of the polarised, ugly 1990s, at the recent youth festival he took befitting recourse to his younger days.
Habib Jalib he put on hold for the time being and in place of his usual Main nahin maanta, he entertained the audience with Pervez Malik’s romance from the 1960s that paired together Sohail Rana and Masroor Anwar, Zeba and Waheed Murad and Ahmed Rushdi and Mala. His rendition of the famous Akele naa jaana was timely in the context of his prolonged
no-nonsense and often grim presence of late.
The chief minister could have of course chosen another, happier, song — or explained what situation had compelled him to warn someone against going alone, or solo, somewhere.
As old reviewers would insist, the song must fit the situation. For example, when elder brother and more known leading singer in the family Mian Nawaz Sharif was asked to comment on Pakistani Christians some years ago, he broke into Tu Hindu banega naa Musalmaan banega, Insaan ki aulaad hay insaan banega.
Actually, this is a fit-all song — a tribute to Yash Chopra, who had come up with a good account of his Lahori makeup by including Tu Hindu bane gaa… in his 1959 venture, a somewhat awkwardly titled Dhool ka Phool.
Considering that it is easier here to celebrate an individual from another faith than an ideology that appears in the slightest to be against our pure manifesto on life, Mr Chopra’s recently rediscovered Lahore connection makes it convenient for everyone here to lend their voices to his …insaan ki aulad hay insaan banega.
Mr Chopra — who left this world on the same day the news of Mr Shahbaz Sharif’s latest singing exploit was printed in the papers — was one fellow Lahori who had opted for a more creative way of selling people dreams, following, of course, in the footsteps of his elder brother.
In time he surpassed his elder brother, B.R. Chopra, just as Mr Shahbaz Sharif had surprised Mian Nawaz Sharif when he first rendered Jalib’s Main nahin maanta at a public meeting a few years ago.
At the youth festival populated by school and college students, the Punjab chief minister may have found his immediate audience too innocent to be taken on the tortuous Jalibian path. The great awami poet was always at loggerheads with whoever was in power at whatever time.
A gentleman who went to school with one of Jalib’s sons recalls how the boy would be scolded by a teacher, with
a stiff reprimand: “Why is your father always in the opposition?”
The teacher knew that there was a time for everything, and this same could be the reason why the chief minister chose not to preach disobedience among young minds at a fun and games fair held under the aegis of his own government.
It was one pre-Eid release that could also be used to indulge in the usual filmy comparisons that some of us are so fond of attempting when seeking refuge from non-stop crude politics. For instance, whose speech is inspired by which film icon, who takes his dress sense from which famous name from the cinema. These details can and do make for some happy offbeat holiday reading. But trust that ultimate spoiler of all good things to strike his customary discordant note and spoil this too.
Rehman Malik, a just revealed connoisseur of poetry from the great Allama Iqbal’s neighbourhood, had to locate political meaning in Mr Shahbaz Sharif’s extempore Akele naa jana — cruelly attaching the song to the Sharif family’s departure into forced exile more than a decade ago.
That was a grave mistake on Mr Malik’s part, if reconciliation is not a sham and the intent is to come out of the 1990s and revive the 1960s. As the minder of Pakistan’s interior he should know that one way of preventing the 1990s is to have the politicians on the stage and have them talk anything but politics. That would be music to the ears, truly.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore. |
Imperialism on a budget By Rafia Zakaria LAST week’s presidential debate bet-ween President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Governor Mitt Romney was supposed to focus on foreign policy, on giving each man seeking to lead the world’s sole superpower, an opportunity to articulate his vision for existence in the world at large.
As most commentators not located on the North American mainland have concluded, the debate’s avowed theme was misleading. What the world got, instead, was a smorgasbord of countries’ names — Mali and Libya and China and the ‘stans’ — sandwiched between macho posturing of who, if given the opportunity, could promise to kill the most people (if needed of course) in the name of American security.
If you fell asleep you were not the only one, as one satirical commentator noted. Most undecided voters, those uncut gems for whom both campaigns are toiling so earnestly, were probably lost to slumber after the first 10 minutes. While there could be many reasons for their disinterest, remaining ‘undecided’ in the US is in itself a turning away from things political.
The rest of the world had more than mere boredom to weep over. The two candidates avoided articulating, beyond the most superficial of paeans (Obama does pronounce Pakistan correctly even if he likes to bomb it by remote control), a substantive vision of how they differed on the subject (they don’t) or how American foreign policy in any shape or form would be different for either man in the Oval Office (it won’t).
In fact, the reason for their camaraderie — Mitt Romney even offered a sportsmanlike compliment to President Obama on his drone doings — goes beyond their campaigns. It speaks instead of the difficult task of being a face-saving, still savage, still hegemonic superpower when the money for the grandstanding required of the job simply isn’t there.
A case in point was the two candidates’ somewhat staged spat over Syria. Governor Romney might have taken some tongue-clicking pleasure in implying that the Obama administration was too late and doing pathetically little to aid Syrians beset with a civil war that has killed thousands. But there was little in his accusations (relying too much on the UN and not being terse enough with Iran) that would lead any watching voter to conclude that a President Romney would order immediate intervention in Syria with a solid American troop presence.
As far as issues of intervention or foreign policy are concerned, the challenge faced by the two candidates is not each other but the onerous task of being sufficiently imperial without the cash to make the threats and the drama that surrounds them sufficiently forbidding and regal.
Drones have solved some of the problem — flying robots that kill can be quite handy in intimidating this or that country and counting down lists of bearded enemies — but they have their limits.
What they cannot do is continue with the impression that America can still, as Romney put it, “install governments we like” in countries where the old dictators supported by the US have become dated.
Nation-building has proved a costly exercise and no ordinary American, after having finally wised up to the cost of such expeditionary machismo, is willing anymore to pay for it.
However, the debacles of Iraqs and Afghanistans past have not killed the kick of supremacy nor the addiction to a bossy hauteur. What Obama and Romney must construct is a way to be imperial on a budget, to retain the trappings of supremacy but without the infinitude of surplus or the naiveté of overtures that promised to remake all corners of Iraq or Afghanistan in the likeness of Nebraska and Kansas.
What the candidates’ stances demonstrated (since all their responses can be confidently known to have been vetted by significant research of the desires of the voters they wish to convert) is that while the cash for colonialist ventures may no longer be there, the desire for them persists.
If the American voters of today will roll their eyes at the prospect of another war or another plan for putting troops here or there, it is not because they don’t think such meddling is wrong. It’s simply because they don’t like the bill they got the last time they ordered a meal as lavish as that.
American presidential candidates are no different.
If Obama appears less hawkish than Romney, less inclined to promise a bombing of Iran or intervene in Syria, he worked hard to sound just as martial in lauding his trigger-happy alacrity in catching Osama bin Laden, in wanting to spank whatever other country that happened to have terrorists holed up. Governor Romney, not having the burden of a record, did what challengers — especially Republican ones — do: help their constituencies imagine many wars, all of which could still be indulged in without a concern for cost.
