Collective crimes
Nikhat Sattar 

Published November 24, 2023 

TWO unrelated and very different events, one far away from us and the other in our own country — KP, to be specific — have given us cause to lament. Perhaps it is time to take notice.


Truth and justice tend to lose their meaning when fabulously rich countries and their extremely wealthy rulers are unwilling and unable to provide food, water and medicines to thousands of battered people, the majority of them children. As a genocide in real time is being carried out by a rogue state targeting a small strip of land that has been deprived of human living conditions for decades, and which is constantly bombarded with ammunition provided by the world’s ‘best democracies and custodians of human rights’, nearly two billion Muslims remain voiceless.

There is no end in sight to the sufferings of the Palestinians, except painful death, or a crippled life. The world’s leaders look on. Of course, one can try and find some peace in the thought of the Day of Judgement, when all criminals will be brought before their victims and given just punishment. If one can do so, one might pray that those who remained silent or looked away when they could have done something would also be considered abettors and facilitators of these horrendous deeds.

As these words are being written, one is very conscious of the fact that the Palestinian cause is neither in favour of Muslims nor against Jews or Christians. It is a tragedy wrought upon the people of a land through the connivance of the West and some Arab states. Their land was usurped and constantly encroached upon by Jews sent from Europe until they were restricted to a narrow strip and blocked from support from others. It just so happens that the majority of Palestinians are Muslims who have not merely been forsaken, but deliberately left to fend off Israeli settlers and the terrible Israeli military that has learnt much from their avowed enemy, Hitler.

Muslim rulers are busy in displays of pomp.

The Muslim world, in general, is besotted with navel gazing and their rulers are busy amassing wealth and in displays of pomp. It is no wonder then, that of the 57 Muslim countries that have formed a toothless organisation, only one had the gumption to expel the Israeli ambassador in protest against the bestiality of the Israeli military. Bolivia, a non-Muslim country, has also cut ties, as has South Africa and a few others. As these words are written, Israel has bombarded heavily populated refugee camps while Palestinians are trying to find bodies in the rubble that Gaza has become. Thousands of Palestinians have lost their lives in this mass-scale slaughter while the wheels of the world continue to churn out the usual rhetoric. This holocaust is presided over by none other than the US.

The other event, which has caused much concern, is the coerced affidavit that was signed by a young teacher who had to swear that Darwin’s theory of evolution, that he was teaching, was false and that he believed women are inferior to men. As he signed this ludicrous declaration (otherwise he would have had to suffer dire consequences along with his loved ones), he was flanked by many self-declared custodians of faith. They are merely another incarnation of the men who have over the centuries denied, denounced and hounded men of science and those who would have dared to attempt to question common beliefs.

This piece is not about whether or not Darwin’s theory is against Islamic belief. Many renowned Islamic scholars have suggested that the theory does not deny in any way statements in the Quran that explain how the first human being came into existence. What is most reprehensible is that a religion that is critical of how the clergy in earlier faiths concentrated power in the hands of a few, has been misused to threaten and force a person to deny his opinions. The Islamic way of dealing with statements that some believe are religiously wrong would be to have calm, scholarly and compassionate discussions.

Let us keep Darwin’s contentious theory aside. Which Quranic injunction did these ‘men of religion’ refer to when they had the young man vouch for male superiority? The one about having two male witnesses to a financial deal or the one to bring another woman to court in case the first one forgets? Both can be argued on the basis of the need of the time and the socioeconomic conditions in the seventh versus the 21st century.

No wonder, then, that the Muslim world has been unable to produce women and men of knowledge, wisdom and understanding in significant numbers, who are able to express differences of opinions and beliefs without confronting hatred and bigotry.

The clerics in KP are a mere microcosm of the obscurantism that assails the Muslim world. It has become impotent and self-serving, and its rulers seek power, rather than justice and compassion.

The writer is a contributor with an interest in religion.
Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

BALOCHISTAN IS PAK GAZA
No justice no peace

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

Published November 24, 2023 

BY the time this appears in print, a four-day ‘truce’ may have come into effect in Gaza. If so, it would have taken some 15,000 Palestinians to be killed in cold blood by the Israeli occupation forces for the besieged millions in Gaza to be granted a few days of respite.

