Saadia Qayyum

For the last few decades, Pakistan has experienced extraordinarily large fiscal deficits; as a result of which public finances have suffered and expenditure on public goods and development projects had to be curtailed while productive investment was slowed down. The military has tended to attribute the lack of development to corruption and inadequacies of political leadership. But blaming only the civilian leadership for the lack of progress would be a fallacy. Mubashar Ali and Faisal Bari in their article propound the view that that the development agenda has been a hostage to the financial requirements of the defence sector. Furthermore, Ayesha Siddiqa in ‘Political economy of national security’ has given a detailed evidence of how the exorbitant expenditure on defence has led to diversion of resources away from development based projects. The defence budget as a proportion of GDP has averaged around 6.5% while the expenditure on health and education has averaged around a meagre 0.7 and 2 per cent points respectively. This trend has continued irrespective of the regimes in power with the expenditure actually increasing over the years. The military high command has usurped large amounts of public funds in the name of modernization and acquisition of technologies to counter the ‘perceived threat’ from India. In addition to this, US assistance acquired for procuring military equipments has exacerbated the medium to long term burdens as the aid packages involved commercial loans at high interest rates.

Apart from the misappropriation of large chunk of public finances for defence expenditure, there has been financial mismanagement at the operational and tactical levels. A look at major weapons procurement has shown that Islamabad obtained weapon systems without a strategic assessment of military operations. More importantly, the military’s direct political interventions have allowed it to dominate economic and investment planning to its own advantage by establishing monopolies in the private sector. According to Ayesha Siddiqa, some of the top military managers have admitted that a strong link exists between high defence spending and lack of development while others see no trade off between defence and development. However fact remains that political governments have had very little power in giving precedence to socio-economic development and introducing accountability in the defence-decision making process. The fallacy of the claim made by the military high command can be further proven by looking at the development statistics during the military regimes. For instance, at the time of military takeover in October 1999, claims were made about setting the country on the path of growth and development but the statistics proved otherwise as unemployment and poverty levels actually rose.

Having said this, it is also true that corrupt political leadership and lack of accountability in civil services has too hindered the development process in the country. Akbar Zaidi in his book “Issues in Pakistan’s Economy” while evaluating the Social Action Programme of 1990s mentions that corruption and financial irregularities along with poor governance of civil leadership have time and again led to failure of several development schemes initiated by elected governments. Hence attributing the lack of development to only corrupt political leadership or to usurpation of funds by the military would be incorrect as it is the combination of these two factors that has rendered the development projects unsuccessful.

Poverty is defined as the condition where the people living in poverty lack secure access to sufficient quantities of the basic necessities. Thus, freedom from poverty is one of the most important human concerns. According to World Bank’s definition of poverty, nearly half of all human beings alive today are living in severe poverty, with many of them falling far below the threshold. The figures are staggering, because there is a stark difference in the income levels, not just between people of different countries but among the people of the same country. This brings us to the question, that whether the affluent people have a moral duty to help the poorest in their community.

Severe poverty represents a violation of human rights, because it results from an unjust global economic system. By defining poverty to be a violation of human rights, we are assuming that everyone has equal right on the world’s resources and the present world order where nearly half of the population of the world do not have access to these resources is unjust. Defenders of Human rights cosmopolitanism, such as Thomas Pogge and Simon Caney, argue that all humans have rights, perhaps those set out in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It may be argued that these rights create a positive duty of the rich to provide what they guarantee. Even if it is true that agents are not morally required to alleviate any life-threatening poverty, they may still be morally required to alleviate some. There are two obvious ways of limiting the range of such a duty of alleviation. The duty may be tied to some special relationship between those in severe poverty and those in a position to alleviate their plight. The duty may, for instance, be confined to family members, people in the same neighborhood, compatriots, or to those who are immediately confronted with severe poverty and therefore have a certain salience in comparison to all others also able to help. The range of a duty of alleviation may also be limited by requiring of affluent agents only that they do their fair share toward the alleviation of poverty.

