Unite Pakistan

AN excellent Asian Media Barometer tool has been developed by the Friedrich Ebert Siftung Foundation, a German political organisation that seeks to educate ordinary citizens about democracy and pluralism. The 2012 AMB was launched recently with a roundtable discussion about media and ethics, which made it clear that Pakistan’s media, especially our television channels, has been going down the wrong path for such a long time that getting back to the right one is going to take a lot of hard work, vision, and commitment from all players. The AMB, originally developed for use in Africa, was first used by FES-Pakistan in 2009 to analyse the state of Pakistan’s media. Last year, a panel of five media experts and five members of civil society rated the national media environment on a scale of one to five in 45 predetermined indicators, which make up four main sectors where goals need to be met: freedom of expression in the media should be protected; the media lands...

FEDERAL PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION FOR RECRUITMENT TO POSTS IN BPS-17 UNDER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, 2013 ENGLISH ( Pr écis and Composition) TIME ALLOWED: (PART-I MCQs) 30 MINUTES .................. MAX. MARKS:20 (PART-II) 2 HOURS & 30 MINUTES...MAX.MARKS:80 PART I - COMPULSORY Q.1 Choose the word that is near most similar in meaning to the Capitalized words. (1 Mark each) (20) 1. BRISTLE: a) Regulate b) Flare up c) Frail d) Exhilarate e) None of These 2. DELUGE a). Immerse b) Rescue c) Drown d) Overflow e) None of These 3. TIRADE a) Argument b) Procession c) Angry Speech d) Torture e) None of These 4. QUASI a) Secret b) Improper c) Seeming d) Whole e) None of These 5. VILIFY a) To Prove b) Boast c) Defraud d) Defame e) None of These 6. RIGMAROLE a) Unnecessary b) Disorder c) Confused Talk d) Game e) None of These 7. DEIGN a) Condescend b) Pretend c) Disparage d) Refuse e) None of These 8....

Resolving the energy crisis When it comes to the energy sector reforms, the Nawaz Administration appears to be making relatively sensible choices. What makes the administration’s plan particularly impressive is that it seeks to balance what is politically possible with what is technically and financially necessary. So, for instance, the government is seeking to pay off the energy sector’s circular debt in one go in order to significantly reduce power cuts and win the public’s confidence before tackling the harder bits of the problem, like raising tariffs and forcing electricity thieves to pay their bills. We also admire the government’s commitment to reduce the weighted average cost of producing electricity for the national grid by moving towards cheaper fuel sources. We worry, however, that some of these moves are being made without a more thorough analysis of the future costs. Take, for instance, the government’s agreement with the independent power producers (...

  Bucks stopped For years – and not just for the life of the last government – there has been what can only be described as a culture of impunity when it came to state institutions paying their dues. Thus virtually every state owned entity, from PIA to the Pakistan Steel Mills to the Pakistan Railways to provincial governments and large corporations and the power generation and distribution sector as well, were defaulters on taxes and utility bills. This was equally reflected down to the micro level where individual but powerful households failed to pay their dues, but expected the services to continue despite never being paid for. Over time the nation became massively indebted to itself. This, eventually becomes completely unsustainable and the PML-N government inherited the governance of the country at a point at which its self-indebtedness became an existential threat – and it cannot evade the consequences. The government is twisting to and fro in the tran...

Humanity required: Stay on executions THIS is a country with serious law and order problems in several areas. While many remedies can be explored, the least acceptable is that implied in a complaint made by the Sindh High Court Bar Association in a petition against the targeted killings of lawyers and others in Karachi: that capital punishment is not being meted out to prisoners on death row, which, in the petitioner`s view, sends out the message that those responsible for heinous crimes go unpunished. This newspaper opposes capital punishment, not just for being a cruel and degrading punishment but also because it is only in a few cases that guilt is proved beyond a shadow of doubt. Most countries have removed this punishment from the law books. The strong pro-death penalty lobby in Pakistan, though, has meant that we have not done so, even though the country is amongst the states with the highest number of prisoners on death row. A middle ground of sorts wa...

Attack on judge’s convoy The law and order situation in the country’s financial hub continues to deteriorate with yet another bomb blast rocking Karachi on the morning of June 26. The convoy of the Sindh High Court Justice Baqar Maqbool was the target of the explosion that took place in the Burns Road area of the city. The bomb was planted on a motorbike that was parked near a mosque, which exploded as the convoy passed by, killing 12 people and injuring 14 others. Thankfully, Justice Maqbool, who is currently performing duties as the acting chief justice of the Sindh High Court, escaped only with injuries. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have accepted responsibility for the attack, stating that Justice Maqbool was targeted for his “anti-Taliban and anti-mujahideen decisions”. Our law-enforcement agencies have clearly failed to fulfil their responsibility of ensuring peace in Karachi. The obvious weaknesses in the law-enforcement apparatus — which not only fails ...

Budget goes through It is nowhere close to being a perfect budget, but at least Finance Minister Ishaq Dar can take credit for sticking to his guns and pushing through even the most unpopular bits of the finance bill through the National Assembly. We do not agree with everything that is in the budget, but we do believe that it is important for a government to stick to its convictions, particularly about the tough choices that the country needs to make. With that said, we do have some reservations about the manner in which the increase in the general sales tax was imposed. It is entirely appropriate for the new finance minister to propose such a measure for debate in Parliament, and we are glad that the Supreme Court made him do so, rather than relying on a colonial-era law that allowed him to bypass the elected representatives of the people. However, imposing a tax retroactively from June 13 rather than July 1 is clearly unconstitutional. The government cannot ...