Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad
Defender of the interests of one class or leader of all? The newly elected PML-N government, which would hopefully be in office in the first week of June, faces daunting challenges. The party has also certain strengths that can help it defuse the challenges with a fair chance of success. The most urgent challenge is power shortages. These have brought thousands of distraught people on the roads. The PML-N has also to fix the economy, remove the structural impediments to growth, bring down inflation and create tens of thousands of new jobs if it wants to rule in peace. The party’s economic policy must start showing initial results at least within a year. Opinion surveys would start showing whether people feel the situation is better than under the previous government or worse. Hopefully Nawaz will not yield to the impulse of shooting the messenger as has happened under his predecessors. Nawaz has also to rein in the terrorists who continue to attack innocent citizens and target security personnel. Half a dozen incidents of the sort have already taken place after the announcement of the election results. In the latest incident of the sort which occurred in Quetta on Thursday at least 12 people, of which eight were policemen, died in a bomb blast. Till the TTP is made to stop the terrorist attacks, whether through talks which seems difficult or through a Swat-like operation, there is little hope of fresh investments coming in or the revival of the economy taking place. Nawaz has vowed to bring civil-military relations in line with the Basic Law. He has promised that the army will be no more than a department of the government under the prime minister. The last government expanded the scope of democracy, increased provincial autonomy and the share of the federating units in the joint pool, created badly needed institutions like an independent Election Commission and a consensus caretaker set up. People expect Nawaz to further strengthen the system. A vigilant Supreme Court is not likely to settle at anything short of the rule of law. Appointments to important government officials and autonomous bodies will therefore have to be made on merit – something totally new for the PML-N. There would be no blue eyed boys heading key administrative and police positions. Transparency would have to be observed in signing big contacts. Mian Nawaz Sharif’s main strength lies in the big mandate he has received. He had all along wished to rule with simple majority in order to put into practice his own policies without any adulterations introduced under the compulsion of alliances. After several independent NA candidates joining the PML-N, the party is able to form a government at the centre without seeking any other party’s support. Unlike the PPP which could not have remained in power without obliging highly demanding allies, Nawaz Sharif can take decisions with confidence. He can thus practice good governance if he is really inclined to. He can take brave decisions. Nawaz presently has a weak position in the Senate but through a policy of reconciliation that he has vowed to follow, he can enlist the support of other parties also. The Senate could in fact exercise a healthy check on the tendency that Nawaz revealed during his second tenure in the1990s to accumulate all powers in his own hands. The big mandate from Punjab, the main recruiting centre of the army, will also help Nawaz rationalize the army-civilian relations. This would have been a highly tricky task for any prime minister from a minority province. The voice of the Punjab’s sole spokesman carries an extra weight when it comes to dealing with the army. One hopes that the long awaited change is brought through parliament rather than through an office order by the prime minister. Among other things this will make the change lasting. The smaller provinces however have numerous justifiable complaints about Punjab and its leaders. Nawaz would do well not to project himself as an advocate of Punjab’s interests alone. He has to look like an even handed big brother, willing to sacrifice for the uplift of smaller provinces and removing the age old grievances. Nawaz is the representative of the business class which is considered to possess managerial skills and efficiency rarely seen in those coming from the feudal culture. He is thus supposedly better placed to handle the economy. The big thing to watch is whether he is willing to tax the business community which is the biggest dodger of taxes right from a common shop keeper to the super rich industrialists. Many think he failed to raise taxes from his community in the past and is going to fail again. The only way left to pay off the circular debt would in that case be through loans, Saudi crude and furnace oil on deferred payment being an example of the sort. This would considerably add to the burden of loans the poor nation has to carry. Hopefully Nawaz’s special relations with the Saudi royalty will not lead to the cancelation of the Pak-Iran gas pipeline which is an economic need. There are a number of excuses that can be cooked up to cancel the project. A demand can be put up to review the agreement and then announce that the price needs to be slashed. Unless Nawaz learns to live with his political rivals in peace, he will face challenges from opposition parties which will intensify with the passage of time. Imran Khan, who got the second largest number of votes, is going to be the first challenger. Raising taxes locally was a major plank of Imran Khan’s policy. This was the only way, he maintained, to get rid of the begging bowl. One cannot be the defender of the interests of one single class and call himself the leader of the nation. Nawaz needs social peace in order to be able to implement his policies. This has led him to have a meeting with Zardari on the sidelines of the lunch for the Chinese premier. Nawaz has also proposed to the opposition to shun street protests as a tactic for government change. Few would differ with him on the point despite the fact that the PML-N continued to hurl challenges of the sort to the PPP government. The PML-N was the proponent of elections before time maintaining that the PPP had lost its mandate. The PML-N pressurised the PPP-led government to hold polls ahead of the 2012 budget session. It tried its best to bundle off the PPP government by taking the so called Memo Gate sandal to the Supreme Court and creating hysteria over the issue. Soon it will meet its nemesis unless it learns to have better relations with opponents. The writer is a political analyst and a former academic.

