BY TOUQlR H USSAIN | 10/29/2019 12:00:00 AM

AS the Kashmir dispute has evolved, so have the challenges for Pakistan`s Kashmir strategy. The
present challenge is the most complex yet it may offer the most opportunity.

A successful Kashmir strategy has to be part of Pakistan`s national policy as this is a national not just
a foreign policy issue. As for the latter part, an effective diplomatic strategy by Pakistan will possibly
have four elements: the people of Kashmir and their heroic struggle; the Kashmiri leadership;
Pakistan`s diplomacy; and the campaign by the Kashmiri diaspora and overseas Pakistanis. These
elements need to put coordinated pressure on India for which there are four instruments:
international community, especially big powers; the international media; the UN and international
human rights groups; and PakistanIndia ties.

The core element of diplomatic strategy will no doubt be the Kashmiri resistance which in recent
years has grown stronger.

The youth that was once a follower is now a leader. Educated, attuned to contemporary modes of
activism, and adept at social media and provocative videos, the youth have been the driving force
of the movement since Burhan Wani`s death in 2016. The movement will rebound once India eases
the restrictions.

The key instrument of pressure on India will be the international campaign, especially in the West,
by Kashmiris and Pakistan through media, human rights and advocacy groups, and the thinl( tank
community. The campaign must aim at domestic politics by mobilising public opinion about
humanitarian issues, and project an air of international crisis in the foreign policy establishment.
The US congressional hearing on the human rights of Kashmiris on Oct 22 was just one example of
the positive result ofsuch aneffort.

If successful, the campaign may taint India`s international standing but, by itself, it will not be
enough. It could be consequential only along with any other cost of India`s brutal repression. The
cost may include potential domestic instability, harm to Pakistan-India relations, threat to regional
peace, risk of war, and loss of economic opportunities for India.

So how does Pakistan raise the cost? Through a comprehensive national strategy.

Pakistan has to ensure that the outsiders` view of Indian repression is not obscured by Indian
allegations of terrorism by taking a firm action against jihadists and raising its own international
standing. India`s rise has been exaggerated by Pakistan`s decline.

Pakistan will play a critical role in raising a voice for the Kashmiris internationally.But a country`s
voice cannot rise above its image. Agreed, Pakistan is not supporting the jihadists but as long as it is
perceived that they are present in Pakistan, there will be suspicions of a liaison. Compliance with
FATF demands will also be a challenge.

The refrain in Washington is that Pakistan must prevent militant groups from operating on its soil.
India is not the only factor here. Militants have relations with the
AfghanTalibanandcanaffectAfghanistan`s peace process. Washington is understandably concerned.
And so should be Pakistan.

Instability in Afghanistan will affect both, Pakistan`s stability and the Kashmir cause.

One hopes Pakistan realises that external challenges must not be fought at the cost of internal
order and stability. Security, economic progress and political stability are all interconnected. As an
aggregate of national strength, they should enhance rather than weaken each other. By raising its
national strength Pakistan will enhance its value as an economic partner for India.

Ignoring Pakistan will add to the cost ofIndia`s repression of Kashmiris.

There is going to be a fierce clash of wills.

Modi will continue with repression, attempt to buy Kashmirls` alleglance with economic incentives
and strike political bargains with new collaborators, hop-ing it will pacify the area. If he succeeds
Pakistan must step bacl( and rethink its strategy. It should not get ahead of Kashmiris.

But if Modi is unable to stem the tide of Kashmiri aspirations for azadi, something has to give. Either
there will be a colossal humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands becoming refugees, a
development that will destabilise the region putting at risk India`s rise, or India will have to come to
terms with Kashmiris` wishes. Getting something in return like friendly relations with an ascending
Pakistan will be a good incentive to make a policy shift.

If Pakistan does not rise, Pakistan-India relations may not factor in the resolution of the dispute
with India continuing to feel it does not gain anything from good ties; and Pakistan believing it does
not lose anything from bad relations. It would be a negative status quo, for us and the Kashmiris.

The bottom line is, the onus for a Kashmir solution lies as much with Pakistan as with India. The
struggle for Kashmir is indeed the struggleforPakistan.m The writer, a former ambassador, is
adjunct faculty Georgetown and Syracuse University.
By Shahid Iqbal | 10/29/2019 12:00:00 AM

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its annual report on Monday said the rising share of
services sector, at the expense of industry and agriculture, needs to be addressed while forecasting
the GDP growth for FY20 between three and four per cent.

According to the report, the country largely produces non-tradable services which are consumed
domestically. At the same time, industrial output, exports and FDI have faltered, it added.

`This pattern needs to be corrected in order to make trade deficit sustainable in the years to come.
Putting in place a coherent industrial policy should be among the immediate priorities, while a
gradual shift away from non-tradable services in favour of exportable services should also be
pursued in the medium term,` said the SBP.

The services sector grew by 4.7pc during FY19, missing the annual target by 1.8 percentage points
(6.2pc in FYl8). This was the most noticeable deviation between the actual and targeted growth rate
of services in the past few years, said the report.

`The state must take a leading role to invest in important segments of the economy in order to
provide the private sector with a dependable and conducive ecosystem in which to carry out R&D
(Research and Development) and capital formation activities,` it continued.

Macroeconomic stabilisation will continue to be the cornerstone of economic policy during FY20,
said the report, adding that the real GDP growth is likely to remain subdued, and though the early
signs of recovery are already visible.

`Development spending may play a pivotalrole, since there has been an observed tendency that
Pakistan`s GDP growth and [Public Sector Development Programme] PSDP spending move in the
same direction, and similar has been the case in FY19,` thepublication notes.

The current account deficit, after shrinking on yearly basis during FY19, is anticipated to subside
further in FY20, while exports are projected to pick up during the year. The FTA-II (Free Trade
Agreement) with China and preferential trade agreement with Indonesia may also give a boost to
exports.

According to SBP, achieving the ambitious tax collection target in the middle of a broader economic
slowdown may present a challenge.

`Even if things pan out more or less according to plan, the fiscal deficit may be in the
neighbourhood of 7pc,` the report stated.
The growth in industrial sector slowed down from 4.9pc in FYl8 to 1.4pc in FY19.

Major drag came from the manufacturing subsector, which carries the highest weight in the
industrial sector.

The report said that besides the tangible factors behind the economic moderation, a sense of
unease remained a persistent theme for most of the year (FY19), stirred up by a number of
underlying factors.

These included: speculations on the signing of the International Monetary Fund programme;
anxiety over possible implications of Financial Action Task Force reviews; uncertainty regarding
currency depreciation; and cross-border tensions with India.

These developments deflated the confidence of businesses and consumers, unsettled the currency
and equity markets, and in some cases inadvertently caused a flight towards greater informality.

`In the big picture, though real GDP growth picked up during FY17 and FY18, the sharp downturn in
FY19 highlighted the fact that the economic expansion in these years had not been based on a
sustainable strategy and was susceptible to various stabilisation measures, such as the cut in
development expenditure,` said the report, adding that it has exposed the structural deficiencies
faced by the economy yet again, requiring immediate policy attention.

The report said the agriculture sector registered a marginal growth of 0.8pc during FY19, in sharp
contrast to 3.9pc a year earlier. This was primarily due to a contraction in the production of the crop
sector.

WASHINGTON: None of the US-backed reintegration programmes enabled any significant number
of excombatants to socially and economically rejoin the Afghan society, says an of ficial US report
sent to Congress this week.

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which compiled
the report, also pointed out that programmes targeting Taliban insurgents did not substantially
weaken the insurgency or contribute meaningfully to parallel reconciliation efforts.

`If there is ever to be a true, sustainable peace in Afghanistan, reintegration of the Taliban and
other combatants will be a necessary component of that process, whether that process begins days
or years from now, warned Inspector General John Sopko.

The SIGAR report, which was released to the public on Friday, also reviews efforts to revive the
Afghan peace process, which seeks to end the 18-year-old war.

In September, the Taliban and theTrump administration appeared on the verge of a breakthrough
deal.But Mr Trump abruptly declared the peace talks `dead` after a Taliban attack in Kabul killed an
American soldier. He made the announcement hours before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and
senior Taliban leaders was set to arrive at a US presidential resortto sign the deal.

The SIGAR report notes that since October 2018, US and Taliban representatives have been meeting
in Doha, Qatar, to find a peaceful end to the Afghan conflict. The Kabul government, however, did
not participate in talks as the Taliban does not recognise it.

The reports notes that the topics discussed in Doha included conditions for withdrawal of foreign
forces from Afghanistan and for preventing terrorists from again using Afghanistan as a platform for
planning and launching attacks.

Despite the suspension, both sides appear keen to start the talk process while the United Nations is
calling for direct talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government `as soon as possible,` the
report adds.

But the SIGAR report warns that `even if intra-Afghan talks produce anagreement, and even if
reintegration programs are undertaken, other complications can arise.` Such as, some Taliban
fighters may decide they want no part of a peace agreement.

