| April 22, 2007 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 04, 1428 |
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The threat from within
Earth day: an emergency situation
Shoaib Malik as captain
Phone virus
Language divide: who is responsible?
Robbing air passengers
Another CSS experience
Golden jubilee
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
YOUR timely editorial 'Reeling under a power crisis' (April 19) again stresses on energy conservation which "may well be the only option right now".
However, your comment that "there is so much one can conserve and no more" needs clarification. As a nation, we are wasteful and given half the opportunity, all of us are happy in doing so. Whether it is our misuse of airconditioning or the pleasure of driving large cars (in case of government servants, it is a large number of large cars), we are ready to outdo the others. If only one can just pause for a second and compare our lavish ways with our neighbour’s, we would be ashamed of our 'ayyashi' but we are not ready to even pause for a milisecond.
Conservation is really the only option because, with increasing costs of energy, we just will not have enough resource if we do not conserve energy wisely. Of course, energy conservation applies all the way with total support from 'leaders' and, as individuals, we can set a tempo which then becomes a guideline for all large and small establishments.
For Karachi, with electrical power only possible from thermal (and thermonuclear) power plants, it would be simple common sense to expect that these power plants would be highly efficient and reliable.
In reality, the KESC is operating power plants with the lowest possible efficiency and unfortunately, except a few industrial and commercial organisations, all other major power plant installations are also not based on efficient design (The 'red building' syndrome, as covered in Dawn of April 19), needs to be discouraged severely, with possible disconnection of precious Sui gas to this installation since it is unfortunate that instead of improving efficiency in the new plant replacing the 20year-old plant, a gasguzzler installation has been commissioned).
First, the KESC power plants should have been redesigned and 'repowering' started after its privatisation. Unfortunately, the new KESC owners have no consideration for Karachiites and the future is bleak. We should go back to our friends, the Japanese government, and request them to upgrade the power plants originally designed and installed by Japanese firms. They can at least upgrade two, of the six power plants at Bin Qasim, urgently by adding gas turbines operating on Sui gas and increase capacity of each power plant by nearly 50 per cent, without asking for any extra Sui gas.
If this could be repeated for all six 'inefficient' power plants, we will have taken a serious step towards solving our 'energy crisis' through energy conservation, with the use of combined cycle technology. Just as important, such efficiency upgrades must also be applied to industries and large commercial buildings and the above described 'red building syndrome' should never be allowed to be repeated.
The decision by owners to install an inefficient system because Sui gas was going to be 'cheap' for next 15 years is typical of lack of concern for Pakistan. It is common knowledge that even with gas from Iran, the cost of natural gas will be very high four years from today (base price of $5.50 per MMBTU at the Iran-Pakistan border plus financing costs of $3 billion plus distribution costs).
There are many large commercial buildings with the same 'red building syndrome' and unless the government ensures the correct decision of allowing Sui gas only to efficient installations, the trend to waste will continue. We need efficient systems to ensure conservation of scarce natural gas; otherwise, we are committing suicide.
Energy conservation could solve our basic energy shortages if we learnt to live a 'simpler' life and if we cared professionally for efficiency.
We have heard of many decisions at the highest level to conserve gas, including the ECC's decision to allow gas only to combined cycle power plants and cogeneration systems, but then where do we go if such decisions are changed immediately to favour organisations which have no concern for future of Pakistan.
Energy conservation, in true spirit, must be ensured to survive the coming economic 'free fall'.
AINUL ABEDIN
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the letter by Shams Zafar Abbas (April 18). The cause of Islam is less under attack from the so-called external enemies of Islam and more from those within Islam, who have thrust themselves, in Pakistan and elsewhere, as clerics or clergy. It is they who are a stabbing and wounding Islam.
Unlike other religions, there is no clergy in Islam and, therefore, no clerics or priests. Those who have commandeered the role of clergy or clerics in Islam are fake. It is an irony that the religions with an ordained clergy have, after a struggle, halted the ordained clergy’s undue interference in affairs of state, but in Islam, which has no clergy, we have tolerated the foundation of a clergy of fakes, and allowed these fakes to hijack our religion and, with it, the quality of our lives.
Such pretenders who go about attired in a particular style of garb posing as ‘clerics’ cannot be counted amongst the ulema, or considered as genuine scholars. It is time the state acted to shield Islam from the machinations of these fakes.
To begin with, all mosques must be required by law to prominently display the land ownership and approved completion documents within the mosque. No Muslim must offer prayers in a mosque not displaying land ownership and approved completion documents. Expropriation of land and illegal construction is ‘haram’.
I am not sure if mosques are subject to usual property and other taxes and to payment of development and other charges such as water. Proof of payment of all official taxes and bills, or of exemptions, if any, must be displayed by the mosque.
The mosques must strictly adhere to laws governing the use of loudspeakers. These are to be used for azaan only and not for broadcasting the maulvi’s entire harangue before and after the prayers.
Any mosque or maulvi flouting the law must be first counselled by some in the congregation, and the police asked to intervene if counselling fails. If all else fails, the defaulting maulvi should be taken to court.