Even this would not have happened but for the millions of people on the streets around the world protesting against Israel’s genocidal war, whilst exposing the shameless complicity of their own governments— and I include Pakistan on the list. There is domestic pressure on the Netanyahu ‘war cabinet’ as well, which has been forced into some negotiations to get some of its ‘hostages’ released. Yet this ‘truce’ is fleeting. It is more like an eerie silence before the reign of Israeli terror resumes. A ‘peace’ with no prospects of justice or liberty.

It must be repeated that only by ending the colonial occupation can there be a lasting peace for Palestinians, and, indeed, for Israelis. For the best part of two decades, rabid, right-wing Israeli governing regimes have reinforced the policy of herding millions of Palestinians into a 390-square kilometre concentration camp and militarising it to no end. They all promised a paranoid Jewish public that this is the way to ‘peace’. This myth was shattered by the Hamas incursions.

The adage that there is no lasting peace without justice resonates with the majority of Pakistanis when it comes to Palestine. Even as certain elements inside the country and the diaspora pitch the need to normalise ties with Israel — following the example of the Gulf kingdoms — most Pakistanis feel a great deal of indignation at the persistent injustice against the Palestinians.

Baloch youth are forced to resort to slave labour to survive.

No peace without justice, however, cannot be a selective philosophical principle. It must be deemed applicable to all oppressed peoples, particularly those close to home. In my previous column, I wrote about the large cross-section of Pakistani society that has imbibed a hateful politics to mirror the state’s demonisation of Afghans as outsiders — even Pakistani Pakhtuns. The Baloch question is at least as troubling, a festering wound that mainstream Pakistan relegates to the proverbial back-burner.

Anyone who follows the unending trials and tribulations — and ever-increasing disaffection — of Baloch youth in this country will know that enforced disappearances are again on the rise. It is worth being reminded that Baloch ‘missing persons’ include many who are well-educated and come to metropolitan Pakistan to integrate further into the mainstream. If this upwardly mobile segment of Baloch youth cannot expect justice, then who can?

The superior courts have been petitioned time and again to take up this matter. But ever since Iftikhar Chaudhry was chief justice, there have been a lot of sound bites and very little real accountability. Alongside enforced disappearances, there are also reports of ‘encounter’ killings. And there is, unsurprisingly, no let-up in the otherwise low-intensity insurgency that has been ongoing in Balochistan for almost two decades.

Notwithstanding regular PR exercises, the establishment’s methods in Balochistan are a long-standing cautionary tale about the impossibility of lasting peace without justice. No one in power should expect to make uncontested claims about the ‘development’ of Gwadar, Sui, Reko Diq and Saindak even as indigenous fishing communities are dispossessed, local ecologies destroyed and profiteers facilitated over indigenous peasants and pastoralists. It is not good enough to continue singing the praises of debt-funded road and bridge-building exercises, or claiming to eliminate cross-border smuggling when Baloch youth are forced to resort to dehumanising forms of slave labour to survive. And does anyone even remember flood-ravaged eastern Balochistan?

You cannot win over a politically conscious and young population by continuing to reproduce colonial formulae in matters of politics, economics and social control. Offering carrots to some Baloch youth can never compensate for the use of the stick for most. Mainstream bourgeois parties, as the PML-N’s recent wooing of BAP has demonstrated, have neither the will nor the capacity to even modestly reform the establishment-centric model. If the election does take place on Feb 8, Balo­chistan’s ‘elected assemblies’ are likely to be the most compromised of all, as usual.

There is, then, little suggestion that the status quo of oppression and disaffection will change anytime soon. As in the Palestinian case, it is up to brave and thoughtful progressives in mainstream Pakistan to continue to name the injustices faced by the Baloch and other oppressed nations so as to at least offer disaffected youth the possibility of a shared emancipatory horizon. That is the only hope for a lasting peace.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

JFK, RFK AND JR.

Phantom choices

Mahir Ali 

Published November 22, 2023

THERE is a degree of irony — or déjà vu — in recent reports that putative US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr is losing some support because of his admiration for Israel even as it pursues a genocidal military campaign. Some 55 years ago, his father — who, unlike RFK Jr, had a convincing chance of winning the Democratic primaries and then the White House — was assassinated, purportedly by a Jordanian-Palestinian, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, enraged by the candidate’s pledge, if elected, to send 50 Phantom jet fighters to Israel.

