Humayun Gauhar
Tackling the fault lines with sobriety and realism “Who won?” a dear old lady asked me. “The script won,” I replied. “I’ll tell you an old army joke, because it fits us like a sock.” A commander announced to his soldiers, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you can change your old socks. The bad news is that you will exchange them with one another.” We do that after every election: exchange our current smelly old socks full of holes for our earlier smelly ones torn and tattered… and so the spiral goes – down, down, down… Spiral it is, for by going round in circles we create the illusion of forward movement. Any movement is backward. Lenin said, “One step forward, two steps back.” Forward and back like a yoyo, to and fro, to and fro like automatons programmed. By bringing Nawaz Sharif back to power we have actually gone back to October 12, 1999, though when we emotionally brought the PPP back to power we had regressed to November 1997. In that sense it is indeed forward movement, from 1997 to 1999. If the army is forced to intervene again, we will be back to 1999. If another election is held and the PPP returns it will be back to 2013. What a rollercoaster. First there was Bhutto. He begot General Zia. Then we elected Bhutto’s daughter. She gave way to Zia’s political heirs. Then we elected Bhutto’s daughter again, then Zia’s heirs, then Bhutto’s daughter and then Zia’s heirs who gave us another general after whom we elected Bhutto’s heirs and now Zia’s. The Lucky Irani Circus can’t hold a candle to this. Since the ‘New Pakistan’ of 1971 we have elected either Bhutto or Zia forces three times each with little to show for it. Overall, the country has declined so much that some are questioning its viability. Change might be constant but nothing changes here except the details. The iniquitous status quo always triumphs. We persist in opting for old socks and yet lamenting our sorry lot. Einstein said that repeating the same experiment again and again and hoping for a different result is a sign of insanity. Quite! Aping the experiments of colonizers and hoping to hit gold is a sure sign of a colonized mind. Persisting with colonized minds and hoping to win freedom is a sure sign of lunacy. But no matter: things have a way of sorting themselves out. Hopefully the sorting process is not too painful. It bears repetition: we have created the facade of a British parliamentary system but the essence of democracy is missing. Instead, the essence is our native dynasticism throughout South Asia. We have simultaneously erected the facade of an Islamic state but the essence of Islam is missing. Instead, the essence is clericalism with all its myriad interpretations of the Word of God. The dynast-cleric compact is age-old in Muslim history and persists to this day. Our peoples’ will has never been heard. All elections held under the 1973 constitution have been rigged. There is consensus only on the fairness and transparency of the 1970 elections in Jinnah’s Pakistan. It led to disintegration. Things have gotten worse. This too bears repetition: the contours of this election have exposed our sharp parochial divides with parties getting elected around province, area, city, language and ethnicity. Today no national party remains, only provincial ones. The Punjab’s party gets to rule Pakistan because of the province’s brute majority. This is dangerous. When East Pakistan had a slight majority we devised the satanic ‘parity principle’ and treated the populations of both wings as equal. Why not now? Because it is totally and utterly undemocratic, that’s why. The will of the people is a cornerstone of democracy and you cannot emasculate it to any extent. Hidden in these contours lie the seeds of disintegration or confederation. A wise leadership tries first and foremost to save the federation. If not, then it will try for confederation. Disintegration is not an option for it will throw the entire region into a tailspin. Language and ethnicity have emerged at the most powerful cohesive force, even in educated and advanced Canada and Britain where Scotland is on the cusp of separation. We have proved that language defines nationhood, not religion splintered into many interpretations. Only a strong ideology can supersede language as a cohesive force provided it is dynamic, as the Soviet Union wasn’t and the Chinese is. Pakistan falling apart suits no one for it will change maps from Turkey to Bangladesh and everywhere in between. After every Great War the world map changes, as it did after World Wars I and II, the Cold War and now the War on Terror winding down, the first that the West has lost. Dangerous though it is, what else one can expect but a parochial outcome from a poor clone of the first-past-the-post British parliamentary system where the number of seats in assemblies does not reflect the percentage of votes a party gets. This system divides, not unites. That doesn’t mean that proportional representation is better. It means that a one-person-one-vote election in a two-candidate race in a second ballot would better reflect the will of the people. More expensive and time-consuming sure, but something more positive and reflecting the will of the people will come out of it. It’s not as simple as that though. It will require great administrative, systemic and constitutional changes. Who can now do that? Perhaps the answer lies in the script. The biggest pre-election challenge was to hold free, fair and transparent elections. In this the caretaker governments, the Election Commission and by