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid
Season 6 Episode 21 Fellows, I heard about your Mazhar in the summer of 2010. The news about you and your Mazhar was broadcasted all over the world, with every man and his dog giving their verdict on the level of disgust they felt by the whole episode in the UK. I was among the global jury as well. I polished up my best condescending tone, donned my favourite holier than thou garb and began the cursing blitzkrieg. How on earth, could a professional athlete do something as obnoxious as that? I wondered. Wearing your country’s badge on your chest, you had what millions in your country would die to have, I believed. You sold your soul, your integrity, your pride and your credibility all for the sake of a hike in your bank account, I thought. You had fame, success, veneration, respect and you gave it all up in exchange for money, I observed. And I was never going to blame your Mazhar, for it was you and you alone who were at fault for the horrendous act, I decided. And then I met your Mazhar. I met your Mazhar in Rajasthan last week and how that changed my point of view! Your Mazhar showed me a few bundles of cash and then I sat wondering what on earth, was the fuss all about. It was a wonderful opportunity to bag some cash, one which if offered to employees all over the world, would’ve seen a lot of them biting Mazhar’s hand off. Just a teeny tiny bit of dishonesty – if you could call it that – would have resulted in multiple times more money than what I would’ve earned at my job, without causing any tangible damage to my employers or my overall performance at the firm. It was a goldmine that had decided to jump onto my lap, and I wasn’t going to push it away. And then I got to know your Mazhar. I got to know your Mazhar after I mulled over a few questions. How many guitarists would refuse to take a hefty sum in exchange for slightly mistiming a chord of a particular song in a concert? How many stage actors would decline the opportunity to stutter while delivering a particular dialogue on stage for considerable amounts of cash? How many teachers in the world would turn down the offer of teaching their students a particular chapter that wasn’t included in the syllabus only for a day, for several times the amount of their monthly salary? How many hotel chefs would reject the cash bundles for an ever so slight alteration in a particular recipe? And how many editors would snub the proposal of some serious dough for leaving a minuscule typo in an article? Not many, I presumed. And then I finally recognized your Mazhar. I recognized your Mazhar as the one who tells civil servants that since they don’t get paid enough, they have every right to take whatever comes their way from underneath the table. I recognized your Mazhar as he who guides journalists to record staged interviews and write skewed write-ups, since siding with the highest bidder is the only way they can ever earn any money out of their profession. I recognized your Mazhar as the one who orchestrates the military’s manoeuvres that ensure instability in their region, which in turn ascertains that their own pockets remain healthy. I recognized your Mazhar as he who wants an intellectual to never be honest about his ideology, and instead keep toeing the popular lines for his personal acclaim. I recognized your Mazhar as the one who persuades a politician to sell the sovereignty of his nation to a superpower because they were going to snatch it away anyway. And I recognized your Mazhar as he who supports the Peer-o-Murshid’s quest of cashing in on the popular deception that he is closer to the deity than the rest of us are. But more criminally I recognized your Mazhar as the same person who encourages a student to cheat in their examinations, because there is unemployment everywhere outside the gates of their institutions. I recognized your Mazhar as the voice who tells the person who has just breached a traffic rule to bribe the officer instead of facing the due punishment. I recognized your Mazhar as the one who encourages milkmen to add water and unhealthy chemicals in their milk because that’s the only way they can survive in the corrupt system. I recognized your Mazhar as the man who tells people they don’t really have to return the money they borrowed from a friend, since everyone in this world is a cheat and a little bit from their side wouldn’t do much harm. And I recognized your Mazhar as the mastermind behind an individual’s quest of fooling as many people as he can, to muster as much money as he can at the expense of everyone else. And despite the fact that we’ve all known your Mazhar throughout our lives – at different times and in various shapes and forms – and fulfilled many of his wishes ourselves, the only time we decide to get worked up is when someone else listens to him, and acts according to his suggestions. The moment I recogniezd your Mazhar I realised that I’ve known him forever, and have always succumbed to his whispers. I consider myself very fortunate to have familiarized myself with your Mazhar, for it helps me steer clear of most things he tells me to do. But unfortunately the world would continue to scan others’ bond with him, even if they were to be told the fruitfulness of getting themselves acquainted with the story of how I met your Mazhar. The writer is a financial journalist and a cultural critic. Email: khulduneshahid@gmail.com, Twitter: @khuldune

