RIPPLE EFFECT
On screen
bimbos and silly stories
By Omar R. Quraishi
I have just about had it with models pretending to be intellectuals.The other day while channel surfing I realised just why they call television the 'idiot box' -- you have to be a complete idiot to be watching some of the shows that they churn out these days. Or, the people on it are idiots in their own right. After all, what should one make of a show where a local model (read airhead) hosts a show where contestants apparently fight to meet the star of their dreams over dinner. The last winner apparently got to meet Indian actress (why this obsession with Indians?) Priyanka Chopra and the next winner would get to meet Katrina Kaif. Of course, the catch was that the meeting would be held in Dubai, since it is unlikely that these ladies would visit Pakistan as part of any contest. The hallmark of the show was that clips of the star in question -- in this case Ms Kaif --were shown to contestants and they were then asked questions relating to the footage shown to them.

essay
The liberal utopia
What makes up the moderates and extremists and what divides them

By Adnan Adil

It is a debatable point whether the society is divided only in these two broad groupings -- moderates and extremists -- or do other major ideological divisions also exist. It is also a moot point whether this ideological divide is a major determinant of national politics or is there some other major factor or a combination of variables, including economic, sociological, and ethno-linguistic, that shape the country's politics.

Let us start with the available facts. President Gen Pervez Musharraf is a major ally of the United States in its so called 'war against what terror'. A powerful military establishment and subservient civil bureaucracy and political collaborators are at his back. He is exercising absolute power for the last eight years after deposing an elected prime minister in violation of the Constitution and imposing an altered constitution of his will.

The ruthless and brute use of force in Afghanistan and the tribal region of Pakistan has failed to crush the Islamic militants' rebellious movement against the United States and its supporter regime in Islamabad. Instead, the militants are gathering force in Afghanistan and in the federally administered tribal belt of Pakistan. Pakistan seems to have little administrative control over this territory. The US sees this as a hub of jihadis or radical Islamists.

The situation of civil strife and anarchy exist in the country beyond the control of the police. Paramilitary forces and army have been deployed not only in the tribal areas but also in settled parts of the country such as Rangers in Karachi and use of army to crush rebels in Islamabad. The government has shown its helplessness in preventing deaths due to suicide blasts which the highly motivated Islamists carry out. American officials are saying they may launch military strikes against targets within Pakistan which they consider to be centres of Islamic militants.

This situation shows the failure of Musharraf's regime in controlling militancy inside and at the borders of the country. But Gen Musharraf is insistent that he alone can rectify the situation. He wants to perpetuate his power portraying himself as a last bulwark against the Islamic militants and the US--haters in Pakistan -- a job which he could not achieve in the last eight years. He wants to get re-elected by the current assemblies as President while holding the office of military chief at the same time. Thus, the opposition parties believe that he will influence the general elections, due latter this year which are likely to produce results of his choice.

In these circumstances, Musharraf and his aides have propagated the theory of 'moderates' versus 'extremists' in Pakistan. This is a new slogan that has been coined to justify the presence of a military--dominated system in the country. Pro-US and the so called liberal intellectuals are at the service of Musharraf's regime. They cannot win a national assembly seat in fair elections without the support of state machinery because they live at a distance from the local population. They despise the local culture and identify themselves with the West. The battle they cannot fight on their own, they want to wage through military establishment headed by Gen Musharraf. An unholy alliance has come into being between the establishment and a small group of so called liberals.

If the so called Islamic extremists are on the fringe in Pakistan, then so are the so-called liberals. Both are self--righteous entities, intolerant and exclusivist in their approach. The only difference is that the so--called liberals mostly belong to upper middle urban income groups, while the ranks of Islamic extremists are filled with people from lower middle class and poor sections of society. In fact, to an extent the liberal-extremist divide in Pakistan mirrors the class division in the country as well.

Another difference between the liberals and extremists is that while the former have little roots in the society, the latter do have some sort of support among the people with whom they share some basic religious beliefs though not conforming in details. In the spectrum of ideological shades in Pakistani society, the religious extremists may find some common area with other shades of opinion because a large majority of people in this land have an emotional attachment with Islam and other symbols of it.

