profile
Happy with his Faustian bargain
Sharifuddin Pirzada, the constitutional wizard of Pakistan, is conspicuous by his absence in the current judicial crisis
By Adnan Rehmat

The really powerful in Pakistan love him while the powerless loathe him for his proximity with the powers-that-be. He seems to have been around forever. And if you're a Pakistani, 'forever' is 60 years (of the truncated country's existence). From the majestic Jinnah to Machiavellian Musharraf himself -- Sharifuddin Pirzada has been at the side of giants (genuine or otherwise) and therefore epitomises both influence and survival, features that in congruence are usually associated with gods (or perhaps their deputies such as prophets and sages).

Taal Matol
Bil Bitauree, Nasaan Couree

By Shoaib Hashmi

If you are unfamiliar with the title, you are probably of the younger, and dumber, generation out of touch with your own tradition and culture. For in our father's day it was a phrase much in use to describe a coltish and brazen girl, too brassy for her own good, or our elders taste; and for some reason her whole character was defined by her flared nostrils.

comment
Moves and countermoves

Many events have cropped up to divert the attention of the people from the judicial crisis but these issues are not part of government's damage control strategy
By Nadeem Iqbal

"I am not much bothered about the current political impasse. It is just a drama and musical chair of the top persons. Even the change of guards at the top government level won't resolve the people's problems. They are groaning under acute price hike", said taxi-driver Nisar Ahmed, 55, while talking to TNS soon after dropping a PML-N councillor close to the Supreme Court on Tuesday last (April 3), where lawyers and political workers had gathered to chant anti-Musharraf slogans on the occasion of non-functional Chief Justice's appearance in front of Supreme Judicial Council.

Deathlines
Reporting in Waziristan remains a dangerous proposition

By Mushtaq Yusufzai
The gruesome murders of family members of tribal reporter, Din Mohammad, has proved once again that Waziristan is not a safe zone for media people
The ill-fated reporter Din Mohammed, who works for a Dera Ismail Khan-based Urdu daily, faced unbearable consequences for facilitating a group of journalists from Peshawar, Tank and Dera Ismail Khan who were invited recently by Maulvi Nazeer the commander of the tribal militants in Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan Agency.

RIPPLE EFFECT
To hell with the customer

By Omar R. Quraishi

The title of this week's column is probably apt for Pakistan where the consumer is taken for a ride by just about anyone. Think of practically any good or service that we buy and/or use -- from cars, mobile phones, educational and medical services, fast food, watching cable TV, surfing the Internet, credit cards and so on -- the quality of service is generally terrible. This is most ironic given that all these companies make their profits generally at the expense of the customer. After all, it would be fair to assume that they are in the business of providing whatever it is that they provide not because of charity but because they are in it -- just like anybody else in the rest of the world -- to make a profit on their investment.

By Adnan Rehmat

The really powerful in Pakistan love him while the powerless loathe him for his proximity with the powers-that-be. He seems to have been around forever. And if you're a Pakistani, 'forever' is 60 years (of the truncated country's existence). From the majestic Jinnah to Machiavellian Musharraf himself -- Sharifuddin Pirzada has been at the side of giants (genuine or otherwise) and therefore epitomises both influence and survival, features that in congruence are usually associated with gods (or perhaps their deputies such as prophets and sages).

In a country where elected prime ministers, chief ministers and ministers have been hanged, hounded, jailed, exiled or kicked around, there have only been two constants: the army and Pirzada -- all others have come and gone while these two have been around, their power un-waned.

The varieties of masks Pirzada has donned may have been harmless enough -- secretary, foreign minister, attorney general, secretary general, advisor and special assistant -- his task has been in deadly earnest and only one (save for his association with Jinnah): play kingmaker. In another age, he would not have been out of place as the grand vizier, one who ensures that the system always remains suited to the shahanshah.

 

Aaini Jadoogar

When Ardeshir Cowasjee calls Pirzada the 'Aaini Jadoogar' it's because he makes constitutional articles disappear when they get in the way of dictators. And as Khalid Hasan says, he breakfasts on constitutional provisions as if they were Fauji Foundation cereals.