The report also warns that even if a peace agreement covering all insurgents in Afghanistan were
reached, `f ailure to reintegrate former fighters may simply produce an interval between bouts of
violence.

That`s why SIGAR believes that the `reintegration of ex-combatants is going to remain highly
relevant if and when we get a peace process.

Underlining the enormity of the reintegration program, SIGAR points out that an estimated 60,000
full-time Taliban fighters, as well as numerous other non-Taliban combatants will have to be
reintegrated if, and when, the Afghan government and the Taliban reach a political settlement.

`Any major reintegration effort is very likely to f ail in the absence of an agreement between the
Afghan government and the Taliban on terms for the reintegration of former fighters, Mr Sopko
warned, Otherwise, former fighters and their families `face enormous risks of retribution` with likely
little protection from the government, he added.

STUDENT assignments, even at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels, tell a relatively
unhappy story about how students are (not) learning optimally from their readings and/or
discussions within their classes.

There are those who outright plagiarise and hand in work that others have done. There are such
students in all classes and/or universities, but I am not talking about these students here. These
students have clearly opted out of the learning process, possibly in quest for just a degree/diploma,
or for another reason, but I will ignore issues of how to engage this group if thatis needed and leave
that topic for another day.

When I read assignment papers, a substantial proportion of papers essentially consist of summaries
of what students have read from the textbooks and/or papers they had been assigned. In the case
of research papers, other than any empirical work they might have done themselves, most of the
conceptual frame and analysis comes from other people`s thinking and writing.

In two decades of teaching, one of the things I have found hardest in my interactions with students
is how to get them to reflect on their learning and how they learn. This is not about speed reading,
speed comprehension and so on, it is about how readings are internalised, how they are
synthesised, how they shape their understanding, and how this all eventually reflects in their
knowledge and worldview.

The first problem is, of course, that there are many students who do not read widely. Sometimes,
they do not even read assigned text and/or papers.

But, more than that, most of the students do not read around their assigned reading. They do not
have a contextfor their assignedreadings;they do not have access to relevant examples, and do not
have access toconnectingthoughts thatcouldhave come from extra readings. Students are usually
made to enrol in a number of courses so that thereading loads they carry are significant. But
whatever the reason, it results in a lack of sufhcient reading in and around the area of interest.

The course load also leads to scant time for reflection. Students need to think about what they
read;theyneed toconnect acrossreadings,across topics and sometimes across subjects as well. But
they never get the time to do that during semesters. And, even if they have free time, they might
not and most do not know how to connect across readings, topics and subjects. Their thinking
remains in silos, and these silos tend to be quite narrow.

In my teaching of economics, it has been easy to get students to give me definitions. It has been
harder to get students to give examples of issues linking to the definition. It is even harder to get
them to give examples other than those that are given in their textbooks, and it is very hard to
make them come up with examples from their lives. The hardest part of all is to make them reflect
on phenomena in the `real` world around them and to get them to think of how the concepts they
are reading about are reflected in the world around them.

But if students cannot internalise what they read to the point where they can use it to understand
what is going on around them, it is not learning (or at least not full learning) and it is definitely not
going to have an impact (or a sufficient impact) on their growth.

Part of the problem stems from early training at the school level. A lot of our teaching and learning,
and testing of teaching and learning, is about reproduction and regurgitation. The mathematics
method or the history lesson that was taught do students remember it? And how do we test their
`understanding`? By asking them to reproduce things. Students internalise this as the method of
learning and believe this is what education is about.

When I teach a concept from economics,philosophy or education, the fields I teach in, I am not
interested in hearing from students what Kant said about the issue. I want students to read Kant,
yes, but I want them to read Kant to make sense of the concept we are dealing with. And then,
when I want students to write papers on it, I want to know what students got out of their
engagement with authors who have thought on the same issue before them. It is the views of the
students, not of Kant, that are of interest to me.

Let me caution about another danger here. This is not to say that students can articulate their own
opinions about a concept and/or issue without engaging with, as one author put it, `the best of
what has been thought about this subject`. So, to continue with the example here, the issue might
not be able to be understood and/or explored without engaging with Kant. An opinion without the
requisite reading and engagement would be of little value. But an opinion thatis only restricted to
reproducing what Kant had to say about the subject is also of little value. The key is to engage with
Kant and then to go ahead and make sense of the world using that engagement. This last step is
usually missing.

Education and learning is about engaging with conversations that have been going on for a long
time and that will continue to go on. Children grow into these conversations, and this is what
education is about this is what being human is all about as well. It is not just about learning specific
skills, methods or any list of facts. It is also not about reproducing what others have said. There
have been alot ofconversations on criticalthinkingand learning in Pakistan, and they continue. The
article is an attempt to discuss some concerns within this broader conversation.• The writer is a
senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, and an associate
professor of economics at Lums, Lahore

THE global demand for green transition is growing, especially among the youth who will inherit our
Earth. It is no longer seen as the responsibility of just the government, it is the responsibility of
every public institution, company and citizen to do what they can in their domain. It was the pledge
of more than 70 nations at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York on Sept 23 to make concrete
plans now for how to reach the goal of climate neutrality by 2050.

In Pakistan, there are still voices arguing against green transition. Some say that the countries that
industrialised first, created the problem and that they should carry the burden of solving it. They
say that Pakistan is responsible for only 1pc of carbon emissions, so it does not matter much
anyway.

Climate aside, the strongest arguments for Pakistan are economic and with regard to resource
survival. They are compelling.

Firstly, green transition in the energy sector would mean much lower electricity prices as well as a
much smaller burden on Pakistan`s troubled trade balance. The energy sector in Pakistan primarily
runs on fossilfuels-oil,gasand coal. Consequently, electricity is very expensive in Pakistan, and this is
making Pakistan less competitive economically. The heavy dependence on imported oil and gas is
also undermining Pakistan`s trade balance and is a major component of the current economic crisis.

Solar and wind turbines can produce electricity at half the price of oil and coal or better. With the
help of pioneering wind turbine giant Vestas and others, Denmark has the world`s highest amount
of electricity from renewables approaching 70pc in 2020, but at the same time has the lowest
loadshedding and one of the lowest production cost levels in the world.

The message is clear: the more renewable sources for producing electricity, the better for the trade
balance and for lower energy prices. And it would make Pakistani businesses much more price-
competitive in the global markets! Secondly, global consumers are turning to sustainable
production, and soon this will also be reflected in tax incentives and regulations in Pakist an`s two
biggest export markets: the EU and the US. Already, as many as two-thirds of consumers have a
strong preference for sustainable products, and thistrendisexpectedtostrengthenoverthe coming
year s. Big enterprises like Carlsberg and Starbucks are taking out plastic from their line of products
to meet those expectations.

Moreover, it is only a matter of time before an intensifying race to meet climate goals will impose
sustainability standards on products being imported to, for instance, Europe.A little further down
the line, Pakistan`s main export markets will also put in place far stricter regulations for products.

The message is clear: those who can produce sustainably will be the winners on the economic
markets.

Thirdly, building a circular economy is crucial for Pakistan to preserve its resources. Pakistan is one
of 10 countries in the world that will be most affected by climate change. Pakistan has numerous
environmental and resource challenges that will have to be resolved quickly, if, for instance, water
resources and the ability to grow agricultural crops are to be available also for future generations.

In Pakistan, 85pc of water is used in agriculture. The lack of waste management is slowly but
literally turning Pakistan into a wasteland. Air quality ranks among the poorest in the world and that
has an impact on health standards.

The message is clear: sustainable handling of waste, protection of aquifers frompollution and saving
on water resources are indispensable to Pakistan.

Solutions exist.

Waste-to-energy and recycling solutions could make it possible to put a value on waste and thereby
finance solutions. In Denmark, most waste is recycled, some is turnedinto energy and only 1pc goes
into a landfill.

The newest state-of-the art waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen can convert 500,000 tons of
residual waste to energy every year practically without the emission of toxic fumes. The investment
is expected to fully pay for itself through the sale of energy.

In October, Copenhagen hosted the C40 World Mayors Summit with coordination among the
largest cities around the world, including Karachi. Cities are responsible for 70pc of global carbon
emissions and 80pc of energy use, and that is why green and smart solutions for cities are crucial for
overall global green transition. Innovative solutions are being developed and shared here and
Pakistan can benefit directly.

For Pakistan, climate neutrality is not just something `nice to do`. It is a `need to do` for survival.
And on top of that it just makes good economic sense.

The green entrepreneurs of today, whether countries or business companies, will be the global
winners of tomorrow.• The writer is ambassador of Denmark to Pakistan.

