| May 05, 2008 | Monday | Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1429 |
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Need for austerity
Whose war are they fighting?
Investing in education
Fertiliser prices
Viva young
Rupee vs dollar
Majnoo corrected
Insular cases
VC’s attitude
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
SMALL and medium-scale industries are the economic backbone of developing as well as developed countries. These units make significant value addition to raw materials, are labour-intensive and require low capital investment. Governments all over the world try their utmost to pamper/promote them due to their multilateral economic benefits.
‘Weaving units’ are generally small and numerous because of their low capital requirement. But they provide the maximum number of jobs in addition to significant value addition. There are tens of thousands of weaving units all over the country, employing hundreds of thousands of workers. For the last many months these units are in dire straits at the hands of ‘spinners mafia’. Who are exporting most of their product (yarn) and depriving the home weaving industry of its essential input?
The yarn supplied to domestic market is inferior, very expensive and supply is also erratic. Thus the ‘captive home weaving industry’ is being strangulated by this powerful large-scale spinning industry, wherein some individuals own more than 10 spinning units each.
They are denying good quality cheaper yarn to their home industry whereas our competitors of value-added textiles abroad are being facilitated with abundant supply of good quality cheaper yarn, at the cost of national interest.
It is pertinent to note that we produce around 12 million bales of raw cotton every year. Whereas these ‘spinners’ consume almost 15 million bales, and export most of their produce to other countries.
Export of yarn (semi-finished/low value-added cotton product) is on the increase day by day, but export of woven fabric and other finished cotton products (value-added) is decreasing. There is a powerful lobby of spinners influencing/tilting government policies to their benefit. Thus the value-adding textile industry at large is being neglected.
On top of it, recently, the government has offered a bailout package to these powerful spinning tycoons of six per cent R&D. An amount of more than Rs25 billion has been doled out to them on this account, without any significant increase in the export of textile products, except the yarn export.
Thus a huge amount of public money has gone down the drain and into the coffers of these spinning lords.
Due to the prevailing situation, hundreds of small weaving/knitting units have been forced to close down, rendering tens of thousands of workers jobless. Many more are on the verge of closure, due to very low weaving/knitting returns, very expensive and inferior quality yarn, high cost of utilities and other inputs, increased wages of workers because of very high inflation etc.
Here it will not be out of place to mention that in 1998, return from weaving/knitting was five to 10 per cent higher than it is today, whereas cost of production has more than doubled during the last 10 years.
Keeping in view the above, it is time somebody took stock of this grave situation and adopted some remedial measures to bail out this sinking small and medium-scale, value-adding, high job-providing industries.
If this situation is allowed to continue, a day will come when there will be no fabric available for value addition and export. Only yarn will be exported in bulk, satiating the thirst of spinning mafia against the interest of the country and its people. .
ONE CONCERNED
Karachi
AN increase of Rs3 per litre in the price of petrol and diesel is yet another blow to the middle- and low-income groups of the country, who are already acutely suffering from daily escalation in prices of essential food items such as wheat flour, milk, vegetables and meat. The price situation is so bad that people living below poverty line are on the verge of starvation.
The new democratic government would have been well advised not to increase petrol prices at this stage which will affect its popularity ratings. There are many other ways to meet the challenges of increase in oil prices in world markets. For example, the government can put an immediate ban on the import of big gas-guzzling vehicles which only the very rich people buy to satisfy their vanity and show off their wealth. The government can also introduce petrol rationing to conserve its stock.
The prime minister in his first speech in the National Assembly announced that all ministries and senior government servants will use 1600cc cars only. A similar symbolic gesture was made by the late prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo, but it failed because the military top brass ignored the PM’s directive and so did his ministers and bureaucrats. The same may happen to the PM’s current directive unless it is followed up scrupulously by all government servants, ministers as well senior civil and military officers.
Likewise, the PM’s gesture to reduce the expenses of his office by 42 per cent is most welcome, but shouldn’t it also apply to the offices of his ministers and senior bureaucrats?
As regards the acute shortage of electricity in the country, the loadshedding is not the only remedy. The government can control the wastage of electricity by marriage halls, five-star hotels, and government offices, etc. This country cannot afford the wastage of precious energy on the extravagance of the rich.
The country is facing a very serious economic crisis which may continue for quite some time. The government, therefore, should introduce stringent measures of austerity and frugality by controlling the growing culture of extravagance and show of wealth which has become the hallmark of our nation.
The survival of the government will largely depend on controlling the rapidly rising cost of living and reducing the gap between the rich and the poor, as well as the widespread curse of corruption. The report of Transparency International on Corruption, issued in December 2006, rated Pakistan at # 144 among 158 countries with various degrees of corruption ratings. Regretfully, Pakistan was equal in corruption rating to countries like Kenya, Somalia and Sudan, while only nine countries, including Nigeria, Haiti, Bangladesh and Chad, were more corrupt than Pakistan.
The mixing of money and politics continues to be a recipe for corruption in countries both rich and poor, and yet some nations have shown that, even with limited resources, political will and strong leadership can prove effective in addressing governance challenges.
