Category Archives: OPENION

ISLAMABAD, LATEST, OPENION, PAKISTAN

Governance means to serve the Nation.

Columist: Tehrim Elahi

Governance is the term that  can be defined as a rules, regulations and policies which runs and manage  the state. Good governance  in which always works towards facilitating the people and step forward to the progress of the people. Unfortunately, this is not true in the present  as we can see from the history , Nowadays the government focusses on “facilitating its influential people to get votes for government. There is nothing to facilitate the poor people although all Parties claimed to serve with their best interest and getting votes.

It’s all about “getting the votes to establish the government and full fill their interest”.

The Voters always gives a vote in the hope of a better future. They look forward to the governess that will safeguard their basic right, provide the basic necessities of life but always disappointed, when they experience the reality. They realize that their votes has been trashed the Hopes.  The lifestyle of the majority of the people remains below average due to lack of support from the government. They are not even provided with the basic necessities of life. The significant inflation in the recent few years.

hence they are lefting into the depression and darkness which will  never end.

The tenure for the government in Pakistan is five years.They rule without making a significant impact on the Nation, Poverty graph still remain down.

In the meantime The People who have improved their lifestyle are those who put efforts himself to change. Without support of the Government.

Five years of the governance of any party always claimed the fantasy and which  never existed in reality.

As a columnist I am not pointing out any particular tenure  but I am trying to highlight the issues in governance and suggesting solutions to improve them.

The people of Pakistan are facing difficulties due to lack of lake of administration  in public sectors. The condition of major industries including agriculture is deteriorating day by day due to lack of proper governance and law and order situation. All the previous governments tried their best to improve the condition in every field but could not succeed in attaining the fruitful result due to the lack of proper mechanisms to run the departments.. There is an acute need for a proper administrative control mechanism to streamline the system.

First of all, we need to make the election process more transparent so that no one can come in power by unfair means and only the true representative of the masses forms the government because only those people will be more concerned towards the needs of the common person. After selection we can send our bureaucrats to academies for refresher courses where they can update their knowledge and get the required skills and training to improve their vision. We can also send them to different developed countries for training purposes. This is the first and far most important thing because these people are the true custodian of the general public interest and their selection and training is vital for the conduct of effective and efficient governance.

The second most important thing is the formulation of policies that are proper and realistic and that best suit the needs of the general public. These policies should be formed with consensus and must be implemented on just and fair ground as to get the desired results. After practical implementation of these policies if there is any evidence of loopholes, policies must be rechecked and reformulated accordingly. The next step is the formulation of policies of public sector organization, it is important to note here that the rule and regulation as well as the policies formulated for the general public organizations must be in line with the policies of the state. There should not be any conflict of interest at any level. The selection process at departmental level should also be made on purely merit basis. There should not be any references involved in the hiring process. In this way these departments will be strengthened. There is also a need for accountability at every level so that there would not be any opportunity for corruption and fraud.

In this way we can retain and utilize our human resources to their maximum capacity, because if the state fails to provide the due right of the general public, people will tend to move abroad in search of a better future, resulting in brain drain and acute shortage of resourceful people.

There is also a need to reform the vital departments, namely, health sector, education department, police and judiciary

System. The educational system should be reformed as to implement a uniform system across the country so that every student gets equal opportunities for good jobs.

The health department should be provided with the required resources so that the poor people can avail the basic medical facility free of cost. The judiciary and police department should be made independent of political influence so that they can exercise their power without any fear. In this way we can ensure a proper law and order situation in the country. The agriculture department is also ignored in the present time, there is a need for proper supervision of the farmers and subsidies should be provided to them to strengthen the financial condition of the farmer and ultimately the agriculture sector.

Last but not the least, there is a need for commitment from all Pakistanis to work with patience, diligence and honesty because the major changes required commitment from every level. In this way we can flourish our country and pave the way of success for the generations to come.

Artical For University Project.

ISLAMABAD, LATEST, OPENION

Pandemic of covid 19 and vaccine

Research: Tauqee Riaz

Coronaviruses are a type of virus. There are many different kinds, and some cause disease. A newly identified coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has caused a worldwide pandemic of respiratory illness, called COVID-19

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the new coronavirus that emerged in China in December 2019.

It appears that symptoms are showing up in people within 14 days of exposure to the virus.

COVID-19 symptoms include cough, fever or chills, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, muscle or body aches, sore throat, new loss of taste or smell, diarrhea, headache, new fatigue, nausea or vomiting and congestion or runny nose. COVID-19 can be severe, and some cases have caused death.