Nadia Khawaja
How a state shifts blame for the popularity of tobacco In recent years, with the ever-growing tobacco industry, an interesting phenomenon has been brought to attention in China. According to studies, 55 percent of Chinese doctors, ironically regarded as the stalwarts of good health, are smokers. China’s doctors not only smoke cigarettes but are also pilloried as furtively promoting tobacco induced morbidity. In China, cigarettes kill over a million citizens a year and if present trends hold, between now and 2050, the countries annual death toll from tobacco will jump as much as 300 percent. Executives of state regimes and key international organizations have been pursuing a dual track regarding tobacco in the past three decades or more: (a) a longstanding strategy of using tobacco sales as a front for economic development and pre-eminence (b) maintaining their legitimacy by increasing striving to regulate tobacco in the face of empirical evidence that it is highly toxic. Mathew Kohrman in his essay, “Smoking among Doctors” draws attention to the manner in which bio-politics and Chinese cultural ideas of masculinity shape the practice of smoking amongst surgeons. Tobacco production and sales in China have been an emblem of economic development and the government has ‘centred on regulating’ its harm instead of expunging it from society. The idea that smoking is unhealthy is ‘normalised’ by the government and media and physicians are presented as dispersers of health. The shift of the blame onto the doctors is in accordance with the eminent French philosopher, Michel Foucault’s idea that “governments have multilayered modes of authority making to techniques” for establishing control over people as the focus is shifted from the powerful institutions of the state and the cigarette manufacturing industry to the medical community. Social factors such as the pressure to enact one’s masculinity have eased the processes of ‘governmentality’ into creating and ‘problematizing’ the behaviour of physicians with regards to smoking. The medical environment is mostly dominated by men who are like most other people will not ‘exclude a behaviour’ solely on the basis of scientific rationality. The cigarette has been advertised as a symbol of manhood and the same gendered notions operate in forming its role among physicians. Smoking develops bonds between doctors who share the practice and keeps the medical departments working as units defined by gender, class and similar habits. Offering a cigarette or ‘fayan’ is a very important feature of ‘male performativity’ in Chinese culture and it is symbolic of the socialization process in the male dominated field of surgery as well. In most settings, whenever men encounter one another and wish to engage in dialogue, it is expected that one or more will pull out a pack of cigarettes and offer a smoke to all men immediately present, with special attention given to a participant’s social status and understood quality/cultural coding of the cigarette offered. The image of important members of the Chinese government ‘with lit cigarettes in their hands managing the nation’s future’ posits smoking as a crucial embodiment of masculinity adopted and sanctioned by the state. In his ‘Problematisation’ discourse it becomes apparent that powerful institutions such as the mass media and state use their authority to shift the focus of the national problem of smoking to ‘individual failure’ of doctors. Institutions consciously ignore socialization, the tobacco marketing industry and the failure of the government to eradicate smoking and disperse knowledge/facts in a manner that is the most suitable for them. Foucault’s notion of the ‘relationship of the self to the self’ is echoed as sense of fatalism and low self-worth is induced by techniques of individual accountability that even disregard the lack of a support system for people who want to give up smoking in China. Significant social factors in Chinese society such as defined masculinity and the connotations of smoking, class, and economics lead to the prevalence of smoking amongst doctors. However, the same institutions that promote these ideals seek to curb the practice by conveniently shifting the blame onto the individual as opposed to holding the system accountable. The writer is a staff member of Pakistan Today and holds a degree from Mount Holyoke College.

anjum

This week, Microsoft rubber-stamped Windows 8 as good to go for manufacturers. This means PC makers and other partners can grab the operating system code and test it out with their products, which should start arriving Oct. 26. The struggle for the future of computing as we know it has essentially commenced.