BURHANUDDIN HASAN
(Former Director of News, PTV)
PAKISTANI Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsood claims to be fighting a war for the enforcement of Islamic laws and also against the western forces who invaded Afghanistan after 9/11. One needs to find out the real motives behind these claims by scrutinising his targets.
How can we enforce shariah by openly flouting the very tenets of a religion that stands for peace, preaches politeness and forbids the use of any kind of force in the matter of faith? Faith is a matter of heart and mind: it is not to be forced down the throat of anyone.
The destruction of fake CDs suits the purpose of mostly foreign western companies whose businesses are being badly affected by the widespread presence of illegally manufactured CDs in the local market.
The abduction and killing of Chinese citizens hurts our relations with our most trusted friend in the world, China, which is building mega projects for us. Is it not difficult to ascertain whose targets these ‘Islamic fighters’ are achieving?
Also the adverse law and order situation created by their actions is hurting the economic well-being of the people of Pakistan, which can only be the aim of our enemies.
Targeting the armed forces of Pakistan and its installations can only serve the purpose of powers that wish to destabilise the only Muslim country with nuclear power so that they can pounce upon our nuclear assets by declaring us ‘unsafe’.
The undeniable proof of foreign meddling in the domestic affairs of our country tells a lot about whose interest are being served by these senseless killings of innocent people and members of our armed forces through suicide bombers.
A weak Pakistan is a passport for the foreign troops staying indefinitely in this region. So whose purpose are these so-called champions of freedom, Islam and Muslims of the region serving? Certainly not of the peace and progress of Muslims but of those who are the enemies of Islam and are unable to tolerate a nuclear Muslim state in the world.
ZAHEERA AHMED
Rawalpindi
I HAVE been following letters written by Dr Irfan Zafar (April 16) and Makhtoom Ahmed (April 24) and would add further. Pakistan, Pakistani media and its people take pride in rockets but not books.
Every time a multi-million-dollar piece of metal goes up, it makes headlines with photos and news about how proud the prime minister the president are on the successful launch of the flying piece of tin that can go 2,000km. Turn the page over and you have schools (if you would like to call them that) without teachers, roofs, furniture, libraries and worse still students.
Irrespective of the percentages of GDP which are always hard for common man to translate into monetary terms, one really wonders how much money in rupees goes into unproductive defence spending versus the building blocks of a nation, education.
And please let’s not call rockets deterrents because (i) India is not interested in having a war with Pakistan as they are way too busy getting ahead in the world (accept the fact that they are), (ii) we are no match for a western invasion (2,000km ends in Syria) and (iii) how many short-or medium-range missiles did Russia or the Allied forces use in Afghanistan — none.
These are the ground realities. It’s time that the country stopped wasting its resources on flying debris and channel resources into the building blocks of a nation.
IRFAN CHOUDHRY
Sydney, Australia
THIS is apropos of Dr Zahid Hussain Jatoi’s letter, ‘Soaring fertiliser cost’ (April 10), and Zurain Khan’s letter, ‘Heavy cost of fertiliser’ (April 30).
We would like to clarify that the company-recommended maximum retail price of Engro DAP for farmers is Rs2,765 per bag ex-Karachi, whereas in Dadu district the current price is Rs2,795 per bag and not Rs3,200 or Rs3,800 per bag as being suggested in the letters.
Engro Zorawar’s company-recommended maximum retail price in Dadu district is Rs2,735 per bag. The current dealer to farmer market prices of DAP and Zorawar in the various markets of Sindh are well below the company-recommended prices due to currently prevailing oversupply of these fertilisers in the domestic market.
During the last nine months, i.e. July 2007 to March 2008, the fertiliser industry, including Engro, imported 1,128,000 tons of DAP, MAP and TSP fertilisers. The country has ample stocks of these fertilisers due to these timely imports.
The company-recommended price of Engro DAP, i.e. Rs2,765 per bag ex-Karachi, is approximately Rs850 per bag less than the current international price and the company is passing through the government subsidy of Rs470 per bag of 50kg. The company is also selling these fertilisers directly to the farmers from its field warehouses and farmers are encouraged to take advantage of this facility.
MUHAMMAD SAIFULLAH TAREEN
Brand Manager, Phosphates
Karachi
“AS I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule, may be old in body, but can never be so in mind”.— Cicero
Anjum Niaz in her well-written but a far-fetched evaluation of ‘Viva young’ (Magazine, April 27) has begun an interesting discussion on the role of young versus old.
At the outset she has tried to make the reader believe that Pakistan needs ‘Young Turks’ to rule: be that parliament or the offices in the higher echelons of public service. To make argument more palatable, she has equated the young with paragon of virtue and wisdom and the elder lot with ‘old crocodile’, with antediluvian mindset lacking maturity of thought; per se intolerant to plurality of views, especially when it comes from younger people; they turn stubbornly mulish and refuse to entertain lateral thinking.
As for the young, they are to her ‘a joy de vive and a sense of humour was the most striking feature of this happy lot’ and that they bring with them maturity of thought which is missing amongst the seniors.