Such is the acknowledgement of his wares that one of the charges against Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in the Naeem Bokhari 'indictment' letter was that the top judge treated Pirzada with respect! The feeling was not mutual, though, as expected. No less than Musharraf has credited Pirzada with starting the blame game against the chief justice. Super clear-headed that he is, he is anything but a showman -- opting to not roll up his sleeves to openly take sides in a bitter and what promises to be a bruising fight. Pirzada can opt the role of executioner against Iftikhar Chaudhry, even if it is a behind-the-scene exercise like all his exercises, because he 'earns' the right by virtue of being the one who got him appointed king of the Supreme Court. Which makes Pirzada the killer of kings -- the power of not just making them but also breaking them. Musharraf surely knows that Pirzada can serve another knight in khaki with equal if not more zest. He has already done it four times so he can do it a fifth time.

 

Dictatorship Dinosaur

Someone who can beat democratic dinosaurs such as Bacha Khan and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan in the game of survival is surely not a trifling matter. For Ayub, Yayha, Zia (he was attorney general for all three) and Musharraf, Pirzada has been the difference between cantankerous and crackpot dictators and practicing Machiavellian military strongmen. The billion-dollar skill that Pirzada possesses is not that he can charm a majority of high and supreme court judges into ignoring the violation of Article 6 by men in uniform but that he can craft creative convolutions of the constitution that can arm generals with 10-year National Saviourship Scholarships.

Says General K M Arif, General Zia's deputy, in his Khaki Shadows, that General Zia was not sincere about holding elections in even 1988 (the year he died) and had tasked Pirzada with pulling a rabbit out of his hat of tricks. Arif mentions that it was Pirzada who threatened Justice Anwarul Haq with dismissal and got him to grant General Zia the power to amend the constitution -- an unforgivable insertion in the judgement in the Nusrat Bhutto case made just as the un-requested three years given to Musharraf by Supreme Court judges to stay in power. Arif also discloses that Law Secretary Justice S A Nusrat was asked to own the PCO draft written by Pirzada.

 

Meray aziz hamwatno

'Meray aziz hamwatno' -- how has Pirzada struck fear in the hearts of millions and sunk the hearts of tens of millions more with this innocuous but deadly phrase that he puts in the First National Sermon of the Leader of the Luckless, signalling a long spell of constitutional piracy? One of the comments that Farooq Hasan, counsel representing the challenge to Musharraf's 2002 referendum mocked Pirzada's assertion in the case that granted Musharraf three years (including the power to amend the Constitution) that the army would go back to the barracks in three years thus: "He had given a similar pledge on behalf of the army in the Nusrat Bhutto case during the regime of Gen Ziaul Haq. The 90 days of Sharifuddin Pirzada ended in 11 years and if three years, which he sought for Musharraf, are calculated on the basis of same formula, a century would be required to send the military back to barracks." Perhaps that's the formula of Pirzada's longevity -- the more years in power he helps the army remain, the more he lives and the more chances he gets to do encores.

 

All kinds welcome

Pirzada's emphasis on principles of longevity to constitutionally illegal military takeovers is so straightforward that religious issues do not compromise it. He has worked with secularist Musharraf and religious Zia with equal devotion. Which is why even Jamaat-e-Islami cites his editorship of books to prove Maulana Maudoodi's pan-Islamism and the fact that he was the first choice of Pakistan's largest madrasa, the Jamia Binoria of Karachi, to fight their case against expulsion of foreign students from the country even though he was serving the secularist Musharraf.

 

Fiddling with the Founder's faith

And on the 'secular' side, Pirzada draws his mythical halo of pre-eminence from his association with Quaid-e-Azam by serving him on his staff as secretary. However, few know that despite the knowledge that Jinnah was from the Shia faith, he deposed against this. After Jinnah's death, sister Fatima and then prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan jointly filed a petition in the Karachi High Court describing Jinnah as a Shia Khoja Mohammedan and sought that his will may be executed under the Shia inheritance law. Again, when Fatima died in 1967, another sister Shirin Bai claimed her property under the Shia law. But this claim was contested in 1970 by Hussain Ali Ganji Walji in the high court maintaining that both Jinnah and his sister were Sunnis and hence the property be disposed of in accordance with the Sunni inheritance law. Pirzada appeared as a witness in the case deposing that in 1901 Jinnah broke from the Ismaili Shia faith and became a Sunni when his sisters married Sunnis. In December 1976, the court rejected Walji's plea against Bai's claim on Fatima's property under the Shia law, which effectively meant the court had accepted the Jinnah family as Shia. This was not the only paradoxical reference to the Jinnahs. He is on record as having claimed of having proof that Pakistan's first First Lady was murdered and refusing to share it.