It is economics, then, that promises a new kind of superpower, an end to the traditional kinds of wars with hundreds of thousands of troops, the military industrial complex of old-time imperialism financed by billions of dollars and an accompanying ecosystem of puppet governments and defence contracts.
The saving-face imperialism of the next decade is hegemony on a budget, interest in the remote control, the shortcut, the 100 schools instead of the 100-member legislature.
It is something that looks kind of like democracy instead of the whole circus of fair voting and legal institutions and other such expensive things.
Like a fat, rich man suddenly finding himself poor, who must eat the salad and imagine the steak, who tells himself that he could still have his steak if he wished and convinces himself that he has chosen self-denial, the superpower on a budget must practise a new, frugal, imperialism.
This imperialism is less grand and more automated, but perhaps no less cumbersome for the world that must endure it.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com |
Failed Syrian ceasefire By Najmuddin A. Shaikh DESPITE the bitterness of the conflict that has raged in Syria for the last 19 months many of us had entertained the hope that the warring parties would honour UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s painfully negotiated ceasefire. After all, it was to cover only the four-day Eidul Azha holiday.
It did not appear to be designed to offer either side an unfair opportunity to regroup or to replenish supplies. All it could do was give the beleaguered Syrian people a respite from the unremitting shelling, bombing and IEDs causing an average of 150 casualties per day. It had the backing of Turkey and Iran, the two regional states that were the principal source of support for the insurgents and the government respectively.
These hopes were belied. The government claimed that they broke the ceasefire agreement only after their forces were attacked or after insurgents planted IEDs.
The first major incident was the explosion of a car bomb in a residential area of Damascus in which, according to Syrian official media, the casualty count was 15 dead civilians, including eight children, and 92 wounded, among them 65
children.
Somewhat belatedly, insurgent forces claimed that this was engineered by the government. But the government’s riposte, if that is what it was, seemed totally out of place. The heaviest air raids of the conflict were carried out in this four-day period according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is generally credited with having good sources within Syria and claims to be an impartial observer of the carnage.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep disappointment that the ceasefire had not held while Lakhdar Brahimi, in Moscow for talks with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, said that “the Syrian crisis is very, very dangerous; the situation is bad and getting worse”. The Russian foreign minister expressed his disappointment but also reiterated the Russian view that the western nations should negotiate a political settlement with the Assad regime.
In the meanwhile, the miseries of the Syrian people and the systematic destruction of their country continue. The UN estimates that some 20,000 people have died so far but other possibly more realistic figures put the death toll at 35,000.
Officially 100,000 Syrians have sought shelter in Turkey but in reality the number is probably closer to 180,000 with a similar number having moved to Jordan. The UN estimates that by the end of the year some 700,000 Syrians would have fled the country. Within Syria, the internally displaced number almost two million with the UN trying desperately to find funding to provide shelter and food.
The heavy bombing and shelling to counter insurgent advances and the hand-to-hand combat in many urban areas has meant that much of urban Syria is being razed to the ground. The world heritage site ‘Old Aleppo’ city and the famous market it contains has repeatedly suffered shelling and is in danger of being wiped out as is the Umayyad mosque, an Aleppo landmark which has frequently changed hands between government and insurgent forces.
No estimates have been published yet of the total damage done but it would be safe to say that it would take a decade or more for Syria to rebuild what has been lost in the course of this conflict.
But it is not Syria alone that is affected. The sectarian and ethnic dimensions of the conflict continue to exacerbate tensions within the region.
Turkey, which had emerged as the regional powerhouse successfully pursuing a policy of ‘zero problems with neighbours’, finds itself at odds with Syria. Hence, it has new tensions in its relations with Iran and Russia. These and the refugee problem or even the virtually daily exchange of artillery fire with Syria are relatively smaller problems than the emergence of the Syrian Kurds as an independent force in areas of Syria bordering on Turkey.
The internal problems Turkey has with its Kurdish minority have in Turkish eyes been exacerbated by this development particularly since they see the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the dominant Kurdish force in Syria, as synonymous with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
In Lebanon, Sunni supporters of the Syrian insurgency are at odds with the Shia Hezbollah, the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon and which, it is alleged, is sending its fighters into Syria to support the Assad regime. Lebanon is seen as hovering on the brink of civil war, particularly after the killing of Wissam al-Hassan, the head of security and a staunch anti-Syrian figure.
In Iraq, the spate of bombings on Eidul Azha is related at least in part to the situation in Syria. Sunni volunteers are joining the insurgency while Shia fighters are making their way into Syria to support Assad directly and through Iran. Today, Bibi Zaynab’s tomb in Damascus is being guarded entirely by Shia volunteers from Iran and Iraq.
Jordan, struggling with its own internal political problems, has also to cope with the Syrian fallout. A couple of weeks ago, it announced the arrest of Al Qaeda members coming from Syria carrying explosives and communication devices. The Jordanians believe that this was part of a Syrian government effort to destabilise Jordan.
If the entire region is not to be set aflame a more concerted international effort is needed to work out a negotiated settlement in Syria. It is noteworthy in this context that the Saudi Arab News, while talking about contingency plans drawn up by the UN peacekeeping department for a future ceasefire and deployment of UN peacekeepers says “it is absolutely right that the UN is busy planning for a ceasefire rather than an outright Assad defeat”. One can only hope that this materialises.
The writer is a former foreign secretary. |
Supreme Court’s CNG order By Khurram Husain THREE cheers for the Supreme Court! I knew operating a CNG station was a profitable enterprise, and licences were reserved for those with political clout.
But even someone as cynical as me did not know exactly how profitable the enterprise was until I read the Supreme Court order in the Ogra case.
For the first time that I know of, the complete cost build-up of CNG has entered the public realm.
For petrol and diesel the total cost with itemised build-up has been available on the Ogra website for many years. But for CNG, only the final notified prices have ever been shown, and we’ve had no idea what the breakdown of those has been. Until now.
On Oct 25, the Supreme Court demanded that the chairman Ogra submit the full cost build-up of the retail and prescribed prices of CNG, and what emerged was a jaw-dropper. It turns out the business of operating a CNG pump in Pakistan is so profitable it very likely leaves every other category of business in the hydrocarbon sector gasping for air. And that’s not a casual metaphor.
From the chart submitted by the chairman Ogra, we learn that CNG station owners charge the consumer Rs20 as operating costs, and Rs11 as profit for every kilogramme of CNG purchased. Then in a small footnote, we are told that “Operating Cost includes compression cost, maintenance, depreciation, fee etc as per MoU signed b/w CNG Association & FG.”
I particularly like that “etc”. Not much is known about this MoU, but it would be great if it could be shared with the media.