Obviously this argument on the face of it is bizarre; reason being that it is against nature’s very scheme of things, which has defined the role of the young and the old in accordance with their mental and physical capacities and capabilities.
The young have the ambition, physical vigour and fresh dreams; agility and impetuousness to take risks for achieving ideals. The old, on the other hand, have knowledge and wisdom of age to guide the youth and transfer their experience to the generation waiting to replace them. The patience and perseverance required to make the social order tranquil is the hallmark of the age.
Basing the whole case study on her chat with a group of privileged young studying in International School of Islamabad and the American society is unscientific. Ms Niaz ought to appreciate that Islamabad and, for that matter, Karachi and Lahore are not whole Pakistan. Even in these big cities there are sprawling shanty towns where extremely poor education is being imparted in public sector schools.
And those of whom she has talked high have no altruistic ideals either. After obtaining degrees from most costly institutions they either yearn to go abroad for further education and never to return or after coming home they covet jobs in big cities preferably in foreign banks and multinational corporations and not prepare to server the underdog living in far-flung areas.
Ms Niaz has quoted as an illustration the American society, where the literacy rate is 99 per cent and whose education system is second to none. The example of such highly advanced world with different values system is obviously out of context here. However, even in such decidedly developed societies the role of a senior citizen is never demeaned to the extent she has lamented.
Nonetheless, I agree with her that extensions after a fixed tenure in services do kill the initiative and potential of the younger lot. Likewise, the presence of highly educated young in parliament along with veteran parliamentarians will be like a breath of fresh air.
ISHA M. KURESHI
Karachi
COULD any one of your respected octogenarian readers say what was the opening exchange rate of Pakistan rupee against dollar immediately after the appearance of Pakistan on the world map?
Was it something like Rs3.50 per dollar? And rate of petrol somebody said was Rs4 or near about per British gallon which equals to 4.546 litres. I wish to check how far my information is correct.
A. RAUF SOZER
Karachi
APROPOS of Asif Noorani’s letter, Majnoo and graduation (April 25), the writer would have done full justice to the great poet/satirist, Akbar Allahabadi, had he quoted him correctly as he would have quoted Shakespeare or Keats. The correct and full version is given below for the interest of your readers:
Kaha Majnoo se yeh Laila ki ma ne
Ke beta too agar kar le MA Pass
To foran biyah doon Laila ko tujh se
Bila diqqat men ban jaoon teri saas
Kaha Majnoo ne yeh achi sunai
Kuja aashiq kuja college ki bakwas
Bari bi aap ko kya ho gya he
Hiran par ladi jati hai kahin ghas
Ye achi qadr dani aap ne ki
Mujhe samjha he koi Har Charan Das
Yehi theri jo shart-e-wasl-e-Laila
To istefa mira ba hasrat-o-yaas
On the above piece, our modern poet Anwar Shaoor has produced a very good parody hitting at the waiver of condition of BA degree for MNAs/MPAs. It reads:
Kaha Majnoo se yeh Laila ki ma ne
Ke beta ab na karyo too BA Pass
He farzandi main lene ko razamand
Tujhe iss ke bina bhi ab teri saas
MABOOBUL HASAN
Karachi
THE so-called insular cases, decided by the Supreme Court of the US, are some of the most criticised decisions. The question whether ‘the Constitution follows the flag’ was an issue of the relationship between the organic instrument and the conquered territories.
The problem was posed in acute form by the war with Spain and the territorial acquisitions that were its outcome. Soon after the war ended, laws were proclaimed in 1900 requiring customs duties to be paid upon goods imported into the United States from Porto Rico.
It was contested that such a provision was invalid, since Puerto Rico had become a part of the United States within the constitutional requirements that “all duties, imposts and excise shall be uniform throughout the United States”.
This posed the broader question whether the provisions of the Constitution extended of their own force to the new acquired territories. Applying the distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories to Puerto Rico, the court found that the island belonged to the later category: “Whilst in an international sense Porto Rico was not a foreign country, since it was subject to the sovereignty of and was owned by the United States, it was foreign to the United States in a domestic sense, because the island had not been incorporated into the United States, but was merely appurtenant thereto as a possession”.
The insular cases are remembered today largely because of the famous aphorism by the great American philosopher, Mr Dooley, that the Supreme Court followed the election returns.
The dropping of civil/criminal cases against Asif Ali Zardai, Shahbaz Sharif and others by the courts in Pakistan create the same impression: The courts in Pakistan follow the election results.
A. ZUBERI
USA
I AM amazed at the overconfidence of the vice-chancellor of Karachi University who has recently taken up speaking about ethics and morality(‘Educational institutions’, April 25).
He is the same man who claims he doesn’t know what to do when the Rangers at his institution beat up teachers on campus (letter, April 25).
I was baffled when I heard the VC say at a seminar on April 19: “We have the rules but, if our self-interest demands it, we break them using the infamous ‘Theory of Necessity’, whilst being happily escorted by the army (Rangers) from the auditorium?”
A CONCERNED TEACHER
Karachi
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