That was in 1968, on the first anniversary of the Six-Day War that dramatically shifted American attitudes towards Israel. Bobby Kennedy was then seen as a progressive candidate. He vowed to pull US troops out of Vietnam, and appeared to sincerely empathise with African Americans still struggling for civil rights as well as the broader victims of poverty engendered by the American way of life.

Whether he might have made a decent president is hard to say, but he would no doubt have been a better option than the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon, whom his elder brother John F. Kennedy had narrowly defeated eight years earlier. There were suggestions the 1960 poll might have been rigged on the margins — JFK even joked about it. But much of that was forgotten when he was assassinated in Dallas 60 years ago today.

That tragedy haunted RFK, who feared that in his role as attorney general in the Ke­­n­­nedy administration, he might have stir­red up sufficient resentment in his pursuit of organised crime to provoke a deadly bac­k­lash. There were many other factors, though.


As a candidate, JFK had placed himself on the anti-communist extreme, but as president he turned down the option of providing air cover to the CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro exiles, which had been green-lit by the previous Eisenhower administration. In his departing address to the nation, Dwight Eisenhower pointed out the risks posed by the burgeoning military-industrial complex, but the former supreme commander had done little to curtail it. It was his successor who stood up to the generals and the CIA.

JFK accepted responsibility for the 1961 Bay of Pigs disaster, when CIA-trained infiltrators were decisively thwarted by Cuban revolutionary forces. More crucially, he tu­­rned down the gung-ho military commanders who advocated an assault on Cuba the following year, when it turned out that the USSR had deployed nuclear-armed missiles on the Caribbean island close to Florida.

The JFK cover-up unleashed US distrust in government.

Back-channel contacts in which RFK played a key role ascertained that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was as reluctant as JFK to risk a nuclear conflagration. Moscow did not hesitate to pull out its warheads as soon as Washington vowed not to invade the island, as well as to withdraw its missiles from Turkey’s Soviet border. Thanks in large part to Daniel Ellsberg, we know that Kennedy was well aware of the global toll a nuclear conflagration would entail, and he wasn’t prepared to go there. Whether his assassination in Dallas was blowback for any of his policy decisions or predilections remains a mystery. A recent poll suggests that 65 per cent of Americans don’t buy the single-gunman theory about the events of Nov 22, 1963.

That’s not surprising, given the plethora of contradictory evidence, including the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald never owned up to the deed, and was himself murdered less than 48 hours later by Jack Ruby, a strip-club owner with underworld and FBI connections. In the absence of definitive answers, the unanswered questions keep piling up.

RFK Jr is convinced the CIA had a role in his uncle’s assassin­ation. That has never conclusi­v­ely been proved, even though the sordid nexus bet­ween the agency, the mafia and anti-Castro Cuban exiles is reasonably well documented. There are also unresolved discrepancies in the official narratives about the 1968 assassinations of Mar­­tin Luther King and RFK, and some mem­bers of both families suspect that the actual killers went free. It’s worth noting that a couple of those accused of Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965 were only recently exonerated.

One of the factors RFK Jr is capitalising on is the visceral distrust of the government that went mainstream not long after his uncle was murdered, and multiplied within a decade with the Pentagon Papers that laid bare the history of deceptions about Vietnam, not to mention Watergate, which followed shortly afterwards. More recently, there was the nonsense about weapons of mass destruction that served as an excuse to invade Iraq — and echoes of that deception resonate through Israel’s nonsensical allegations about Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital.

Distrust of the established order contributed to Donald Trump’s triumph in 2016, and may serve him well again next year. RFK Jr is probably helping to pave the way.

mahir.gmail.com.au

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2023

Transgender cricketer retires after ICC ruling

Reuters 

Published November 23, 2023

DUBAI: Canadian transgender cricketer Danielle McGahey has brought an end to her international career after the game’s governing body said any player who had been through male puberty would not be able to compete in the women’s game at the elite level.


The International Cricket Council (ICC)’s decision, made at a board meeting on Tuesday, follows similar rulings over the last couple of years by the global chiefs of swimming, rugby union, cycling and athletics.



The ICC said in a statement: “The changes to the gender eligibility regulations resulted from an extensive consultation process and is founded in science and aligned with the core principles developed during the review.

“Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players.”