extension the judiciary have failed utterly. Consensus is emerging that this could be the most flawed election in our history. Having said that, wisdom demands that the result be accepted despite the flaws if you wish to save the federation. Wisdom also demands that all new governments be allowed to tackle our fault lines with sobriety and realism and not get too macho, which betrays weakness because it is a gambit to hide its absence. The bigger post-election challenge comes now: for all governments to complete their terms and try and take Pakistan out of its multidimensional morass. If they must go before time they must go constitutionally. The Chinese are making an economic corridor with Pakistan. We need a ‘Wisdom Corridor’ from China even more. Nawaz Sharif is showing signs of maturity, but its early days yet. Once they actually sit on the throne of power, it always goes to their heads. It is the bounden responsibility of advisers to keep their leaders on the straight and narrow, remind them that pre-election bombast is not always to be taken seriously and give them lessons in realism and human frailty twice a day, morning and evening and shake well with different words and new examples. Machiavelli’s Prince has little relevance in a democracy. Mr Sharif has held government twice in the centre and thrice in the Punjab. These will be his sixth and seventh governments. He should have learned the limits of power by now. He lost power every time by overreaching against forces more powerful than him. None has limitless power except the Almighty. Learn the limits of power and stay within them. Then and only then can you successfully and legitimately expand its limits. The best way is to earn so much respect that people automatically take your word to be good for the nation, not because they are frightened of you. Fright was Mr Bhutto’s method; respect was Mr Jinnah’s. Take your pick. As I write, word has just come in of a huge bomb blast in Peshawar during Friday prayers. Obama has said that he won’t stop drone strikes. What are you going to do? Go on a drone shoot? Attack Washington, begging bowl in hand? Welcome back to power Nawaz Sharif. Enter reality Imran Khan. Now start negotiating with terrorists. You can never succeed by negotiating from a position of weakness. You have to negotiate from a position of strength. Have you won the war against native terrorists? Has America won against the Afghan Taliban or Al-Qaeda? Those who sue for talks have weakness. You must also know how much you can give them and whether the people can swallow it. Otherwise negotiate and you will be taken for a ride. You may win over some but the hardcore will remain, for zealots don’t give up until they have imposed their belief system or are wiped out either by force or with counter ideology. Democracy British style has survived its own persistent failure due to military interventions that make it a martyr. No more interventions please unless the very survival of the country is at stake or the official economy collapses totally, both of which possibilities are centre stage in the drama of the script. Let alien systems crash towards their destiny. Pakistan has crossed the precipice and ascended the tightrope between two cliffs. The choices: either fall into the abyss below or cross over to the other side where, please God, the grass is greener. The writer is a political analyst. He can be contacted at humayun.gauhar786@gmail.com

Bruce Riedel
Impulsive terrorism by a few is a counterterrorism challenge The terrible attack on the Boston Marathon is the most vivid and violent demonstration of terrorism confronting the United States and its allies today. Instead of large, complex plots hatched by organized jihadist terror gangs abroad, the new challenge is homegrown Muslim extremists who use the internet to self-radicalize and learn how to build bombs and create chaos by studying Al Qaeda texts online. Much remains unknown about the two brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who allegedly built the bombs that exploded near the finish line of the marathon and killed three and wounded more than 200 on April 15. Experience shows that it’s dangerous to draw too many conclusions about a terror plot until the investigation is finished, but a preliminary judgment or two can be made about the Boston case. The surviving terrorist, Dzhokhar, has reportedly told investigators that he and his brother were not part of an organized terror group like Al Qaeda or a broader conspiracy in the United States and that they decided to attack the marathon only a week or so before the event. They then decided to drive to New York City and carry out another attack in Times Square as a follow-up. The police stopped them before they got out of Boston, killing Tamerlan and capturing Dzhokhar. The two reportedly learned how to build their bombs from an internet magazine produced by Al Qaeda called Inspire, the brainchild of an American citizen of Yemeni origin, Anwar al Awlaki, killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen. They also listened to tapes of Awlaki’s sermons on jihad, available on the internet. The older brother, Tamerlan, traveled to Russia last year, and his activities there remain largely a mystery. He may have had contact with the Chechen jihadist movement which has longstanding ties to Al Qaeda and especially its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, who traveled there in the 1990s. Enough is not known so far, but the plot appears to involve radicalized, angry, young Muslim men who found