Street crimes’ solution

dawn.com/news/1730881/street-crimes-solution

January 10, 2023

DESPITE the authorities’ promises to get tough on perpetrators,

there appears to be no let-up in the street crime epidemic that
afflicts Karachi. Over the last few weeks there have been heart-
breaking stories of promising young students gunned down for
resisting armed muggers, people shot while out shopping, and
shopkeepers attacked by armed thugs. In fact, the conventional
wisdom in this forsaken city is to immediately hand over your
valuables to criminals and offer no resistance. According to CPLC
figures, there were around 85,000 cases of street crime reported
last year in the city. Add up the number of unreported cases and
the figures are frightful, indicating that every single day of the
year hundreds of people in Karachi are deprived of either their
cash, mobiles, vehicles or their lives. The solutions offered by the
powers that be are mostly tried, tested and failed. For example,
during last week’s apex committee meeting there were promises
to crack down on street crime, while later the chief minister
called upon specialised police units to join the fight against
violent crime, while the Sindh police chief asked people to install
CCTV cameras outside their homes.

Clichéd as it may sound, out-of-the-box solutions are needed for a

police force of a few thousand to protect a sprawling city of
millions, as the typical methods have failed to deliver. During the
apex committee meeting it was mentioned that over 1,600
criminals who had committed street robberies multiple times
were bailed out between a week to six months of their arrest.
Officials said a law is being considered to prevent repeat
offenders from returning to the streets. Such efforts need to be
 sped up, while easy access to illegal weapons must be curtailed;
these are amongst the many ways to crack down on crime.
Moreover, those black sheep within the police department that
patronise crime must be weeded out, and the police force
reimagined along modern lines in order to bring a semblance of
normality to Karachi’s streets.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023

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Digital census - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1730882/digital-census

January 10, 2023

THE country is set to take a giant leap forward in the

enumeration of its human resources after the Pakistan Bureau of
Statistics received the last of the 126,000 tablet computers
sanctioned for a ‘digital census’ of the population. In the words of
Nadra Chairman Tariq Malik, the exercise will evolve “From
scribbled responses on millions of paper sheets to real-time
validated data in apps on secure devices with satellite imagery”.
It is hoped that this transformation will make the massive
exercise of counting more than 200m citizens not just quicker
and more efficient but also much more precise. The possibilities
seem endless. With detailed data made digitally available with
the PBS, Pakistani authorities and policymakers will have, as Mr
Malik has described it, “a foundational system for evidence-
based policymaking.” For example, thanks to the global
positioning system and geographical information system data
hoped to be collected through the digital census, it will become
much easier for authorities to see where Pakistanis live and how
best to reach them. Such information will be incredibly handy
when dealing with national-level emergencies, such as epidemics
or natural disasters. GPS data could be used to implement very
targeted lockdowns, for example, while GIS data will come in
handy when understanding the impact of a calamity, like the
floods seen this year, and devising the most efficient solutions for
emergency response. Even the traditional use of census data —
for example, in conducting delimitation exercises and allocating
seats in parliament — will be massively transformed as
important decisions such as how to mark constituencies could be
taken at a granular level rather than on guesstimates and
assumptions alone.

It may be a good idea to involve representatives of political

parties in the exercise to keep it transparent so that they do not
have any objections to the census results once they are put out. It
would, undoubtedly, be desirable if future elections could be
conducted based on scientifically collected, accurate data. All
political parties are in agreement over this. However, it should
be made clear that the timeline of the first digital census will not
affect the general elections due this year to avoid any political
controversy over an otherwise commendable initiative. Finally,
information is power, and it will be a major responsibility for
PBS and Nadra to ensure that the census data collected stays
secure and is used judiciously.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023