What separates the extremist fringe from other Muslims is the use of violence to achieve the goals. The difference between a small extremist group and a large conservative religious lobby is on the means not the objective. The goal of the two is the enforcement of Islamic teachings and revival of a Muslim society. Both want political power to use it for the realisation of their ideals. The religious parties and most seminaries have taken the path of constitutional struggle while the radicals such as Lal Masjid militants and Swat's Maulana Sufi Muhammad took recourse to the use of violence to enforce their brand of religion.

Even the religious parties that believe in conservative interpretation of Islam but use constitutional path for their political struggle could not create a large constituency in national politics. The past election results bear testimony to this. Their vote bank never exceeded more than 10 per cent of the total vote cast in a general election.

In the struggle for Pakistan, these religious parties were allies of the secular Congress and opposed to the idea of a separate Muslim state in the Indian subcontinent. A majority of the Muslim population dismissed their position and put their vote behind the leadership of Dr Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah who were committed with Islam and at the same time wanted to conform to the requirements of modern times. Thus, in practice, the majority of the subcontinent's Muslim population regardless of their sects consciously chose the path of a modern Islamic state. This was a revolutionary milestone in the history of Muslims who lost their political glory after the fall of Mughals in India, Safavids in Persia and Ottomans in Turkey.

Shunning the idea of kingdom, state or khilafat they were familiar with, the Muslims of the subcontinent embarked on a political course dominated by Western modern ideas of elected representative institutions and political movements and parties, but on the way they never gave up their ethos of being Muslims and adherence to Islamic faith. Unlike Europe where the movements of enlightenment and reformation led to the separation of church and state, in Muslim societies this did not happen. One reason may be that in Muslim societies no institution like a church was ever in power though ulema (or clergy) always played a political role by allying with or distancing away from one or the other political ruler.

The challenge before the Muslims of the subcontinent was how to reconcile the two -- Islam and modernity. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his colleagues Maulvi Chiragh Ali, Shibli Nomani and others played their part. Allama Iqbal wrote 'Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam'. Muhammad Ali Jinnah led with example. He used Islamic slogans to mobilise Muslims all over India while using the modern and Western-inspired methodology of political struggle. A new ideology was shaping up where Islamic principles and modern way of life and political systems were coming close to each other.

But this process suffered a setback after the creation of Pakistan. In the new country, the spoils of newly acquired state power and political battles among the competing politicians and political groups gained dominance. The Quaid died and with him a budding ideological revolution.

Who betrayed these forward-looking and progressive Muslims of Pakistan are the modern educated politicians. In the initial days, so-called religious parties were politically sidelined. It were power hungry politicians of Punjab who used clergy for their political ends in an agitation against minority Ahmadi sect in Punjab to destabilise their rivals in the centre. That revived the street power, if not the political power, of conservative religious groups and gave them a new life. The sincerity of purpose in the Pakistan movement gave way to greed and power hunger in the formative days of the nation.

Still, the majority of Pakistanis remained on the side of the mainstream politicians of Muslim League and other regional parties despite their corruption and bad governance. Ideologically, these politicians were neither conservative nor liberals or anti-religion. Though unintentionally, they carried the legacy of the movement initiated by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and the Quaid.

Against them there were also a small section of communists who instead of formulating a concrete political programme in consistence with the ethos of the society and basing it on progressive thoughts of Marxism, kept fighting with the concept of God and religious symbols. These small leftist groups failed in national politics.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was intelligent enough to understand the ideological sensitivity of his people and founded his Pakistan People's Party in the late 1960s on the slogan: 'Islam is our religion, Socialism is our economy and people are a source of power.' Critics may find this contradictory, but Bhutto was trying to carry forward the process that was started by the Quaid and Dr Iqbal. Even a regional party like Awami National Party (ANP) packed with leftists proclaims in its manifesto that Islam will be the state religion. Its founder Wali Khan was a wise statesman who knew the limits of western liberalism and other foreign ideological concepts when practiced in Pakistan.

The military establishment with its frequent political interventions destroyed these wise men of politics -- some were hanged and others were declared traitors. This was not the failure of the  political class, but the military generals supported by the liberal West that sowed the seeds of the revival of conservative and later radical\militant religious ideology in Pakistan. Still, this forms a small section of the overall public opinion.