 

Bad Pied Piper

Aitzaz Ahsan when requested in December 2005 to join a committee on constitutional reforms set up by the Supreme Court Bar Association refused because of the co-nomination of Pirzada. He declined with a scathing indictment of Pirzada. With Mr Pirzada on it, it may indeed be termed as the committee on 'Constitutional Deviations', Aitzaz wrote. "We all have our faults. But Senior Advocate Mr Sharifuddin Pirzada stands out as an example of all that a lawyer and jurist must not be....

"I think that we have, for too many decades, been in awe of the 'success ethic' that Mr Pirzada so eminently represents. If a man attains success, a high office or riches, we choose to overlook and condone entirely the means that he may have adopted to attain that success, status or wealth. That is the unfortunate lesson that our children will also learn from us. But enough is enough. It is time now to call a spade a spade..."

 

The trails of treason

Many have tried but nobody has better described Pirzada than Pirzada himself. On September 6, 1998, columnist Cowasjee quoted Pirzada's own words about himself thus: "Accept me as I am, with warts, blemishes, briefcases and all. If it were not for all the weak and corrupt governments of Pakistan, I would not be where I am today." So there you have it: the man happy with his Faustian bargain even as five generations of Pakistanis have suffered at his hands.

 

Official profile

Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada senior advisor to the prime minister & senior advocate, Supreme Court

Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada; Bar-at-Law; Born on 12-6-1923; Graduate in Law from Bombay University, India in 1945; Senior Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan; Ambassador-at-Large; Honorary Secretary to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah from 1941-44; Secretary, Bombay City Muslim League in 1945-47; Chairman, Publicity Committee of Bombay Provincial Muslim League during General Elections 1945-47; Managing Editor of the Daily Morning Herald, Bombay, 1947; Member of various National and International Commissions and Associations, also led Pakistani Delegation to United Nations in 1960; Chairman, Quaid-e-Azam Biographic Committee; Foreign Minister of Pakistan, 1966-68; Advisor to the Constitution Commission of Pakistan; Attorney General of Pakistan, 1968-71; Chairman, U. N. Human Rights Sub-Committee on Minorities 1977; Member, International Law Commission; Chairman, Experts Committee for drafting the statutes of Islamic International Court of Justice (O.I.C); Federal Minister of Law and Parliamentary Affairs and Attorney General of Pakistan, 1977; Attorney General and Law Minister, 1978-84; Chairman, Company Law Commission (1981); Represented Pakistan in International Tribunal on Runn of Kutch, 1965 and also before International Civil Authority, Montreal in the over flight case; Secretary General O.I.C 1985-88; Ambassador-at-Large; Caretaker Foreign Minister, 1993; Awarded 'Nishan-i-Imtiaz' in 1998; Received High Awards from France, Germany, Jordan, Syria and South Korea; Honorary Senior Advisor to the Chief Executive of Pakistan; Member, National Security Council 1999; Ambassador-at-Large 1999; Judge Ad-hoc, International Court of Justice 2000; Honorary Senior Advisor to the Chief Executive of Pakistan on Foreign Affairs, Law, Justice and Human Rights 2000.

Source http://www.ljcp.gov.pk/menu%20items/item-02/biodata-member-07-sharifuddin%20pirzada.htm

 


Taal Matol
Bil Bitauree, Nasaan Couree

By Shoaib Hashmi

If you are unfamiliar with the title, you are probably of the younger, and dumber, generation out of touch with your own tradition and culture. For in our father's day it was a phrase much in use to describe a coltish and brazen girl, too brassy for her own good, or our elders taste; and for some reason her whole character was defined by her flared nostrils.

You would probably get a boot in the backside if you tried to use it today, because the Women's Lib movement has made it politically incorrect to describe a female as anything except downtrodden or wise and sage. It occurs to me that that is quite contrary to the traditional image of a woman in our culture. I must immediately say that I am not taking sides in the dispute over the image; only setting the record straight to say that tradition had a very different view.

For instance it is true that many words usually used to describe women have gone completely out of circulation. I haven't heard the word Bhootnee used in a long time although it was routinely used, even to call a young girl child out of affection; the adult versions, Dayan and Churrail too are used only in jokes and stories and hardly ever in real life. In a bygone age they were a part of one's belief, and described one's suspicions about a certain kind of too forward woman.

