Foreign missions: A blind eye to Balochistan quota

Only 24 of the required minimum 130 employees serving overseas are from the province. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: 

Despite having an official quota of 6% for residents working in foreign office jobs, a mere 1% of people from Balochistan province are serving in overseas missions.

More than 2,354 employees are working in over 117 Pakistani foreign missions which consumed a whopping Rs9.8 billion in 2013, with cumulative expenditures totalling Rs48.8 billion in the last six years.

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, in his written reply to the National Assembly, claimed, “The government has fixed a 6% quota for making appointments from Balochistan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs strictly observes this quota.”

If the official quota is to be followed, at least 130 employees must be from Balochistan, residents with domicile status, the Foreign Office’s senior officials said.

A 53% quota has been reserved for Punjab; 20% for Sindh, 18% for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Fata, Gilgit-Baltistan and 3% for AJK, they explained.

An estimated 568 officers and 1,833 supporting staff are serving at Pakistani missions abroad.

According to the documents, accountant Ayesha Nasreen, BPS-14, is the only woman from Balochistan in the Pakistan Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The issue of ‘ignoring’ Balochistan was taken up by MNA Abdul Qahar Wadan of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, who sought details of Balochistan officials serving for Pakistani missions.

Responding to this question, Sartaj Aziz also claimed that under the Aghaz-e-Huqooq-e-Balochistan Package, in the past 18 months adequate posts have been filled under the Balochistan quota.

Reality is different as the lone driver Muhammad Ashraf, who was appointed under this package in April 2013, did not join the service, the reply further states. Some 36 staffers who are currently serving in the Foreign Office, Islamabad, also belong to Balochistan, it added.

According to details, a total 19 of the 568 officers serving abroad belong to Balochistan. Of these, 308 are diplomats and 260 are from information, defence, culture and commercial counseling. About 235 officers are from Punjab; 79 from K-P, Fata and Gilgit-Baltistan; 47 from urban Sindh; 41 from rural Sindh; 12 Azad Jammu and Kashmir and seven from Islamabad.

Two ambassadors, Ghalib Iqbal in Paris and Asif Durrani in Abu Dhabi, hold Balochistan domicile.

Five officers from Balochistan are serving abroad. These are Assistant Private Secretary (APS) Adeel Kenneth in Berne; APS Zakir Hussain in Harare; APS Razaq Ansari in Yangon; APS Imran Ahmed in Tehran and APS Muhammad in Brasilia.

The list of other supporting staff includes: assistant Muhammad Furqan, who is serving in the Pakistan Embassy in Tripoli;  accountant Ali Abbas in Herat, accountant Muhammad Salman in Chicago,  accountant Abdul Rauf in Vienna, accountant Mumtaz Anwar Ghani in Warsaw, accountant Baqir Shah in Lisbon, cypher assistant Rashid Afridi in Beijing, cypher assistant Kabir Afridi in Canberra, cypher assistant Khalid Mahmood in Tehran, cypher assistant Irfan Khan in Tashkent, cypher assistant Asim Raza in Warsaw, steno-typist Asif Ali in United Nation, New York, upper division clerk Sohail Ahmed in New Delhi, driver Ali Haider in Brasilia, driver Allah Waraya in Riyadh and Abdul Wali Khan is serving as special security guard in Kandahar.

Foreign Office Spokesperson Tasnim Aslam says, “The quota is observed at the time of initial recruitment. After that, postings and transfers are made on the basis of merit, languages learnt and availability of vacant posts and personal choices.”

For public consumption: ‘We will make PESCO a profitable entity once again’

Board meeting discusses line losses, electricity theft. PHOTO: FILE

PESHAWAR: All possible efforts are being made to reduce line losses and increase recovery of outstanding dues from consumers, Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) Chief Executive Tariq Sadozai said on Friday.

“We will make Pesco a profitable entity once again,” Sadozai said during the Board of Directors (BoD) meeting held at the Wapda House. He also briefed participants about the current power crisis and the procedure of carrying out load-shedding, adding redressal of consumer complaints at their doorstep is their top priority.

