E-Paper PDF 6th October (ISB)

CMYK

6 October, 2019 I 6 Safar-ul-Muzaffar, 1441 I Rs 27.00 I Vol X No 96 I 84 Pages I Islamabad Edition

Fazl says all set For hi-octane perFormance g

Crossing loC will aid Indian narrative: pm g

Un ChIeF repeatS Call FOr KaShmIr dIalOgUe STORY ON BACK PAGE

Three more polio cases surface as tally reaches 72 STORY ON PAGE 02

nawaz appeals IhC to review evidence linked to videogate STORY ON PAGE 02

JUI-F ChIeF SayS COUntry wIll tUrn IntO BattleFIeld OnCe marCh IS laUnChed, prOteStIng maSSeS wIll Sweep away ptI gOVernment PESHAWAR

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STAFF REPORT

amIat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur rehman on Saturday said the antigovernment march by his party on Oct 27 will end only with the fall of the ruling pakistan tehreek-e-Insaf (ptI) government. addressing a press conference, the JUI-F chief said that the entire country would turn into a battlefield once protests were launched against the incumbent government. the JUI-F chief announced that the first destination of azadi march will be Islamabad. he affirmed that the “masses in huge numbers will sweep away the ptI-led government”. In a comment on the government’s warning to thwart the march at all costs, he said the party has “plan B and C” if the authorities attempted to stop marchers from reaching the federal capital. “Our strategy will not remain stagnant. we will keep changing it to cope with [any] situation,” he said, adding that a “flood of people from all over the country” was coming to join the march. “the country’s economy has been destroyed and employment opportunities have been brought to an end. we will become the voice of a common man and pakistan,” he said.

“Our demand will be to conduct fresh elections. the business community is already protesting owing to taxes and time has come to send the ineligible and illegitimate government packing.” when asked whether he has been able to garner the support of other opposition parties, he said that he “hoped to see them” in the march. he added that since all opposition parties agreed that last year’s general elections were “fake” and that reelection should be held, they should all be “on the same page and same stage”.

“Former president asif ali Zardari is supporting the azadi march as there is

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SayS party haS ‘plan B and C’ IF gOVt trIeS tO StOp marCherS FrOm reaChIng ISlamaBad

no disappointment from any side,” he added. he said that he was not afraid of being arrested, but such a move would “fan the protesters’ anger against the government”. “the government wants to gain international support by highlighting the madrassa (religious seminaries) issue,” said Fazl, commenting on the remarks made by prime minister Imran Khan. Imran, on Friday, had said the JUIF was protesting because of the madrassa reforms planned by the government after which the clerics “won’t be able to use seminaries students” against the government.

In response to a question about the government’s claim that the JUI-F chief was “using” children studying in seminaries against the government, Fazl alleged that the rulers were trying to deny the students their democratic rights. moreover, he claimed, the proportion of seminary students would be minimal, as people from every walk of life were joining the march. “we have stated our policy. we do not want to clash with institutions and that we want to respect them.” the JUI-F chief denied that there was any similarity between the sit-ins held by the now-ruling pakistan tehreek-e-Insaf, pakistan awami tehreek’s tahirul Qadri and tehreek-e-labbaik pakistan’s Khadim rizvi, saying he was leading a march for the “independence” of the public. he was visibly annoyed when asked if the party was collecting donations for its march and said: “why wouldn’t we? It is our right; where else will we get money from? why is there so much noise over this? “we are not being funded by any western country. we are asking our workers, friends.” Fazl also criticised the government’s plan for educational

reforms in the country after launching into an anti-Semitic attack against prominent philanthropist george Soros. he alleged that the govt’s “agenda” was to “make pakistan’s educational system subservient to the west”. “we know who he [prime minister Imran] met in new york,” rehman said. “[he met] george Soros, who runs an ngO and distributes funds all over the world in the garb of bringing about educational reforms. By meeting that infamous Jew, [the government] has made it clear that they don’t want to bring reforms in religious education. they want to make pakistan’s educational system subservient to the west.” rehman went on to accuse the prime minister of meeting people who “conspire against other countries”. “they [the government] befriend such conspirators, who are Jewish, and then tell us they want to reform the education system,” he declared.

GOVT ALL SET TO SCUTTLE PROTEST: On Friday, Interior minister Ijaz Shah told reporters that the government would not let go anti-government protesters run amok and it would resort to calling in the pakistan army if needed. he said to call in the military would be the last option, “but I hope the situation won’t deteriorate to that level”. “the government is fully prepared to control any kind of situation and no one will be allowed to take the law into his hand,” the interior minister said, adding that Section 144 will be imposed in Islamabad’s red Zone and police would be deployed to block its entry points. however, the primary duty to stop these protesters lies with the provincial governments, the minister said, adding that the provinces must make sure that people do not join the protest rallies.

JUI-F chief will fail in his designs of stoking instability: Firdous STORY ON PAGE 02

Grenade attack in Kashmir injures 10 amid India clampdown

LAHORE: Pakistani cricket fans hold placards displaying “Thanks You Sri Lanka” at Gaddafi Stadium during 1st Twenty20 match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan on Saturday. INP

CMYK

India clampdown hits Silicon Valley of IOK STORIES ON BACK PAGE

CMYK Sunday, 6 October, 2019

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Nawaz appeals IHC to revIew evIdeNCe lINked to vIdeogate ISLAMABAD

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Staff RepoRt

ORMER prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday requested the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to review the evidence linked to a controversial video and statement of former accountability judge Arshad Malik before deciding the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo’s appeal against his conviction in the Al Azizia case. The petition submitted by Nawaz’s lawyer stated that Arshad Malik’s statement “showed one side of the argument” and urged the court to hear the “other side” as well.

He appealed the court to take into consideration the arguments and evidence regarding the judge’s video before passing a verdict on his previous appeal. Last month, Nawaz’s lawyer Khawaja Haris had urged the two-judge bench hearing his appeal to include “verified copies” of a press release and an affidavit submitted to IHC by judge Malik — following the release of a controversial video of the judge — to the paper book of the former premier’s petition. The request was granted by the court. The petition submitted by Nawaz’s lawyer today stated that Malik’s statement “showed one side of

the argument” and urged the court to hear the “other side” as well. He appealed the court to take into consideration the arguments and evidence regarding the judge’s video before passing a verdict on his previous appeal.

In December 2018, Nawaz was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined Rs1.5 billion and US $25 million after then accountability judge Malik found him guilty in the Al Azizia corruption case. The former premier, who is currently in Kot Lakhpat jail, filed an appeal against the conviction in the IHC. In July this year, Nawaz’s daughter Maryam Nawaz called the judgement into question after showing a video clip in which Malik allegedly confessed that he had been “blackmailed” into convicting Nawaz.

Maryam, who is currently in NAB custody, had called for an overturning of Nawaz’s conviction. Malik was removed from his position after the video was released and has been repatriated to the Lahore High Court where disciplinary proceedings against him will be held.

While deciding a set of petitions regarding the video leak scandal, the Supreme Court had in August ruled that, “The relevant video cannot be of any legal benefit to Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif unless it is properly produced before the Islamabad High Court, Islamabad in the pending ap-

peal, its genuineness is established and then the same is proved in accordance with the law for it to be treated as evidence in the case.”

REQUEST TO ATTACH MORE DOCUMENTS: Meanwhile, Nasir Butt, who is suspected to be the second person in judge Malik’s ‘confession’ video, also filed an appeal in the high court on Saturday along with documents, which included notarised copies of the video’s audio transcript, audiocum-video transcript, the appellant’s affidavit attested by the Pakistan High Commission in the United Kingdom, etc. He urged the court to include the documents in the appeal filed by Nawaz “in order to secure the ends of justice”.

Nasir, in his appeal, said that he has been the senior vice president of the PML-N in the UK for the past 14 years.

Also on Saturday, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested Nasir Butt’s nephew, Hamza Butt, and another relative named Shoaib during a raid on the residence of Nasir’s brother in Ratta Amral area of Rawalpindi.

Hamza and Shoaib were shifted to the FIA headquarters in Islamabad.

However, Shoaib was later released on the condition that he would appear before the agency when summoned.

Confirming the raid at his house, Nasir’s younger brother Hafiz Abdullah

Butt told a local media outlet that FIA personnel had repeatedly asked them for a laptop. “We have nothing to do with Nasir Butt’s case,” Abdullah said of his brother, adding that the video scandal was a matter between Nasir and his party, the PML-N. The FIA also claimed to have arrested a suspect who allegedly recorded the video of the meeting between Nasir Butt and judge Malik, in which the latter allegedly confessed to have convicted Nawaz under pressure. The search for a second suspect behind the video recording is underway.

The suspect, identified as Faisal Shaheen, was arrested during a latenight raid in Gulraiz area of Rawalpindi, an FIA spokesperson said.

The investigative agency presented Shaheen before a sessions court, which granted FIA his physical remand until Monday. The FIA informed the court that Shaheen confessed that he had recorded a video of the Nasir Butt-judge Malik meeting on his mobile phone.

The video clip was then transferred to the laptop of Hamza Butt, the nephew of Nasir. The agency said it wanted to retrieve the laptop and other devices from the suspects. While approving the remand, the court directed FIA to present both Hamza and Shaheen together at the next hearing.

Three more polio cases surface as tally reaches 72 ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

Three more polio cases were reported from Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday, taking the tally of such cases across the country to 72 this year.

A 17-month old child, resident of Orangi Town’s Union Council (UC-2) in Karachi, was diagnosed with the crippling disease. She is the eighth polio victim in Sindh, according to the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for Polio. The total number of crippling disease cases in the city has reached four.

Sharing details about the latest case, the ECO said the child developed a fever and slight weakness in her right leg. She was taken to doctors for a check-up where the case was classified as acute flaccid

paralysis (AFP).

Her stool samples were sent for further investigation, results of which confirmed that she was suffering from the crippling disease.

Earlier, on Sept 23, two new polio cases were confirmed from Lakki Marwat district.

A six-month-old child, resident of Kotka Mushkalam, Tehsil Serai Naurang, District Lakki Marwat, was tested positive for the poliovirus. The second child was an eighteen-month-old from Kotka Bazee Sheikh, Tehsil Serai Naurang, District Lakki Marwat.

SC to hear NAB’s pleas against Shehbaz Sharif’s bail on Oct 22 ISLAMABAD Staff RepoRt

The Supreme Court (SC) on Saturday fixed the date for hearing of petitions filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against bail of Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif. As per details, a three-member bench of the Supreme Court will hear the appeals against the bail of PML-N president in the Saaf Pani and Ashiyana cases on October 22.

It is pertinent to mention here

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that on April 10, the Lahore High Court had granted bail to Shehbaz Sharif in the three NAB cases – the Ashiana Iqbal, Saaf Pani Company and Ramzan Sugar Mills. A twojudge bench headed by Justice Malik Shehzad had earlier reserved its verdict in the case. The court approved bail of Shehbaz Sharif in Ashiana and Ramzan Sugar Mills case while bail of Fawad Hassan was approved in Ashiana case only.

On October 5, 2018, the NAB had arrested Shehbaz Sharif in Saf Pani company scandal.

JUI-F chief will fail in his designs of stoking instability, chaos in country, says Firdous LAHORE Staff RepoRt

Special Assistant to PM on Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan has said JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman will fail in his designs of stoking instability and chaos in the country. Addressing a news conference on Saturday, Firdous said Prime Minister Imran Khan is the most popular leader of Pakistan. He said the incumbent government will complete its mandated period of five years with the backing and support of the masses. She said the people will not turn up for the march and the students of seminaries will also disappoint Fazlur Rehman. She said the people are fully aware of the tactics and religious card used by Fazlur Rehman to reach the treasury benches. The call of Maulana Fazl ur Rehman for march is contrary to the sentiments of the people. She said Fazlur Rehman has always practiced the politics based on vested interests. She said the two opposition parties whose leadership is facing corruption cases is using the shoulder of Maulana Fazlur Rehman to achieve their objectives. The Special Assistant said the government will not hinder a peaceful protest but the timing warrants greater unity instead of anarchy. The march should be for Kashmir and not to dislodge the government. Firdous Ashiq Awan said it is the first government which started implementation on the National Action Plan.

She said the government has introduced Madrassah reforms program to enable the students of these institutions to get quality contemporary education.

11 killed as bus overturns on Makran Coastal Highway QUETTA Staff RepoRt

At least 11 people were killed and 10 others critically injured when a passenger coach overturned on the Makran Coastal Highway in Balochistan on Saturday. The coach was travelling from Pasni to Karachi when it overturned after its brakes failed near Buzi Top on the coastal highway. Nine of the passengers were said to have died on the spot while two others succumbed to their injuries during treatment. Pakistan Coast Guards personnel immediately reached the accident site to rescue the surviving passengers. The dead and the injured were shifted to PNS Darman Jah hospital in Ormara. Doctors of the Pakistan Navy are treating the injured. The dead include three women and two children.

The incident comes less than two weeks after 26 people died and at least 20 others suffered injuries when a Rawalpindi-bound bus from Skardu hit a small hill near Babusar Pass in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer district. Ten military personnel on board the bus also lost their lives as did three children and eight women.

CMYK Sunday, 6 October, 2019

NEWS

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westerN MedIa spreadINg lIes aBoUt CpeC, says CHINese eNvoy KaRaCHI

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Staff RepoRt

HINESE Ambassador Yu Jing on Friday said the Western media was creating a false narrative that his country wanted to achieve military or strategic designs in Pakistan through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

“The Western media is spreading lies that China wants to colonise Pakistan. This is totally baseless and wrong,” the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan said at a dialogue on CPEC hosted by the Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (KCFR).

“CPEC is the essence of the bilateral long-term relationship between China and Pakistan. It will develop infrastructure in Pakistan,” he added. “CPEC is not going to guarantee a complete turnaround in the economy of Pakistan, but it is a small part of it. China is making a huge investment on a partnership

basis. We are helping Pakistan in various sectors including education, agriculture, social development, technology transfer, etc.”

The Chinese envoy said CPEC would not only connect China with Gwadar but also lead to Afghanistan and Central Asia. “We are trying hard to make this world a better place. Gwadar is an emerging port of

Pakistan which has been a longawaited dream for Pakistanis and their government,” he noted.

The ambassador said China was waiting for the Pakistani government’s free-zone policy, after which it would launch 19 projects in Gwadar alone.

“China is spending $40 million annually to keep Gwadar port functional as it has now started commercial operations as well. We send a commercial vessel every week to Gwadar port. In the next phase of the second Free Trade Agreement, we will establish manufacturing units of agriculture, seafood and other industries and that will also create jobs.”

Yu shared that the biggest issues of Gwadar were electricity and freshwater. “China will install a power plant of 300MW and a desalination plant with a capacity of 5,000 tonnes. We are also constructing a 200-bed hospital, education and vocational centres and a new international airport in Gwadar. Work on

these projects will start from the end of this year,” he added.

“We are also considering a transit trade for Gwadar port. Chinese companies will invest $10 million in the fisheries sector alone and install seafood processing plants. We will purchase seafood from fishermen. It will also boost the local fisheries industry.”

The ambassador said China would stand by Pakistan for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. “We are also working for Kashmiris to help them get their fundamental rights and justice. There should be a justified solution to the issue of Kashmir and China will stand by Pakistan for regional peace and stability,” he reaffirmed.

Speaking on the occasion, KCFR Chairman Ikram Sehgal said that certain forces were unhappy over CPEC and trying to spread negative propaganda against it. “If they are so sincere with Pakistan, then why don’t they invest here?” he asked.

Fazlur Rehman wants anarchy, instability in country, says Rasheed laHORE app

Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad on Saturday said that Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman wants clash on political and religious issues.

Addressing a press conference at the Railways Headquarters here, he said that the JUI-F leader would be directly responsible in case of unrest, anarchy and confrontation on borders if he staged any protest.

He advised the Fazlur Rehman not to involve religious sections of society in an agitation against the government. “His agitation can damage the Kashmir freedom movement,” he added.

Sheikh Rasheed said, “Kashmir is dearer to us than our lives.” He said that tensions in the entire region had heightened due to the Kashmir issue. “All demands of Fazlur Rehman in regard to the situation in occupied Kashmir have already been presented before the United Nations

by Prime Minister Imran Khan in his speech,” he added.

The railways minister said that

Fazlur Rehman had earlier defamed the opposition and brought a bad name to national politics. He said that Fazlur Rehman wanted to use Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) but now he himself was being used.

“I want to give a message to religious forces that the Maulana is going to lead a clash on politics and religious issues,” the minister added.

Sheikh Rasheed alleged that Maulana Mufti Mehmood, father of Maulan Fazlur Rehman, had run a movement in the name of Islam while his son was misusing his father’s slogans for political gain.

The minister said that circumstances in Indian Occupied Kashmir were not normal and Kashmiris would continue their struggle for freedom from India, but the measures by Fazlur Rehman could cause disappointment among Kashmiris.

The minister commended Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s statement and advised PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif to choose a side. He said that a new era of politics had begun.

He claimed that the movement

of Fazlur Rehman would come to an end if Imran only announced the release of six people. “Prime Minister and Pak Army are on the same page for national economic progress, national solidarity and stability,” he added. The minister said that the opposition thought that there could be no way out by pushing Fazlur Rehman on the front line, but he added, it would never happen.

To a question, he suggested that Shehbaz Sharif should not become “Double Shah” and advised him to not play a double game as the situation in the country was not in his favor and the country was unable to bear instability.

The minister said that opposition leaders were striving to protect their father, brother and auntie (Phupho).

He said that the prime minister was taking bold steps for placing the economy on the right path. He said credit goes to Prime Minister Imran Khan and said that the world had trust in him and it believed that he was an honest politician.

He said that the movement of Fazlur Rehman was nothing more than a tactic to blackmail the govern-

pakistan tells India to keep lectures on diplomacy to itself Islamabad Staff RepoRt

A day after Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson claimed that Prime Minister Imran Khan made “provocative” statements during UNGA address last month, Pakistan has hit back saying “India would be well-advised to keep its lectures on diplomacy and normality to itself. All we would like to stress is, “Physician, heal thyself!”. “If India feels provoked, it is only because India is unwilling to face the truth about its indefensible actions that are driven by the toxic mix of an extremist ideology and hegemonic ambitions,” read a Foreign Office statement issued on Saturday. The Indian spokesperson on Friday claimed that the PM Imran had used “provocative and irresponsible” statements during UN General Assembly 74th session against India last month in New York. “We completely reject the comments made by the spokesman of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) about Prime Minister Imran’s statements and on other Kashmir and Pakistan-related issues,” read the FO statement.