But the question that arises is that if there are people in your country who are very poor through no fault of yours, and if you do nothing to alleviate their poverty even while you have the ability to do so, can you really then be condemned as a violator of their human rights? This question can be approached in two ways. An agent can be condemned as a human rights violator if he actively causes a human right not to be fulfilled, in violation of a negative duty but human rights also entail positive duties, duties to rescue, to protect, and to aid but these duties are less weighty. Persons who fail to comply with such positive duties to help fulfill human rights are not subject to the severe moral criticism conveyed by the label human rights violator. The other version maintains that human rights impose only negative duties i.e. human rights require that agents not cause certain harms to human beings.[1]

In World Poverty and Human Right, Pogge argues that on any reasonable moral theory and across a wide range of views of the ultimate causes of world poverty, we will be seen to have obligations to the world’s poor. Pogge argues for a causal contribution principle, which holds that we are morally responsible for world poverty because and to the extent that we have caused it. Our negative duty to fight world poverty outweighs the positive duties. As long as we think in terms of positive duty alone, we tend to place a low value on that which is foreign and far away. But if we realize that we are hurting people through our action or inaction, this awakens our sense of negative duty. In this case, we have to take this seriously, for the damage we cause the poor of the world through unjust economic institutions, far outweigh any other damage we cause. Poverty is related to inequality as the concentration of wealth in few hands leads to greater poverty as more people fall in the poverty trap. Economic statistics show that eighty percent of the world’s resources are controlled by twenty percent of the world’s population. This superfluous consumption patterns of these twenty percent people has led to greater poverty levels in the past few years which obliges us to help the poor as we have caused it.

Redistribution of income should be done on the basis that it replicates the insurance policies we would have taken out before being born, had we had the chance to do so. We should redistribute to the handicapped or unskilled, he says, because we would have taken out insurance against being born handicapped or unskilled, if we could have. Now, it’s a huge misfortune to be born in a poor family rather than an affluent family so Ronald Dworkin argues that we should transfer money from the affluent people to the poor ones in the community. This redistribution argument further reinforces the notion that we owe a duty to help the poor as it is a misfortune for the poor ones to be born in poverty which obliges us to help alleviate some of the poverty.

Some philosophers have extended this duty to help the less priviledged to other countries as well meaning that we are required not just to help the poor in our country but the poor in other countries as well. Helping others has been called moral universalism and thus cosmopolitans argue that some form of moral universalism is true, and all humans, and not merely compatriots or fellow-citizens, fall within the scope of justice. The capacity to experience welfare and suffering is therefore the shared basis for moral standing. This means that the fact that some people are suffering terrible deprivations of welfare, caused by poverty, creates a moral demand that anyone who is able to help them do so. Neither the physical distance between the rich and the poor, nor the fact that they are typically citizens of different countries, has any moral relevance.

On the other hand, it can be argued that any forced redistribution is a violation of rights. This argument, though, applies to internal redistribution as well as foreign redistribution. For redistribution of money from rich to poor, the affluent people will have to be forcibly taxed which in libertarian terms is an interference with the rights of people to freely decide as to where they have to spend their income. This idea is based on the argument that we have strong duties not to harm but only weak duties to benefit people we have not harmed. If we are not harming the poor people by our actions, we do not owe a duty to help them and it is only our prerogative i.e. whether we want to help the poor or not; we are not morally bound.

Similarly it could be argued that, demanding mutual obligations are created by a particular kind of valuable association, the nation. We may have humanitarian duties to aid the particularly badly off worldwide, but these are much less stringent and pressing than our duties to our fellow-citizens. This argument is presented by the Nationalists like David Miller and Yael Tamir who have traditionally included this assumption of differing moral obligations to those within and those outside the nation. This shows that we might have moral obligation to help the poor ones in other countries but this duty is much weaker compared to our duty to help the poor in nation in which we live. The nationalists say that distributive justice is an issue within the nation and not among the nation states. Similar position is adopted by Rawls when he says that different justices apply to the domestic and international cases; even if justice requires egalitarianism within states, it does not do so between them.

The two approaches could be synthesized by saying that we owe a considerable amount of duty to help the poor as we have to some extent caused the poverty by our superfluous consumption patterns. Even if we haven’t caused this poverty it might be in the interest of the high income households to help the poor for various reasons. One of the reason for which the high income households would want to support redistribution is to mitigate the transmission of diseases. Health risks for example, cross border faster than in the past. The redistribution of world resources might mitigate the health risk facing the poor and the rich. Another reason, why it may be in the interest of the high income households to favour greater global equality is that, in an information age, people around the world are aware of the gap between rich and poor. This knowledge and frustration over feeling “left out” would play a destabilizing role in international affairs that affects the interest of the rich as well as the poor. An economic argument which is put forward is that concentration of wealth leads to lower productivity growth which leads to worse off consequences for the rich.