And if you want context on the amount the CNG station owners are getting as ‘operating cost’ and as profit, consider that the oil-marketing companies (OMCs) get less than Rs2 per litre as their margin in petrol, kerosene and diesel, the oil dealerships get just over Rs2, it costs Rs6 per litre as inland freight to pay for cartage and storage that maintains price parity across the country.
In the gas sector, operating cost of gas companies like SSGC is just over Rs1, with return on investment at 85 paisa per kilogramme.
So how on earth are CNG station owners charging operating costs of Rs20 per kilogramme? And what on earth are they doing getting Rs11 as profit when the maximum total cost was Rs92 per kilogramme?
The math gets a little tough because volumes of CNG consumed in the country are reported by the ministry in cubic feet, whereas the retail pricing is reported in kilogrammes.
But if you consider that 10 per cent of all domestic gas gets used in CNG stations, and about one-third of this amount goes into the pockets of CNG station owners as ‘operating cost’ and profit, you’ll get an idea of the enormous transfer of resources that takes place on a daily basis.
In stray remarks before the press, the CNG association head has claimed that out of the Rs20 he charges as ‘operating cost’, almost half is the cost of electricity for compression purposes.
I find that hard to believe, but if it is true then Ogra is obligated to ask all CNG stations to submit their electricity bills, and compare the amount of electricity consumed with their declared sales, and cross-check the figure with their tax records. I say obligated for one simple reason: the Supreme Court has ordered a “scrutiny of audited accounts of CNG stations”.
If the Ogra chairman cannot live up to the requirements of this order, he has no business occupying his office. If he shows trepidation at the thought of scrutinising the audited accounts of politically connected CNG station owners, then he should vacate his office rather than search for a compromise at the cost of the public interest.
Contrary to some interpretations, the Supreme Court has not touched the price of gas. It has only ordered the government to properly determine the costs and profits that CNG station owners are charging the public.
It’s true that gas should not be sold cheaply simply to put smiles on people’s faces. But it’s also true that rentier levels of remuneration should not be included in the cost build-up that end-consumers pay. Price reforms should add value to the public interest by incentivising efficiency and production volumes, not stuffing the bottomless pockets of CNG station owners.
“Ogra is not authorised to fix the operating costs and profit of the operators of CNG stations, arbitrarily,” observed the court, thus throwing out the MoU signed between the government and the station owners that had formed the basis for the exorbitant determination of ‘operating cost’ and profit.
Now the regulator has been ordered to do its duty and determine for itself what the operating costs of the station owners are and fix the amount appropriately. All other aspects of the judgment are minor by comparison to this Rs31 swing of the gavel.
The price link with petrol and the gas development surcharge have been objected to, but the government still has time in which to persuade
the court of the merits of retaining these measures. Memories of the Steel Mill case are being unfairly invoked in what is otherwise a skillful and discerning judgment. The station owners have no business pocketing one-third of the retail price of the gas they sell. Nobody in the oil and gas supply chain gets that sort of return, or
is allowed to pass through that sort of cost to the
end-consumer.
They have even less business complaining about the order since it was they who brought the petition before the Supreme Court in the first place, asking it to please bring down the price of gas for the benefit of the masses, on whose behalf the station owners think they are entitled to speak.
The writer is a Karachi-based journalist covering business and economic policy.
khurram.husain@gmail.com |
Change by citizens By I.A. Rehman CAN the citizens of a democratic state contribute to their development, or an improved management of their affairs, apart from periodically electing their rulers or using once in a while their power to effect regime change? .
An answer in the positive was offered at a well-organised Development Solution Forum recently held at Bangkok by an Oxfam-led consortium of development and academic institutions. The eight stories of successful citizen action from Asian countries presented there should be of interest to Pakistani activists who are exploring the non-state path to progress.
Two initiatives for improvement in the quality of life in towns owe their success to their mayors’ ability to mobilise
the local communities for their own development.
In one of these towns, Libon, in the Philippines, Mrs Agnes Dycoco, elected mayor for three consecutive terms, launched a number of projects, especially in the areas of education and health, to meet the basic needs of the town’s 66,345 residents, more than half of them living below the poverty line.
Her efforts met with remarkable success because, besides carrying the population with her, she was able to win the confidence of the authorities and establish a partnership with regional and national agencies and NGOs. The story of this town presents a purely development model as the mayor sees the elected leaders in local government as “development managers” rather than “political machines”.
The mayor of the other municipality, Koh Kha Tambon, in Thailand, Ms Penpuk Rattanakumfu, also has won three consecutive terms in office. She is firmly committed to the political road to progress. While studying for a Master’s degree in political science and local government, she imbibed the view that accountable local governance and active community participation can be achieved by strengthening civil society.
She developed a four-point project comprising i) the concept of a ‘liveable city’, ii) building public-mindedness, iii) enhancement of participation and learning processes, and iv) being an autonomous and independent community.
Both these cases presuppose the existence of a system of local government, regular elections, helpful oversight by higher tiers of governance and a duly sensitised citizenry.
If these conditions are met and the people can learn to elect persons of sound knowledge and vision, similar experiments could be carried out in Pakistan too, for they are in the nature of efficient use of the already available space for public uplift.
The third example of citizens’ initiative came from Cambodia and its objective is to raise women’s share in parliament and services. A national coalition of local NGOs called the Committee to Promote Women in Politics has won considerable success in the seven years of its existence. This narrative should not be unfamiliar to Pakistanis as promotion of women’s participation in politics has been one of our NGOs’ most notable successes.
Incidentally, Cambodia — the killing fields of yesteryear — is not as backward a country as many Pakistanis might think. Women there account for 51.4 per cent of the population, hold 19 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly and 14.6 per cent in the Senate, 7.7 per cent of ministers’ offices and 8.2 per cent of the posts of secretaries of state.
The work of the Janagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Bangalore, for improving the quality of urban populations, through documentation of financial affairs, campaign against corruption, promotion of citizens’ participation and developing an index to measure the quality of citizenship, is also worth studying.
So is the crusade for peace carried out by Yaena Salamae, who belongs to the Muslim community in southern Thailand where thousands of lives have been lost in ethnic violence over the past eight years. The loss of her son turned this simple and quiet housewife into an active and articulate defender of innocent people and a formidable advocate for peace.
From Indonesia came a report on a multi-dimensional social development project, heavily backed by donors, a model Pakistanis are quite familiar with.
Of the eight stories of change brought about by citizens, two that stand out for originality and their potential for direct impact on governance deserve special notice.
Samadhan is the name of a pilot project launched in two districts in India, one in Madhya Pradesh and the other in Orissa. (A similar project is said to have been developed earlier in Kenya.) Under a partnership between the collector of the district, a leading civil society organisation and the local media, the project creates an Internet-based platform for citizens to directly demand their service entitlements under national and state government schemes and track their
fulfilment.
The project works like this: a citizen can file his complaint against a delay in receiving his entitlement in the Samadhan system through a phone call, SMS or the web. The computer registers the complaint by location, time, date, type and other particulars. These complaints are read by local officials and they are required to indicate appropriate courses of action.