Citing the annual closure of canals for maintenance as a reason behind the upsurge in power outages, Sadozai said, “Load-shedding of four to eight hours is being carried out in areas where illegal use of electricity is minimum and the distribution system is good, and 8-16 hours in areas where the distribution system is old and electricity is used illegally.”

The Pesco chief vowed every step is being taken to minimise load-shedding, adding the public can play an important role by avoiding extra and illegal use of electricity. He said saving one unit of electricity is equal to the generation of one unit of electricity.

Board members pledged to employ all their efforts to bring Pesco out of its current financial crisis and urged to expedite the campaign against illegal use of electricity.

The board also approved the purchase of Fork Lifters for the organisation and approved a number of managerial and administrative matters on the agenda.

Android, Imma let you finish, but iPhone is still better any day

Several iPhone features are considered to be superior when pitted against its rival, Android.

The battle between the two reigning categories of smartphones continues incessantly without showing any signs of letting up. Android disciples constantly wage war against zealot iPhone followers but in many ways, the iPhone will always be superior to its current adversary.

Here are five features that still make the iPhone superior to the Android smart phone:

1. Better operating system

Aesthetically, Windows Vista was considered to be Microsoft’s most beautifully designed operating system. However, that was all that operating system had to offer – aesthetics. People who had equipped their machines with powerful components and peripherals have always found one element that slowed their entire system down, and that happened to be the operating system.

Similarly, one area where the iPhone is miles better in comparison to Android smartphones happens to be the operating system. It is extremely fluid, incredibly fast and displays negligible to no amount of stuttering. Android’s 4.4 KitKat operating system has made significant leaps in optimising tweaks but it will take a long time for the operating system to be in the same league as the iOS.

2. No fragmentation

Although Apple has not equipped their iPhones with expandable storage options such as adding Secure Digital (SD) cards like the Android system has, iPhones are equipped with flash storage. This, combined with the iOS, makes the operating system a non-fragmentation zone. The storage space is used efficiently which increases capacity and often performance.

Prolonged usage of the Android smart phone results in detrimental effects on the operating system because, unlike the iOS, Android’s operating system goes through the process of operating system fragmentation – the same way that mechanical hard drives get fragmented over time – an ordeal for any user. Gradually, the SD card gets filled with clutter and useless files, adding more performance degradation to the operating system.

Although users mitigate this effect by purchasing faster and larger capacity SD cards, this can only help them on a temporary basis.

3. Better battery management

Over the course of many years, Apple has started to incorporate ways that will help to alleviate the dread of quick battery depletion from their smart phones. The introduction of the iOS7 also included several improvisation techniques that have helped to increase the amount of battery life.

On the other hand, the Android operating system is notorious for draining battery life in the shortest time period and even though multitasking is much more flexible on the Android operating system, it is not significant since the multitasking feature starts to drain the battery life rapidly. Furthermore, accessing files continuously from the Android operating system for multitasking capabilities adds to fragmentation.

4. No pre-loaded useless apps that you cannot delete

When an individual procures an Android smartphone, that phone comes with an array of pre-loaded smart phone apps. According to vendors, people hardly ever use these apps and they add to the amount of space used up unnecessarily most of the time. Although the iOS also has pre-loaded apps that come bundled with their operating system, they do not take up as much space as compared to an Android, and frankly, seem to have a purpose.

5. No custom Read-Only Memory (ROM) or launchers to search through

The problem with the Android operating system is that there are a copious number of system launchers that you have to use on a trial and error basis to see which one gives the best performance and utilises the least amount of resources at the same time. When the Android operating system is rooted, in case you want to augment the operating system to a better update, many developers have been kind enough to load a myriad of custom ROMs for the user’s perusal.

The only problem is that these ROMs come in an abundant supply and a conclusive decision to pick out the best one can be an extremely daunting task. To add to the cumulative worries, users also have to pick out which apps to use when executing maintenance procedures to keep the Android operating system running at its peak performance.