BY A H M E D B I L A L M E H B00 B | 11/10/2019 12:00:00 AM

AMID the current political turmoil, accountability and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB)
figure most prominently. On the one side is a passionate section of the population eager to punish
and even `hang` anyone who, in their opinion, has plunderednationalwealth.NABisthe
primeinstrument through which they wish to realise their wishes, as the institution has been at the
centre stage of this accountability drive during the past few years. On the other hand is a sizeable and
growing lobby which believes the accountability process is not just and even-handed and is turning
into a tool of political victimisation.
A number of politicians, businessmen and civil servants have been complaining and protesting about
how the process of accountability is being conducted, but the most authoritative statement on the
issue was given by Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khosa while speaking recently at the start of
the new judicial year. Mincing no words, he said: `We ... feel that the growing perception that the
process of accountability being pursued in the country at present is lopsided and is a part of political
engineering, is a dangerous perception and some remedial steps need to be taken urgently so that the
process does not lose credibility ... The recovery of stolen wealth of the citizenry is a noble cause and
it must be legitimately and legally pursued where it is due, but if in the process the constitutional and
legal morality of society and the recognised standards of fairness and impartiality are compromised
then retrieval of the lost constitutional and legal morality may pose an even bigger challenge to the
society at large in the days to come.

It was very surprising that despite the fact that these powerful words were spoken by the country`s
topmost judicial authority at an important event, the concerned institutions did not take much notice
nor was there much of a change in NAB`s conduct.

NAB is the latest of the accountability mechanisms with which Pakistan has experimented during the
past 70 years or so. In the initial few years, its performance and political neutrality remained
aboveboard;thatis,untilGenPervezMusharraf,at the beginning of whose tenure it was set up,acquired
political ambitions of his own. NAB then became the premier institution through which politicians
were arm-twisted into switching their loyalties to Musharraf and his favourite political party, the
PML-Q. Since then, though NAB has done some commendable work, its reputation as a neutral state
institution has never recovered.

NAB is not the first such institution which has been blamed for one-sided accountability and political
engineering in Pakistan. This country has a long history of enacting laws and creating institutions
ostensibly for the sake of accountability but whose primary aim was to target a particular section of
society, especially the one which was not on the right side of the government of the time.

Pakistan`s first constituent assembly passed the controversial Public and Representative Of fice
(Disqualification) Act, 1949 (Proda)that provided for the trial of public office holders and
disqualification from holding public of fice for up to 15 years. The law was thoroughly misused
against political opponents.

In March 1959, the martial law administration of Gen Ayub Khan promulgated the Public Offices
(Disqualification) Order (Poda) along the lines of Proda. It then went a step further and also
promulgated the Elective Bodies (Disqualification) Order in August 1959. Ebdo was meant to get rid
of all those political elements that could offer resistance or come in the way of Gen Ayub`s political
ambitions. The system did not spare anyone against whom even the slightest charge of misconduct
could be investigated. Ebdo also provided for the possibility of voluntary retirement, in which case
the inquiry against the public official was to be dropped. Over 6,000 persons were hit by Ebdo, the
majority of whom either opted to retire or were disqualified.

In the post-Musharraf era, both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto used their own peculiar
accountability devices to destroy their political opponents.

Even the presidents of the country acted in a partisan manner when they established special
accountability cells within the presidency to institute cases against the prime ministers sacked by
them.

The Ehtesab Bureau established from 1997-1999by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif under senator
Saifur Rehman earned special notoriety for torturing and aggressively convicting political opponents,
especially Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Zardari. This history sadly tells us that impartial
accountability was perhaps never the objective; the idea was to settle political scores in the guise of
accountability.

The NABlawwasimproved afteritwas amended to provide for the bipartisan appointment of the NAB
chairman by the prime minister after meaningful consultation with the leader of the opposition. But
20 years down the line, after experimenting with various brands of accountability, NAO 1999, or the
NAB law as it is more commonly known, needs to be reformed because the process of accountability
must inspire across-the-board respect and credibility. If the NABlaw has not been
reformedsofar,NABisnottoblame:itistheresponsibility of the major political parties represented in
parliament to amend the law and bring in needed reforms. The PML-N and the PPP had agreed on
these reforms in their Charter of Democracy but during their terms of government between 20082013
and 2013-2018, they f ailed to amend the law.

Even now, a broad agreement seems to exist among the major parties, including the PTI, about the
need to improve the NAB law but political confrontation does not allow them to pass the required
amendments. Just a few days ago, among a number of ordinances bulldozed through the National
Assembly by PTI legislators was one stipulating that those convicted under the NAB law of having
committed corruption of over Rs50 million will be incarcerated as class-C prisoners.

As long as political expediency and the temptation to harm political opponents remains the priority,
the accountability process will continue to be perceived as a tool of political engineering, to borrow
the term used by the chief justice of Pakistan.

The writer is president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency.

president@pildat.org Twitter:@ABMPildat

BY ALI TAUQEER SHEIK H | 11/10/2019 12:00:00 AM

SINCE 2007, an early warning system (EWS) is operational at Nullah Lai, a seasonal stream in
Rawalpindi with a catchment area stretching into the recesses of the Islamabad Capital Territory.

This EWS has six rain and two water level gauges, taking measurements of the water level every
two minutes; the data is wirelessly transmitted to a control room for analysis by meteorologists.
The forecast is then passed on to Rawalpindi`s city administration, from where, through 10 warning
stations, instructions can be issued to the residents to get to higher ground or evacuate. All this is
done to protect local communities and their possessions against flash floods that have a cruelly
brief warning time: 80 minutes.
This excellent system, which was supported by the Japanese government, cost barely $5.5 million to
set up. The Fourth National Flood Protection Plan identified 24 additional locations across the
country to instal similar EWS but the progress has been uneven and sluggish.

In the transboundary context, several seasonal streams and tributaries of the Ravi and Sutlej flow
from India to Pakistan. For these, an integrated EWS can be set up to give one or two days` notice
to local populations to save their lives and livelihoods. In fact, India and Pakistan can instal pollution
monitoring gauges and inform each other about the level of pollutants during the lowflow periods.

Pakistan needs to desperatelyinvestin its EWS capacity by upgrading installed technologies in order
to manage river flooding and the increasingly serious challenge of urban flooding. For now, this
country has only seven radars installed in different cities for weather forecasts. These radars are
essential, but not the only component of any EWS. Of them, only two are said to be working
properly, while the reliability of the rest is questionable. Flood telemetry is needed the most for
Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and the hill torrents of Punjab.

Experts argue that the country needs to instal at least 13 weather radars to deal effectively with
river floods and other extreme events. Therefore, there is an urgent need to step up efforts to
complete such stations in Karachi, Sukkur, Multan, and Lahore. In addition to the ongoing
collaboration with Japan, agreements have recently been signed with China under CPEC to fill the
void. The progress with the World Bank on hydrometeorological hazards is uneven, owing primarily
to the malaise in governance.

Pakistan needs to instal the latest gauging system to keep a check on rainfall and river flows so that
forecasting centres in provincial capitals can get timely and accurate information. The improved
capacity will indeed helpin dealing with floods, but Pakistan will still need to focus on improving
climate and disaster governance to deal effectively with the growing list of climate induced risks
including landslides, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF), droughts, heatwaves, etc.

Meteorological predictions need to be supported by an augmented capability in decision-making

systems and the ability to implement decisions at the communitylevel.

This will call for interdepartmental and interprovincial coordination.

Multi-hazard and vulnerability risk assessments using various methodologies have been designed
and developed for scores of districts in each province. These assessments go beyond floods and
cover a wide range of vulnerabilities, including climateinduced disasters. The GLOF-II project,
supported by the Green Climate Fund, has provisionforalargenumberofcommunity-based EWS for
eight districts of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Bangladesh and India are also supported by international donors to develop community-based
solutions to deal with disasters.The World Meteorological Organisation needs to engage with India
and Pakistan and help them develop mechanisms for sharing meteorological and environmental
data. This would also benefit their neighbouring countries.

The Global CommissiononAdaptationconvened by 18 nations has just released its report, concluding
that a 24-hour `warning of a coming storm (or heatwave) can cut the ensuing damage by 30 per
cent, saving lives and protecting assets worth at least 10 times the cost of the alert system`.

According to some estimates, over 700,000 people in Pakistan are affected by floods each year
resulting in an annual loss of about 1pc to the GDP, ie almost $2 billion.

This is bound to increase: according to a study by the World Resource Institute, an estimated 2.7m
people could be affected annually by river floods in Pakistan by 2030.

Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan are four of the five most exposed countries in the world to
river-based floods (Vietnam is the fifth one). Given their population density, growing urbanisation,
and the vulnerability of their populations to floods, they need to take river flooding as a regional
and not just a domestic national challenge. • The writer is an Islamabad-based expert on climate
change and development.

atauqeersheikh@gmail.com

[TOP]

Our ghost mathematicians

BY P E R V E Z H O O D B H OY | 11/9/2019 12:00:00 AM

SCAMS and scandals shock no one in Pakistan.