The complainant can keep track of action taken by the administration via SMS or website. Once the matter is resolved the complainant is duly informed. It is said that Samadhan gives the citizens the power to take their grievance to the government without any cost or hassle but the benefit of people’s empowerment means much more than cutting costs, financial as well as those of access to redress forums.
The other project, this one from Vietnam, is called Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI). A joint effort of UNDP, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and an NGO, PAPI complements a government programme for monitoring the country’s reform master plans. The project measures from the citizens’ viewpoint provincial governance (63 provinces) and public administration under six heads: i) participation at the local levels; ii) transparency; iii) vertical accountability; iv) control of corruption; v) public administrative procedures; and vi) public service delivery.
These heads are divided into sectors. For instance, the public service delivery has four sectors — public health, public primary education, infrastructure, and law and order — and each sector is further divided into three to seven service entitlements. The index is compiled on the basis of responses from a cross-section of the population and attempts are made to ensure a comprehensive representation of citizens.
Both these initiatives can give ordinary citizens a feeling of empowerment and control over their day-to-day affairs but in my view they lag behind Pakistan’s Orangi Pilot Project.
However, all these success stories run parallel to states’ avowed policies and depend on national governments’ goodwill and international support. Such help is unlikely to be available to a citizens’ enterprise that challenges the development paradigm sanctified by the custodians of power at home and at the global level.
It is true that removal of public complaints at the local level impedes the rise of mass movements for a radical change that addresses all forms of injustice and exploitation. But in societies where prospects for establishing a new and egalitarian order are not in sight, citizens’ initiatives for alleviating the people’s suffering may not be fruitless. |
The croupier’s wager By Jawed Naqvi HE shuffled his cards this week and he has a new, younger team of ministers to run the show, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will always be a croupier.
For over 20 years he has wooed punters to the casino table he crafted, to plunder and squander fortunes. Robust subsistence farmers became cash crop derelicts.
Buoyed by the sheer volume of unsuspecting gamblers, who would soon include cash-strapped housewives and pensioners alike, Harshad Mehta would replace the iconic ‘Matka King’ Ratan Khatri.
The casino owners are pleased with the new croupier. It is elementary knowledge that his economic policies are not entirely shaped by him. It is axiomatic too that they are still framed by the IMF via a revolving door fashioned to rotate his officials.
They leave his room to join the IMF/World Bank as others arrive with a fresh brief from the masters to be his advisers. One just did in August. In between, there are a couple of tycoons who call the shots though their démarches are usually dressed as pre-budget advice.
Taking a cue from Joseph Stiglitz’s criticism of the revolving door between big business worldwide and the IMF, an Indian People’s Tribunal on World Bank posed an as yet unanswered question: “How else would one explain the fact that for much of the last 20 years, and particularly since 1991, many if not most of the top economic
policymakers including members of the planning commission, secretaries of the Finance Ministry and Governors of the Reserve Bank have been staffers of the World Bank/ IMF.
“They have moved smoothly and seamlessly between the World Bank/IMF and the government of India, as if the government of India were just a division of the World Bank/IMF.”
There have been countless scams in the casino under Dr Singh’s watch but he has remained unfazed.
A clutch of hapless Indian banks were slammed with charges in the Harshad Mehta plot but the major players, including at least two foreign banks, managed to show a clean pair of heels. More recent scams saw ministers and senior colleagues spending a few months in prison, but it was otherwise back to business as usual.
It is not for the first time that Dr Singh has relocated his oil minister in a cabinet reshuffle. Even newspapers that are indulgent towards business lobbies have noted how Jaipal Reddy was virtually shunted out from his post to please powerful interests. Mr Reddy is widely loved for his peerless integrity and old-worldly charm.
Earlier, the axe fell on Mani Shankar Aiyar when he headed the oil ministry. He sought an ambitious alliance with China at the time to build a club of hydrocarbon consumers to tame Western-
controlled oil cartels.
Mr Aiyar was shown the door for dreaming Nehruvian dreams. He is among the few Congress MPs without a scam shadowing them. Such people are inevitably blackballed from the high-stakes table at the casino, which the oil ministry seems to be.
The prime minister’s foreign policy options are similarly fudged by spurious advice. After he professed India’s love for a singularly unpopular American president, a communist deputy told him to speak for himself.
As for his preferred approach to peace with Pakistan, the one potential feather in his cap, he badly needs to kick the habit of being vetoed by his own agencies.
The Sharm El Sheikh fiasco was an example of a prime minister being double-guessed by his intelligence advisers. For better or worse, he had agreed to discuss Pakistan’s concern over alleged Indian interference in Balochistan, and he had agreed not to let a Mumbai-like incident derail the peace process again. His officials put the document in the shredder.
It is, therefore, a matter of conjecture as to what if any gains could accrue by his changing of the foreign minister.
The outgoing foreign minister S.M. Krishna and the incumbent Salman Khurshid have little in common other than their foreign law degrees. After resigning from the cabinet, Mr Krishna spoke well of his Pakistani and Chinese counterparts, saying he had struck up an agreeable rapport with both.
The former chief minister of Karnataka also showed that he was no pushover when he slammed the home secretary of the day who tried to queer his pitch by alleging Pakistan’s anti-India plots during Mr Krishna’s visit to Islamabad. It takes something for a foreign minister to stand up to the Indian home ministry on policies concerning Pakistan.
By contrast, Mr Khurshid runs the risk of being identified with his previous innings as a junior foreign minister. On one occasion during that tenure he called Benazir Bhutto a ‘hot air balloon’ after she likened Kashmir to Bosnia. The Pakistanis responded equally rudely by branding him a ‘rented Muslim’.
In his behalf it must be said that he is well-spoken though he is getting impatient with critics. The announcement of the December cricket tour by Pakistan within days of Mr Khurshid’s anointment as India’s new foreign minister augurs well for a potential new beginning in political ties. And yet who can deny that today even cricket matches have acquired many characteristics of a casino.
Croupiers don’t place wagers on the tables they ply. They don’t need to, sanguine as they are in the knowledge that the casinos never lose. And so when they retire, as they no doubt will some day, the bets will continue to come in. A handpicked heir will take over to spin the impoverished nation’s wheels of fortune, into the wee hours.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com |
Courting history By Salman Akram Raja A JUDGMENT based on a reading of history inevitably exposes the court to questions of selectivity and partiality. Such judgments are best avoided.
Yet, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has had to assess and judge history each time a democratic government has been terminated, whether through imposition of martial law or the use of the now defunct Article 58(2)(b) of the constitution.
For instance, in Zafar Ali Shah’s case (2000) regarding Gen Musharraf’s coup of 1999, the court was asked to accept the veracity of the version of events presented in support of the coup: that the coup was in fact a counter-coup necessitated by prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s recklessness in dismissing the army chief and diverting the aircraft that carried the chief and hundreds of other passengers from its original route. The overthrow of democratic authority was required to gain control over the aircraft’s flight path and save lives.