“Exposing India’s egregious behaviour and stateterrorism in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir is part of our international obligations and our moral responsibility to the Kashmiri victims of Indian repression,” the statement added. PM Imran during his UNGA address last month had exposed the atrocities committed by Indian forces in the occupied valley which has been under lockdown since August 5 after New Delhi revoked its special status. “Equally reprehensible are India’s pretentions of casting itself as a ‘normal’ country. The international community would like to ask as to what normal country cages eight million people in an inhuman lockdown for over two months and deceives the world by claiming that everything is fine,” read the communique.

Justice Mandokhel takes oath as BHC CJ ment. The minister congratulated Imran Khan on his birthday and said the prime minister was going to China on an important visit during which the Main Line-1 project would be finalised.

“Imran will also start negotiations for ML-2 project as well while an international standard train would be built according to standard gauge under the ML-2 project,” he added.

Sheikh Rashid said that ML-2 would connect Gawadar with central Asia and Kabul.

QUETTa Staff RepoRt

Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel was sworn in as the new chief justice of the Balochistan High Court (BHC) on Saturday. Balochistan Governor Amanullah Khan Yasinzai administered the oath to Justice Mandokhel in a ceremony held at the Governor House Quetta. Justice Mandokhel replaces incumbent BHC Chief Justice Tahira Safdar who completed her term on October 4.

The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Kamal Khan, Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court (IHC), judges of the Supreme and High Court, high ranking bureaucrats and advocates. In September, President Arif Alvi approved the appointment of Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel, a notification issued by the Law Ministry had stated.

Unnatural fee hike in license renewal whiteLieS spells trouble for FM stations Apollo

Around 200 radio stations operating in the private sector risk closure as their owners have been asked by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to pay a renewal fee at par with the latest bid in concerned districts.

This comes as PEMRA failed to

act against illegal FMs (frequency modulations) operating in the market.

A recent Supreme Court ruling, overriding a Lahore High Court decision allowed PEMRA to collect the license renewal fee as per its own formula, which FM owners have

termed unjust.

“We are facing difficult circumstances not only due to economic slowdown but also because PEMRA has failed to act against 70 illegal FM stations operating across Pakistan,” said the Pakistan Broadcasting Association (PBA) spokesperson, Najib Ahmad adding that since these FMs are being operated by public institutions on commercial basis, their business prospects are doomed.

“If I go by the new license renewal formula I will have to pay Rs 1 million for my Islamabad based FM per month though the situation is different in other districts,” Najib said, adding that it was difficult for him to compete in a market where illegal radios have such vast coverage.

The PBA through a writ petition filed by the late Asma Jahahngir in

Supreme Court in 2016 had sought ban on illegal FMs and had pressed PEMRA to ensure a competitive environment.

“We expect PEMRA to fulfill its responsibility as a regulator, which is to ensure competitive environment, before indulging in moneymaking practices,” Najib said adding that in case the renewal fee falls too heavy on the owners, the future of this sector is doomed given the poor returns and uncompetitive environment.

It is worth mentioning that PEMRA has not conducted market study so far and has not undertaken any mentionable project for up-gradation and capacity building of the FM sector to attract new investors, which makes the license bidding process subject to manipulation by vested interests. NewS DeSk

CMYK

For feedback, comments, suggestions and, most importantly, tips, contact us at whitelies@pakistantoday.com.pk

INDIA’S ‘Meat King’, Moeen Qureshi, had a destination wedding for his daughter in Turkey recently.

He’s fabulously rich (the income tax and excise departments are still reportedly figuring out how much he has stashed) but the decision to have a destination wedding wasn’t because he just had to flaunt his money as is the usual case with such events. No, it was a necessity. You see, his daughter is married off into the Lakhanis of Pakistan. Since neither sets of families and guests could attend the wedding in the other country, the ‘neutral’ venue of Turkey was decided.

The wedding included the who’s who of Pakistani business. Alongside the Lakhanis were the Saigols, the Manshas and others. * * * * * * * * *

THE spark, so to speak, behind the tycoons’ meeting with the army chief was a gas magnate who is a former ICI man.

The chief also noted the services of another captain of commerce during the said meeting. If this, indeed, is to be the new normal, these two gentlemen are set to be far more influential than the other lot.

04 LAHORE

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

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Previous government deliberately neglected South Punjab: CM Buzdar Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar on Saturday said that previous governments had deliberately ignored the problems of south Punjab. Buzdar was addressing the media during a visit to Multan where he inaugurated the Hepatitis prevention center in Nishtar Hospital and also laid foundation stones of the pharmacy building and the store block within the hospital’s vicinity. In regard to the spread of the dengue virus in Punjab, CM Buzdar said, “The entire government machinery has been directed to exert all efforts in thwarting this lethal virus from the province.” Buzdar further said that in marked contrast to the neglectful attitude of previous governments towards South Punjab the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan was paying special attention to the backward areas of the region. Earlier in July, CM Buzdar had directed officials to complete ongoing projects in the stipulated timeframe. The chief minister is also expected to inspect the construction of the Punjab Public Service Commission project. During his visit to Multan. NewS DeSk

Jaranwala Police Playing into hands of Pti Mna, torture victiM's faMily claiMs LAHORE fiDa HuSSNaiN

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ESPITE government claims of police reforms and changing Thana culture, citizens are running from pillar to post to get justice.

A group of villagers on Friday lodged a protest

against Jaranwala police outside the Central Police Office (CPO) for keeping a young boy in illegal custody and torturing him.

Protesters, including men, women and children, chanted slogans against the police and government authorities.

“Jaranwala police Nausar bazun ki sarparast”

(Jaranwala police—supporter of plunderers) read one of the placards held by protesters who also demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan to take swift action in the matter.

Last week, a new move of police reforms was initiated which was met with strong resistance from senior police officials who termed

it an attempt to strip police’s power and place it under the bureaucracy.

Taking the police department’s reservations into account the prime minister had ordered the Punjab government to prepare a new draft for police reforms and also sought the Inspector General Police of Punjab’s (IGP) input, which according to sources will be presented next week.

Protesters claimed that police picked up a boy, Iftikhar Siddique, from outside a KFC restaurant in Thokar Niaz Baig after which they took him to PTI MNA Malik Nawab Sher Waseer’s office from where he was taken to Jaranwala police station and subjected to severe torture and illegal detention.

Iftikhar’s parents claimed that the Lahore High Court appointed a bailiff for their son’s recovery who managed to have Iftikhar released from police custody on August 29. In his report, the bailiff pointed out the misstatements of police officials in the case and also stated that Iftikhar had been unlawfully detained by Jaranwala police.

Iftikhar’s brother Imtiaz Saleem said, “The police were not very cooperative and finally it was the high court bailiff through whom we were able to recover Iftikhar,” adding that the po-

Lahore police arrest couple involved in 'raping and blackmailing of women' Police on Saturday arrested a couple involved in the rape and extortion of several women.

Police said that both suspects confessed to their crimes of raping and blackmailing their victims, during initial investigation.

A First Information Report (FIR) against the couple was filed at Sundar police station on Friday, on the complaint of a woman who alleged that the man raped her, while the woman recorded videos and took photos – with which the couple had blackmailed her for the past six months.

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lice unlawfully kept his brother under detention and subjected him to extrajudicial torture.

“We have now moved an application in the CPO against Jaranwal police,” Imtiaz said, while questioning the government’s claims of reforming Thana culture.

In his application to the CPO, Iftikhar claimed to have been kept in police custody for 19 days and to also having been forcefully taken to the dera of a PTI lawmaker in Jaranwala. He further pleaded with the IGP to take strict action against SHO Abdul Majeed Gujjar, ASI Moshin Abbas, SI Javed Akram among others.

In another incident a citizen, Faizan, a resident of Khayban-e-Quaid approached DIG (operations) Lahore Ashfaq Ahmed Khan to complain against Hanjarwal police for not cooperating with him.

“I came to lodge protest against Hanjarwal police for not arresting the accused who stole my bike, I know who the culprits are and have told the police about them but instead of recovering my bike they are trying to quiet me down,”. The complainant said.

Newly appointed Additional Inspector General of Police Inam Ghani, was approached to give a statement regarding the matter but he refused to comment.

Saad Rafique vents his spleen on police officers LAHORE Staff RepoRt

Former minister for railways Khawaja Saad Rafique exchanged hot words with police officials after getting into a skirmish when he was being brought to the accountability court in the to appear for Paragon Housing Scandal on Saturday. As per details, Rafique was angry as on-duty police officials didn’t allow Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) workers to meet him. He reprimanded Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Usman for not letting party workers in without any reason. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had launched an investigation into Paragon Housing scam in November 2017 after receiving a number of complaints. Then, in December 2018, Khawaja Saad Rafique and his brother Salman Rafique were detained after the Lahore High Court (LHC) rejected their request for an extension in prearrest bail in the case.

Sunday, 06 October, 2019

NEWS

AJK president visits eArthquAKe-hit Mirpur mirPUr

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APP

zAD Jammu & Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan Saturday visited the earthquake-hit areas of Mirpur and reviewed the pace of the initial stage of the ongoing reconstruction and rehabilitation process in the affected areas.

Talking to reporters at the DHQ Hospital, the President emphasized the need of self-preparations to encounter the natural calamities with prime focus to avert the threats of loss to the men and material in case of any catastrophe.

Sardar Masood continued that September 24 devastating earthquake in Mirpur had once again warned us to raise awareness and necessary knowledge so as to face minimum of loss in case of any calamity.

“We learned series of lessons after the deadly earthquake of October 8, 2005 in connection with facing the nat-

ural calamities”, the President said and added that for the very reason, the concerned disaster management functionaries of the governments of Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir collectively and successfully exe-

cuted immediate relief operations saving lot of precious human lives in the Mirpur catastrophe caused by the earthquake of the moderate magnitude.

The President emphasized the need of devising due preparations and strat-

Amnesty on India: Hate crimes rose sharply the first half of 2019

egy to save Mirpur from the devastation of the earthquakes, keeping in view the area located on the fault line.

Lauding the civil and military institutions for their immediate and vibrant collective role in rescue and relief operations through immediately establishing the relief camps in the quake-hit areas, Masood said that it was ample proof of the outstanding performance of the state’s administrative institutions.

The AJK President said that the governments of Pakistan and AJK were taking every possible steps for the early rehabilitation and resettlement of the earthquake affectees rendered shelter less following the catastrophe. The President asked the National and the State Disaster Management Authorities and the Crises Management Cell to take immediate necessary steps for the rehabilitation and resettlement of the affectees before the advent of winter similar to the measures these institutions had immediately undertook during the course of rescue the affectees in the recent calamity.

Qureshi stresses need to follow teachings of Sufi saints mULTan APP

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Saturday stressed the need to follow teachings of saints for promotion of peace, love and brotherhood.

He said this while addressing the inaugural session of the three-day Urs ceremonies of great Sufi saint Hazrat Bahauddin zakariya here.

He urged the devotees to understand the message of the great saint and follow it for success in life and hereafter.

The foreign minister called upon the devotees to pray especially for Kashmiris, who were living in miserable conditions and facing brutalities at the hands of the Indian forces.

The foreign minister said that curfew in Kashmir had entered the third month of lockdown, adding that the people of held Valley had no access to hospitals, schools markets to get food and daily-

use items. He said that the Indian army was using pellet guns against the unarmed people and thousands of young men had been rendered blind there.

He prayed the Almighty to create ease of life for Kashmiris and end their sufferings.

Qureshi said that the whole Pakistani nation was standing with their Kashmiri brethren and they would support them till freedom from the Indian occupation.

He also prayed for peace in Afghanistan adding that bloodshed had been continuing at the western border of Pakistan for the last 19 years.

He said that Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia were going to launch an international English-language television channel which would counter the Islamophobia propaganda and convey the message of Sufi saints to the world.

Earlier, custodian of the shrine Shah Mehmood Qureshi gave traditional ‘ghusal’ to the shrine along with Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar to formally open the Urs celebrations.

05

Qureshi thanked Chief minister Sardar Usman Buzdar for participating in the Urs of Sufi saint. He said that the Punjab CM had approved sufficient funds for expansion of three shrines in Multan city including Hazrat Bahauddin zakariya, Hazrat Shah Rukn-eAlam and Bibi Pak Daman.

Dean Islamic Department, Government College University Lahore, Professor Dr Sultan Shah also paid rich tribute to Hazrat Bahauddin zakariya on the occasion. He said that Hazrat Bahauddin zakariya spent all his life while spreading the teachings of Islam.

Chief of Jamat Ahl-e-Sunnat Allama Hafiz Farooq Khan Saeedi, Pir Khalid Sultan Qadri and others also spoke.

MNAs Malik Aamir Dogar, zain Qureshi, Ahmad Hussain Dehar, provincial minister for Auqaf Pir Syed Saeed-ul-Hassan, provincial minister for energy Dr Akhtar Malik, special assistant to CM Punjab Javed Akhtar Ansari, zahoor Hussain Qureshi and others also attended the inaugural session.

Amnesty India’s hate crime tracker has recorded 181 incidents of alleged hate crimes in the first half of 2019, the steepest rise in such incidents since 2015. The count is almost double that of the same period last year, when 100 such cases were recorded. Over two-thirds of the victims were targeted because because they were Dalits, while 40 of them suffered on account of their Muslim identity. In 37 reported incidents, the victims were killed.

In 30 cases, victims were raped or sexually assaulted, with sexual harassment in another 19 cases. Between January and June 2019, 72 mob attacks were reported. Of the 37 such attacks against Muslims, the victims were lynched to death in five cases. Dalit victims were lynched to death in eight of the 28 mob attacks targeting them. There were seven honour killings and 12 cases of violence against Adivasis.

Amnesty’s Halt the Hate website was launched in September 2015 in the wake of the murder of Mohammed Akhlaq on the suspicion of beef consumption in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh. It has recorded a total of 902 reported incidents of hate crime since then, of which 621 were related to caste discrimination, while another 113 were motivated by cow vigilantism. A quarter of all hate crimes since 2015 took place in Uttar Pradesh, with 216 in total.

Other states with high incidences of hate crime include Tamil Nadu (80), Gujarat (79) and Haryana (61). The tracker works by collating information from reports in English and Hindi language media. It classifies hate crimes on the basis of alleged motives, types of targeted victims and level of violence. Official government data is not available, as Indian law does not recognise a hate crime as a separate offence. “For India to be committed towards ending hate crimes — where people are targeted because of their identity stemming from race, religion, caste and gender amongst others, it is essential for the penal laws to first recognise the bias behind such crimes and document the occurrence of such incidents – both of which remain absent currently,” Amnesty International India’s executive director Aakar Patel said in a statement. News desk

Health Department: One Year and Beyond

By Dr yasmin rashiD The first year was a year of challenges. It would have been rather smooth had it only been about fixing the administrative jinx.

Rather, it turned out to be a multitude of administrative, technical and political conundrums that ‘came not single spies, but in battalions’ throughout the year.

Public offices present difficult choices. There is an easier path and a difficult one. The conventional yet often trodden path is: put inauguration plates, play up things with cosmetics and get into headlines. The second one, a touch lackluster yet the right one is to introduce sustainable reforms in system to make it productive and efficient. The latter comes with a price not to the liking of politicians yet for me it was an instant no brainer. So came extensive consultations with stake holders to identify and address the administrative bottlenecks and devise strategies to improve service delivery.

For a life spent in clinical, academic, research and administrative areas of healthcare, I had already mapped out strategic interventions for improvement albeit the situation was much worse than expected.

So destiny presented this rare opportunity to bring about the change for which I yearned for all my life. The flip side is that the time and resources are scarce; yet this has to be done. Two goals are very clear; equitable and quality health service delivery for rich and the poor alike and development of healthcare facilities and institutions that can take services, research and academics a few notches higher. A few years down the road, court of history will judge how far I succeeded.

In order to create a visible impact in the healthcare service delivery, the pivotal factor is the number and quality of human

resource. One shocking realization on assuming office was that the Department was short of around 50% doctors, nurses and paramedics. Only these figures clearly explain the reason for the poor state of affairs. Human resource was an ignored area; even when half-baked attempts were made to fill the vacant positions, red-tapism came in the way; nothing moved altogether.

Hence strengthening of Human Resource became the starting point. In the last one year we have brought 14903 new doctors to the system. Over 10,000 positions of doctors were lying vacant only in the Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department.

Not just that, 3543 new nurses have been added to the system and hiring of another 7400 is in process. In different technical and allied health categories, the hiring process of 3537 personnel is almost complete whereas work on hiring of another 1400 has been initiated.

At the 2503 Basic Health Units in Punjab, due to the recruitment of new Medical Officers, it is for the first time that 93% of BHUs have doctors available at the posts. The government has filled over 2200 positions of Consultants at Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department alone. Another major roadblock was the shortage of Anesthetists, as major surgeries depend on them. We have ensured their availability through training programs, new hiring and rotation arrangements. All out efforts are being to complete hiring for new positions by the end of this year.

Promotions were another neglected area requiring immediate attention. The process had hit snags and was a major cause for lack of motivation among the staff. As many as 1673 promotions have been made and the process has been ex-

pedited so that unnecessary delays are avoided. Further, we have introduced handsome salary incentives for doctors.

An online Facility for Transfers and posting is also being developed which will help remove other bottlenecks.

On assuming office, another painful realization was that Mother and Child Health had remained seriously neglected area particularly in infra structure. We were far behind the Sustainable Development Goals targets thereby necessitating a revision in targets. Quite understandable as mother and child health does not make big news.

Therefore due to this dire need, work on setting up of 5 new Mother and Child Hospitals in Mianwali, Layyah, Attock, Rajanpur & Bahawalnagar (south preferred due to data on indicators) on emergency basis was started. A special state-of-the-art 400bedded Mother and Child Quaternary Hospital is being constructed at Ganga Ram Hospital Lahore. A dedicated Child Health University is also being developed at Children Hospital Lahore.

The health of school children was not even given a thought by the previous government. The health and nutrition checkups in schools were much needed for children as they are our future. A pilot project for school children was initiated in nine districts and the teams have checked nutritional and health status of 7442 school children. The project will be formally replicated in all the districts of Punjab from November onwards.

Our special focus has been on Basic Health Units and Rural Health Centers.

Under the Prime Minister Health Initiative, work on new infra structure facilities have started in 8 Districts which are: Attock, Chiniot, DG Khan, Mianwali, Jhang, Kasur, Lodhran and Rajanpur.

Under this project revamping of 35 RHCs Emergency Blocks, Establishment of 35

CMYK

Neo-natal nurseries at RHCs, up gradation of 16 Urban Health Centers and construction of 8 new Warehouse has been initiated. We have upgraded over 300 BHUs to 24/7 model in the last one year.

The last government upgraded less than 1000 BHUs in over a decade (an average of less than 100 per year).

