Whither Pakistan
After Irom Sharmila last year, Anna Hazare wins IIPM's 2011 Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of Rs. 1cr. To be handed over on 9th May
Relief efforts are in full swing in Balochistan and Sindh but the flood victims continue to face many insurmountable adversities
Pakistan has suffered an estimated loss of about 500 billion rupees due to the worst flooding in its 62-year-old chequered history. The disaster is essentially man-made and a result of climate change.
The losses have occurred because standing crops of sugarcane, paddy and cotton have been badly damaged by the floods. 'Fifty per cent paddy crop has been submerged,' says Kaiser Bengali, an eminent economist and adviser to the chief minister of Sindh. Mr Bengali said that besides cash crops, water courses have been damaged severely and they will have to be built again.
As many as one million houses have been damaged in Sindh, adding up to a loss of about 200 billion rupees. About 30 per cent of these houses have been in urban and the rest in rural areas, Mr Bengali said. Similarly, roads have been badly damaged and the exact estimate of the damage could be made only after flood water recedes completely.
However, livestock has not been damaged to that extent because farmers shifted them to safer places after a flood warning. Sadly enough, there was colossal damage to livestock in Shikarpur in Sindh and Jacobabad in Balochistan because a timely warning could not be issued there, the economis said.
The schools, already in a pathetic condition, have been damaged so badly would remain closed for at least six months due to flooding.
In Balochistan province, the worst damage has been done to Kohlu area because of its height. However, since it is mainly inhabited by people of the Marri tribe, the military establishment tried its level best not to allow relief operation to reach that area, according to a source in a non-governmental organistion (NGO) that wished not to be identified due to security reasons.
But Mohammad Siddiq Aftab of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in Balochistan rejected the notion that Kohlu area has been ignored.
'On July 22 when I reached my office in the morning, the deputy commissioner of Kohlu was already sitting there. In fact, he was the first person to reach my office,' Aftab said.
'He informed me that 30 villages in Kohlu area have been washed away, while 20 were at risk, and about 1500 families have been displaced,' Aftab continued. Mr Aftab said that as many as four trucks laden with relief goods were immediately dispatched to Kohlu. The relief goods included food items, tents, clothing, among other things of daily use.
He said that in the adjacent district of Bakhran, the civil bureaucracy coordinated with the army and dispatched three trucks laden with relief goods. The very next day, four more trucks were sent there, he said. Aftab also rejected the allegation that NGOs were not allowed to freely operate in that area. There is no truth in this notion, he asserted.
'As a nation, we are not good enough,' he said. 'In the beginning, the military ordered the NGOs not to operate in that area without seeking prior permission, but when I went to the chief minister of Balochistan and showed him the circular that had been issued by General Nadeem, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, the chief minister said it was of no value,' Mr Aftab said.
Mr Aftab said that his department did everything it could to coordinate the relief operations that were launched by the NGOs, but made sure that these well-meaning initiatives did not overlap with the main rescue effort because a large number of NGOs were active in Balochistan province.
Shahbaz Khan Barozai, the Risaldaar Levies (Federal) of Sibi District, endorsed Mr Aftab's view. He asserted that if anybody was stopped from going to Kohlu area, it was strictly for security reasons. The step, he insisted, was taken in good faith because the situation in that area was far too dangerous to allow for free access for everybody. To a certain extent, Mr Barozai was right because the situation in Balochistan is extremely tense at the moment and Punjabi and Urdu-speaking people were leaving the province in great haste fearing for safety.
Asiya Asif, 30, general manager, NCBP, an NGO, said that she had lost her younger brother Atiq Ahmed some two years ago in a bomb blast at the court. As many as 17 people, including several judges, died in that blast.
'It's true that Punjabis are being systematically targeted here. My brother was only 24 years old and was a source of strength for me,' she said. Asiya said her grandfather had migrated from Amritsar, Punjab in 1947 and settled down in the city of Quetta.
'Now we are facing the music. Many of my family members have already migrated to other places.
But 'target killing' is not taking place in Balochistan province alone. It is equally rampant in the 18-million-strong megalopolis of Karachi. Nobody knows who are the people that aree behind these target killings. There are only assumptions at best. However, the land mafia in this part of Pakistan appears to be a major player in these target killings. Islamic fanatics also have had a role in these target killings despite the fact that the government has imposed a ban on such violent organisations. Despite relief goods being distributed by national and international NGOs in Balochistan, the situation is pretty unsettling in the camps that have been set up for the flood-affected. The people there are suffering from diarrhoea and other communicable diseases.
