Loud Thinking

Archive for June, 2013

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to INCREASE our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

@RayRed_ @MubasherLucman

Swiss banks number accounts r an altogether a different story. Don’t be misled by the $1.5 billion official figures the real secret funds of Pakistani’s in Swiss banks may be up-to $500 billion

180 Congressmen and 40 Senators have written to President Obama and Kerry on Thursday, virtually asking them to sanction New Delhi

Times of India Reports

WASHINGTON: If one goes by the five-minute video message John Kerry has just issued ahead of his first visit to New Delhi on Sunday as secretary of state for the fourth US-India strategic dialogue, you’d think bilateral ties never had it so good. There are the usual boilerplate references to “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century,” close collaboration “in almost every field of human endeavor” and even the forgotten chestnut about US support for India’s inclusion as a permanent member of an expanded United Nations Security Council.

“The United States not only welcomes India as a rising power; we fervently support it,” Kerry asserts in a message that opens with “namaskar,” even though, from all accounts, he hasn’t had the time of the day for India since he took office in February, such has been his focus on other hotspots in the world. There are mandatory references to common democratic traditions, shared perceptions, people-to-people ties etc, a yawn-inducing list of palliatives that has been flogged to death.

So how then does one explain the angry, accusatory, India-specific letters that 180 Congressmen and 40 Senators have written to President Obama and Kerry on Thursday, virtually asking them to sanction New Delhi if it cannot be brought to heel on a raft of issues? These range from the Indian government’s decision to buy certain IT and clean energy equipment only from domestic firms, to court decisions on life-saving drugs that Washington sees as violation of intellectual property norms.

“We urge you to press for swift action and make clear to your Indian counterparts that the United States will consider all trade tools at its disposal if India does not end its discriminatory practices,” lawmakers, primed by industry pressure groups, sternly told the administration in an unprecedented letter, even as US businesses launched something called an “Alliance for fair trade with India,” a pressure lobby of the kind they have not put together even against China.

Well, it turns out that the United States and India have much to disagree about on the margins of the strategic dialogue, although the good news is that they will do so without being disagreeable. Beneath all the broad smiles and bonhomie, there will be much grinding of teeth as both sides push back at each other in the trade and economic sphere, the US intent extending its economic primacy and India determined to ensure that does not happen at the expense of its people. On its part, India has already indicated that it will not be browbeaten. “We are not going to lie down and play dead,” one Indian official said at a background briefing on the visit.

While the strategic dialogue has been frontloaded with this unprecedented attack on India from Congress and industry over trade ties (whatever happened to the India Caucus and US-India Business Council? one scribe wondered at a briefing), bickering over economy and commerce are not the only wrinkles. New Delhi has deep misgivings over the speed and manner in which Washington has allowed Taliban, Pakistan’s proxy in Afhganis, to come to the negotiating table in Doha, with prospect of a power grab in Kabul.

The move jeopardizes Indian equities in Afghanistan, and Kerry’s statement that “US and India share a strong and enduring commitment to Afghanistan’s peace and prosperity” sounds lame judging by the speed with which Washington is abandoning Kabul, leaving New Delhi holding the can. Mercifully for India, Kerry spiked a proposed Pakistan leg of this visit, which had raised the bogey of a re-hyphenation following a sell-out to Pakistan over Taliban, although Indian officials said they had not made this an issue. Kerry will go to Pakistan next month, US officials said, even as the media pack accompanying him was more interested in his stopover in Doha, where he will discuss the Syria and the upcoming dialogue with Taliban.

All is not bleak on the bilateral front though. There certainly is merit in the claim by officials from both sides that the two countries are now engaged in a staggering range of fields, from higher education, which will get a separate block of time with Kerry’s engagement with HRD Minister Pallam Raju, to science, technology, and space cooperation. But the hottest area, the one that excites both sides, is the proposed supply of US natural gas to India, and American help in India’s exploration and exploitation of its shale gas reserves. “This is an area that could become the next big thing,” a senior Indian official said at a briefing.

Figures collected by NADRA last year show

. . . . . . . . . .