Why should they? The corrupt are never punished except if they cross swords with those behind
the scenes. With this dismal truth before me, I pen here an unusual story that would grab headlines
in another country. To be named below are several persons who would have ended up behind bars
in any country where there is rule of law. Several others whether complicit or negligent would be
shamed, reviled and removed from their current official positions. Knowing that nothing will
happen here in Pakistan, this is still a story I must tell.

Briefly: between 2003 and 2013 dozens of European mathematics professors were flown into
Pakistan at government expense. They came under the Higher Education Commission`s socalled
Foreign Faculty Hiring Programme (FFHP). A big budgetary chunk went to the Abdus Salam School
of Mathematical Sciences (AS-SMS), an affiliate of Government College-University in Lahore. SMS
received Rs638 million f rom HEC for salaries and airfare.

The imported professors were listed as full-time SMS faculty with Western-level salaries convertible
to euros and dollars. Some were paid for as long as eight years. They were supposed to teach
students all year round, supervise their research, and add to overall national prestige by publishing
highlevel mathematics research using their Pakistani institutional address, ie that of SMS.

This did not happen. Some foreign professors visited Lahore for just four to five months of the year,
others for half this time, and still others for at most four to six weeks. Still, apart from those on
shortterm appointments, year after year all were paid a full 12-month salary. When later asked,
some said Lahore was too hot while others said it was too dangerous.

Research publications of the foreign professors did not carry SMS`s name although they were
formally full time SMS employees. Clearly several were making brief junkets to Pakistan while
actually employed elsewhere. How the ghost professors managed to supervise one hundred PhD
theses at SMS is a mystery. The quality of these graduates is for the reader to guess.An investigative
report can be found on the SMS website. Such detailed investigations are unknown in Pakistan`s
academic history. Spread over 456 pages (including email correspondence with relevant foreign
professors) it was patiently put together over two years by an of ficially constituted committee of
three individuals presently employed at SMS: Prof Amer Iqbal (convener), Prof Fiazudin-Zaman, and
Muhammad Imran Khan (administrative and finance of ficer). They deserve our highest respect for
the risk they took.

Bullet points gleaned from this report follow: • FFHP was launched by HEC in 2003. On the HEC
side the officials responsible for this programme and disbursement of funds to SMS were: Dr Atta-
ur-Rahman (then HEC chairman), Dr Sohail Naqvi (then HEC executive director), and Wasim Hashmi
Syed (then FFHP project director).

Presently Dr Rahman heads another major government education initiative in the PTI government.

Shall we hope that another disaster will be averted? • From 2003 to 2013 the SMS officials directly
responsible for the disbursement of funds received from HEC under FFHP were Dr A.D.R. Choudary
(director general, 2003-2014) and Ejaz Malik (director of finance & administration, 2003-2014).

The committee repeatedly sought to contact both but received no replies. They are said to have left
Pakistan.
• Fifty-eight foreign professors were hired at SMS under the FFHP programme with durations
ranging from a few months up to almost eight years. These professors were paid monthly salaries
which were deposited into their accounts opened in a local bank with the help of SMS staff. It is not
certain whether the professors themselves withdrew the money or someone else pocketed it.

• When the committee wrote to 38 foreign professors formerly at SMS asking them to verify their
salary payments, just 13 replied. Official records show each receiving payments between $150,000
to $300,000. The reader, by browsing through the email correspondence, can sense that some
professors were genuinely confused and had forgotten details from many years earlier. Several said
that they received far less than the alleged amount.Others recall being asked to sign blank sheets of
paper by the SMS staff.

• The committee also inspected the research publications of foreign professors employed by SMS
between 2003 and 2013 and found that these individuals showed their affiliation only to foreign
institutions and not to SMS. It noted that `this [is] rather odd since if someone was employed at
SMS for five or six years it is natural to expect that they will show SMS as their af filiation in their
research papers`. Stated differently: why on earth was Pakistan paying them? Hiring foreign
professors to teach in Pakistan once seemed an excellent idea. In 2003 when Dr. Atta-urRahman
asked me to create and head a FFHP committee for hiring physicists from abroad, I gladly accepted.
Subsequently I requested Prof Riazuddin (died 2013), who was Pakistan`s finest physicist after
Abdus Salam, as well as Prof Asghar Qadir, a distinguished physicist, to join the committee.

Dr Riazuddin, Dr Qadir and I spent many hours in many meetings poring over faculty applications
and making recommendations for appointing the best applicants. We were hopeful that infusing
foreign expertise would put new life into otherwise intellectually barren institutions across Pakistan.

But af ter a full year`s work we found ourselves sidelined. Decisions were made and appointments
were made against the committee`s advice and often without its knowledge. Thereafter we sent in
our collective resignation to Dr Rahman. Other factors seemed to be at work and we did not want
our reputations sullied.

Pakistan already has the distinction of having thousands of ghost schools in its rural areas. Now it
has set a world record by having hosted a ghost f aculty programme for a full 10 years and that too
in high-level mathematics at one of its oldest institutions. One hears of other scams in higher
education but none as brazen. Either no one knew about this one or, more likely, many knew but
none spoke up. All this happened right under the HEC`s nose.

One does not feel optimistic. • The writer teaches physics and mathematics in Lahore and Islamabad.

[TOP]
IF you wondered why Hafeez Shaikh, the prime minister`s special adviser on finance, rarely mal(es
public appearances to face the press corps, you got your answer on Monday. The remark about
tomatoes selling for Rs17 triggered many jokes around the country, but in my mind it brought back
a memory of a conversation I had with an eminent, though little known, (retired) economist in
Pakistan. I cannot name him because I do not have his permission to publicly cite that portion of the
conversation, which took place before the cameras were switched on.

`They create these short spurts of growth,` he said, `with money they don`t have. And after it`s
gone, they recover it all through inflation.

He was not talking about any government in particular, but a trend over the decades that he had
had the opportunity to witness up close. The bouts of inflation that follow every growth spurt in the
country`s history are in fact engineered precisely to recover the costs of the growth boom that was
created for free.

Creating such short-lived, temporary growth booms is the only aim of any government in power,
regardless of party. If you succeed in creating one you can say you left a legacy, since every boom
leaves behind something that was not there before it. So Nawaz Sharif`s first such boom in the early
1990s gave us a liberalised import regime, as well as the (now infamous) foreign currency deposit
scheme. Musharraf`s growth boom gave us the telecom revolution. Nawaz and Dar`s most recent
boom gave us massive investments in power and diversification of fuel base for power generation,
and so on. It was the misfortune of the PPP governments to rule in times when they could not
afford to give the country any such boom.

Far too much of our economic conversation then revolves around who had the bigger and better
boom. And far too much of the conversation on inflation revolves around pointing out that the price
hike is `cost-push` and not `demand-driven` and therefore must not be treated with high interest
rates, the traditional remedy.

Fact is the old adage that `inflation is a tax on thepoor` is more true for our country than perhaps
for many states. It is true that `cost-push` factors feed intotheinnationary
spiralsthatappearafterevery period of growth boom, though it is not universally true. The inflation
that appeared after Musharraf`s growth boom, for example, was driven largely by monetary factors
too much money had been created to feed what was one of the most artificial booms of our history,
and that surplus money had to be sucked back out of the system for the inflation to be brought
under control. Today`s inflation might be a slightly different story since it is fuelled in significant
measure by what economists might call`non-monetary factors`, such as upward adjustments in the
price of fuel.
There has been a fair amount of money creation, especially in the first three quarters of the last
fiscal year when government borrowing from the State Bank rose sharply. But compared to the
Musharraf years, this was short-lived and brought under control quite quickly.

What is common to all these spirals, however, is their impact on the poor. It is the rich who have
the most voice in the system and the poor who shoulder the burden of stabilising things. One of the
ways that governments around the world fight inflation is to raise interest rates, which raises the
cost of borrowing for firms. Since most large firms rely on borrowed money to pay for investment
and working capital, higher interest rates slow down the pace of activity in the economy. As
business to business transactions slow down, the level of demand in the economy falls across the
board. With falling demand come falling prices. At least that`s the broad brush strokes of how it is
supposed to work.Economists call this whole process `demand compression`, and in more inspired
moments might even speal( of a `leftward shift of the supply curve`, meaning the same quantity of
money should command a smaller slice of goods supplied. This is language designed to render
phenomena such as inflation more amenable to policy solutions. But the language has important
blind spots, and as a result the policy prescriptions it gives us have adverse impacts that the
policymakers cannot see.

Take `demand compression` as an example. For years, we heard the IMF and the World Bank make
the argument that subsidies are bad because their benefits are `untargeted`, and `therefore`
subsidies that are intended to benefit the poor end up benefiting the rich alike. Their argument was
to either target subsidies better, or to eliminate them. Today, after decades of making this
argument, it is rare to hear someone making the argument in favour of subsidies, except politicians.

But `demand compression` is just as untargeted.