The new coronavirus can be spread from person to person. It is diagnosed with a laboratory test.

 Prevention involves frequent hand-washing, coughing into the bend of your elbow, staying home when you are sick and wearing a cloth face covering if you can’t practice physical distancing. Researchers know that the new coronavirus is spread through droplets released into the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The droplets generally do not travel more than a few feet, and they fall to the ground (or onto surfaces) in a few seconds — this is why physical distancing is effective in preventing the spread.

COVID-19 appeared in Wuhan, a city in China, in December 2019. Although health officials are still tracing the exact source of this new coronavirus, early hypotheses thought it may be linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, China. Some people who visited the market developed viral pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus. A study that came out on Jan. 25, 2020, notes that the individual with the first reported case became ill on Dec. 1, 2019, and had no link to the seafood market. Investigations are ongoing as to how this virus originated and spread. 

As World Health Organization(WHO), the best way to prevent and slow down transmission is to be well informed about the COVID-19 virus, the disease it causes and how it spreads. Protect yourself and others from infection by washing your hands or using an alcohol based rub frequently and not touching your face. 

WHO advisory to the world is to protect yourself and others from COVID-19

If COVID-19 is spreading in your community, stay safe by taking some simple precautions, such as physical distancing, wearing a mask, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds, Washing your hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue. Check local advice where you live and work. Do it all!

Maintain at least a 1-metre distance between yourself and others to reduce your risk of infection when they cough, sneeze or speak. Maintain an even greater distance between yourself and others when indoors. The further away, the better. Washi your hands before you put your mask on, as well as before and after you take it off. Make sure it covers both your nose, mouth and chin. Wear a fabric mask unless you’re in a particular risk group. This is especially important when you can’t stay physically distanced, particularly in crowded and poorly ventilated indoor settings.

Don’t forget the basics of good hygiene, regularly and thoroughly wash your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water. This eliminates germs including viruses that may be on your hands. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth. From there, the virus can enter your body and infect you. Cover your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately into a closed bin and wash your hands. By following good ‘respiratory hygiene’, you protect the people around you from viruses, which cause colds, flu and COVID-19.Clean and disinfect surfaces frequently especially those which are regularly touched, such as door handles, faucets and phone screens.

Latest report in New York Time that Pfizer’s Early Data Shows Vaccine Is More Than 90% Effective

Pfizer announced positive early results from its coronavirus vaccine trial, cementing the lead in a frenzied global race that has unfolded at record-breaking speed. The drug maker Pfizer announced on Monday that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19, a promising development as the world has waited anxiously for any positive news about a pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people.

Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with the German drug maker BioTech, released only sparse details from its clinical trial, based on the first formal review of the data by an outside panel of experts. Pfizer plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization of the two-dose vaccine later this month, after it has collected the recommended two months of safety data. By the end of the year it will have manufactured enough doses to immunize 15 million to 20 million people, company executives have said.

Pfizer believes it will be able to supply 50 million doses by the end of this year, and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.

If you want your life to get back to normal, then we need a vaccine.

Even now, the vast majority of people are still vulnerable to a coronavirus infection. It is only the restrictions on our lives that are preventing more people from dying.

But vaccines safely teach our bodies to fight the infection. This can either stop us catching coronavirus in the first place or at least make Covid less deadly.

The vaccine, alongside better treatments, is “the” exit strategy.

ENTERTAINMENT, International Opinion., LATEST, OPENION

Common blood pressure drug tied to increased risk of skin cancer

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COPENHAGEN: People who take a certain water pill prescribed to control fluid retention and treat high blood pressure may be more likely to get skin cancer than other individuals, a Danish study suggests.

While the drug, hydrochlorothiazide, has long been linked to an increased risk of sunburns, the current study offers fresh evidence that this commonly prescribed medication may also make people more likely to develop two types of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.

For the study, researchers examined national prescription registry data on hydrochlorothiazide use from 1995 to 2012 as well as cancer registry records on skin malignancies diagnosed from 2004 to 2012.

Overall, people who took hydrochlorothiazide daily for at least six years were 29 percent more likely to develop basal cell carcinoma and almost four times more likely to get squamous cell carcinoma than individuals who didn’t take this medication, the study found.

“We already knew that hydrochlorothiazide makes the skin more vulnerable to damage from UV light of sun or sunbeds,” said senior study author Anton Pottegard of the University of Southern Denmark.