Microsoft has essentially opened a window in having media and technology start anew with their new operating system. As they have minted a lot of money through Windows Vista, and through Windows 7, who says that they won't do the same now?

Howevever, what one really needs to see is a resurgence of the Personal Computer industry, to battle smartphones and tablets in the ever-growing information technology market. Windows unsuccesful bid to bring forth a popular Tablet PC for their customers brought an opportunity for Apple to establish its brand through the iPad. Early smartphones in the form of handheld palmtops such as the HP Jornada have given Google an edge in bringing forth Android phones with more advanced operating systems.

So it essentially comes down to this: with Windows 8, we get to find out what the non-Apple computing industry really has left.

Windows needs some resurgence to its already established brand, as the bringer of Personal Computers during in an information technology hike in the 80's, 90's, and 00's. It really needs to get the ball rolling and not leave companies like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, or Acer sitting idly by while others get ahead in the game.

Just about everyone—even Apple fans—should hope that some company gets its act together, takes some risks, and wows the public on the back of Windows 8. It’s the sort of competition the industry needs to be healthy and for innovation to continue at a furious clip.

Sakina Husain
It has been about a month since the IMF report on Pakistan ‘ingeniously’ highlighted the economy’s fragility. A sense of urgency was incumbent; the PM quickly and quite conveniently replaced the secretaries of finance and FBR. Very few questions were asked; the damage was covered. How and why would the public demand accountability and transparency, or an extenuating correction of seemingly portrayed fudged figures when it has been residing in blissful ignorance with regard to the economy? Or maybe the silence was another extension of the disillusionment with the system. For the purpose of reminiscing, the IMF report in Feb-12 revealed that the (please note: expected) budget deficit communicated by the government for FY12 has been understated by Rs532 billion where in the revenue was overstated by Rs215 billion and expenditures were understated by Rs317 billion. This would imply that the budget deficit for the current fiscal year would arrive at about 6.6 per cent of GDP, instead of the government’s repeated assurances about realising the promised five per cent contingent on promised external inflows which even the sovereign would vouch by…but nevertheless. Given this back drop, the very act of changing secretaries signals that the government is capable of making only cosmetic changes in an effort to please the almighty IMF. The first contention questions why the IMF is so important that the government needs to replace qualified personnel who have served its cause throughout the regime so far. Moreover, current deliberations by the ex-finance minister reveal that domestic debt has exceeded foreign debt, indicative of greater reliance on the domestic financial system instead of lenders abroad. So why is there a need to prove credibility in front of this iffy source of funds? The second contention challenges the autonomy of the ministry of finance as the government’s window into its accounts. If expenditures, especially the larger recurrent ones are being exceeded than the target, is the finance ministry really supposed to suffer blame? There are severe structural deficiencies in the collection and distribution of revenues between the federal and the provincial governments. For instance, the provincial government or the chief minister has the power to undertake expenditures without taking prior approval from the national assembly. This automatically results in a greater than expected deficit in provincial budgets as the latter have limited space to raise revenues, especially, post the 18th amendment which led to the devolution of many subjects that were earlier apart of the federal list. Third, the PM’s alacrity in reading international evaluations of the economy is commendable and therefore must be lauded. Why should he pay heed to weekly caveats published by domestic analysts who have repeatedly tried to inform, challenge or at least warn the government regarding the same macro variables delineated by the IMF? The government is ready to cheer the FBR chairman when he reports higher than target revenue collection, but ever ready to replace the same person when the numbers are challenged by an international body! Why are there no internal checks and balances? And moreover, is the 2-3membered IMF office in Pakistan better equipped to report federal collection of taxes and expenditures? Regardless of whether the answer is in the affirmative, there is only a sense of embarrassment and shame that holds its ground. If the government is ever so concerned about accurate reporting of its accounts and more importantly meeting its target spending, ‘may be’ it needs to address the inefficiencies that exist in its very own government offices. Supposedly, for the provision of government services annually, the government spends about Rs13,000 per capita, leaving out the amount that is assigned for expanding the scope of these services ie the PSDP. And to put an end note: there is little education, very little health and almost no security in the country. The writer is an economic analyst and freelance financial journalist. She can be reached at sakina.husain@gmail.com

