Loud Thinking

Archive for February, 2012

Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Prime Minister of Pakistan, may we ask that you also being the leader of the house in the Parliament, when will you awake and sack your Minister for water and power for his contempt of the parliament, in telling the biggest lie of the year to the nation, that too, on the floor of the house, that electricity load shedding has been terminated. 

Sir, believe me these silly persons have made your government and the PPP look as the most irresponsible and callous government, ever witnessed by this planet. People faced the hardships of all the load shedding of electricity, gas and water, they also borne the burden of price hikes of every conceivable item in their daily lives, they also put up bravely with all the law and order chaos and mega corruption scandals, but please don’t be so heartless by further rubbing salt into their wounds already inflicted by your most inefficient government.

All the previous tenures of the dictators in Pakistan look like an era of paradise, if compared with your regime of last four years.

In fact, now you and your government has become a laughing stock. Hope you remember that in early November, 2011 Dr. Asim, your another talented minister for minister for gas & natural resources, boasted that gas load shedding will end in the year 2012. 

Mr. PM, then you have the audacity to say every now and then that there are conspiracies against the democracy. Sir, with this inept performance, who needs to conspire against you. 

Remember, if you will not act, someone else will. Don’t create your own demise. Since, elections   are almost due, it is humbly suggested to pull up your socks and start delivering immediately. 

You and your government must know that future is not ahead of you, it has already happened. Unfortunately, it is more ruthless and callous, then all of you combined in the government. It grinds slowly but it’s mesh is very very fine.

With best of the hope that you will act, before it’s too late. You are not only the Prime Minister of Pakistan but you are also the custodian of the great & shining legacy, image and reputation of the Shaheeds Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto.

Dear Melinda and Bill Gates,
 
Greetings.
 
This is to profoundly thank you for your generous help extended to Pakistan in 2010 floods, for its 20 million suffers.
 
We also understand that your 50$ million assistance was the single largest aid to the flood affected people of Pakistan. However, you will be extremely sad to know that even now the malnutrition in the affected areas has exceeded the Sub-Saharan Africa conditions, as reported by the daily “DAWN” dated 16 February 2012.
 
In this regard, it is once again appealed to you to kindly come forward in helping this very serious humanitarian issue in Pakistan, at your earliest, as time is the essence in this problem.
 
 May Allah bless you for your all the monumental services to the humanity.
 
 Thank you.
 
 Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad
 +92-321-940217
 Lahore – Pakistan
 
 DAWN news dated 16 February 2012 is reproduced as below.
 
 
Malnutrition in flood victims, far worse than in Sub-Saharan Africa. At least 2.5 million people are still without food, water, shelter, sanitation and healthcare.

ISLAMABAD: A feeble international response to Pakistan’s second major flooding crisis in two years has left millions of people at serious risk of malnutrition and disease, aid groups warned Thursday.
 
 The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), a network of the 41 largest international charities in the country, called on the international community and Pakistan to take urgent steps with the next monsoon season months away.
 
 “With funds drying up, millions will find it extremely hard to make it through the next few months. Donors and the government of Pakistan must step up their response immediately,” said Oxfam’s country director Neva Khan.
 
 At least 2.5 million people are still without food, water, shelter, sanitation and healthcare, putting them at serious risk of malnutrition, disease and deepening poverty, said the coalition of international charities.
 
 
 “The floods have exposed and deepened a food crisis in Sindh that has resulted in malnutrition rates far worse than those in Sub-Saharan Africa, “said David Wright, country director for Save the Children.
 
Around 43 per cent of affected people are severely short of food and malnutrition levels were already well above the emergency threshold in the provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan before the floods struck.
 
Last September, the United Nations launched an appeal for $357 million, but it has been less than 50 per cent funded, the groups said.

“Six months on, the crisis seems to have been forgotten by the international community,” said Naseer Memon, chief executive of the Strengthening Participatory Organization.
 
“The needs of the communities affected by the floods are still enormous with women, children, the elderly and disabled particularly vulnerable,” said Aine Fay, chair of the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum.
 
Tens of thousands of people are still displaced in flood-affected areas, while others have returned home to little or nothing.
 