Majority of Pakistanis still have an emotional attachment to Islam and want to adhere to its basic principles of Islam. At the same time, for all practical purposes they are marching forward in step with the modern day's requirements along with the rest of the world.

The ordinary Pakistani may not have articulated his version of modern Islam but practically he is a modern Muslim. While keeping the spirit of Islamic principles he decides the details with common sense and according to requirements of time. This approach is in contrast to literal and rigid position of conservative clerics or violent path taken by the militants. The ordinary Muslim does not discard banking saying it un-Islamic though he may want certain changes in it to make it conform to Islamic injunctions. That is why the European and other international banks have started Islamic banking. He wants his women to be highly educated and work along with men but may not like to legalise homosexuality and promiscuity in the name of freedom as many liberal groups demand.

The issues of human freedom, tolerance of dissent, modern education, gender equality and a representative pluralistic political system can be tackled without negating Islam and living within the framework of Quran and Sunnah. But it is a slow and gradual process which needs intellectuals and politicians who have credibility among masses. Those people who do not and cannot speak the common man's language and live in isolated islands or those who are corrupt and greedy to the core cannot achieve this goal. Neither religious conservatism nor Western liberalism can be imposed through the use of state might.

Pakistan is not a part of liberal democratic civilization of the West nor can it be. The aspiration of a truly liberal and secular state and society is a utopia in Pakistan as was the pipedream of communist revolution before the fall of the Soviet Union. Our best bet is a progressive and modern interpretation of Islam that is in practice but needs to be articulated. Except a few religious parties and radical Islamic groups all other mainstream and regional parties represent forward-looking Pakistani Muslims. The use of state power to enforce liberalism produced a backlash in Iran and Turkey, but in Pakistan the process of modernisation is slow and gradual and thus irreversible. Those who want to use military-dominated regime to enforce liberalism are doing a disservice to the progressive evolution of the society.

The way to deal with an extremist Islamic fringe is not violence as was used in the Lal Masjid incident but shrewd statecraft. The purge of intelligence agencies and an end to their political role and return of the military establishment to its barracks is a solution to the problem. The establishment is part of the problem not a solution.

All the hatred and anger at the moment is directed against Gen Musharraf which is creating a bloody backlash. Those who want Pakistan to deal successfully with militancy should reconsider their options. A representative civilian government can best moderate the conflicting ideologies and interests in the country not a military-dominated regime.

Fearless fighter

Qamar Yurish had nothing to lose, for he shared all that he had

  By Saadia Salahuddin

Qamar Deen, known as Qamar Yurish, who became a labour leader in 1950 was a short story writer with 27 books, mostly on the lives of labourers', to his credit. Yurish was his pen name which means battle, rebellion. All his life, he has been raising a voice against exploiters and oppressors.

Qamar Yurish's life was devoted to revolution. Comrades have come and gone but not without influencing millions of men around them. Comrade Fazal Elahi Qurban would say: "If I had ten men like Qamar I would have established a labourers' government."

During the Zia regime, Qamar was retained at the Lahore Fort where Hassan Nasir lost his life and Aslam Maznab his mental balance. Only Qamar Yurish had nerves strong enough to survive the dungeon where they had placed a snake under his mat which he found to be dead.

Qamar protested every time he felt the need. He once went on a 15-day hunger-strike and fainted with weakness. He was charged with treason in Ayub's regime and asked to leave the country. And when he was hiding in Ashfaq Ahmed's elder brother's house, the agencies planted a bomb outside, which was luckily detected in time.

Both his hands were damaged for life while saving Ahmedi labourers. This was at the 'Khatm-e-Nabuwat' rally when the police opened fire at the labourers and where he took the bullets on his hands and saved the labourers. This surprised the Ahmedis and they wanted to know why he saved them, he said that first and foremost they were human beings and that is what mattered to him.

I met Qamar Yurish for the first time two years ago. It was a week before his birthday that fell on May 5. May Day was approaching and I had gone to interview him on the occasion. As I entered the Labour Party office where the meeting was scheduled, I found a man sitting on a chair on the landing of the staircase. He greeted me warmly as if he instinctively knew who I was. This was Qamar Yurish with sparkling eyes and a very kind face.

