July 13- gilgit

I was on road whole day yest and this mornin when I went to airport to catch flight for isb from gilgit. and then onwards to kchi I thought one day of no treacherous roads. But that was not on the cards.

Flight got cancelled due to bad weather and I decided to hit the road. 16 hours to isb thru taliban infested territory and a broken kkh. Yes broken. Shamefully broken. Treacherous landslides too. Though on this trip we missed their worst. Jst saw remnants on sides.

I had done this route 3yrs back wth my father on a smilar trek back from gilgit. But this time I was on my own. …driver and police escort van.

My trip to sukkur for next day was finitto since I wld miss all connecting flights. Gb always ate up into sindh time. Sindh team is patient but I need to balance better.

. I had a wedding in kchi which I wld miss too but then this was typical politivian life. No plans which were solid enuf to swear by

So as I left gilgit I was not really in a good mood. I drove thru chilas diamir and thought of my struggle for the dam. I took photo at same spot I had done so 3yrs back wth my father. So much had changed since then other than me entering politics. Pak had changed. Talib ans had infested this territory. Plus my shoulders were heavier. I was incharge of this territory. N that was a huge load.

Anyway diamir site stood at same place. No real work had happened. The driver and the police chap were excited to be wth me on this trip. They were totally aware of what work I had done for them in one year and were most proud of it. They showed me the disputed boundary commission line. Ev erythin I struggled for wld unravel in this 16hrs.

Later when we passed thru kohistan swat etc every village we passed the driver had a story. These villages had been in the news in last 6months. It was comical. My team from base gilgit and base isb were calling every 30mins. They were taking turns so as not to sound panicked.

What was comical was that everyone realized that I had been most vocal against talibs and for me to b passing thru their territory was comical for me and frightening for most sane people. When we stopped for tea dinner my voice got recongnized first n then face which was fairly covered. Voice was a give away due to talkshows.

Anyway. I am still enroute and fairly exhausted.  All I want to say is that I am living and driving through my struggle. My struggle for a moderate and just pak. Moderate as in free of these talibs and just as in the diamir struggle.

I will reach b y early morning and then catch flight for kchi…

 

Sept 22

1. Cabinet Secretariat

• The cold war between AJK President Raja Zulqarnain Khan and prime minister’s adviser on planning and development Chaudhry Tariq Farooq seems to have intensified with a new bout of allegations and counter allegations from both sides. The president and the adviser, who belong to the AJK’s southernmost Bhimber district, are at daggers drawn since long. Mr Farooq was Muslim Conference candidate in July 2006 elections but Mr Khan, though associated with the same party, supported his rival candidate from People’s Muslim League, Chaudhry Anwaarul Haq, paving way for his defeat by 664 votes. In August 2006, Mr Khan was elected to the office of president by the ruling party while Mr Farooq was appointed by the prime minister as his adviser with the status of minister.
• The Islamabad Fire Brigade was the last of the city disaster management teams to arrive at the Marriott Hotel, the scene of the worst terrorist attack in the federal capital. The Capital Development Authority which confronted a similar emergency situation in the year 2002 when a fire had broken out in the Shaheed-e-Millat Secretariat on the Jinnah Avenue, decided to upgrade its firefighting department. In 2005, a Rs 650 million contract was awarded for upgrading and improving the Islamabad Fire Brigade under which new fire tenders, two snorkels with the maximum height attainability of 60 meters, other necessary equipment and recruitment of staff and their training was included. However, after the blast the first fire tender reached the spot at least after 20 minutes. It could not help as it was not backed by water-supply tankers. The fire fighters were seen standing helplessly there, waiting for the backup water tanker to arrive. The Islamabad Fire Brigade has acquired two snorkels but one of it has reportedly developed some fault and is undergoing repairs while the other snorkel reached the Marriott Hotel between 9:00 to 9:15 pm. Even after reaching the spot, the staff deployed on the snorkel was not trained enough to operate the machine effectively and contribute towards controlling the fire that was fast spreading, eventually engulfing almost the whole hotel.
• Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, which has become the most vulnerable city after Fata and Peshawar and in whose hospitals emergency was declared five times in the last six months, does not have a proper emergency system at its hospitals to deal with extraordinary situations like Saturday’s Marriott blast, revealed a doctor of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. Well-placed sources in Pims told The News the biggest hospital of Islamabad had a 22-bed emergency ward. However, events of the recent past reveal that whenever emergency was declared in the hospital, patients with critical and serious conditions already admitted to emergency wards were either discharged or shifted to somewhere else to accommodate the injured people of blasts but nothing was done to upgrade the hospital.
• Leaders of different political parties and social welfare organisations have strongly protested against the apathy of the Sindh government to protect the livelihood of two million fishermen of Sindh and resolved to retrieve the possession of all fresh water resources of the province from influential persons by launching a joint and consistent struggle. to deprive the fishermen of their right to catch fish in the fresh waters amounted to depriving them of their only source of livelihood which was a flagrant violation of the constitution, law and fundamental human rights. Influential waderas, mostly belonging to ruling party, have occupied the fresh water resources of Sindh and they were committing inhuman atrocities against the fishermen.

