Media watch logic

SELECTION of newspapers for placement of government advertisements till about a month or so ago used to be done at the level of the ministry, department or corporation concerned with the Press Information Department (PID) of the government of Pakistan enjoying a discretionary quota of about 25 per cent from each ad campaign to be used for distribution among essentially regional newspapers.

On the face of it, this system had a logic because one assumed that the actual advertiser like PIA, the OGDC, etc., would know what its target audience was for each of its messages and which newspaper or newspapers reached this target audience. And accountability of misplacing an ad would be, it is again assumed, swift as those in authority in the organization would know what was good for the organization and what was not because of the fear that they themselves would be called upon to explain the misuse by higher authorities.

However, a recent cabinet decision has changed all this. Now the PID selects the newspapers in its own discretion for distribution of all kinds of government advertisements and the advertiser concerned only make suggestions which are not binding on the PID.

Enquiries to find out the reasons behind the cabinet decision have revealed that the government was constrained to change the system because of alleged financial irregularities indulged in by the relevant officials of the client (advertiser) in collusion with the advertising agencies.

According to the allegation, the officials concerned of the client and the advertising agency would share a generous percentage of the bill received in the shape of kickbacks for favouring a particular newspaper.

One can hardly have any sympathy for such a system if the allegations levelled against it are true. But then, since the advent of the new system, the PID itself is being accused of having started committing a more serious offence.

The PID allegedly holds on to the release orders of advertisements until about 10pm for the next day’s edition and then distributes the ads after having been fully satisfied by the newspapers in question that they have agreed to all the editorial suggestions made by the PID. To back these allegations, the detractors of the PID point to some advertisements meant exclusively for an international audience appearing in backwater vernacular dailies.

One only hopes that it is a wild charge and is being levelled by vested interests who have been financially hurt by the cabinet decision. But then if there is even an iota of truth in this allegation, one would expect the information ministry to do something about it by making the process of distributing newspaper advertisements at the PID level more transparent.

To ensure transparency, some of the big clients (advertisers), when the selection of newspapers was in their discretion, used to invite some reputable members of the public to oversee the decision making. But then this process, it is alleged, too was completely perverted quickly by its practitioners in order to obtain decisions of their liking.

So, in case the information ministry agrees with the suggestion of making the process transparent, it should try to avoid the pitfalls that were encountered in the previous system at the client (advertiser) level.

Every government in Pakistan has been known to have suffered from an acute urge to manipulate the media because within a few months of its coming into power it starts believing in its self- image of sub accha hai and begins blaming the media for everything that appears to be going wrong.

The other day, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, who is yet to complete his first six months in office, said that it was the media which was keeping the opposition alive. Now that is an ominous statement.

In the National Assembly, the opposition has a presence of almost 44 per cent in a house of 342 members. And in the Senate, it enjoys a presence of 43 per cent in a house of 100. It is in full control of one province and in another it has a majority share in the ruling coalition. But then in the media it does not get matching coverage. In fact if an estimate is made, it would perhaps be found that the opposition is getting no more than about 15 per cent of newspaper space on a daily basis.

If the prime minister is worried over even this meagre media coverage of the opposition, those who keep telling him that sub accha hai would perhaps not feel averse to using what is in their “legitimate” powers, like distribution of government advertisements to newspapers, to set things right.

It is, therefore, necessary that the prime minister should look into this matter rather closely and ensure that power is not being used to manipulate the newspapers.

It is, however, necessary to make it clear here that larger newspaper groups do not any more succumb to such manipulations. It is only the smaller ones having limited circulation which find it economically impossible to exist without government advertisements. But then there are no positive dividends for the government in pressuring such newspapers. It only brings a bad name to the government and encourages proliferation of non- professional newspapers.

TAILPIECE: An LPG quota of about 30 tons was allegedly given to a front man of a woman of substance recently at the recommendation of you-know-who. The procedure of allocation which was followed in this case is said to have been no different from what a former minister of oil and gas had followed during his tenure only to be NABed after the 1999 military takeover on charges of nepotism.—ONLOOKER

A master chronicler

MUKHTAR Bhatti is the master chronicler sport in the country. He started with Twenty Years of Sports in Pakistan way back in 1967. With several other books in between, he has now come up with Golden Jubilee of Test Cricket. It is a wonderful companion for all devotees of the game. However, he could have done without soliciting a foreword from U-Gen Tauqir Zia. He certainly is in company most of which he does not deserve.