“However, we did not know that hydrochlorothiazide use also appears to translate into an increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer,” Pottegard said by email.

The study included more than 71,000 people with basal cell carcinoma, 8,600 patients with squamous cell carcinoma, and a control group of more than 313,000 people in the Danish population who didn’t have these malignancies but were otherwise similar to the cancer patients.

About 2.7 percent of patients with basal cell carcinoma and 2.1 percent of the control group were high users of hydrochlorothiazide, with a lifetime cumulative dose of at least 50,000 milligrams, or roughly six years of daily use.

Ten percent of squamous cell carcinoma cases were high users, as were 2.8 percent of people in the control group.

With the highest cumulative hydrochlorothiazide exposure – approximately 24 years of daily use – patients were 54 percent more likely to develop basal cell carcinoma and more than seven times more likely to get squamous cell carcinoma.

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how hydrochlorothiazide might cause skin cancer.

Another limitation is that researchers lacked data on two main factors that influence the risk of skin cancer: ultraviolet light exposure and skin type, the study authors note in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

“There may be a relationship between taking hydrochlorothiazide and risk for skin cancer,” said Dr. Aaron Farberg of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

“However, the relationship may not be directly causative,” Farberg, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

Even so, the findings add to the evidence suggesting that patients taking hydrochlorothiazide should take extra precautions to protect their skin from damage caused by the sun, said Dr. Elizabeth Martin, president of Pure Dermatology & Aesthetics in Hoover, Alabama.

“Everyone can reduce their skin cancer risk by avoiding unprotected exposure to UV light,” Martin, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “Don’t use indoor tanning devices, and protect yourself from the sun by seeking sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher.”

Patients taking hydrochlorothiazide shouldn’t stop without first seeing a doctor, Pottegard cautioned. While there are other safe, affordable options to manage high blood pressure, patients already taking hydrochlorothiazide won’t meaningfully alter their skin cancer risk by staying on the drug for a few months until a physician can advise them, he said.

“If you are at an increased risk of skin cancer, due to high exposure to sunlight, have already experienced skin cancer, or are otherwise predisposed to skin cancer, you should consider consulting your physician regarding a potential therapy shift,” Pottegard said.

International Opinion., LATEST, OPENION, PAKISTAN, WORLD

Pakistan’s resolve to fight terrorism cannot be disputed: Aizaz Chaudhry

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WASHINGTON:  Responding to US President Donald Trump’s criticism of Pakistan for “harboring terrorists,” Pakistan ambassador to the United States Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry says Pakistan’s resolve to fight terrorism cannot be disputed.

“Pakistan has always striven for peaceful Afghanistan. Pakistan has to incur huge losses owing to instability in Afghanistan for the past 38 years,” he said and reiterated that Pakistan for the umpteenth times had cleared that there were no safe havens for terrorists in the country, nor was it harboring any terrorist groups.

Chaudhry said onus is on Afghan authorities to make reconciliation process successful. The federal cabinet deliberated on the new Afghan policy and it will also come under discussion of the National Security Committee, which will hammer out a befitting response to the policy, he added.

Donald Trump on Monday committed the United States to an open-ended conflict in Afghanistan, signaling he would dispatch more troops to America’s longest war and vowing “a fight to win”. Trump insisted that others – the Afghan government, Pakistan, India and NATO allies – step up their own commitment to resolving the 16-year conflict, but he saved his sharpest words for Pakistan. Senior U.S. officials warned security assistance could be reduced unless the nuclear-armed nation cooperated more in preventing militants from using safe havens on its soil.

OPENION, PAKISTAN

Post-Panama Pakistan

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Judgement has been reserved. The verdict is expected any day. Will it be based on a majority of three or five justices? No clarity. Either way, even if the prime minister manages a Houdini-like escape he is unlikely to survive in office. What will be the implications of ousting an elected but disgraced prime minister for the next general elections and for the country? A potential watershed! Can such a prime minister successfully play political martyr? Possibly! Would Punjab back a disgraced if not disqualified prime minister against the national interest? Probably! What impact would that have on national unity? Negative! Can the PTI electorally win Punjab? Only if the PML-N disintegrates! Will there be comprehensive, independent and sustained political accountability? Unlikely!

In defence of the convicted, disqualified or disgraced prime minister, his supporters will argue that he is not the only discredited political leader; that his accusers and rivals are no better and probably worse than him; and that he has brought about unprecedented infrastructural development and a middle-class consumer boom, especially in Punjab. Such arguments will have political traction, particularly if there is no credible political accountability for all.