Another big challenge was the revamping project of DHQs and THQs. The former government left the infra structure in debris after raucous inaugurations, deviating resources elsewhere later. The revamping project of 40 Hospitals in (25 DHQ, 15 THQ) has been started and funds have been released for the same.

Regarding tertiary care healthcare facilities, the improvement work was started in 9 hospitals notable among these are: Nishtar-2 Multan, Children Hospital Bahawalpur, DG Khan Institute of Cardiology, Burn Center Bahawalpur. The initiatives are: Revamping of Emergencies at 12 Tertiary Hospitals, Surgical Tower at Jinnah Hospital Lahore, New blocks at DG Khan Teaching Hospitals, up gradation of DG Khan Medical College and Mehman Khana for Patients Attendants.

The Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute is another story where Rs 17 billion were gifted to a private entity in sheer violation of rules and regulations. We have brought PKLI under legal umbrella, streamlined its affairs and will make it fully functional in the next few months.

For a country battling poverty, provision of free healthcare to the marginalized especially in emergencies should have been the first priority. The Sehat Insaf Cards are being provided to families with income less than two dollars a day. The services will be gradually scaled up to the population at large. Only in our first year, the health card has been extended to 28 districts to over 3 million families. It will

be extended to all 36 districts very soon.

The cards provide insurance cover of Rs. 720,000 in empanelled Public and Private Hospitals. Following a similar successful initiative in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa earlier, the last Punjab government mimicked the model in haste. However, neither the hospitals were empanelled nor premium was paid. So even in districts where the card was given, it was merely a piece of paper.

We have undertaken a thorough review of the existing legal arrangements and have introduced PKLI ACT and MTI ACT. Others under process and review are Thalassemia & Other Genetic Disorders Act, Violence against Doctors Protection Bill, Drugs Act, Punjab Healthcare Commission Act, Children University Act and PHF ACT. Keeping the UN Sustainable Development Goals in sight, we have prepared a 10 year Health Sector Strategy that chalks out a route for phase-wise improvement in areas of healthcare service delivery. The areas addressed are: The Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Health, Nutrition and Family Planning, Preventive Health Services to Communicable and non communicable diseases, Patient safety and Quality of Care, Medicines and Bio Medical Equipment, Health Management Information System, Health Governance and Accountability, Development of Human Resource for Health, Healthcare Financing in Public Private Partnership, Health Disaster Management and Emergency Management, One Health Including Environmental Health.

We would be reforming the health sector keeping the Sustainable Development Goals in Focus. We are hopeful that by commitment and hard work, we can achieve our goals.

The writer is the Minister for Health, Punjab.

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

06 WORLD VIEW

The slow Us wiThdrawal from afghanisTan AFGHANISTAN SUPPLIES 90 PERCENT OF THE WORLD’S OPIUM AND 95 PERCENT OF EUROPE’S. THE TALIBAN EARNS AS MUCH AS $400 MILLION EVERY YEAR FROM ITS OWN ROLE IN THE ILLEGAL DRUG TRADE yaleGlobal

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austin BoDetti

EGoTIATIoNS for a political settlement between the Taliban and the United States to end the war in Afghanistan, a oncepromising process, all but collapsed in early September. Many analysts have mulled over what the conclusion of the longest foreign military engagement in American history might have meant for the War on Terror. A question of equal importance: How would these developments affect the War on Drugs?

Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world’s opium and 95 percent of Europe’s. The Taliban earns as much as $400 million every year from its own role in the illegal drug trade. Though the United States dedicated an impressive array of resources to combating narco-trafficking at the height of the War in Afghanistan, an American withdrawal from the Central Asian country could mark the end of any American role in the Afghan arena of the War on Drugs. For their part, the Taliban and other Afghan militants, earning millions, have little incentive to fight the illegal drug trade. If the United States wants to keep narco-trafficking from ballooning as soon as its soldiers leave Afghanistan, its diplomats must address this problem with the Taliban.

Before the United States launched peace talks with the Taliban, American policymakers viewed tackling the illegal drug trade in Afghanistan as a method of weakening the insurgents. The United States deployed more than 100 employees of the Drug Enforcement Administra-

tion, or DEA, to Afghanistan. In turn, the DEA organized strike forces of special agents, dubbed “FAST teams,” to raid Afghan drug labs and opium dens. The DEA also partnered with the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, or INL, part of the State Department, to train two Afghan law enforcement agencies dedicated to counternarcotics: the Sensitive and Technical Investigative Units, overseen by the Afghan Counternarcotics Ministry. This collaboration led to several high-profile successes for the DEA, among them the capture of the Taliban-linked narco-traffickers Haji Bagcho and Khan Mohammad. By 2018, a year before the outset of peace talks between the Taliban and the United States in Doha, the United States had spent $8.7 billion on its Afghan counternarcotics campaign.

In the rush to conclude a peace treaty with the Taliban, the Trump administration appeared to abandon its bid to curb the illegal drug trade in Afghanistan. While American generals announced a new strategy of employing Afghan and US warplanes to destroy Taliban drug labs to much fanfare in November 2017, the United States canceled the program in February 2019. Peace talks between American diplomats and Taliban negotiators began the same month. The decline of the US commitment to counternarcotics in Afghanistan started far earlier, however. In 2011, when President Barack obama was first eyeing an American withdrawal from the Central Asian country, the number of DEA employees in Afghanistan had shrunk to around 75, split between the strategic cities of Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Kunduz.

In 2016, meanwhile, the Defense Depart-

Gandhi's enemies

IndIa Today Faisal Devji

If Gandhi lives today it is because of his enemies, who seem unable to let go of his memory. The Mahatma's followers have turned him into a saint whose teachings can safely be ignored-as the words of a superior being to be admired from afar.

Given the ritualistic respect offered to him in India and received with public indifference, it is puzzling why Gandhi remains such a living figure for his critics.

Perhaps they are the only ones who still feel betrayed by his loss of sainthood.

This betrayal is renewed in every generation, as scholars and activists discover yet another of the Mahatma's failings.

In the wake of second-wave feminism, the Mahatma, during the 1980s, was excoriated for his views about women. The criticism was based on anecdotes about Gandhi's treatment of his wife Kasturbai and his experiments with celibacy that entailed sleeping naked with young women.

But these women's voices are strangely silenced. Manubehn, who participated in Gandhi's experiments, has left a diary that no critic has thought to read. While he was sometimes harsh to his intimates, it was also from Gandhi's circle that many women entered public life-Anasuya Sarabhai, Mridula Sarabhai, Amrit Kaur, Sarojini Naidu and Sushila Nayyar.

In the 1990s, when the Mandal Commission revived caste struggle in India, Gandhi's caste prejudice came into focus.

But this did little more than recover BR Ambedkar's polemics against him. Here, too, critics dwelt on anecdotes about the Poona Pact, when Gandhi fasted to deny separate electorates to lower castes, and his unconcern with any real amelioration of their plight. Yet, the Poona Pact was not only a caste issue, but emerged from

the Minorities Pact between Muslims, Dalits and others that denied the existence of a nation in India.

The Mahatma's critics may agree with Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Ambedkar about the absence of a nation in India, but resist recognising why Gandhi supported caste. As an anarchist, the Mahatma was suspicious of the state and its effort to remake society in a fulfilment of colonialism.

He realised that castes, villages and religious communities were crucial if swaraj, or self-rule, was to be produced outside the state, which could not be allowed to dictate a national identity to Indians. For this, it was necessary to reform rather than reject such institutions, making Gandhi a conservative rather than a revolutionary.

Ambedkar started disagreeing with the Mahatma by arguing for the state's absolute power to transform society, which is what allowed him to join hands with Jawaharlal Nehru. But he soon realised the excesses and limitations of such power, resigning from the cabinet to concentrate on promoting social change in religious terms, a move reminiscent of Gandhi's career.

Indeed, Ambedkar never forsook the Mahatma's arch-concept of satyagraha, despite his clear and abiding hatred of the man who had called his bluff in forcing him to back down during the Poona Pact.

If Gandhi's feminist foes silence women's voices, his caste enemies erase the role of Muslims to make for a purely Hindu debate-many of Ambedkar's arguments about nationality and representation being versions of Jinnah's. His views about 'backward' adivasis and 'fanatical' Muslims, whom he wanted to deny separate representation, would also merit more censure were Ambedkar treated in the same way as Gandhi.

Ambedkar thought his attempt to secure representation for Dalits was undercut by the Muslim League's desire to come to an agreement with the Congress at their expense, as also by the colonial state's promotion of adivasi representation to fragment Indian politics.

During his own lifetime, Gandhi's enemies mounted arguments that were political rather than personal. They saw the

ment stopped updating Congress on counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan. In what could have the greatest consequences for the future of Afghan participation in the War on Drugs, an American government agency that studies the U.S.’s war effort, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, reported this year, “Afghanistan’s Ministry of Counter Narcotics will likely be disbanded, according to the State Department.”

The United States also cut $100 million in funding and suspended another $60 million just a week before Afghanistan’s September 28 presidential election. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Alice Wells, advised the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the administration of US President Donald Trump had profound concerns about “corruption, government malfeasance, recordhigh opium production, and criminalization of the economy.” While no one knows the winner of Afghanistan’s election for the time being, counternarcotics seemed far from the minds of all top candidates, and analysts have yet to assess what role the suspension of some US funding to Afghanistan played in the results. So far, no other country seems to have followed the US example.

Like the War on Terror, the War on Drugs achieved limited results in Afghanistan. Still, the United States and its Afghan partners have an obvious interest in preventing the Central Asian country from descending into lawlessness and turning into a greater hotbed of narcotrafficking. When the United State departs Afghanistan, a possibility that seems no less likely with the implosion of peace talks, a larger share of responsibility for

law enforcement in Afghanistan will fall to the Afghan authorities, who will have little choice but to compromise with the Taliban in the name of any peace treaty.

If Afghan and US diplomats choose to revive the peace process and include a discussion of the insurgents’ role in the illegal drug, the United States may even find an opportunity to salvage what remains of its counternarcotics campaign and undermine narco-trafficking in Afghanistan.

The Taliban could prove willing to surrender its involvement in the illegal drug trade if the United States decides to return to the negotiating table in addition to offering enough concessions. As much as the insurgents profit from narco-trafficking today, they once enforced the only successful ban on the illegal drug trade in the history of Afghanistan. In 2000, when the Taliban governed most of the Central Asian country as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the DEA judged that a onetime Taliban attempt to outlaw opium’s cultivation had succeeded where two decades of American counternarcotics programs would fail. The contemporary extent of the Taliban’s participation in the illegal drug trade notwithstanding, the insurgents’ past ban on narco-trafficking indicates that they could come around to Afghan and US policymakers’ counternarcotics objectives.

During negotiations with the Taliban about the likely schedule for an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, US diplomats proposed that the country could leave a task force of commandos in the Central Asian country to pursue Al Qaeda and requested a binding pledge from the Taliban that terrorist groups would never again use

Afghanistan as a launch pad for anti-US attacks. A similar arrangement might guarantee the future of Afghan-American counternarcotics efforts. The United States could push the Taliban to allow a skeleton crew of DEA special agents and INL experts to stay in Afghanistan as advisors to their Afghan counterparts, and American negotiators could also ask that the Taliban reenact its ban on the illegal drug trade. only negotiations could decide what the United States would have to promise in return, but the Taliban would likely demand that the United States provide an alternative source of income for Taliban warlords reliant on narco-trafficking. Viable alternatives might include providing former members of the Taliban well-paid positions in the Afghan government and training them to run profitable legal businesses.

No matter the urgency of limiting further bloodshed in Afghanistan, the United States must remember the havoc wrought by the illegal drug trade in the Central Asian country. Peace talks presented one of the best chances in years for the United States to realize its counternarcotics goals in Afghanistan. With the apparent failure of the peace process, American diplomats have turned their attention to Iran, North Korea and other headline-grabbing adversaries. Unless the United States moves to reinvest itself in the Afghan front of the War on Drugs, Afghan and American officials will likely be dealing with the consequences of the illegal drug trade in Afghanistan for decades to come.

Austin Bodetti studies the intersection of Islam, culture and politics in Africa and Asia. His research has appeared in The Daily Beast, USA Today, Vox, and Wired.

THE MAHATMA REMAINS A LIVING FIGURE FOR HIS CRITICS AS GENERATION AFTER GENERATION DISCOVERS YET ANOTHER OF HIS ‘FAILINGS’

Mahatma as anti-Muslim or anti-Hindu in ways that repudiated anecdotal evidence for more complex narratives.

Even his assassin acknowledged Gandhi's sincerity and attributed his supposed betrayal of Hindus to the attempt at repeating his success in unifying South Africa's Indian community-having misunderstood the different conditions at home. The communist view of Gandhi as an agent of capitalism was complex and invoked Marx's theories about the development of class conflict.

Colonial officials were the ones who pioneered the anecdotal and personal style of criticism that has come to define Gandhi's enemies. For they accused the Mahatma not of any particular crime, but of being a consummate hypocrite in all he said and did.

This focus on hypocrisy discounts an understanding of Gandhi's words and deeds as a form of political thought to search for their meaning in fragmentary quotations and conspiracies. It is a way of understanding history characteristic of the far right, and signals the leftist critic's collusion with them.

These varied and mutually contradictory condemnations tell us more about those who make them than the man who is their subject. Gandhi has become the

origin from which each generation of Indians can trace the consequences of its social and political concerns. In this way, he remains the father of the nation.

It is not surprising, then, that with its worldwide revival, Gandhi is now being accused of racism, of which Indians have now become agents rather than objects.

Unprecedented about the condemnations of Gandhi's racism, however, is that they are not limited to India but have become global, with statues of the Mahatma attacked or removed in different parts of Africa as a result. Two charges are levelled against Gandhi.

That he never spoke for the liberty of Africans or involved them in his movement. And that he saw Africans as inferior and sought to keep Indians separate from them. But unless he was invited to do so, the Mahatma never spoke for any community of which he was not a member. For he conceived of non-violence as an exemplary rather than instructive practice, one attracting emulation to maintain an anarchistic social plurality.

Gandhi's South Africa was a society whose racialised populations were treated differently by law. As a lawyer defending Indian privileges, he was unable to challenge the legal system itself. And the law

ensured he could only defend these privileges by making sure Indians were not identified with Africans, though he might well have approved of this separation.

Yet, he also insisted on treating wounded Zulus in the ambulance corps he led during the Bambatha Rebellion, his political sympathies being with them and not with Britain.

When he was no longer a lawyer, Gandhi's derogatory comments about Africans ceased. In his book Satyagraha in South Africa, he contrasted Zulus favourably with Indians on every count.

Eventually, he would also see AfricanAmericans as the most hopeful agents of non-violence worldwide.

But given their legal status, the Mahatma had to fight for his compatriots as Indians. His demand was an international rather than South African one, and consisted of compelling India to uphold the status of her subjects in other parts of the British Empire.

Calling the Mahatma's first satyagraha a South African one, as he himself did, is, therefore, something of a misnomer, as its traction depended upon India's and, therefore, London's involvement. South Africa was only one site of this struggle, with Gandhi interested in the status of Indians all over the British Empire, from Kenya to Mauritius, Guyana, Fiji and Trinidad. It became a global movement when he sought to and, in fact, succeeded in abolishing indenture, the Indian successor to African slavery which supplied labour for much of the Empire.

Perhaps Gandhi was a racist after all, but we get no sense of this from his enemies, whose personalised, and often conspiratorial, arguments deprive his thought of integrity and ignore the many contexts in which he operated.

Even accusing Hitler of racism is a meaningless generality, since we can only understand his violence by taking its intellectual justification and historical context into consideration. Instead of merely turning the saint into a sinner, then, it is time for the Mahatma to become a properly historical figure for his friends as much as enemies.

Faisal Devji is a professor of Indian history at the University of Oxford.

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

FOREIGN NEWS 07

Baghdad CUrfew lIfTed BUT Iraq oN alerT for New proTeSTS BAghdAd

a

AgeNcies

curfew was lifted in Baghdad on Saturday following days of protests which have left nearly 100 dead, but tensions remained after firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr demanded the government quit. The largely spontaneous protests over chronic unemployment and poor public services that erupted in the capital on Tuesday have escalated into a broader movement demanding an end to official corruption and a change of government.

At least 93 people have been killed and nearly 4,000 wounded, as protests spread to cities across the south, the parliamentary human rights commission said. Sadr threw his weight behind the demonstrations on Friday with a call for the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. His movement has the power and organisation to bring large numbers of supporters onto the streets, but at the risk of alienating many of those who have taken to the streets in recent days to express their rejection of all of Iraq's feuding political factions. Speaker Mohammad al-Halbusi was due to convene a session of parliament session later on Saturday to discuss job creation and social welfare

schemes, after he too extended a hand to the protesters, saying: “Your voice is being heard.” In Baghdad on Saturday, municipal workers were out and about cleaning up the rubbish burned by protesters in recent days.

Shoppers trickled back onto the streets to buy vegetables and other perishable goods the price of which has more than doubled since the deadly protests started. With the daytime curfew in place since Thursday lifted, demonstrators began gathering near the emblematic Tahrir Square in the morning although many main thoroughfares remained shut and an internet blackout was still in force.

'WE don't Want paRtiEs' The mainly young, male protesters have insisted their movement is not linked to any party or religious establishment and have scoffed at recent overtures by politicians.“These men don't represent us. We don't want parties anymore. We don't want anyone to speak in our name,” said one protester late Friday.

Abu Salah, a 70-year-old resident of Baghdad with wispy white hair and a matching beard, said the streets would be full until Iraqis saw real change.“If living conditions don't improve, the protests will come back even worse,” he told AFP.The protests have presented the biggest challenge yet to the Iraqi

premier, who came to power a year ago as a consensus candidate promising reforms but whose response to the demonstrations has been seen as tepid.

“Abdel Mahdi should have come forward with decisive changes, like the sacking of leading politicians accused of corruption,” said Iraqi analyst Sarmad al-Bayati.Political and religious rifts run deep in Iraq, and protests are typically called for by party or sect — making the last five days exceptional, said Fanar Haddad an expert at Singapore University's Middle East Institute.

LaWmakERs sEt FoR shoWdoWn: Sadr, a former militia leader turned nationalist politician, demanded on Friday that the government resign to clear the way for a fresh election supervised by the United Nations.

His bloc is the largest in parliament, and his intervention sets the scene for a possible showdown with the speaker, who has made his own bid to make political capital out of the protests.

Calling Saturday's parliamentary session, Halbusi pledged he would “take off his suit jacket and be the first among the protesters,” if he did not see the government improve living conditions. Adel Mahdi appealed on Friday for more time to implement his reform agenda in a country plagued by corruption and unemployment after decades of conflict.