Transgender advocacy groups say excluding trans athletes amounts to discrimination. Critics of transgender inclusion in women’s sport say going through male puberty imbues athletes with a huge musculo-skeletal advantage that transition does not mitigate.

The ICC said the ruling, which followed a nine-month consultation process and applies only to international cricket, would be reviewed after two years.

Australian-born McGa­hey, who has played international cricket for Canada for more than a year, said the campaign for transgender inclusion in women’s sport would continue.

“Following the ICC’s decision this morning, it is with a very heavy heart that I must say that my international cricketing career is over,” the 29-year-old wrote in an Instagram post.

“I promise I will not stop fighting for equality for us in our sport, we deserve the right to play cricket at the highest level, we are not a threat to the integrity or safety of the sport. Never stop fighting!”

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2023

COP28
Climate finance gap

Developing countries lack the funds to address climate change.

Jamil Ahmad 

Published November 22, 2023 


THE upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai will be tackling tough questions on how to curb rising temperatures, control carbon emission spikes, develop efficient technological solutions, learn from the first Global Stock-take, and agree on a new roadmap to realise the Paris Agreement aims. Climate finance will be one of the toughest questions.

Globally, efforts to address climate change face a lack of financial resources to support developing nations reach the Climate Convention goals. The efforts are constrained by the absence of sufficient means of implementation, ie, financial resources. Already under debt distress, many developing countries are forced to spend most of their lean budgets on debt servicing, leaving little for sectors such as health and education, and diverting investment from climate action and environmental protection. Constricted fiscal space in these countries relegates the issue of global warming to the back-burner. So, they face serious challenges in combating climate change and expect injections of climate finance from multilateral funding avenues and bilateral donors.

While there’s no clear definition of what constitutes climate finance, it is accepted as a concept accommodating different types of financial contributions from a variety of sources and mechanisms. The Green Climate Fund, the Global Environmental Facility, the Adaptation Fund, and other regional and international financial institutions are set to mobilise and disburse funds. Bilateral arrangements from donors, public and private, supplement these funds. The Loss and Damage Fund, once operationalised, will be the latest addition.

Developing countries lack the funds to address climate change.

Some of these funding mechanisms are not well-endowed, while others are not replenished in a timely manner to meet the rising needs of climate finance in vulnerable countries. At a time when climate change threatens lives, the inadequacy and inaccessibility of climate finance hinders the Global South from taking urgent action while climate costs rise sharply.

A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, found that the climate crisis resulted in average global costs of $143 billion per year for the last 20 years. For the year 2022, which saw multiple climate-induced disasters across the world, the direct cost estimate was $280bn due to storms, heatwaves, floods, droughts, and wildfires. Pakistan alone suffered a loss of $40bn in the same year due to heavy floods. The indirect costs of the long-term impact associated with extreme weather events — not considered in the study — would significantly push up these figures.

Vulnerable countries in Africa and Asia, in dire need of climate finance, are left exposed to the disproportionate adve­rse impacts of global warming, with 2023 being the hottest year recorded. Last year, the United Nations Enviro­n­ment Pro­gramme’s estimates for adaptation costs were in the range of $160bn to $340bn per year by 2030 and $315bn to $565bn by 2050 for developing countries. But the financial needs of developing countries for adaptation have now soared to $215bn to $387bn by 2030, and projected to rise significantly by 2050, going by UNEP’s 2023 Adaptation Gap Report, released earlier this month.

In the same period, PwC’s 2023 State of Climate Tech report reveals that “climate tech investments from venture capital and private equity fell 40 per cent in 2023”.

Meanwhile, the financial gap — the difference between allocations by developed countries versus the actual requirement for adaptation — has widened. UNEP’s adaptation report put the gap between $194bn and $366bn per year. Clearly, the $100bn pledged by developed countries, and the doubling of “collective provision of clim­a­­te finance for adaptation” ag­­r­e­­ed to at the Glasgow Climate Pact in 2021, will be insufficient. To boost climate finan­­ce, UNEP’s report identifies several innovative ways, including through “increasing and tailoring finance to small and medium enterprises”, and “a reform of the global financial architecture, as proposed by the Bridgetown Initiative”.