However, with the iOS, there is no custom launcher and no custom ROM, so users can save time by not having to test which one best suits their purpose.

This was in no way a defamation campaign intended to display the Android operating system’s inferior features. No doubt, there are several features and physical attributes lacking from both operating systems. However, since there are several iPhone features considered to be superior when pitted against its rival, they have been comprehensively detailed for you.

Apart from all that, who can forget the latest iOS7 features that made us all ecstatic recently?

From me, its still iPhone, hands down

India should lift the ban on Pakistani channels before attacking Pakistan for banning Indian content

Lahore High Court banned the screening of Indian films and television serials in Pakistan. But ideas cannot and should not be banned - not in India and not in Pakistan. DESIGN: AYESHA AMIN

I am not a TV buff, and only switch on the idiot box to watch news channels and occasionally cricket matches, even though there are as many as 906 channels available on my cable connection. But at the same time there are millions of Indians like my mother who spend most of their spare time switching from one channel to another, watching daily soap operas – Ekta Kapoor’s Saas-Bahu type serials being the most watched. 

906 channels, that’s quite a number, isn’t it?

Now I would like you to guess the number of Pakistani channels in them – 20, 15, 10, 5, anyone?

The correct answer is zero.

Yes, indeed, not a single Pakistani channel is allowed to be shown in India, even though scores of Indian channels are freely available in Pakistan.

My mother, who laments the deteriorating quality of Indian TV shows, would have welcomed the Pakistani channels as a breath of fresh air. The popularity of PTV’s soaps like Deewarein, Waris and Jungle in the 1980s in India should not be forgotten and current programmes on Pakistani channels have the potential to become as popular.

Alas, this is the state of affairs in India and when yesterday, the Lahore High Court banned the screening of Indian films and television serials in Pakistan noting that they were included in the ‘negative list’ under the current bilateral trade regime, Manish Tewari the Indian Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting posted an angry reaction on Twitter,

“Pakistani jingoists should know films and TV serials are ideas and ideas can’t be barred/banned. Pak govt must remove them from negative list ASAP (as soon as possible).”

After all, Indian politicians just need a reason to bash Pakistan, especially during election season.

I second him when he says that ideas cannot and should not be banned. But can we walk the talk, Mr Tewari?

I, as an Indian citizen, would like to know why Pakistani channels were not being allowed to be shown in India even as a number of Indian channels were freely available in Pakistan until this court judgment?

What have you done to make regulatory regimes more flexible so that Pakistani channels could be viewed in India?

What steps have you taken to improve relations between the two countries?

The answer is nothing.

I have been watching Pakistani news channels for a long time on the internet and can say with certainty that barring a few channels, most of them are pro-India. I vividly remember watching a Pakistani news channel recently when fierce clashes were taking place between Indian and Pakistani forces on the Line of Control. When a Pakistani politician pledged to take a tough stand against India while talking to the news channel, the female anchor retorted with a faint smile on her visage,

“Janab, aapko aisa nahi lagta ke hamein Bharat ki taraf dosti ki paishraft karni chahiye?”

(Sir, don’t you think that we should extend a hand of friendship towards India?)

Alas, I have never seen Indian anchors talking in this friendly vein.

Such is the level of pro-India sentiment in Pakistan and it is a pity that we, on the other hand, are still living in the past when PTV’s ‘anti-India’ campaign over internal issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, had been a concern.

We must never forget that media is the most effective tool for shaping perceptions and we ought to utilise it properly in order bring the people of India and Pakistan closer to each other.

I, for one, am very disappointed with the judgment of the Lahore High Court and hope that the Pakistani government will take adequate measures to make sure that Pakistani viewers are not deprived of Indian movies and TV content.

I doubt this ban will have any positive effect on Pakistani film and TV industry.

Leading Bollywood banner Balaji Telefilms CEO, Tanuj Garg, tweeted in response to the ban,

Gay or transgender: A psychiatrists perspective on Uzma Tahir’s show “Khufia”

In the television program, I came across many of the victims requesting opportunities for honourable lives like everyone else in society. Unfortunately, their voices were ignored.