All this apart, however, Bhatti has done a tremendous job. An interesting section is devoted to the England vs India Test matches from 1932 to 1946. It is here that we come across such romantic names as CK Naidu, the Senior Nawab of Patudi, WR Hammond, Mushtaq Ali, the brothers Wazir and Nazir Ali and a host of others. Senior followers of the game still talk nostalgically of the great opening partnership between Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali in the 1936 Test Match at Old Trafford in Manchester. The two had dazzled the crowd with centuries of varying style. Both had hit hundreds in a stand of 203.

Our own Skipper AH Kardar played against England in 1946 under the name of Abdul Hafeez.

After independence, Pakistan spent five years playing unofficial test matches against the West Indies, Cylon (as Sri Lanka then was), Commonwealth Side and the MCC.

Pakistan were admitted to the ICC and played their first official series against India in India in 1952. It is amazing how I remember those early test matches as if they had been played yesterday but today so much matches are being played that one tends to forget who did what in which game and when I can never forget the thrill of Khan Muhammad bowling Vinoo Mankar and Pankaj Roy in the inaugural Test Match against India at Delhi’s famous Feroz Shah Kotla ground. I still remember the frustration caused by a last wicket stand of a hundred-plus between HR Adhikari and Ghulam Ahmed. I cried when Pakistan lost by an innings inside three days. Then there was sweet revenge at Lucknow where Fazal Mahmood took twelve wickets and where Nazar Mohammad batted through the Pakistan innings with a display of monumental patience. I still remember the centuries made by Vijay Hazare and Polly Umrigar. I still remember with great joy the last wicket stand between Zulfiqar Ahmed and, of all people, Amir Elahi. That was in Madras. I still remember the disappointment when Waqar Hasan was bowled by Ramchand for 97 in Calcutta.

You can find all this and more in Bhatti’s book which you will love whether you are a commentator, a connoisseur or an ordinary follower of the game. Pakistan, in the first fifty years of Test cricket (1952-2002), played 285 games of which they had won 85 and lost 69 with 131 draws. These are bland figures. They leap to life as you open Bhatti’s book, any page anywhere. Thank you, Bhatti. You deserve more than a column and I will return to you from time to time.

PROF M Rashid, my teacher at the Government College, Lahore, long years ago, has sent me the following letter.

Psychopaths suffer emotional disorders. They exhibit symptoms such as extreme egocentricity bordering on insanity. Sigmund Freud investigated mental-processes for treating emotional disorders. He developed methods of curing them by psychological techniques, especially by psychoanalysis and group therapy. I suspect that Bush and his men suffer from psychosis. They need urgent treatment. Already, they have caused immense suffering to millions in Iraq and other places. They are now threatening Syria, Iran and the rest of the Middle East. It would save mankind from a catastrophe if they could be cured.

WE have an Indian TV channel. Let us call it India Plus. It is very popular and is seen wherever cable operators are in business. Now this channel shows such serials as Kahani Ghar Ghar ki, Saas bhi kabi Bahu thi, Sanjeevani, etc. All these programmes are middle class plays which would not amuse even a child. Unfortunately, I belong to the middle class and my wife is more middle class than most. She leaves everything when these programmes are about to go on air.

I can’t close my eyes when darling wife puts the TV on for these plays. I have to watch them whether I like it or not. I have noticed that of late, the commercial breaks during the shows are being grossly abused. Whenever India Plus puts commercials, our cable operators replace Indian ads with Pakistani ones. Are they making illegal money from Pakistani advertisers or do they have an agreement with India Plus?

I suspect that the former is the case and that our cable operators should be punished according to law. At any rate, Pakistani ads do not go well with Indian plays. They are quite insufferable, not that their Indian counterparts are any better.

DO you know that the acronym LFO stands for Low Flying Object? It is a pretty harmless sort of thing unless you try to play footsy with it. Then it hits you in the eye and you explode like the Twin Towers in the World Trade Centre. Friend Aitzaz Ahsan to please note and take such action as is necessary for good health. Let it not be said that I did not warm him. You only live twice.

Indian right hopes Billy Graham is wrong

IT IS indeed true that if most of India’s majority 82 per cent Hindus were not secular, the country would perhaps be a theocratic state. At the same time had its Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and other smaller groups not subscribed to secular politics, it would be impossible to run a country as complex and massive as India. And yet religious atavism abounds in every nook and corner of this vast nation.

Sometimes it surfaces as religious violence and it then becomes readily palpable. But the national outrage is not equally distributed. For example, everyone has expressed their anger at the massacre of 24 Kashmiri Pandits in Pulwama on March 24 by suspected Muslim militants. But few are moved by the equally horrendous murder in Assam of 30 Hindu Dimasa tribals by suspected Hmar tribesmen, who are predominantly Christian, which took place on March 31.