The Global Stock-take report emphasises the scaled-up mobilisation of climate finance for developing countries, while aligning the current financial flows with a pathway towards low-carbon emissions. The Paris Agreement also calls for a New Collective Quantified Goal for 2030 for climate finance. Controlling global warming will be well-nigh impossible without a robust framework that unlocks adequate, timely and accessible climate finance for effective climate action and protection of vulnerable communities by developing nations. Policymakers at COP28 must tackle the central question of climate finance to save the Paris Agreement from falling further behind, and to save lives.

The writer is director of intergovernmental affairs, United Nations Environment Programme.

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2023

PAKISTAN

Fighting fire

Editorial 

Published November 24, 2023

DEATH traps litter the country’s most vertical city of Karachi. Commercial and residential buildings in the latter are haphazardly planned and fitted with inconsequential wherewithal to prevent or fight fires, boosting the chances of infernos erupting in the metropolis. The authorities have consistently failed to control the mushroom growth of multistorey structures or to take action against architects and builders flouting fire and safety regulations. This was underscored by town planners, engineers and experts present at a fire safety symposium organised by the Fire Protection Association of Pakistan on Wednesday. They said that some 90pc of Karachi’s structures — residential, commercial and industrial — were without fire prevention and firefighting systems, which was “criminal negligence” perpetrated by regulatory bodies on the city’s teeming millions. In fact, as recently as last week, a high-rise blaze on I.I. Chundrigar Road left a woman injured.Meanwhile, in 2022, according to a Fire Brigade Department report, Karachi witnessed as many as 2,081 fire incidents.

Karachi’s history offers many horrors; the ghastliest was the Baldia factory arson in 2012 — a deliberate firetrap where victims succumbed to smoke inhalation, suffocation and severe burns. But even that did not force anyone out of their stupor to notice the perils that fires pose to humans and assets. It is high time provincial governments sent notices to properties, builders, architects and planners for non-compliance with fire procedures. Moreover, newly built houses, shops and buildings should be subject to regular inspections so that fire rules are not flouted; fire alarms, sprinklers and other equipment have to become mandatory, with weekly fire drills, especially in densely populated localities and labour-intensive industries. But fire tragedies are impossible to tackle unless there is an abundance of overhauled fire brigades, firefighters and safety gear. Apathy will keep long-running questions, and pain, ablaze. Rulers would be well advised to prioritise people’s safety with a firm eye on a significant drop in fire emergencies.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

PAKISTAN

FO sounds alarm over New Delhi’s ‘covert global operations’

Baqir Sajjad Syed 

Published November 24, 2023 

FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch addresses a weekly press briefing in Islamabad on Thursday. — FO/Facebook


ISLAMABAD: The For­eign Office on Thursday voiced concern over the alarming expansion of India’s covert operations, including espionage and extraterritorial assassinations, on a global scale, condemning these actions as blatant violations of international law.

At the weekly media briefing, while recalling that Pakistan remained a victim of India-sponsored terrorism and subversion, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said, “India’s network of espionage and extraterritorial killings has gone global.”

“We have condemned and we are concerned about India’s reckless and irresponsible conduct, which we believe is a clear violation of international law and the UN principle of state sovereignty,” she added, commenting on a report in the Financial Times, which said that the United States authorities thwarted a plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist, Gur­patwant Singh Pannun.

The Biden administration has conveyed its concerns to Delhi over the assassination plot.

Earlier in September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that Canadian security agencies were actively investigating credible allegations linking agents of the Indian government to the June murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader, in British Columbia. Canada also expelled an Indian undercover diplomat in the country, indicating the seriousness with which it was treating those allegations.

Replying to a question, Ms Baloch said India has been involved in espionage and terror activities inside Pakistan. She reminded that Pakistan had voiced this concern in the past as well.

“If you would recall, last year we issued a dossier on the Lahore attack, providing credible evidence with regards to Indian involvement in a terror attack inside Pakis­tan. So, this is an issue of serious concern for Pakis­tan,” she maintained.

BRICS membership

Pakistan has formally requested to join the BRICS group, a significant alliance of developing countries.

“Yes, I can confirm that Pakistan has made a formal request to join BRICS, which we believe is an important grouping of developing countries,” Ms Baloch said.

The decision to seek BRICS membership reflects Pakistan’s recognition of the group’s growing clout, and the shifting geopolitical landscape, besides Pakistan’s desire to engage more actively with emerging global power centres, Pakistan’s request for BRICS membership comes at a time when the group is actively broadening its reach and influence.

