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.
Jehad phobia
The only politician who never exploited religion and instead devoted his life to serve the people honestly was Quaid-i-Azam, who gave us a country, where we can live as citizens of a free state, enjoying equal rights irrespective of caste, creed, ethnicity and sex. There were many other pioneers of the political freedom struggle waged by MAJ, who devoted all their energies to achieve Pakistan.
Islam and all three major monotheistic religions stress that faith must be practised and not exploited to sow seeds of division, but instead stresses upon basic human values and tolerance for dissent and other faiths. There are numerous Hadiths, and decision by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the Constitution which clearly states that Jihad can only be waged by the State and it alone has monopoly over use of force. No country in the world can survive, if it allows private militias to be formed, bear arms and threaten the state with use of force. Even this excuse of so-called tradition to bear arms openly must be dealt with sternly.
Pakistan till recently faced threat of Jihad by TTP which has publicly declared its agenda to harm this country from within. We face threats from ISIL, DAESH etc that have exploited Jihad and witnessed likes of TLP etc that threatened this country under the garb of Jihad. Unfortunately, the fact remains that Zia, blinded by his pursuit for power, exploited Islam to wage a CIA-funded Jihad to fight a proxy war for America.
Even today, we face Zia’s legacy and scourge of terrorism, extremism and sectarian strife. There should be Zero Tolerance if any political party or group, including PTI etc., threatens to wage Jihad against the State. Pakistan facing a financial crisis, cannot afford any such misadventures.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
NADRA
be held accountable
A few months ago, a famous institution of Sindh named I.B.A had conducted primary school teacher and junior high school teacher test. There were approximately 164369 candidates appeared in the test. Unfortunately, 965 candidates belonging to other provinces had Sindh domicile which they obtained in collusion with the NADRA officials. Therefore, it is suggested that a tough action should be taken against NADRA Administration as to how they issued fake domiciles.
AIJAZ MAZARI
Lahore
Financial corruption
It is pointed out with heavy heart that financial corruption has led to our present quagmire where poor is facing all the brunt and elite class is making while the sun is shining on their heads by such innocent custodians of state coffer.
Doctoring of figure has been a hallmark of our revenue collectors and since over 30 years this demon has gone out of control by any rulers democratic or autocratic.
I remember in 1995 when late V A Jafferey was Advisor and Javed Talat was another articulate Secretary Finance, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was faced with a grave situation on account of overhauling in the then CBR, that in May it was reported that revenue targets are having a huge shortfall and government will face difficult situation in getting the next budget passed. A special meeting was chaired by PM where the articulate Secretary Finance assured PM that if he is given a free hand to run CBR this shortfall will be achieved provided no one interferes against my decisions.
Ms. Bhutto took a sigh of relief and Javed Talat was declared uncrowned king of MOF, and within hours of this decision CBR offices were opened at night and orders of reversal of old guards transferred earlier were called back to assume charge next morning and old practice of collecting advance tax for next quarters from multinationals and big groups was carried out hence target for this year was shown as achieved by jugglery of figures. Can someone assure that transparency and accountability in revenue mismanagement and monthly trial balances is available for public scrutiny?
ALI ASHRAF KHAN
Karachi
Gradual decline of print media
Digital media has played a significant role on how we get to know the daily news. Over a period of a decade, there can be seen a decline in the use of print media as many people decide to get the news from the apps they use in their mobile phones. Internet acts a powerful source and generates an interesting debate that whether print media will become extinct. News being documented and shared on social media platforms has had a negative effect on the print media industry.
The fear of extinction has caused hassle in the print media industry which made them branch out from traditional printed form to an electronic form of news. The media companies developed their own social media platforms on the apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the respective digital apps of their newspapers as well as their own company websites. Mostly, the young millennial spend more of their time on the internet than reading printed material.
They prefer articles on their computers or other electronic devices other than printed newspapers. Newspapers are more popular in the senior citizens as they stick to the traditional way of knowing the daily news. It is a habit we see mostly in older people to get up early and read the newspaper while having breakfast, whereas the millennial did not even develop this habit.
FATIMA MALIK
Islamabad
Rising
load-shedding
In Pakistan, heat is directly proportional to load shading, as the intensity of heat is heightening, load shading is increasing. Whenever we need electricity the most we lack it the most. That’s why I want to draw the attention of the government and higher authorities that not only me but our whole cities are facing the difficulty of scarce electricity. As you know that in this modern era, most of our work is done on electricity.
The shortage of electricity has left our life as if halted. People find it so difficult to cross the dark streets at night and the likelihood of accidents is rising. They are getting sick due to heatstroke and high temperature. Our work is getting hectic. Electricity has become a major part of our life without which we can’t live peacefully. The Sindh government should pay adequate attention to this crisis due to the significance of the issue and let the citizens live in peace.
AQSA SOOMRO
Larkana