Opinion

Spiralling flour crisis

dawn.com/news/1730883/spiralling-flour-crisis

January 10, 2023

THE current flour crisis has been looming on the horizon for
several months. Concerns were being expressed ever since the
last domestic wheat harvest fell far short of expectations as well
as the country’s consumption requirements. The catastrophic
summer floods exacerbated the situation as the wheat stocks in
the flood-hit areas were badly damaged. Balochistan on Saturday
said the province was left with just enough wheat inventory to
last it another few days as its food minister issued an emergency
call for immediate help. The situation in the other provinces isn’t
very different as far as the common people are concerned. In
Sindh’s Mirpurkhas district, the death of a man in a stampede
that broke out among a large crowd of poor people that had
gathered to buy subsidised flour is indicative of the shape of
things to come. Punjab and Sindh are not allowing their wheat
and flour to cross their borders as alleged by Balochistan. Flour
millers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have also complained of less
wheat supplies from Punjab that grows over 70pc of the nation’s
wheat. The federal government is also blaming the provinces,
especially Punjab, for the crisis. The Minister for National Food
Security and Research, Mr Tariq Bashir Cheema, had last week
claimed there was no shortage of wheat as all the provinces had
sufficient stocks but were not releasing the grain (to the flour
mills). Punjab has since increased the wheat quota of flour mills
from its stocks to ease shortages in the province.

The increased supply of subsidised wheat to the mills should help

ease flour shortages in Punjab. But the issue is that the other
provinces aren’t left with sufficient stocks to last them through to
the next harvest. Consequently, the low-middle-income
consumers are faced with a double whammy as the shortages are
leading to a daily spike in the flour prices in most parts of the
country. The market rate of flour is nearly more than double the
official, subsidised price as the flour mills are buying wheat from
the open market at much higher than the government price.
Many mills aren’t operating at their full grinding capacity which
is also adding to the shortages and in turn inflating the flour
prices. With food inflation averaging around 31pc since June, it is
hard not to expect people to desperately look for subsidised flour
to feed their families.

Watching the federal government and the provinces trade

accusations at this time when most middle-class households are
struggling to survive is abhorrent. The inability of the federal
and provincial authorities to provide relief to the inflation-
stricken people speaks volumes about their competence. While
the federal government should be faulted for its failure to foresee
the crisis, the provinces must be held responsible for their failure
to take timely administrative actions to control profit-rigging
within their jurisdictions.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023

Opinion


Alliance for change

dawn.com/news/1730887/alliance-for-change

January 10, 2023

WE face many paths to doom today — both economic and

security-related — but only a few paths to avoid it. But the state
doesn’t adopt these paths as they undermine the interests of
strong civilian and military elites who control policy.

While egalitarian ideas drove Indian, Bangladeshi and Sri

Lankan freedom aims, ours mainly reflected the fears of Muslim
elites about their interests under Hindu rule and had few pro-
poor ideas. Since ’47, the Pakistani state has lived up very well to
the objectives of its creation by ably guarding elite interests and
ignoring those of the masses, so much so that it now faces doom.
In fact, the Pakistani state may be in South Asia the one least
focused on the people.
The limits of this elitism are vividly illustrated by the current
perma-polycrisis. A crisis is bad enough, a polycrisis (one
encompassing multiple domains such as economic, political,
natural, social, etc) worse and a perma-polycrisis (a polycrisis
that shows no signs of ending) more so. This crisis started as an
economic one under the PTI and was exacerbated by the political
standoff between Pindi, PDM and PTI; the global economic crisis;
and finally the floods. No end is in sight to most of its immediate
causes or the elitism in which it is rooted.

The history of successful states shows that social movements play

a critical role in improving the quality of governance and making
it more people-centred. Thus, it is critical for Pakistani society to
organise itself better and form an alliance or coalition for change
to force elites to adopt egalitarian policies that help avoid
disaster. A coalition is a group of persons and/or entities that
have common aims and who agree to work together towards
achieving them. Coalition work includes three ingredients:
agenda, partners, and strategies.
Our society needs coalitions to stand up to elites.

