Slogan for world peace

Monday, May 11, 2009

The NWFP Government has established with immediate effect the “Chief Minister’s Fund for Internally Displaced Persons 2009” in the provincial section of accounts. Donations on account of the fund will be received at all branches of State Bank of Pakistan, all treasuries and branches of scheduled banks.

The fund will receive donations from both domestic and international donors. The contributions from abroad will be received at all the branches of Nationalized Commercial Banks where such branches exist while in other foreign countries contributions will be received at Pakistan Missions and remitted to the State Bank of Pakistan .

Meanwhile, the provincial government has appealed all well-to-do people, philanthropists, welfare organizations and overseas Pakistanis to deposit their donations in the said account to help the IDPs.

National Bank of Pakistan Account # Branch Code 0386, CA 19449-7
Contacts: +92-91-9218106 & 9211931
+92-91-300-5960512
+92-937-9230572-73

Pakistan's refugees of Malakand due to military operation against militants

Plight of Pakistan's Internally Displaced People

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Who is not worried?

A man went to a psychiatrist and told him he was very upset, worried and tense. If I am not treated immediately, I am going to commit suicide. Doctor advised him to go to the theater where a joker makes people laugh and they return home happily and forget all their tensions and worries.
The patient replied, " Doctor sahib! I am that man who makes the people laugh."

Pakistan army taking positions against the insurgents in Swat

Fire and Media

A red-colored vehicle was busy in its work. A child asked me, " What's this vehicle doing?" I told him, "Its extinguishing fire."

A few yards away, the child asked me again about lot of Media/ Press vehicles busy in work, " What are these vehicles for?"

I told him, " These are adding fuel to the fire."

Nuke tests by India, followed by Pakistan in 1999

Exactly a decade ago on May, 09, 1999 I wrote this letter to the then Prime Minister of Pakistan and other top leaders at the helm of affairs.

Last day we were praying Maghrib prayers in mosque in our village, when we heard automatic bursts of aerial fire just in front of the mosque.

On quickly finishing the prayers, everybody rushed out of the mosque to enquire about the incident.

On enquiry it was revealed that one Lewanai, meaning MAD MAN, a poor of the poorest of the village had done that for testing his newly purchased Kalashnikov.

On further enquiry as to why did he choose this time and place, it was said that he wanted to let everybody know that he possessed the weapon, when people were gathered for the prayers.

Vajpayee, the newly and marginally elected Indian Prime Minister is not much different to Lewanai with regard to his nuclear tests at the time when his government is confronted with a multitude of crises.

35 million Indians live below the poverty line today. Do these poor Indians need bread or bombs? Recently I had a stopover at the Terminal 2 of the Indra Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi while traveling from Kuala Lumpur, where I witnessed its miserable and suffocating condition, especially of the toilets at the so-called international airport.

I think the Indian leaders need to draw their attention to the amelioration of the plight of the people and their living conditions than gaining cheap popularity by exploding bombs ignoring the poorest of the poor and the world opinion.

I hope our leaders will behave in a responsible manner and will not follow suit but instead concentrate on improving the hitherto staggering economy and other issues and will not imitate Lewanai or Vajpayee.

Copy to:

1. President of Pakistan
2. Prime Minster of Pakistan
3. Foreign Minister of Pakistan
4. Chief of the Army Staff, GHQ
5. Dr. A. Qadeer Khan, Kahuta

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Grow flowers in your town

Saturday, November 15, 2008

SOS…...SOS.......SOS........SOS.......SOS......SOS.......Emancipation from the nuisance of noise

A public service matter......For suo moto action by the authoriies.

What has prompted us to address you has been a news item in the press a few days back that your dept, police and GTZ jointly removed and destroyed pressure horns from buses on the main roads.

We, the residents of Hayatabad submit the following for your sympathetic consideration:

1. That we hail and appreciate this action on part of the government and term it a good omen to prevent the public from the harmful effects of the noise these pressure horns were causing.

2. That it requires to be enforced not only on public transport plying on main roads and highways but it is needed more in the residential areas, especially Hayatabad, which was built specifically for its residents to take a sigh of relief from the noise and other forms of pollution of the congested areas of the metropolis.

3. That almost all the public transport plying on the roads, especially in the streets of Hayatabad are fitted with pressure horns and the drivers blow them incessantly causing nuisance to the young children, senior citizens, students, reciters of the holy books, prayers and people in their houses, hospitals, schools and colleges etc.