It carpets its pain across the economy, making little distinction between rich and poor. The rich are
better able to compress their spending, but the poor, who spend more than half of their income on
food, have little room for `compression`. However, stabilisation demands `compression` equally
from both.

And nowhere do we hear the orthodoxy talking about the untargetednature ofthis stabilisation.

This is one reason why the whole episode involving tomatoes went as viral as it did. The
policymaker whose language cannot comprehend, much less describe, the pain that the poor have
to feel in the form of inflation, as well as the tools that policymakers use to combat it, was asked for
a brief moment to, at the very least, talk about food prices.

And he failed so spectacularly that he became a joke. Now think of all the other things that this
same policymaker, who has twice been called in to exorcise the economy of its deficits, cannot see.

That is the problem. • The writer is a member of staff.

khurram.husain@gmail.com Twitter: @khurramhusain

BY ASH RAF JEH ANG IR QAZI | 11/15/2019 12:00:00 AM

Opinions should only be based on facts Love is wise. Hatred is foolish Bertrand Russell WHAT is the
significance of Kartarpur? Can it be scaled up to impact India-Pakistan relations? Can it be extended
to a Kashmir settlement? Many Indians see it as a ploy by Pakistan to cultivate Sikh goodwill to
counter India`s policies towards Pakistan. Nevertheless, Narendra Modi expressed his appreciation
for Imran Khan`s initiative.

In Pakistan the initiative is very welcome but it is not expected to break any ice with India especially
after the Aug developments in India-held Kashmir (IHK). However, some do hope one good gesture
might lead to another including the possibility of Modi taking a more farsighted and statesmanlike
approach to Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations.

Coinciding with the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor the Indian supreme court decided the Babri
Masjid or Ram Janmabhoomi case in favour of the Hindu community. This elicited condemnation
from the Pakistan`s foreign office and a response from the Indian foreign of fice. The goodwill and
possibilities generated by the Kartarpur Corridor opening may have been diluted by the decision of
the Indian apex court.

Kashmir has been in lockdown for more than a quarter of a year. The situation is likely to get worse.
The Line of Control cannot remain quiet in such circumstances. India is not likely to reverse its
decision on Kashmir in the absence of real international pressure, nor is it likely to eliminate the
Kashmiriresistance short of anexponentialescalation in its already massive human rights violations
in the Valley. The international community is well aware of a potential human rights catastrophe in
IHK. But, like with climate change, it is currently not politically motivated enough to avoid the worst
outcomes.

In a worst-outcome situation, neither Imran Khan nor the Pakistan Army will be able to restrain the
people of Azad Kashmir and Pakistan from responding. That will raise the risks of an Indian assault
on Pakistan with all its possibly existential consequences for both countries. The very first and least
of these consequences would be the closing ofthe Kartarpur Corridor.

To avoid worst possible outcomes, the UN Security Council will need to get of f its butt. While most
of the major powers may be inclined to concentrate their pressure on Pakistan, this is not likely to
succeed because of the even greater domestic pressure in Pakistan to stop a perceived genocide in
IHK. In such a situation, only the vetowielding powers in the UN Security Country would be in a
position to persuade India to relent in order to avert a war, including the real risk of nuclear
exchanges.

An alternative scenario is for Pakistan to abandon the Kashmiris in IHK to their f ate while
maintaining a furious and largely futile diplomatic campaign against Indian atrocities. There are
many in Pakistan who quietly or openly advocate such an approach to ensure the survival of the
country.

Many suspect the government is itself wedded to this approach despite its public denials.

This approach hopefully assumes the Kartarpur initiative might have the potential to set in train a
series of developments that could eventually convince India to review its Kashmir policy, restore the
status quo before Aug 5, and resume dialogue with a Pakistan that manages to get off the FATF
greylist.

But why would Modi respond to such an approach? He certainly resents criticisms of his policies but
is under no pressure to revise them.

Moreover, his Hindutva base would instantly reject him if he revised the Aug 5 decision. He sees
Pakistan not India up the creek. He sees Pakistan not India doing U-turns. He sees himself as having
finally settled Kashmir. He sees himself as the embodiment of a triumphant ideology that has given
India great power status while putting an end to Pakistan`s dreams of Kashmir.

Modi may even see himself as joining an Asian trio of superpowers (China, Russia and India) that
leaves Pakistan out in the cold. He might see this as providing India even greater leverage with the
US.

He believes Indira Gandhi had an historic opportunity to finally settle Kashmir during the Shimla
negotiations in 1972 but was outsmarted by Bhutto.

He intends to do no such thing with Imran Khan. Inthis scenario, Kartarpur will have been a one-off
happening.

What is to be done? Pakistan needs to keep its nerve. It has to clean up its act on all fronts. It has to
structurally transform itself politically, economically and socially in order to achieve stability and
increasing prosperity and, just as importantly, project a positive image to the world which will allow
its point of view to register. None of this is happening. When it does the people will acknowledge it
loud and clear without the government having to shower praise on itself.
What `out-of-the-box` initiatives are available to the prime minister? He could consider a statement
reiterating his commitment to take risks for peace even at this hour of minimal hope. He could stun
the world by indicating a willingness to travel to Delhi to make a joint statement with Modi in which
both leaders acknowledge the urgent need to address the following: (i) common threats especially
climate catastrophe; (ii) the need to work towards eliminating conflict which could escalate
dangerously for the two countries, the region and the world; (iii) the core concerns of each other ie
eliminating terrorism in all its forms including state terrorism, and moving towards a principled
settlement of the Kashmir dispute acceptable to the people of Kashmir, India and Pakistan; (iv)
curbing, minimising and eliminating mutually hateful narratives, negative media coverage, etc; (v)
the revival of Kashmirand LoC-related understandings and CBMs to reduce tensions and
provocations; (vi) a comprehensive plan of bilateral exchanges, trade and investment, conferences
and seminars on a range of relevant issues; and (vii) developing a national consensus in support of
these initiatives.

The ball would be in India`s court. • The writer is a former ambassador to the US, India and China
and head of UN missions in Iraq and Sudan.

ashrafjgazi@gmail.com www.ashrafjgazi.com

AN article published in theweekly business pages of Dawn (Sept 9) said Hub Power (Hubco) planned
to set up a wastewater treatment plant in Karachi that would turn 50 million gallons per day (MGD)
of wastewater fit for industrial consumption.

A separate report in Dawn (Aug 23) quoted Sindh Industries Minister Jam lkramullah Dharejo as
saying that the Rs3 billion scheme for installing five combined effluent treatment (CET) plants for
industrial wastewater had been jointly approved by the provincial and federal governments. The
project is being executed by the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB).

It further said that the CET plant in Korangi Industrial Area, the only plant in Karachi, is not
functional. Nearly 96 per cent of industries do not have the effluent treatment facility.

Industrialists in Karachi should be thankful to the Sindh government, which is providing them with
industrial wastewater treatment plants. According to the polluter-pays principle, it is the
responsibility of industrialists to treat industrial wastewater.

CET plants have been installed and are in operation in numerous industrial clusters in a neighboring
country. They reduce the effluent treatment cost, provide better collective treatment and control the
land cost for small-scale industrial facilities that cannot afford individual treatment plants of their
own. Optimum working conditions for the treatment of effluent that are up to par with discharge
standards is a major mandate for any CET plant.
CET plants are actually municipal wastewater treatment plants. They only treat municipal (domestic)
wastewater. A typical plant consists of primary and secondary treatments as well as sludge handling.
The primary treatment is designed to remove large solids (e.g. rags and debris) and smaller inorganic
grit. Typical primary treatment operations include grit chambers and primary sedimentation tanks.

The secondary treatment removes organic contaminants by using microorganisms to consume

biodegradable organics. Aerated lagoons, activated sludge, trickling filters and rotating biological
contactors are examples of common secondary treatment operations.

In developed countries, these plants can have advanced treatment operations such as nitrification, de-
nitrification and the physical-chemical treatment. Effluent is discharged to a receiving stream (creek,
river, lake, estuary or ocean) post-treatment.

Both primary and secondary treatment processes generate sludge. Treated sludge can be used either
as fertiliser/soil conditioner or disposed of in a landfill. Conventional pollutants are biochemical
oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids (TSS), thermo-tolerant coliforms, pH, oil and grease.

Municipal wastewater treatment plants are not designed to treat toxic or non-conventional pollutants
that are present in industrialwastewater. Effluents from both industrial and commercial sources can
cause problems in municipal plants. It can also have detrimental effects on the water quality of the
receiving stream.

That is why the pre-treatment of effluents is recommended. The objectives of pre-treatment are to
prevent the introduction of pollutants into the municipal plant, which would otherwise interfere with
its operation.

A closer look at CET plants reveals a number of potential problems. Assuming a CET plant is
established in Karachi`s Site area, almost all industries in the industrial zone will discharge their
effluent to that plant. Under normal practice, only similar types of industries should connect to the
plant and discharge their pre-treated effluent. Some industries mayhave cosmetic pre-treatment while
others may not have any pre-treatment at all. More importantly, heterogeneous types of effluent from
different industries will likely discharge into the plant.

