VOICES for the week of 2 April

BangladeshAL Government bans Air-Conditioners in Dhaka between 6 and 11 pmIn its latest move to control the stifling electricity shortage in Dhaka, the Awami League government has imposed restrictions on the usage of air conditioners. Except for hospitals, hotels, and restaurants, all other structures have to keep their ACs shut between 6 and 11. Even when the ACs can be operated, they can not be set below 25 degress. The reporters present asked the bureaucrat making this announcement what the government would do if someone did not follow this regulation. The bureaucrat replied he hoped everyone would cooperate with the government..You cannot make this stuff up. To paraphrase Pablo Neruda, the stupidity of the government washed over the country, with little fuss, like governmental stupidity..In any functioning country, a government publicly announces a measure only after it has implemented the scheme to execute it. To take an obvious example, when US authorities crack down on illegal immigrants from Mexico, they do not announce that all illegal immigrants from Mexico have been prevented from coming to this country, and then announce they are going to build a fence on the border and appoint more border agents. The arrangement is always the other way round: the assets are always put into place before a government ffigure publicly announces a new initiative..However, that is now how Home Minister Sahara Khatun operates. If she did, she would not currently be BNP's biggest ally. She announced, with great fanfare, that people on the government's list of suspects for the upcoming "crime against humanity" trial would not be allowed to leave the country. Then it emerged that one of the people in the list, Mur Kashem Ali, Chairman of Diganta Media, had just flown out the country. Not only had he left the country, he had given a letter to the Civil Immigration authorities, who oversee the airports, stating the fact of his departure, and asked for the use of VIP facilities, which had promptly been granted. How was he allowed to leave the country? Well, it seems that Sahara Khatun was so busy talking to the media that she forgot to send a notice to Civil Immigration with the name of those barred from flying abroad. What was her reaction after this whole matter became public? That she did not know of any such incident. As I said, you cannot make this stuff up..Meanwhile, the government only decided to stop their zany scheme to mess with the clocks again at the last second. However, it took Zafar Iqbal going on a warpath and publicly writing columns in Prothom Alo and Samakal before the government came to their senses. Salaries for the Cabinet have almost been doubled, and lawmakers can again import duty-free cars. The government does not allow Drik to have an exhibit on the heinous crossfire murders, even when the Director General of RAB is admitting that they need to work hard not to become tainted by their misdeeds. There is an ever-widening gap between the government's actions and the public's desires. Moreover, there appears to be no effective way to convince the government about this gap. The government would do well to reflect on why they have been losing elections to professional bodies recently, and what it portends for a government that publicly seeks to remain in power for multiple terms. –tacitaeterno http://rumiahmed.wordpress.com/ India/Pakistan Dilemma over the newest Cross-Border Bahu, Sania Mirza Playing a daughter-in-law to a commoner family is easy, because it's less encompassing and contained to accepting your better half, his parents and members of immediate family. Things can get harder than thought of when you decide to become a cross border bride, as in the case of ace tennis player Sania Mirza. As the common man on both the sides of the border is fed with media updates on the proposed marriage Sania is finding herself being pushed into a difficult situation. Pakistan Tennis Federation chief Dilawar Abbas wants Sania Mirza to play for Pakistan after her marriage with former cricket captain Shoaib Malik. Laughable indeed for the Indian conscience but then, what's wrong with it? By virtue of his cricketing fame Shoaib is a son of the soil in the Pakistani collective conscience. Going by that coin Sania would be Pakistan's daughter–in-law, and expected to fulfill all her duties which include a hope that she would become a Pakistani national and play tennis for them in the future. So far both have been able to keep controversies at bay by choosing to settle down in Dubai and play for their respective countries. Sooner or later she would have to decide. Many would question her patriotism since she decided to marry a Pakistani, or recall her attitude and fitness problems to write her off as a mediocre player. We just hope she excels in her play which she learnt here in India as an Indian first and then anything else. –Sukhmani www.indiablogwatch.com/ The Maldives Another Billion Dollar Phantom Investment to Maldives I hate to do this again. But I have to remind my