'The World Health Organisation (WHO) works as a part of the government. We don't work separately and independently. The provincial government had forwarded to us a demand about medicines and we met that demand as early as in the month of July,' said Dr. Tahira Kamal, the WHO spokesperson in Balochistan.
But visits to the flood relief camps show that the affected people are still facing innumerable problems on a daily basis. The main issue here is that they do not trust the governments, whether provincial or the federal. The opposition parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Tehreek-e-Insaf led by former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan, besides the media, are openly apprehensive about the tall claims that the government has been making regarding the rescue and relief operations being conducted in the flood-hit expanses of Pakistan.
There is a general perception among the populace that the assistance given by donors, whether international or national, will evenbtually be misappropriated by the government. Some people are going to the extent of looking for military intervention to allay these fears.
But this perception seems to be somewhat far-fetched, firstly because the Americans are in favour of a civil government in Pakistan and secondly because the army is unlikely to intervene in such a difficult situation after the 10-year mess left behind by the former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. Yeh hai Sibi!
By shahid husain
Quetta: Journalists, especially Urdu-speaking and Punjabi-speaking ones, are scared to visit Balochistan. Even if some TV channels are covering the disaster, they are doing so under the army's protection. Sources in NGOs claim journos are not allowed to go to Kohlu. The reason: nationalist leader Nawab Khair Bux Marri holds sway there.
When I reached Quetta I was asked not to speak Urdu on the way to Sibi. I speak only Urdu and English. If I kept mum how would I interview Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have arrived in Sibi from the interior of Sindh?
On my way to Sibi, I noticed that all the sign boards were in English and Urdu. Advertisements and graffiti, too, were in Urdu. Even the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) chalking on a wall and a mountain against Punjabis was in Urdu!
The distribution centre of Church World Service/Pakistan-Afghanistan (CWS/PA) in Sibi was established in the Divisional Public School. The District Coordination Officer (DCO) kindly permitted CWS/PA to carry on its distribution from here. It seemed to be a good school with clean classrooms, a computer lab, spacious playgrounds, two staff rooms and a tidy principal's room.
However, Sibi is one of the hottest places in the world. Everybody was perspiring, especially the labour force that was shifting goods for distribution from warehouse to the spacious playground.
"In hathoon ki tazeem karo" (Respect these hands!), I recalled a line from a poem by eminent Urdu poet and one of the founding members of Progressive Writers' Association (PWA), Ali Sardar Jafri. Who says Balochis are lethargic people?
I remember Sardar Jafri. Tall and handsome! He had a firm grip when he shook hands. I met him in Karachi in the early 1970s when he came to Pakistan from India probably to make a documentary on great Urdu poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib whose centenary was then being observed across the world.
Waheedullah of CWS/PA told me the relief goods his organisation was distributing to 750 families had 40 kg rice, 80 kg flour, 8 kg daal (pulses), 4-1/2 kg oil, 10 match boxes, 4 Safeguard soups, 1 packet of salt, ' kg tea, 1 plastic sheet that could also be used as a tent, and 1 tent.
Ahmed Nawaz, CEO, National Capacity Building Programme (NCBP), partner organisation of CWS/PA in Balochistan was fasting. So was Aysia, the cool-headed general manager at NCBP.
I was not fasting but had slept only for one-and-a half hours the previous night. The rising sun was making me mad. I interviewed Shahbaz Khan Barozai, Risaldaar Levies (Federal), Sibi District and a couple of IDPs in a nearby camp. Exhausted and drained I found it difficult to work..
On our way to Sibi, we saw Mach that reminded me of Tarek Fatah and Intezar Zaidi, my student day's friends who braved imprisonment in Mach jail.
We also passed through the mountains of Bolan that reminded me of a poem by eminent Baloch poet and natinalist leader Gul Khan Naseer and of course Chakar Khan who was hanged by military dictator Gen. Ayub Khan. Also saw IDPs on both sides of the road.
I was escorted in Principal's room. An impressive room, indicating that it was surely the office of a dignified person. On the wall behind principal's chair were portraits of Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Mohammad Iqbal. I asked the young peon Mian Khan if there was an ash tray in principal's room. He brought a waste paper basket. He also brought cold drinks and water for me. Yet I was perspiring profusely.
"Kitni garmi hay!" (How hot it is!), I said. Khan replied: "Yeh hai Sibi!" (This is Sibi!) reminding me of the song: "Ye hai Bombay meri jaan! (This is Bombay my darling.); Sadly, there were rains in the area and when I visited Sibi two days later, the goods distributed by the NGO had been washed away.