1. Ministry of Education

• The female teachers of primary, elementary and secondary municipal schools in Gujranwala have not been given so far the salary for the month of August, a teachers’ representative said. Although Eid is a few days away, the Education Department has not given teachers salaries and Rs1,000 special allowance announced by the chief minister, teachers’ representative Naurin Kokab said. She said teachers would take to the street if they were not given salaries immediately.
• The distribution of free textbooks in the 940 boys and 680 girls’ government schools in district for the year 2008-09 is being seen as mere an eyewash by the man in the street as books could not be provided to all the students because the local education department faces an acute shortage of textbooks, Sources in the office of the executive district officer Elementary and Secondary Education (EDO-E&SE) said the NWFP Textbook Board has failed to provide books for many of the compulsory and optional subjects for 3,25,000 boys and girls students in the district. According to the data of seven out of 20 circles for the boys and girls’ primary schools, books for important subjects like English, Urdu, maths, social studies, science and their workbooks, for most of the classes were still awaited. Other subjects’ books like Pashto and Islamic studies are also lacking.

1. Ministry of Environment

• About ten trees were chopped on Bhirya-Tharushah link road on Saturday night. Ten trees of Babul and Talhi were illegally cut on Bhirya-Tharushah link road near War Wari Mori and loaded on a tractor trolley.No FIR was lodged till the filing of this report.

1. Ministry of Finance & Revenue

• The country’s current account deficit widened by 64 per cent to $2.5 billion during July-August of current fiscal year mainly due to slowdown in exports and rising trade deficit, besides slow foreign inflows.
• Official statistics revealed that during July-August of FY09 the country faced a current account deficit of $2.572 billion against $1.571 billion during the corresponding period of last fiscal year. Increasing trade deficit followed by slow growth in exports and high imports coupled with rising oil and food import bill are the chief reasons for this raise in the current account deficit. Trade deficit has surged by 67 per cent.
• The country’s domestic debt has shot up by Rs662.7 billion in FY08 against an increase of Rs279 billion in FY07, depicting a rise of 137 per cent in 2008. With current upsurge, domestic debt hit a new peak of Rs3.26 trillion in FY08 as compared to Rs2.60 trillion in FY07. The country’s foreign exchange reserves have also fallen to $8.91 billion in the week that ended on September 13. The State bank of Pakistan weekly report reveals that the reserves held by the central bank declined to $5.5248 billion during the week.
• Pakistan GDP growth is expected to decrease to 4.5 per cent in the current financial year against 5.8 per cent achieved in the last fiscal year, as the country would continue to face the deteriorated state of economic fundamentals and inflationary pressures. Economists have expressed deep concern over the current state of the economy. The unprecedented increase in global oil and food prices and domestic policy uncertainties in a turbulent political year have stressed the economy.
• A slowdown in growth, build-up in inflation, wide fiscal and current account deficits and a large drop in foreign reserves will continue to negatively impact weaker rupee. The rupee has already weakened by 20 per cent against the dollar in the local currency market over the past nine months. Steep decline in the rupee value has taken place in the past two weeks.
• The rupee has depreciated by 7.5 per cent against the dollar in the past 15 days.
• In the local currency market, the downtrend in the rupee/dollar parity persisted this week. The rupee commenced the week on dismal note as it continued its falling trend against the dollar in the inter bank market, where it suffered fresh losses over previous week close of Rs76.45 and Rs76.55. It sharply shed 17 paisa on buying counter and 15 paisa on selling counter importers demand for dollar continued to exert downward pressure forcing the rupee to trade at Rs76.62 and Rs76.65 against the dollar on September 15.
• On September 16, the rupee touched Rs 77 mark against the dollar in the inter bank market on sharp increase in dollar demand. At day close, the dollar was at Rs76.95 and Rs77 after losing 33 paisa on buying and 35 paisa on selling. On September 17, the rupee crossed Rs 77 mark against the dollar and was seen heading to touch Rs 78 mark before closing the day at Rs77.30 and Rs77.55 after shedding 35 paisa on the buying counter and 40 paisa on the selling counter.
• Tight dollar supplies on September 18 exerted further pressure on the rupee. The rupee fell by another 40 paisa on the buying counter and 35 paisa on the selling counter and traded against the dollar at Rs77.70 and Rs77.75. On September 19, short dollars supplies dragged the rupee down to record lows against the US currency. The rupee during the day posted fresh losses of 20 paisa on the buying counter and 25 paisa on the selling counter and traded at Rs77.90 and Rs78. Continued down slid in the rupee value in relation to dollar in the interbank market this week has resulted in cumulative loss of 145 paisa.