All societies and human beings have a set of beliefs for ordering the world. Religion and magic are belief systems used by many societies. Religion asks and petitions and loves and honors. Magic tries to make things happen by using specific words and actions. Sometimes magic masquerades as religion. To wear a cross, a pentacle, a Star of David or other symbol as a sign of your belief is one thing. But to think that a specific rendition of this symbol has somehow been activated to bring good fortune or blessings on the holder is something else entirely. This is like trying to manipulate God: wear this pendant and God will bless the holder, whether He wants to or not.

To study the relationship between religion and magic, let us start out by defining the key terms: religion and magic. Magic can be defined as the pseudo-scientific agent automatically bringing about desired end (i.e. a “scientific” performance to control certain aspects of nature over which we have no control). Religion can be defined as the worship of and subjugation to divine beings; relationship with cosmos and extension of human relationships beyond the human sphere. Most cultures of the world have religious beliefs that supernatural powers can be compelled, or at least influenced, to act in certain ways for good or evil purposes by using ritual formulas.

Throughout antiquity, there are certain characteristics that describe a sorcerer and his powers, although these characteristics are not uniform throughout. What describes the religious practices of one belief system might be considered occultism for another belief system – for example, what was considered natural magic for the Persians would be considered ritual magic for the Greeks. This perception is, of course, common throughout the entirety of history – one group holds their own rites to be sacred, while putting down their neighboring groups’ practices.

Religion and mythology provided a paradigm to answer the common questions people asked. In a very rough, broad distinction, religious practices consisted of humble and grateful practitioners who recited prescribed prayers, offered sacrifices, and enacted rituals, while magic tended to have a more coercive, threatening nature. Religion and magic are based on belief and tradition, while science (including psychology) is based on logic and experiment, though it may never be completely free from myth or prejudice. However, the boundaries between all are not clean cut.

Durkheim proposed a method for distinguishing between religion and magic based on the social function of each. He began by rejecting the common notion that religion and magic can be distinguished from other domains by their supernatural character. As an alternative to the natural/supernatural distinction, Durkheim suggested that within each culture, objects and activities can be separated into two categories: the sacred and the profane. Religion, on the other hand, is made up of beliefs, statements about the nature of sacred things, and rites, rules of conduct with respect to sacred things.

According to this scheme, magical things are also sacred. They are placed in a higher category and give rise to beliefs and rites similar to those surrounding religious objects. But Durkheim believed that magic and religion fulfill different social functions: where religion serves the group, magic serves the individual.

In many religions, believers periodically turn away from the group and engage in individual prayer or contemplation, and these experiences can have a powerful effect on an individual’s religious faith. This it can be asserted that these solitary experiences contradict the view that religion exists to serve society.

Most of the rituals of magic seem to be for the purpose of heightening the emotional state of the practitioners, on the assumption that in a heightened emotional state they will be able to impose their will upon elemental forces. Within the magical circle, the spirit is evoked, commanded and then dismissed.

The Scottish anthropologist James Frazer saw magic as humankind’s attempt to dominate nature directly for practical ends, through knowledge of the laws which govern it. From this viewpoint, magic is akin to science. To him religion is humankind’s discovery of the limitations of its magical powers and the appeal to higher beings such as demons, ancestor-spirits or gods. This conception is as inadequate as the earlier one we examined; religion, too, involves the attempt to dominate reality for practical ends, through whatever means available: prayers, rituals, sacred objects, or cult rulers.

At present orthodox religion and science hold to the materialistic, mechanistic world view, while the practitioners of magic believe that they deal with phenomena beyond the scope of science. Till now, no one has been able to discover any clear differentiation between magic and religion. Each of these terms has been used to refer to humankind’s attempt to understand and control its known world. Each involves belief systems, hierarchical rankings, rituals, and heresies. Thus we can say, then, that religion and magic are terms used to categorize belief systems.

Two extremely different groups, one from the West and one from the Muslim World, have been arguing vehemently that Islam and Democracy are incompatible. On one hand, some western scholars and ideologues have tried to present Islam as an anti-democratic and inherently authoritarian ethos that precludes democratization in the Muslims World.

On the other hand many Islamic activists, using extremely broad, simple and sometimes crude notions of secularism and sovereignty, reject democracy as rule of Man as opposed to Islam which is rule of God. Islamists who reject democracy falsely assume that secularism and democracy are necessarily connected. Secularism is a liberal tradition not a prerequisite for democracy.