So, what kind of Pakistan can we realistically hope for in the aftermath of Panama? Will the country become less tolerant of ‘democratically elected’ criminals? Will the sterling services of the Supreme Court and the JIT have a lasting and spreading impact? Or will kleptocracy — corrupt and cynical governance — reassert itself? One swallow a spring does not make!

The choice on offer, while not ideal, should still be clear enough.

The political and media intelligentsia in Pakistan are by and large loud, superficial and irrelevant. Their views — which implicitly accept pathological political norms as reality and encourage low expectations — uphold a violently anti-people and anti-rational status quo. Any suggestion of the need to address the root causes of Pakistan’s declining viability is dismissed as unrealistic. These views serve political elites who have poisoned nearly every institution of Pakistan.

The impending consequences of decades of evil governance on the one hand, and of converging economic, demographic and environmental catastrophes on the other, are ignored — unwittingly by the common people and deliberately by elitist rulers and their cohorts. Accordingly, it may be futile to hope that a historic Supreme Court verdict alone will trigger political, social and civil society movements for more responsible governance.

This would require movement towards comprehensive national transformation. Hope is always in order, but of itself cures no malady. The current power, social and class structures — which inevitably produced ‘Panamagate’, and an endless series of national crises and humiliations — remain firmly in place. If they are not challenged and changed, the corrupt and violent status quo will continue, including malignant ideologies and political treachery. In this perverse context, the Sharif family has been as much cause as symptom; as much villain as victim.

If the verdict reflects current hopes and expectations it could, within its limits, have a constraining influence on corrupt practices and self-indulgent policymaking which have brought the country to the brink of state failure. It could provide an opportunity for a cleansed politics to come to grips with a whole spectrum of challenges. The Supreme Court and the JIT, accordingly, deserve the appreciation of the nation for providing a window of opportunity for the emergence of nation-changing possibilities.

However, I must admit to considerable scepticism as to whether the current range of political parties and leaders are sufficiently endowed or even inclined to undertake the task of realising these possibilities. Of the three major ‘national leaders’ one may soon become a convicted political delinquent; another cannot escape the same fate if there is any justice; and the last is largely untried, often inconsistent, but far cleaner and more committed than the others. The choice on offer, while not ideal, should still be clear enough for the electorate.

There are a range of domestic and external challenges. Domestically, they include maximising investment in education, technology and infrastructure; prioritising human security and rights protections; developing an active, comprehensive, and confident civil society; institutional reforms that circumscribe administrative and political impunity including corruption and arbitrary and dishonest decision-making; enlightened and informed Islamic interpretation and instruction to ensure spiritual and material success in the 21st century; a legal framework to give effect to such reforms; and developing rational priorities and trade-offs for successful national outcomes. This will require an end to competing power centres at apex levels which confuse policymaking. Civilian supremacy must become non-negotiable. These are the primary challenges to address if Pakistan is to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Externally, the challenges include dealing with global, international, regional, neighbourhood and bilateral developments. The adverse impact of negative external developments on the security and stability of Pakistan will depend on its ability to address and overcome its domestic challenges. Domestic challenges are primary while external challenges are derivative. Address the primary challenges successfully, and even major external challenges will become manageable and resolvable. But if primary domestic challenges are neglected, sensible longer-term external strategies — which lend coherence, direction and effectiveness to shorter-term policies — will be ignored. Opportunity costs will mount forever.

In his remarkable book, Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra writes of the “hypocrisy, cynicism and egotism of self-serving elites behind the rhetoric of democracy” in 19th-century Europe. These elites only “worked to protect the rights and freedoms of privileged individuals and failed to confer democratic citizenship on ordinary people, let alone bring them economic rewards or restore their sense of community”. Mishra might well be writing about contemporary Pakistan or India. In such a society, he notes, even the “posher inhabitants are condemned to fear and anxiety about the rising [or uprising!] masses”. Just like here!

Accordingly, ideologically right-wing, politically conservative and military or clerical leadership will not serve the multifaceted interests of the poor who are the majority. Only social, humanitarian and sustained people-based movements can build a new politics for a new Pakistan. They will need servants, not bourgeois, fascist or charismatic ‘leaders’ — who fear to address root causes.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, India and China and head of UN missions in Iraq and Sudan.

By:   Ashraf Jehangir Qazi

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, India and China and head of UN missions in Iraq and Sudan