It is easy to list an agenda to avert doom. Economically, we must

increase taxes and export revenues to reduce our fiscal and
external deficits that often lead to crises; reform state enterprise
(including milbus), power and water sectors; and increase
investment and productivity to achieve sustainable growth. It
means adopting poor-led progress strategies that make
increasing the incomes of the poor as the main engine of national
progress, by providing them with organisations, market power,
protection, assets, skills and social services. Politically, it means
civilian sway over Pindi and its spy agencies staying totally out of
politics; devolution; police, judicial and bureaucratic reforms;
peace with Baloch rebels and end of TTP terrorism. Externally, it
means peace with India and good, balanced ties with all key
allies like the West, Gulf states and China. Socially, it means
ending extremism and full rights for women, minorities and
other weak groups.

Progressive, grassroots, pro-poor groups are obvious partners for

leading the coalition for this pro-poor agenda. But Pakistan’s
situation is so precarious, especially economically even in the
short term, that most components of this agenda would appeal to
a much broader alliance, which is also necessary given the
enormity of the task involved in swaying strong elite interests.

Thus, a broader coalition is needed, that includes pro-poor

advocacy groups, farmer and labour entities as leaders, but also
professional bodies of lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and
others, including media groups, business groups, academia and
expatriate groups. This practically means all organised society
willing to support such an agenda outside the narrow range of
elite interests that currently control state policy or extremist and
criminal groups. The starting step could be for progressive
grassroots groups to come together and then gradually expand
the coalition by inviting other societal groups to join it.

Finally, coalitions need effective strategies. Coalitions may be

loose, when members work together for a limited time until they
achieve or abandon a specific aim. They may also become
permanent, with governing bodies, funding, and organisational
structures. It will be naïve to expect such a diverse coalition to
achieve any permanence. However, even so, a three- to five-year
period may still be needed to influence state policy sustainably.
The main strategy would be two-fold. First, it would involve
influencing policymakers through direct meetings with them,
media work, public meetings and protests. Second, it would
involve educating the larger public about the issues and
remedies to garner greater support for the cause.

The only feasible path forward for us now is for society to stand
up to elites through coalitions. Even this doesn’t guarantee
success, given the low odds of, first, putting such an alliance
together and, second, it actually succeeding. But the chances of
any other path succeeding are even lower. This sadly reflects our
poor odds going forward.

The writer is a political economist with a PhD from the University

of California, Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

Twitter: @NiazMurtaza2

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023

Enabling environment
dawn.com/news/1730888/enabling-environment

January 10, 2023

IN 1955, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) framed the

Vocational Rehabilitation (Disabled) Recommendations to
promote the full participation of persons with disabilities in
social life and their development, as well as the recognition of
the right to be treated equally. Yet, before 1981, there was hardly
any organisation in Pakistan that sought to raise concern for the
welfare of persons with disabilities or provided them with
education and employment opportunities.

It was under the dictatorship of Gen Ziaul Haq that the Disabled
Persons (Employment and Rehabilitation) Ordinance was
promulgated in 1981. It was one of the prominent labour welfare
laws of Pakistan, enforced with the objective of ensuring the
employment, rehabilitation, and welfare of persons with
disabilities. The Ordinance was made applicable to all industrial
and commercial establishments employing not less than one
hundred employees.

Persons who were handicapped from unde­rtaking any gainful

profession or employment on account of injury, disease or
congenital deformity were covered under the Ordinance. It
specifically included persons who were blind, deaf, physically
impaired or intellectually disabled. It ordained that the number
of persons with disabilities given employment by an
establishment should not be less than one per cent of its total
employee strength.

A Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons Fund was also constituted

under the Ordinance wherein any establishment which did not
employ differently-abled persons had to pay, each month, the
amount of salary it would have otherwise paid to such persons.
Organisations must make more effort to employ disabled persons.

Gen Zia had particular concern and sympathy for persons with
disabilities, which motivated him to come up with the law. One of
his daughters, Zain Zia, was a special needs child. He had
directed his government to frame the law not only for the
welfare of all persons with special needs but also to create
awareness in society about their right to be treated equally.