The first question is whether Islam is incompatible with democracy: it certainly is not. Democracy with its principles of limited government, public accountability, checks and balances, separation of powers and transparency in governance does succeed in limiting man’s sovereignty. The Qur’an lays emphasis on what it calls shura’ (consultation) (3:159, 42:38). Even the messenger of Allah is required to consult his people in worldly matters and Muslims are required to consult each other in their secular affairs. Now it is true that such consultation and modern day representative democracy may not be exactly similar. However, the idea of modern democracy and the Qur’anic injunction to consult people is the same in spirit. New institutions are continually developing and human societies, depending on their worldly experiences, continually change and refine these institutions. The Qur’anic text not only gives us the concept of shura’ (democratic consultation) but also does not support even remotely the ideas of dictatorship and authoritarianism.

What distinguishes Islamic democracy from Western democracy, therefore, is that the latter is based on the concept of popular sovereignty, while the former rests on the principle of popular Khilafa. In Western democracy, the people are sovereign; in Islam sovereignty is vested in Allah and the people are His caliphs or representatives. In the former the people make their own; in the latter they have to follow and obey the laws (shari’a) given by Allah through His Prophet. In one the government undertakes to fulfil the will of the people; in the other the government and the people have to fulfil the will of Allah.

The constant demand made by Islam is that the principles of morality must be observed at all costs and in all walks of life. Hence, it lays down as an unalterable policy that the state should base its policies on justice, truth and honesty. It is not prepared, under any circumstances, to tolerate fraud, falsehood and injustice for the sake of political, administrative or national expediency. Whether it be relations between the rulers and the ruled within the state, or the relations of the state with other states, precedence must always be given to truth, honesty and justice.

Individual rights are fundamental to the functioning of any liberal democracy. In fact the concept of individual rights or human rights has evolved along with the evolution of democratic power structures. Freedom of conscience and freedom of speech have never been denied by the Qur’an or the Prophet. The Prophet never suppressed individual freedom or discouraged differences of opinion. The suppression of the individual rights in Muslims countries today can be attributed to the fact that with the evolution of feudal and monarchical culture differences of opinion were not permitted and were ruthlessly suppressed.

Furthermore, democracy and modernity go hand in hand. One can hardly be modern without being democratic. Whilst it is possible to argue that there are successful authoritarian models of modernization like China and Singapore, on deeper reflection it will be seen that democratic model is more congenial to modernization, particularly in the social sphere. Modern social sciences cannot flourish under authoritarian regimes even though natural sciences might.

But the lack of modernity in Muslim countries is not because of Islamic teaching per se but is due more to its medieval interpretation. Islam can come to terms with modernity. Its teachings are quite modernistic if one goes by the Qur’anic pronouncements. The Qur’an encourages pluralism in verses like 5:48, 6:109, 60:8. All these verses are quite supportive of a pluralistic social structure. In fact early Islamic societies were far more pluralistic than any others throughout the medieval period. The Qur’an not only recognizes the validity of other faiths but also makes it incumbent for Muslims to respect equally all past prophets – and one who fails to do so is not true Muslim. Clear proof can be found in verses 4:150-152.

Thus the absence of democracy in Muslim countries is by means on account of Islamic teachings or the incompatibility of democracy with Islam but due to a host of factors: political, historical and cultural. The imperialist powers, first of Europe and then of the United States, have also played a role in changing the pattern of governance in Muslim countries. The early Islamic democracy breathed its last within thirty years of the Holy Prophet’s death. The institution of monarchy crept in under Roman influence. It is important to note that the capital of Islam had shifted from Medina to Kufa in Iraq and then to Damascus in Syria, once part of the Roman Empire. Thus deeper historical and cultural influences must be taken into account in order to understand the political institutions in many Muslim countries today.

Many prominent Islamic intellectuals and groups, however, argue that Islam and democracy are compatible. Some extend the argument to affirm that under the conditions of the contemporary world, democracy can be considered a requirement of Islam. In these discussions, Muslim scholars bring historically important concepts from within the Islamic tradition together with the basic concepts of democracy as understood in the modern world. The process in the Muslim world is similar to that which has taken place within other major religious traditions. All of the great world faith traditions represent major bodies of ideas, visions, and concepts fundamental to understanding human life and destiny.