In rendering its judgment in support of the coup the court accepted the coup makers’ narration of events thereby creating a judicially sanctioned version of history.
Subsequent revelations and research have increasingly established that in fact the truth was close to the deposed prime minister’s stand that was rejected by the court. The subversion of the constitutional order was plausibly a planned reaction to the prime minister’s annoyance over Kargil.
Similarly, revelations made during the Asghar Khan case, and material otherwise presented by historians, strongly suggest that the dismissal of the Benazir government in July 1990 had less to do with the breakdown of constitutional governance in the country, as asserted by president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, than the fact that a significant enough number of senior army officials had come to the conclusion that Mohtarma was a ‘security threat’.
It is also now increasingly clear that a major part of this threat perception was on account of her opposition to the Khalistan movement. The version of events accepted by the court in Khawaja Tariq Rahim’s case (2002) in upholding the dismissal of the PPP government now appears to be nothing more than a ruse.
During the course of the Asghar Khan case, and especially in the media since the Oct 19, 2012 order, Gen Aslam Beg (retd) has attempted to invoke an inverted version of history in his defence before the public at large.
He has tried to paint the late president Ghulam Ishaq Khan as a despot bent upon thwarting the constitutional entitlement of the Pakistani people and Benazir Bhutto to form a freely elected government. In his version of history, members of the armed forces, including him, had nothing to do with the political intrigue planned inside the presidency by a cell set up by their supreme commander. So he claims.
Gen Beg’s fable runs counter to the established understanding of Pakistan’s political history, based on historical evidence provided by any number of serious historians. The idea of the then president, a timid bureaucrat who was a servile confidant of military rulers from Ayub to Zia, independently dictating to the army chief a political strategy against a politician considered a ‘security threat’ is laughable.
It is a historic fact that the funds disbursement operation of 1990 to thwart the PPP was a continuation of a sustained effort that had started when the ISI cobbled together the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) prior to the 1988 elections.
Operation Jackal, aimed at pushing through a no-confidence vote against Benazir Bhutto’s government, followed in 1989. ISI operatives were involved. This is what Ms Bhutto was to recount in a later edition of her book, Daughter of the East.
It was after the failure of Operation Jackal that she sought to exercise some control over the ISI by appointing, for the first time in that organisation’s history, a retired rather than a serving general as director general.
Knowledgeable observers from Shuja Nawaz to Stephen Cohen have suggested that Lt Gen Kallu’s (retd) appointment as DG, ISI was resented by those who mattered. This was clearly one of the factors that precipitated the demise of the Bhutto government through deployment of Article 58(2)(b) in September 1990. It was the establishment at ‘work’, not the president alone.
Gen Beg has also mischievously invoked the figure of the late prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, as the person ultimately responsible for the plunder of public deposits placed with Habib Bank, then a nationalised bank, in September and October of 1990 in order to steal that year’s election from the PPP.
Repeated references have been made by Gen Beg to an alleged notification of 1975, never placed before the court over the 16-year hearing, which had created a political cell at Mr Bhutto’s behest within the ISI.
For Gen Beg, the 1975 notification, and none of the individual officers involved in the 1990 operation, was responsible for whatever happened. For him it is irrelevant that there is no basis for assuming that any notification of 1975 in fact sanctioned activity that could have justified the ISI’s institutional involvement, or that of officers acting individually, in the election manipulation of 1990.
Equally unimportant for him is the fact that even if, for the sake of argument, such a mandate was placed with the ISI its discharge would have remained unconstitutional.
Gen Beg’s contortions of history have reiterated the question that Pakistani courts have had to address on several occasions: to what extent should judgments be based on assessment of historical facts? The unavoidable answer appears to be: to the minimum extent necessary.
History can never justify violation of constitutional principle. In accepting one historical narrative over another, the court faces the risk of generating a court-sanctioned history that might come to be at odds with what is ultimately supported by a more complete examination of the facts by professional historians and, more importantly, is accepted by the people.
When this happens the court-accepted version of history, and the judgment based on such a version, assumes the aura of mere rhetoric generated for a particular end. This is the fate that befell the judgment in Dosso’s case upholding the Ayub martial law and several others. An accumulation of such history-contingent judgments is ultimately inimical to the rule of law project.
The writer represented Air Marshal Asghar Khan (retd) in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. |
The culture trap By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar CULTURE is a strange thing. It is desperately difficult to define, and yet at the same time very easily reified.
For Pakistanis bred on the two-nation theory culture is often equated with religion; many of us rhetorically lay claim to a uniform ‘Islamic’ culture. In practice, however, we all wear extremely diverse cultural practices on our sleeves. In fact, we spend a great deal of time reinforcing cultural stereotypes about one another.
There are, for instance, few gatherings in non-Pakhtun households that conclude without the inevitable joke about the thick-skinned and slow ‘Pathan’. Notwithstanding our limited interaction with Punjabi Sikhs since Partition, latifas celebrating the intelligence of Guru Nanak’s followers are also commonplace.
Native Urdu speakers often sit together laughing and/or crying about the accented Urdu of the uncultured
plebeians with whom they have been forced to share a country.
Such banter is good and well up to a point. Beyond fun and games such cultural ‘othering’ becomes offensive, and when politicised, potentially racist and violent.
It is this politicisation of difference that explains what is happening in our biggest urban centre. Karachi, the country within a country, the proverbial melting pot, the city that boasts about its cosmopolitanism, stands badly divided. Ethnic/racial/cultural profiling and violence are a daily affair.
Xenophobic tendencies have become increasingly widespread in Balochistan, as indigenous culture comes to be viewed as irreconcilable with that of the non-Baloch, and Punjabis in particular. With the passage of time it is eminently possible that the cultural differences that have always existed between Seraikis and Punjabis morph into conflict. The list could go on.
Confrontation between different ‘cultures’ is ostensibly as old as settled human society itself. Europe’s Dark Ages, for instance, are still often understood by most laypeople as a period of incessant war along religious and sectarian lines. We are prone to thinking about our relationship with the ‘West’ in exclusively cultural terms. Even the competition between Western and Chinese capitalism is often depicted as a deeper cultural tug of war that can be traced back a few thousand years.
Such an understanding of the dynamics of conflict in human history amounts, in my understanding, to a culture trap. By this I mean the tendency to reduce multi-dimensional conflicts to exclusively cultural ones, thereby exacerbating the divide between ‘them’ and ‘us’.
Historical study can confirm that cultural differences partially explain the emergence and escalation of conflict, but it is more often than not the case that other factors are just as, if not more, important.
There are enough examples in the history of this country to verify this hypothesis. Almost all of the ethno-national movements that have challenged the Pakistani state over the past 65 years have sought to redress perceived political and economic injustices in the first instance.
Autonomy of culture, including language, has also been an important motivating factor but by no means the primary one, and definitely not a stand-alone factor.
