Another increase in minimum wage!

Minimum wage

Published in The News on May 04, 2012

The prime minister (Gilani) recently announced an increase of Rs 1,000 in the minimum wage of workers. The media should investigate as to how much the peasants who till the prime minister’s lands are paid.

The prime minister has no problem in announcing an increase in the minimum wage every year because he knows he and his fellow ministers will not be affected, as no farm worker would dare to ask for an increased pay – that is if he is being paid anything at all, which is highly unlikely.

SHAKIR LAKHANI,

KARACHI

Corruption caused air crash!

The only way?

Published in The News, April 26, 2012

In your editorial ‘Was this the only way?’ (April 24), you ask: “After all, what – if anything – is there to cover up?” The answer is: everything. When a political party in government forces private and public organisations to hire its loyalists, disasters are bound to occur sooner or later. We have seen it happening in the case of the Steel Mills, we have seen PIA go bankrupt while the Pakistan Railways is struggling hard to survive.

When people know they can’t be sacked because they are supported by those in power, they do not pay much attention to their jobs, until one day the inevitable happens. I’m afraid we may see many more tragedies like the Bhoja air crash before the present government completes its term.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

Expensive Indian electricity!

Electricity from India 

Published in DAWN on April 19, 2012

APROPOS of a news item ‘India offers electricity at Rs15 per unit’ (April 14), it may sound strange but Pakistan once had surplus electricity. In the 1990s, the Nawaz Sharif government offered electricity to India, which said it would buy it at two cents per unit, though Wapda was buying it for 6.50 cents per unit. Considering that most of India’s electricity is produced for 1.50 cents per unit from coal-fired plants, its demand for Rs 15 per unit (16.50 cents) is unrealistic. 

S. LAKHANI 

Karachi 

On the run?

Published in The News on April 14, 2012

This is with reference to your editorial ‘On the run?’ (April 12). In Pakistan, lawmakers have been accused of committing every crime under the sun including murder and yet they are hardly caught, tried or punished. The Hungarian president had to resign because he had committed plagiarism, yet in our country there are people on top positions who either have fake degrees or whose degrees have been issued by non-existent universities.

I suggest that the name of our country should be changed to Corruptistan with immediate effect. That would be nearer to reality.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

The corrupt shall inherit Pakistan!

Punishing honesty

Published in The News on April 12, 2012

This is with reference to the news item ‘ANF officials probing chemical scandal transferred’ (The News, April 10). It seems the honest officers were removed because they were investigating a case in which the prime minister’s son is allegedly involved. It can be safely assumed that earlier the Anti-Narcotics Force director general was also removed for the same reason.

Does the PM think that democracy allows him to transfer or suspend anyone who dares to investigate a case in which he or his cronies are involved? If this is democracy, we are better off without it.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

Pakistan's exploding population

Population explosion

Published in The News on April 9, 2012

I’m afraid we can do nothing to arrest the exploding population of Pakistan. I frequently tell the religious people I know about how Israel, with only 15 million population, is able to dominate the world, while a billion and a half Muslims lag far behind in almost every field. But most of my friends think that birth control is a sin. Some even say that Pakistan should have at least three times more population than it presently has, as China and India are quite comfortable with their billion-plus populations. And there are others who believe that people who practise birth control are not Muslims.

The situation is hopeless and if the population continues to increase at the present rate, it won’t be long before Pakistanis run out of food and become cannibals. I hope I’m not around when that happens.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

Pakistan's rampant inflation in PPP rule

Fuelling inflation

Published in The News on April 4, 2012

This is with reference to your editorial ‘Fuelling inflation’ (April 2). In every PPP government prices of almost everything increase exponentially, the rupee declines in value against other currencies, and the rulers always ignore the problems of the common man.

Things will get even worse if the present government continues printing notes. It won’t be long before the ministers start quarrelling among themselves when they find that there is no money in the national kitty.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

Turkey's refusal to help U.S.

Turkey’s deal

Published in The News, March 25, 2011

This is with reference to Ayaz Amir’s column ‘New beginning or same old games?’ (March 23). It is not true that Turkey demanded US$25 billion when the Americans wanted to use its territory for the invasion of neighbouring Iraq; money had nothing to do with Turkey’s refusal. In fact, the US had offered the money-which was US$26 billion – to Turkey.

Turkey is a Nato member, but it refused to allow the use of its territory for Iraq’s invasion because the Turks are a dignified, self-respecting people with capable rulers.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

The desire to convert others is inborn

It's not only Muslims who want to convert men from other religions to Islam. In India, Hindu fundamentalists have succeeded in converting thousands of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism. I once estimated that the number of Muslims in India should be at least twenty million more than there are now. It's very likely that the reduced population of Indian Muslims is due to conversion (of course, thousands have been killed in communal riots, and as recently as 2002, three thousand Muslims lost their lives in government-supported riots).

I was in St. Patrick's School from 1950 to 1960 and saw a couple of Hindu teachers becoming Catholics. One boy's family (I remember his name was Simon Douglas) became a Protestant and all hell broke loose. The Catholic priests (English speakers from Holland) tried their best to bring the family back into their fold, but did not succeed. Finally they expelled the boy from the school (no doubt because they thought that he would try to convert other Catholic boys to Protestantism).

After the Muslims lost Spain, most of them were either slaughterted or converted to Christianity. It seems that this desire to convert others is inherent and is found in men of all religions.

Nowadays there is much hue and cry about Hindu girls being forcibly converted and married to Muslim boys in Pakistan. Even if the girls were first kidnapped and then forced to change their religion, they have no choice now but to remain Muslims (or migrate to India to avoid being killed by rabid fanatics).

You cannot end corruption

Once it was thought that corruption existed only in government departments, chiefly because government servants were not paid well. But you find rampant bribery and corruption in the private sector as well, despite salaries being so high. In Pakistan a person may have paid his taxes honestly, yet he has to bribe the concerned tax official to accept his tax return as correct. An audit by sales tax officials means that they will charge a certain amount to certify that no tax evasion has been done. I used to know an engineer in a foreign oil company who used to charge ten percent of all bills that were submitted to him for approval. When I asked him why he did it (despite being paid a very good salary with perks and allowances), he said he needed the money to build a new bungalow (his present house not being according to his status). Then there are the seth-owned companies where the purchasers (usually close relatives of the owners) tell suppliers to jack up their bills and pay them the difference. It seems that men will never be satisfied, and they will always be greedy. You cannot entirely end corruption, however hard you try.