Javed Gilani
an economy unable to reach its production possibility frontier will always remain vulnerable to exogenous shocks, as in the case of Pakistan. It would have been a different story if the last two-to-three years had seen some sort of visible improvement in handling deficits and improving growth. If we had produced, exported and grown more, we would have had a more stable support base, restricting damage from external shocks our economic and political managers have no control over. In the present circumstances, among Pakistan’s chief worries is rising energy and input cost, the demand-supply dynamics of which play out on a stage and involve actors far removed from Islamabad’s sphere of influence. With our deficits in uncomfortable zones, additional price pressure due to increasing inflation, predominantly higher energy and input costs, is putting unsustainable pressure on the country’s reserve situation. Therefore, even as relevant quarters and analysts calculate a few month elbow room for reserves, their value diminishes every time international pressures bid up oil. Things looked up in the immediate aftermath of the 18th amendment, which transferred increased power and responsibility to provincial governments. Yet with no proper revenue generation framework, and unable to get help from a largely defunct FBR, they have been unable to make any meaningful contribution so far. On the other hand, the federal machinery has not been able to introduce any form of value addition in the present export basket. This means that almost all traditional means of generating national revenue are compromised. That is why we rely on international trends to facilitate our economic engine. We are always in need of improved remittances to defend deficits. We are always praying for international events that push down the price of oil so our own economic managers can breathe easy. And of course, we are always on the lookout of bailout and donor assistance. Sadly, despite the obvious persistence of such trends, we have not moved in manner that the situation merits. It bears noting that persistent growth problems require solvency in credit markets to stimulate the only indigenous option to revive GDP. When the external situation exerts unbearable pressure, economies look inward, prompting private sector expansion which in turn attracts offshore investment. In this case, banks facilitate private sector investment, in some cases ably guided by the official machinery, in a way that the centre does not interfere in market mechanism, only facilitates it. This is where the Pakistani banking sector needs to step up to the plate. For some years now, a proactive lending regime, one that incorporates targeted needs of the time, has been conspicuous by its absence. Whatever little scope the private sector has had has been compromised by heavy government borrowing. This equation requires urgent balancing. The last couple of years of private sector crowding out have left a vast investment field yet to be exploited. Ironically, the laxity of the past might even turn into an attractive opportunity for the present. If properly handled, private sector investment can create jobs, improve infrastructure, create employment and, most importantly, engineer second round market multiplier, with gains for all. We have now come to the point of no return. Both government and autonomous organs must finalise an action plan that will stimulate employment and growth. That means fine tuning both fiscal and monetary policies. Once the finance ministry initiates immaculately targeted fiscal expansion, and the central bank makes credit available to private investors, we may even see a domino effect strong enough to lure bulky foreign investors. Our problems are not existential, but their handling has made them acute. We have the necessary inputs, its just a little toggling of official policy that is required. The recent stock market optimism is an adequate indicator of productive potential across the economy. All that is needed is effective program management. The writer is Chief Manager SME bank and has been a leading banker in the industry for more than 30 years

Pakistan Today
The socialist government in France with its clean image has suffered a setback when French Parliament kicked off a high profile public probe after press reports that Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac had an undeclared foreign bank account. France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls and Finance Minister Pierre are also being grilled by the parliament. This is how democracy works where those seeking public office are required to declare all of their assets, bank accounts etc, held in their name, or in name of their immediate family members. It is inconceivable for any public office holder in a democracy to be accused of tax evasion, tax fraud, non-payment of electricity dues, smuggling, land grabbing, or involved in any illegal financial or immoral deeds. No elected individual, if caught, should be able to claim parliamentary breach of privilege to evade public scrutiny. Those who hold any elected or paid public office are expected to be judged on a higher moral yardstick than that applicable to ordinary citizens. If corruption is to be contained in this country than the top paid bureaucracy and members of ruling elite have to be subjected to strict financial discipline and accountability, for the fish rots from the head. Strict regulatory controls are an important part of good governance and this can only be achieved if those assigned to handle such jobs have undivided loyalty to Pakistan, hold no foreign nationality, no conflicts of interest and subjected to thorough public scrutiny before holding such assignments.