1. Ministry of Food, Agriculture & Livestock

• The wheat floor crisis has worsened in Murree because of the smuggling of the precious commodity to NWFP from the area.
• Standing crops over 200 acres and five villages were inundated when a 50 feet breach occurred in Sangi minor canal near Lakha Road. The affected villages included Gulshan Khand, Allah Dino Khand, Jan Mohammad Dahri, Afzal Pathan and Kalo Khand.A numbers of houses in these villages were inundated while houses of Basheer Khand, Jan Bhatti and Rakhio collapsed. The cotton crop standing over 100 acres and sugarcane and rice crops on more than 100 acres were damaged.

1. Ministry of Health

• Dengue fever on the rise in Balochistan.
• Cholera breaks out in Bajaur DPs camp.
• One child died and 17 people suffering from gastroenteritis in some villages of the Kachho belt were admitted to hospital.

1. Ministry of Interior

• Ten militants were reported killed in clashes with security forces in Bajaur.
• Intruding US choppers fired at in NWA.
• Mortar blast kills four of a family in Swat.
• Dir Jirga agrees to raise Lashkar against militants
• Seven seminary students who were injured in a blast on Friday disappeared on Saturday from the Civil Hospital where they were under treatment, apparently to avoid arrest and interrogation.
• Occupancy rates in the luxury hotels of the twin cities have dropped dramatically after the suicide truck bombing at the Marriott hotel in the capital city killed 53 people and wounded 266 others, including foreign nationals.
• 19 injured as militants attack FC checkpost

1. Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas

• Although the government has directed the Water and Power Development Authority to avoid load shedding during Sehr and Iftar time, the local people have been facing the problem for the last several days. Residents of Balach village are the worst sufferers of hours-long load shedding during the holy month of Ramazan. Often the faithful also suffer because of the power breakdown during Taraveeh prayers at mosques. The residents have appealed to the prime minister and federal minister for water and power to direct the Peshawar Electric Supply Company to stop load shedding during Iftar and Sehri time in Chitral otherwise they would take to the streets.

1. Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources

• Cash-stricken oil marketing companies have defaulted on payments to refineries on Sept 15 and are going to become bankrupt on Sept 27 in the wake of non-payment of the price differential claims that the government owes them. The amount owed has now climbed up to Rs.86 billion. “If the companies are not paid a substantial amount by the government well before Sept 27, the country may face an unprecedented diesel crisis in the coming Rabi season that is to start from Oct 1,” said a senior government official of the Petroleum Ministry, quoting a letter from the oil industry.
• Foreign diesel is being smuggled from Balochistan into Punjab via Dera-Quetta road unchecked, allegedly with the connivance of the officials deputed at checkpoints set up by various law enforcement agencies.

1. Ministry of Water and Power

• As there is no end in sight for the distressed power consumers in the city, some instances of unauthorised power supply should be sorted out at earliest to streamline the overloaded electricity system. One such glaring example of illegal connections is in the midst of the Malir Cantonment. Apart from being an apartment building in the cantonment, the Quaid-e-Azam Square Plaza (residential-cum-commercial project), is also novel because the residents and shopkeepers of the project have been without proper electricity connections. The occupants of shops and flats of the plaza have been availing the power facility without installation of electricity meters.
• Pakistan needs to rethink its entire stance towards the development of the energy sector. The country should not procrastinate any further in properly developing a sector of such vital concern for the economy. Over the last 60 years, the sector has not developed according to a well thought out strategy. Such a strategy had one been formulated would have given careful consideration to at least the following aspects. Given the country’s resource endowments, what was the appropriate mix of fuels for the various users of energy? In this context what should be the main sources for generating electricity? How should the prices of various sources of energy be determined; should they be left to the market or should the government have a role to play?

 

Words of the great poets of Pak to inspire good politics – Faiz

• Hum sehal talub konsai farhad thai leikin — Aab sheher mai terai koi hamsa bhi kahan hai.
• Hum ahlai kafas tanha bhi nahin — her roaz nasim-e-subhai watan — yadon say moaatar aatee hai ashkon sai munawar jaatee hai.
• Koo ai jifaa mai khetai khareedaaar dheiknaa — hum aagai toa garmee ai bazaar dheknaa.
• Jazaa sazaa sub yahin pai ho gee — yahin sawab o azaab ho ga — yahin sai uthai ga shorai maishur – yahin pai rozai hisaab ho gaa.