How is it that a massacre of one set of Hindus leads to a nuclear flashpoint with a culpable neighbour, but the killings of Hindus elsewhere does not even find a brief shelf-life in the newsroom, much less in public sensitivity? Is it the linguistic affinity with Delhi that determines the degree of outrage? Or is Kashmir the only real issue, and hence a greater sense of outrage when killings happen there? Or is it “handling Pakistan” that matters most? The question is complex.

Not so complex for right-wing politicians, who feast on the culpability of Muslim or Christian groups in the killings in Kashmir and Assam, as they did with the Sikhs at the height of the problems in the Punjab. They will go to any length to fish in such troubled waters. Sometimes they are devious, sometimes they are amazingly naive.

For example, after years of glorifying Hitler and his extermination of Jews as worthy of emulation _ with a different target group, of course _ the Hindu right has been snuggling up to Israel, hoping this would enable them to fix their main quarry, India’s Muslims.

One remembers the relentless campaign in the Indian media in 1991-92 about the instant benefits that would accrue from the resumption of diplomatic ties with the Zionist state. We were told that the Israelis would send their invincible commandos to sort out the Kashmiri militants and sort out the problem once and for all.

Israeli diplomats would in private shake their heads over the Kashmir-centric logic that coloured much of the public enthusiasm behind New Delhi’s handshake with Tel Aviv.

Similarly, there has been tacit backing for the American-led bombing of Iraq. The overt support has come from the trident waving Praveen Togadia of the Vishwa Hindi Parishad, despite the public posturing against it. This is in line with the thinking of the Hindu right which blindly subscribes to the “clash of civilizations” thesis and sees the invasion of Iraq as a war against Muslims.

A potential problem with this line has gone unnoticed by the right wing in India, which is that the American Christian right, so far viewed as an ally against Islam, is now training its guns on the Hindus. American evangelist Franklin Graham may warm the hearts of the fanatical lot among them when he denounces Islam as evil, but what happens when he visits his brimstone and fire on the Indian government for attacks on Christians?

Which makes for a piquant situation since Franklin Graham is the presiding religious intermediary of the Pentagon and the White House, besides being the son of the famous Billy Graham who used to be the preferred priest in the presidency of George Bush Sr. So what did ripe octogenarian Graham Sr say to complicate the Hindu right’s favourite thesis on the clash of civilizations?

“Despite their valiant efforts,” says Graham senior, “Nagaland remains an occupied territory. The Indian government empowers its soldiers to arrest, shoot and even kill at will anyone suspected of subversive actions against the government. It is said to be the most unreported area of civil conflict in the second half of this century, with estimates of up to 300,000 casualties.”

Graham says that all the underground organizations in Nagaland are led by and made up of Christians, predominantly Baptists. “There are well-documented cases of Naga women being raped or assaulted, crops being destroyed and women and children dying in concentration camps of malnutrition, torture and forced labour.”

I suppose once we are through with sorting out Pakistan over Kashmir, and finish dealing with Bhutan and Bangladesh over their alleged indiscretions in Assam and elsewhere, our right-wing cultural nationalists, who prey on religious atavism, will be sufficiently battle-ready to take on the world’s remaining superpower for daring to support a religious insurrection in our own backyard, if the northeastern states could be called that.

HOW do you fight communalism when communalists are getting armed everyday? Muslim communalists are experts at the use of RDX, blowing up everything in sight, or so we are given to understand. Hindu groups are forming their own suicide squads and they are distributing trishuls, or tridents, that look pretty menacing in the hands of the thousands of young men being trained to use them.

Maverick politician and a frontline champion of secularism Laloo Prasad Yadav has come up with a simple formula to take on the fanatical hordes. Beat them with a stick is his simple recipe to fend off the communal menace.

Laloo has planned a rally of his lathi-wielding supporters in Bihar later this month to kick off the mother of all battles against nascent fascism. The increasingly rotund former chief minister says he is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s famous lathi which he used as a walking stick.

Death in a classroom

SOMETIMES one is left speechless, wondering what sort of stuff we are made of. Last week, a wall in a classroom of a primary school collapsed, killing a child on the spot, badly injuring her sister. It appears that for most of us nothing really happened. Let us assume that at least for a few of us, what happened was a tragedy of gigantic dimensions and ought to worry us most deeply. It is a shattering symptom of something that is terribly wrong. What makes it all the more horrifying is that we have not taken the warning. Who knows more walls may fall?

First of all, it should be understood quite clearly that what happened in that little suburban school was not an accident. It was most definitely a tragedy that ought never to have happened. What can be prevented, and was not prevented, is not an accident. It is culpable neglect and inexcusable oversight — an invited disaster. At least one newspaper report said that the wall stood in a cesspool. Any person of moderate intelligence could have seen the danger of the wall’s foundation sagging.