You must know that though the Bhootnee had her counterpart in the male Bhoot, which was a vague being the personification of one's own supernatural fears, the other two were peculiarly female beings with no male equivalent. They were magical women with strange powers to compel others and to cause trouble.

It got even better when they grew older when the crone became a Phaphay Kuttnee which circumscribed not only strange powers but also an evil kind of wisdom, or at any rate special skills and talents, all reprehensible, which were embodied in the immortal phrase used to describe their expertise -- which was the ability to take a shred of the earth and stitch it into the heavens, and take the similar piece of the sky and stitch in into the earth! Priceless!

The tradition was that whereas most of them dwelt among us as ordinary women and could be recognised only in the exercise of their powers, there were more who lived in their own world, only occasionally interacting with us ordinary mortals, and only at twilight, who were easily recognised, if you knew what to look for, and they were the Pichhal Pairees who had their feet back to front with the toes sticking out at the back.

There were lesser ones called merely Kuttnees who had only minor powers of the supernatural with the proviso that the powers were used only for evil. The rum thing about all of them was that these were breed only of women and there were never any men with similar powers.

In this of course we followed the lore of the older Christian or Jewish traditions which became part of the larger European lore of witchcraft. It is noted that whereas there was a similar tradition of Wizards, it never caught the imagination or attracted the attention to the extent that witches did. If you discount the new fangled cult of Harry Potter, which of course is fiction!

The tradition being confined only to women could be traced back to the original role of woman in leading man astray, and persisted in the belief that if a woman joined the other side, she could really get your goat! In a sense it applied to all womankind in the belief that women's minds were somehow twisted. Now I have always believed that our forefathers were a wise people who had gathered together in their beliefs the wisdom of ages, and it is gratifying to note that some people in Pindi are endeavouring to prove them right!

 


comment

Moves and countermoves

Many events have cropped up to divert the attention of the people from the judicial crisis but these issues are not part of government's damage control strategy

By Nadeem Iqbal

"I am not much bothered about the current political impasse. It is just a drama and musical chair of the top persons. Even the change of guards at the top government level won't resolve the people's problems. They are groaning under acute price hike", said taxi-driver Nisar Ahmed, 55, while talking to TNS soon after dropping a PML-N councillor close to the Supreme Court on Tuesday last (April 3), where lawyers and political workers had gathered to chant anti-Musharraf slogans on the occasion of non-functional Chief Justice's appearance in front of Supreme Judicial Council.

Nisar has been driving the taxi on the streets of Islamabad and Rawalpindi and has a first hand knowledge of public perception about political happenings. Because majority of protestors don't carry their own cars to the protest venue and use public transport instead.

In the political arena, it appears the PPP is holding a double-edged sword. On one side PPP is spearheading the campaign for independent judiciary and on the other it is serving as Musharraf's B team along with Opposition Leader Fazlur Rehman's JUI.

Therefore during the protests, one witnesses the official strategy -- of arresting Jamaat-i-Islami leadership at the western Blue Area route to the Supreme Court while PPP protestors led by whole of its leadership conveniently walk to the venue from the northern route.

This move of the PPP has out-nerved the ruling PML-Q. Therefore soon after the March 9 judicial debacle the government did not know what to do. Only some of the individual politicians came out with some unconvincing justifications. Now after President Musharraf's briefing, they have come up with a consolidated counter-strategy. The strategy is to keep Jamaat-i-Islami and other political parties away from protesting lawyers and to isolate the protesting lawyers so that the issue may not turn into a popular anti-government movement.

The media is being tamed by opening of some of the popular Indian channels that attract advertisement revenue from Pakistan. The message is that in case of defiance the space to earn advertisement revenue can be curtailed. Similarly, Anwar Mahmood, who was serving on a post-retirement-contact in the health ministry, has been brought back as federal information secretary to manage the media. The sanctioning of Indian movies channels have toned down the impact of ball to ball coverage of the protests by the news channels.

The media is still accusing the government of curbing freedom of press. The Dawn group has claimed for some time now that it is being pressured through the withholding of government ads, which are a significant part of any newspaper's revenue (and survival). While it is obviously an advertiser's choice to advertise wherever they want, the issue of government ads is different and especially a ban on a newspaper is difficult to justify on market rationality.