Pakistan Today
I hear every politician claiming its voters to be youth. Why is this so? Youth have only so many votes, as all of us have, so why crib about and make claims? It was funny to hear Altaf cry like a baby on his address. Was he crying for the plight of poor people of Pakistan or crying over his failures and obnoxious speeches? Nawaz’s disclosure in Alhamra on 19th May about circular debt at Rs 500 billion and exchequer empty was an indication that load shedding is not leaving us for next five years. MQM Rabita Committee has run out of excuses to protect Altaf Hussein. Asif Ali Zardari has lambasted his party workers for their dismal performance. But I wonder if Zardari did not know about irregularities and corruption for five long years.

Pakistan Today
Development that we see today may look nothing to us but in reality it has been made possible by multiple ideas and hardwork carried out by different researchers and scholars. Without even realising, we are looking at the wonders of “project finance”. Some projects might be completed through traditional financing structure but the latest development is a result of project financing. In project financing, risk and financing is negotiated among all the stakeholders. Project financing is becoming popular in developing economies although not as much as in developed countries. It is suitable for large projects especially in developing and emerging countries like Pakistan. Infrastructure projects were earlier financed mostly by the government itself. But that has started to change now, mainly to decrease budget deficit and foreign debt. The international institutions like World Bank and private institutions are playing a vital role in the development of infrastructure. In developed countries, this model is extended to public-private partnerships. For successful implementation of projects, the future challenge is to find a balance between public-private partnerships. The State Bank of Pakistan has taken initiatives to implement project financing which includes infrastructure task force and capacity building. The adverse economic environment in Pakistan and problems in global debt markets had an adverse effect on the number of infrastructure projects reaching financial close, particularly since mid-2008. Budgetary constraints might pose a non-trivial risk to the government’s proposed infrastructure investment plans. Furthermore, non-banking finance, insurance and pension funds sectors remain underdeveloped, posing significant obstacles to the project finance sector. However, the government does remain publicly committed to infrastructure finance and is continuing to pursue enabling reforms. Projects involving private participation in power and transport sectors particularly have seen some activity in recent years, indicating that there is an appetite among investors for infrastructure projects. Recent improvements in macroeconomic stability after receiving the IMF package, combined with relative resolve in the rate of economic growth in 2007-08, should enable cautious optimism going forward.

Pakistan Today
Li Keqiang in Pakistan Pakistan and China are not just friendly neighbours, they have a friendship that has withstood the test of time many times over. The new Chinese Premiere Li Keqiang is on a two-day visit to Pakistan to reinforce the same. While there are some who have pointed out the timing of his visit, saying that it has been scheduled at a time when Pakistan is in between a caretaker and a formal government, the visiting premiere has rejected the notion. Instead, he has stressed that his visit proves how important Pakistan is to China, that no matter which government in Pakistan is in power, China will stand by its side. Pakistan, on his arrival, awarded Nishan-e-Pakistan to the Chinese leader, stressing how important his visit is considered by Islamabad. That is all sweet music to the ears. However, Pakistan has real problems that it needs to find solutions of, as does China. And this is where their friendship can really help each other. Pakistan’s energy problems can benefit from China’s extensive experience in handling large scale projects in hydro, coal and renewable energy solutions. China can also help Pakistan on the economic front by helping it create an economic corridor from Gwadar all the way through to the North of Pakistan to China. And when it is completed, Pakistan can also include China in Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. Though some of these projects have come under discussion in the present visit – a total of 11 agreements and MoUs were signed, chief among them being long-term economic corridor plan, maritime cooperation and satellite navigation – the distinguished leader wanted to enhance mutual trade to US15$ billion dollars from the current US12$ billion dollars. Premiere Li also promised his country’s unflinching support to Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Seeing that Pakistan’s incumbent prime minister is going to be Nawaz Sharif, PM Li also had a meeting with him. He invited Mr Sharif to visit China and discussed matters of mutual benefit. In his meeting with the COAS Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, terrorism was the topic of discussion. Relations between countries are not built on rhetoric or hollow claims, they depend on actions taken to help each other, often under difficult circumstances. While leaders of both countries have pledged to stand united, help each other economically, and help bring peace to the world together, what they have to do now is to fulfil these claims. Pakistan specifically needs assistance in energy generation as it is hurting its industries and routine life badly. Other than that, mutual cooperation in trade, terrorism, defence and nuclear energy fields will certainly strengthen the bond of friendship that the two countries have nurtured over the decades.