What will happen to the plant? Simply stated, it will not work. In biological terms, it will be `struck
up`. There are two reasons for this.

One, toxic substances like heavy metal, organochlorines, polychlorinated biphenyls and organic fatty
or acetic acid, will find their way into the plant`s influent waste stream. If the CET plant consists of
the aerobic system, those toxic substances will wipe out the bacterial population, which is otherwise
responsible for the degradation of organic matter.

The CET plant will become non-functional if there is a high effluent load. Textile industries,
typically, discharge high volumes of effluent load.

If the CET plant is of anaerobic (devoid of oxygen) type, an antagonism of biological reactions will
take place. Acids will destroy the methane bacteria, making the plant biologically dysfunctional.
Sludge collected in the sedimentation tanks of the plant will be highly toxic. There is no way that can
be treated. It will be dumped at some dumping site, causing groundwater and air pollution.

The industrial wastewater treatment entails many operating problems that generally require help from
foreign qualified experts. A small technical error can easily upset the whole plant. The main problem
with industrialwastewater is that it contains toxic pollutants, which cannot be easily removed.

If the municipal wastewater treatment can somehow remove toxic pollutants, they will end up in
sludge. Toxic pollutants in sludge mean that the latter cannot be safely disposed of.

Toxic metals removed in the primary treatment stage can affect the efficiency of sludge digestion.
For example, chromium can inhibit the reproduction of aerobic digestion microorganisms, thereby
disrupting sludge treatment.

It will produce sludge that must be disposed of through special treatment.

Industrial wastewater contains volatile organics, which produce gases. When discharged into the
sewer system, gases accumulate in the soffit area (headspace of sewers) of the pipe. These gases can
cause explosions. In Kentucky, United States, large quantities of hexane was discharged into the
sewers in 1981. It got ignited and destroyed more than three miles of sewers and roadways, causing
$20 million in damage.

A combination of different streams also causes problems. For example, cyanide and acid, both
present in many electroplating operations, react to form a highly toxic hydrogen cyanide gas.
Likewise, toxic gas hydrogen sulfide is formed in leather tanning operations.

Metals like cadmium, chromium, mercury and lead cannot be destroyed or broken down through
treatment. Toxic metals can cause a number of human health problems, such as lead poisoning and
cancer. Toxic organics, like pesticides, dioxins, solvents and polychlorinated biphenyls, are cancer-
causing. They can cause kidney and liver damage, anaemia and heart failure.

Thus, it will not be possible for the industries in Karachi to maintain the sanctity of these plants. As a
result, they will become biologically dysfunctional. The plants` effluent will pollute the receiving
stream. It will also bring a bad name to the Sindh industries department because it will be the
sponsoring agency.

The best solution is to give the funds of Rs3bn, earmarked for the installation of five CET plants in
Karachi`s industrial zones, tothe respective trade and industry associations through the Karachi
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI). The associations should establish the plants on their
own. They should direct the industries to establish pre-treatment systems. The associations should
then be responsible for the operation and maintenance of these plants.

More importantly, the associations should be made responsible for the effluent quality of the
treatment plants, which should meet the effluent discharge standards. The Sindh industries
department should act as the watchdog and should be at liberty to impose heavy fines on the
associations in the case of non-compliance. • The writer is a former director of the Environmental
Protection Agency, Sindh
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EARLIER this year, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) published the 2018 edition of its semi-
frequent Pakistan Employment Trends report.

The report draws data from previous rounds of the Labour Force Survey (LFS), including the latest
one which came out in 2017-18, and confirms a number of accelerating (and potentially worrying)
transformations.

This piece is going to focus on three such transformations the declining share of agricultural work in
the labour force; the persistently large share of casual and informal work, especially in paid
employment; and the working conditions confronting a large segment of workers.

The first trend is probably the most important, highlighting long-term structural change in the
economy. While it is now as big a cliché to suggest thatPakistanisnolongeranagrariancountry(asit
was once to suggest that it is), the shif t over the last decade is worth highlighting. In 2007-08,
approximately 42 per cent of the country`s labour force was engaged in activities defined as
`agriculture` by the Pakistan Standard Classification of Occupations.

This amounted to approximately 22 million people out of a total labour force of 51m.

By 2017-18, the percentage employed in agricultural activities had f allen by 5pc to 37pc. While the
absolute number of people employe d in agriculture is still growing by about 1pc per year, largely
on account of overall population growth (and higher fertility rates in rural areas), the trend away
from agricultural activities is fully in place. Barring a major catastrophe, the trend is likely to hold,
and it would be reasonable to assume that the coming decade may witness an absolute decline in
the number of rural workers for the first time in the country`s history.

The second trend relates to where the former potential pool of rural workers is now heading to
meet subsistence requirements. In an encouraging development, the trend of the past decade
remained tilted in favour of industry, which saw labour force participation rise from 21pc to 24pc,
while the services sector absorbed the remaining 2pc.

Substantively, this reflects a `modernisation` of the economy, a fact borne out by another key
statistic the rise of paid employment during the same decade. Overall, the number of wage and
salariedworkers has risen by nearly 5pc to an all-time high of 43pc, which, in absolute terms, comes
to just over 28m individuals.

A worrying trend underscoring this change, though, is that of the 28m or so that are now reliant on
wage work to make ends meet, only 51pc of them have access to regular paid employment.
This number, combined with the number of piecework based workers, has declined by about 6pc
over the last decade. What has increased, providing cause for consternation, is the figure of casual
paid employees (or irregularly paid employees) whose share now stands at 33pc of all wage
workers.

Alongside this casualisation of labour, the over-all share of informal employment (in manufacturing
and services) remains at 71pc of the total labour force. While more granular data will help us obtain
a more comprehensive picture, one plausible conclusion that can be drawn is that new wage (and
own-account) work located mostly in urban areas continues to be heavily informalised, outside of
the remit of extant labour regulation and employmentbased social protection.

Historically, such regulations and protections are downstream consequences of structural

transformations in the labour force, which are accompanied by the increasing political power of the
working class nested in labour unions and representative political organisations. Growing
informalisation, however, undercuts that by creating isolated and disconnected working conditions,
which remain exposed to all manner of shocks. Little surprise then that nearly 70pc of workers in
retailwholesale trade, one of the biggest sectors that absorbs low and semi-skilled workers, are
categorised as vulnerable.This facet leads us to the third point, concerning working conditions
confronting individuals who are being absorbed by the `modernising` economy.

Informality, and the lack of requisite social protections that come along with it, have already been
identified as persisting issues from the preceding decade.

Also of considerable concern is the issue of excessive hours worked, which the LFS defines as over
50 hours per week. Here too growing urban sectors like wholesale retail trade and transportation
and storage reported one quarter and one-tenth of their total workforce engaging in excessive work
respectively.

The government`s job creation agenda, launched as it was with much fanfare at the start of its
term, needs to remain cognisant of these structural trends, and their worrying aspects that pose
social development challenges. It needs to present a clearer picture of where new jobs are being
created, who is taking them up, and what prospects do these jobs hold for long-term social
mobility.

Doing so would also involve assessing the role of PBS and the quality of material that it puts out.

Official statistics, and accompanying reports, are vital for judging government performance, doing
academic research and informing policymaking. It is also true that all over the world they remain
inundated withissues of data quality; however, this problem appears to be particularly acute in the
case of Pakistan. Even when the underlying data may be usable, its presentation and access pose a
considerable challenge for users.

The 2018 Employment Trends report suf fers from a host of such issues, wracked as it is with poor
editing and bizarre language. In one particularly egregious passage, a decade-long trend was
described as `change down the time-lane is wavy`. The point here is not to shovel criticism onto
personnel working in the PBS, but to highlight that capacity constraints, dictated by chronic
underfunding of theinsutudon,andrecentchangesinitsgoverning structure, pose long-term issues for
government accountability, research and policymaking in the country. • The writer teaches politics
and sociology at Lums.

THE Punjab government is increasingly showing signs of its willingness to work

towards the protection of the rights of minorities in the province. Last December,
the provincial government announced the Minorities Empowerment Package
aimed at uplifting marginalised religious communities. And now, after a meeting
with the National Commission for Minority Rights, Punjab Chief Minister Usman
Buzdar has given directives for the collection of details of non-Muslim employees
to ensure the protection of their rights, such as giving them a holiday on days of
religious significance. He also announced Rs25m (in addition to a similar amount
already allocated under the empowerment package) for scholarships to non-
Muslim research and post-graduate students. Given the province`s chequered
history with regard to extremism and violence against minorities, these efforts by
the Punjab government are an encouraging sign of its desire to promote religious
inclusion and harmony. Official proactive efforts might also check discriminatory
attitudes towards non-Muslim co-workers by their Muslim superiors or colleagues.