President and fellow countrymen that a billion is an obscenely large number. I honestly can't understand how we have become a country that's so excessively engaged in self deceit. This time around last year our State Minister for FDI was talking about how President's trip to Italy was going to bring in USD 1 billion worth of investment to this country. Now the president himself seems to be onboard the billion dollar bandwagon. Mr. President. Sir, your advisors are deceiving you. Any talk of a billion dollar investments coming into Maldives is simply NOT true. It's nothing but a blatant bald-faced lie! According to the guys at UNCTAD during the decade 1990-2000 we only had an average annual inward FDI inflow of USD 9 million. The figure has never exceeded USD 15 million since. Sir, I don't know why your highly qualified advisors so miserably fail when it comes to having an appreciation of the simple arithmetics needed to figure out that an economy that's entire value hovers around only a billion dollars cannot possibly attract billions of dollars of FDI. Sir, this is commonsense – no 300 feet-tall Sierra redwood is ever going to grow on our tiny islands; no 100 ton blue whale is ever going to be seen swimming in our lagoons; no Carlos Slim Helú is ever going to be born in Maldives. Period. Sir, I know you like to dream big. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact I as an average citizen of your country admire that quality in my president. But I honestly can't help being wary of all this frivolous talk about billion dollar phantom investments. -Naimbe http://asknaim.blogspot.com/ Pakistan Pakistan then and now Sitting in the middle of load-shedding, watching the political theater roll-on ad infinitum, and reading the news of another security incident somewhere, it is easy to be depressed about Pakistan these days. Depression, however, is parasitic. It jumps from person to person and grows in strength unless treated. It makes you weak and vulnerable – and sometimes it is necessary to break the circle. Yes, Pakistan is going through very tough times, but there is no reason to throw all hope to the wind and to start denying the things that are going right – and a lot has gone right in the past twenty or so years. First, the necessary disclaimer: The intention here is not to sweep Pakistan's problems under the rug or to try and rationalize away the immense suffering of the victims of recent violence and economic turmoil. There is no doubt that things have taken a very serious turn in recent months and millions of people are paying a heavy price every day. With that disclaimer in place, here's a collection of things that I have seen change for the better in my life in Pakistan – from high-school in the eighties to today. It is necessarily a very personal list, though others might be able to relate to some of it. Traveling apart, I've spent my life living in Islamabad and Lahore and my memories are naturally specific to these places. So again, I'm fully conscious of the fact that not everyone can relate to or agree with my attempt at optimism. But even if I come across as being overly optimistic, it is only to counter those who are becoming unnecessarily pessimistic. Maybe you have your own stories, your own inspirations, your own rays of hope that keep you going… these are mine. And I share them with the hope that they will help someone else break out of the circle of pessimism. Roads: 1989: Driving from Lahore to Islamabad was an ordeal on the mostly single-lane, badly maintained GT road. 2010: Driving from Lahore to Islamabad is a pleasure on the motorway. And it is not just this one road, a lot of roads have been added to the network or improved. I know people in my office in Islamabad who routinely drive to Karachi with their families. We need many more roads – but we have certainly not been sitting idle. Communications: 1989: Calling from Islamabad to Lahore meant going to the market to a PCO, telling the guy to book a 3-minute call and waiting around till it got connected. Even if you had an STD line at home, your fingers were likely to get sore from dialing before you got connected. And once the call was connected you watched the clock like a hawk as it was so expensive. 2010: Instant, cheap calls worldwide for everyone from cellular phones. Internet: 1995: I was first introduced to the wonders of Email in 1995. It was an offline 'store and forward' system (remember those @sdnpk email addresses?). If you sent a mail in the morning, it reached in the evening when your Email provider called USA on a direct line to forward it. 2010: Broadband, DSL, WiMax, Dialup, Cable – instant connectivity for everyone. More generally, I've gone thru a series of denials about the adoption of new technologies in Pakistan. I went through thinking that cellular phones would never gain widespread adoption – I was wrong; that internet would remain a niche – I was wrong; that broadband would never take off here – I was wrong; that Blackberry would never be adopted – I was wrong. Here I speak from some experience as I