Unfortunately, but not necessarily counter-intuitively, the consolidation of non-egalitarian political and economic structures deepens perceptions that ‘we’ are being oppressed by ‘them’.
This is why increasingly bitter multi-dimensional conflicts come to be articulated in increasingly black and white, cultural terms. As resistance takes on a more cultural idiom, dominant forces in turn become more defensive about their own ‘culture’.
All of this othering flies in the face of actually existing reality. As I mentioned at the outset, culture is notoriously difficult to pin down inasmuch as it is not easily identifiable with one specific practice or symbol. Perhaps more importantly, culture is ever-changing. Even major markers of culture such as languages have evolved over time, both in the form of dialects and their overall linguistic structure.
In short, while culture is often perceived as perennial in nature, it is anything but. Economic and social change, evolution of (or establishment of entirely new) institutional structures and a whole host of ‘non-cultural’ factors have a great bearing on the evolution of culture.
Indeed, what I want to emphasise most of all is the fact that cultures often overlap, influence one another, and give rise to entirely new hybrid forms that would not be recognisable to the original bearers.
The problem, as ever, is that the simplification of reality and its depiction in exclusively ‘cultural’ terms has become a matter of course for a large number of opinion-makers at many different levels of state and society.
The media, educational establishment and religious institutions in particular have perfected the culture trap, and resist any alternative worldviews in which culture is problematised to a much greater extent.
And this happens not only in Pakistan. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ binaries rule the roost in many other countries, including the United States. The western academy has been afflicted by ‘culturalism’ for the past two decades as part of the larger aesthetic movement that has become
known the world over as post-modernism.
Much of the scholarly interest in ‘culture’ has, of course, been motivated by a desire to redress ethnocentric biases inherent to much of the modern social science and humanities discourse. Yet there is little question that this ‘cultural turn’ in the academic world has coincided with wider political and ideological shifts in the post-Cold War era.
Coming back to our very unique context, it is remarkable that the idea that we are the bearers of a unitary culture centred on religious identity continues to be so dominant in this country, given just how divided we actually are in practice.
This rather glaring contradiction would suggest that we spend far too little time reflecting on the fuzziness of culture, even while we spend a great deal of time actually reinforcing cultural differences in practice.
In the final analysis, we need to accept the differen-
ces that do exist between us
in cultural terms, yet not
insist that these differences should necessarily precipitate conflict.
It is the pervasive and persistent inequities of our political and economic life that produce so much of the conflict that we see around us.
By falling into the culture trap we not only obfuscate political and economic exploitation but also push one another into clinging to unchanging conceptions of culture.
It is thus that we become willing to sacrifice everything in the name of protecting culture, even though there is no culture throughout history that has remained untouched by the objective forces of change.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. |
The great divide By Sakib Sherani RISING inequality of virtually every sort — in incomes, access to opportunity, gender-based, or in terms of quality of life — appears to have made a brief appearance yet again as a topic of debate in the developed countries.
One year after the vaunted ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement seemingly gained global traction and triggered a lasting social movement — only to dramatically fizzle out — inequality has again become a political issue in the US in the run up to the presidential election.
Despite the proliferation of economic growth across different regions and countries of the world in the past two decades or so, with millions lifted out of poverty and a sizeable global middle class created as a result, inequality in many of its dimensions appears to have worsened rather than eased. A dramatic concentration of incomes and wealth is on display in every part of the globe — from capitalist US, to former communist and socialist countries such as Russia, China and India.
The figures are truly staggering. Before turning to individuals, a look at the global corporate powerhouses is illustrative of the trend under way. From mega financial institutions to energy conglomerates, from real estate developers to telecom giants, the world’s biggest corporations raked in $36tr in revenues in 2011 and over $2.6tr in net profits (sourced from the Global 2000 list compiled by Forbes magazine). These companies had accumulated assets of $149tr (2.1 times the global GDP), and collectively employed 83 million people. The sales and assets of these mega firms amounted to 1.5 and 6.4 times respectively of the total GDP of developing countries.
Even more startling proof that the ‘Occupy’ and ‘We are the 99%’ move-
ments are not based on some radical, fringe notions but are supported by damning evidence first appeared in the UK’s New Scientist magazine, issue number 2835 of Oct 24, 2011. It quotes a fascinating study by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which studied 43,000 transnational corporations (TNCs). It combines the “mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s TNCs”.
The results? A core of 1,318 companies, with interlocking relationships, are at the heart of the global economy. Through their shareholding, this core appeared to collectively own a majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms — representing around 80 per cent of global revenues.
Further analysis of the ownership structures of these companies led to perhaps the most astonishing fact: that a ‘super entity’ of 147 tightly knit companies with a completely interlocked ownership structure controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the entire network. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of these entities are financial institutions.
Apart from revealing the extent of concentration of world economic activity and wealth in a small core of TNCs from an equity prism, the study also highlights the threat to global economic stability by such skewed concentration in a small group of highly interconnected firms.
In terms of individual wealth, there are approximately 1,300 billionaires (measured in US dollars) in the world. Out of these, the top 10 alone had a cumulative net worth of just short of $400bn at the end of 2011 — larger than the combined GDP of 71 of the world’s poorest and smallest countries. (In fact, another gripping statistic relating to individual wealth comes from the UK-based Tax Justice Network — that a staggering $21tr has been stashed in tax havens around the world by just 92,000 people).
Little wonder that one of the world’s richest people, Warren Buffet, made the astute observation regarding the performance of the global economy and the proliferation of wealth in the recent past that “the tide lifted all the yachts” (instead of all the boats).
As a bounty of wealth and opportunity is bestowed on a mere handful, hunger, malnutrition, vulnerability to disease, displacement, loss of income, and the pernicious effects of climate change are the lot of an ever-larger part of the world’s population.
Despite its relatively more muted income inequality than many of its peers, Pakistan is not faring too much better when it comes to this issue. The share of income of the bottom 20 per cent of the households is around eight per cent, while that of the top 20 per cent households is almost six times larger, at 45 per cent. The top 40 per cent of the households have a share of income of slightly over 65 per cent, compared to just under 20 per cent for the bottom 40 per cent of the households.
The skewed nature of the returns to capital versus to labour is also very much evident in our case. In a recent partial analysis of the balance sheets of some of the biggest business houses in Pakistan (the research is still ongoing), I found that the 15 biggest business groups whose accounts were publicly available, had combined sales of around Rs650bn in 2011 — but a cumulative direct employee base of less than 150,000.
While there is no reason to get hysterical about the capital-intensive nature of large businesses, and the returns they make for the risks they undertake, given our surplus labour situation policymakers should strive to achieve a better capital-labour balance in economic growth, as has been done by many other countries. This would mean promoting industries such as construction and garments, to name two, that can absorb excess labour.
