Sunday, March 31, 2013

Siyasatdanon Ki Nakaami Ki ‘‘Aamad’’

Please note: This post has been shifted to the Urdu Blog - Civil Pakistan. To see it, click the link below:

State Aristocracy’s Pakistan – 24

I started collecting and sharing this information just because of my focus on how the state aristocracy makes use of its capture of the state to further its interests and loot; however, there is so much to it appearing daily in the newspapers that to me it requires another blog fully devoted to the state aristocracy’s appropriation of the citizens’ tax money and misuse of the public authority.

Hence, I think I should give only the links to such news items and of course from such newspapers which I happen to see.

سندھ اسیمبلی: ارکان جاتے جاتے اپنے لیے مراعات کا بل منظور کرا گئے۔ سپیکرز، وزیرِ اعلیٰ، معاونین، ارکان کی تنخواہوں، الاؤنسز میں بھاری اضافہ ہوگا۔


[Roznama Express, March 16, 2013]
-----

115 out of 167 Sindh MPs did not pay tax


[The News, March 16, 2013]
-----

Key appointment made on lucrative post


[The News, March 16, 2013]
-----

PTA member’s appointment withdrawn under LHC pressure


[The News, March 16, 2013]
-----

Employees’ regularisation to affect fiscal management


[The News, March 16, 2013]
-----

Last minute loot: Where there is a bill, there is an increased pay


[The Express Tribune, March 16, 2013]
-----

Transparency takes on Punjab govt


[The News, March 17, 2013]
-----

70 new CNG licenses issued on last day


[The News, March 17, 2013]
-----

NAB stops PQA from awarding contract to Bahria Town


[The News, March 17, 2013]
-----

CDA chairmansacked for resisting choice plots to baboos


[The News, March 17, 2013]
-----

Govt surrenders Pakistanis’ rights to British govt


[The News, March 17, 2013]
-----

70 new CNG licenses issued on last day


[The News, March 17, 2013]
-----

CDA chairman sacked for resisting choice plots to baboos


[The News, March 17, 2013]
-----

پیپلز پارٹی ایف ـ بی ـ آر میں  600 ارب کا فراڈ چھوڑ گئی


[Roznama Express, March 18, 2013]
-----

Tax refund: Govt bequeaths Rs600b scam to caretakers


[The Express Tribune, March 18, 2013]
-----

Out with the new II: SC takes suo motu notice of CDA chief’s transfer


[The Express Tribune, March 18, 2013]
-----
چیف جسٹس تاحیات مراعات کے بل پر سوو موٹو ایکشن لیں


[Roznama Express, March 19, 2013]
-----

CCP issues notices to power utilities


[The News, March 19, 2013]
-----

Bilour appointed member social sector in Planning Division


[The News, March 19, 2013]
-----

Sidelined: Accounts office no longer under AGP


[The Express Tribune, March 19, 2013]
-----

Occupied public land: SC raises ghost schools in Islamabad, Sindh


[The Express Tribune, March 19, 2013]
-----

Last-minute transfers: SC restrains govt from implementing orders


[The Express Tribune, March 19, 2013]
-----

‘Textile industry defrauded exchequer of Rs500b’