The floods have devastated agriculture and hundreds of thousands of farmers are struggling to recover. A quarter of farmers missed the planting season late last year, because their land was flooded or they did not receive help in time.

ESPNcricinfo can today provide the facts that prove the legality of Saeed Ajmal’s bowling action.

Ajmal was Man of the Series against England after taking 24 wickets in the three-Test series and playing a prominent role in Pakistan’s first Test whitewash against England.

Ajmal caused confusion when he gave a TV interview following the series and appeared to indicate he had been given dispensation by the ICC to bowl above the 15-degree tolerance limit.

Countless fans have contacted ESPNcricinfo through social networking sites and by email asking us to clarify the situation regarding Ajmal. After a thorough investigation, including extensive discussion with the ICC, these are the facts.

Ajmal’s action is well within the ICC range of tolerance. While he does bowl with a bend in his arm, it does not straighten more, on average, than about eight degrees.
His arm does come through at a bent angle but that is allowed so long as it doesn’t straighten beyond the tolerance level.
The figure of 23.5 degrees mentioned by Ajmal is the average angle of his arm at the beginning of delivery.
The ICC put Ajmal, along with other bowlers, under constant scrutiny and evidence suggests that there has been no significant deterioration in Ajmal’s action since he was tested in 2009.
Contrary to widespread belief, Ajmal’s off-break and quicker ball actually cause his arm to straighten more – though only a fraction more – than his much-debated doosra.
The ICC is reluctant to discuss bowling actions in detail because officials fear the subject is too complicated to explain.
For the full story read senior cricket correspondent George Dobell’s piece from Dubai.

Heartiest congratulations to Pakistan on an unbelievable (3-0) white wash of English cricket team at the Test cricket series 2012 played at UAE. 

No doubt it’s an epoch making historical victory, achieved with Kind Blessings of Allah, sincere guidance of new PCB leadership, sheer hard work and disciplined game of Pakistani cricket team led by its able captain Misbah ul Haq and it’s tour management, led by the coach Mohsin Hassan Khan. It looks we are watching a miracle in our dreams. 

Now it is high time that ICC must facilitate Pakistan and lend it’s helping hand, in holding international matches in Pakistan, without any further delay. 

Thank you Pakistani cricketers you made us proud. For us,  it’s joy which is more than winning the world cup. Keep up your good work.