Erdogan says Turkey to launch military operation in northeast Syria AnkArA AgeNcies

Turkey will mount a military operation in northeast Syria, it said on Saturday, after accusing Washington of not doing enough to expel Syrian Kurdish fighters from its border. The air and ground operation east of the Euphrates river in Syria could start at any time, President Tayyip Erdogan said. The U.S.-backed force which controls the region, the Syrian Democratic

Forces (SDF) led by the Kurdish YPG militia, said it wanted stability but vowed to respond to any attack. “We will not hesitate to turn any unprovoked attack by Turkey into an all-out war on the entire border to defend ourselves and our people,” SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said.

NATO allies Ankara and Washington agreed in August to set up a zone in northeast Syria along the border with Turkey, which considers the YPG a terrorist organization linked to Kurdish insurgents at home.

Turkey has accused the United States, which helped the YPG defeat Islamic State militants in Syria, of moving too slowly to create the zone. They are at odds over how far it should extend into Syria and who should control it.Ankara wants the zone to stretch 30 km (19 miles) inside Syria and to be cleared of YPG

fighters. It has repeatedly warned of launching an offensive on its own into northeast Syria, where U.S. forces are stationed alongside the SDF.Erdogan said Turkey aimed to “water the east of Euphrates with fountains of peace” and settle refugees there.“We gave all warnings to our interlocutors regarding the east of Euphrates and we have acted with sufficient patience,” he said at the opening of his AK Party’s annual camp.“We’ve made our preparations, we’ve completed our operation plans, given the necessary instructions.” He added that air and ground actions could start “as soon as today or tomorrow”.

REFUgEEs: Ankara says it wants to settle up to 2 million Syrian refugees in the zone, nearly halving the number sheltering in Turkey from Syria’s more than eight-year conflict.

However, the refugee transfer could face resistance from allies opposed to changing the demographic balance of the area. Kurdish leaders have previously accused Turkey of seeking to resettle mainly Arab Syrians from other parts of the country in their region which Ankara denies.

U.S. and Turkish troops have so far carried out half a dozen joint air mis-

sions over northeast Syria and three land patrols, including one on Friday.

Washington deems these “concrete steps” to address Ankara’s concerns.

Turkey says it is not enough.

“Land patrols, air patrols - we are seeing all of these are fiction,” Erdogan said on Saturday. The SDF, which has said it will pull back up to 14 km (8.7 miles) on some parts of the border, is committed to the agreements under U.S.-Turkish talks and will remain so if “dangerous threats” stop, its spokesman Bali said. Kurdish commanders have warned that a Turkish border attack would lead to a resurgence of Islamic State militants, from which the SDF seized vast territory in north and east Syria. “Simply, there will be a big gap in the towns that our forces will withdraw from to go to defend the border, and this will give Daesh the opportunity to return,” Bali said.

In recent years, the Turkish military has launched two offensives with its Syrian insurgent allies in the northwest of the country and has forces stationed there. Turkey’s rebel allies pledged on Friday to back an offensive by Ankara east of the Euphrates, blaming the YPG for displacing Arabs from the region.

India blocks US senator from visiting occupied Kashmir Senator Chris Van Hollen from the United States was this week refused entry into Indian-occupied Kashmir during a trip to India, according to a report in American news publication The Washington Post.

Hollen is part of a group of US Senators who have expressed serious concern over the alarming human rights situation in occupied Kashmir, which has been under a military curfew since August 5. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had revoked the constitutional autonomy of occupied Kashmir two months ago and imposed a military curfew in the valley, imprisoning millions of Muslims. According to the American publication, Van Hollen had asked New Delhi to allow him to travel so that he could ascertain whether Indian government claims about the occupied area were grounded in reality. “If the Indian government has nothing to hide, they should not worry about people visiting Kashmir and witnessing the situation with their own eyes,” Van Hollen was quoted as saying by The Washington Post. "As the world’s two largest democracies, India and the United States “talk a lot about our shared values,” he said. “I think this is a moment where transparency is important.” News Desk

Trump orders ‘substantial’ cut in National Security Council staff: Bloomberg Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump has asked for a substantial cut in the National Security Council staff, Bloomberg reported late on Friday, citing five people familiar with the plans. The step was described by some sources cited in the report as part of an effort from the White House to make its foreign policy arm leaner. The request to do so was conveyed to officials in the agency by current White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien earlier this week, according to Bloomberg. The reductions at the agency, in which currently 310 people work, will be carried out through attrition, Bloomberg reported. The report did not mention the exact number by which Trump is looking to cut the agency’s staff. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours. AgeNcies

EU presses UK to resubmit Brexit plan as end-game looms Brussels AgeNcies

EU and UK officials are to resume talks Monday on Britain's plans for a managed Brexit after a weekend hiatus during which London was under pressure to revise its proposals.The European Commission is adamant that, as they stand, "the UK proposals do not provide a basis for concluding an agreement".

That grates with Britain's government, which considers the proposals it submitted on Wednesday to be "a fair and reasonable compromise".

After hours-long talks in Brussels on Friday failed to move the dial, a UK spokesman said: "We want a deal and talks continue on Monday on the basis of our offer."Time is running short for the two sides to close the gap.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is determined to take his country out of the the European Union at the end of this month.An Octo-

ber 17-18 EU summit is to determine whether Britain is headed for a Brexit deal, no-deal, or an extension.

- a WEEk's WindoW -But European diplomats emphasise that London needs to offer revised, viable proposals within days and certainly before the end of next week, so any haggling and legalistic work is done before the summit.

"Everything must move very quickly and any negotiation has to start at the beginning of next week," one diplomat told AFP. "We will evaluate next Friday whether it's been possible to bring the positions closer."Although Johnson has called his Brexit proposals a broad "landing zone" the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, and his team are unsure how far Britain will budge.

The EU refuses to characterise the talks held so far as negotiations, underlining a preference to stick with a Brexit withdrawal agreement that was struck with Johnson's predecessor Theresa May

but rejected three times by British MPs. - 'Backstop' hEadachE -The main sticking point is a "backstop" for Northern Ireland.That is meant to guarantee no border springs up between the British territory and EU member Ireland, threatening a hard-won peace accord, while also maintaining the integrity of the EU's single market.

Britain's current idea for an alternative to the backstop -- which would see all the UK, or at least Northern Ireland, remaining in the EU's customs union -- is for untried technology to remove the need for most but not all border checks, and for EU standards on goods to continue to apply in Northern Ireland to facilitate trade.The border plan is not acceptable for the EU. It sees the potential for rampant smuggling, especially as Johnson intends for the rest of the UK to diverge from EU labour, environmental and tax norms to aim for a regulation-lite economy on Europe's doorstep. Nor does the

EU agree with a proposal that Northern Ireland's assembly be given a right to effectively veto the post-Brexit customs arrangement.If either of those two proposals are red lines for Johnson, it is hard to see the EU moving talks into the negotiation phase.

- ExtEnsion option -If thwarted, Johnson's best bet may lie with early elections.There he also faces a challenge, with the UK parliament having passed a law requiring him to seek a Brexit extension from the EU by October 19 if he has not reached a deal by then.

British media speculated that Johnson might seek to sabotage any extension request he is forced to make against his will. One path included his ministers asking an EU member state to block the unanimous approval needed for an extension, with Hungary cited as a likely ally to break EU ranks.

But Budapest denied Britain had approached it with such a request, and a

Hungarian foreign ministry source told AFP: "To date there is no request for a delay, hence there is no point in speculating about anything."

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

08 COMMENT The hard task ahead Bringing the USA and the Afghan Taliban together

Maulana’s quixotic march Islam in danger again?

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AKISTAN is making efforts to break the stalemate in Afghanistan caused by the suspension of talks between the Khalilzad-led US team of negotiators and the Afghan Taliban. While the USA appeared to be at the cusp of reaching a deal, it couldn’t be signed when US President Donald Trump, apparently disturbed by the Taliban’s jubilation over killing a US soldier, called off the talks. Another version ascribed his refusal to sign the deal to a perception that the brokered agreement could not be presented during the forthcoming Presidential elections as a victory for Trump.

Pakistan is required by the Afghan Taliban to persuade a mercurial Trump to sign the agreement.

President Trump on the other hand wants Prime Minister Imran Khan to convince the highly determined and ruthless Afghan Taliban to agree to a ceasefire and enter into talks with the Afghan government. This will require Pakistan to motivate both to enter into a give-and-take.

What will matter is how much clout Pakistan possesses with both sides.

While President Trump has promised to bring back US troops from the 18-year-long Afghan war, he also wants an agreement in hand that he can show to the US voters as evidence of US victory. The Afghan Taliban on the other would sign no document that by any flight of imagination could be interpreted as an instrument of surrender. Despite US insistence, they have refused to end the military operations aimed at capturing more territory while they continue to carry out terrorist attack to harass the Afghan administration. Meanwhile they have also refused to enter into talks with the Ghani government that they consider an American stooge.

Foreign Minister Qureshi hopes that the Taliban could be won over with the help of Pakistan’s agencies which may not be in consonance with the past events.

The agencies hope that PM Imran Khan can win over President Trump, an equally problematic feat. This explains why the Foreign Minister and ISI chief jointly received the Taliban delegation at the Foreign Office. how much synergy both are capable of generating will become clear in weeks and months to come.

Fed up tycoons Will their complaints result in action?

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few days ago, tycoons from across the country met with COAS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa to air some ‘serious concerns’ regarding the direction of the economy, an unresponsive government that does not keep its promises and how the NAB had made the business climate inhospitable by harassing and arresting members of their fraternity. The next day a different group of tycoons met with PM Imran Khan as well with the same set of complaints. Most of these problems are linked to the abysmal condition of the economy that will improve only when the ongoing adjustment cycle is complete it will take time. Pressure from the IMF and its ‘installations’ also make it near impossible to address the increasing cost of doing business in the near future.

So essentially what the COAS and government can deliver immediately is a more rational NAB. Apart from going after opposition party politicians the accountability watchdog has upped its activities against bureaucrats and businessmen. As a result, there is fear in the business community of getting picked up, from their place of business no less, while it is pen-down within the bureaucracy to avoid being accused of wrongdoing on trivial grounds at some point in the future. NAB insists that it is doing everything by the book and will refer cases related to private businesses to the FBR. Yet, a seventy-year old retired bureaucrat was arrested by NAB on flimsy grounds this week while inquiry proceedings have been initiated against the CeO of one of the largest business conglomerates in the country.

There has been talk of reviewing the NAB law but progress to that end is so slow that it seems the government is not too bothered. And why would it be?

When the leader of the house is unwilling to even acknowledge the opposition in Parliament, consensus on a law amendment bill is a longshot. how effective the complaints from the business community are to result in any action, only time will tell. But it quite clear the damage an open-ended law is doing in the hands of unchecked non-professional officers at the NAB. The government’s indifference towards this legitimate problem will only make its own job much harder going forward.

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami Editor Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

Umar Aziz

Asher John

Joint Editor

Executive Editor

Deputy Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36300938, 042-36375965

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aRif Nizami

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he Islamic version of Don Quixote with hordes of his Sancho Panzas in tow is all set to descend upon Islamabad later this month. Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman has unilaterally announced the final date of his anti-government march to Islamabad.

On October 27 the JUI-F (Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam Fazl group) chief along with (according to his own claim) million plus students belonging to the party-run seminaries will descend upon the federal capital come what may. So far, the cleric is embarked upon a solo flight.

Neither the PML-N (Pakistan Muslim league–Nawaz) nor the PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party), despite in broad agreement with its political objectives, for the time being are not actively supportive of the ‘Azadi march’. The PPP has deep reservations of buttressing any moves to oust the government through street power whereas the PML-N leadership does not agree with the timing.

In intense discussions with the JUI-F leadership both parties have urged the Maulana to hold his horses. But he is adamant. It is also not clear without any tailwinds from the deep state how the Maulana and his minions can achieve their goal of unseating the government and enforce fresh elections?

There is no ‘third umpire’ waiting in the wings to take the Maulana’s game plan to its logical conclusion. That is why perhaps the mainstream opposition parties are loath to go along with him.

Reportedly the incarcerated Sharif is all for the proposed march while the younger Sharif has strong misgivings. According to some media reports categorically contradicted by a party spokesperson, the PML-N president in his meeting with his elder brother on Thursday expressed his unwillingness to go along with the Maulana’s plans.

Both PML-N and the PPP oppose using the religion card so blatantly being touted by the JUIF. ‘Khatme Nabuwwat’ (finality of Prophethood) and ‘Namoos-e-Risalat’ (the virtuosity of the

holy Prophet PBUh) being in danger are moot points being assiduously touted by the JUI-F. Interestingly both are very emotive issues close to the heart of all Muslims. But presently there is no such controversy about them. Nonetheless in the Islamic Republic invoking the ‘Islam is in danger’ naara (slogan) is playing with fire.

This is not the first time religion is cynically being used to meet political ends. After the 1977 elections joint opposition parties formed the PNA (Pakistan National Alliance) to launch a movement against Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto for rigging the elections held earlier the same year. But soon the movement morphed into Tehreek e Nizam e Mustafa (movement for an Islamic system).

The end result was Bhutto being overthrown in a coup launched by his erstwhile loyal army chief general Ziaul haq. The military dictator through naked repression buttressed by his very narrow interpretation of Islam ruled for 11 long years, destroying the nation’s ethos- as envisaged by its founding fathers- in the process.

Presently, despite its deep resentment against the present government, the political opposition has perhaps similar kinds of apprehensions. The younger Sharif is more amenable for an in-house change even if it means forming a national government.

The elder Sharif who having veto power would like the government to go come what may.

The PPP however is for holding fresh elections.

The rump of the PML-N despite agreeing with its political objectives has deep-seated objections about the march. The 126 days dharna

by Imran Khan on D-Chowk Islamabad in 2014 failed to unseat the then Prime Minister Sharif.

What next if Maulana’s dharna also fails in dislodging the PTI government?

Khan was frustrated in his move because the fabled third umpire refused to lift his finger. At that time army chief general Raheel Sharif or commander 10 corps (Rawalpindi) Lt general Qamar Javed Bajwa did not show any inclination to support moves to oust Sharif.

Probably at that time the ubiquitous establishment wanted to rap the prime minister on the knuckles teaching him a small lesson. It is another matter that after appointing general Bajwa as successor to Raheel Sharif, Nawaz Sharif could not maintain cordial relations even with his hand-picked military chief.

Now ironically the shoe is on the other foot.

Perhaps for the first time in the history of the country an elected prime minister is on the same page as the establishment.

The army is seen propping up the PTI government in every way possible. From security issues, for-

eign policy, economy and governance; the political and military leadership are virtually active partners.

It is obvious the army desperately wants Khan to succeed. In fact, by many it is perceived that the PTI government is being considered as the last bastion of a semblance of civilian rule in the country.

Being a member of the newly formed National Development Council general Qamar Javed Bajwa the other day invited top businessmen of the country at dinner in an unprecedented move to restore business confidence. The big business perhaps consistently feeling harassed by NAB (National Accountability Bureau) and the FBR (Federal Bureau of Revenue) needed some mollycoddling by the army leadership rather than empty assurances from the civilian government.

In this context the opposition is well aware of the consequences of JUI-F’s ‘march’ going all-wrong. The proposed march culminating into a dharna could prove to be a recipe for disaster.

Thanks to a severe economic downturn and deep recession resulting in double digit inflation and rampant unemployment the situation can become very volatile. This could possibly lead to anarchy if the common man takes to the streets.

Saner elements in the opposition are well aware that inviting a leaderless disorder will be tantamount to throwing the proverbial baby with the bath water. But ironically the government basking in its ostensibly strong support base is oblivious of the inherent dangers. Perhaps this is also the ultimate objective of the JUI-F chief?

Rather than the PTI whose government the Maulana is bent upon dislodging, it is the PMLN and the PPP trying to dissuade the JUI-F from its impetuous putsch. The government continues to push the opposition into a cul-de-sac where it will have no option but to burn its boats.

Administrative plans to thwart the long march are being put in place. Interior minister Ijaz Shah is spearheading the game plan. Contrary to the PTI chief’s boast that containers will be provided to anyone wanting to embark on a dharna a la PTI, protesters will not be allowed to enter the federal capital come what may.

There is urgent need for Khan to engage the opposition rather than merely relying upon police and the army. So far as the so-called accountability process is concerned that needs to be rationalised in consultation with the parliamentary opposition.

The draconian law should be drastically amended not only for businessmen and bureaucrats but for the rest of the country as well. In spite of claims to the contrary the present Law has only engendered fear and uncertainty rather than even a semblance of across the board accountability.

Arif Nizami is Editor, Pakistan Today. He can be contacted at arifn51@hotmail.com

Should war crimes not be investigated?

Does the PM know what is going on?

Rabia ahmed

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he Prime Minister’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly was good as speeches by our leaders go.

It addressed some important issues, was well laid out, and delivered with conviction. But it contained several inconsistencies that took one’s breath away. Such as the rather plaintive “But one country cannot do anything” (meaning ‘everything’), “this has to be a combined effort of the world”– when speaking about climate change and the PTI’s efforts to mitigate its effects, and how the PTI government had planted billions of trees in KP. The PM must remember that countries are judged by their overall performance. The world does not care about what the latest government has achieved. And really, what has this government achieved, other than killing the economy and strangling the media?

So, suddenly the authorities in Pakistan woke up to the fact that the country must live up to the image of having done something. There Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9

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followed a commotion to clean up Karachi– which it has needed for the past many years, and the sudden clampdown on plastic bags– which was also long overdue.

The Mall in Lahore, once a peaceful road, is now best avoided as it is so often the scene of protests and riots. The latest protest was staged by those involved in the manufacture of plastic bags, furious because the ban on the use of plastic bags is to lead to the loss of a million jobs in eight thousand factories in Punjab alone.

While the move to end the use of non-degradable bags is laudable, the arbitrary way it has been done– entirely in keeping with many of this government’s moves– is not laudable at all. Like other arbitrary orders, this one too is likely to be rescinded at some stage, or else ignored. Like the M-tag for motorways, like the sudden clampdown on not using a seatbelt, like the directives in schools and universities. A similar attempt to end the use of plastic bags by the previous government never made it. But in the meantime, this time around, a million people in Punjab are to lose their jobs.

Where is the planning that would provide them with alternatives?

Probably the truest part of the PM’s speech was: “There are radical fringes in every society, but the basis of ALL religion is compassion and justice.” Yes, that is true. But this was followed by “I hear such strange things about Islam– that it is against women and minorities.”