[The Express Tribune, March 19, 2013]
-----

CCP issues notices to four power companies


[The Express Tribune, March 19, 2013]
-----

Despite ban: PM appoints scion of Bilour family to Planning Commission


[The Express Tribune, March 19, 2013]
-----

Budget paper: Extra billions given to army acknowledged



[The Express Tribune, March 20, 2013]
-----

پاسپورٹ فراہمی میں تاخیر پر چیف جسٹس نوٹس لیں ـ ٹرانسپیرینسی


[Roznama Express, March 21, 2013]
-----

دو لاکھ بجلی نادہندگان کے ذمے ایک کھرب، دو ارب روپے


[Roznama Express, March 21, 2013]
-----

کچھ لوگوں نے 600 ارب کا ریفنڈ کرا لیا ـ مانڈوی والا


[Roznama Express, March 21, 2013]
-----

Govt set to appoint 284 non-cadre officers in OMG

[The News, March 21, 2013]
-----

Degrees of 181 MPs remain unverified


[The News, March 21, 2013]
-----

Rs50 billion fund to rig polls, SC told


[The News, March 21, 2013]
-----

Rampant corruption in TDAP irks rice exporters


[The News, March 21, 2013]
-----

Appeal to chief justice: TIP seeks action over delayed passport delivery


[The Express Tribune, March 21, 2013]
-----

Eight-month performance: Govt spends about Rs950b more than its income


[The Express Tribune, March 21, 2013]
-----

Ashraf selects squads for his lifetime security


[The News, March 22, 2013]
-----

Cambridge confirms Waqas has a fake A-Level certificate


[The News, March 22, 2013]
-----

Dr Asim’s appointment as president’s physician withdrawn


[The News, March 22, 2013]
-----

FTO terms less number of returns filing shameful for tax machinery


[The News, March 22, 2013]
-----

Ledgers and losses: Watchdog gets through only 1% of govt’s Rs3tr budget


[The Express Tribune, March 22, 2013]
-----

Wait for the State Aristocracy's loot of Pakistan - 25

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Finished reading: Mazameen-e-Sharar, Jild Haftam

Please note: This post has been shifted to the Urdu Blog - Civil Pakistan. To see it, click the link below:

Democracy or rule of law

So the time has come whence the citizens of Pakistan need to decide what they want: democracy or rule of law.

The verdict of the Supreme Court (Jan 10) re the implementation of its own NRO judgment, in option 6 reads:

"The constitutional balance vis-à-vis trichotomy and separation of powers between the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive is very delicately poised and if in a given situation the Executive is bent upon defying a final judicial verdict and is ready to go to any limit in such defiance then instead of insisting upon the Executive to implement the judicial verdict and thereby running the risk of bringing down the constitutional structure itself this Court may exercise judicial restraint and leave the matter to the better judgment of the people of the country or their representatives in the Parliament to appropriately deal with the delinquent. After all the ultimate ownership of the Constitution and of its organs, institutions, mechanisms and processes rests with the people of the country and there may be situations where the people themselves may be better suited to force a recalcitrant to obey the Constitution. It may be advantageous to reproduce here the relevant words of the Preamble to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973: "we, the people of Pakistan -- ----Do hereby, through our representatives in the National Assembly, adopt, enact and give to ourselves, this Constitution".

But the fact is that this time was around the corner, and lingering, since the present populist "democratic" civil political government took to power and started defying the pre-requisites of democracy the first and the foremost of which is rule of law.

It is not new or unique that any political party basing its politics on populism and claiming to be democratic does not resort to such tactics which and the like of which Pakistan Peoples Party has been playing and using since the day it won general elections in February 2008 - at least for this tenure of it in the government.

Actually, populism is such a forceful instinct which never tolerates any traditions, norms, principles, rules and laws to be putting hurdles in its wayward and rowdy sojourn. Just like a populist political party, PPP has never been in a mood to be abiding by such things, even the ones it itself made or promised to follow on its own. The extraordinary example is the 1973 constitution, in the making of which it may be given most of the credit, but it is the same party which defied it from the very first. The crux of the problem is that populism never ever comes in line with rules and laws, be it for a while.

Another trait of populism is it recognizes and respects no institutions, constitutional or otherwise, but its own whimsical institutionalizations. The same has been the case with the PPP government vis-à-vis especially the Supreme Court, or higher courts in general, Election Commission of Pakistan, Higher Education Commission, etc. They were treated as obstacles in its way to the goals, good or bad, legal or illegal, constitutional or unconstitutional, it wanted to achieve at any cost.