Born in poverty in 1932, Qamar and his elder brother lost their mother when they were very young. Their father was sold to carpet weavers for Rs 10 when he was a child and died when Qamar was quite young. People suggested that both the brothers be sent to an orphanage, but his naani (maternal grandmother), who Qamar remembered as a brave woman, resisted the pressure. She raised the two brothers. While Qamar's brother became a lawyer, Qamar ran away from school when he was in class 3. "I hated school. I loved to roam around in the city like a free spirit. When I was a young boy I loved to wear khaksar uniforms and people called me a little mujahid," Qamar Yurish told me. 

When he grew up he realised the importance of education but he had to earn to survive. He spent a year at a technical college and joined the Railways in 1950. From the very beginning he was part of the labour struggle.

Qamar Yurish kept moving from one place to another. "When I had a sort of permanent place to live I gave shelter to many people in my house. My brother got so sick of this practice that he sold the house. Since then I have been staying here and there," he said in his interview to The News on Sunday.

"I stayed in a deeni madrasa for 13 years. I was there because of a friend. When he died they turned me out labelling me a heathen."

When I met him he was living in the Labour Party's office. I couldn't believe it and said that I see no place where one could sleep in that office. At this he asked me to follow him. He led me to the rooftop. An old bedding could be seen folded at a corner. "This is my bed and here I sleep," he said. At the age of 73, he would walk down to Ustad Daman's dera every day and come back to Abbot Road every evening. Qamar had nothing to lose for he shared all that he had. The only gain in his life was the love of the people whose paths he crossed.

Both his writing and speech retain the sharpness of a razor's edge. Qamar said that as long as feudals thrived, labourers would never get their due. "The maulvis raise such a hue and cry over the marathons but none of them has ever condemned dog fights which is actually one of the most dirty games men play," he said, indicating at the roots of feudalism in Pakistan.

"I want to bring democracy to Pakistan, a setup where there will be no hunger and deprivation. Where there is no unemployment and corruption, no guard on thinking. Where luxury is not for a chosen class and happiness is for everyone. Where humanity is not divided into compartments, where hunger, poverty and disease is not the fate of the poor. Where money, corruption and threat are not the means to success," he wrote.

Qamar Yurish passed away on July 18.

Taal Matol
Indian blues

By Shoaib Hashmi

My hotel room was on the sixteenth floor but when I got there it didn't seem particularly high. I put it down to unfamiliarity with the view; then I found out the truth, after the ground floor and the mezzanine, the floor numbers started with eleven, and then they skipped number thirteen for bad luck. Buildings do it all over the world, but then they don't skip the first ten for good measure. Ordinarily I would have put it down to perfidy but this was Mumbai, and I had a lovely view over the sea and across a creek to another part of town with a high-rise skyline -- not exactly sky-scrapers but certainly cloud feelers.

The first time I was in Delhi, it was a moving and slightly disturbing experience. The general feel was hauntingly like Lahore, and on every crossroad one had the feeling that some familiar Lahore landmark was round the corner. Not so Bombay! Okay, okay Mumbai. It has the bustling, and brash arrogance of a thriving metropolis, if anything this was the kind of suspended feeling you get in Karachi.

Of course the myriad billboards were teeming with familiar faces, all the Rai's and the Sen's and the Khans were there -- and familiar fashions including the mandatory five day stubble. And there were too, endless lines of black and yellow taxi cabs, like hornets buzzing round a bunch of grapes; along with same coloured rickshaws. The latter are called 'Attos' which I guess is short for 'auto-rickshaw' but it took fifteen minutes of gesturing and pointing with my cab driver to sort that out.

My hotel had three, or maybe five branches spread all over town, and I almost landed up at the wrong one until someone pointed out that it was a two hours drive from the place I was going to work, three hours if it was raining, which it was.

Only spanner in the works was that they had given me a lousy visa wherein I was required to report my arrival, and departure to the authorities. My lady panicked at the thought of me negotiating travel arrangements all by myself and frantically called friend Javed Akhter to look after defenseless me. He said, "Don't 'chinta' and send the poor waif over and all will be done. Only tell him not to peer out of the window or he will get a cinder in his eye!" That is the kind of lovely metaphor from the days of steam trains which is part of Javed's charm.