Legal scholar L. Ali Khan, argues that Islam is fully compatible with democracy. In his book, A Theory of Universal Democracy, Khan provides a critique of liberal democracy and secularism. He presents the concept of “fusion state” in which religion and state are fused. There are no contradictions in God’s Universe, says Khan. Contradictions represent the limited knowledge that human beings have. According to the Quran and the Sunna, Muslims are fully capable of preserving spirituality and self-rule. Muslim democrats, including Ahmad Moussalli (professor of Political science at the American University of Beirut), argue that concepts in the Qur’an point towards some form of democracy, or at least away from despotism. These concepts include shura (consultation), ijma (consensus), al-hurriyya (freedom), al-huqquq al-shar’iyya (legitimate rights).

The relationship between Islam and democracy in the contemporary world is complex. The Muslim world is not ideologically monolithic. It presents a broad spectrum of perspectives ranging from the extremes of those who deny a connection between Islam and democracy to those who argue that Islam requires a democratic system. In between the extremes, in a number of countries where Muslims are a majority, many Muslims believe that Islam is a support for democracy even though their particular political system is not explicitly defined as Islamic.

Across the world of Islam, governments have adopted varying degrees of self-representation in response to unique historical circumstances. Turkey is a parliamentary, secular democracy. Indonesia is one of the world’s largest republics, but an uncertain one as the nation still struggles to evolve a representative political system after decades of authoritarian rule. Iran is a theocratic republic with a growing democratic reform movement. Iraq is currently a case study in “nation-building” in the aftermath of the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein.

The problem in societies that have adopted a more hierarchical preference is a need for cultural reform, so that they can become more in line with the Islamic values of equality, freedom of religion, and respect for the individual. In the present day Muslim societies, a cultural change is required, and that can’t be undertaken without appealing to more fundamental values. That’s where religion comes in, where Islam comes in. As it is difficult to imagine the modern West without the Reformation in Europe, it is difficult to even imagine a more reformed Muslim society without Islam being a big part of that.

In the 1990s, despite having a growth rate on the higher side of the average, Pakistan showed poor performance on human welfare indicators. To rectify the situation, Social Action Program (SAP) was introduced in the 1992-93: the main objectives being removal of poverty, incorporation of gender concerns, improved rural access to education, health and sanitation facilities and improved environmental quality. The government decided to establish Social Action Board (SAB) constituting members of the local ruling party who supported the government at central and provincial level.

To study the impact of SAPs, a field survey was conducted by Akbar Zaidi and Aly Arcelawn in Mardan and Mianwali district in May 1996. It was revealed that the social action program had become highly politicized leading to corruption, nepotism and financial irregularities. Not only was preference given to areas of local representatives of the ruling party for the proposed projects but also there was a preference in giving employment to individuals of the areas of the ruling party. The striking result of the survey was the evident absence of any public participation. Neither were there any Village Health or Education Committees nor was there any evidence that the local NGOs had been consulted when designing the policy and program. It was found that there was a substantial lack of awareness about SAP amongst the NGOs and even if it did exist, there was considerable amount of transaction costs involved in getting the funds. The author gives the example of investment in primary education and health sector which failed to achieve tangible results. The reasons given for this are political interference, corruption and a lack of emphasis on quality. Biggest among these was the absence of community ownership in SAP projects and hence there was an evident lack of support for school maintenance by local communities. The Planning Commission acknowledged the weaknesses of the Social action Program and decided to scrap the project because of corruption, gross financial irregularities and the continued opposition by the international donor agencies. It conceded that poor governance and institutional problems have been the key constraints to delivery of access and quality in the social sectors.

Throughout Pakistan’s history, a number of development schemes and programmes have been introduced but little success has been achieved in the development sector. Most of the projects were plagued by the inadequate accountability and governance problems along with lack of community participation. Time and again, grassroots participation has proven that if the community is directly involved in designing and managing social development projects like SAP, they would directly supervise its progress. The success of family planning program in Bangladesh is an example of how informal community based institutions can bring about vast improvements in development indicators. However, when adopting such participatory approach it is essential that cultural, social and political conditions specific to the community are taken into consideration.  In addition to this, the government should ensure that funds allocated for the development project are not being usurped by the NGO. Lastly improving accountability in the civil service can help education and health sectors function better.