ideological and practical advice on the internet from Al Qaeda, but don’t belong to the organization. Al Qaeda will likely adopt them as “heroes” of the global jihad. They and their evil deed fit perfectly with Al Qaeda’s narrative – urging Muslims around the world to kill Americans, men, women and children since 1998 and glorifying any who do so as a “knight of the prophet,” fighting holy war. In the last several years Al Qaeda has publicly urged Muslims in America and other western countries to act spontaneously like the Tsarnaev brothers.The Palestinian American Army Major Nidal Malik Hassan who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 has since been lauded by Al Qaeda for his actions and has been listed in Inspire as a role model for others. A Pakistani American, Faisal Shahzad, who put a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010 has become an Al Qaeda knight. The French Algerian Mohammed Merah who killed seven in Toulouse, France, in 2012 has also been lauded since as a jihadist star. Hassan and Shahzad have said they were inspired by Awlaki’s sermons and articles to carry out their attacks. Other homegrown plots have been less successful, but also roughly fit the pattern. An Afghan American Najibullah Zazi and two other Muslim Americans plotted to attack the New York City subway system on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but were arrested before they could strike. They wanted to replicate in New York what other jihadists with Al Qaeda sympathies had done in Madrid in 2003 and London in 2005. Some of these other plots had more interaction with the Al Qaeda core leadership in Pakistan than what’s been reported so far in the Boston case. Shahzad, Zazi and the European metro bombers all spent some time in Pakistan and received training in explosives. Small plots like the Boston operation are extremely difficult to uncover and penetrate by the counterterrorism security and intelligence community. The number of plotters is small, and the gestation period from target selection to attack can be very short, probably only a week or so in Boston and maybe only a few hours at Fort Hood. The short window of opportunity makes such conspiracies near impossible to detect. The radicalization process may take much longer, perhaps in the Boston case more than a year. Russian authorities asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to check on Tamerlan before he visited Russia in 2012, suggesting they had already detected his anger over the Russian occupation of his ancestral homeland. But reading jihadist literature is not a crime nor is being angry at the brutal Russian wars against Chechnya. Moscow has a history of atrocious human rights violations in Chechnya under the tsars, commissars and Vladimir Putin. It’s not abnormal for young Chechens studying their history to be radical. So for the counterterrorist community, the issue is not whether an individual is “radical” or “extremist,” but whether they are violent and breaking the law. It’s likely that the prospective terrorist will hide the transition from radical to violent from all around him. The younger brother in Boston kept attending university classes after the marathon attacks precisely to avoid attracting attention. Larger foreign-directed plots are much more susceptible to penetration and discovery. The 9/11 plot gestated over at least two years and involved 19 terrorists entering the United States from abroad and living in several locations for months, traveling inside the country and even outside to meet with other conspirators in Spain. The plot was supported by cells in Hamburg, Abu Dhabi, Karachi and the Al Qaeda core leadership in Kandahar. The attacks in 2001 should have been detected, and the failure to do so is rightly an intelligence failure greater than Pearl Harbor. The largest Al Qaeda plot since 9/11, a plot to simultaneously blow up eight or more jumbo jets en route from London to cities in the United States and Canada to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 in 2006, was detected because of its complexity and size. Phil Mudd, then deputy director of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, has said that it was the most dangerous plot against the West ever, more dangerous than 9/11, but built around a simple explosive device that could be smuggled on airplanes in soft drinks. The CIA and MI6 got wind of the plot involving more than a dozen British citizens of Pakistani origin led by a Manchester-born man named Rashid Rauf, the plot’s Al Qaeda mastermind. Like 9/11, there were many places to penetrate the plot and a gestation period of months. It was an intelligence success. Homegrown terrorism is nothing new in the United States. It goes back to at least John Brown, a bitter opponent to slavery who died in a raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859. Such insurrection is a challenge in a democracy that values civil liberty – and even harder in a country awash in guns. There is no reason for panic, but also no place for complacency. An alert community can be the first line of defense, as happened this spring in Canada when a Muslim cleric alerted the police about a plot to derail trains. The difficult job of counterterrorism has a long future.   The writer is the Director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution His most recent book is Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan to the Brink and Back. His another book, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad, was released in paperback this year.