Aab Tak, a Pakistani television station started its transmission earlier this year with a strong statement,

‘Ladies, Gentlemen and She-males’

It did not take long for the station to air a sensational TV show Khufia where the hostess, Uzma Tahir, ignored people’s right to independence and a free life as she bullied them with a television camera. Chasing people frantically on the streets of Karachi, she and her team put hands on people, manhandled them and then barged into their homes with a camera crew to ask the victims of her camera bullying,

“Are you gay or transgender?”

The saddest part of the show occurred later when the hostess arrogantly ignored someone’s suicide threat.  I couldn’t accept the fact that Uzma Tahir didn’t care about human life. Suicide is a preventable death and every suicide threat needs to be taken seriously.

The most sickening moment came when she wishfully said,

“Why don’t these people become targets of bombs?”

One victim of her television camera abuse pleaded on air that he had some mental health issues and couldn’t talk about them. She tortured the poor soul by judging him and mockingly saying,

“How can a ‘crazy’ know that he is ‘crazy’ and even know his doctor? This is enough to prove that you are lying.”

It is a known fact that people with mental illness and non-conforming sexual behaviour are often victims of violence but it is quite rare to find sexual and psychological harassment by a television program crew.

A so-called human right activist and physician, Ansar Burney, was invited to the program as an expert to discuss the issue.  To a height of absurdity, Burney became paranoid and started inviting the charge that transvestites and transgender people could be agents of foreign countries and might be working as spies for different terrorist groups. The ‘expert’ on the program referred to transvestite and transgender orientation as ‘psychological misbehaviour’. I don’t know what this means as in my almost decade-long career in psychiatry, I have never heard or read this expression even once.

In 2012, Pakistanis with gender non-conformity received an official status as ‘third-gender’ citizens. They are commonly and more loosely referred to as eunuchs (hijras, khawaja-sarra), hermaphrodites and transvestites.

Contrary to Tahir’s personal belief, there is scientific data to support that these conditions happen genetically, not by choice. Clinically, they are different from each other.  Gender Dysphoria (Gender Identity Disorder) describes the dissatisfaction some people have with their assigned gender at birth. Some, if resourceful, opt for sex change procedures. Transvestism, the practice of dressing and acting in a style or manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex, is different as is homosexuality where one is sexually aroused by members of the same sex. There are other hormonal and genetic situations in which patients can have ambiguous genitalia.

Acting like the moral police, the hostess decided that it was her job to despicably warn the public to watch out for any early signs of their children being gay.

Our media has started expanding its target audience. The Late Night Show with Begam Nawazish Ali, the Lollywood movie Bol and now the Pakistani version of ‘Glee’ are presenting evidence of non-heterosexual behaviour in our media, opening up a long secret aspect of our society. But sometimes sadly, multi-national companies find it acceptable to show a transgender victim of hazing in an all-boys college in an advertisement.

Ironically, a June 2013 Pew Research survey showed Pakistan was one of the least gay-tolerant countries in the world while the same month the magazine Mother Jones published the results of a survey that put Pakistan as the world leader in the number of Google searches for gay sex links.

I remember the case of Shumail Raj and Shahzina Tariq, a married couple who was jailed for three months for perjury after a dispute over the husband’s sex. The court ruled had that the husband was, in fact, a woman, despite sex-change surgery and that the couple had lied about his sexual status. It denied their claim of being married as their marriage was un-Islamic because it was same-sex.

People with different sexual orientations and behaviours lead a very difficult and objected life in Pakistan. A television program like Khufia can risk many other lives. It is time to treat transgender and transsexual people with respect as fellow human beings. There is a need to accept their presence in society and to help them with education and employment in regular jobs.

In the television program, I came across many of the victims requesting opportunities for honourable lives like everyone else in society. Unfortunately, their voices were ignored

The story about being stranded in Awaran

This is the third instalment of an eight-part special feature, where we look back at some of the major stories of 2013 through the eyes of those who covered them.