The promulgation of the Ordi­nance in Pakistan coincided with

the declaration of the year 1981 by the UN General Asse­mbly as
the International Year of Disabled Persons. The UN undertook to
launch a comprehensive World Programme of Action concerning
Disabled Persons, which would provide effective measures at the
international and national levels for the realisation of the goals
of “full participation of disabled persons in social life and
development, and of equality”.

Both the Conventions formulated by the ILO on this subject

strongly aspire to achieve equality between differently-abled
persons and those with no disability. These are the Vocational
Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) Convention
of 1983 and The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Convention of
2006.

How differently-abled persons perceive themselves in relation to

persons with no disabilities may be understood from the
following two narratives. During her speech at a recently held
event in Karachi, a young lady in a wheelchair asked the
audience how many of them had come there on a wheelchair.
When no one raised a hand, the lady responded by saying most
of them had, as their cars had both wheels and chairs. Another
wheelchair-bound speaker told the audience that they could
reach any floor of a building on a lift. They were only ‘disabled’ if
the lift did not operate.

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Convention of 2006 is

quite comprehensive and contains 30 articles guaranteeing
various rights to differently-abled persons. Besi­des equality and
non-discrimination, these rights pertain to women and children
with disabilities, accessibility, access to justice, etc.

This Convention was ratified by Pa­­kistan in October 2011. There­-

after, the Sindh government adopted it al­­most fully through the
Sindh Empo­w­er­m­ent of Per­sons with Disabilities Act, 2018.
Under the Act, the employment quota for such persons has been
increased to five per cent, but barriers remain in providing them
gainful employment in different organisations. Despite many
efforts by various bodies to get them assimilated into different
jobs, employers still prefer to pay into the Fund the applicable
amount of salary instead of recruiting differently-abled persons.

In the US, 19.1pc of people with disabilities were employed in

2021. Companies like 3M, Google, United Airlines, Boston
Scientific and Accenture were some of their main employers.
These companies made an effort to overcome and address the
barriers faced by employees with disabilities and build inclusive
and accessible workplaces.

In Pakistan, organisations that are expected to employ disabled

persons must make more of an effort. Just like they are expected
to provide vocational training to all apprentices under the law
and recruit trainees to fulfil their future workforce needs, they
should employ differently-abled persons and train them in
different skills for their engagement in respectable employment.

The writer is a consultant in human resources at the Aga Khan

University Hospital.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023

The urge to be at the high table

dawn.com/news/1730891/the-urge-to-be-at-the-high-table

January 10, 2023

AS theatre buffs will know, centre stage isn’t the centre of the
stage per se, but any part of the proscenium where the action is
unfolding. This is true of politics as well. The US may want to put
China in its crosshairs, but the action is unfolding in its own
backyard, in the House of Representatives. There’s another way
to say it. When they are not holding their annual summit, what
are the G20 leaders preoccupied with? We know what the
Russian and American leaders are busy with: how to get the
better of each other, at a prohibitive cost to millions of innocent
lives while leaving the world in tatters. What keeps others busy?
Where is their action focused? Before India’s presidency,
Indonesia was the host last year. As soon as the summit was over
in Bali, Jakarta returned to its ‘normal life’. It criminalised
consensual relationships outside marriage, dragging in the
foreign tourists in its ambit. A tranche of suffocating new laws
showed that G20 with all its overstated clout could not stop
Indonesia from pandering to religious bigotry at home.

The next host is Brazil. Its defeated president Bolsonaro

mercifully decided to skip the Bali summit. If all goes well,
President Lula should be hosting the summit in 2024. Much of the
future depends on how the rightwing insurgents are tamed after
they assaulted the parliament. They are raging, as do Donald
Trump’s supporters still, against the election their rightwing
candidate lost. Bolsonaro’s supporters want the military to stage
a coup against Lula. In 2020, Saudi Arabia of all countries was the
G20 host while cleaning the bloody mess left by its gruesome
murder of an outspoken journalist. The pandemic ensured the
summit was held online.