Hopefully, by the time the ongoing judicial crisis ends, our judiciary would have shed enough of the rubbery content in their knees to act under law, without fear or favour.
Controls on loudspeaker usage in mosques will be a hard nut to crack, so addicted is the clergy to them. Attempts to rein in the clergy on usage of loudspeakers will be treated by them as an attack on their faith, and fiercely resisted, as evidenced by Qazi Hussain Ahmad’s reaction, as reported in the press, to a police inquiry on a citizen’s complaint on misuse of loudspeaker at a mosque in Manshera. However, if the restraints on loudspeaker usage are effectively enforced, it would go a long way in the so-called clergy being defanged.
Alas, all above is too much to expect from generals with feet of clay who hold our country hostage, and who are advised on such issues by the likes of the senior Chaudhry from Gujrat, and the son of a tyrannical dictator the price of whose shenanigans we continue to pay.
S. KHALID HUSAIN
Karachi
APRIL 22 is Earth day. I am sure it will be overlooked in the face of some unbending competition it faces in today’s headlines. But it’s still an emergency situation and it’s about time we realised it. In this year’s WWF’s Living Planet Report, Director-General James Leape stated that if everyone around the world lived like those in the developed countries, we would need five planets to support us. Trends such as these make it binding that we change our wasteful lifestyles. If you intend to make any overdue New Year’s resolutions, try these key words: simplify, reduce and conserve.
I’m no eco-expert but it is common sense that an individual effort will collectively bear fruit sooner or later. Yet no one realises the momentum that can be generated by the power of one. Start small: make sure you buy incandescent light bulbs, try using a trash can for a change, reusing and recycling what you normally throw away.
Or travel in a car pool on your way to the office. There are so many things you can do to keep the air we breathe a little cleaner and the ground we live on a little uncontaminated. All you have to do is prevent being overtaken by the desire for the status quo in laziness, indifference and comfort.
But how can someone possibly stay indifferent or comfortable with the situation at hand? A casual survey of the city is a disappointing experience if you have not yet been desensitised to bad odours, open gutters, open trash, and general pollution and filth. Karachi generates more than 7,000 tons of solid waste every day.
When will the municipal committees realise that the responsibility to pick up solid waste and dump it in a landfill is a regular task? And when will the district government realise that rather than being ineffective in isolation they ought to be working in alliance with the informal recycling industry of the city?
Bo Ekman, founder of the Tallberg Foundation, summarises the situation well: “Human beings need the earth, but earth actually does not need us.”
YOUSHEY ZAKIUDDIN
Karachi
THE appointment of a cricket novice as captain of the Pakistan cricket team defies all logic and is bound to have serious repercussions for Pakistan cricket. It is a great injustice that is being done to Pakistan cricket and this decision by the PCB chief-cum-Musharraf’s pal has prompted me to stop watching and supporting Pakistani cricket for good.
Shoaib Malik has had serious disciplinary problems, including deliberately losing a match in a Twenty-20 tournament, something that he confessed at the closing ceremony of that particular match. Apart from this, he lacks the basic technique of a sound batsman. As regards his bowling, the less said about it the better.
ALI MUJTABA < br> Islamabad
WHAT will happen to Pakistan cricket now that Shoaib Malik is being made the captain of the national team? Have we forgotten that he was the captain of the Sialkot Stallions in the inaugural Twenty-20 competition in April 2005, when he willingly threw the match and did not chase a modest victory target against Karachi. I doubt if he is the kind of player who should lead an already demoralised team. Haven’t we learnt our lesson already?
KASHIF LATIF KHAN
Sudan
RECENTLY, the entire country was gripped by the trauma of a ’killer’ phone virus. According to people who were spreading the news, there was a new virus in the mobile world which causes people to get anonymous phone calls and die after listening to the call. Let me assure you, there is no such thing.
This month the highly acclaimed author Stephen King published a new book by the name of “Cell”. The plot of the book is this: in the future people are killed and transformed into zombies (soulless bodies) by people from the underworld using cellphone communication, exactly in the same way as the present rumour suggests.
Ironic isn’t it? Looks like somebody read the book and decided they would have some fun using King’s idea of horror fiction. I urge the public not to believe in this nonsense and not to spread the rumour.
ZAIN SAEED
Karachi
IT is no secret that at present, in Pakistan, two distinct categories of people exist.
First, the higher class, the elite, who rule the country and have been ruling it for the last 60 years. Their working language is English, though not even 0.001 per cent owns it as their mother tongue.
Second, the ruled, a hefty 99 per cent, who do not know good English, the language of the sahibs.
Had the Quaid-i-Azam survived for another five years, this language divide would have disappeared long ago, and the separation of East Pakistan would not have occurred.
Everyone agrees that Arabic should have been the best solution for Pakistan. Bengalis would have gladly accepted this. In the absence of Arabic, Urdu would have been the best solution. Urdu vocabulary consists of more than 50 per cent Arabic words and its grammar is based on Arabic grammar.
