What happens when the 'BOOT' camps

Disclaimer: People who know me, know very well that I respect every individual and institution even PIMSAT, PRESTON, University of Sunderland, Aamil baba bangali and Hakeem ***** etc.


Thanks to our media, people are now waiting for an early elections or 'BOOTS'. Early elections are fine with me but as far as the alternative is concerned I am not sure whether it will materialize itself or ... Politicians are warning that any takeover will not be tolerated this time, we will go to the masses and so on (the list goes on and bear in mind this is not a unanimous decision of all the politicians. People have a right to disagree, though public don't count politicians in this particular category). Whatever happens the masses don't care it seems that they just want freedom (from the parliament they elected).


If the option # 1 is exercised i.e. early general elections, the system will need few more parliaments to lay down the foundations (so be patient) BUT if the later one is opted there will be promises everywhere (every time it starts with the same promise and after this there will be more promises and more and more ... WAIT! aren't things getting confusing i mean do you remember the latest waida? so there will be promises in any case). Things will be very much same (except for few things, like some key positions will be filled by the personnel and let me tell you they do very good mathematics and they don't hesitate to have an expert's opinion on any issue unlike our democratic governments). They always gives you a closer to you leadership in the form of local bodies (which every democratic government don’t like. Why? How could I know, I have never been part of any government).


People (elected local body members and their families and friends) like this government for many reasons. Everything is fine but what I don't like about them is that, it ends and when it ends, another democratic government comes and the cycle starts (once again). Once again people vote the same politicians and soon they realize (Oops! what we have done, they say and wait for another 'something' to happen).

CNG stations remain closed: A parable untold

Few days ago, when I heard our respectable Prime Minister saying, 'We will end electricity and gas load shedding in few months'. I was laughing my *** out, the reason was, I didn't see any good reason to do the load shedding. We have accepted electricity load shedding a part of our daily lives and we look at the faces of each other with our facial expressions asking how the KESC people didn't switch off the power button (However, they are strictly instructed to do so with the bosses' approval). So, I am not talking about electricity load shedding here or otherwise this may lead to a contempt (of whom I don’t know yet and why I am avoiding, I don't want to know at all).

Coming back to the gas, I mean natural gas which we often call 'Sui Gas' or 'CNG'. You must be very glad to know that according to a research (done by ‘Goora Sahab’) Pakistan has total proven gas reserves of 31.3 trillion cubic feet and ranked 25th in the world (I was happy too but all my happiness gone away when I read this). Iran’s reserves are 32 times higher and Russia’s are 54 times greater. Even tiny Qatar has 29 times more gas than Pakistan, story from 'The Express Tribune' continued.

Agreed! We have limited reserves of gas and if we continue what we are doing we will use all of this very soon. (But, few days back I had the honor to read the 'Economic Survey of Pakistan' and I found that) The survey revealed that the major consumers of the natural gas are power, industrial, fertilizer and household. They use more than 95% of the total gas and on the other hand CNG stations (I mean CNG stations! where we seriously don't expect to see a power generation unit or an industrial unit getting its gas tank filled, do we?) are remaining closed for several days, misery for masses. What we should do? (I have spent couple of hours researching it, so you don't need to). In my opinion, household units waste much of the gas using old fashion water heaters (I have seen many who turned their water heaters on for the whole winters and some of them heaters are on whole year). Other industries waste the gas too (and this is the reason why we experience electricity and gas shortage. Imagine if our power generation was doing a great job we wouldn’t have to face at least one of the load shedding). What we can do now is, either we stop wasting the gas (and Please! CNG stations are not the only culprit) or force oil and gas companies to do further exploration (in case if we can't find the gas as per the research at least we can proudly say, 'Goora' is not always right).

Social: Say 'NO' to corruption

Most of us have an idea what corruption is, but the questions is how this whole thing started, well nobody can exactly predict when and how this was started but it may be said that some time ago in past, when everything was just fine, everyone was doing things with great honesty and utmost integrity but, there were personnel who were not feeling good with the practices and those, whom we may now call corrupt offered money or other kinds of bribe to men who were in charge of the things and this act of those corrupt men at that grown abruptly and the whole world became a victim of corruption resultantly.

Being part of this world, we have to deal with the corruption almost daily and everywhere, but do you know its we, who help corruption growing and we must admit it. Every time we get on the roads without a valid driving license we always keep some bucks to keep the traffic cop happy, every time we need an official document we keep a handsome amount of money in our file to get it pass through and the list of our acts of bribe goes on and the most shocking part is we do not consider it our fault and consider them as corrupt instead. Well, one may argue, but I must say it’s the so called victims who offer them instead of doing things in the legal fashion.

So, we must admit we have been raising this monster till now and doesn’t this feeling give you stimulus that you are the one who can end this. This whole thing can only be shut down by us and that’s fact. Now what needs to be done is a question for which there may be several answers but for me media will have to play a major part to end this. A massive campaign could be launched by media and regulators and support from the masses will surely put an end to this.

Social: Do we really need the 'Cultural Day'

It was all started back in 2009 when a sindhi tv channel conceived the day in response to comments made by another tv channel condemning President's dressing who was wearing 'Sindhi Topi' and 'Ajrak' in a meeting with President of Afghanistan. Well, we are not here to judge whether he was right in his wearings or not, of course. The point is what will or could be achieved by observing such days. Though, there are arguments for and against the day but for me if a day reminds you of your existence that is above all the arguments one can have against the day.