Does inequality matter? Any facet of inequality that is borne out of an unfair distribution of resources or opportunity reflects a fundamental failure of society. This failure needs to be redressed by the state through better and more widespread education opportunities, health coverage and skills improvement among other interventions.
The writer is a former economic adviser to government, and currently heads a macroeconomic consultancy based in Islamabad. |
Thoughts on the way forward By Abbas Nasir MILITANCY is tearing away at the vitals of Pakistan, defacing it. Further procrastination in attending to it cannot be.
There are just two options. We can either challenge the militants physically to regain control over the territory lost to them or we can negotiate with them and hope this delivers better results than earlier attempts did.
As someone who strongly believes that the mess we are in today is largely of the military’s making, one feels it must fall on the army leadership’s shoulders to lead the way to safer shores.
As a first step, the army may wish to hold an internal debate and decide whether it considers US drone attacks on Pakistani territory a low-cost (in terms of money and our soldiers’ lives) weapon that has taken out some of the country’s worst enemies, mass murderers.
Or whether it considers the continued use of drone attacks by the US as an unacceptable violation of our sovereignty that has to stop, especially since these cause civilian casualties too. Drones here of course can be taken as a microcosm of the gamut of military relations between the two countries.
This clarity is vital because ever since the first example of drone activity over Pakistan in the mid-2000s the government of the day (first the Musharraf administration and then the current government) and the military have decried the attacks.
This has done two things. It has reinforced the impression, perhaps rightly, of the US as an arrogant, uncaring power that doesn’t even entertain the objections of a major ally on such an issue and has contributed to the spiralling anti-US sentiment.
With all public opinion surveys suggesting that the US is the most disliked foreign power in Pakistan, it is not a step too far to say that any government and/or the military that is seen as allied too closely with the US is to be despised too.
A duplicitous official policy has left us with very few options to exercise. We have ended up alienating our supposed allies and simultaneously our own people merely because we have failed to inform them properly.
There should be a cost-benefit analysis of going one way or the other and decisions made on an informed, transparent basis so the people can understand why a certain decision was preferable/preferred over others and buy into it.
Wikileaks demonstrated we have been saying one thing to the Americans and the rest of the world and the opposite to our own people. This is a recipe for disaster and must stop immediately.
There are those who believe militancy in the country is only because of Pakistan’s support to the US-led ‘war on terror’.
If this view is shared by the majority of political forces in the country including those in government, then it is incumbent on us to openly debate all the pros and cons of our current policy. The people have a right to know all possible repercussions before a policy change.
Armed with all the facts, if the people want a change no matter how dramatic, a change it shall have to be.
Army chief Gen Kayani as recently as mid-August this year described the war against militancy as Pakistan’s own war. He also said there was no room for an armed minority to force its will on the rest in a civilised society.
The Swat attack on Malala Yousufzai, the continued desecration of Sufi shrines, the extermination of anyone opposing the Taliban in the areas under their control, the murder of Shias in Kurram Agency and elsewhere are but some reminders of the evil that stalks us.
Do we need to wait till the next round of beheadings of our security personnel by the Taliban or the next suicide bombing to act? Those committed to the creation of an Islamic emirate go about their business ruthlessly. Our response cannot be inertia.
It is up to the military planners to decide whether a march on the remaining sanctuaries of the militants from where they plan and direct operations against us is a better option or relentless special operations to break the back of the monster we have created are more effective.
We may not have the means, need or the desire to take on the Haqqani network, given our goals in Afghanistan. But if their militant attacks in Afghanistan are traced back to North Waziristan Agency surely our sovereignty claim is undermined.
Do we have enough influence with them to persuade them not to launch attacks on Afghanistan, particularly if we opt out of the alliance with the US as any attack across the border will probably lead to military reprisals?
As we deliberate over strategy that may dictate whether we survive or become a basket case at the mercy of marauding hordes of religious zealots, we need also to consider all scenarios and possibilities including failed negotiations.
Gen Kayani ought to take the initiative and brief all key political forces in the country on why he says the war against the militants is our war. He should be open and honest about the strengths and weaknesses of the machine he commands and list his challenges too.
At the same time the government, the ECP and, if need be, the judiciary and the military too should spell out their commitment to national elections on time so the fears of some parties are addressed. They fear action against militants will lead to a poll postponement.
Some of these parties will have to rethink their policy of appeasing the extremists too, because once, and if, the militant sanctuaries are cleared, we’ll need to cleanse the many hearts and minds of the toxic intolerance that poses an equally potent threat to the fabric of our society.
These were some random thoughts. The situation is critical. No one can claim a monopoly over ideas. Let’s pool, crystallise all proposals and move. Sitting around waiting for a miracle will push us deeper into the hole we have dug for ourselves.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com |
Old laws & corruption By A.G. Noorani WE owe a lot to some of the laws enacted by the British rulers. Macaulay’s Penal Code 1860 and Sir James Stephen’s Evidence Act, 1872 are acknowledged masterpieces. The Government of India Act, 1935 had enormous influence on constitution-making in Pakistan and India. However, tucked away in many a nook and corner of legislation of the Raj era are provisions which the British craftily made to protect their officials.
These laws were in glaring contrast to the legal set-up in Britain itself. The great authority on the constitutional law of Britain, A.V. Dicey wrote: “With us every official, from the prime minister down to a constable or a collector of taxes, is under the same responsibility for every act done without legal justification as any other citizen. The reports abound with cases in which officials have been brought before the courts, and made, in their personal capacity, liable to punishment, or to the payment of damages, for acts done in their official character but in excess of their lawful authority.”
One is not sure about the legal position in Pakistan; but in India the curbs of the British era were retained in the laws adapted after Independence. The adaptation was selective.
One remarkable provision in the Government of India Act, 1919 was quietly dropped by the British when they conferred autonomy and responsible government on the provinces of British India and was completely ignored by the framers of the constitutions of Pakistan and India.
Section 124 reads thus: “If any person holding office under the Crown in India does any of the following things, that is to say — (1) if he oppresses any British subject within his jurisdiction or in the exercise of his authority; or if (except in case of necessity, the burden of proving which shall be on him) he wilfully disobeys, or wilfully omits, forbears or neglects to execute, any orders or instructions of the secretary of state; or if he is guilty of any wilful breach of the trust and duty of his office; or if … he is concerned, or has any dealings or transactions by way of trade or business or if he demands, accepts or receives … any gift, gratuity or reward, pecuniary or otherwise, or any promise of the same … he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.”
A web of legal provisions was carefully drawn to deter the citizen. Clause 23(2) of the General Clauses Act 1897, a statute applied to the interpretation of all laws including the constitution, says that “a thing shall be deemed to be done in good faith where it is in fact done honestly, whether it is done negligently or not”. Every single legislation thereafter provided that “no suit, prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie … in respect of anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done by … person under this act”.
Every single statute made by the parliament of free India, incorporated this sweeping provision. Thus no criminal prosecution or civil suit for damages can lie for negligent exercise of statutory power even if it deprives the citizen of his liberty or rights or does damage to his property or business. It is patently violative of the fundamental rights to equity and to personal liberty and equal protection of the law.
