Rickshaw menace in Peshawar

I WOULD like to draw the attention of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and Peshawar traffic police towards the huge number of rickshaws on roads. They are causing a great trouble for motorists and pedestrians.
Most of the drivers of these rickshaws even do not have proper legal documents of the vehicle and driving licences, yet they drive like monarchs of the roads.
They seem accustomed to violating traffic rules. It is also evident that the traffic mess is mostly caused by the three-wheelers. If the number of these rickshaws is curtailed, 70 per cent of traffic jams will disappear.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government should introduce a policy where three-wheelers are properly registered before being allowed on roads.

New civil servants law to have huge financial impact

The decision to extend pension rights to all the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa public sector employees involved huge financial implications and the number of pensioners was expected to exceed the provisional estimates, officials said.
The provincial finance department and other relevant official quarters have been left with a huge workload to take care of in the coming months to know the exact financial impact of the move and the actual number of beneficiaries.
“The finance department does not know the actual financial impact because the decision is the result of a private member bill that the provincial assembly enacted unanimously,” said a well-placed official.
The provincial assembly enacted ‘The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Servants (Amendment) Act, 2013, on January 15, last, extending the pension net to thousands of employees, who were previously covered under the provincial government’s Contributory Provident Fund Scheme.
Abdul Akbar Khan, Pakistan People’s Party parliamentary leader in the provincial assembly, had moved the bill and sought extension of the right to pension and gratuity to all employees appointed in the provincial public sector entities after July 1, 2001.
He told the provincial assembly that the new legislation would benefit some 94,000 employees, who were previously covered under the contributory provident fund scheme.

All hospital employees to get share in patient fee

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department is introducing a new formula for distribution of fee, deposited by patients at the government hospitals, among the employees of the health facilities.
The new plan will benefit all the employees instead of a few, who are paid from the users’ charges, according to sources. “At present only five per cent employees of the government hospitals get share in the fee collected from patients for conducting different tests and other diagnostic and medical procedures. This practice has been affecting patients care adversely,” said officials.
According to them, some doctors, technicians and nurses are given share in the users’ charges that causes heartburn among their colleagues, who don’t get the amount.
Officials said that paramedics, nurses and doctors working in the operation theatre were given share in the users’ charges while their colleagues working in wards and emergency didn’t get any such financial benefit.
“Similarly, the patients visiting outpatients department (OPD) pay for investigations like urine tests, X-ray and ECG etc to the departments concerned. At the end of every month the employees performing such procedures, receive share in the money,” they said.

Missing person cases prolong despite court warnings

What could be the feelings of a widow whose only son first goes missing and then his body is dumped on a highway? The trauma from which Hamida Bibi has been passing is an answer to this query. Bitterly sobbing and crying the woman asked a Peshawar High Court bench: “I want to know what the crime of my son was and why was he arrested by the law-enforcement agencies?”
The bench headed by Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan had no reply to offer. An eerie silence descended on the courtroom filled to the capacity with relatives of missing persons on Jan 22. The woman continued to speak for many minutes and her narrations turned the atmosphere gloomy. She said that her son, Farmanullah, was the sole bread earner of her family and had left behind a young widow and a 10 month-old infant.
Hamida Bibi claimed that Farmanullah was a vegetable vendor as well as a watchman in Nauthia, Peshawar, and around 10 months ago he was arrested by law-enforcement agencies following which he went missing. “A few weeks ago I received information from the local police that the body of my son was dumped near the motorway in the jurisdiction of Parang police station of Charsadda and his identity card was lying nearby,” she said.

ECP ban on employment in govt depts hailed

Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) chairman Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao on Sunday hailed the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision banning recruitment in government departments ahead of general election.
“We welcome this decision as it will help bring transparency in the electoral process,” Mr Sherpao told a public meeting at Bakhshoo Pull locality on the outskirts of Peshawar. He said that general election was drawing nearer and making recruitment in government departments at this stage would be tantamount to influencing electorate and pre-poll rigging.
He also lauded the ECP for banning diversion of funds already allocated to various development schemes and said that the commission should take notice of the pre-poll rigging.
Mr Sherpao said that the rulers were claiming that peace had been restored, but the situation on ground belied all such assertions. “The security situation is deteriorating day by day,” he maintained.
He said that the government had failed to overcome power crisis and no solid step was taken over past five years to revive the economy. He said that unemployment had increased manifold, which was a matter of concern.
Mr Sherpao said that people were exposed to a host of problems and no effort had been made to give them relief in the face of burgeoning inflation.