Ø There are 1.611 million people who frequently embark on international tours but do not pay a single penny as income tax.
Ø About 584,730 Pakistanis have multiple accounts in domestic and multinational banks, but do not possess NTNs.
Ø Over 56,000 people live in posh areas and more than 20,000 people own luxury cars, still pay no income tax.
Ø There are 66,736 individual consumers who pay large utility bills, but no income tax.
Ø More than 13,000 people have licenses of both prohibited and non-prohibited weapons, but they do not possess an NTN.
Ø There are 25,130 people who are engaged in lucrative professions like medicine, engineering, law and chartered accountancy, but they do not pay a single penny as income tax.
Ø Nearly three million people possess a National Tax Number (NTN), but only 1.4 million of them filed income tax returns last year.
Ø Punjab has the lowest tax to GDP ratio in the country.

Compiled by Mr. Rafiuddin Sheikh (Karachi).

Courage is doing the right thing in the face of opposition.

“Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested. And have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.”

Katie Couric (born 1957);
American journalist

No Country After Death..!

After sixty six years, Pakistan is a more fragmented society than our forefathers could have ever imagined. The schism is so intense that if immediate corrective steps are not taken, God forbid, this country may see even more turbulent times.

Writing on the wall is clear for all to read. The decadence of Pakistani society, in every sphere of life, be it political, economical, educational, industrial, agricultural, religious, law and order or any other segment worth naming, is abysmal, to say the least. Hardly, any day passes without reports of suicides committed by the poor due to the economic hardships. Children are dying in scores due to the Measles out break and strangely enough, no soul has moved and not even a single person has been held accountable.

May be, we have one last chance to stem the rot, to unite the people and to give them a prescription, to rise again and build the nation from the ashes, because for the overwhelming majority, a time is coming that they will be forced to think “no life no nation”.

All stakeholders must wake up, as the nation is moving towards destruction; our survival is directly linked with the existence of our nationhood. Nationhood means “The state or quality of having a status as separate and independent nation”.

Hence, for all the Pakistanis, failure is NOT an option. But success is also not automatically guaranteed, as well.

In this regard, I would like to suggest that, let us formulate a new social contract (specially designed for the 95 percent have-nots; specially, NOT like the budget planned for 2013-14 which failed to tax the super rich on one pretext or the other) for the common people of Pakistan, who always pay 100 percent bills and taxes and never default on their bank loans. Let us make a new Pakistan, which is redesigned to practically cater to the needs of the exploited masses.

Changes must be made in the constitution to block corrupt land owners and power hungry charlatans from contesting the elections. The election system should also be changed, so that the whole country directly votes for a President or a PM. However, before the voting, the candidates of all the political parties for this post, must notify a list of their MPA’s, MNA’s and Senators, who will be automatically considered elected, according to the percentage of votes cast, in favour of the main candidate, for the top post of the country.

The decision for Pakistan’s charter of development for building dams and mega projects for the next fifty years, should also be finalised, on which later on, no politics should be allowed. In other words, the entire representatives of the nation should decide NOW, where they would like to see Pakistan, in each and every field of life, after 5×10 = 50 years. The development goals must be clearly defined for 10 five year plans.

In order to decentralise and empower maximum number of people, to enjoy the fruits of self rule, we should convert every division of Pakistan into a province. This will also work as a panacea for the eradication of linguistic and any other type of frictions; and doubts about hegemony of people, of certain big areas, over the people of other smaller areas. In fact, it will work wonders, in the speedy development and unity of Pakistan and kill instantly, any secessionist or separatist activities currently prevailing in some parts of the country.

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Lahore – Pakistan

Sent from my iPad3 4G LTE

Lessen the Damage from the Inevitable Cultural Faux Pas

When working in a foreign setting with different norms and rules, you’re likely to make cultural mistakes. But you can lessen their impact by engendering people’s trust in the first place.

Make sure your foreign counterparts believe you care enough to try to learn about their culture, even if you haven’t fully mastered the rules.

Work hard to show genuine interest, curiosity, and respect. But, you also need to be authentic.

Don’t fake an interest in Indian food, for example, if you could care less about culinary arts.

Find a pursuit that genuinely appeals to you and explore that. Otherwise, it will be clear to your colleagues that you’re trying to ingratiate yourself, not learn about the ins and outs of their culture.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “Preparing for Inevitable Cultural Faux Pas” by Andy Molinsky.

“Living each day as it if were our last, rather than
converting us into hedonists, will make us appreciate how
wonderful it is that we are alive and have the opportunity to
fill this day with activity. This in turn will make us less
likely to squander our days. As we think about and plan for
tomorrow, remember to appreciate today.”

— William B. Irvine