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Relief efforts are in full swing in Balochistan and Sindh but the flood victims continue to face many insurmountable adversities
Pakistan has suffered an estimated loss of about 500 billion rupees due to the worst flooding in its 62-year-old chequered history. The disaster is essentially man-made and a result of climate change.
The losses have occurred because standing crops of sugarcane, paddy and cotton have been badly damaged by the floods. 'Fifty per cent paddy crop has been submerged,' says Kaiser Bengali, an eminent economist and adviser to the chief minister of Sindh. Mr Bengali said that besides cash crops, water courses have been damaged severely and they will have to be built again.
As many as one million houses have been damaged in Sindh, adding up to a loss of about 200 billion rupees. About 30 per cent of these houses have been in urban and the rest in rural areas, Mr Bengali said. Similarly, roads have been badly damaged and the exact estimate of the damage could be made only after flood water recedes completely.
However, livestock has not been damaged to that extent because farmers shifted them to safer places after a flood warning. Sadly enough, there was colossal damage to livestock in Shikarpur in Sindh and Jacobabad in Balochistan because a timely warning could not be issued there, the economis said.
The schools, already in a pathetic condition, have been damaged so badly would remain closed for at least six months due to flooding.
In Balochistan province, the worst damage has been done to Kohlu area because of its height. However, since it is mainly inhabited by people of the Marri tribe, the military establishment tried its level best not to allow relief operation to reach that area, according to a source in a non-governmental organistion (NGO) that wished not to be identified due to security reasons.
But Mohammad Siddiq Aftab of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority in Balochistan rejected the notion that Kohlu area has been ignored.
'On July 22 when I reached my office in the morning, the deputy commissioner of Kohlu was already sitting there. In fact, he was the first person to reach my office,' Aftab said.
'He informed me that 30 villages in Kohlu area have been washed away, while 20 were at risk, and about 1500 families have been displaced,' Aftab continued. Mr Aftab said that as many as four trucks laden with relief goods were immediately dispatched to Kohlu. The relief goods included food items, tents, clothing, among other things of daily use.
He said that in the adjacent district of Bakhran, the civil bureaucracy coordinated with the army and dispatched three trucks laden with relief goods. The very next day, four more trucks were sent there, he said. Aftab also rejected the allegation that NGOs were not allowed to freely operate in that area. There is no truth in this notion, he asserted.
'As a nation, we are not good enough,' he said. 'In the beginning, the military ordered the NGOs not to operate in that area without seeking prior permission, but when I went to the chief minister of Balochistan and showed him the circular that had been issued by General Nadeem, chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority, the chief minister said it was of no value,' Mr Aftab said.
Mr Aftab said that his department did everything it could to coordinate the relief operations that were launched by the NGOs, but made sure that these well-meaning initiatives did not overlap with the main rescue effort because a large number of NGOs were active in Balochistan province.
Shahbaz Khan Barozai, the Risaldaar Levies (Federal) of Sibi District, endorsed Mr Aftab's view. He asserted that if anybody was stopped from going to Kohlu area, it was strictly for security reasons. The step, he insisted, was taken in good faith because the situation in that area was far too dangerous to allow for free access for everybody. To a certain extent, Mr Barozai was right because the situation in Balochistan is extremely tense at the moment and Punjabi and Urdu-speaking people were leaving the province in great haste fearing for safety.
Asiya Asif, 30, general manager, NCBP, an NGO, said that she had lost her younger brother Atiq Ahmed some two years ago in a bomb blast at the court. As many as 17 people, including several judges, died in that blast.
'It's true that Punjabis are being systematically targeted here. My brother was only 24 years old and was a source of strength for me,' she said. Asiya said her grandfather had migrated from Amritsar, Punjab in 1947 and settled down in the city of Quetta.
'Now we are facing the music. Many of my family members have already migrated to other places.
But 'target killing' is not taking place in Balochistan province alone. It is equally rampant in the 18-million-strong megalopolis of Karachi. Nobody knows who are the people that aree behind these target killings. There are only assumptions at best. However, the land mafia in this part of Pakistan appears to be a major player in these target killings. Islamic fanatics also have had a role in these target killings despite the fact that the government has imposed a ban on such violent organisations. Despite relief goods being distributed by national and international NGOs in Balochistan, the situation is pretty unsettling in the camps that have been set up for the flood-affected. The people there are suffering from diarrhoea and other communicable diseases.
'The World Health Organisation (WHO) works as a part of the government. We don't work separately and independently. The provincial government had forwarded to us a demand about medicines and we met that demand as early as in the month of July,' said Dr. Tahira Kamal, the WHO spokesperson in Balochistan.