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2204545

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The PM is right, Islam is not against women and minorities. So how then do we explain the persecution of hazaras, Ahmadis and Shias by mainstream Muslims in this country who almost always get away with it, and the ‘honour’ killings of women? Who is allowing this to happen? Are those ‘“some persons in the West who provoked Muslims” mentioned in the speech, to blame? Are those “some persons” also responsible for the incarceration of Aasia Bibi, for the forced conversions, and for the burning alive in an industrial kiln of Shama and her husband Shahzad Masih? Are they responsible for the young Christian men who have been disappearing from Youhanabad? Because last year their families alleged that 24 young men were picked up from Youhanabad by the police.

Who is responsible for the Ahmadis, hazaras and Shias who are harassed in this country while the rest flee elsewhere for their lives when they can?

Although compassion is undoubtedly there in Islam, in all religions, where is it in this country and why are there no consequences for most of the people who commit these crimes?

Why were there no consequences for Captain Safdar, for example, when he made a speech in the National Assembly in 2017 saying that Ahmadis should not be recruited into the Army because of their beliefs, and nor should the Physics Department of Quaid e Azam University be named

Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

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after Abdus Salam for the same reason? No political party or member of Parliament condemned Safdar for that speech at the time.

According to an AFP report a year ago, UN-mandated investigators said they had “reasonable grounds to believe that parties to the armed conflict in Yemen have committed a substantial number of violations of international humanitarian law.” Many of these violations may amount to “war crimes”, the report said, pointing to widespread arbitrary detention, rape, torture and the recruitment of children as young as eight to take part in hostilities.”

Yet, last month, Pakistan said that the UN should not be investigating human rights violations in Yemen.

Could that possibly be because its allies may have committed war crimes?

Is Pakistan holding back because it cannot do without Saudi aid?

Why is the government not protesting the persecution of Uighur Muslims in China? Is it because of the advantages accruing from CPeC? All races and people commit such crimes, yes, but that fact does not make ours any more palatable.

Yes, the world has a responsibility towards Kashmir. It must urge India to stop the atrocities there. It is good the PM stressed that. The alternative is, as the AFP reports, a nuclear war which could kill a 100 million.

Still, at the end of the day Imran Khan’s speech leaves you wondering if our Prime Minister is indeed blissfully unaware of the problems that beset Pakistan. Does he even think it is his boot that spurs the horse?

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

COMMENT 09 Editor’s mail

Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan.

E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively

Kashmir crisis

Selling the elixir of hate and hypocrisy With few in tow, the bandwagon rolls on Candid Corner Raoof hasaN Ordinary hypocrites pretend to be doves. Political and literary hypocrites pretend to be eagles. But, don’t be disconcerted by their aquiline appearance. They are not eagles, but rats and dogs.”

– Anton Chekhov

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heN the last elections were held and Maulana Fazlur Rehman failed to find a seat in Parliament, something that he thought was his birth right which could not be denied, he immediately dubbed them ‘rigged’ and started urging other political parties not to allow their representatives to take oath. he called upon them to demand re-elections. This bizarre ultimatum came without approaching the relevant institutions with his grievances for remedy. he acted like a one-man court adjudicating that the elections had been stagemanaged and decided not to follow the prescribed route to having his electoral concerns addressed. This, inter alia, proved that he knew that he had lost and there was nothing by way of evidence that he could present before the relevant institutions to prove that he had been wrongfully kept out of Parliament. ever since then, he has continued to chant his rigging mantra, simultaneously trying to win the support of other political parties to join his band of thugs to lock down Islamabad and render the government dysfunctional.

Roasting in their own potions of hate and shame, these other political parties have so far been reluctant to extend unqualified support, yet proclaiming that they agreed with the Maulana in principle.

After much ado, he has now announced that the assault on Islamabad will happen on October 27. he has said so in spite of requests from other political parties to postpone the march so that they could also organise their lances, spears and bayonets. The Maulana’s desperation is such that he would not brook any further delay in realising the dream of his conquest being undertaken with the young students of the seminaries he controls as his charges. Through years, they have been indoctrinated to follow his diktat blindly, unable to read the evil it is soaked in.

This so-called march is nothing but a pernicious plan to thwart the effort which is being made to introduce a system of accountability and stabilisation. This poses a grave challenge to the continuity of his and his cohorts’ politics of crime, corruption and hypocrisy. They have together ruled this country for decades, bringing it to the verge of virtual collapse. Yet they believe that they have a heavenly right to continue doing so in perpetuity without any let or hindrance. This is neither happening, nor is this likely to happen.

I have written often about the mortal dangers of allowing suchlike people to mix religion with politics. As a matter of fact, I have had serious issues with religion becoming a

constituent of state politics. While adopting the Objectives Resolution, we forgot the unambiguous guidelines contained in the Quaid’s address to the constituent assembly on 11 August 1947. he was categorical in delineating that the state had nothing to do with a citizen’s faith, caste, colour or creed. Unfortunately, that was not to be and, very early on in our existence as an independent country, we allowed the tentacles of religion to penetrate the multifaceted layers of state politics. This laid down the foundations of a regressive entity which became a hotbed of a culture of inequity, inequality and violence perpetrated in the name of religion.

The Maulana and his ilk operate as merchants of faith, selling their potions with monotonous frequency in exchange for a place in the echelons of power.

The entire political career of this mercenary is replete with instances of multiple debilitating bargains when he sold his soul for bags of silver. he was looking for a similar contract with the incumbent government, but to his utter angst and frustration, the dole-outs were not extended. he clearly understands that his days of freedom may also be nearing an end as he, too, would be held accountable before law for his indulgences in corruption and grave misdemeanours. he also realises that the person who is at the helm is determined to hold everyone answerable for their stock of misdeeds committed at the cost of the state exchequer. The Maulana’s tenure as the head of the Kashmir Committee is a classic example of political appeasement of criminal proportions. he enjoyed the lucrative benefits of his position without doing even a shred of work for the cause of Kashmir. Forget the rest, just the lassi (drink made from yogurt) that he downed during this 12-year uninterrupted occupation of a place in the Ministers’ enclave, cost the state over Rs 4 million. he also understands that his days of trading religion for political benefits may also be over. While enacting laws forbidding this to happen in the future remains a foremost necessity, it is also true that, in this age of enhanced awareness, a bulk of the people are now able to see through the thin veneer of righteousness which he wears. he is no longer able to hide a vast canvas coloured with exploitative machinations that he has painted, aimed at hoodwinking people to advance his

personal agenda. While he scornfully basks in the artificial glory of his exploits, the people remain deprived of even the basic necessities which are essential for their survival. This is craftily traded for promises of the hereafter which remain a hallmark tactic of such vile merchants of religion.

The role of the other political parties reads like an unending tale of contradictions. They are neither with him, nor do they have the courage to leave him. This is a reflection of their utter political bankruptcy. While they are secretly engaged in bargaining with the authorities for the release of their incarcerated leaders, they are not willing to confess this in public and feel the need for feigning a stand based on principles. This is so ludicrous, so farcical. The very hands which are joined at the palms in seeking forgiveness behind closed doors are raised in fake defiance in public.

The charade rolls on, pouring venom on the incumbent government for its attempts to lay the foundations of a state that would care for the needy and the impoverished, the weak and the disadvantaged within the domain of a system that would have empathy for its marginalised millions who have lived on the fringes of life, forever struggling for survival, but disdainfully fed on the throw-away morsels of the beneficiary elite.

Let the Maulana and his cohorts play out this last act also. I have a strong feeling that there will be a bare few ensnared by his vile narrative and Machiavellian tactics. For much too long he has exploited the illiterate and the poor in the name of religion, effectively denuding them of their hopes and dreams. Times have changed and it may be impossible to garner the numbers that he claims he would to march on Islamabad in an attempt to overthrow the government and hoist his flag of hypocrisy again.

I don’t see any of this happening. But, even if it did, let him live his vile dream through with a miserly few in toe which would be more a reason to retreat his step-in shame rather than move further.

For much too long he has exploited the illiterate and the poor in the name of religion, effectively denuding them of their hopes and dreams. Times have changed and it may be impossible to garner the numbers that he claims he would to march on Islamabad in an attempt to overthrow the government and hoist his flag of hypocrisy again

Raoof Hasan is a political analyst and the Executive Director of the Regional Peace Institute. He can be reached at: raoofhasan@hotmail.com; Twitter: @RaoofHasan

The 74th annual session of the UN General Assembly is going to held from September 17 to 27, 2019. This is an opportunity for Islamic Republic of Pakistan to present Kashmir issue in UNGA, as an independent participation with the help of P.5-countries (USA, Russia, UK, France and China) and UFC-Coffee Club (Pakistan’s UN-group).

The purpose of the United Nations (UN) is the maintenance of international peace and security. It has mixed records. The UN has been successful in socio-economic field. But it is failure in political domain which overshadowed its social services. however, to analyse UN’s Policy and its mission and vision on Kashmir issue. One can say UN is failed in political arena to maintain peace in the World. There are many solutions. To present solutions of Kashmir issue, one ought to know current situation.

It is globally acknowledge, Kashmir is an International dispute in South Asia (especially between Republic of India and Islamic Republic of Pakistan). The dispute continued over 72 years.

On August 5, 2019, the current government of India under Mr Narendra Modi administration altered the status of Indianoccupied Kashmir through the revocation of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution. This move is illegal under the Constitution of India. It violates not only the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on Kashmir, but also transgresses to the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), statements of the first Prime Minister (PM) of India Late Jawaharlal Nehru on Kashmir’s solidarity, and the Shimla Agreement. The former Chief Minister (CM) of Indian Occupied Kashmir Mrs Mehbooba Mufti said in ‘App_ki_Adalat’ programme, “India wants territory of Kashmir not the People of Kashmir.”

Once Mr Modi said in election campaign 2019, “Atal Bihari Vajpayee had spoken about humanity, and the essence of being a Kashmiri.” To follow the Modi’s words, it can be stop very easy. India should let those people in the Kashmir; determine their own destiny through Referendum, through the Ballot Box rather than through Bullets. It should be on the will of Kashmiris that either they want to join Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Republic of India or an Independent Kashmir!

SADAm HuSSAIN CHANNA Shikarpur

Nepotism galore? eVeR since PTI government came into power, Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly reiterated his determination and commitment to create corruption free Pakistan. his led federal government also claims everything being done in a transparent manner without any nepotism and favouritism whatsoever.

But at least some members of the federal cabinet are reportedly doing contrary to what the PTI government claims and promoting nepotism and favouritism right under the nose of PM Imran Khan. Federal education Minister Shafqat Mahmood who hails from Lahore according to some reports is promoting nepotism in the National history and Literary heritage Division of which he holds additional charge. While he has not been able to show impressive performance as the federal education Minister all these months, still he holds the additional charge. Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) falls under the National history and Literary heritage Division which has announced vacancy on its website for senior position of the Director General PNCA though the same has not yet been advertised in the national dailies so far.

The Minister incharge is reported to be interested in inducting an elderly woman relative from Lahore to the top slot of the PNCA by hook or crook belying the federal government claims of transparency and no nepotism. his lady relative is already 77-year-old whereas the maximum age limit for the vacancy announced by the PNCA is 63 years.

The Prime Minister is requested to take some time off his otherwise very heavy internal and external commitments and engagements and order an inquiry in the PNCA affairs to ensure no nepotism is promoted, transparency prevails and the Minister incharge is not able to induct his cousin as DG PNCA by misusing his power, please.

OSAmA BIN ASIm Rawalpindi

Increasing tax revenues The present government has set an ambitious target for this fiscal year in terms of tax collection – Rs5.5 trillion – to tide over its financial woes. It is commendable for Pakistan’s financial and tax managers to realise that the country must drastically enhance its tax collection system and bring those sections of society in the tax net that have evaded payment of taxes so far though they have been reaping high profits.

The tobacco and soft drinks sectors are the ones that make big profits. Among others, the government’s revenue collection machinery must focus on these sectors to achieve the new revenue collection targets. The government has already adopted various new means to increase its tax revenues. however, it is imperative for the tax managers to immediately introduce more innovative ways and means by which tax revenues can be further enhanced.

In this regard, the PTI government must not waste time reinventing the wheel and instead follow the most developed and efficient tracking systems prevalent both in the developed and developing economies to further expand the tax net through its own initiatives. It must take on board entities that meet international standards and regulations so that they can help it achieve its revenue targets through the use of technology, especially in those sectors that have a history of tax evasion.

The government can then channelise these additional revenues into a genuine national development regime.

SyED OvAIS AkHTAR karachi

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

10 FOREIGN NEWS

DemocrAts subpoenA White house As impeAchment probe intensifies WASHINGTON

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Agencies

emocratic lawmakers on Friday demanded that the White House turn over documents related to allegations that President Donald trump pressured Ukraine for political favors, as the explosive impeachment investigation against the US leader intensified. the congressional committees leading the probe cranked up the heat on the White House as evidence mounted that trump illicitly used his office to enlist Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s help to damage 2020 Democratic rival Joe Biden, in exchange for military aid. “the White House has refused to engage with – or even respond to – multiple requests for documents,” the Democratic chairmen of the House oversight, intelligence and foreign affairs committees said. “His actions have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena.” in their letter to acting White House chief of Staff mick mulvaney, the committees demanded that he turn over the requested files by october 18. the subpoena followed a demand earlier on Friday for documents from Vice President mike Pence. the investigators pointed to Pence’s knowledge of trump’s calls to Zelensky and his own meeting on September 1 with the Ukraine leader, as well as discussions he may have had with

trump and US diplomats about Ukraine and obtaining political dirt on Biden.

Secretary of State mike Pompeo failed to meet a Friday subpoena deadline to turn in Ukraine-related documents, cNN reported, citing a House Foreign affairs committee aide. New insight into trump’s Ukraine involvement might be forthcoming from a potential second whistleblower with more direct informa-

tion than the US intelligence community member who broke open the scandal two weeks ago, the New York times reported late Friday. intelligence community inspector General michael atkinson has already interviewed the second official as part of his work corroborating the original whistleblower’s story, it said, citing two sources who said the individual was still weighing whether to file a complaint.

meanwhile, a series of text messages between US diplomats dealing with Ukraine, made public by the congressional investigators, supported Democratic accusations that trump had illegally sought foreign help for his reelection effort. and the Wall Street Journal reported that, in an interview, republican Senator ron Johnson said he had learned that a quid pro quo had been proposed to Zelensky’s government by trump’s emissaries, tying military aid to a Ukraine corruption investigation into Biden. trump pushed back hard, saying there was no quid pro quo and, in an effort to recast the entire saga, insisted it was his responsibility to investigate “corruption.” “i don’t care about Biden’s campaign but i care about corruption,” he told reporters. the former US vice president responded by calling trump “the most corrupt president we’ve had in modern history.” “i am not going to stand for it,” Biden said at a campaign event in Los angeles, deeming trump “unhinged.”

“He has indicted himself by his own statements,” Biden added, one day after trump openly called for both Beijing and Kiev to investigate the Democrat for corruption. trump has alleged that Biden’s son Hunter earned “millions” from sitting on the board of directors of a Ukraine tycoon’s gas company. But no evidence has surfaced showing wrongdoing on the part of either Biden. the diplomats’ text messages showed that some had doubts about trump’s pressure on Zelensky, including

Hundreds return to Hong Kong streets as metro, shops shut after violence ceNTrAl Agencies

Hong Kong’s metro system stayed shut on Saturday, paralyzing transport in the asian financial hub after a night of chaos in which police shot a teenage boy and pro-democracy protesters torched businesses and metro stations.

Friday’s protests across the chinese-ruled city erupted hours after its embattled leader, carrie Lam, invoked colonial-era emergency powers for the first time in more than 50 years to ban the face masks demonstrators use to hide their identities. the night’s “extreme violence” justified the use of the emergency law, Beijing-backed Lam said in a television address on Saturday. “the radical behavior of rioters took Hong Kong through a very dark night, leaving society today half-paralyzed,” she said in pre-recorded remarks. “the extreme violence clearly illustrated that Hong Kong’s public safety is widely endangered. that’s the concrete reason that we had to invoke emergency law yesterday to introduce the anti-mask law.”

But undeterred by the ban and transport shutdown, several hundred protesters, many wearing masks, took to the streets on Saturday, marching through the bustling central district of causeway Bay, with more protests planned through the weekend.

“We’re not sure what is going to happen later, but we felt we had to get out and show our basic right to wear a mask,” said one protester, Sue, 22, who wore a black mask and dark glasses. “the government needs to learn it can’t squeeze Hong Kong people like this.”the increasingly violent demonstrations that have roiled the city for four months began in opposition to a bill introduced in april that would have allowed extradition to mainland china, but they have since spiraled into a broader pro-democracy movement.

the unrest has plunged Hong Kong into its biggest political crisis since its handover from Britain to china in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula that granted it autonomy and broad freedoms not enjoyed on the mainland. china’s Hong Kong and macao affairs office said on Friday the protests were evolving into a revolution backed by foreign forces and could not continue indefinitely.

TRANSPORT SHUTDOWN: mtr corp said its network, which carries about 5 million passengers each day, would remain suspended, while shopping malls and supermarkets also closed, in a new blow for retailers and restaurants in a city on the edge of recession. “as we are no longer in a position to provide safe and reliable service to passengers in the circumstances, the corporation had no choice but to make the decision to suspend the service of its entire network,” it said in a statement.

Protesters had set fires at stations,

as well as to an empty train, and injured two staff, added mtr, which is known for operating one of the world’s most efficient rail networks. all stations closed late on Friday, stranding passengers and forcing many to walk home, a situation set to worsen during a holiday weekend in the city. the airport express, one of the most popular routes to the airport, reopened with restricted service on Saturday, mtr said. more than a dozen shopping malls, supermarkets, and branches of Bank of china (Hong Kong), Bank of east asia, and industrial and commercial Bank of china, which have been targeted by protesters, said they would not open on Saturday. the 7-eleven chain of convenience stores said outlets would close at 5 p.m. the ban on face masks, which took effect on Saturday, was ordered under emergency laws allowing authorities to “make any regulations whatsoever” in what they deem to be the public interest.

CMYK

But the move enraged protesters, who took to the streets to vent their anger, many wearing masks in defiance of the ban. there were no immediate reports of arrests over the masks.

Demonstrators set fires, hurled petrol bombs at police and burned the chinese national flag, in a direct challenge to authorities in Beijing. Police said an officer in Yuen Long, a district in the outlying New territories that saw fierce clashes in July, had fired a shot in self-defense after a protester threw a petrol bomb at him, setting him on fire. media said a 14-year-old boy was shot and the city’s Hospital authority said his condition was now stable, but gave no details. about 100 demonstrators besieged a branch of the Bank of china (Hong Kong) in the highend shopping district of causeway Bay, while across the harbor in the district of Kowloon, protesters smashed the glass store front of a china Life branch.

allegedly freezing a $400 million military aid package.also Friday, Democrats interviewed atkinson, who handled the original anonymous whistleblower complaint about trump’s Ukraine dealings. the release last week of the complaint and a summary of trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky, in which he asked for a “favor” and referred to investigating Biden, ignited the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, said atkinson’s testimony offered further justification to his decision to label the whistleblower’s complaint urgent and credible. the call record “shows that trump pressured a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating a political opponent. those facts cannot be seriously contested,” Schiff said. trump, who has repeatedly suggested Schiff be tried for treason, called the lawmaker “a sick puppy” Friday in another furious twitter outburst. as Democrats raised their attacks on trump, many republicans remained muted, supportive of the president but keeping a distance.