Peace prize and war crimes
By: Jalees Hazir | February 05, 2012 | 0
The Nobel Peace Prize winner and President of the United States, Barack Obama, confirmed last week that his country uses unmanned aerial vehicles to bomb targets in Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Though this has been an open secret, it was the first time that the international crime was publically admitted. He didn’t stop there and went on to defend these attacks that have killed thousands of innocent people in FATA. According to him, the US carries out these attacks to avoid more intrusive military action, that the bombing is carefully targeted and that these precision strikes are carried out to kill Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. He was not put on the spot about the innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly, who have been killed by the US drones; not that it would have made him uncomfortable. Representatives of the wicked superpower have coined a standard term to justify that kind of thing. Very conveniently, they call it collateral damage.
The streets, fields and graveyards of Iraq and Afghanistan would give a good idea about what that collateral damage means. They are not the only examples of countries that have been ravaged by large scale death and destruction at the hands of the US, all in the name of high-flying principles like democracy and human rights and catchily-named fake bogeys like the war on terror and weapons of mass destruction. The badmash superpower doesn’t mind killing large numbers of people in whose name they wage these wars, people whose rights it seems so eager to defend and fight for. It doesn’t mind creating terror for millions of people on a daily basis to wage its spurious war on terror. It spends hundreds of billion dollars waging war in distant lands, killing innocent people, destroying their homes and cities, turning their lush fields to charred earth, but it has no money for its poor, no money for its citizens who might need the help of their country, supposed to be the richest on earth.
It is said that with great power comes great responsibility, but power seems to have produced strange results for the sole superpower that, instead of using it to create a peaceful and prosperous world, is hell bent to utilise that power to ride roughshod over the entire planet. And as it hurtles along on its dangerous mission, killing and destroying everyone and everything that stands in its way, manipulating societies to foment unrest and divisions so that the situation could be used to its advantage, it lectures the world about civilised behaviour and all that comes with it. In the case of the US, great power has brought with it hypocrisy and arrogance. The self-proclaimed torchbearer of humanity and human values has no qualms about saying one thing and doing another. It has the audacity to talk glibly about millions of precious innocent lives lost as collateral damage.
Of course, the US is made possible with more than a little help from accomplices in the targeted countries, whether they come in the form of pliant governments or disenchanted groups that are funded and armed to serve as tools of imperialism. In Pakistan, the most important ally of the US is the so-called democratic government. While we condemn the deaths and destruction, the loot and plunder, perpetrated by the US, it is important not to forget the support that it gets from those in charge of our destiny. According to confidential cables sent by the US Embassy in Pakistan and released by Wikileaks, President Asif Zardari is reported to have told US officials in a private meeting that they should carry on with their drone strikes and not worry about innocent lives lost. He is quoted to have said that collateral damage does not bother him. Officially, our stand is that these strikes are unlawful, counterproductive and unacceptable.
When a CIA agent posing as a US diplomat killed two Pakistanis in broad daylight on a crowded square in the centre of Lahore, our leadership engineered his escape from the country. When US commandos conducted their get-Osama raid deep inside Pakistani territory without so much as informing the so-called ally, our President congratulated the US in an op-ed piece published the very next day in a major American daily. What kind of signals are we sending to the US? The military leadership seems to have come out of the US hypnosis, but the government is obviously still ready to serve the two-faced master. Despite the unwillingness on part of the US to apologise for the death of Pakistani soldiers killed in the attack on the Salalah checkposts, or to even guarantee that it won’t happen again, government ministers are talking about re-opening the Nato supply routes after taxing the containers.
An elderly friend says that we should not blame the foreign invaders and colonialists for their crimes and exploitation, as they could not have been successful without help from local players. He is well versed in history and quotes many battles and intrigues to prove his point; the betrayals and selling out of insiders that made it possible for imperialism to thrive. Naturally, it gets worse if those willing to sell out the interests of their people are not few but an entire political elite, an elite that is so hopelessly sold out that it sees its own country and its people through the eyes of the imperialists, an elite weaned on loans and hemmed in by the framework of those who want to control what goes on in the country that it is supposed to govern, an elite that parrots what the master says and has no narrative of its own. We cannot hope to break the stranglehold of the global badmash with people like that calling the shots in Pakistan.
However, my elderly friend is only partially right. While citizens of Pakistan continue their struggle to rid themselves of colonial stooges pretending to be the leaders of a free country, and to put in place a government that will work for their interests, they must not turn a blind eye to the slithery machinations of imperialism that have been perfected over the years, complete with new divisions that it must sow to rule and new burdens of democracy and human rights that it must carry to the ends of the world. Whatever the crimes of our own elite, it does not absolve the leaders of the so-called free world of their crimes against humanity. President Obama’s drone attacks are a crime too big to be hidden by his Nobel Peace Prize.
The writer is a freelance columnist.
Email: hazirjalees@hotmail.com
This is a cross post from PakPotpouuri

Honourable Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani,
 
AoA.
 
It will not be out of place to begin with a news item published in the news papers today i.e., Wednesday 1 Feb. 2012, stating that the Indian Supreme Court warned on Tuesday that corruption posed a “grave danger” to the world’s largest democracy quoted as below.
 
Quote ” Today corruption in our country not only poses a grave danger for the concept of constitutional governance, it also threatens the very foundation of Indian democracy and the rule of law.” Unquote. The above was said by Justice A.K. Ganguly, while delivering a ruling in connection with the alleged underpriced selling of telecom licenses, which the national auditors says may have cost the country up to $39 billion.

An excerpt from a Times of India news published on Wednesday, 2nd Feb. 2012 is also given below for the information of Mr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Finance Minister of Pakistan, who says he expects only $800 million from the COMBINED telecom auction of 3G, (4G LTE) and (5G LTE-A.) (India got $69 billion for ONLY 3G, exactly two years ago, as per TOI news quoted below.

“The 122 licences were given by Raja for over Rs 9,000 crore, while 3G auctions for a smaller number of licences had fetched the government a sum of Rs 69,000 crores.”