The BRICS group, originally consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, recently expanded, adding Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

Deadly business

DAWN
Editorial

Published November 24, 2023

TWO recent reports in foreign media outlets have shed more light on India’s shadowy business of targeting dissidents and alleged enemies on foreign soil. The Intercept reported that — based on apparently leaked Intelligence Bureau documents — India, through its RAW spy agency, was running a network in Pakistan specifically to eliminate Khalistani and Kashmiri activists and fighters. The outlet’s scoop comes in the aftermath of the Hardeep Singh Nijjar murder; Canadian authorities had said the pro-Khalistan activist’s June killing in Vancouver was linked to Indian intelligence operatives. Lending further credence to The Intercept’s report was a story in Britain’s Financial Times, in which the paper said that the American authorities had thwarted a plan to kill US-based Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. The report adds that the Americans had sent a diplomatic warning to India over New Delhi’s apparent link to the plot to harm the Sikh activist. Coming back to The Intercept story, quoting the IB documents, the outlet gave extensive details of RAW’s apparent attempts to neutralise Khalistani activists in Pakistan, as well as the murders of a number of ex-jihadis once active in held Kashmir. It also claimed that Indian agents based in Afghanistan and the UAE were active in these acts of subterfuge.

It appears that India has taken a page or two out of the Israeli playbook, for Tel Aviv, over several decades, has assassinated dozens of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian fighters and officials in various foreign locales. Yet while the Israelis might have mastered the dark arts, India seems to have overplayed its hand in several instances, especially by assassinating, or attempting to kill, dissidents in the West. Pakistan has long blamed its eastern neighbour of indulging in destabilising activities, and officials have also sent a related dossier of these activities to the UN. The Kulbhushan Jadhav affair — in which the Indian spy was picked up from Balochistan in 2016 — is perhaps the most well-known case of this kind. Though the Western states pamper India as part of their geopolitical stratagems, it will be difficult for them to tolerate New Delhi’s malign activities on their soil, which are in essence an affront to their sovereignty. These revelations also support Pakistan’s criticism of India’s roguish behaviour. India can literally get away with murder domestically, but it cannot be allowed to create mischief overseas.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

PAKISTAN

When the pie shrinks

The state and economy are both finding stability squarely on the backs of the poor.

Khurram Husain 

Published November 23, 2023 

THE state, the economy and the people pull the resource envelope of the country in different directions. This is especially the case when periods of macroeconomic adjustments get going, meaning when an IMF programme is being implemented.

The state needs revenue. The economy requires liquidity. The people want incomes. Each of these can come from different sources, and they are finite. When the economy is growing, these resources grow in tandem and, for a moment, it seems as if everybody is getting what they want.

These are the feel-good years. But when the growth stops, a tug-of-war ensues between the state, big business and ‘the people’ to secure their respective shares of the pie.

Each episode of adjustment looks substantially the same, but differences of detail do emerge. Growth stalls, interest rates rise, the currency is devalued, utility prices rise, taxes are applied. But look at where the resources flow during these times, and you’ll get a better idea of who is getting how much when the pie shrinks.

An episode of adjustment began in July this year, when the country signed onto its latest IMF Stand-by Arrangement, and its first review just ended successfully. Now look closely at where the resources have gone during these months. Banks declared record-high profits all year.

Between July and September of the year, the whole corporate sector saw the “highest-ever quarterly earnings” (post tax) according to a report put out by Topline Securities. Listed companies raked in Rs417 billion in post-tax profits in these months, of which Rs149bn were taken by the banks alone.

The state and economy are both finding stability squarely on the backs of the poor.

Make sure you understand this before moving on. Banks took in more than one-third of the total profits of all listed companies in the first three months since the IMF programme began. All sectors in the listed companies’ universe saw their quarterly profits rise in the same period, even if by varying amounts. Cement, fertiliser and automobiles saw the highest quarterly profits they have made in almost two years.

Each sector paid out a rich harvest of dividends to their shareholders. According to the same report, Rs97bn were paid out in dividends, of which Rs51bn was by banks alone. The amount was higher by 13 per cent from the same period last year. A small number of people were made very rich in these months.

At the same time, small and medium enterprises issued SOS calls for survival. After all, these are months in which demand in the economy is collapsing, large-scale manufacturing is registering near zero growth, high interest rates are weighing on debt service costs of corporates, and the state is thirsting for revenue.