Breaking with the pack, republican Senator mitt romney blasted trump’s comments that Beijing and Kiev should investigate Biden for corruption. “By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to china and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling,” tweeted romney, the republican presidential nominee in 2012.

AustrAliAn couple returns home After 3-month irAn Detention AGeNcIeS an australian-British blogger and her fiance said on Saturday they were "extremely happy and relieved" to be reunited with their loved ones after being freed from a three-month detention in iran. the couple returned to australia after all charges against them were dropped. "We are extremely happy and relieved to be safely back in australia with those we love," they said in a statement.

"While the past few months have been very difficult, we know it has also been tough for those back home who have been worried for us." they thanked the australian government for helping secure their release. there was no immediate acknowledgement on Saturday by iranian officials or in the country's state media of the couple's release. However, that has happened in previous cases. the couple spent almost three months in tehran's notorious evin prison after they were arrested for flying a drone near a military zone without a license.

Before their arrest, they had been globetrotting for two years and documenting their travels on instagram and Youtube. they requested privacy as they seek to "get back to (their) normal lives". "We know there are others who remain in detention in iran, including a fellow australian, and believe intense media coverage may not be helpful for efforts to bring them home," they said.

Foreign minister marise Payne said the government continued to seek the return of a third australian, melbourne University lecturer Kylie moore-Gilbert, who has been in detention since october 2018. Payne described her situation as "very complex". "She has been detained for some considerable time, and has faced the iranian legal system and has been convicted and sentenced," Payne said, adding the government did not accept the spying charges against her.

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

BUSINESS 11

Auto industry bAnds together to demAnd tAx relief ISLAMABAD

t

gULAM ABBAs

HE key stakeholders of the auto industry met on Friday to chalk out a plan to be suggested to the government for increasing demand of vehicles without hurting revenues.

Manufacturers of vehicles, under the banner of Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA) and parts manufacturers under Pakistan Association of Automotive Parts & Accessories Manufacturers (PAAPAM), had a crucial meeting on Friday.

According to sources, the two key bodies of the auto industry have agreed to find some sort of solution to this gloomy situation and to table the same to the government for revival of the industry. Insiders claim that the industry may demand government to immediately withdraw the newly introduced Custom Duty and Federal Excise duty in the sector give some relief to the sector. The meeting between the two key associations has come in the

wake of the important meeting held between top business leaders and Chief of Army Staff on Wednesday, in which the army and government representatives had committed to address concerns of the business community.

The auto sector of the country is in deep trouble these days, with sales and production sliding down by 41.4% as per PAMA numbers for 2MFY20 due to increase in prices, Rupee depreciation, reduction in car financing, increase in

Federal excise duties (FED) and higher input cost. September sales numbers are not reflecting sign of improvement, which will add up negative pressure for auto industry.

“Owing to falling demand and higher cost of doing business, the production plants of auto manufacturers have faced shutdowns of more than 30 days,” said a source.

According to Pakistan Automotive Manufacturers Association (PAMA), the sales of cars by Honda declined 68.5% on year on year basis.

Similarly, the sales of Toyota witnessed the decline of 58% and the sales of Suzuki registered a decline of 22.3 percent, thanks to new Alto introduction.

“The consequences of this situation would be holding back of expansion plans by the manufacturers, increase in import bill, loss of employment, negative impact on the localization process in the country, negative growth and expansion etc.,” said the source.

“This crisis has made the auto manufacturers completely reverse their devel-

opment plans and all the hopes of local manufacturers, new entrants, and the customers dashed.”

He said increase in advance customs duty on all raw materials and imposition of 2.5 to 7.5 percent FED announced in the current budget proved deadly for the industry, besides, he added, huge devaluation of Pakistani currency against the U.S dollar in the recent times has severely affected all future plans of the industry.

“Auto industry development policy predicted the sales to 350,000 cars and 79,000 light commercial vehicles by 2021. A year ago the industry was set to achieve 500K mark by year 2023, however, today the drop in overall economic activity in the country resulted in the sales of cars is expected to touch the figure of 70% this year.

“This situation is very disappointing for new entrants as well, and they are not going to reap what they expected at the time of their investments. $1.5bn was to be invested by new players,” said the source.

This situation has posed a big threat to the employment of the industry as the local auto industry has direct employment of 300,000 and the indirect employment is 2.5 million. However, no OEM has laid off any employee yet.

This gloomy situation is not profitable for the government as well since they would face tax collection shortage of Rs.2 billion per month as a single car’s prices has around 40% of taxes that go to the government.

Cement exports to india decline by 41% in fy19 LAHORE AgENcIEs

Due to the imposition of 200 percent import duty by the Indian government, the cement exports to India has declined by 41 percent to 0.716 tons in FY19 while the exports to India have been reporting zero level since March to Sept 2019. According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the overall cement exports during the first two months of the current fiscal year of July-Aug also witnessed decline of over 13 percent at $42.150 million against the export of $ 48.54 million during July-August (201819). On year-on-year basis, the cement exports witnessed a decline of 39.27 percent during the month of August 2019 when compared to the same month of last year.

The cement export in August 2019 was recorded at $ 16.745 million against the export of $27.572 million in August 2018. As per the data of All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association, during the first two months of the current fiscal year, cement uptake from the southern region declined by a huge 33 percent while the uptake in north inched up by only 1.66 percent. However, the slight increase from northern region could not offset the overall decline.

Industry experts said that the first month of current fiscal year started on a negative note as domestic demand decreased by 2.55 percent to 2.97 million tons from 3.04m tons in July 2018. Domestic sales in August stood at 2.66m tons, down 8.58 percent compared to 2.90m tons in the corresponding month last year.

FBR Chairman directed to resolve NIC issue ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile Industry, Senator Mirza Muhammad Afridi, has directed the FBR to solve the issue of NICs being needed for purchases of over Rs 50,000. Speaking at a meeting of the standing committee, Afridi observed that NIC condition has shaken the foundations of the economy, and directed chairman FBR to find an acceptable solution within ten days. He further said that the people of Pakistan are proud of the services rendered by the business community, and acknowledged their contribution in the national development. Presiding over a meeting here on Saturday, Mirza Muhammad Afridi said that the limping economy can come out of the stagflation if businesses are allowed to operate otherwise poverty, unemployment and anxiety with continue to increase. AgENcIEs

RAWALPINDI: A man makes quilt as winter season arrives. ONLINE

Sir Anwar Pervez lashes out against former CJP Nisar, appeals to COAS LONDON AgENcIEs

Pakistani-origin British billionaire and founder of Bestway Group Sir Anwar Pervez revealed he had a particular meeting with an influential personality in Pakistan to voice his grievances about being unfairly targeted by the former chief justice.

“In Pakistan if someone’s stomach is hurting, there is only one doctor to go to. I did the same, but nothing really came of it. I was told that my message would be conveyed but the case is still pending in court,” said the billionaire about his meeting with the influential personality in an interview with Dawn.

Sir Anwar says he assumed for a long time that his complaints weren’t forwarded to the judge but upon meeting him in person, the billionaire got the notion from Saqib Nisar that he had heard the complaints. Sir Anwar says he still didn’t get any relief from the court.

Sir Anwar also said he gets nightmares about former Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar and the suo motu notices taken against his businesses in Pakistan.

His company Bestway Cement was included in the widely reported 2018 Katas Raj case which hinged on the improper use of groundwater by cement factories. Through his characteristic harsh observations, Justice Nisar had criticised Bestway in particular. Eventually, the case was closed when the factories were ordered to arrange their own water supply. Another reason why the former CJP haunts the billionaire’s dreams is probably because of the cases against banks, which include United Bank Limited, of which Bestway Group is a majority owner.

“He [Saqib Nisar] has publicly apologised to me since then. But the mess that he put on us has caused huge losses. We were targeted and it was unfair,” says Sir Anwar.

He said that suo motu notices,

granted to Supreme Court justices under Article 184 (3), should be used sparingly in Pakistan and that Prime Minister Imran Khan should focus on strengthening institutions.

“Make a system that doesn’t depend on a personality,” he said, adding that although there may be interference, systems must be created that can withstand the pressure. He said he has faith in Mr Khan’s “good intentions” to steer the country to prosperity. In the interview Sir Anwar reminisces about his early days in Britain when he moved to the country as a 21 year old looking for work and a better life..

His first job in the UK was that of a bus conductor, and later on as a bus driver. After saving some money and getting his relatives to move to the UK, the family was able to start a business and opened up their first retail outlet — selling meat and spices, in 1963.

“I was making about Rs600 a week but I was only catering to a specialist clientele. When I went to the high street

and saw the other shops, I realised that what I was doing was only catering to one per cent of the market,” says Sir Anwar of his early business days.

This marked the beginning of the entrepreneur’s journey in wholesale. He delved into the business of the cash and carry stores that today, under the group’s wholesale banner, are worth billions of pounds. More retail units followed and by the early 1970s he had opened 10 general food stores. The company moved into wholesale in 1976 when its first cash and carry warehouse was established in Acton.

“99 percent hard work and honesty” is what he attributes to his success in the UK. “One percent is due to luck.

How else would a man like me, from a village, reach where I am today? I was lucky to have come here… to have met good people.”

On being asked what Pakistan can do to attract investment, the billionaire said that business owners must start paying taxes and stop paying bribes.

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

12 BUSINESS SSGC taking bids to procure LPG for remote consumers KARACHI AgENcIEs

Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) has invited bids from international suppliers to procure 3,000 metric tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as the utility geared up efforts to provide the low-pressure fuel across remote and hilly areas, reported The News. A document said SSGC invited bids from international suppliers for the provision of 3,000 metric tons of LPG on cost and freight basis in two parcels of 1,500 metric tons each, as the gas utility intended to supply synthetic natural gas as an alternative to piped gas. The bids will be opened on December 3, 2019. According to the report, SSGC is setting up LPG air mix plants in remote areas of Sindh and Balochistan where conventional pipelines could not be laid. LPG is mixed with air to produce synthetic gas for onward supply to the consumers through distribution networks, like natural gas. Gas shortfall in the country is estimated to jump by 157 percent to 3.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in the current fiscal year of 2019/20. Total 700,000 consumers were added last year. The estimate has been made by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority that put the gas shortfall increasing almost continuously every year to 6.6bcfd by FY2028.

nAtionAl PAyment systems strAtegy: sbP holds ConsultAtive workshoP KARACHI

s

APP

TATE Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Saturday organized a workshop titled 'Digital Payments Reforms' in collaboration with the World Bank here at its headquarters.

The objective of the workshop was to share the draft National Payment Systems Strategy and solicit the input of key stakeholders involved in its implementation, a SBP press release said.

The workshop was attended by senior officials from PTA, NADRA, SECP, FBR, the PM office's Strategic Reforms and Implementation Unit, Banks, Telcos, Electronic Money Institution (EMIs), PSO/PSPs and Fintechs.

SBP Governor Dr Reza Baqir led the workshop, while PTA Chairman Major General (Retired) Amir Azeem Bajwa, and World Bank Country Director Illango Patchamuthu were also present at the occasion.

Addressing the workshop, Dr Reza Baqir highlighted the issues that have been longstanding and needed attention of all the stakeholders.

He emphasized the need for rapid digitization of payments in order to realize the full benefits for the economy as cash is still the preferred mode of payments for our routine and day to day activities.

He noted that the heavy reliance on cash and the limited use of digital channels reduces economic efficiency, hinders financial and economic

ISLAMABAD AgENcIEs

KARACHI AgENcIEs

SBP slaps Rs133m fine on three banks KARACHI AgENcIEs

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has imposed a cumulative monetary fine of amounted to Rs 133 million on three banks in September 2019 for non-compliance of regulatory requirements.

The three banks were found violating customer due diligence and know your customers (CDD/KYC) protocols.

Among three banks, Meezan Bank Limited faced the highest penalty of Rs 63.805 million, while Askari Bank Limited and MCB Islamic Bank Limited were fined Rs 56.610 million and Rs

Ghandhara Nissan may pull out from investing in the country KARACHI AgENcIEs

Ghandhara Nissan Ltd (GNL) is reviewing its plans to assemble Datsun vehicles in the country as the company feels that under the prevalent volatile economic conditions and exchange rates, it “cannot afford to go for a project of this magnitude, especially with that level of uncertainty,” reported Dawn.

“Apart from project-related challenges, the local economic conditions, particularly the automobile market situation have compelled us to revisit the project’s sustainability,” a GNL official was quoted as saying in the report.

“We have to re-program the project timeline citing unsatis-

the key elements in accelerating digitization of payments in the country.

He noted the need for reducing the high cost, especially the interchange fee in the payments industry and emphasized to all stakeholders to work collaboratively for increasing digital access points in the country.

Stakeholders who attended the meeting shared valuable suggestions for increasing the pace of digitization of payment system. The discussion led to the identification of a number of next steps for the group.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Governor Baqir thanked the participants for their concrete and specific suggestions which would help improve the development and implementation of the National Payment Systems Strategy.

Senate committee tells PTCL to prepare surcharge slabs for consumers

PPL ends up paying Rs27.6 billion to settle tax demand Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) has paid and adjusted Rs27.609 billion in income tax demand created by the tax authorities for 15 years, the company revealed in its annual report on Friday. “The tax authorities have amended the assessments of the company for the tax years 2003 to 2018, raising an aggregate demand of Rs29.384 billion; which primarily relates to rate issue, depletion allowance, decommissioning cost and tax credits under sections 65A, 65B and 65E of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001,” PPL said in the report. “The company has paid/adjusted an amount of Rs27.609 billion out of the said aggregate demand.” “The company as a matter of prudence, has continued to provide for tax liabilities in respect of tax rates, depletion allowances and tax credits under sections 65A, 65B and 65E relating to Agreement Areas in the books of accounts,” the report said.

development and impedes the goal of documenting the economy.

To address these issues, he emphasized the importance of building a modern and robust payment system in the country that enables the provision of cost effective and easily available digital financial services to the general public.

The governor shared SBP's plans for leading an aggressive adoption and implementation of the National Payment Systems Strategy in the country. He emphasized that interoperability is key to achieving faster digitization goals.

He also informed the participants that a new faster payment gateway will be launched next year to facilitate instant transfer of funds.

He identified government payments and receipts and merchant payments to be

factory economic conditions, high interest rates and vulnerable exchange rate,” he added.

GNL had earlier planned to invest Rs6.5 billion in the next four years to launch 1,200cc Datsun Cross by the 2020 and roll out 1,200cc Datsun Go and Datsun Go Plus at the plant located in the Port Qasim area.

The official said that rupee devaluation against the dollar in the last year and a half has changed the financial feasibility of the project while additional customs duty, federal excise duty and high interest rates did rest of the damage.

The market situation is not conducive for new entrants as existing automakers are already facing crisis owing to around 50 per cent fall in sales.

12.906 million respectively.

Last month, the central bank penalised various banks to pay Rs 805 million for violating KYC/CDD regime. The central bank’s penalties aim to clamp down terror financing and money laundering.

The central bank’s penalties come at a time when the government is struggling to avoid the international Financial Action Task Force’s black list.

The international watchdog’s scheduled meeting, due later this month, would review Pakistan’s compliance with the anti-money laundering and counter terror-financing laws.

The Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication directed Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to prepare slabs for extra surcharges on its consumer bills.

The committee, which met on Friday with Senator Rubina Khalid in the chair, discussed complaints pertaining to delay in issuance of bills by PTCL to its consumers and the levy of surcharges on account of non-payment of bills within due date.

The committee chairperson pointed out that the responsibility for delay in issuance of phone bills was on PTCL authorities, however, the general public was being burdened with surcharges, which were 10% of the total amount, for non-payment.

The committee members pointed out that there were several areas where bills were not received while e-bills could not be downloaded due to weak internet services.

Senator Rehman Malik asked representatives of the Ministry of Information Technology to resolve the issue of pending pension payments to the retired employees of PTCL. He suggested that Pakistan should adopt the Italian model to curb corruption in the country. “According to the Italian Framework, the record of

monthly income of every employee of every ministry is published on the relevant ministry’s website,” he elaborated.

“This practice makes it easier for the authorities to prepare the audit report of tax evaders.”

He pointed out that Italy punished 5,000 people for corruption under the framework.

Malik expressed concern that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had not prepared any rules and regulations for the scrutiny of social media users, adding that cybersecurity was the biggest issue for internet users in the country.

“Contract has been given to a foreign company instead of a local company,” he lamented. “On a daily basis, there are 200 illegal clicks of Indian hackers on the Election Commission of Pakistan website.”

The committee asked the ministry and authorities concerned to prepare a report on cybercrime, cyber hacking and cyber security situation in the country and present it in the next meeting.

On the issue of pending pension payments, the ministry assured Senator Malik that the matter was being resolved.

Among others, the meeting was attended by Senator Rukhsana Zuberi, Kulsoom Perveen, Sana Jamali and Abdul Ghafoor Haidri along with officials of PTCL and the IT ministry.

Oil prices rise but continue losses SINGAPORE Ag E N c I E s

Oil prices rose on Friday but were still on track for a second consecutive weekly loss after sliding on fears that slower global economic growth would hurt energy demand.

Benchmark Brent crude rose $0.43, or 0.7%, to $58.14 a barrel by 1000 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose $0.23, or 0.4%, to $52.68.

But Brent was down 6% on the week while US crude was 5.7% lower, on the biggest weekly losses since July.

“Both are on track for hefty weekly losses and it will take a b r a v e m a n t o b e t a g a i n s t t h e b e a rish tide,” Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM said.

“As things stand, demand and supply-side developments are anything but supportive and there can be no happy

ending for those of a bullish disposition,” he added.

Weak US services sector and jobs growth data on Thursday added to worries about global oil demand and exacerbated fears that a protracted US-China trade war could push the global economy into a recession.

Investors are awaiting US non-farm payrolls data due out on Friday to determine the next move.

“Given that US growth is largely supported by a buoyant consumer whose confidence is built on a strong job market, this release will be critical in shaping expectations around future Fed policy which will have spillover effects on oil markets,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, global oil strategist at BNP Paribas.