The condition and use (rather abuse) of school buildings is a standing shame for the society of which all of us are variously privileged members. Thousands of school buildings are in possession of “ghosts.” One can take that statement absolutely literally. Those who hold possession of these school buildings fall perilously close to what ‘ghost’ signify in our imagination. The only saving grace about “ghost” school buildings is that their walls are not falling. And, if they are likely to collapse, it would not be over the heads of our little school children.

In the first place, the person to be held answerable for this tragedy is the headmaster or the headmistress of the school, as the case might be. It should be among the foremost duties of the head of a school to ensure that the premises are in a proper shape. If not, it should be his or her duty to at least bring the possibility of a mishap to the notice of the relevant higher authorities. In case the authorities concerned turn a deaf ear (which is not unlikely) the head should report to the nearest police station to ensure that the report has been brought on some official record.

One should assume that the provincial education department and the education officers of the local government would have some system of school inspection. The school inspector should be expected to ‘inspect’ every aspect of a school, its physical condition and academic performance. The state of the school premises ought to be a matter that should receive due attention of the inspecting officials. In this case it is evident that neither school head nor any education department official could see that a wall standing in pool of stagnant water is running the risk of collapse.

It is no doubt commendable that the government of Sindh is confidently striving (quite rightly) to move in the direction of the ideal of compulsory free primary education. The kind of tragedy we have seen, with a wall coming down on students in the class, is not going to be conducive to the cause of education. If the authorities cannot ensure physical safety of the children while in their classrooms, how would anyone expect parents to send their little loved ones to schools? A major trouble with us happens to be our inability to learn the obvious lesson from our own mistakes and misfortunes. In a moderately sensitive society, that school wall collapse and that death of a child and serious injury to another should have caused outrage and uproar. It is evident nobody even heaved a sigh of anguish, let alone cries and groans of horror. If any official of the education departments of the provincial or local government did feel moved to look into this case, the citizens had been told nothing about it. Did anyone in the corridors of the Education Department express a word of sympathy with the bereaved parents? The answer most probably is NO. Now where do we go from here? Goodness alone knows. It may sound callous to say that quite possibly we go to another wall collapse of another neglected school building. If there is any good sense anywhere in the Education Department, orders should go out to all school inspectors and school headmasters and headmistresses to carry out a thorough study and survey of the state of the school premises. Mind you, we send out to school those who are the dearest part of our lives. Our children invest meaning to our own existence. Nobody can be permitted to play with their lives.

This incident, too tragic for tears, should awaken us to our own insensitivities. Let us ask ourselves if we really care enough for our children? If we do, then why not many of us felt a wrench in the heart? Why no tear was shed for the child virtually buried under the rubble of a classroom wall, with a book in her innocent little hands? Of course the child is in heaven, and, also beyond the risk of any falling wall. Where do we stand? Surely not on any pedestal of pride.

Murder at the high court

The murder of a lawyer inside the Sindh High Court is tragic to say the least. It also tells us quite a bit about the state of law and order in the city. The city’s courts always have policemen deployed in significant numbers. The district courts on M A Jinnah have a heavy police presence and the Sindh High Court has even more. That a lawyer — shot after being mistaken for someone else — died inside a courtroom just after a hearing had ended is shocking.

The details of the incident make for even more disturbing reading and point to an increasing criminal element in the Sindh police. The man who allegedly killed the lawyer had an accomplice, a police sub-inspector who worked for his department’s intelligence branch.

Perhaps, the one saving grace of this whole sordid episode is that both the men were caught as they tried to flee the premises of the court. But some might say that the fact they even made it from the courtroom where the lawyer was murdered, to the gate of the Sindh High Court means that the level of security in and around the building was thoroughly inadequate. The alleged killer later told the police that though he was “sorry” that an innocent man had been killed, once he got out he would not make the same mistake and get the right man next time.

Incidents like these are particularly depressing because the make you think that just about anything can happen in Karachi and that you can’t be safe anywhere.

With the advent of summer in the city, kulfiwallahs, vendors of ice and those dealing in cool beverages are doing brisk business as citizens try and take a break from the stifling heat. The mercury tipped past 40 degrees Celsius quite a few times in the past couple of weeks — and add diesel and dust to this deadly concoction, and you have a not-so-peachy situation for both motorists and pedestrians.

But Karachi being Karachi, the heat tapers off by sundown, and it is almost pleasant come nightfall. Also, the heatwave has lost its severity and seems to be diminishing. All of this is part of the natural cycle and must be taken in one’s stride. However, one particular gift of Karachi’s summer is not in the least bit natural, nor should it be tolerated. One is, of course, referring to load shedding.