Among the other Pakistani languages, only Sindhi can vie with Urdu, and can be used as medium of instruction and for official purposes in the province of Sindh.
A country cannot progress if 95 per cent of its population are kept out of the mainstream. History is witness that all brilliant people came from the middle class. The elite class, as it has guarantees to rise to the top, need not put their best effort to achieve their goal. This analysis will pinpoint as to who is responsible for this language divide.
Our bureaucracy (including military establishment) is interested in seeing that their progeny only is fit to occupy higher places. Hence their children are educated in high class expensive English-medium schools. If a child cannot cope up with high standard of education, private tutors, at high salaries, are engaged to prop him up. After O level or A level, they are sent abroad, spending lakhs of rupees. When they return, they only are fit to become sahib.
But who can change their inherent lack of skills. Many a time it is noticed that the assistant is more intelligent than the sahib and guides him, but the poor fellow cannot take the place of the sahib as he does not know good English and must retire in lower cadre.
Because of this adamant behaviour of our bureaucrats, insisting to have only English for all superior services and for competitive examinations, the genius of our young men from villages cannot be utilised, and will never be utilised unless this language divide is removed.
The result is before us. Even after 60 years of experimenting with the education system, and in spite of great efforts by Dr Ataur Rehman, and spending of billions of rupees, not one university of Pakistan has attained the universal standards. It is only because of this unnatural language divide.
The claim of Sindhi to get national language status is only prolonging this divide and providing an excuse to the bureaucracy to continue its hold. With all humility at my command, I appeal to my Sindhi brethren to drop this idea as it is neither spoken, nor understood outside Sindh. Of course, it should be adopted as medium of instruction and official language in Sindh along with Urdu. English should be an optional language.
It is not an irony of fate that in Karachi, which is a part of Sindh, all name boards, including those of government offices, are written in English only. All banks have discontinued even Urdu names. The chief minister, a Sindhi, knows it.
A Pakistani scientist recently said: "That nation cannot progress whose medium of instruction is a language owned by neither the students nor by the teacher."
S. MUSLEHUDDIN AHMED
Former expert, UNO, Karachi
WE would like to draw the attention of the government, as well as of your esteemed readers, to the organised gangs operating from and around Karachi airport to loot passengers arriving in the early hours by international flights
In the last two months many incidents of the above nature have occurred, of which some in the DHA are in our knowledge while similar incidents in other areas of the city are known through press reports.
These gangs of criminals prey on passengers arriving between 2.30am and 6am. The time has been chosen as passengers are tired after long flights involving multiple time zone changes.
Since they are in a hurry to reach their homes and rest, they are unaware of the fact that they are being closely shadowed. In most cases looting takes place as soon as the gates of houses are opened, with criminals following the passengers into their houses.
In one instance, the British mother-in-law of a man, on her first visit to Pakistan, was robbed on the way before reaching home.
According to a police officer who has studied the patterns of these incidents, these gangs stalk their prey at the airport, some giving information from inside the international terminal while others prowling around the international arrival area and parking lots.
Tired arrivals are approached on various pretexts like assistance on carrying their baggage while asking for money and marking their prey according to what they are carrying, display of jewellery and foreign exchange/cash, etc.
They also ensure that no security personnel is accompanying them, and follow the movements of their targets while they are loading their baggage on transport to go home and try to remain near them to glean any information. Subsequently, their accomplices waiting outside the terminal area are informed about the victims who are followed and robbed.
It is time the state and security agencies devised measures to arrest these criminals. In addition, the Civil Aviation Authority and Airport Security Force must devise ways to identify these gangs which are stalking the areas under their control and in front of their vigilance personnel.
Steps should be taken to identify and expel all elements who have no business to be found at the airport. One feels that this should be important to them as this is bringing a bad name to Karachi airport.
AZIZ SUHARWARDY
General Secretary, Defence Associations Coordination
Committee, Karachi
TAKING the CSS examinations is quite an unnerving experience. Not because the examinations are particularly difficult, but because one does not know how they will be marked. One cannot be sure that that no personal biases will be involved especially in subjective papers like economics, international relations, sociology, etc.
Nevertheless, while taking the CSS examinations last year, my optimism carried me forth and I brushed aside all negative thoughts. One after the other, I appeared for the several examinations; how many there were is no longer a part of my memory. Not because I have a bad memory but because I choose to forget.
One thing that I cannot forget though is seeing the sons of police high-ups enter the examination halls with two guards in tow, one carrying a bottle of water and the other an inkpot! They had a look of such immense tranquillity on their faces like that of no other candidate. Now that the results have been declared, I cannot help but wonder if they were among the ‘select’ few who managed to pass the examinations.
PATRIOT TOO
Karachi
THE department of microbiology at the University of Karachi is celebrating its 50th anniversary. We are interested in getting connected with our graduates who are pursuing career in the field of microbiology anywhere in the world. They are requested to kindly contact us as early as possible at cellphone number 0300-2455775, or via email at hajrakhatoon@hotmail.com.
DR HAJRA KHATOON
Karachi
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