US job growth likely picked up in September, with wages increasing solidly, which could assuage financial market concerns that the slowing econ-

omy was teetering on the brink of a recession.

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said on Thursday the world’s top crude oil exporter had fully restored oil output after attacks on its facilities last month knocked out more than 5% of global oil supply.

“The fact that Saudi restored its production back to original capacity sooner than expected means investors had to price out raised supply risks at a faster clip than would have otherwise been the case,” said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at futures brokerage Forex.com.

He said weak economic data, particularly from US manufacturing sector, also raised fears for oil demand, “but now that some of these factors have been priced in, oil prices may fall less sharply going forward or at best start to form a base.”

CMYK

13

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

If there was one thing worth watching this week

T

The TuBe

he legitimacy of the electoral process after which the present government has come into power used to stoke a lot of emotions. The supporters of the ruling party subdued of late - used to resent any allegations of rigging, pre-poll or not.

Later, when the performance of the government was found wanting, they still stuck to their guns regarding the electoral process itself. In fact, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly even went to the extent of banning the use of the word ‘selected’ on the floor of the house.

One could use it, of course, but it would be expunged from the record.

The irony of the very same Deputy Speaker’s election declared null by the election Commission of Pakistan due to recent revelations of rigging wasn’t lost out on many.

The recent meeting between the captains of commerce and industry have further confirmed and then cemented some suspicions. Specially seen in the backdrop of the government’s revenue czar reportedly going to the garrison city multiple times a week.

Add to the mix above the recent

interview of the interior minister on Channel 92 by Arif Nizami.

The man is known to be thick with the deep state and was reportedly brought in to the portfolio at their behest. In a moment of candour, he said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif could have been the premier for a fourth time as well had he not listened to a troublesome ‘three or four’ people surrounding him.

Realising that he had said too much, he didn’t elaborate despite being

asked repeatedly by Mr Nizami to name who these people were. The latter even tried to tease him out of the man by naming names and asking for a yes/no; the minister didn’t bite.

Barring, of course, saying that he wasn’t referring to Chaudhry Nisar.

The poor performance of the government, whether on the economic front (lesser tax revenue receipts this fiscal than the last; a first in our history) or health (the dengue situation metastasising into a full-on crisis) or

Modern India comes to the Venice Biennale national review

T

By Brian T allen

he India Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is only the country’s second since India’s independence in 1947.

It’s entrancing and educational as well as historic. It’s a big show at the Arsenale, once Venice’s military shipyard, and it was, in my opinion, the most impressive in the world’s oldest and most prestigious art fair.

It marks India’s coming-of-age as an international art powerhouse. This has taken a long time and is happening in fits and starts, but that’s fine. The art of India is a huge topic, and it’s a lumbering country. The exhibition is a smart distillation of art from this vibrant, massively complex country, the world’s biggest democracy. There are only eight artists in the show.

Our Time for a Future Caring — I hate the title — introduces Indian art in the context of the 150th birthday of the philosopher and politician Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948). hitching this very punctuated survey to Gandhi’s star is a good idea. The show eloquently observes that “the vast art landscape of India, its modern and contemporary art history, is not linear.”

Agreed. The country offers countless vernacular voices, many religions, and layers of history. Gandhi is universally known, still, 70 years after his death, as a symbol of peaceful, determined resistance to powerful overlords, self-reliance, and simplicity.

The show focuses on art, weaving Gandhi and the past hundred years of India’s history in and out of a story that’s meaningful to eager, new students of Indian art like me. This is an accomplishment and took discipline. India has lots of artists.

The exhibition isn’t small. It functions as a traditional museum show, with distinct spaces, multiple artists, and a balance of linear narrative and room for visitors to explore what appeals to them. It’s rich and rewarding.

The exhibition doesn’t try to define Gandhi as a connoisseur. he wasn’t. Art was a tool. For much of his life, he was a lawyer, an itinerant and eventually famous dissident, and

India’s founding father. he was image-conscious, though. With a big, bald head, spindly legs, big smile, in a white wraparound, he was as recognisable as his contemporaries Queen Victoria and Greta Garbo, but unique. he had a look.

In the 1930s, Gandhi engineered exhibitions of art at India National Congress annual sessions. The show has a couple of starting points, but mine took me to a gallery of art, a pavilion-within-a-pavilion, by Nandalal Bose (1882–1966) done for the 1938 Congress in haripura.

The work is scenes of everyday village life, consistent with the INC’s engagement and empowerment of India’s immense rural population.

They have the directness of 1930s Soviet propaganda art, which isn’t an insult on my part. It’s effective art for a political convention. The figures are symbols, easy to access.

These INC art pavilions in the 1930s were 1960s-style “happenings” as well as art shows. Nandalal and his team tailor-built the spaces in a local style using hay, bamboo, and wicker, creating the excitement as well as the civic dynamics of a barn raising.

They were building a new country.

The art throughout the exhibition is good. My experience, training, and instinct as an art historian go only so far since this isn’t Western art. It’s different, and everyone is free to explore and respond mostly on their own terms. That said, an artist such as Maqpool Fida husain (1915–2011) was Mumbai-based — a city slicker — and exhibited in the 1954 opensubmission show at the Biennale and many subsequent shows in europe. he is what I would call a modernist.

I loved his work. I’d seen a show earlier in the day in Venice at the Ca’ Pesaro museum on Arshile Gorky, and husain is in the same universe, but his vocabulary is Indian: village life, Indian spinning wheels, women giving very abstract births, and earth colours. It’s foreign and fresh the way Marc Chagall’s best work of remembered life in Russia is. husain’s work in the show is from the 1950s. Gandhi was dead, but the work in the exhibition shows his impact on a new, national aesthetic.

Atul Dodiya (b. 1958) creates cabinets filled with found objects, photographs, old tools, crutches, prosthetic body parts, and poems. he lives in Mumbai, a place he describes as “giving so much joy and so much pain” for its sheer sensual excess. It’s art that seeks order from chaos — objects are enclosed in glass cabinets — and the nine big cabinets of Broken Branches, from 2002, are meant to be seen in a sequence. he calls Gandhi “the first Conceptual artist,” and this does make sense to me. his art isn’t gestural. he’s not a slasher or a splasher. he creates the art of asceticism and self-control, which can be very expressive, just different.

There isn’t a national, anti-foreign aesthetic, as in Italy or Germany under Fascism, and it’s not historicist. It’s not religious, either, which might be a gap in the show. One of the serious fault lines in India is religious, but that’s not for this show. My sense is that India’s artists today are like American artists: omnivorous, intensely entrepreneurial, and aggressive, joyful appropriators of anything that makes sense. India has been not on one crossroads but limitless crossroads. I listened to an interview with Dodiya. he’s an international figure, thinking about Chinese art, Mondrian, Josef Albers, and Joseph Cornell. he’s the pivot in the show. he’s international and, thus, ambiguous.

I was curious about one thing when I thought about the show, walking the endless path through the Arsenale. That’s Gandhi and hitler.

Jitish Kallat (b. 1974), the youngest artist in the show, did a video projecting one of two letters Gandhi wrote to hitler — a 1939 letter, and he wrote a second, longer one in 1940 — and I’m sure what I think about the video. It’s not art but a video transcription, and it draws the curtain showing Gandhi the politician. he lived in the real world, as do artists. In the letter, he was writing for history and, by the way, directly told hitler that he was a bum.

GR Iranna (b. 1970) assembled dozens of wooden slippers. It’s a mass of footwear arranged evenly in rows, so there’s a collective. each shoe is different. Arranged together,

it’s a chorus of arches, going forward.

Naavu (We Together), from 2019, is a tribute to “walking and marching as collective action, overcoming all differences in caste, colour, and creed to be together and united.”

It’s sculpture, with each shoe different, all made from wood, no leather, and aesthetically engrossing.

I thought of the piles of shoes found by the Allies at concentration camps in Germany and Poland after the Second World War, or the skulls of Pol Pot’s casualties in Cambodia.

Not the artist’s goal, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. each viewer brings his or her own point of view to the show, and it’s to the curator’s credit that she makes this possible. My point of view privileges the individual. The show left me hungry to learn more about how this maze of a country, utterly different from what I consider home, privileges the individual, too. There’s the wood and terra-cotta sculpture of Rummana hussain (1952–1999), which draws on Muslim poetry. It’s word and hands moving together. There’s the funky feminist Of Bodies, Armour, and Cages, by Shakuntala Kulkarni (b.

1958), my favourite for its balanced, weird, elegant magnificence.

Ashim Purkayastha (b. 1967) takes us back to Bose and the India National Congress shows celebrating rural life. Bose did it in a direct, sincere poster style. Purkayastha is a rascal. he takes government stamps extolling Potemkin Village–like rural life and gives them the perverse, sardonic look of experience and reality. he’s a brilliant miniaturist.

Defacing stamps is the most delicate, subtle bit of bomb-throwing.

This isn’t a predictable show.

Roobina Karode, the director of the Kiran Nadar Museum in New Delhi, curated the show. She leads India’s first private, philanthropically funded museum. Forbes magazine called its founder, Kiran Nadar, a “hero of philanthropy” when this contemporary art museum opened in 2010, and I think they’re right. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Alice Walton’s courage, passion, vision, determination, and good taste in leading the Crystal Bridges Museum,

even corruption (the KP information minister’s rag of a newspaper getting huge amounts of government ads) or other areas, are still palatable for a large number of the ruling party’s supporters. Truth be told, even the idea of piggybacking off the deep state into power was acceptable to this depoliticised lot. But having screamed themselves hoarse over the fairness of the elections, these newer sets of periodic revelations would really be a bitter pill to swallow. g

and in Nadar, India she has her peer.

India has millionaires and billionaires now but an undeveloped philanthropy sector. I think this is bound to change.

The world doesn’t move in a good way without people like Nadar.

India, I’m sure, has lots of clunky antiquities museums. Its commercial gallery scene is exploding and fantastic.

Diplomatically, America and India are closer than ever. Still, there’s little understanding of Indian art in America, though, and in that sense, India is about ten years behind Chinese art. When I was a museum director, American art museums were cautiously starting to lend to Chinese museums. Around the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, cultural collaboration was developing as Chinese museums upgraded their facilities, and Americans felt more confident about art exchanges with a country that is, after all, a police state.

I think the India museum system is developing, on the one hand, in terms of reliability and facilities, but, on the other, like the country itself, the system is rambunctious, freewheeling, and far more decentralised. The last India Pavilion at the Biennale was in 2011, a sign that the art world there is still developing. For the entrepreneurial American museum, it’s a great opportunity to be creative. The NeA, Neh, and the State Department’s Culture and education Department can certainly advance art collaborations, but that takes imagination and verve.

Judging from the State Department’s Martin Puryear show at the American Pavilion in Venice, I wonder whether either exists in discernible quantities.

The show was a snooze.

“Our Time for a Future Caring” is a bad title. What does it mean? When it comes to caring, there’s no time like the present. “Let’s promise to care . . . tomorrow” is like the old saying “Lord, make me good, but not yet,” which can also double as a toast before a bacchanalian debauch. “Our Time for a Future Caring” is a squishy title that makes the libertarian in me squirm. It sounds like the happy, clappy fundraising campaign. Next time, send the marketing consultants to Bhutan.

I don’t often have the honour to write about a historic art show. I’m looking forward to seeing more and learning more about art in this big place. g Brian T Allen is an art historian.

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

14 SPORTS

TOKYO

w

Agencies

ORLD number one Novak Djokovic on Saturday cruised into the Japan Open final, thrashing David Goffin 6-3, 6-4. In the final, Djokovic will face Australian qualifier John Mill-

Djokovic powerS throUgh to japan open FinaL

man, who squeezed past American opponent Reilly Opelka 6-3, 7-6 (7/4).

The Serbian star dominated his semi-final, starting strong by winning the first three games, picking up an early break while fending off fierce attempts by the Belgian to fight back.

Djokovic again picked up an early break in the second set, and survived all the four breakpoints through the

match. “I think we both served extremely well and precise, not too much chance for returners,” he said in a press conference. “Even though it was a two-set win, the quality of tennis was quite high.” Djokovic won points on 87 percent of his successful first serves and never committed a double fault in the roughly 90-minute contest. Goffin fought bravely, but Djokovic kept up the pressure with deep shots and quick footwork to fend off any threat.

“I trained with ninjas before this tournament,” Djokovic quipped, when asked about his apparent omnipresence on the court, during a post-match interview in front of cheering Japanese fans. “This has

been a wonderful week for me on and off the court,” he said. “Hopefully I will be able to crown this week with a trophy tomorrow.” In the final, he will face the 80th-ranked Millman, who is making his first career appearance in the final of an ATP 500 event.

Millman predicted “a lot of baseline exchanges” with “one of the greatest players” of all time. “It will be a physical battle. I will probably be the underdog, coming through qualifying. I know back home in Australia, we all like underdogs,” he said.

“I hope to bring my best tennis, a physical brand of tennis, and really just give it all for one more match.

That’s all I want to do.”

Barty ‘never been happier’ as world no. 1 reaches China Open final BEIJING Agencies

Ashleigh Barty said that she has “never been happier” on and off the court after she saved match point to squeeze into the China Open final on Saturday. Australia’s world number one will meet Caroline Wozniacki or Naomi Osaka on Sunday after surviving three tense sets against Kiki Bertens. Barty committed 52 unforced errors but still just about emerged victorious in a nervy 6-3, 36, 7-6 (9/7) triumph in Beijing.

The 23-year-old, who won the French Open and surged to the top of the rankings in June, said there had been “massive growth” in her mental fortitude when she faces crunch points. “That’s gone hand-in-hand with adding some new people to my team, trying to work with them be-

hind the scenes,” Barty, who five years ago took a break from tennis and played cricket, said.

“Not just for my tennis — it’s for

my life, my health and well being, as well, which has been the best thing.

“I have never been happier off the court, never been happier on the

court. “It’s been a brilliant time in my life.” Barty looked all set to rush into Sunday’s final and dominated the first set against the shell-shocked Bertens, eighth in the world. But the 27-yearold Dutchwoman struck back to win the second set of their semi-final by the same 6-3 scoreline and take the match to a decider. They went with serve until the fifth game of the third set, when Bertens profited from another Barty error to go a break up.

Barty was on the ropes. Bertens though lost her nerve when serving for the match, the momentum swinging back in the Australian’s favour.

Barty went down 3-0 in the tiebreak, but demonstrated her newfound resilience to overcome the deficit and a match point to seal victory.

Title-holder Wozniacki and reigning Australian Open champion Osaka play their semi-final later Saturday.

US boxing trainer suffers ‘horrible attack’ during Flint weigh-in NEW YORK: A prominent US boxing trainer was in the hospital Friday night with head injuries after being viciously assaulted at a weigh-in in Flint, Michigan.

James Ali Bashir was punched from behind and knocked unconscious during the weigh-in at the Dort Federal Credit Union Event Center, US media reported. The TMZ.com website said Michigan police have a suspect in custody but they did not provide any details. Bashir was seen arguing with an unidentified person earlier in the weigh-in. Bashir was at the weigh-in with his Croatian boxer Ivana Habazin who was scheduled to fight American Claressa Shields in a female contest on the Saturday night card. The World Boxing Council said Friday night that the HabazinShields fight has been cancelled and that law enforcement officials were investigating. “The WBC strongly condemns any act of violence in any event related to our sport, and specially the horrible attack which took place in an official activity surrounding this event,” the WBC said in a statement released on Twitter. “The WBC will monitor the investigation and resolution of the case, and will then determine if an actionable WBC violation of any WBC Rule, Regulation or Code of Ethics took place.” Bashir is well known in the boxing world, having trained under trainer Emanuel Steward for close to two decades.

The New Jersey native has worked with boxers like former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, Monte Barrett, Shannon Briggs and Jameel McCline. It was not clear if the bout between Shields (9-0, 2 KOs) and Habazin (20-3, 7 KOs) would be rescheduled at a later date. The rest of Saturday’s fight card is expected to go ahead as planned. Agencies

Lloris injured making howler that gives Brighton lead

Lawrence apologises for error of judgement in drink-driving charge LONDON Agencies

Derby midfielder Tom Lawrence has apologised for “a total error of judgement” after being charged with drink-driving last month. The Welshman and Rams forward Mason Bennett were charged with drink-driving after a crash on September 24 following an alcohol-fuelled night out with teammates.

Derby club captain Richard Keogh also suffered a serious leg injury in the collision which will keep him out for at least the rest of the season.

Both Lawrence and Bennett were fined the equivalent of six weeks’ wages — the maximum contractual limit — by Derby. As well as the fine,

Lawrence and Bennett have been told to serve an additional 80 hours of community and rehabilitation, which includes a drink aware course.

“I wish to offer my sincere apologies to the football club; our chairman, the manager, my teammates and all our supporters for my indiscretions that night,” said Lawrence. “It was a total error of judgement on my part, out of character for me and I am deeply disappointed in my behaviour and upset for my teammate and our captain Richard Keogh.” Bennett and Lawrence will appear in court to answer charges of drink-driving on October 15.

Despite the charge, Lawrence was still called up to the Wales squad by Ryan Giggs for upcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers against Slovakia and Croatia.

BRIGHTON: Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris had to be stretchered from the field in severe pain after an awkward fall in conceding an early goal to Brighton on Saturday. The France captain was at fault for dropping a simple cross into the box before falling backwards as Neal Maupay headed into an empty net to give Brighton a dream start after just three minutes.

Lloris was given oxygen as he was carried from the field, seemingly nursing an elbow injury, and will now be a major doubt for upcoming Euro 2020 qualifiers against Iceland and Turkey. The early goal was a blow to Tottenham’s confidence as they attempted to bounce back from a 7-2 thrashing against Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday. Agencies

Muhammad world record as Barshim soars for Qatar gold DOHA Agencies

Dalilah Muhammad of the United States stormed to a world record-breaking victory in the 400 metres hurdles as hosts Qatar celebrated a gold medal for high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim at the World Championships on Friday.

On a night of high drama played out before a rare packed house at the Khalifa Stadium, Muhammad broke the world record for the second time this year as she powered home to win in 52.16 seconds.

The 29-year-old Olympic champion took gold ahead of compatriot Sydney McLaughlin, while Jamaica’s Rushell Clayton took the bronze. “I just wanted the world title so much but to break the world record again is fantastic,” Muham-

mad said after her victory, which improved her record of 52.20sec set in July.

“I just decided to go for it from the start,” Muhammad added. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet but it feels good.” The biggest roar of Friday’s action was reserved for Qatari high jumper Barshim.

The 28-year-old had the home fans on their feet after a roller coaster competition which saw him clinch victory with a jump of 2.37m. Barshim’s win came after he had flirted with elimination at 2.33, before clearing the bar on his third and final attempt. Two Russian athletes competing under the Authorised Neutral Athlete banner, Mikhail Akimenko and Ilya Ivanyuk won silver and bronze.