Pakistan still global jihad hub

Pakistan is still a major destination for radicalised Muslims bent on a life of jihad, despite hundreds of US drone strikes, the death of Osama bin Laden and the fracturing of Al-Qaeda.
New battlegrounds have sprung up in Africa and the Middle East, but the number of foreign recruits smuggled into the northwestern tribal belt is increasing and they come from more diverse countries.
Since the 1980s “jihad” to expel Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Muslim fighters from all over the world have lived and trained on the Afghan-Pakistan border, moulded into Al-Qaeda and a host of spin-off militant networks.
After US-led forces in late 2001 evicted the Taliban in Kabul for sheltering Al-Qaeda, Afghan Taliban fled across the border into Pakistan.
But Washington and Nato will end their combat mission in Afghanistan next year and these days the Taliban say their foreign allies are drawn to other conflicts, despite their support networks in a region outside direct government control.
“Al-Qaeda is shifting its focus to Syria, Libya, Iraq or Mali,” one member of the Afghan Taliban told AFP on condition of anonymity in northwest Pakistan.
Local officials estimate the number of Arab fighters has fallen by more than a half or two thirds in the last 10 years, to below 1,000.
In the last two years, some Al-Qaeda Arabs, particularly Libyans and Syrians, left to take part in the civil war in Syria and the violent uprising that overthrew Libya’s dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.
Others migrated to Iraq in 2003, and others to Somalia and Yemen.

Smokers’ Corner: Scary votes

Much has been analysed about why the PPP-led coalition government, the opposition (both within and outside the Parliament), and the security agencies have all been so hapless in the face of the ever-growing menace of extremist violence in the country.
The government has done well to set an exceptional precedent of surviving its full term as an elected entity (a rarity in Pakistan), but it was just that: Survival.
Beyond this it has looked shaky, indecisive and at times almost paralysed in addressing issues such as sectarian violence and extremist terror.
On the other hand, the security agencies and the military-establishment have still to come to terms with political and ideological complexities arising from an awkward situation in which they find themselves face-to-face with brutal outfits, most of whom were once their strategic assets.
But there is also another aspect and dimension to this that doesn’t get the kind of attention that it deserves.
I am pointing towards the attitude of non-religious political parties that seem paralysed and awkwardly placed when it comes to addressing the issue of extremism.
For example, we keep hearing why so and so political parties can’t go all out in supporting bills, resolutions and policies against extremist outfits because they don’t want to offend the sentiments of a particular section of their voters.

Mardan bar elections

Mukhtiyar Bacha of the Democratic Alliance panel was elected as president and Shakeel Zada of ANP-PPP panel was elected as general secretary of Mardan district bar association here on Saturday.
Mr Bacha polled 202 votes against 190 votes of his rival Hakim Syed Khan of PPP-ANP panel and was declared as president-elect. Shakeel Zada secured 247 against 148 votes of his rival Saeed Usman of the Democratic Alliance. All other slots were grabbed by the Democratic Alliance.
Other office-bearers include vice-president Azhar Rahim, joint secretary Meer Afzal Khan and finance secretary Muslim Shah Aryani.

ANP women wing backs talks with Taliban

The women wing leaders of Awami National Party have supported the call for holding meaningful dialogue with Taliban for restoration of peace in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
They were speaking during a function held at the residence of MPA Yasmeen Jasim here on Saturday to observe the 25th death anniversary of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and seventh of Khan Abdul Wali Khan.
It was perhaps the first time that the ANP women wing came out openly in support of the government-Taliban dialogue, a policy adopted by the ruling party soon after the assassination of senior minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour on December 21 last year. It was also for the first time that the women wing observed the death anniversaries of their leaders in a separate function.
ANP women wing provincial president Shagufta Bibi said that their party had a history of struggle for peace and nobody could ignore Bacha Khan’s services in this regard.
She said that they were proud of Bacha Khan whose role in empowerment and awakening of Pakhtuns was remarkable, she said.
Ms Shagufta said that Pakhtuns were again passing through a critical period and their party had been working out a peace plan acceptable to all stallholders.

Doctors threaten protest

Employees of health department have set Feb 12 as deadline for acceptance of their demands pertaining to service structure and other health facilities otherwise they will announce a series of protest demonstrations.

The announcement was made at a meeting of the Provincial Health Employees Coordination Council presided over by its chairman Dr Mustafa Iqbal. The meeting asked the government to provide all kinds of facilities to patients in the public sector hospitals on the pattern of Punjab. It asked for posting and appointments on basis of merit and consultation of the coordination council on issues of autonomy of hospitals