He was busy recording a new song with our other favourite from Mumbai, A R Rehman, who I had never met, but did meet up with Javed for a long chat and to listen to his wonderful new poem. Then spent a whole day while they entered my name and details in umpteen weathered registers, and stamped a thousand forms with a thousand stamps; but they entered the same passport details in a hundred places, so all Mumbai now knows I have a birthmark behind my right shoulder!

I have never understood why we two neighbours like making life difficult. We do the same to people from there visiting here. After all we already have passports and visas, and then you have to fill in embarkation cards and disembarkation cards, and more registration forms when you land and go through customs and immigration and they take pictures of you and scan your passport.

And it is not as if it is the old days when we pretended that we didn't want to meet. The sentiment I think is quite the reverse. I bet if you asked a hundred people at random where they would like to go ninety of them will say Delhi or Bombay. And the authorities too are always going on about friendly relations and confidence building measures; and when you get there they put you through the wringer. I don't think they are ever going to prevent any terrorists by probing their identifying marks. It is like the Americans in the days of the cold war when all their visa forms had the standard question "Are you, or have you ever been a communist or a sympathiser?" It's called paranoia!

backlash
The new operation

With the fall of Lal Majid and Jamia Hafsa, tribal areas could again become a battleground for the Pakistan Army and the local Taliban

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

Violence has continued unabated in different parts of the NWFP, including the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), in the aftermath of the military operation against Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad and the situation could deteriorate further in view of the stalemate in talks aimed at saving the peace accord in North Waziristan.

One of the latest terrorist incidents was the rocket attack on Bannu, hometown of NWFP chief minister Akram Durrani. It was hit by rockets on the night of July 24-25 and 10 people were killed and 41 sustained injuries. Among the victims were women, children and policemen, who along with other members of the security forces are the primary target in the recent wave of bombings, suicide attacks, ambushes, rocketing and roadside explosions caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The Bannu killings explained the vulnerability of similar urban centres to long-range rockets and missiles. The loss to human life and property in populated areas is significant even if hit by stray and inaccurate rockets. Bannu, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan and other cities and town sited close to tribal regions such as North Waziristan and South Waziristan are in particular an easy target. Rocketing terrorises the people and affects routine life. Chief Minister Durrani was quick to conclude that the rocket attack on Bannu was reaction to the military action at the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa. He and his party leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who is head of JUI-F and is the most important MMA politician, have repeatedly linked the growing violence and deteriorating law and order situation in the NWFP to the questionable and tough tactics used by the military to storm the mosque and madrasa complex.

Also ominous was the death of Abdullah Mahsud, the feared commander of tribal Islamic militants from South Waziristan. The government has been claiming that Mahsud took his own life after becoming hopelessly trapped following a raid by security forces on the house of a JUI-F member, Shaikh Mohammad Ayub Mandokhel, in Zhob in Balochistan. But Ayub's brother Shaikh Mohammad Alam and Mahsud's loyalists are not convinced. They believe that Mahsud was shot dead by security personnel before he and his companions could return the fire or blow himself up. His body, now buried in his village, Nano, in South Waziristan's Sarwakai tehsil deep in the Mahsud tribal territory, would bear out the truth whether he blew himself up with a grenade or suicide jacket, or was killed by bullets fired by members of the elite security forces.

The 32-year old Mahsud had a small and loyal band of followers and it is possible that some of them would try to avenge his death. Requesting anonymity, one of them from North Waziristan said the death of their late commander would not go unpunished. When told about government claim that Mahsud took his own life, the young, emotional man said the cornered Taliban commander must have done this under duress as he had no choice. Whatever the cause of his death, Mahsud's funeral was huge, with around 12,000 mourners brought by 600--plus vehicles converging on Barwand and Maula Khan Serai villages which the funeral procession passed on its way to his native village, Nano. Hundreds of his armed Taliban comrades fired in the air to pay their last respects to the daredevil fighter who lost a leg while fighting in Afghanistan and spent 25 months in US custody at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

South Waziristan, which had become comparatively peaceful after the peace deals between the government and militants' commanders such as Baitullah Mahsud, Maulvi Nazeer, Haji Omar, etc could again become a battleground for the Pakistan Army and the local Taliban. Baitullah Mahsud has already accused the military of bringing reinforcement and moving troops in Mahsud tribal territory in South Waziristan and termed it violation of the peace deal that he made with the government in February 2005. He also spoke out in favour of the religious students and teachers killed by the army in Lal Masjid operation and termed it a provocative act that would inflame the sentiments of the believers, particularly the Taliban and mujahideen.

