Articles and letters may be edited for the purposes of clarity and space. They are published in good faith with a view to enlightening all the stakeholders. However, the contents of these writings may not necessarily match the views of the newspaper.
Sanctity of hospitals
The First and Fourth Geneva Convention provides for setting up hospital and safety zones, whilst Fourth also caters setting up neutralized zones to shelter wounded, the sick and civilians from the effects of conflicts in times of war. In peace time it is unheard of that an elected government would allow even peaceful or agitated protesters to stage their protest in front of a hospital, especially one like Punjab Cardiology Centre in Lahore which caters for patients suffering from cardiac deceases.
PIC offers subsidized quality medical care to poor citizens from all over Punjab. It offers free or subsidized medicines in addition to other cardiac-related tests which are essential for diagnosis. It is unfortunate that lack of political will on part of numerous successive governments, including the present, because of their submissive and compromising attitude have encouraged both Young Doctors and Lawyers Groups to take law in their own hands and dare to close emergency services in hospitals, which are already insufficient to meet needs of growing population.
It was gross criminal negligence and incompetence of Punjab Government, which knowingly allowed agitated lawyers to proceed to PIC to stage their protest, especially given their background history of resorting to violence. It seems even minimum use of force such as Water Cannons, Lathi/Baton Charging or in the extreme case firing rubber bullets was not used because of fear of political fallout from lawyers keeping in view elections due for Punjab Bar Council. It is therefore logical to conclude that both Government and bureaucracy were willing to put at stake safety of patients. As if this was not enough, police resorted to use teargas after lawyers attacked and stoned hospital and entered its premises, harassing sick and aged patients and destroying lifesaving equipment.
M TARIQ ALI
Lahore
Lawyers’ shameful act
On Wednesday scores of lawyers attacked the Institute of Cardiology (PIC), Lahore and vandalised the facility. The rampaging lawyers also thrashed medical staff and attendants and scores of cardiac patients also lost their life in the rampage. The lawyers defended their attack on the facility to “settle the score” with doctors who, they claimed, had attacked one of their colleagues and then disseminated a video clip ridiculing them.
As a matter of fact both these groups involved are considered to be educated and rendering services to the general public, and people do have great respect towards their profession. Therefore this is shameful, inhuman and barbaric act by the lawyers which should be condemned and the perpetrators should be given stern punishment for damaging the public property and endangering life of patients and general public present in the hospital premises.
I hope the present government will conduct a high level inquiry into the incident and take stern action against all those involved in this gruesome incident and should take all precautions and law enforcing agencies should act more efficiently to stop such incidents happen again.
MARRYAM SARFARAZ
Muscat, Oman
Supply chain & its potential
Supply chain a process which is undertaken by the management to transform raw material to finished goods from the producer to the end consumer, this whole chain of activities in between is known as supply chain. The process basically deals with the logistics, production, procurement and marketing of the goods to the end customer providing them with the best quality product at their disposal.
The supply chain is a network connecting and associating individuals and organizations to plan out resources, activities and technologies to manufacture and sell a product or service to the end user. The network chain starts with the raw material delivery from a supplier to the manufacturer and which ends with the delivery of the finished product. The supply chain management overlooks each point of the company’s product portfolio, from research and development to the final sale. This adds value through efficiency and with proper management it can increase revenue, decrease cost and impact company’s image.
Pakistan’s economy averaging around a $300 billion GDP annually and with roughly over 200 million inhabitants in the country, has vast opportunities for supply chain mainly due to the economy transforming from an agricultural base to a manufacturing and service based economy. With growing demands and increasingly competitive markets, it’s the perfect time for business to mark development in their supply chain departments to lower down production costs and increase both allocation of resources and productivity to get the maximum utilization of resources and capital. Especially with the economic corridor opening up, it marks great potential for both Pakistan and China to jointly improve businesses and potential trade between the countries and the overall exports climbing.
MUHAMMAD SAAD
Islamabad
Still, having a fighting chance
Life is definitely not about boons and economic boom. The world population has been literally exploding. But at the same time, there is no doubt carving enormous workforce out of the world population. These are all happy factors indeed. But the latest UN climate change report has just started unfolding a lot of intriguing yet difficult things to the hilt and to the core.
Quite interestingly enough, it has often been occurring to me that given the enormity of the human population, green and agricultural activities worldwide must go on unhindered and should be protected at all costs. This big thought strikes me like anything whenever I see beautiful trees, rigorous agricultural activities, canals and river-beds in my native areas like Korkai, Tiruchendur, Tuticorin, Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.
In fact, the television channels like CNN, BBC have been highly highlighting the latest issue of the so-called climate change target failure, vastly encouraging me to watch their news input. Still, for all, the governments, officials, people and the international community, there has been a fighting chance of bringing back the climate crisis and global warming under control through stringent efforts and collective/joint responsibility.
P SENTHIL S DURAI
Via email
Women empowerment
Empowerment is the mechanism in which individuals build control over their own lives, culture, and societies. Empowerment involves action by educating, increasing awareness, literacy and training to raise women status. The empowerment of women is about equipping and enabling them to make lives – determining decisions through various social problems.
The empowerment of women and achievements of gender equality are important to our society in order to ensure the country’s environmental sustainability. Many global leaders and scholars have argued that without gender equality and women’s empowerment, sustainable development is impossible. Its development recognizes environmental protection, economics and social growth, and without the empowerment of women, women would not feel equally important to the development process as men.
The full participation of both men and women is widely believed to be crucial to growth. Only recognizing the involvement of men will not be beneficial for sustainable development. Empowerment must include more decisions for women to make their own in the context of women development. Scholars, therefore, agree that women’s empowerment plays an enormous role in development and one of the important contributions to development. Women would not be able to benefit or contribute to the country’s development without equal involvement of women in development.
Sehar Rasheed
Islamabad