Partially out of this thirst, the government imposed a ‘windfall tax’ on the banks for the outsize profits they made last year on their foreign currency dealings, aiming to capture up to Rs58bn of these banking sector profits for itself, according to calculations presented by Arif Habib Ltd.

In two years, the banks raked in close to Rs145bn foreign exchange income, so the government seems to be capturing a fairly large chunk of this for itself through this (supposedly) one-off tax levied earlier in November.

Meanwhile the government’s tax revenue collection recorded an increase of 24pc from the same quarter last year. Much of this was due to inflation. A small amount would be due to nominal GDP growth. Suffice it to say, the IMF was left deeply satisfied with the fiscal performance in the first quarter.

The primary balance registered a surplus of 0.4pc of GDP (which sounds small but is actually quite large), and it is possible the government may have over-performed on the fiscal side compared to the quarterly targets set in the programme.

So business is shutting down. Imports continue to face restrictions, which is what accounts for the current account deficit shrinking so rapidly — as always happens in the first few months of an IMF programme. Small and medium size businesses are on the verge of shutting down.

Confidence in the economy, according to a recent survey by Ipsos, is near rock bottom, with nine out of 10 people surveyed saying the economy is moving in the wrong direction.

Yet big business is raking in profits and dishing out the dividends. Government is getting its revenues, slashing its expenditures, and jumping all the hoops set for it by the IMF programme in what is without doubt the smoothest IMF review we have had since 2019. So the question is, who exactly is suffering here? Why does confidence still remain so low?

The answer is simple. The poor, the working poor, the salaried classes are all suffering. Their incomes have not moved in tandem with inflation, nor with devaluation. Their savings have eroded. Their costs are seeing one shock after another, with an unending series of utility price hikes. The latest of these shocks is set to land on their doorsteps when their gas bills arrive. It is hard to say whether unemployment is increasing because we don’t have a reliable, recent data point, but it is safe to assume it is certainly not falling.

This is classic macro adjustment, Pakistani-style. It is good news indeed that we have an IMF programme being implemented smoothly after almost two and half years of reviews in fits and starts. But the state and economy are both finding stability squarely on the backs of the poor.

No sacrifice worth the name is being made by the rich, not in terms of their earnings, their asset values or their consumption habits. Of course, this does not mean we abandon the IMF-mandated adjustment. But it certainly means that we bring the reforms necessary to safeguard people’s incomes as much as the incomes of the elites and the state, in good times and bad.

The writer is a business and economy journalist.
khurram.husain@gmail.com
X: @khurramhusain

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2023

PAKISTAN

Facing melting glaciers, Hunzais fight for future
Reuters

Published November 24, 2023

HASSANABAD resident Tariq Jamil shows ice taken from the Shisper glacier, which is being monitored by sensors.—Reuters



HUNZA: On the steep slope of a glacier jutting through the Hunza valley, Tariq Jamil measures the ice’s movement and snaps photos. Later, he creates a report that includes data from sensors and another camera installed near the Shisper glacier to update his village an hour’s hike downstream.

The 51-year-old’s mission: mobilise his community of 200 families in Hassanabad to fight for a future for their village and way of life, increasingly under threat from unstable lakes formed by melting glacier ice.After all the sensors are installed, village representatives will be able to monitor data through their mobiles, Mr Jamil says.

“Local wisdom is very important: we are the main observers. We have witnessed many things,” he added.

Hassanabad is part of the UN backed Glacial Lake Outburst Flood ( GLOF) II project to help communities downstream of melting glaciers adapt.

When glacial lakes overfill or their banks become unsound, they burst, sparking deadly floods that wash out bridges and buildings and wipe out fertile land throughout the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalayan mountain ranges.

Himalayan glaciers are on track to lose up to 75 per cent of their ice by the century’s end due to global warming, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Deve­lop­ment (ICIMOD).

HUNZA VALLEY: An automatic weather station monitors the Shisper glacier in Hassanabad village, one of the communities being supported by the UN-backed ‘Glacial Lake Outburst Flood II’ project, aimed at helping settlements downstream of melting glaciers adapt to climate change.—Reuters

Amid a shortfall in funding for those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, village residents say they urgently need increased support to adapt to threats of glacial lake floods.