work for a cellular company and I've seen all these numbers grow exponentially. The fact is that Pakistan and Pakistanis love technology and are eager to adopt and adapt the latest technologies as soon as they become available. With its huge population, this creates a large market for every new technology in Pakistan and businesses rush in to fill it. This bodes well for the future. Read more… – Farid Ahmad http://pakistaniat.com/2010/04/05/pakistan-then-now/#more-12751 Pakistan Hamidsummer Night's Mir Lifetime achievement awards are usually meant to acknowledge a lifetime of achievements. It usually means either the achievements are coming to an end or the person being honoured is about to kick the bucket. Sometimes it can be a not so subtle hint that says, here, take your award and die. The good people of SAARC who last week gave Hamid Mir a lifetime achievement award probably didn't mean any of the above. In fact nobody knows what the hell they meant. Ms Ajit Kaur who announced the award on behalf of the delightfully titled Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSAWL) said: "Mir…spoke against the genocide of Bangladeshis by the Pakistan Army in 1971. She said only two people were happy with the creation of Bangladesh – General JS Arora in India and Hamid Mir in Pakistan." The Daily Times' Iftikhar Gillani, who reported the story, goes on to point out: "Kaur failed to realise that Mir was only a six-year-old when East Pakistan separated, so how could a minor boy be happy over his country's disintegration." Well Mr. Gillani obviously doesn't know Hamid Mir well. I am sure even at the age of six he could have declared the creation of Bangladesh a vindication of the Two Nation Theory and yet another humiliation for the Hindu army. A more likely explanation, however, is that Ms. Kaur probably mistook him for his dad, the late Waris Mir, who we hear was a decent journalist in the '70s (though he spent most of his life as a Jamaati before becoming a 'progressive'). The citation also goes on to say that Hamid Mir is the only journalist who has covered wars in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Bosnia and Chechnya. It doesn't mention Hamid Mir's role as a one-man peacekeeping force in Lal Masjid and later in Swat. And of course we don't expect FOSAWL to know what Mr Mir was doing in Jamia Naeemia only a few days ago. But the even more curious thing is that in his column in today's Jang (must confess, it's our Monday morning fix), Hamid Mir mentions his trip to India for the FOSAWL event (the column basically says India sucks more than Pakistan sucks) but there is no mention of the award or any attempt to clarify the contents of the citation. Geo has also reported the story but obviously it hasn't brought up the angle that Hamid Mir as a six-year-old was Pakistan's answer to India's General Arora. – daroon e khana http://cafepyala.blogspot.com/ Region Moral Police Target Lungis In Sharjah The migrant labors from South Asia have played a great role in the transformation of Middle Eastern countries. Most of their construction works consisted of physical labors by people of this region. They clean the garbage, work in shops even some have been recruited by the police. But in general they are being looked down upon as miskins (beggars), mainly because they are poor enough. Here is another example how they are being singled out and dishonored. An Asian man was arrested and interrogated by police patrols in Sharjah a few days ago for wearing a lungi in public.The man said police told him lungis cannot be worn in public.Sharjah Police maintain that indecent and revealing clothes are not allowed in public. "The decency law was implemented in Sharjah ten years ago," an officer said. He said people were expected to wear decent clothes in public, but did not explain if there was a ban on wearing the lungi in public. Here is what an Arab has to say about Lungi: Lungi is not indecent dress. when any body lift the lungi above the thigh then it is indecent. Even kandoora can be lifted. if police found any one lifting lungi then they can take actions, but generally when anybody wear lungi in decent manner then it is wrong to object that. You will see a lot of illogical comment in that Gulf News article about Lungi being indecent and it should be banned. It may be a poor man's attire and be considered informal but who decides fashion? Is Sharjah paying these labors decent salaries so they can afford fancy thobes? What would these people say when Sharjah bans tight jeans because you can see the curves – it may be interpreted as indecent although its not revealing. There is already a crackdown on jeans in Iran. There are certain rules about attires in every society. In Bangladesh there are places where you need formal dress and cannot enter with a Lungi. But nobody has the audacity to say that Lungi will be banned from public places. Illogical moral policing will not establish a good example of advancement of society. It is pure racism in a new bottle. – Rezwan http://rezwanul.blogspot.com/ . Show All