                      The story: From the ruins of Awaran: Of rock, gravel and Badshah Khan

The story behind the story

“But how can we leave now?” exclaimed Sameer, my fellow reporter.

At this, I chimed in, “We have to stay for at least one more day. We haven’t seen anything but the FC headquarters yet.”

Sameer, our photographer Athar and I had been in tehsil Awaran, Balochistan, for just 12 hours.

We wanted to report on villages destroyed by the 7.7 earthquake, but the manager of the NGO we travelled with insisted that we return to Karachi that very night because “some people” did not want to spend the night. After negotiating with, persuading and eventually convincing him, we agreed to a compromise: they would wait for us till 2pm the next day.

What happened next was dramatic, to say the least. We did not leave Awaran, we were left behind.

Phones don’t work once you drive 15 minutes away from tehsil Awaran. We were two hours late and could not inform the NGO manager. Once back to the National Rural Support Programme’s office, where we had stayed the previous night, our excitement from having visited nine villages turned into anxiety and anger.

“They’re gone!” I said with a gasp. There was no car. No one at the office knew anything – we had no message left for us, and no way of returning to Karachi.

After fretting for three hours, we had an arrangement. The NRSP chief let us have his car and driver if we paid for fuel, but it could only take us to Lasbela, and no further.

It was pitch dark outside. I don’t know why I was surprised when our driver went to a friend’s house to get fuel. With petrol pumps shut down after dark, you are likely to find Iranian petrol stored in somebody’s house in the neighbourhood.

It took our driver and his friend 20 minutes to fill up the car. Finally, we were off for Bela. Winding down the chiselled road, I breathed a sigh of relief.

The relief was short-lived. The car came to a halt after a few jerks. “This is like a bad movie!” I started to yell, but Sameer and Athar calmed me down. The driver, an extremely patient man, promised me that he’d get us to Bela.

He re-started the car and barely made it to a small village. We stopped at a tea shop and, before I knew it, ten Baloch and Sindhi men were holding torches and trying to fix the vehicle. Never had I ever seen such hospitality. One by one, the men came to tell me that “all [would] be well”.

We had to tell our office that we wouldn’t be able to reach Bela by 9:30pm, from where we needed to be picked up. Luckily, the tea shop owner had a PTCL line. The receptionist at our Karachi office told us that our senior editor had left for Bela, but she could not be contacted because of reception issues.

We finally made it at 12:15am. Sameer went off to smoke. I saw him lighting a cigarette, standing at the edge of the highway. Just then, his face lit up and he started waving his arms frantically. A car drove by him, stopped and then reversed.

I saw familiar faces in the car with The Express Tribune badges. The night was finally over.

Pakistan Orders Arrest of Blackwater Agents

The Pakistani government has given a one-week deadline to the country’s intelligence services to identify and apprehend members of the notorious American security firm Blackwater (currently known as Xe Services LLC) in Pakistan.

The deadline was issued following intelligence reports about the ongoing presence of Blackwater agents on Pakistani soil.

According to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Blackwater agents are still operating in the country.

The Xe Services operatives were reportedly involved in the assassination of senior leader of Haqqani terrorist network Nasiruddin Haqqani on the outskirts of Islamabad on November 10.

Nasiruddin was the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leader of Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network.

In 2009, Blackwater conducted extensive activities and terrorist operations across Pakistan, however, the former Pakistani government denied that the US security contractor is present in the country.

Blackwater was established in 1998 with the aim of conducting acts of espionage and military operations in crisis-hit regions across the world.

The company has been struggling with a trail of legal cases and civil lawsuits, including one for killing 17 Iraqi civilians during a Baghdad shootout in 2007.

Blackwater’s operations have led to human rights violations. They have also carried out targeted assassinations inside and outside Pakistan. The company’s operatives also gather intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA assassination drone strikes.

Investigative journalist Webster Griffin Tarpley says the Xe Services is behind the ongoing terrorist attacks in Pakistan in an attempt to incite civil war in the country mainly in line with the US policy to prevent Pakistan from becoming an energy corridor between Iran and China.Press TV