In South Waziristan's Wana area, inhabited by Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, a tense calm has been prevailing following the eviction of Uzbek fighters at the hands of local Taliban. Maulvi Nazeer led the local Taliban fighters who defeated the Uzbeks affiliated to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) of Commander Tahir Yuldash and their Pakistani tribal supporters commanded by Haji Omar. The Uzbeks have shifted to the areas controlled by Baitullah Mahsud and to Mir Ali tehsil of North Waziristan but they are dangerous enemies and could plan an assault on Maulvi Nazeer's men in the future. Recently, a young man from Bajaur wearing a suicide jacket was caught by Maulvi Nazeer's guards outside his home in Wana. It was alleged that the man was sent by the Uzbeks to kill Maulvi Nazeer.

Tension was also rising in Bajaur tribal agency and the adjoining Dir Lower and Swat districts. Two members of the security forces were kidnapped by unknown people and their beheaded bodies found on July 24 near Inayat Killay in Bajaur. In the recent past also some bodies were found beheaded or with their throats slit. In almost all these cases, notes were left on their bodies declaring them US spies and warning others that they would meet the same fate. Such target killings and beheadings are a common occurrence in North Waziristan and South Waziristan but now the practice has come to Bajaur. The militants claims they have often recovered thousands of dollars, Afghani or Pakistani currency from these people along with satellite phones and other electronic gadgets and have interviewed them on camera to obtain their confessions for spying for the US.

The deployment of Pakistan Army troops for the first time in Swat and Dir Lower districts has created anger among the people and triggered suicide bombings and roadside landmine blasts targeting military convoys. Jirgas have been held demanding the troops' withdrawal and opposing any military action. Political parties too are opposed to any military action as they believe politicians, Ulema and notables of the area forming part of the Qaumi Jirga in Swat was capable of resolving the issue of militancy and curbing the illegal activities of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah. The MMA-led provincial government is also in disarray due to deployment of the troops in Swat and Dir because the Jamaat-i-Islami is unhappy with chief minister Durrani and the JUI-F leadership for agreeing to the federal government's and President Musharraf's plan to send thousands of soldiers to the area.

However, the most worrying situation is developing in North Waziristan,where the local Taliban unilaterally scrapped the 10-month peace accord on July 15 after accusing the government of violating the terms of the deal. The NWFP Governor Lt General (Retd) Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai assembled the 45-member Loya, or Grand, Jirga that had brokered the deal on September 5, 2006 and sent it to North Waziristan to save the accord. The jirga members established contacts with the representatives of the militants but were unable to meet them in formal talks. Still they were told in no certain terms that the peace accord could be revived only after withdrawal of freshly deployed troops from the road side checkpoints. The jirga members then left for Peshawar, held meetings with the Governor for two days and then gave up, for a week for the time-being, due to the rigid stance of the government and the militants.It would convene again in a week's time after in-house consultations by the two sides. For the present, the talks are stalled, thereby creating fear among the general public in North Waziristan about escalation in violence amid likelihood of military operations by Pakistan Army and even by the US. Many families have started shifting to safer places in and outside North Waziristan, most government offices have closed down, and the tribal Khassadars force is falling apart following threats to its members by Taliban to abandon their jobs and stop cooperating with the troops.

Though the US military in Afghanistan has launched missile attacks in Pakistani territory in the past as well, the possibility of more such offensives has created both concern and anger in the tribal areas in general and in the two Waziristan's in particular. Any such US attack would destabilise the tribal areas and provoke countrywide protests. It would also embarrass President Musharraf and land his embattled government into difficulty.