Over the past three years, residents repeatedly evacuated just in time to avoid loss of life, and many fear a flood while they sleep. Others struggle financially as their land and homes were destroyed, most recently in 2022.

In Hassanabad, Jamil and 23 volunteers, trained in first aid and evacuation planning, actively monitor the glacier, consulting with experts each summer.

Seeking international funding, they aim to expand the barrier wall 20-fold. Additionally, they seek interest-free loans for rebuilding homes with stronger materials and enhancing mobile reception for improved monitoring feed access.

“The needs are enormous,” said Karma Lodey Rapten, Regional Technical Specialist for Climate Change Adaptation at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Pakistan is the only country to receive adaptation funding from the Green Climate Fund — the Paris Agreement’s key financing pot — to ease the risk of such floods.

The $36.96m GLOF II initiative, concluding this year, serves as a global model for regions confronting glacial lake flood threats, including the Peruvian Andes and China, following Bhutan’s collaborative efforts.

Since 2017, weather stations and sensors, managed by Islamabad and UNDP, monitor factors like rainfall and water levels. GLOF II employs village speakers for warnings and infrastructure like barriers.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2023

MODI'S CURSED TUNNEL
Ambulances on standby as Indian rescuers near 41 trapped workers

AFP 

Published November 23, 2023 

A rescue personnel stands near an entrance of the Silkyara under construction road tunnel, during the final phase of a rescue operation, days after a portion of it collapsed in the Uttarkashi district of India’s Uttarakhand state on November 23, 2023. — AFP

Ambulances were on standby on Thursday morning as Indian rescuers dug through the final metres of debris separating them from 41 workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel for nearly two weeks.

Rescue teams have specially fitted stretchers with wheels, ready to pull out the exhausted men through 57 metres (187 feet) of steel pipe — once it is finally driven through the final section of the tonnes of earth, concrete and rubble blocking their freedom.

Emergency vehicles and a field hospital stood ready, AFP journalists at the site said, preparing to receive the men who have been trapped since a portion of the under-construction tunnel in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand caved in 12 days ago.

“We have done rehearsals on how to get people safely out”, National Disaster Response Force chief Atul Karwal told reporters on Thursday.

“The boys will go in first,” he said.

“We have put wheels under the stretchers so that when we go in, we can get the people out one by one on the stretcher — we are prepared in every way,” he said.

‘Ready to handle it’

After days of painfully slow progress, engineers with a powerful drilling machine made a sudden rapid advance on Wednesday, before teams had to work through the night to cut through metal rods blocking the route. Drilling resumed on Thursday.

“The 10 to 12 metres (32-39 feet) remaining … we don’t know what can come up, but we are ready to handle it,” Karwal said.

“If everything is alright, tonight this operation will be over,” he said, adding that the trapped men were “keeping up their morale”.



Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the work was on a “war footing”, with a “team of doctors, ambulances, helicopters and a field hospital” all set up.

Rescuers are hoping for a breakthrough within hours, although the government has also repeatedly warned any timelines were “subject to change due to technical glitches, the challenging Himalayan terrain, and unforeseen emergencies”.

Inside the Silkyara tunnel entrance, an AFP journalist said the site was a flurry of activity.
‘Happiest day’

Worried relatives have gathered outside the site, where a Hindu shrine has been erected, with a priest holding prayers for the safe rescue of the trapped men.

“The day they will come out of the tunnel, it will be the biggest, happiest day for us,” said Chanchal Singh Bisht, 35, whose 24-year-old cousin Pushkar Singh Ary is trapped inside.

Rescue efforts have been hampered by falling debris as well as repeated breakdowns of crucial heavy-drilling machines.

In case the route through the main tunnel entrance does not work, rescuers also started blasting and drilling from the far end of the unfinished tunnel, nearly half a kilometre (over a quarter of a mile) long.

Preparations have also been made for a risky vertical shaft directly above.

The workers were seen alive for the first time on Tuesday, peering into the lens of an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers down a thin pipe through which air, food, water and electricity are being delivered.



The tunnel is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s infrastructure project aimed at cutting travel times between some of the most popular Hindu sites in the country, as well as improving access to strategic areas bordering rival China.

But experts have warned about the impact of extensive construction in Uttarakhand, large parts of which are prone to landslides.