The special role of the bureaucracy-military oligarchy hierarchy has become a common phenomenon in post colonial societies. According to Hamza Alavi, this role can be interpreted in terms of a new alignment of respective interests of the three exploiting classes, namely the indigenous bourgeoisie, metropolitan bourgeoisie and the landed classes. The convergence of interests of these three competing propertied classes under metropolitan patronage allows a bureaucratic-military oligarchy to mediate their competing but no longer contradictory interests and demands because of which it acquires an autonomous role. It is by virtue of this fact that the metropolitan bourgeoisie can pursue their class interests in post-colonial societies. The metropolitan bourgeoisie during colonization did not merely replicate the superstructure of the state in metropolitan country but also created the state apparatus through which it can exercise domination over the indigenous classes. This overdeveloped state was inherited by Pakistan.

The metropolitan bourgeoisie has probably been the greatest beneficiary of the relative autonomy of the bureaucratic-military oligarchy in Pakistan. In their case, private corruption is reinforced by the governmental pressure: the greatest pressure coming from United States. For example, USAid has been used to enforce policies on Pakistan in support of US business to the detriment of domestic interests. Due to the above mentioned autonomous role, the government is sufficiently open to admit the successful intrusion of neo-colonialist interests in the formulation of public policy. Therefore, the bureaucracy has been influenced in favour of policies which are in accordance with the metropolitan interests. On one hand, resources have been devoted in metropolitan countries to impart training to bureaucrats of Pakistan, while on the other hand they have channelled policies which suited the metropolitan countries.

Capitalist development in Pakistan has actually taken place under the patronage and close control by bureaucracy. It is due to the bureaucratic controls that business opportunities have been restricted to a handful of people who have established the relationship with the bureaucracy. In the late sixties the Chief economist to the Government of Pakistan revealed that 20 privileged families owned 66 per cent of Pakistan’s industry, 79 per cent of its insurance and 80 percent of its banking and the rest was owned by foreign companies. The influence of the business community on public affairs and policies is essentially through its direct contact with and influence on the bureaucracy itself. During 1960’s the interests of the bureaucracy was deeply intertwined with that of bourgeoisie and their class representation was secured because of its links with the bureaucracy. However, with PPP coming to power, the situation was reversed.

As evident from Pakistan’s experience, none of the three competing classes exclusively command the state apparatus as the influence of each is offset by that of the other two. They make competing demands on the state which is mediated by the bureaucratic-military oligarchy. The role of this oligarchy is only relatively autonomous because it is determined within the social matrix and not outside it.

Faces of Poverty

With one quarter of Pakistan’s population as of 2008 living below the poverty line and the incidence of poverty significantly higher in rural areas than the urban areas, our “esteemed” president sees fit to tour around europe while the country and its populace rots away in floods, suicide bombing and target killings.

The coffin of Prem Chand, a member of Youth Parliament and one of the victims in airblue plane crash, was marked with the word kafir (infidel) by the officials in PIMS.

See link: http://pakistaniat.com/2010/08/01/prem-chand-coffin-kafir/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AllThingsPakistan+(All+Things+Pakistan)

“Most of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is under water at the time of filing this post. And yet our president just can’t resist the temptation of grinning a broad grin before the British cameras for a huge photo-op, probably at vast public expense.”

Link to the article: http://cafepyala.blogspot.com/2010/08/aaj-cameron-khan-ke-saath.html#links

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is formally launching his political career as the chairman of Pakistan’s People Party on August 7 in London where he and his father, president Asif Ali Zaradari will address a rally of British Pakistanis. All the bigwigs of Pakistan’s People Party will be travelling to London to attend the launch ceremony. It has been said that the government of Pakistan will be paying for the arrangements as it is president of Pakistan’s function. The cost of the whole ceremony is estimated to be around 60,000 pounds which is equivalent to 8 million rupees.

Our government doesn’t have money for spending money on development projects but it has resources to spend on a “launch ceremony” and that also in London. Maybe I missed out but when did London become a part of Pakistan? Why doesn’t the chairman of the biggest political party in Pakistan launch himself in the country where he plans to rule in near future.

The death toll from flash floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has risen to more than 800 people in just three days while thousands of people still remain stranded in the storms. According to rescue personnel the relief effort in this region is only 5 percent of what is required. Furthermore, no proper relief measures are being taken by government. Shouldnt these 8 million rupees be spent on providing relief to people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who desperately need the aid of government?