This is what is singularly characteristic of the populism: it behaves in a manner as if it is itself, or it has embodied itself into the same rues and laws, and the institutions which it is being made or forced to follow. The behavior of both the present PPP government and the party is no different. The statements and the actions and the steps the president, the prime minister, and other ministers and high officials appointed by them has been making and taking prove the same point well.

Thus the day the PPP prime minister, and then the president sworn in, rather well before that, it was evident there is going to be a choice of "either, or" between democracy and rule of law which finally has to be made by the institution which the constitution empowers to protect itself.

The time to make this choice has come.

Viewed from the point of view of constitutionality, which most of the observers and analysts conspicuously lack not only in such issues but almost in all issues, it is not a situation of making a choice: either democracy or rule of law. Who would say laws and the constitution need not be followed! Who would say democracy means trampling of the rules, laws and the constitution? Who would say democracy should flourish at the cost of the laws and the constitution?

A democracy which ridicules and disobeys rules, laws and the constitution is but a criminal democracy, like the one we have in Pakistan. Democracy strengthens, and must strengthen the rule of law if it is democracy in any definition of the word. Without rule of law, democracy is 'but great bands of brigands' as St. Augustine said about a kingdom without justice.

Thus, it's no question of making a choice between democracy or rule of law, but following the rule of law. If the rule of law is saved, democracy will be saved, but if the rule of law is sacrificed, democracy will transform itself into a rule of persons intoxicated with populism!
  
[This article was completed on January 10, 2012.]

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All rights reserved. No part of the contents published on this Blog – Notes from Pakistan may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of The Blogger.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Finished reading: A History of Freedom of Thought

Finished reading today (March 27), A History of Freedom of Thought, by J. B. Bury, M.A., F.B.A.

This 272 page book was first published by Henry Holt and Company, London in 1913.

As I read a lot, it is difficult, for want of time, to prepare a summary of the theme and insights the book contains. However, I may mention whether the book I read is worth reading and why.

This history of the freedom of thought ought to be considered an essential reading. It narrates all the stages freedom of thought has undergone, and tries to explicate the layers of this absolutely indispensable category of human condition.

Given its subject-matter, I wonder will this ever be translated into Urdu!

Have a look at the Contents of the book:

I - Introductory

II - Reason Free (Greece and Rome)

III - Reason in Prison (The Middle Ages)

IV - Prospect of Deliverance (The Renaissance and the Reformation)

V - Religious Toleration

VI - The Growth of Rationalism (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)

VII - The Progress of Rationalism (Nineteenth Century)

VIII - The Justification of Liberty of Thought

- Bibliography

- Index 254

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

How they use the citizens’ tax money to promote their personal-political interests!

Here are certain advertisements published in various newspapers:


[The Express Tribune, December 11, 2012]


[روزنامہ ایکسپریس لاہور، 8 مارچ، 2013]


[The Express Tribune, The News, March 14, 2013]


[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]


[The News, March 15, 2013]


[The Express Tribune, March 15, 2013]


[The Express Tribune, The News, March 16, 2013]


[The Express Tribune, March 18, 2013]


[روزنامہ ایکسپریس لاہور، مارچ 18، 2013]

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Wizarat-e-Uzma Ke Tamannaee

Please note: This post has been shifted to the Urdu Blog - Civil Pakistan. To see it, click the link below:



Monday, March 25, 2013

State Aristocracy’s Pakistan – 23

I started collecting and sharing this information just because of my focus on how the state aristocracy makes use of its capture of the state to further its interests and loot; however, there is so much to it appearing daily in the newspapers that to me it requires another blog fully devoted to the state aristocracy’s appropriation of the citizens’ tax money and misuse of the public authority.

Hence, I think I should give only the links to such news items and of course from such newspapers which I happen to see.

