What\'s In a Name? IJ principal road is also known as Khayaban-e-Sir Syed. It runs along the periphery of sector I and seperates Rawalpindi from the Federal Capital. If sector J was ever planned on the other side ( Rwp )? I don't know........

The Unbearable Lightness of Seeing A perfect case of lack of planning and politicizing the issues.

We have got such a precious resource in the form of glaciers, mountain streams and fast flowing hilly rivers. The terrain is particularly suited to build economical reservoirs and derive the static heads to run the turbines. It is only recently that WAPDA has resorted to various small-scale projects in the northern areas when the demand supply gap is rapidly expanding.

The adhoc policies and the culture of working for short term personal gains have brought us to a point of no return. With the gas reservoirs depleting, SNGPL and SSGPL under immense pressure, oil prices increasing and no initiatives as far as renewable energy is concerned, we can only expect the things to go worse when we are predicting a double digit increase in the demand of energy per anum.

Diabetes: Wrestling with a Twenty-First Century Monster Is there any study or data that relates consumption of synthesized foods with the probability of developing the diabetes in an individual?

I have a strong hunch that straying away from the use of natural diets is one principal cause leading not just to diabetes but also hypertension and coronary diseases.

According to some medical circles, use of natural items such as honey and raw sugar (gur and shakar) greatly reduce the chances of developing diabetes as compared to the use of (white poison) sugar. Would some experts like to enlighten me on that please?

Who is Making the Oil Fume ? An interesting review of the meeting on Jun 22nd has been published by "Dawn". According to the report there has been a decrease in oil demand but the increased production could not arrest the price surge so far. There has also been increase in the investment in commodities and speculators are trading contracts all the way out to 2016.

The original report captioned " Saudi action fails to cool heating oil market" can be accessed at

http://www.dawn.com/2008/06/29/ebr5.htm

Nawaz Sharif’s Moment of Truth A detailed analysis of the situation published in "Dawn" (today) is relevant to the article. The text of the write up by none other than classic Cowasjee is copied.


Our dependent judiciary




By Ardeshir Cowasjee

MIAN Nawaz Sharif is of late somewhat sidelined from his running mania that he claims has much to do with the ‘restoration’ of the judiciary and the upholding of an independence it has never enjoyed, whereas in reality it is all about ridding himself of and getting his own back on President Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf.

What now distracts him is his disqualification from standing for a by-election, handed down to him by the judiciary he is also trying to get rid of. He must also be pondering upon who is behind it all, who is engineering things, and who has stabbed him in the solar plexus.

The emerging Taliban is not as worrying for Nawaz as his latent tendencies, going by his record, swing towards the Taliban way of life. We must not forget his 15th ‘ameer-ul-momineen’ amendment bill which luckily for us came to naught. We must also never forget Nawaz’s tampering with the judiciary during his second round as prime minister. A very fine and precise narrative of the events leading up to the storming of the Supreme Court on Nov 28, 1997 and how it evolved is given in Shuja Nawaz’s book, Crossed Swords, which should be on every shelf.

Shuja has written after extensively interviewing the then president of the Republic, Farooq Leghari, and the then chief of army staff, Gen Jehangir Karamat, an honourable man. Elected in February 1997, one of the first steps taken by Nawaz was to push through his 13th constitutional amendment, annulling the 8th amendment and thus Article 58-2 (b), eliminating the presidential power to dissolve parliament and giving himself powers to appoint the armed services chiefs. Both president and army chief gave their assent to this move.

He then turned to the judiciary which he felt was hostile under Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Sajjad Ali Shah, who could be rather a thorn in the flesh. To quote from Crossed Swords : “Leghari recalls Sharif coming to see him in the company of Shahid Hamid (erstwhile friend of Leghari who had appointed him as governor of the Punjab but now had been won over by Sharif) to ask him to remove the chief justice. Sharif said that Hamid would make the case against the chief justice. Leghari said to Hamid, ‘Why didn’t you tell Nawaz Sharif my expected answer. It would be the same as Benazir Bhutto’s time. No!’ Hamid retorted, ‘At that time the judges were united. Now they are divided. We can do it!’ Leghari ... warned against this move.... But Sharif was not deterred.”

He somehow managed to get round Karamat, and instigated a revolt among the judges against the CJP who, meanwhile, had dismissed as unconstitutional Sharif’s 14th amendment which made it illegal for any parliamentarian to break ranks with his party when voting in the assembly. Sharif was furious, criticised the chief justice on the floor of the assembly, at which the chief justice filed a case of contempt against him.

Karamat was brought into play, as was the chief of the ISI, Lt Gen Nasim Rana. Leghari arranged a meeting to which all the principals were summoned. Gen Karamat started by asking the CJP whether he would withdraw the contempt case. Leghari recalls the CJP’s face turning red. ‘How can you interfere with cases?’ asked Shah. ‘I came here at the request of the President, not to decide cases.’ When Sharif asked Shah for ‘mercy’ what he got was ‘I am the chief justice not for mercy but for Justice!’.”

No date is given for this confrontation, but it must have been sometime late November as Sharif’s next move was to get the Balochistan High Court to file an appeal on Nov 26 against Shah’s original appointment. Leghari passed on this information to Karamat and also told him that Shah was about to restore Article 58-2 (b). That night at 10 pm Sharif rang Leghari and asked to meet him. He arrived with Karamat, Senate chairman Waseem Sajjad, former law minister Khalid Anwar, Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro, and Gen Rana.