How then should we sift the illusion from the reality about the
G20 presidency that has come to India this year? Is it really a
forum where the rich and wannabe-rich countries can sit
together to fix the haemorrhaging problems facing the world? Is
that how it works? To begin with, G20 was set up by the G7 in the
aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which left the Western
economies severely mauled. The idea was to broaden the
economic base by co-opting key members of the South-South
compact of the G77 of which, incidentally, Pakistan was president
in 2022. G20 is thus a creature of G7, which, to use a Leninist
construct, is akin to the party politburo of which the rest are a
handy mass base.
Indira Gandhi would visit Moscow, and the entire politburo in their ZIL-4104
limousines would be at the airport to receive her.
G77 on the other hand was about solidarity of the Global South in
which India was a key player. There was a time when
Manmohan Singh was the member secretary of the South-South
Commission headed by the late Tanzanian icon Julius Nyerere.
India has said that as the rotational president of the G20, it would
host a meeting of the developing nations. It hopes to speak for
them with G20 leaders in Delhi. But India was already doing this
for decades, only better. It excelled both as a key G77 leader and
as a stalwart of a once robust Non-Aligned Movement.

The question is can Prime Minister Modi hope to do anything for

the developing countries that his estranged Chinese friend isn’t
already doing quite well? With the Belt and Road Initiative
chugging along, President Xi Jinping unveiled the Global
Development Initiative recently. He told the G20 leaders in Bali
that within one year, more than 60 countries had joined the
Group of Friends of the GDI as it hopes to provide new impetus
for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development. “We will work with fellow G20 members to deliver
on these projects.” The Chinese steamroller could leave Mr Modi
stranded. Will India join Xi’s initiative, which would make
political and economic sense, or start something of its own?
China supports the African Union in joining the G20, Xi said.
India can no more than ad-lib that.

There was a time when India had its own way of sharing the joys
and pains of the developing world. There was a time when India
stood up for global causes and in so doing rallied 120 NAM
countries that looked up to its leadership. Taking a principled
stand was important. Thus Indira Gandhi spoke up for Palestine,
the Polisario Front, SWAPO in Africa and other liberation
movements across the world — not least, of course, for Vietnam.
But times have changed. India’s foreign minister says the country
commands more respect than ever before. India had held
backroom talks with Russia and Ukraine to defuse a crisis in
which a nuclear power plant in Ukraine could have become a
deliberate or accidental target, with disastrous consequences to
the world. What he did not say was that this has been India’s
métier since Nehru. It was Nehru after all who critically
negotiated a fabled truce in the Korean war. It was Indira Gandhi
whose emissary Romesh Bhandari was mandated by NAM
leaders to bring the Iran-Iraq war to an early end.

As for the respect India has earned, there is the lasting image of
Mrs Gandhi receiving the NAM gavel from Fidel Castro while
dodging his bear hug. The applause was deafening. She would
visit Moscow, and the entire politburo in their ZIL-4104
limousines would be at the airport to receive her. She went to
Washington, and you should have watched Ronald Reagan
wading into poetry while welcoming her at the White House.
There was none of the fawning “Barack my friend” or “Hello
Donald”. It was “Mr President” and “Prime Minister” with a lot of
social graces thrown in to good effect. There was never the
clamour for a vacant seat at the high table. Nor was there any
need for a pacifier, like the G20 gavel, for example.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023



Election day prep - Newspaper

dawn.com/news/1730892/election-day-prep

January 10, 2023

THERE are no clichés left to describe the current state of affairs

in Pakistan. There aren’t many adjectives left either. They just
seem inadequate or overused, though the crises are palpable.
Reading the newspapers in the morning is enough to induce an
anxiety attack while the discussions on television leave one
bemused for they continue to be focused on leaks, rumours of
technocratic set-ups and sources that are certain about which
political leader is on his way down and who is about to take off.