ٹپی سے 8 پولیس موبائلز اور 50 اہل کاروں کے پیسے لے کر خزانے میں جمع کرائے جائیں: چیف جسٹس سپریم کورٹ

[Roznama Express, March 9, 2013]
-----

The sorry state of health of a medical regulator

[The News, March 10, 2013]
-----

Govt commits contempt of court by reappointing Awan in PTA

[The News, March 10, 2013]
-----

Herculean task: Only the influential can get a passport in Pakistan

[The Express Tribune, March 10, 2013]
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PM’s Ajmer yatra: Cost of trip borne by taxpayers?

[The Express Tribune, March 10, 2013]
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180 MNAs had declared no income tax in 2008

[The News, March 12, 2013]
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Billions doled out to political elite but problems emerge

[The News, March 12, 2013]
-----

Awan under consideration for IT secretary slot

[The Express Tribune, March 12, 2013]
-----

گیس چوری کا الزام، سابق ایم ـ این ـ اے مہدی بھٹی کے خلاف مقدمہ درج


[Roznama Express, March 13, 2013]
-----

وزیرِ اعظم نے خزانے سے بغیر اعتراض فنڈز نکالنے کی منظوری دے دی

[Roznama Express, March 13, 2013]
-----

NAB chief’s rush to grab costly plot hits snags

[The News, March 13, 2013]
-----

202 Punjab MPAs are declared tax-evaders

[The News, March 13, 2013]
-----

Accountability Attaches being rushed to key capitals

[The News, March 13, 2013]
-----

Punjab government unwilling to unveil Gojra inquiry report

[The News, March 13, 2013]
-----

Abducted dam workers: WAPDA accused of backing out from recovery efforts

[The Express Tribune, March 13, 2013]
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Personal edification at the state expense, by Tariq Fatemi

[The Express Tribune, March 13, 2013]
-----

90 out of 125 KP MPs paid zero income tax

[The News, March 14, 2013]
-----

Raja allots more plots to officers of PM House

[The News, March 14, 2013]
-----

102 Grade-22 officers to get plots

[The News, March 14, 2013]
-----

Appointment of 15 press attaches under consideration

[The News, March 14, 2013]
-----

Newly appointed acting chairman Nepra refuses to take charge

[The News, March 14, 2013]
-----

The dole-outs, by Dr. Farrukh Saleem

[The News, March 14, 2013]
-----

Rift: PM advised not to separate audit, account

[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]
-----

Pakistani exports: Government to spend Rs26b to promote trade

[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]
-----

Numbered days: Govt hastens to give permanent jobs to contractual workers

[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]
-----

Nepotism and cronyism: Press Information Department gave out hundreds of jobs illegally

[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]
-----

ECC refuses gas supply to Engro at discounted price

[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]
-----

Government treats: Malik to enjoy a lifetime of perks

[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]
-----

Balochistan floods: Massive corruption detected in relief funds

[The Express Tribune, March 14, 2013]
-----

سابق وزرائے داخلہ کے لیے تاحیات مراعات کا نوٹیفیکیشن اجرا کے فوراً بعد واپس

[Roznama Express, March 15, 2013]
-----

Balochistan MPs dislike income tax; over 78pc did not pay

[The News, March 15, 2013]
-----

State lost Rs18 trillion in five years, says TIP

[The News, March 15, 2013]
-----

Posting of 44 diplomats: SHC against violation of rules

[The News, March 15, 2013]
-----

PM okays posting of 15 media diplomats to key capitals

[The News, March 15, 2013]
-----

Finance ministry adviser gets extension

[The News, March 15, 2013]
-----

Govt rushes top PTA appointments to beat deadline

[The News, March 15, 2013]
-----

Wait for the State Aristocracy's loo of Pakistan - 24 

Rules as moral signposts

Recently I participated in the 2nd Annual Conference (Islam and the Institutions of a Free Society) of the Istanbul Network for Liberty, which was held in Islamabad from 28th February to 2nd March.

The following paper was read in its 1st Session: Sociological, Philosophical and Legal Considerations of Shariah: The Rule of Law in Islam, on 1st March. The Session was chaired by Dr. Khalid Masood.   

