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.
PM should resign
Prime Minister Imran Khan should resign. And why not. He should quit his office for doing and continuing to do good things for the country and its people. He should resign for averting the economic default of the country which was looming large on the horizon when he had assumed the power in Islamabad for the first time in August 2018. He should resign for rushing around to friendly countries and securing financial assistance to put the national economy back on the track in the shortest possible time.
He should also resign for making concerted determined efforts to eliminate corruption in all manifestations and create a corruption free Pakistan at the earliest possible. And, he should resign also for taking all possible measures to set the house in order, to eliminate poverty and unemployment, for creating maximum employment opportunities, getting more employment opportunities for his people in friendly foreign countries, for making efforts to construct less costly houses for resource-less people, for efforts to empower the womenfolk and youth, for boosting Pakistan’s positive and peaceful image before the world at large and more importantly for internationalizing the lingering burning Kashmir issue through his historical maiden speech at the UN General Assembly after 55 long years following which the world leaders are now at least talking about the Kashmiri people’s fundamental rights and demanding right of self-determination for them.
The Prime Minister should resign because those pushed out of corridors of power by the people through their votes do not want they should be questioned about their misdoings and committing massive corruption, and that he should step down just now and let them come in power to run, ruin and loot the country and its people once again.
M Z RIFAT
Lahore
Demand for PM’s resignation
This refers to the news report ‘Fazl pledges to send PTI govt home. This reminds me of the old saying ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride’. But I suppose since Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his followers are already riding (coaches, cars, motor cycles and a container) they feel entitled to believe that their wishes would turn into reality. The Maulana also claimed that the whole nation is on one page, in full agreement with his agenda to topple Imran Khan’s government. Now how could a man who failed to win even a seat for himself in the Assembly claim the backing of the entire nation?
The fact is that the parties operating in the name of religion have always been shunned by the vast majority of Pakistanis which is why they have never been able to form a government. And the nation’s dislike for such parties has increased further because of the violent acts of extremists and militants who, operating in the name of religion, caused the death of 80,000 innocent men, women and children, apart from causing a $ 120 billion loss to economy, and which reign of terror was finally brought to an end by the great efforts and sacrifices by the armed forces and the civilian law enforcers. And surely the people will not like to see the likes of them to repeat the mischief.
And what to talk of the nation, even Maulana’s main backers, PML-N and PPP did not send large numbers of their followers to join his March. And the traders have also called off their countrywide strike. The chances are that Maulana’s Azadi March and even dharna will fizzle out. And in case he tries to create an ugly situation, the government seems quite prepared to handle it.
S R H HASHMI
Karachi
Child marriage
Deeply rooted in tradition, culture and customary practices, child marriage remains a widespread practice across Pakistan. It is a serious violation of girls’ human rights. Reportedly, the country has one of the highest numbers of child marriages in the world. According to WHO report (Demographics of Child Marriage in Pakistan), 21% girls under the age of 18 and 3 percent of girls under 15 are forced to marry in Pakistan. Additionally, the rate of forced child marriages in Pakistan is growing exponentially.
Huge proportion of young girls is forced to marry under the age of 18 due to myriads of socio-cultural reasons in the country. According to UK’s Forced Marriage Unit, Pakistan with 439 cases, ranked the highest among top four ‘focus’ countries in 2019. Thus, it is high time that all of us come up with productive strategy to protect girls and young women from being subject to early marriages. Eradication of child marriage calls for long-term policies concerning women empowerment, awareness programmes and effective law enforcement and implementation.
Therefore, government must make concerted efforts to empower young women through formal education, skill enhancement and training. State institutions should work on implementing laws in letter and spirit. Most importantly, media, civil society and non-governmental organizations must play their part in spreading awareness about the severe consequences of child marriage at the grassroots’ level across Pakistan.
HUDA ABID
Rawalpindi
Minorities & Indian Govt
India’s veil of being secular state has been torn apart recently. Minorities, especially their women, are facing difficulties in parts of India. India is widely and rightly regarded as the most unsafe country for women. Ill-mentality of some of the Indians can be gauged from a book by Bharat Ratna in which he justifies rape as a weapon of war.
Nationalist movements have started in different states of India. The freedom movement of Jammu and Kashmir is well known to the world. After revoking article 370, the status of India-occupied Kashmir stands changed. There has been a complete lockdown in the valley for three months. India continues blaming Pakistan for inference in the IoK freedom movement. Revoking of Article 370 is an eye-opener for other minorities as well. No Sikh can forget the pains of operation Blue Star and disgrace of Gurdavars. India is also putting economic pressure on Turkey and Malaysia on their support to Kashmir. India is on the path of regional hegemony. The Muslim world should recognize their friends and foes now and act accordingly.
On the other hand, the Nagaland peace process continued between National activists and the Indian Government. Nagaland’s demand for separate flag and constitution was not accepted. Nagaland was added to Indian Union in 1963. The rise of the Hindutva concept of Frankenstein proportions sooner or later will consume every minority in India. Sane voices in India do exist but are being silenced by the state machinery. India’s secular credentials are diminishing fast and a radical Hindu India is emerging. The only solution for survival to Indian minorities is to resist and challenge Hindutva.
MAEMUNA SADAF
Rawalpindi.
Risk in supply chain
Nowadays supply chain is considered as a single entity in which there are numerous processes and each process plays a significant role in the whole supply chain. Supply chain integration is all about how every member of a company and team and trading partners work in sync to achieve and accomplish the shared and same objectives of business through information sharing and integrated business processes. As technological advances, especially in telco sector tied with globalization, the shrinking of time horizons and the rise of complexity are driving the order-of-magnitude which changes in the competitive demands on strategic management of business and also on management of supply chains.
The telecom supply chain has experienced major changes overtime, and is still turbulent as integrated supply chains of Telco sector involved with many different types of players which deliver different outputs at every stage such as physical products, installations and services. There are many risks associated with integrated supply chains of Telco companies such as uncertainty in demand and supply, inadequate portfolio management process, inefficient engagement of Telco companies with industry verticals and also the public sector’s incapacity to scale internal digitization initiatives with different supply chain partners.
Another category of risks includes unauthorized production, insertion of counterfeits, insertion of malicious software and hardware, tampering, theft as well as poor manufacturing systems. These risks of integrated supply chains might affect the company’s visibility and also the way of understanding that how technology they acquire is developed, integrated, and arrayed as well as the procedures, processes and practices used to assure the security, resilience, integrity and also quality of the products and services in telecom industry.
ZUNAIRA MALIK
Islamabad