Damaged, submerged

Lightening and flash floods have killed more than 170 people in NWFP

By Mushtaq Yusufzai

Lightning and subsequent flash floods proved more detrimental this year in the Frontier province and its adjacent tribal agencies than the routine snow and rain caused floods in different rivers, as about 200 people were killed of lightning in Dir Upper, Mansehra and Khyber Agency besides huge damages caused by usual floods in the vulnerable Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera districts.

The worst of these incidents happened very recently in Osheri Darra, a remote valley of Dir Upper district in Malakand. Lightning hit the area, killing over 100 people, demolished many houses and caused serious damage to properties.

Another serious incident caused by the floods, three weeks ago was in Landi Kotal which is a sub--division of Khyber tribal agency. It resulted in the killing of over 40 people and completely washing away the infrastructure of the entire area. This particular incident also disrupted traffic between Afghanistan and Pakistan via Torkham, as six bridges on the highway were washed away with gushing water.

Another incident of the same nature played havoc in Mansehra district that killed more than 25 people.

Floods proved fatal in North Waziristan Agency, where gushing water in River Tochi killed six people including a woman.

The seriousness of the lightning and flash flood incidents can be judged from the fact that they have till now claimed lives of more than 170 people and left hundreds others injured.

Flood water remained standing in dozens of villages in the three districts forcing its inhabitants to shift to safer places Herds of cattle were witnessed on both sides of main GT road right from Pabbi to Nowshera Bridge as the people had no other alternative place to protect their cattle from floods.

Flash floods caused by monsoon rains inundated low lying areas in Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda districts on bother sides of the scattered branches of River Kabul and River Swat, but no casualty was reported.

Though floods in plain districts of the province caused no human loss, they did submerge cultivated lands in the most fertile districts of the province causing great damages to standing crops and orchards.

These three districts -- Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera -- are the most vulnerable parts of the province, as five branches of River Kabul and Swat pass through them. Being plains mostly, floods every year play havoc there.

The people of these districts are not happy with the measures taken by successive government for combating catastrophes of floods. They say no government ever took any preventive measure to reduce losses caused by the floods.

They have no interest with the relief of the people rather they remain more interested in having their photographs published in the media, said a representative of Kisan board, a farmers' representative body.

"Almost every day, ministers, elected representatives and people of various NGOs visit the flood--affected areas but do nothing practical for rehabilitation of the affectees. Their prime interest is always in photo sessions," said Murad Ali Khan, who is the provincial president of Kisan Board.

He added that all the successive governments including the present clergy-led Frontier government had never taken permanent practical measures for the solution of this problem.

Elaborating on the causes of floods in the province, Abdul Wali Yousafzai who is in charge flood warning centre told TNS that the real flood season in the Frontier province starts from July 1 with the start of the monsoon season and it continues till the end of August.

Torrential rains in this season result in surge of water in all rivers whether dry or wet, which plays havoc. Snow melting also causes heavy floods in all the rivers of the province that usually start in the mid of June, he said.

Despite tall claims by the government functionaries, majority of the affected families are still awaiting government relief package and compensation for their rehabilitation.

"The government must fulfil its commitment made with the people and should offer compensation for any loss of life and property so that the affected people can start rebuilding their lives as quickly as possible," demanded an elder of Landi Kotal.

Disappointed with the slow pace of the relief operation by the government for the affected families, farmers and residents of nearby villages staged a protest demonstration in Peshawar in which they complained that floods had damaged all their standing crops causing Rs60,000 loss per acre to each farmer.

Tobacco growers, who suffered huge losses due to flash floods in Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda districts complained that tobacco growers in NWFP pay Rs40 billion in taxes to the federal government every year, but in the present crisis the government abandoned them They warned of launching province-wide protest demonstrations if they were not compensated by the government.

Almost each year, dozens of people die and precious agricultural lands are lost in the floods in the monsoon season, but the concerned authorities always absolve themselves of the blame and hold nature responsible for the whole mess.

Experts argue that the ruthless and widespread deforestation over the past few decades in Swat, Dir, Chitral and Hazara region made the mountainous regions prone to landslides and subsequent flash floods.

Also, they feel that the ruthless deforestation , mostly in official supervision, has been leading to the silting of lakes and riverbeds which raises the risk of flooding in the planned areas.