Rules as moral signposts – a brief sojourn in the realm of philosophy of religion

The initial and original inspiration the entity of religion resorts to take advantage of, and exudes is moral.

The spirit religions imbibe is ultimately moralistic.

That gives them an aura of appeal irresistible to their audience.

However, with time, spread, reach, following, politicking, and the unexpected encounters on the road, they start losing that moral exuberance.

So much so that a day comes when there remains no trace of that moral purity.

The skeleton survives the soul! The house is empty now!

In the words of a French critic: religion is like pointing out into a direction while standing on a mound. But what happens people settle at that mound – forgetting, and in a sense deviating from the direction.

That tries to say the same thing: that is, the entity of religion ossifies into its letter, and the spirit evaporates.

Simply put: religion consists of four elements:

- Metaphysics (Beliefs)

- Ethics (Morality)

- Rituals (Acts of worship)

- Social Dicta (Commandments relating to the social life)

As for Metaphysics, it is always in flux. In other words, no Metaphysics, be it secular or non-secular, can claim finality. That’s not characteristic of religious metaphysics only.

With the growth of critical scientific knowledge, beliefs / propositions about the universe and the things in it, including man, undergo alterations. And usually at a point of time most of them become redundant.

In consequence, the entity of religion is left without a metaphysics.

Likewise, all the rituals or the acts of worship are prone to be formalized.

With increasing distance of time and space from the event of its origination, the acts of worship go dried of their substantive content.

The stalk deprives itself of its fiber.

The element of Social Dicta is one which changes in a manner not detectible over the shorter periods. But it does change, moment to moment, under the burden of the logic of life.

That is, over time and on the span of geography, it adopts as well as adapts to the spatial attractions, eases, and requirements.

In short, Social Dicta of a religion keeps a good number of its identities intact, nominally or in semblance.

Thus, it’s the cloak of a religion that continues to survive, and is considered as the sole inspiration by its adherents.

With the secular and non-spiritual progress of a religion, i.e. on the stage of real politick; the first victim which is left behind is Morality.

The old and the first ally is abandoned first.

That is, in its forward march on a worldly road, what a religion leaves behind – meets it head on on the next step.

Thus, it’s morality which challenges a religion most crucially and fatally.

It’s morality which challenges a religion to effect a moral regeneration of it.

That means ultimate submission to universal moral rules.

That, among other things, requires for the entity of religion to come down on the ground to a meeting of open rational debate.

An overview of the above contentions lends support to the proposition: the moral worth is the real essence of a religion!

In case, an entity of religion keeps it moral worth alive within its body, it may live long; otherwise, it’s already stagnating.

From this proposition, it follows that in times when religiosity dominates, morality recedes.

Actually, as in other worlds, in the world of ideas and its systems, every entity ages, and with it loses its aboriginal vigor.

The entity of religion also, while sliding on the historical path, loses its initial and original moral vigor, gradually or in jerks. This is born out by historical observation.

Hence, it’s the moral fiber, the moral spirit, which enlivens the entity of religion.

That amounts to saying that since the entity of religion derives its inspiration from moral rules and it is this inspiration of it that lends it credence, so while growing it ought to remain true to morality, its conjoined partner.

In another sense, it may be worded thus: the entity of religion ought to give vitally due weight to its moral heart through every thick and thin.

No doubt that presumes that the rules which enjoy and exhibit moral standing be regarded as signposts for humanity – signposts guiding the world of ideas and its systems lest they should be misled.

In the cases of other-worldly, non-secular entities of thought, when they are put into a form intelligible and practicable for various communities of human beings, that exercise ought to be mindful of the immense value of these signposts.

In conclusion, the notion of rules as moral signposts pleads for a moral regeneration of the entity of religion.

That means back to basics! That means back to the moral nature of rules!

[This paper was completed on January 30, 2013]

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All rights reserved. No part of the contents published on this Blog – Notes from Pakistan may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of The Blogger.