The law minister produced a case against the chief justice and presented a judgment dismissing Shah for Leghari’s signature. Leghari had learnt that “suitcases of money had been taken to Balochistan to obtain this judgment against the chief justice by his fellow judges,” and said he would rather resign than sign. Resignation would be the best course, as Sajjad, who would take over as president, would do as they wanted. Leghari was urged by Karamat and Rana not to resign (Soomro chipping in with ‘Why should you resign for the sake of a mad old Sindhi judge?’) They all went home at 4 am, Karamat on departing telling Leghari that if he resigned he too would resign. Leghari’s retort to that was to tell Karamat not to do so as it would give Sharif total power — like giving ‘a monkey a razor’.

Later that day, Nov 28, “the PML supporters stormed the Supreme Court.” By Dec 2, both Leghari and Shah had resigned, leaving Sajjad free to do as he liked as acting president and a new CJP, Justice Ajmal Mian. Karamat lasted until October the following year, when he was pushed by Sharif into resigning. What a sorry tale!

Nothing changes. Nawaz Sharif and his men are back, as are Asif Zardari and his bunch of dangerous cronies, all preaching democracy. They, with the advancing Taliban, will destroy, even maim and kill, to get their way. And the poor will suffer on — and on.

The one piece of bright news to come our way in Karachi last week came via the Consul General of France, Pierre Seillan, a considerate and kind man who takes much interest in the welfare of the poorer and the deprived of the city. For some time, the prisoners in Karachi Central Jail have been given the opportunity to attend art classes.

Pierre, together with Mohammad Yamin Khan, the Sindh Inspector General of Prisons, organised an exhibition at the Alliance Francaise of paintings and drawings produced by the prisoners. As the invitation card announced it was an exhibition of ‘Imprisonistic’ drawings and paintings — and it was most impressive and even more touching to see what transpires in the minds of these unfortunate men.

Overheard at the opening of the exhibition was a classic remark: Whilst the poor petty thieves and druggies suffer inside …, the Grand Larcenists are out and about, their crimes forgiven and forgotten, trumpeting their love and affection for an ‘independent’ judiciary, something they could never either tolerate or live with.

Nawaz Sharif’s Moment of Truth On what moral grounds would NS resent the judicial decision when he is acting as the champion of the judicial cause for the past 15 months?

Who is Making the Oil Fume ? Looking from a different perspective the Chinese are under immense pressure from environmentalists and international community alike whereby they are emphatically being asked to detoxicate their effusions. While there are reports that the Chinese are working to make their regulations & implementation stringent that would inturn reduce their consumption.

If the same analogy is applied to India and other developing economies, it may bring some relief in medium term.

Who is Making the Oil Fume ? Re # 23

Thank you for your comments.

Since oil is essentially a utility (necessity) product, the removal of subsidies remain a sensitive decision. Considering the subsidies are removed, the decision would only be effective if we have the economically viable substitutes available that entice the consumer to switch. In case there are no other choices (of fuel and energy), we should only expect a marginal decrease in the demand of oil.

The world’s largest untapped oil reserves have reportedly been discovered in Northern Canada. (1.7 trillion barrels of oil approx.). Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are reportedly carrying approx. 1.5 trillion barrel of oil equivalent in the form of “shale” oil. According to another report published in NY Post
“The U.S. Minerals Management Service (a branch of the Interior Department) estimates 102 billion barrels of oil and 635 trillion cubic feet of gas beneath federal lands and coastal waters. By way of comparison, the reserves lying beneath the North Sea, a major source of oil for Europe, are believed to contain a total of 18 billion barrels of oil. “

While the direct and indirect (environmental) costs for extraction of oil from such sources are high, with technological improvements and now when the oil sails at its all time high, recovery of oil from certain such sources may become viable.

Who is Making the Oil Fume ? Re 12

majumdar sahib,

Thank you for enlightening me.

Re 14

The world is feeling the pinch now.Hybrid cars and fuel efficient vehicles are now better positioned to penetrate the markets.

Regards

Who is Making the Oil Fume ? Plain economics yes; But how does that explain the doubling of the price during a period of just 1 year without any abnormal increase in the corresponding demand and some increase in supply as well?

Healthcare in Pakistan, Lessons from Cuba "Cuba now has 66,600 physicians, 83,880 nurses, and 9,841 dentists. It's density of physicians per 1000 population is 5.91"

The statistics presented here bring us to a very interesting point. With close to 160,000 physicians inhabiting a percentage of nearly 0.6 % of total population, the total population of Cuba comes out to be around 27 million today. Atleast 6 times lesser than the current officially stated population of Pakistan!!! So is that the overwhelming population of Pakistan or the less number of physicians that is the root cause here?

Besides, with communist’s laws prevailing in Cuba, what are the wages of these physicians as compared to the rest of the professionals and how do they compare internationally?

Democracy and Me Wonderfully portrayed.

But if this is democracy then what have we been striving for during all those years ? Bring democracy to Pakistan ?

The Chips are Down I don’t see any sinister signs for Musharraf in the real sense. He is definitely looking stronger and more confident than what he appeared on Feb 18th. PPP is yet to come out openly against him which doesn’t seem much of a probability in light of the condractictory statements of the party leadership finding headlines every now and then.He has challanged the parliament to show him the exit if at all a two third vote can be mustered up against him. There seems to be no real threat coming from the army and the lawyer’s movement only creates a momentary stir. He is least bothered about the huge public opinion building up against him.So why should Musharraf worry at all ?

Affair With The knife The natural desire to look and appear better than the rest of the crowd is becoming more of a social and commercial need as well. With ethics, morals and values all undergoing a drastic change, I can safely bet upon the trend growing significantly in future.

Please De-stabilize the System We have been experimenting and struggling to find the right fit of governance for our society for the past 60 years. The military dictatorships and western form of democracy have proved pathetic and failed repeatedly.

Looks like its about time we get our acts together and evolve the right "system". We can't put all of it right the first time but then we have to start at some point and learn quickly.

Cluster Bombs All out for it. Complete ban on cluster bombs