Despite being the hub of political power in the country, Punjab has witnessed
among the worst instances of religiously motivated violence against members of
minority communities. Incidents such as the brutal anti-Ahmadi riots of 1953 and
1974, the merciless burning of Christian houses in Gojra (Toba Tek Singh) in 2009
and Badami Bagh (Lahore) in 2013, and the burning to death of a Christian couple
in Kot Radha Kishan (Kasur) in 2014 remain etched in the nation`s collective
memory. However, some decisions taken by the judiciary and the government in
the recent past such as the acquittal of Aasia Bibi in a blasphemy case; the Supreme
Court`s decision to constitute a special bench to protect minority rights in light of a
2014 landmark verdict; and the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor for Sikh pilgrims
have led to some much-needed course correction. It is true that minority citizens in
Pakistan are still marginalised to a large degree, and enjoy fewer freedoms than
their Muslim counterparts. However, consistent efforts on the part of the federal
and provincial governments to promote religious harmony and the rule of law will
slowly but surely reverse at least some of the religiously motivated bigotry that
nonMuslims in this country have been subjected to for several decades.

It is to be hoped that the Punjab government delivers on what it has promised to

the non-Muslim communities of the province, and that the rest of the country also
emulates its example.

[TOP]

IN an interview with Dawn pub> lished on Sept 9, the CEO of Hub Power Company (Hubco) shared
his plans to provide Karachi with clean drinking water. The CEO should be careful in what he is
wishing for. He might just get it.

He said that a plant of 50 million gallons per day (MGD) will be set up at Site for the treatment of
industrial wastewater.

Its hydraulic capacity will later be increased to 150MGD, he added. Hiscompany has many other
water-related plans, including a desalination plant of 5MGD for DHA Karachi.

In the future, Hubco may consider taking over the water distribution and bill collection functions for
the entire city and provide it with drinkable water from its seawater desalination plant in Hub.

Desalination technologies are of three categories: thermal, membrane-based and charge-based.

The company intends to opt for thereverse osmosis desalination, a membrane-based technology,
for its DHAbased initiative.

In reverse osmosis, raw water is passed through a membrane that rejects substances meant to be
removed. The system splits the water in two streams: the concentrate stream, which contains the
substances, and the permeate stream, which passes through the membrane. The process takes
place when high pressure is applied across the membrane, which means it is highly energy-
intensive.

The use of high energy means higher emissions greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide.
According to one estimate, desalination plants on average use about 15,000 kilowatt-hours of
power for one million gallons of fresh water produced.

The water recovery rate in reverse osmosis plants is low. Only 25 per cent of the applied water is
recovered. This means that for every four cubic meters of saline water fed into the system, only one
cubic meter of fresh water is produced.
The rest of the three cubic meters of water are discarded as brine waste. The low water recovery
rate is a major problem.

The membrane fouling is also amajor problem. Fouling occurs when microorganisms and suspended
solids clog the small pores of the membrane.

It is necessary to carry out extensive pre-treatment on feed water because fouling affects the
performance of membranes. The pre-treatment process is costly.

Additionally, anti-fouling chemicals and antiscalant solutions end up in the discarded water, causing
sea pollution.

Membranes are highly sensitive to chlorine. So the water must be de-chlorinated before
desalination.

For drawing seawater, reverse osmosis plants employ surface intakes, which typically consist of a
number of screens to exclude marine life, trash and debris. Pretreatment is required for the
removal of organic matter, algae, dissolved organic carbon and silt to prevent these from clogging
membranes.

The intake of seawater impinges on marine life. Fish and other large organisms sometimes get
trapped on the intake screen and die.

A major problem is the disposal of brine, also known as concentrate or retentate. The level of
salinity in brine is about 50,000 parts per million or PPM.Seawater salinity is around 35,000PPM.

Brine contains chemicals, heavy metals, and anti-fouling stuff from the pre-treatment unit. Brine is
denser than seawater.

It sinks to the seafloor, destroying the marine food chain.

A recent United Nations-backed study says that the disposal of brine into the sea is expensive,
harms the environment and threatens the future use of seawater in desalination.

Additionally, sea levels are rising owing to the climate change, which will threaten the proposed
DHA desalination plant in Karachi.

Desalinated water is very pure and aggressive. It has to be stabilised before drinking. Stabilisers are
usually lime made from calcium carbonate and some caustic soda.
A number of potential health concerns related to reverse osmosis desalination have been identified.
Reverse osmosis systems may introduce biological (bacteria, protozoa and viruses) and chemical
(pharmaceuticals and personal care products) contaminants.

Boron is known to cause developmental toxicity and reproductive issues in animals. High boron
levels in water, whenused for irrigation, accumulate in plants.

Membranes can only remove about 50pc ofboron and pass the reston tothe product water.
Concerns have been expressed that boron may be found in desalinated water at levels greater than
the World Health Organisation`s provisional guideline value of 0.5 milligrams per litre. Boron in
seawater has concentrations of 4-7mg/litre.

The most important aspect, in my view, is the `demand risk`. This means that water demand will be
insufficient to justify the continued operation of the plant owing to the availability of less expensive,
alternative supplies as well as conservation and efficiency improvements, like water from K-IV
project in Karachi.

In Australia, four of the six desalination plants that have been developed since 2006 are mostly on
standby. Likewise, the Tampa Bay Desalination Plant in Florida, United States, does not run at full
capacity because demand is low amidst the availability of less expensive water supply options. •
The writer holds a master`s in water and wastewater engineering

[TOP]

NESTLED among the dry, arid hills of Amuri, almost four hours of drive from Dalbadin, Ali Dost`s
fields produced scarcely enough wheat and vegetables in a good rainy year to sustain his family
through the next harvest.

For cash, he would work as a `daily wager` in Dalbadin or Taftan, the border town famous for illegal
trade between Pakistan and Iran. But that was a few years ago.

Today Ali Dost, in his mid-50s, harvests a hefty wheat crop and grows vegetables throughout the
year even in times of poor rainfall and drought. `I no longer have to worry about feeding my family
or leave home for work in the city. I now harvest enough wheat and vegetables to feed my family
and sell the surplus in the market for cash,` he told a group of journalists from Lahore during a visit
to the area earlier this month. `A surplus crop saves me Rs80,000 in cash a year.

What changed his fortunes? A few small, inexpensive but sustainable interventions and training in
irrigation water management by an independent non-profit, Islamic Relief Pakistan (IRP), have
brought about dramatic changes in the lives of poor farmers. IRP was founded in 1984 by
postgraduate Muslim students in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Birmingham and is
operating in over 30 countries.

It has helped farmers scattered over scores of small villages across the drought-prone Chaghi, the
largest but poorest district of Balochistan bordering Afghanistan and Iran that hit headlines
internationally when Pakistan conducted a series of nuclear tests in its mountains in 1998. The IRP
has been working in different drought-hit parts of the province, mostly in Chaghi, which is ranked
among the poorest, least developed regions of the world, for more than last two decades.

The organisation has been supporting the local communities facing an acute water scarcity to
enhance their agriculture output and household income by using modern techniques like drip
irrigation, adopting drought-resilient seed varieties and crops, and establishing olive, date, grape
and pomegranate orchids under their Drought Resilient Agriculture Modelling (Dram) project.
Under this programme, it has helped more than 24,000 individuals with a funding of Rs250 million
spent over three years.

The villagers are also helped in damming rainwater to store it for a longer-term for drinking,
irrigation, household usage and recharging the groundwater table. The charity has established
community-based organisations and provided them with solar water pumps, green tunnels to grow
off-season vegetables ina controlled environment and solar dryers to dry their surplus.

Furthermore, unsold vegetables and fruit are offered for sale during the off-season, poultry is
distributed for domestic and commercial use, linkages are established with the market for earning a
fair profit on their produce and solar electricity provided to their homes. Treatment for blindness,
which is common in the area, is also arranged.

`We operate in areas where neither the government nor any other non-profit has reached to avoid
duplication,` said IRP programme manager in Balochistan Muhammad Essa Tahir, adding his
organisation works closely with the provincial government and its departments to ensure the long-
term sustainability of the interventions. The communities have to contribute to programme
interventions bydonating land required and providing labour to ensure their ownership of the
projects.

`Our need-based interventions have protected livelihoods of the communities we work with,
enhanced their household income levels, enabled them to send their children to schools where the
facility is available, spend more on their health, raised social awareness and helped check migration
caused by desertification of large patches of drought-hit farmland.

There are villages where women no longer have to walk miles to fetch water from the wells; we
have brought water through pipes at their doorsteps.

The desert climate of Balochistan is generally arid with some regions like the Chaghi district
receiving an average annual rainfall as low as 50 millimetres (the average annual precipitation in
Balochistan varies between 50mm and 500 mm and evaporation rates generally vary from 1,830mm
to 1,930mm per annum).