In contrast Section 52 of the Penal Code (1860) says: “Nothing is said to be done or believed in ‘good faith’ which is done or believed without due care and attention.” So, when charged with lack of good faith, the Indian subject of the British Crown was required to demonstrate that he was not negligent. But the official of the Raj had only to prove absence of malice; negligence regardless. The legal position was not changed in republican India.
A sweeping protection was provided in addition to this. Section 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code 1898 provided that where any public servant is accused of any offence alleged to have been committed by him, “while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty”, no court shall take any cognisance of such offence except with the previous sanction of the government, central or state, that employed him — in effect, the authority competent to remove him.
The prime minister or the chief minister will decide whether or not to sanction a prosecution against a cabinet colleague even if, as in most cases, he was himself privy to the wrong and shared its profits. In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that when a chief minister is to be prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947, the governor would, in according the sanction, necessarily act in his own discretion and not on the advice of the council of ministers headed by the chief minister himself.
It is a well-recognised principle of criminal jurisprudence that anyone can set the criminal law into motion except where the statute enacting or creating an offence indicates to the contrary.
The question remains — why is the fundamental rule of criminal law on the citizen’s right to prosecute for crime not applied in an independent democratic state. The courts are not powerless to punish, and thus deter, frivolous or vexatious complaints. The same holds good for civil suits.
A corrupt minister cannot act alone under the rules of business. He needs a civil servant or two as an accomplice to write the desired note to protect him. Since misdeeds add to the ruling party’s coffers, the head of the cabinet is also involved. Do we expect him to allow the civil servant or the minister to be brought to book in a court of law where he is likely to expose the whole conspiracy?
Corruption cannot be banished from public life unless and until the protection extended to the corrupt by colonial laws is removed.
The writer is an author and a lawyer. |
Stuck in Skardu By Irfan Husain FIRST the good news. Baltistan is still as stunningly beautiful as it was when I last visited it over 15 years ago. Its people are just as friendly, and the light retains its luminous clarity.
In fact, the whole valley is a microcosm of the Pakistan I grew up in: a country that accepted diverse beliefs, where girls could go to school without getting shot, and a people who gladly welcomed visitors. Across Baltistan, our party of six Brits and three Pakistanis received nothing but kindness and friendly waves and smiles.
In Shigar, the old fort has been restored with great sensitivity and skill by the Agha Khan’s cultural organisation, and turned into a boutique hotel. Staying there, and in the newer establishment at Khaplu Palace, was an unforgettable experience. The bulk of the profits from both operations go to the local community in the form of development projects.
The downside of staying true to the original structures was that I kept bumping my head on the low doorframes. I later learned that doors were kept deliberately low to force people calling on the raja to bow their heads.
The views were staggering, with snow-capped peaks surrounding the old palace at Khaplu, and mountains, old gardens and streams visible from Shigar Fort.
Baltistan must be the only place in Pakistan where foreigners — women especially — can walk freely in the bazaars and the countryside without being followed, ogled at and drawing rude comments by locals.
As all of us have spent a lot of time in the subcontinent, we were specially impressed by the complete absence of beggars. When one of our group offered Rs100 to a couple of schoolboys who had been helpful, the offer was turned down with quiet dignity: “You are our guest,” one of the boys said.
Flying from Islamabad to Skardu must be one of the most spectacular flights anywhere. The approach to the runway involves a turn and descent between snowy mountain heights. The plane seems so close to them that you feel you can reach out and scoop up a handful of snow.
But these flights are also the most annoyingly erratic in the world. Travellers are aware that when the weather is cloudy, flights are cancelled at short notice, and they run the risk of getting stranded for days at a stretch.
However, PIA has taken to cancelling its flights at no notice for ‘operational’ or ‘technical’ reasons, forcing hundreds to either extend their stay, or venture the 22-hour drive to Islamabad. Both involve costs: either pay the hotel, or the Rs75,000 vans charge for the trip.
Staying on means missed flight connections and cancelled business meetings, but proceeding down the Karakorum Highway or KKH means an exhausting, bone-rattling drive over long stretches of terrible roads. And since the vicious killings of Shias near Chilas a few months ago, security is at an understandably high level.
So when our party arrived at the first checkpoint after dark, we were firmly told we could go no further that night. Desperately, I called my old friend Masud Shah who had been IG police in the old NWFP a few years ago. He suggested we turn back to Gilgit for the night, and he would organise an escort the next day.
Sure enough, we were met by a police mobile as soon as we entered the badlands of Kohistan, and escorted through several more check-posts where the passport numbers of the foreigners were duly noted each time. The flat, hard stares we got from the locals were a far cry from the smiles and waves we received in Baltistan. I wonder if their conservative religious belief has anything to do with the hostility we encountered.
But tiring as the drive was, it was worth every bump in the road. The soaring, snow-capped peaks and the tumbling waters of the river far below will stay with me for a long time. Luckily, we had two excellent drivers who made sure the wheels stayed inches away from the precipice.
While even PIA’s worst efforts cannot take away the impressions of a truly memorable trip, I wonder what’s going on: after all, the weather was glorious throughout our week there, so the airline can hardly use it as an excuse to cancel five flights in a row.
Our hotel managers and the shopkeepers we spoke to complained bitterly of Skardu being a low PIA priority. They were unanimous in blaming the airline for diverting aircraft meant for Skardu flights to other destinations.
What made things worse was the attitude of the PIA staff on their helpline: instead of apologising to passengers who were missing their connections, and promising to help them, they all said that customers would have to pay cancellation charges for missed onward flights. The local staff were helpless in coping with the chaos. “Speak to the management”, was their reply.
It is this culture of callous disregard for their customers that has brought PIA to its knees. Each time I have yet another bad experience, I swear “never again”. But often, there is no option, given the virtual monopoly PIA has domestically.
I suppose we could accept the organisation’s chronic inefficiency as a reflection of the whole country’s slide into mediocrity, but PIA pretends to be a commercial operation.
In their wisdom, successive governments have appointed a string of retired air force officers and PIA captains as chief executives. While these worthies may have been excellent pilots, running an airline is a whole different ball game. Thus, each one has done his bit to drive the company deeper into the red.
But this column was not supposed to be just a rant about PIA. Our friends had a wonderful time, and had it not been for PIA’s incompetence, they would have gladly recommended a similar holiday to their friends.
However, despite its idyllic setting and sense of peace, things are changing in Baltistan. We saw an anti-US slogan on a wall, and more bizarrely, there was a huge poster of the MQM’s Altaf Hussain on a village wall on our way to Hoshe.
At the end of the trip, our English friends had learned a lot about the country, including what PIA stands for: Pakistan Inshallah Airlines.
The writer is the author of Fatal Faultlines: Pakistan, Islam and the West.
irfan.husain@gmail.com |
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