Pakistan Today
Pressure from home and abroad spawns internal reform After engaging in sometimes aggressive and controversial statements in the last two decades, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain appears to have turned face: a cleansing process is said to be taking place within the party. Since MQM workers were said to have turned on members of the coordination committee, for reasons yet to be disclosed, the MQM chief was said to have come into action over discord within the party. More likely, however, is that the pressure for a facelift has come from Britian after thousands of phone calls were made to the Metropolitan Police to complain against the alleged hate speech from the MQM head. The murder of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Sindh vice-president Zahra Hussain one day before the re-poll and allegations from another British favourite, the PTI chief Imran Khan that Altaf Hussain and the MQM were behind the murder, appear to have forced Altaf bhai’s hand. The measures taken by Altaf, after extended meetings of the MQM’s general council have included: the suspension of three members of its Coordination Committee, a ban on workers collecting contributions (otherwise known as bhatta or extortion), or, engaging in property deals. Clearly, the MQM head is showing concern for a process of internal accountability, and there is much to be appreciated. Another operation against the MQM in the mould of the 1993 Operation Clean Up would be an unwelcome move and all political parties accused of having internal militias, should ideally disband them on their own. But surely the scale of action and the fact that it has been publically announced suggests the MQM chief has seen truth in the charges against the party cadre. According to the MQM press releases, Altaf Hussain is apparently working 21 to 22 hours a day in the process of cleansing the party of “undesirable elements”. A welcome move on one side, it is also an admission that party cadres were involved in collecting bhatta and acting as land mafias. If the MQM is serious about the internal cleansing, then there needs to be a permanent and transparent body within the party to address complaints against its members. With the British metropolitan police investigating Altaf Hussain’s speeches and the British foreign office expressing its “sadness at the violence in Karachi, including the murder of political figures”, there is clearly pressure on the MQM chief from his British hosts. Whatever it be, there is no better way to solve the security dilemma in Karachi: the MQM engaging in a process of reform. It would be something for other political parties to follow. For now, the MQM chief needs to be more careful in his speeches and engage in less personal attacks. It would reduce pressure on the MQM leadership at home and abroad – and be better for the citizenry of Karachi.

Pakistan Today
In talking to militants, resist urge for quick fixes Both the PML-N and the PTI are in a haste to initiate talks with the militants. Among other things they are approaching religious parties which enjoy good rapport with the militants. Pervez Khattak, the PTI’s nominee for the post of Chief Minister KP, has already met JUI-S chief Samiul Haq to discuss the issue. The latter claims he has also been approached by the PML-N leadership. The urgency to resolve the issue is understandable as nearly 50,000 people including about 15,000 servicemen have died in the terrorist attacks during the last decade. This has led to human suffering of an extraordinary high scale, particularly in cases where the victims happened to be the sole earning members of their families. The attacks have also created fear and uncertainty, scaring away potential investors, both local and foreign. While there is a dire need to put an end to militancy at the earliest, the urge for quick fixes has to be resisted. All aspects of the complex issue have to be taken into consideration before moving ahead. The TTP is a motley collection of loosely bound groups. The outfit’s chief has rejected democracy as un-Islamic, advocated enforcement of Sharia through armed struggle and the establishment of a worldwide Khilafat dispensing with national states with geographical boundaries. The TTP spokesman recently declared that his organization would follow in the footsteps of Osama bin Laden, which implies turning Pakistan into a launching pad for militants working for a worldwide enforcement of the Sharia. The TTP comprises numerous groups with separate missions, some specialising in attacks on schools, some like LeJ targeting Shias. The PML-N and the PTI have yet to decide which leaders of the TTP they would meet. Hopefully both the parties realize that there can be no compromise on the constitution and the law of the land. The two parties have yet to do a lot of homework. They need to sit together to determine the line to be taken jointly during any possible talks. There is also a need to get detailed briefing from the army and the security agencies to know why past agreements brokered with the militants failed to bring peace. They also have to understand why the army takes a stand different from that of the two parties. Gen. Kayani has called the fight against extremism and militancy as Pakistan’s own war. He has supported the elections maintaining that anti-democratic forces would never be acceptable. On Monday he praised the nation’s commitment to moderation and rule of law and congratulated the people for withstanding the threat of terrorism and defying the “unfounded dictates of an insignificant and misguided minority” by actively participating in the general elections. As Nawaz Sharif too has suggested there is a need for all stake holders to thoroughly discuss the various aspects of the issue.