Long spells of drought in parts of the province have led to the desertification of agriculture land and
forced communities to migrate to cities, reduction in the size of livestock, loss of livelihoods and
spread of disease. The groundwater table across the province, including cities like Quetta, has
drastically depleted because of heavy pumping and drought over the last 30years. The government
either does not have enough money to help the affected village communities scattered in far-flung
areas or is unable to reach them because of rough terrain or the poor law and order conditions.

In some districts the water scarcity has reached an alarming level because of a lack of planning to
combat the impact of the changing climate that has dried up the traditional irrigation system, karez,
threatening the livelihoods of a large number of people dependent on agriculture and livestock. At
least two-thirds of the province is deprived of drinking water and more than 58 per cent of its land
is uncultivable owing to water scarcity.

`Recurring spells of drought have dealt a serious blow to farmers, leading to mass migration in some
parts of this district. Poverty, unemployment, harsh weather, smaller, scat-tered pockets of
population, and a lack of education and healthcare facilities and awareness are major problems of
Chaghi and most other parts of the province,` asserted Zahoor Shah, deputy director at the
agriculture department in Chaghi.

He agrees that there is a dire need for introducing drought-resistant crops and promoting efficient
irrigation methods and practices to help villagers. `Prolonged drought spells have badly affected
rainwater dependent agriculture and livestock. The widespread use of solar pumps (encouraged by
falling prices of solar equipment) to mindlessly draw groundwater across the province is developing
into yet another disaster: it is dramatically depleting the groundwater table.

A senior journalist from Quetta, Shahzada Zulfikar, points out that it is a major governance crisis in
the province that has led to the current situation. `The government does not have the capacity to
handle the environmental challenges and combat the threat of climate change facing the province
and destroying livelihoods of poor farmers. It is more about efficient governance and planning than
a shortage of funds. Efficient use of whatever money the government has and effective planning will
go a long way in helping the poor farmers affected by long spells of drought

The business community is desperately waiting for the government to initiate measures
that will reverse the downward spiral and reboot the economy. They believe special
economic zones (SEZs) can play a catalytic role in attracting investment, creating jobs,
boosting exports and reviving growth.

For SEZs to deliver, the relevant law will have to be tweaked to make it simple and more
responsive to investors’ needs, they believe. The SEZ Act of 2012, amended in 2016, limits the
scope and access of special zones to certain categories and is ambiguous on the mode of
development in zone locations.

They find the current pace of progress on SEZs too slow and the direction far from clear. The
economic merit, not politics, should guide the policy framework and the order of preference for
initiating work on the nine zones identified, they argue. Without naming names, they hinted at
the inclination of the government to take up projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa first despite natural
advantage for industrial development in other provinces. They were also critical of the exclusion
of the Ministry of Industries and Production from the exercises surrounding SEZs.

Leading businesses are not particularly excited about the Rashakai economic zone on the
outskirts of Peshawar. They look at the Dhabeji special economic zone with interest because of
its proximity to the port and the commercial nerve centre of the country i.e. Karachi.

They regretted that the government seems completely preoccupied with revenue generation and
import suppression. The attitude, they think, has compounded the problems for productive
sectors of the economy.

Hit hard by the decline in growth, they dread social unrest owing to rising inflation and growing
joblessness in a sagging economy.

The government is preoccupied with revenue generation,

which is compounding problems for productive sectors of
the economy
Last week, the Pakistan Business Council (PBC), an advocacy platform of the corporate sector,
circulated a document named “Policy Brief — Key Recommendations for a SEZ Framework”. It
was based on a study of the experience of dedicated industrial zones across five countries —
China, India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Cambodia. The PBC recommended re-orienting the SEZ
policy by making affordable land and infrastructure in a plug-and-play mode, proximity to port,
labour, road and rail networks and clusterisation the hallmarks of SEZs. The current framework
focuses on fiscal incentives for export and import substitution industry.

Talking to Dawn, PBC CEO Ehsan Malik did not hide his desperation for the initiation of
measures that signify the seriousness of the PTI government about the promotion of industrial
activity to revive growth. He saw complete neglect of the Ministry of Industries and Production
under successive governments as a reflection of flawed economic priorities that led to pre-mature
de-industrialisation.

Aware of the fate of businessmen who dared to call a spade a spade publicly, and probably
fearing to sound too critical of the government in explaining the PCB’s position, Mr Malik
started the conversation with generous appreciation of the PTI government for being more
accessible to the business elite than any earlier government. How this access has helped business
or the economy was not clear.

Mr Malik considers the government-private sector interaction crucial for confidence-building. “It
will be useful for the government to ask representatives from each sector the following: one,
what they want the government to do differently; and two, what they will do differently. The
government should then look at the shift of the needle before it firms up a sector-specific strategy
for growth.

“To promote industrialisation for growth, it is important for the government to understand the
hurdles stopping serious investors from committing resources. The 17 recommendations we
made in the SEZ document (available on the PBC website) focus on the removal of all key
roadblocks discouraging investors.

“It starts with the provision of affordable land that can only be used for the project it is acquired
for, leaving no scope for speculative real estate activity. The location of the zone should be near
either the source of raw material or logistic advantage. A zone in the middle of nowhere, no
matter how equipped, will not serve the purpose,” he said.

When asked why the PBC ignored the conditions on investors operating and drawing special
benefits in industrial zones that India implemented. Mr Malik said that Pakistan was too
investment-hungry to impose conditions. “India is another story. It is far ahead of Pakistan in
industrial development. Investors are keen to enter the Indian market so the government gets
away with investors conforming to their wishes. It is different here. In Pakistan, even locals are
reluctant so bringing foreign investment is way difficult.”

In India foreign companies in SEZs are obligated to plough back at least 50 per cent of their
profit in the country.

“The decision of future investment depends on the fate of the current investment by foreigners. If
returns are good, the investor will invest more. I don’t think it will be wise to impose conditions
when foreigners do not appear too keen,” he responded.

Sindh Board of Investment CEO Abdul Azeem Uqaili was upbeat. He told Dawn he expects the
Dhabeji special economic zone to be the first one to take off as the team in Sindh has worked
hard on it.

“We have acquired the land and started the open international bidding process for its
development. We are sufficiently happy with the response and hoping for a straightforward,
transparent and interference-free process ahead. We are already receiving queries from serious
national and foreign investors. I am confident that after the initial delays because of changing
policies at the centre, we have reached a stage from where the journey should be relatively
smooth.”

He agreed that the SEZ Act needs further amendments to suit the situation. Dawn’s attempts to
get feedback from the premier’s adviser on commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood, Board of
Investment (BOI) Chairman Zubair Gilani, BOI Secretary Omer Rasul, Industries and
Production Secretary Amir Ashraf Khawaja and other government functionaries proved futile.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 12th, 2019

HE impact of political polarisation in Pakistan is beginning to show in the country`s

anti-polio efforts. In a scathing report, the International Monitoring Board has
attributed the vicious resurgence of polio in Pakistan this year to a `lack of political
unity`. Describing the polio programme and related efforts as `a political football`,
the report states that the recent resurgence of polio cases 88 so far this year,
including seven of the more dangerous P2 strain that had been eradicated in 2014
reflects `a massive reversal of the trajectory to global polio eradication`, and that
too in less than a year. Pakistan reported more than 80pc of the total global polio
cases this year, with the crippling disease detected in areas that had been polio-
free as recently as the beginning of 2018. This is not the first time that lack of
political consensus with regard to the anti-polio efforts has been pointed out. But
the present report has drawn greater attention to the internal factionalism caused
in large part by the prevailing brand of national political discourse. It has also
highlighted the extent of damage to whatever progress Pakistan had made in it is
anti-polio efforts over the years with the help of international donors.

In fact, deep political divisions are not specific to polio. Similar verbal sparring and
blame games have hampered attempts at dengue control in Punjab and KP, as they
have in Karachi where even municipal services such as garbage collection have
been politicised. In addition, arbitrary bureaucratic changes and the inertia that has
beset the civil service after the last elections have contributed to the crisis in
provincial polio programmes. The fact that the polio programme, for all its flaws,
has managed to continue is a tribute to the efforts of our polio workers who have
had to face hostility from misinformed parents and threats to their lives by religious
extremists.

The prevalence of polio was highest in 2014 when 306 cases were reported and the
IMB had advised Pakistanis travelling abroad to carry immunisation certificates.
However, the government had managed to restrict the active polio virus to a
handful of locations in the country by 2018 and reduce the number of cases to
eight. With Prime Minister Imran Khan`s announcement to lead the vaccination
drive himself, the PTI-led government appears well-intentioned. But it has allowed
its petty rhetoric and open disregard for other political players to get in the way,
leaving it with very little political capital to be able to have a constructive dialogue
even on an issue as apolitical as polio eradication. One hopes that the government
will reflect on the findings of the report so that it can lead a joint effort by all
provincial health authorities and politicians to work towards the eradication of a
national and global health risk affecting the future of millions of children.

•--------------------------------