Saad Rasool
And a message for President Obama The past decade in Pakistan has been a continuous and unrelenting tug-of-war between voices of peace and forces of extremism. A battle between the law enforcement institutions of the state and banned terrorist outfits. And in this ongoing conflict, the hapless civilian population of Pakistan – without any choice or consent of their own – has served as cannon fodder in the crusade between religious militancy and western hegemony. The tip of the sword, perhaps, has been the consistent barrage of hell-fire missiles from unmanned Predator drones that have rained down from beyond the reach of the people suffering their consequences, in blatant violation of the territorial integrity of Pakistan, requirements of international law, and contours of the human rights discourse. There is a popular belief that the State of Pakistan (or at least some part of its military establishment) has afforded tacit approval to the Americans to carry out these barbaric episodes, making them complicit in the murder of hundreds of Pakistani civilians. And militant organisations – the alleged target of these attacks – being unable to shoot-down or stop the drones, have taken out their frustration and vengeance against these strikes through a series of terrorist attacks in the heart of Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar, targeting civilian and state personnel alike. But neither have the drone attacks stopped nor have the retaliatory aggression and violence subsided. And this spiral of violence, in addition to weakening the state and making Pakistan one of the most precarious nations in the world, has resulted in the loss of thousands of lives over the past decade. As this cycle of violence continues, in a startling (almost apologetic) address, the American president, while addressing the National Defence University, on 23rd May, 2013, acknowledged that drone attacks could not be used as a long-term and effective weapon to counter terrorism in porous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Such interventions cannot be the norm,” Obama admitted, marking a shift in the drone doctrine of the United States. The speech, however, fell short of Pakistani demands of declaring an end to drone strikes. The address, which was a protracted and indirect apology for the loss of civilian lives, included statements that accepted the fatal flaws of the drone doctrine, and its consequences in terms of loss of civilian life. Obama accepted that “for me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live”. As the US occupation of Afghanistan nears its end (in 2014), Obama declared that for any further use of the drone attacks “there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured”. The salient features of a new policy, in terms of the drone attacks, stipulates that that i) a drone strike will not be ordered if a target can be captured, either by the US or by a foreign government, ii) a strike can be launched only against a target posing an “imminent” threat, iii) preference shall be given to the military to control the drone programme, although the CIA will continue to control the attacks in Pakistan (and Yemen). And the expectation is that this new approach will dramatically decrease the drone attacks, and within them, decrease the possibility of loss of civilian life. Despite the welcomed move, this is all too little too late. The people of Pakistan have been living in the shadow of the indiscriminate violence that the drone attacks ensue, and the consequent retaliation in terms of a spike in terrorist activities in our urban areas. This nexus, in most cases, has managed to augment the anti-American sentiment in this land. Many of those who were, some years ago, on the fence in terms of supporting the American “war on terror” next door, have now squarely fallen in line with the idea of opposing any and all American interference, regardless of the lofty rhetoric and peaceful intentions. If there was any doubt about this fact, the election 2013 has put it to rest. Across Pakistan, a party that is right of the centre, and has long-standing ties with many of the religious organisations and political parties, has swept the polls. There is little hope of a push towards “fighting” the madrassah culture, during the next parliamentary term. And the talks of entering into ‘peaceful negotiations’ with the Taliban are already making rounds in Pakistan’s echelons of political power. The strategy of using force, without negotiations, has failed, and the battle to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of people has been all but lost (in light of the drone attacks). In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province bearing the brunt of the drone attacks, the political party that has triumphed is the one that has openly declared a keen desire to negotiate with the Taliban, staged a rally against the drone attacks, and has declared that, were they to be in power, they would order Pakistan Air Force to shoot down the drones. In no uncertain terms, the choice for the average Pakistani, in these elections, was one of picking between the devil and deep blue sea – between America and the Taliban. For better or worse, even perhaps reluctantly so, the people have picked the deep blue sea. This may not be the correct choice. It is certainly not the perfect choice. But under the circumstances the people have decided that this is the only choice that can keep their streets safe and children alive. Even if the resulting life and safety comes at the cost of tilting towards a retrogressive approach in terms of personal freedoms and gender disparity. Pushed against the wall, the people have chosen to negotiate with the beast, and send a message to the alleged guardian angel. President Obama, I hope that you have gotten this message. The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore. He has a Masters in Constitutional Law from Harvard Law School. He can be reached at: saad@post.harvard.edu