Things have obviously taken a turn for the worse for Dawn because a long email from Hameed Haroon, the CEO and publisher of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, accompanied by a set of four very detailed annextures is now circulating on the internet

In this context, some events like Jamia Hafsa certainly have come as blessing in disguise for the government. The government has been struggling to exert its writ in this madrasa in the heart of the capital but without much success so far.

On March 27 when the girls abducted three female members of a family alleging that they were running a brothel house, the speculation gained strength that the move was government sponsored. As did the bloody clashes between tribal and foreign militants killing scores of people.

Although these events have diverted the attention of the people from the judicial crisis but these are not part of government's damage control strategy. Rather these were fronts that had been simmering for a long time and came out into the open once the judicial crisis began. On the Jamia Hafsa issue the government is already facing public criticism. During the Seerat Conference in Islamabad on April 1 President Pervez Musharraf tried to address this criticism when he said the government is showing patience with the religious students because it does not want to beat up girl students.

At the hearing of the reference against Chief Justice on April 3, the media flashed images of lawyers beating some unwanted persons and demanding the rule of law, did not go too well. Then government counsels senator Wasim Sajjad and former law minister Khalid Ranjha's press conference demanding a conducive environment for pleading the government case has morally put them at par with the protesting lawyers.

 


Deathlines

Reporting in Waziristan remains a dangerous proposition

By Mushtaq Yusufzai

The gruesome murders of family members of tribal reporter, Din Mohammad, has proved once again that Waziristan is not a safe zone for media people

The ill-fated reporter Din Mohammed, who works for a Dera Ismail Khan-based Urdu daily, faced unbearable consequences for facilitating a group of journalists from Peshawar, Tank and Dera Ismail Khan who were invited recently by Maulvi Nazeer the commander of the tribal militants in Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan Agency.

Commander Maulvi Nazeer wanted media people to go to Wana and have an eyewitness account of his strength and visit the areas his men had captured from rival Uzbek fighters and their tribal sympathisers.

Journalist Din Mohammad was given the task of helping people of his community to take them to Wana. Din Mohammad without any hesitation agreed and personally came to Tank district to receive journalists including this scribe. He was there to assure reporters that nothing will happen to them as the areas they were supposed to visit were in control of tribal militants also called as Punjabi Taliban. "Why do you worry when the Taliban themselves have invited you to come? They are in control of all those areas which we would go to visit," the journalist used to say to his 'guests'.

According to reports it was not just a 'mistake' but a 'crime' for which Uzbek fighters and their tribal collaborators punished Din Mohammad.

He accompanied the journalists right from Tank to Wana via isolated routes and then took them to the alleged hideouts and torture centers of the Uzbeks.

He was visible everywhere when commanders of tribal militants showed those alleged underground torture cells of Uzbeks at Zha Ghundai and Shin Warsak localities near Wana. He even got infuriated when the commander of the tribal militants, Maulvi Nazeer expressed his inability to meet the media people he had invited to his hometown. Din Mohammad told tribal commanders that the journalists had reached the world's most dangerous spot by putting their lives at stake, therefore no excuse to avoid meeting them would be accepted.

And perhaps due to his critical remarks, the tribal militants then immediately sent two of their senior commanders, Haji Sharif and Haji Khanan to brief media people about ongoing conflict in the region.

On their way back to Tank, some of the reporters felt that Din Mohammad could face serious consequences.

And it happened when dozens of armed Uzbeks attacked the house of his uncle Sultan with rockets and hand grenades, according to Din Mohammad. Sultan fell prey to the attack despite retaliation, as it was beyond his capacity to resist effectively.

Interestingly, the Uzbeks are still backed by local tribal people. Two brothers of Haji Sharif, who is the commander of tribal militants -- Haji Omar and Maulvi Nur Islam -- are fighting shoulder to shoulder with Uzbeks against their fellow Wazir tribesmen.

And the foreign militants did not stop there.They attacked the house of Din Mohammad in Kaja Panga near Azam Warsak, killed both his other uncle Mohammad Amir and his 15-year old brother Mohammad Aslam and kidnapped another uncle Juma Khan alias Haji Jimak.The foreign militants publicly executed his uncle Juma Khan in Azam Warsak bazaar, which is commonly known as Uzbekistan among the tribal people in Wana due to majority of Uzbeks there.