So, what the day brings, joy obviously coupled with sale of 'Sindhi Topi' and 'Ajrak' till the stock runs out giving boost to our local economy and above all happiness of people is what should be considered the most important. I always complained about having a limited number of festivals and I presume we all do, now the question is how we can celebrate the day as we don't wear 'Kameez Shalwar' in the cities normally, so the most appropriate way I would prefer to celebrate the day by wearing a tie containing prints that 'Ajrak' usually has or in case I am wearing casual a muffler will do it, isn't it a great idea for fashion designers to introduce such things on particular occasions. 


Indeed, the day shouldn't only be used to spread joy but spreading the culture of Sindh in particular and Pakistan in general. Such festivals attract tourism in the country provided that it is properly highlighted by the media and have some more colours to it which I am pretty sure will be added as the time will proceed. 

Political: Dividends of and dangers to Democracy

Democracy, when we hear the word unfortunately we have some bad memories attached with it. We now believe democracy is bad governance, democracy is corruption and democracy is everything worst that we haven’t seen in the military rule while according to the definition democracy is ‘a political form of government in which governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum (direct democracy) or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy).’People for decades have argued for and against it but one quote says it all.

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 11, 1947

I recently had an opportunity to hear what our leadership has to say on the topic and it was unexpected for me that none of them kept themselves on topic and talking a lot about non issues. I left the venue with very confusing set of mind and this confusion led me to do my own research on democracy. We should agree on the definition of democracy I explained earlier and according to the definition what people expect from democracy is good governance but we should also agree that expectations from democracy if undelivered by the democracy could be the dangers to democracy.

See this, if a democratic government fails to deliver good governance and its regime helping corruption to grow that is the major danger to the democracy, this will make a perception of democracy in people’s mind and this perception will lead people not to choose democracy anymore.

Now, the question arises why democratic government failed to deliver, making people believe that at least a democratic government cannot solve their problems and the answer is attitudes of masses and their leaders. On the whole it may well be concluded that our attitudes are not democratic at all aggression and intolerance are the major reasons why could not build a democratic system in past 63 years. 

Think carefully and act accordingly ... 

Political: Oops what Wikileaks has done

When I tuned in my television set this morning there were some shocking headlines displaying in the 'Breaking News' bar and those were sacred american information published by wikileaks. Though, there were some news for last one year regarding publishing sacred american information but today they done it and you know what pentagon did they say we condemn it. 

According to NY Times, About 11,000 of the cables are marked “secret.” An additional 9,000 or so carry the label “noforn,” meaning the information is not to be shared with representatives of other countries, and 4,000 are marked “secret/noforn.” The rest are either marked with the less restrictive label “confidential” or are unclassified. Most were not intended for public view, at least in the near term. The documents — some 250,000 individual cables, the daily traffic between the State Department and more than 270 American diplomatic outposts around the world — were made available to The Times by a source who insisted on anonymity. They were originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to exposing official secrets, allegedly from a disenchanted, low-level Army intelligence analyst who exploited a security loophole. Beginning Sunday, WikiLeaks intends to publish this archive on its Web site in stages, with each batch of documents related to a particular country or topic. Except for the timing of publication, the material was provided without conditions. Each news organization decided independently what to write about the cables.

Currently Wikileaks is under cyber attack and readers can read the cables from NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/28/world/20101128-cables-viewer.html#report/cables-09TRIPOLI771

Economic: The much awaited RGST and masses

The local media generated enough hype among masses regarding reformed general sales tax (RGST) though still some of them are unclear about what impacts could this RGST have on their lives. Well, from the government's point of view its obviously an earner but do masses agree to this obviously 'NOT' as they think there are many other ways to generate or save income and what the funniest thing is, they are showing resilience without even knowing what this is all about. 


So, do RGST will have an impact on public? well the government officials keep saying that it will not affect the public as the rates are being reduced through this new legislation but none of them have told the public that they are increasing the items in the GST basket. So, you might be paying lesser GST on one of the product you purchased last month but you might also be paying GST on products which were exempted under previous legislations. In particular the proposed system will:

(i) reduce standard sales tax rate to 15% and increase exemption threshold to Rs 7.5 million;

(ii) curtail exemptions mostly basic food items, charities and international/sovereign commitments;

(iii) provide no general zero-rating facility to local consumption;

(iv) promote documentation of the national economy and broaden the base of consumption/expenditure taxation in the country;

(v) modernize the value added tax system of the country by adopting international best concepts and practices of indirect taxation;

(vi) facilitate the cash flow of businesses through centralized/electronic expeditious refund payment system; and

(vii) provide for appropriate provisions to collect and administer Provincial sales tax on services in integrated manner along with Federal sales tax as and when authorized by the provinces. 


Though, it appears that this will bring advancements to our tax system but the point is, do we really need all this at stage when, GDP of the country is at the lowest in the region, indirect i.e. consumer taxes are almost double of direct taxes, Interest rates are at all time high and above all a rising inflation trend for last couple of years. 


Think carefully and act accordingly ...