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
Whether it was the killing of seven people by a lone gunman – Mohamed Merah in Toulouse last year or Boston brothers spraying bullets on marathon runners or the stunning murder of a British soldier in South-East London , May 22, all send a same signal that these are not acts of just one ‘lone-wolf’. These killers may not have a physical link with each other but have the mental one. How to describe the behaviour of a rebel commander eating the heart of a dead Syrian soldier or the one in Woolwich, his hands covered in blood, asking the passers-by to photograph him. In view of possible backlash against Muslims and their mosques, security has been stepped up, a few miscreants were arrested while trying to attack mosques. Ordinary Brits need to understand that an-eye-for-eye reaction will be same as playing into the terrorists hands. They will just blow any such reaction to their advantage to recruit more comrades. We presume Britain is not Pakistan wherein police will either disappear or simply stand by when non-Muslim communities are attacked after even a non-proven charge of blasphemy. It’s time for introspection for Brits to look for people and institutions preaching hatred among young generations using the freedom of speech. A freedom without strings of law will result in what happened in Woolwich the other day. Wake up Britain.

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
The ECP should instead improve its working The recent elections were held under an independent and powerful Election Commission, the first of its kind in the country’s history. While the creation of the Commission was widely hailed, it was understood that the task it was required to fulfill was highly challenging. Many in the lower election staff recruited from government departments were beholden to political parties who had given them the jobs. The powerful bureaucrats at the provincial level were not in all cases impartial. The working of the ECP was by no means ideal as was subsequently noted by the media and civil society organisations. It was in fact the duty of the media to bring to public notice what was actually happening on the ground. For instance the media took up the issue of the controversial questioning of the candidates by several Returning Officers (ROs) during the scrutiny of nomination papers. The questions which were sometime outright insulting, sometime bordering on the ridiculous were condemned by the HRCP also which, taking note of a lack of timely response from the ECP, was constrained to observe that “The completely arbitrary barring of candidates by the Returning Officers at this scale cannot be without instructions and encouragement to take this tack. HRCP sees a clear and systematic sabotage of the democratic process to make the will of the people completely irrelevant. This deliberate and planned abuse of the process appears to be a bid to complete Ziaul Haq’s agenda to accommodate extremism into mainstream politics and to thrust theocratic rule down people’s throat.” The criticism led the ECP, somewhat belatedly, to direct the ROs to refrain from ‘irrelevant’ quizzing of candidates. Other criticism went unnoticed. For instance, the ECP failed to effectively respond to reports that parties or candidates had entered into an agreement to keep women out of the electoral process. Again, the ECP passed an order disallowing the use of religion for political purposes. Another order prohibited politicians from indulging in personal attacks. The JUI-F chief flouted both the directives launching personal attacks with religious undertones on Imran Khan. The ECP simply chose to look the other way, setting a bad precedence. As the HRCP put it, “By tending to concentrate on its own image building, the ECP sometimes lost sight of major democratic issues.” It is claimed that NADRA informed the ECP about its lack of capacity to verify large number of thumbprints of voters but no heed was paid by the ECP. The Authority’s thumb verification system is therefore yet to be upgraded. It would be ridiculous to claim that rigging initiated and planned by political outfits has not taken place in the elections. The ECP at times failed to rise to the occasion. What must not be forgotten however is that if the flaws witnessed in the ECP’s working during the polls are not removed they could create serious problems during the Local Bodies elections. Instead of extending threats to the media, the ECP officialdom should improve the working of the body.