There were rumours that reporter Din Mohammad also disappeared and was probably kidnapped by the Uzbeks. But his appearance in Wana on Tuesday indicated that he was well and was there to mourn the tragic killing of his family members.

Another tribal reporter, Zafar Wazir, who works for Pashto language television channel and an Urdu daily, is hiding due to serious threat to life after Uzbek commander Tahir Yaldashev issued his execution orders. "My crime was that I reported what was happening in Wana a few days back and then a Pashto language foreign news service used the same interview with my voice in their news programme," said Zafar Wazir. He said it hurt Uzbeks and their tribal collaborators and Tahir Yaldashev issued his execution order.

It is important to mention that Din Mohammad was not the first tribal reporter who suffered such a huge loss in line with his professional obligation. Earlier, two tribal reporters -- Mir Nawab Wazir, 32, and Allah Noor Wazir, 28 -- were gunned down by unknown assailants when they were returning home after attending a truce ceremony between tribal commander Baitullah Mahsud and the government in Srarogha in South Waziristan in 2005. Besides them almost all the journalists have abandoned their homes in South Waziristan due do continuous attacks on them and their family members and shifted to safer destinations like DI Khan, Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Peshawar.

 

By Omar R. Quraishi

The title of this week's column is probably apt for Pakistan where the consumer is taken for a ride by just about anyone. Think of practically any good or service that we buy and/or use -- from cars, mobile phones, educational and medical services, fast food, watching cable TV, surfing the Internet, credit cards and so on -- the quality of service is generally terrible. This is most ironic given that all these companies make their profits generally at the expense of the customer. After all, it would be fair to assume that they are in the business of providing whatever it is that they provide not because of charity but because they are in it -- just like anybody else in the rest of the world -- to make a profit on their investment.

As a customer myself, I have often been on the raw end of the terrible service that is provided to Pakistanis in general by both public as well as private sector corporations. Anyone who thinks that the latter are better than the former in terms of better quality of service better think again. If anything, the emergence of a private sector has not necessarily resulted in greater competition -- and with it lower prices and better quality of service -- but has often led to private monopolies merely replacing state-owned ones. And firms that have monopoly power in their market are able to -- and this is the unanimous view of economic experts -- make profits but only by charging a higher price and this means that the consumer continues to be exploited.

Let's consider some examples. Pakistan has perhaps one of the highest banking spreads in the world -- 'banking spread' refers to the difference between what a commercial bank earns in interest paid on the money that it gives out as loans and the interest rate which its pays its depositors. In Pakistan, this 'spread' is in the region of 8-10 per cent or higher and explains why banks have been making unprecedented profits in the country in recent years. (In fact on house, credit cards, and auto and personal loans, the interest rates are exorbitant, sometimes upwards of 30 per cent per year.)

Of course, this is seen as something good by the government, and particularly the industry regulator, the State Bank of Pakistan, because this sector is cited as one which had experienced significant foreign investment. The foreigners are coming -- as they have in recent months through acquisitions of local banks -- because of the profits on offer. That, too, is fine but surely even the SBP governor knows that all these profits are being made at the expense of banking customers, especially individual and small-scale who have to pay high rates of interest on loans but continue to receive a return on their deposits which in most cases does not even cover inflation (hence their savings are getting them a negative return). The SBP governor was asked about this high banking spread some time back and her response was that it was market-driven. That may be the case, but where is the poor depositor in all of this? The market, so to speak, seems to have taken him for a royal ride.

Perhaps, the 'quality' of service, or lack thereof, in one other sector may help drive the point home further. Take the case of cable TV. One of the country's largest cable operators is in the habit of changing both the order and listing of the channels that it advertises as being offered. Lately, a particular favourite, the Paramount Comedy channel, has been replaced with an Indian movie channel. When I rang the company's office and asked them why this was done, I was told by a representative that the operator from time to time reviews the list of channels that it offers and based on feedback, makes modifications. I was astounded -- though I had heard this before as well, when other channels were suddenly taken off air. I told the company rep I was never asked for my feedback, to which he replied that he would pass on my request to bring Paramount back to the concerned department. This was over a week ago and I am still waiting.

Now I don't have a problem with Indian movies being shown (although that's technically still illegal) but will someone explain to me why a quality comedy channel is taken off air while some ridiculous channels (or a couple in a foreign language) are left untouched?

Like I said, to hell with the customer.

The writer is Op-ed Pages Editor of The News.

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk


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