Blame it on the shaky infrastructure of a developing nation’s economy; blame it on the KESC’s rickety distribution system. Blame it on a Masonic plot to deprive us of electricity — blame it on whoever you feel like, just please try and do something about it.

Yes, this plea might seem a little confused and a tad directionless, but like all genuine grievances, it comes from the heart. Not just the heart of one frazzled journalist, but the hearts of countless Karachiites, nay countless Pakistanis, who seem to be saying: ‘Enough, is enough! Give us some power (no pun intended).’

Loadshedding might seem like a trivial matter to moan about in a world embroiled in war and other serious problems but sometimes it can be a huge pain because it can affect the over-worked, underpaid urbanite’s nerves the most. Try asking the poor student, studying for a final exam, how he feels when the lights go out. Or someone typing an important e-mail when all of a sudden the screen goes blank? And what about the elderly, or the sick and the infirm? How do they cope with the heat and the total darkness?

One really has no choice but to thank the KESC and its senior management for making the lives of Karachiites so completely miserable. They couldn’t have got the timing better. Really.

Last week’s piece on flaws in the screening of donors by major blood banks got a response from the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. S A Mujeeb of the JPMC’s Blood Transfusion service wrote to clarify some of the concerns that the Notebook had raised about the treatment of voluntary blood donors.

He wrote: “It is true that voluntary blood donors provide the safest blood for transfusion, but their contribution, at the most, amounts to 15 per cent of the overall supply of donated blood in the country. Certainly, blood transfusion services can do more to encourage voluntary blood donors to donate blood and become permanent blood donors because this will improve the quality of the collected blood.

“However, I would like to comment on two concerns raised in the Notebook last week. One, the temporary deferral of menstruating women and, two, the shelf life of donated blood.

“It is true that blood donors should be screened for their haemoglobin level and yes, the copper sulphate test is a simple, cheap and effective method of doing that. Some blood banks do temporarily defer women in their periods from donating blood. This is not because of the hypothetical risk of anaemia but because of increased risk of fainting and syncope (temporary loss of consciousness due to a fall in blood pressure) following donation of blood. The maximum limit of blood that can be collected from any donor is 13 per cent of his/her total blood volume. Normally 450 millilitres of blood is collected from each donor.

And the minimum weight requirement for a blood donor is 50 kg. If a menstruating woman donates blood, it is quite likely that overall amount of blood lost through donation and through menstruation may exceed the limit of 13 per cent. This might then increase the chance of syncope or fainting and that is why blood banks might refuse such donors. I might also point out that healthy lactating or pregnant women are also refused by blood banks because of these reasons.

“As far as the shelf life of donated blood is concerned, red blood cells can be stored for up to 35 days. A blood bank thus can maintain a stock that can last it around a month. With that in mind, it seems quite ethical and rational to temporarily defer donors if the blood bank feels that supplies are enough and further donations might not be stored properly. There are several blood banks in the country, particularly in the public sector, which provide transfusion services to thalassaemia patients. They always experience shortages in supply and hence are more likely to not turn away any voluntary donors.

“That said, donors are very important for blood banks and hence any treatment that alienates them will not serve any worthwhile purpose.”

The owner of a computer training institute was recently approached by two young men in his Gulshan-i-Iqbal premises. They asked him to make a ‘donation’ to their ‘cause’, and demanded as much as Rs 40,000. As one would expect they were members of a well-known party and made no bones to hide their affiliation.

Now, luckily for the man, he is an avid watcher of current affairs programmes on television. From watching just one such show, he remembered a telephone number given out by the leader of the party sitting in London telling viewers to call him directly if ever approached by people asking for ‘donations’. He immediately called the number and lo and behold, the two young men who, just a moment ago were asking for forty grand, left with an apology.

However, this does raise the question that if the two gentlemen (a euphemism if ever there was one) did listen to the orders from whoever answered the advertised number, wouldn’t it be safe to assume that they were under the control of the party?

Also, on the topic of extortion, eight days ago we had a story in Ardeshir Cowasjee’s weekly column on how a man was trying to extort a huge sum of money from a courier company. In this case too, the man was claiming to know people in very high places in this political party and even had a visiting card of one of its senior leaders. In fact, as it turns out, when he was eventually arrested, a phone call came from London, asking the Sindh home minister to ensure that he be released.

Are we seeing a resurgence of the bad old days of the mid-90s when whole swathes of the city were run over by ‘bhatta’ collectors? Let’s hope not.— By Karachian

Email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com