RIPPLE EFFECT
On screen
bimbos and silly stories

By Omar R. Quraishi

I have just about had it with models pretending to be intellectuals.The other day while channel surfing I realised just why they call television the 'idiot box' -- you have to be a complete idiot to be watching some of the shows that they churn out these days. Or, the people on it are idiots in their own right. After all, what should one make of a show where a local model (read airhead) hosts a show where contestants apparently fight to meet the star of their dreams over dinner. The last winner apparently got to meet Indian actress (why this obsession with Indians?) Priyanka Chopra and the next winner would get to meet Katrina Kaif. Of course, the catch was that the meeting would be held in Dubai, since it is unlikely that these ladies would visit Pakistan as part of any contest. The hallmark of the show was that clips of the star in question -- in this case Ms Kaif --were shown to contestants and they were then asked questions relating to the footage shown to them.

After every clip, and just before the questions were asked of contestants, the host of the show, a certain mediocre Lahore--based model, would say something like, "And in that clip Katrina was looking so gorgeous, and so was Abhishek" and then she (as in the model) would then give a sort of coy look at the camera. What in the world was the point of all this? It's not as if Katrina Kaif would be watching this show in the first place (not that Indian television is necessarily any better but surely she would not be so desperate that she would watch a shoddy lame show on a Pakistani TV channel while sitting in Mumbai) or that the model is a fast friend of hers? What possibly could the model/host achieve by making such inane comments -- in any case, they went over the audience, not because of the language used but probably because of their general irrelevance. In any case, someone should have told this model/anchor that such silly comments reflect poorly on her, are inappropriate and make an already bad show worse. They also could have chosen a host whose IQ was at least above zero, but that may be difficult to find given the apparent requirement these days, that hosts of all such shows be models or ex--models.

Then there was this show, coming on another local channel, on the lines of a talk show but much worse than any I have had the misfortune of watching. The gentleman thinks himself to be a grand connoisseur of the arts and poetry and tries to lace his words every now and then with an Urdu couplet. Of late he has bleached part of his locks goldenish-brown and after his own every half--sentence looks to the band in attendance in his talk show, gesturing to them as he does to hit the drum. At times, he also plays -- faux of course -- the drums on his own, hitting the air,with every terrible dissonant beat. The gentleman doesn't think that even a moron watching his show (one would really have to be one to watch it for any reasonable length of time) would know that he is brazenly copying these antics from America's talk show giants such as Conan O'Brien and David Letterman.

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One can write a thesis on why PTV, Pakistan Radio and the official APP news agency have come to be so discredited when it comes to reporting reality. Controlled by the ministry of (dis)information, all three churn out useless stories that have little or no news value and only serve to further the propaganda of the government of the day. However, had they been run by someone with some common sense and intelligence, the results might have been different. Of course, governments all over the world try and influence official and private news agencies, newspapers and other sources of information and news for their own public/national policy goals. However, in Pakistan this is done in such a ham-handed way that that the reader/viewer will immediately be able to tell that what he or she is reading or watching is a complete promo for the government with little or no news values.

I mean what should one make of the following APP 'scoop'. The title of the story was 'Tariq Azeem urges political parties to co--operate for free, fair polls'. If one were to ignore the obvious grammatical error in the headline, the text of the report is utter nonsense. It quotes the minister of state for information and broadcasting as telling PTV that"political parties should sit with the government to devise a code of ethics for ensuring free, fair and impartial elections."

The minister should know that this is nothing more than hogwash. This is because there are several good laws on the statute books regarding the holding of free and fair elections but these laws are seldom respected by the government of the day when elections are held. Furthermore, the minister should surely know that it is the Election Commission of Pakistan's to ensure, by asserting itself vigorously (if it can bring itself to do that) during the run--up to a national election to enforce the code of conduct for political parties and candidates and to penalise those who violate it.

In this day and age, readers should be spared such drivel. The laws are all there -- it is for the government, specifically the Election Commission in this case to ensure that they are implemented and those who violate them disqualified from the election. That is all there is to it -- no grandiose announcements for inviting political parties are really necessary. For those who wish to read more such silly 'news stories' they can log on to www.app.com.pk (at their own peril of course).

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

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk

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