Pakistan Today
The incident on flight PK-709 Air travel hasn’t been the same after 9/11, particularly for the people of South Asian and Arabic origin. In an environment where a seven-year-old boy is stopped three times in the US from boarding a flight just because he shared name with another suspect, a family squabble such as the one that happened on flight PK-709 en route to Manchester, UK, was bound to cause an even bigger reaction, considering that the UK is already on high alert after a soldier was beheaded on a street in London three days ago. However, the positive that one can come out of this episode is that no one was hurt and the threat wasn’t serious after all. News reports say that not just one but two incidents of disruption that took place on the plane; one involving a family altercation which after investigation the Essex police has cleared of any terrorism related threat, the second one involving two men who tried to enter the pilot cabin were held on endangering the plane. One wonders if the men had only reacted to the family squabble and their approaching the cockpit was a case of simple misunderstanding; if so, they shouldn’t have done it and caused trouble to all the passengers, not to speak of the alarm they caused to the British government and their defence department. However, if they indeed had ulterior motives, the pilot’s timely action – some would disagree to the notion saying the pilot overreacted – might have prevented any untoward situation from happening. However, considering that the PIA staff is perhaps not trained to handle such situations, what the pilot did, by raising a terror alert, was surely an overreaction to a situation that was criminal in nature, instead of terrorism related. Air travel safety, pretty much like road travel safety, is a joint responsibility of passengers, pilot, and air travel safety authorities in their respective countries. The British authorities took a timely action by escorting the plane to an airport already designated to handle such emergency situations but there are questions regarding how responsibly the passengers and the pilot acted in the whole episode. The passengers should have been a bit more careful of their behaviour knowing well that the Britain was already on alert after a terror incident only three days ago. Moreover, it is incidents like these that put the country in a negative light, something we can’t really afford anymore. PIA, on its part, needs to train its staff to handle situations of the sort if they want to hold their head high.

Pakistan Today
Caretakers should stay within their mandate Some of the measures taken by the caretaker prime minister have created misunderstandings between the political parties while they have also been criticized by the media. When nearly 20 major officials – including MDs and CEOs of major corporations – were transferred by PM Khoso, Shahbaz Sharif accused him of acting on the instructions of President Asif Zardari. This led presidential spokesman to rebuke Shahbaz for leveling baseless accusations against the symbol of the federation. The issue of transfers ultimately landed in the Supreme Court which issued a contempt notice to the interim PM for violating the apex court’s judgment in Anita Turab case. The transfers of high officials was criticized by the media on the ground that the caretaker setup had no mandate to do so in such vast numbers especially when they were in no position to influence the outcome of the elections. Khoso’s ‘mini-budget’ summary recommending Rs152 billion in extra taxes has kicked up another controversy. Qamar Zaman Kaira has called it an “unconstitutional” step at the behest of “someone”. He has argued that only a parliament elected by the people of Pakistan can levy taxes including the GST which can only be imposed in consultation with the provincial governments and the Council of Common Interests. According to Kaira, the summary which has been rejected by the president is “tantamount to crossing the limits set by the constitution.” Another newspaper report tells about pressure being avowedly exerted by the caretaker PM’s office on Dr Sania Nishter, who also has the charge of ministry of Professional Training and Education, to withdraw a notification of devolution of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) from the federal government to the Sindh government. According to the report Dr Nishter had also expressed her irritation when the prime minister transferred the then secretary of information technology without prior knowledge of the minister and an officer on special duty (OSD) was appointed as secretary information technology. The JPMC was devolved in year 2012 under the 18th constitutional amendment. One is yet to see the caretaker government’s version regarding the report. But in case there is any truth in withdrawing the devolution of JPMC to Sindh government, this should be no business of the caretaker setup. One does not understand what motivated the caretaker government to take decisions that are being criticized in the media and by the political parties. The best way to remain uncontroversial was to leave issues like transfers, devolution of the JPMC and what is being referred to as a ‘mini budget’ to the next government which is poised to take over by the first week of June.