 
In the same context of selling of telecom licenses in Pakistan, a mega scandal is also brewing, for which your kind attention is invited to immediately intervene, so that the nefarious designs of  unscrupulous elements to defame the PPP and its government, is nipped in the bud.
 
                                          DETAILS OF THE CASE  

With the recent publication of the advertisement of PTA  in the news papers for “Invitation for Expression of Interest” (EOI) with application for AUCTION of Mobile License/Spectrum (3G/4G/LTE [long term evolution] etc), the following questions needs answers to safeguard the national interest by all and sundry.
 
1. Why the LOW base price of US $ 155 Million for one Mobile Cellular License/Spectrum (800 MHz), when this license was sold for 291 US $ Million eight years ago in the year 2002? OK, it is being auctioned for 8 years instead of 15 years, but is there no premium for above 68 % mobile teledensity which was not there eight years ago?
 
2. Why the license will be technology neutral? Which means no licenses will be required for any future launches of 4G, 5G so on so forth. this also means selling all future long term evolution inductions free of cost. This happens no where in the world. Even in Pakistan when 2G was sold in 2004, it was not permitted to launch 3G without fresh license. So why now 4G onwards is being sold free of cost?
 
3.i. Why the LOW base price of US $ 210 Million for the auction of Three Mobile Cellular Licenses/Spectrum (1900/211MHz/3G/4G/LTE etc.)? 
 
3.ii. Here it should be noted that 2G license was auctioned by PTA in 2002 at US $ 291 Million, when there was much less teledensity than 68% as of now and in the next 15 years (the period for which new licenses are being auctioned), it will obviously increase to higher levels. 
 
3.iii. And above all this auction is technology neutral, which means license for 3G is also valid for FREE for 4G, 5G onwards. Under this situation this base price of US $ 210 Million is ridiculously low.
 
4. As per IM (Information Memorandum) on PTA website all three telecom companies winning the technology neutral AUCTION of Mobile License/Spectrum (3G/4G/LTE [long term evolution] etc) will be required to pay half of the bid value within 30 days in USD or PKR. Also Rest of the amount can be paid in USD or PKR in five equal yearly installments. This virtually means that Telecom companies will NOT bring any fresh foreign investment and also the remaining 50% amount will be deposited on PAY AS YOU EARN basis. This tantamount to robbing the nation of valuable FDI in the garb of auction terms, particularly when bidding is only allowed in minimum 2 million USD and maximum 10 million USD. So when bidding is in USD payment should also be in USD.
 
5. Why PTA has shown less figures of total Teledensity of Pakistan (68.39) in 2010-11 at para 3.7 of (IM [information memorandum] on its website) whereas, according to its own figures in the graph shown in  the para 3.7, the total comes to (68.43)?
 
6. Why the PTA advertisement published in the news papers of 24 January, 2012 states mobile teledensity as 62% against the figures of 64.9% shown in IM at their website? 

7. India is not 70 times bigger than Pakistan in economy or any way, but it got $69 billion, that too, two years ago, from it’s auction of ONLY 3G. Why our Finance Minister has kept a budgeted amount of ONLY $800 million as expected income from the auction of NOT only 3G but 4 & 5G as well?

 
Submitted for consideration and immediate corrective action before it is too late.

————————————————

It was reported recently on a TV channel, that Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh expects 800 million USD revenue, from the auction of 3G (fast Internet) license to telecom companies.
 
It is reported that government has fixed the base price for auction to held on March 28 and 29, 2012 for 3G and 4G as 210 million USD. Whereas, 8 years ago 2G was sold at 291 million USD. (Please check and confirm this data from PTA).
 
Here, I must forewarn all and sundry, that under no circumstances, the worth of this auction amount can be less than 10 billion dollars. India got 69 billion USD from the same auction in April 2010 i.e. two years ago. Details are available at link:- https://www.snayyar.com/3g-telecom-technology-pakistan-can-earn-billions-of-usd-by-just-selling-air.html.
 
It will not be out of place to state that as reported today i.e., Wednesday 1 Feb. 2012 the Indian Supreme Court warned on Tuesday that corruption posed a “grave danger” to the world’s largest democracy quoted as below.
 
All patriotic citizens and institutions must be alert, lest we may not be cheated again, by those who sold our valuable national assets, for even less than the peanuts, in Musharraf era.