“For me, it was just a dream, amazing. I was not 100 per cent ready but when I came and saw all those people

cheering for me, even if I was dying, if they take me in a wheelchair or ambulance, I would do everything I can,” said Barshim. Barshim’s victory earned him an audience with Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. “I can’t’ tell you what he said — it’s top-secret,” Barshim joked.

– GaRdINER cHEERs BaHamas – In the men’s 400m, meanwhile, Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas surged to an emotional victory which he dedicated to his country as it attempts to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Dorian. “I got a lot of messages from people back home. They told me to do my best,” Gardiner said.

“I wanted to give them a bit more than my best. I wanted to be a world champion and here I am now.”

CMYK

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

Elgar, dE KocK lEad South africa fightbacK againSt india VISAKHAPATNAM Agencies

d

EAN Elgar and Quinton de Kock centuries helped South Africa fight back Friday to reach 385 for eight in response to India s mammoth first-innings 502. De Kock made 111 and put on a key 164-run stand with Elgar, who scored 160, to thwart the Indian bowling attack on day three of the first Test in Visakhapatnam. Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin kept chipping away at the batsmen however to claim his 27th five-wicket haul in 66 Tests.

At stumps, the Proteas still trail by 117 runs as

they chase India s first innings score of 502 for seven declared. Debutant Senuran Muthusamy, on 12, and Keshav Maharaj, on three, were at the crease after the long day with 98 overs bowled to make for lost time because of storms on day one.

Wicketkeeper-batsman de Kock completed his fifth Test hundred in the final session with a six off Ashwin before eventually being bowled by the off-spinner. Ashwin struck again with the wicket of Vernon Philander for nought. The left-handed Elgar, who started the day on 27, led the revival after South Africa slipped to 63 for four in the morning session.

The 32-year-old credited his stint with Surrey in the English county championship for his impres-

sive show. “I have played five months of county cricket. That s an extremely big motivating factor for my career that always improves me as a player,” said Elgar. “I d like to think that this innings didn’t come by fluke, but came because I have done the hard work. I have spent a lot of time away from home which you have got to sacrifice.” Elgar put on 115 with skipper Faf du Plessis for the fifth wicket to put pressure on India s bowlers. Ashwin, back in the Indian XI after his last outing in Australia last year, also said playing county cricket for Nottinghamshire had helped him during his time away from the Indian team. “I am elated to be back.

It is always special for India. There is nothing like picking up a five-wicket haul for your country,” said Ashwin. “This place is very special for me but I enjoyed a five-wicket haul for Nottingham too.

One is not too lesser than the other.”

Ashwin s spin partner Ravindra Jadeja also made it count with Elgar s wicket in the final session as he moved to 200 Test scalps. South Africa started the day on 39-3 but fast bowler Ishant Sharma struck early, taking overnight batsman Temba Bavuma low for 18. Jadeja also posed problems and nearly got Elgar on 74 but wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha spilt the chance.

Indian opener Mayank Agarwal set the tone for the hosts dominance of the game with his 215 and a 317-run opening stand with Rohit Sharma, who hit 176 of India s giant score. An over-enthusiastic fan caused a brief security scare when he rushed on the field to get a selfie with the India captain Virat Kohli. Kohli, who is treated as a national hero, was taken by surprise by the intrusion in between overs when the youth tried to hug him before taking a picture and touching the star player s feet.

Kohli tried to order the teenager off and vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane also intervened but the persistent fan stayed on the field for more than two minutes. Security officers eventually overpowered him as he ran off, while the crowd roared and clapped.

Biles eye gymnastics history -- just don't call her superstar HOUSTON Agencies

USA gymnastics queen Simone Biles is set to be the undisputed star of the world championships, enhancing her status as the sport’s greatest athlete — even if she does not feel it. “I never really feel like I’m a big name,” she told reporters in Stuttgart. “Everyone puts that on me, I don’t really put it on myself.” The 10-day event, which started Friday with qualifiers, will be the 22-year-old’s fifth worlds. She seems destined to add to her record tally of 14 gold medals, but is quick to avoided putting pressure on herself.

“I never go into a competition trying to win –I just go into a competition trying to compete like I train,” she replied when asked how many golds she expects. Yet she is the name to watch in Tuesday’s team final, the women’s all-round final on Thursday and the apparatus finals on the final weekend. Her overall tally of 20 worlds medals ties Biles with Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina for the most won by a woman. Another four in Stuttgart would put her past the all-time record of 23 held by Vitaly Scherbo, a men’s gymnastics star in the 1990s.

Biles is the clear favourite to win all-around world gold for the fifth time, extending her own

record, yet she has endured testing times away from the sport in the last two years. In January 2018, she admitted to being among the victims of Larry Nassar, the disgraced former doctor of the US women’s Olympic team, who was jailed for sexually abusing hundreds of girls and women. In August, her brother was arrested and charged with a shooting which left three people dead last December.

– Great expectations – Biles must put all that aside in Stuttgart to seemingly defy gravity as one of the best gymnasts the world has even seen. She could also leave south-west Germany with four skills named after her. She is to gymnastics what Usain Bolt is to athletics and Michael Phelps is to swimming, yet while she admires the pair, she rejects the notion of being classed GOAT — greatest of all time — for her own protection. “I feel like if I were to label myself as a superstar, it would bring more expectations on me,” she says.

“I would feel the pressure. Every year I just try to be better than I was the year before. “I go into a competition trying to compete like I train.” The 1.42m gymnast has two weapons in her wellstocked arsenal to delight her fans in Stuttgart, where 1,000 paid to watch her train Tuesday. She plans to complete her two new moves, a triple-

twisting double back on floor and double-twisting double tuck dismount off beam.

On the triple-double, she explained: “I’ll do at every competition here, because that’s what we’ve been doing in the gym”, but she says she will be more selective as to when she attempts the double-double.

Clips of both stunning skills went viral after Biles performed them at August’s US Championships.

SPORTS 15

STRIFE-TORN HONG KONG DROPPED FROM NEXT YEAR'S FORMULA E BEIJING Agencies

Strife-torn Hong Kong has been dropped from the 2019-20 Formula E season as the city is battered by four months of violent prodemocracy protests that show no sign of abating. Organisers released next season’s calendar late Friday with the semiautonomous city noticeably absent for the first time since 2016. The release made no mention of why Hong Kong had been dropped. But the South China Morning Post said organisers feared they could not risk putting on the event given the major protests now coursing through the city. “The recent social unrest put a big question mark on the possibility of starting the event in March,” Edward Yu, governor of the Hong Kong Automobile Association, was quoted as saying. “If something were to happen on the day of the event because of social unrest, and they cannot start, it will be a big loss,” he added. Hong Kong had been due to host Formula E on 1 March next year for the sixth race of the season. But the new calendar had the southern Chinese beach resort of Sanya listed as the sixth race instead. Hong Kong’s protests were ignited by a now-scrapped plan to allow extraditions to mainland China, which fuelled fears of an erosion of liberties promised under “one country, two systems”.

After Beijing and local leaders took a hard line, the demonstrations snowballed into a wider movement calling for more democratic freedoms and police accountability. With no compromise or political solution on the table, the violence has escalated taking a heavy toll on the economy and multiple sporting events.

Major international tennis and golf tournaments have been cancelled in recent weeks as well horse racing and both local and international football matches.

Platini free to return to football but Qatar investigation goes on DOHA Agencies

Former UEFA president Michel Platini is finally free to return to football next week when his fouryear ban for ethics violations ends, although he remains linked to a corruption investigation in his home country relating to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The former France captain and national coach went on to become one of the game’s most prominent administrators when he was elected president of European football’s governing body in 2007. A triple Ballon d’Or winner, Platini was expected to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president in 2016 but fell spectacularly from grace a few months earlier.

He was banned from football for receiving a two-million Swiss franc (1.8 million euros, $2 mil-

lion) payment from the head of the world game, with Blatter banned for eight years, later reduced to six, for his part. The payment, made in 2011 when Blatter was seeking re-election as president, was related to work carried

out by Platini between 1999 and 2002. The pair were found guilty of “abusive execution” of their powers and a conflict of interests.

Platini, now 64, has been battling to clear his name ever since, although his ban was reduced to

four years from an initial six, leaving him free to work in football again when the suspension expires on Monday.

With the former Saint-Etienne and Juventus midfielder sidelined, he watched on as Gianni Infantino, once his right-hand man at UEFA, became FIFA president in February 2016. The Swiss-Italian was re-elected in June this year.

– ‘i will be back’ – Approached by AFP on Friday, Infantino declined to comment on Platini, who made his determination, and bitterness towards FIFA, clear in an interview with Swiss television channel RTS last month. “I will be back. I don’t know where, I don’t know how. I can’t go out of the game on the back of a ban, even if it’s a ban made by idiots,” he said.

Speaking to French daily Le Monde about what the future

CMYK

holds, he added: “I have had lots of offers and requests to become a pundit, to do the Euros, the World Cup.” In an interview with French sports daily L’Equipe, he played down talk of a return to the top levels of football administration, although he has been linked with the role of president of the French Football Federation when that position opens up in 2021.

“My wife taught me never to go back, to not experience the same love affair twice. So yes, that closes doors for me, notably those at UEFA,” he said.

“My suspension ends in October, while the last elections for the FIFA presidency took place in May and the next ones will be in four years,” he added. “They arranged that well in Zurich.”

One source close to UEFA said the organisation’s current president, Aleksander Ceferin,

“could support Platini” as a candidate for the FIFA presidency in 2023 as the Slovenian “cannot stand” Infantino. By then, the Qatar World Cup will have come and gone, but Platini has been dogged by his connections to the controversial awarding of that tournament. In June this year he was held and questioned by French anti-corruption police investigating the 2010 vote to award the tournament to the Gulf state.

According to France Football magazine, a “secret meeting” took place in November 2010 at the Elysee Palace in Paris between former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Qatar’s then-Prince (now Emir) Tamim bin Hamad alThani, and Platini, who was then both UEFA president and FIFA vice-president. Just over a week later, FIFA voted to award Qatar the 2022 tournament.

Sunday, 6 October, 2019

NEWS

Crossing LoC wiLL aid indian narrative, PM iMran warns aJK residents

ISLAMABAD

P

stAff RepoRt

RIMe Minister Imran Khan on Saturday again cautioned the people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) against crossing the Line of Control (LoC) to support the struggle of the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

On August 5, India revoked occupied Kashmir’s autonomy, dividing the disputed territory into two regions to be controlled by New Delhi. A draconian lockdown was imposed in the region and all communications were cut.

The clampdown has entered its third month with reports of mass detentions and human rights abuses.

The premier, in a tweet, said he understands the anguish of the people of AJK seeing their fellow Kashmiris in IOK under an inhumane curfew for over two months.

Advising the people not to play into the hands of Indian narrative, he said

Saudi Arabia allows foreign men and women to share hotel rooms RIYADH Agencies

Saudi Arabia is allowing foreign men and women to rent hotel rooms together without proving they are related after the Muslim kingdom launched a new tourist visa regime to attract holidaymakers.

Women, including Saudis, are also permitted to rent hotel rooms by themselves, in a break with previous regulations. The moves appear to pave the way for unaccompanied women to travel more easily.

The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage confirmed a report by Arabic-language newspaper Okaz, adding: “All Saudi nationals are asked to show family ID or proof of relationship on checking into hotels. This is not required of foreign tourists. All women, including Saudis, can book and stay in hotels alone, providing ID on check-in.”

Saudi Arabia threw open its doors last week to foreign tourists from 49 countries as it tries to grow that sector and diversify its economy away from oil exports. As part of the move, it decreed that visitors need not wear allcovering black robes but should dress modestly. Alcohol remains banned.

Saudi Arabia has been relatively closed off for decades and until recently unrelated men and women, including foreigners, could be severely punished for mixing in public. Strict social codes have been relaxed in recent years and previously banned entertainment has flourished.

any attempt to cross the disputed border to provide humanitarian aid or support “will give India an excuse to increase violent oppression of Kashmiris in IOJK & attack across LoC”.

The prime minister added that Indian narrative tries to divert attention from the indigenous struggle of the Kashmiris against brutal Indian occupation by trying to label it as “Islamic terrorism” being driven by Pakistan. earlier in September, the premier had said that any bid to “wage jihad in Kashmir” would be an act of extreme enmity towards the Kashmiris, he said, adding: “Anyone, who thinks that he will cross the border to join the Kashmiris [fighting for their right], is a big enemy of them and Pakistan.”

After the August 5 illegal move, India sent in tens of thousands of extra troops and detained thousands of people including minors as young as nine.

Many of the region’s top politicians remain in custody. UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said last month she was

“deeply concerned” while Washington has called for a “rapid” lifting of restrictions.

UN CHIEF REPEATS CALL FOR KASHMIR DIALOGUE: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday repeated his concerns over the situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir, where people have been languishing under a tight lockdown for the past two months.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told a regular briefing in New York that the secretary general again urges India and Pakistan to hold dialogue to resolve the crisis. “The secretary general’s position on Kashmir has not changed,” Dujarric said.

Responding to a question about the worsening humanitarian situation in the occupied Kashmir, where nearly eight million people are living in an open prison without basic rights, the spokesman said human rights issue needs to be addressed. “[The human rights issue has] to be in the forefront,” the spokesperson told reporters. He added that the UN chief had underscored the need for addressing human rights of Kashmiri people in order to resolve the crisis.

“Our message on Kashmir has not changed as the situation on the ground has not changed, so I would refer you to what we’ve already said, expressing our concern, encouraging dialogue, and saying that the situation in Kashmir, if it’s going to be solved politically, needs to have human rights at its centre.”

Prime Minister Imran Khan raised the Kashmir issue in his speech at the General Assembly as well as his bilateral meetings with Guterres last month.

Imran’s speech was longest at the general debate was 50 minutes, Dujarric said. The shortest was from Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

According to the UN spokesperson, the secretary general had been following closely the recent waves of street demonstrations that have been taking place in several countries around the world, including occupied Kashmir.

Grenade attack in Kashmir injures 10 amid India clampdown SRINAGAR Agencies

A grenade attack on Saturday in Kashmir ’s southern city of Anantnag injured 10 people, including a traffic policeman and a journalist, police said on Twitter, blaming “terrorists”.

Many people in Kashmir have been seething since India stripped its portion of the Muslim-majority region of autonomy on Aug. 5, shutting off phone networks and imposing curfew-like restrictions in some areas to dampen discontent.

Some of those curbs have been slowly relaxed, but mobile and internet communications in the Kashmir valley are largely still blocked.

“Terrorists lobbed grenade in Anantnag,” police in Kashmir said on Twitter. “Area under cordon.

Searches are going on.”

Another account from police said only “minor injuries” had been reported.

The blast took place near a government office, a police official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to media.

If confirmed, that would appear to mark the first attack near a government office since India’s crackdown on the region.

India’s home ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir state’s special status was necessary to integrate it fully into the rest of India and spur development.

Critics say the decision to revoke autonomy will fuel further alienation and armed resistance.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, who both claim the territory in full. More than 40,000 people have been killed in an insurgency in the Indian part of Kashmir since 1989.

India clampdown hits Silicon Valley of occupied Kashmir SRINAGAR Agencies

The coffee machines have been cold, computer screens blank and work stations empty for two months in Indianoccupied Kashmir’s Silicon Valley as an Indian communications blockade on the troubled region takes a growing toll on business.

The dozen software development companies in the Rangreth industrial estate on the edge of Srinagar bring tens of millions of dollars of crucial revenue into the region each year.

But the cutting of internet and mobile phone links on August 5, when the New Delhi government ended Kashmir´s semi-autonomous status, has crippled business.

Rangreth has become a ghost town, a symbol of suffering across the region.

The government said the crackdown, backed by the presence of hundreds of thousands of security forces, was needed to head off trouble by militants in the Muslim-majority territory.

Pakistan also claims Kashmir which the two neighbours divided when they became independent in 1947 and have squabbled over ever since.

Markets, banks, schools, clothes stores and the fledgling hi-tech industry have all been closed. Many locals say the shutdown is in protest at the government action. Authorities blame militant threats.

Rangreth’s warehouse-style halls, normally packed with young T-shirted programmers, are empty.

“It´s a devastating blow to the soft-

ware business in Kashmir. Internet is like oxygen to our business and it has been taken away,” the owner of one company with clients all over the world told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The businessman said clients’ patience was running out. “We’re likely to lose them.”

Jahangir Rasool, chief executive of internet provider STC, said he was detained by police for six days for keeping lines open for a few hours to help another company in his building that has clients in the United States.

Rasool said his firm and others have the firewalls and protocols to block social media or “political propaganda” on the internet. But he said Indian authorities would not listen.

“They sent police and intelligence agencies to inspect our systems. We told them that the IT sector will collapse

(without the internet). They said: ´Let it. We are not taking any risks´,” declared the director of another company with clients in the Middle east.

Authorities have unblocked most landlines. But apart from 6,000 mobiles used by police and government officials, most of Kashmir´s 880,000 mobile connections and internet services remain suspended.

State governor Satya Pal Malik in August said the lines were mainly useful as a “weapon” for “terrorists and Pakistanis for mobilisation and indoctrination”.

Some IT companies have already laid off workers, many are preparing to move their business away from Kashmir.

Rasool at STC said his company had lost more than $2.8 million in business since August 5 and has laid off two

Published by Arif Nizami at Plot # 7, Al-Baber Centre, F/8 Markaz, Islamabad. Ph: 051-2204545. Email: newsroom@pakistantoday.com.pk

CMYK

thirds of its 370 employees.

“We can´t function in a total blackout,” said STC´s finance chief Abid Bhat who compared the shutdown to being “blind”. High-tech is not alone in its suffering.

Not a single car or truck has been sold in two months by dealers across the Kashmir Valley, said Aawan Ahmad Narwaroo, head of one Srinagar car dealership.

He reckoned about 5,000 vehicles and motorbikes were sold in the same two months last year.

Official records show no new vehicles have been registered with the authorities since August 5.

“It’s a collapse of Kashmir’s economy. It´s not possible to calculate the snowballing losses,” Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry vice president Nasir Hamid Khan told AFP. “About 1,200 trucks carrying Kashmiri produce used to ply daily on the main highway out. Today we hear not even 100 do,” Khan said.

At least three top business leaders were among thousands arrested after the August 5 clampdown. The executives are still in detention.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a top police officer told AFP the decision to reopen mobile and internet services would be taken by India’s powerful Home Minister Amit Shah.

“He (Shah) is asking for guarantees that no large scale protests will happen if the services are resumed.

And there is no official here today confident enough to put his neck on the block,” the police official said.