But visits to the flood relief camps show that the affected people are still facing innumerable problems on a daily basis. The main issue here is that they do not trust the governments, whether provincial or the federal. The opposition parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and Tehreek-e-Insaf led by former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan, besides the media, are openly apprehensive about the tall claims that the government has been making regarding the rescue and relief operations being conducted in the flood-hit expanses of Pakistan.
There is a general perception among the populace that the assistance given by donors, whether international or national, will evenbtually be misappropriated by the government. Some people are going to the extent of looking for military intervention to allay these fears.
But this perception seems to be somewhat far-fetched, firstly because the Americans are in favour of a civil government in Pakistan and secondly because the army is unlikely to intervene in such a difficult situation after the 10-year mess left behind by the former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. Yeh hai Sibi!
By shahid husain
Quetta: Journalists, especially Urdu-speaking and Punjabi-speaking ones, are scared to visit Balochistan. Even if some TV channels are covering the disaster, they are doing so under the army's protection. Sources in NGOs claim journos are not allowed to go to Kohlu. The reason: nationalist leader Nawab Khair Bux Marri holds sway there.
When I reached Quetta I was asked not to speak Urdu on the way to Sibi. I speak only Urdu and English. If I kept mum how would I interview Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have arrived in Sibi from the interior of Sindh?
On my way to Sibi, I noticed that all the sign boards were in English and Urdu. Advertisements and graffiti, too, were in Urdu. Even the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) chalking on a wall and a mountain against Punjabis was in Urdu!
The distribution centre of Church World Service/Pakistan-Afghanistan (CWS/PA) in Sibi was established in the Divisional Public School. The District Coordination Officer (DCO) kindly permitted CWS/PA to carry on its distribution from here. It seemed to be a good school with clean classrooms, a computer lab, spacious playgrounds, two staff rooms and a tidy principal's room.
However, Sibi is one of the hottest places in the world. Everybody was perspiring, especially the labour force that was shifting goods for distribution from warehouse to the spacious playground.
"In hathoon ki tazeem karo" (Respect these hands!), I recalled a line from a poem by eminent Urdu poet and one of the founding members of Progressive Writers' Association (PWA), Ali Sardar Jafri. Who says Balochis are lethargic people?
I remember Sardar Jafri. Tall and handsome! He had a firm grip when he shook hands. I met him in Karachi in the early 1970s when he came to Pakistan from India probably to make a documentary on great Urdu poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib whose centenary was then being observed across the world.
Waheedullah of CWS/PA told me the relief goods his organisation was distributing to 750 families had 40 kg rice, 80 kg flour, 8 kg daal (pulses), 4-1/2 kg oil, 10 match boxes, 4 Safeguard soups, 1 packet of salt, ' kg tea, 1 plastic sheet that could also be used as a tent, and 1 tent.
Ahmed Nawaz, CEO, National Capacity Building Programme (NCBP), partner organisation of CWS/PA in Balochistan was fasting. So was Aysia, the cool-headed general manager at NCBP.
I was not fasting but had slept only for one-and-a half hours the previous night. The rising sun was making me mad. I interviewed Shahbaz Khan Barozai, Risaldaar Levies (Federal), Sibi District and a couple of IDPs in a nearby camp. Exhausted and drained I found it difficult to work..
On our way to Sibi, we saw Mach that reminded me of Tarek Fatah and Intezar Zaidi, my student day's friends who braved imprisonment in Mach jail.
We also passed through the mountains of Bolan that reminded me of a poem by eminent Baloch poet and natinalist leader Gul Khan Naseer and of course Chakar Khan who was hanged by military dictator Gen. Ayub Khan. Also saw IDPs on both sides of the road.
I was escorted in Principal's room. An impressive room, indicating that it was surely the office of a dignified person. On the wall behind principal's chair were portraits of Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Mohammad Iqbal. I asked the young peon Mian Khan if there was an ash tray in principal's room. He brought a waste paper basket. He also brought cold drinks and water for me. Yet I was perspiring profusely.
"Kitni garmi hay!" (How hot it is!), I said. Khan replied: "Yeh hai Sibi!" (This is Sibi!) reminding me of the song: "Ye hai Bombay meri jaan! (This is Bombay my darling.); Sadly, there were rains in the area and when I visited Sibi two days later, the goods distributed by the NGO had been washed away.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again...
IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
An array of unconventional career options
Indian universities and higher education institutes seem to be caught in a time warp teaching things
INDIA'S BEST COLLEGES, INSTITUTES and UNIVERSITIES
Labels: Balochistan, Flood-Victims, IIPM, Pakistan
Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.
posted by IIPM: A Leader in Academic Excellence @ 10:16 AM
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