In the meantime, the economic crisis grows by the day, the

government refuses to address it because it wants to avoid
paying the political price in the shape of a defeat in the elections
while PTI continues to thunder on, aimlessly. The problem is the
crisis is already far bigger than we can cope with and the
government (or rather the PML-N) doesn’t have much political
capital left, even if they can find a magical way of getting a free
pass from the IMF for now. The elections will be an uphill battle
even if the IMF is charmed into giving waivers on everything and
more.

No wonder then the inflation (and the storm to come), the PML-
N’s inflexibility and PTI’s non-stop anger and agitation are all
reasons lending credence to the talk of a technocratic
government and even worse — a speech which begins with a
phrase more familiar to us than “ghabrana nahi hai”. And this
phrase is: “Meray aziz hamwatno”.

The hours we have dedicated to these options are surely even

more than those spent discussing cricket in Pakistan.
All our Neros are busy with activities which usually only begin in earnest when
an election is due.

But is there really such a plan? Because if there is, why are all
our Neros busy with activities which usually only begin in
earnest when an election is due? And this is as true of television
channels as it is of politicians. (Consider the pace at which
anchors are moving back and forth between news organisations
and hiring is picking up; this is usually an activity which
coincides with election cycles.)

But look beyond, and politics is where the real action is taking
place. Even if it’s just the PTI which is desperate for an election,
the rest are not coming slow either. Everyone is gearing up for D-
day. In Karachi, efforts are being made to patch up MQM like
Humpty Dumpty and one newly inducted governor is filling in
for all the King’s men. Farooq Sattar, the grumpy elder relative, is
being brought back to the fold as well as the prodigal son,
Mustafa Kamal. Only the bhai in London is still out in the cold!
He still remains unacceptable, despite the new untouchables who
have since emerged. And if those who watch the city and its
politics closely are to be believed, the putting together may not
work, as it did not in the nursery rhyme.

In distant (in more ways than one) Balochistan too, there is much
political activity. And here it is a case of new wine in old bottles
(or is it the other way around?). Some of those who had joined
BAP when it was the new flavour in the province are now being
welcomed into the PPP fold; and many others too have been seen
knocking at the party’s door. PPP is rightly celebrating the
politicians’ decision while the development also lends credence
to the rumours of PPP and Bilawal Bhutto being the hope once
again, as they were in the post-Musharraf period — whether the
populace is also as hopeful as they were in 2008 remains to be
seen.

And then oddly enough on Sunday, the newspapers (in plural)

carried a story about the PTI dissidents who had brought down
the PTI government in the beginning of last year now coming
together — with an eye on the next election. According to some
accounts, the PML-N, after the July 2022 by-election, perhaps
feels it is not strong enough to carry them to victory and has
waved them goodbye. And these electables, who left the PTI
because it wouldn’t help them win and because the PML-N ticket
was needed for success, are apparently strong enough to make a
new party and win enough seats to form a significant group,
which would then become the kingmaker.

The logic here is a bit non-sequitur but only for the nitpicky lot.
Some of the most famous ones among those named had denied
the story by the evening but clearly, some abandoned electables
are searching for an election day plan.

And then there is PML-N itself. While some of its members hint
darkly at delayed elections, its senior leaders have organised a
number of workers’ conventions and the statements of its key
ministers every weekend at constituency level activities also
suggest a party which is preparing for elections. Maryam Nawaz’
elevation to not one but two key party positions and a date for
her return is also not coincidental — her father is making his
plans for the party and its new leadership with an eye on the
next election.

All of this would suggest to those watching from the sidelines

that parties are gearing up for elections. And others are too. After
all, a large portion of this activity is aimed at limiting the PTI and
its possible successes come next election. And if people are being
brought together or shifted around or prepped, it really will be of
little help in forming a technocratic set-up or giving a speech on
PTV. (Or is it?) Perhaps it can be safely said that some plan (be it
A or B or Z) does include some kind of an election.

However, this is not to be treated as a prediction on my part. Far

from it (I am yet to be inspired by all the tarot card readers and
soothsayers who held forth on television on new year’s eve).
Judging by official accounts, elections are months away and in
Pakistani politics, a week is a long time.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023