4. That the most disturbing are the school buses which ply not on roads only but they enter practically every street every morning from 5 AM to 9 AM at the time of collection of students and then at 12 PM to 3 PM when they drop them back at their homes.

5. That these buses use their pressure horns as an indication of their arrival to the waiting students, whereas horn is meant internationally as indication to the road users when they violate traffic laws and that too normal horn and not the ear drum bursting siren like these.

6. That we approached the authorities of these educational institutions verbally and then in writing but they did not respond positively.

7. That we were then compelled to report the matter to the law-enforcing authorities including police, PDA, Emergency Response Centre but none heard our voice.

8. That another source of nuisance is the blasts of the crackers by the children, mostly Afghans, who blast these round the clock, especially during the holy days.

9. That these crackers are sold by the shops in and around Hayatabad, especially in the Karkhano market and some are sold by the hawkers right at the door steps in the town.

10. That yet another source of noise are the tricycles of ice cream companies plying on the roads and traversing each and every street from morning to late night and playing music at the pitch of the choice of their drivers and so not only disturb the residents but also prompt the children to run after them in all odd hours of the day.

11. That these ice cream tricycles have already been forbidden from playing the music in the Punjab by the Wafaqi Muhtasib but this province is still bearing the brunt of this noise.

It is, therefore, brought to your kind notice to relieve the public in general and residents of Hayatabad in particular from this nuisance once for all and educate these so-called educated heads of these educational institutions that horns are disallowed in habitation areas even if these are normal ones, what to speak of pressure horns which are strictly prohibited under all circumstances under the law.

Moreover, if the government is actually serious about the eradication of this nuisance, then cosmetic efforts like isolated checks of vehicles and removal of pressure horns therefrom would not serve the purpose, the actual ban on the import and smuggling of such items could, however, solve the problem once for all.

Raid on the shops which sell these items and complete ban on their sale can get rid of the existing available stock.

Cc:

1. Secretary to GoNWFP, Home & Tribal Affairs Dept.

2. Secretary to GoNWFP, Environment Department.

3. DG, CM &DD, Hayatabad.

4. AIGP, Traffic, NWFP, Peshawar.

5. Press

Saturday, August 16, 2008

What You and I Can Do in Mobilizing to Save Civilization?

What You and I Can Do in Mobilizing to Save Civilization?

What Lester R. Brown, the President of Earth Policy Institute recommends in his record-breaking book, the "PLAN B 3.0"

One of the questions I am frequently asked when I am speaking in various countries is, given the environmental problems that the world is facing, can we make it? That is, can we avoid economic decline and the collapse of civilization? My answer is always the same: it depends on you and me, on what you and I do to reverse these trends. It means becoming politically active.

Saving our civilization is not a spectator sport. We have moved into this new world so fast that we have not yet fully grasped the meaning of what is happening. Traditionally, concern for our children has translated into getting them the best health care and education possible.

But if we do not act quickly to reverse the earth’s environmental deterioration, eradicate poverty, and stabilize population, their world will decline economically and disintegrate politically.

The two overriding policy challenges are to restructure taxes and reorder fiscal priorities. Saving civilization means restructuring taxes to get the market to tell the ecological truth. And it means reordering fiscal priorities to get the resources needed for Plan B.

Write or email your elected representative about the need for tax restructuring to create an honest market. Remind him or her that corporations that left costs off the books appeared to prosper in the short run, only to collapse in the long run.

Or better yet, gather some like-minded friends together to meet with your elected representatives to discuss why we need to raise environmental taxes and reduce income taxes. Before the meeting, draft a brief statement of your collective concerns and the policy initiatives needed. Feel free to download the information on tax restructuring in this chapter from our Web site to use in these efforts.

Let your political representatives know that a world spending more than $1 trillion a year for military purposes is simply out of sync with reality when the future of civilization is in question. Ask them if $190 billion a year is an unreasonable expenditure to save civilization. Ask them if diverting one sixth of the global military budget to saving civilization is too costly.

Introduce them to Plan B. Remind them of how we mobilized in World War II.
Make a case for the inclusion of poverty eradication, family planning, reforestation, and renewable energy development in international assistance programs. Urge an increase in these appropriations and a cut in military appropriations, pointing out that advanced weapons systems are useless in dealing with the new threats to our security.

Someone needs to speak on behalf of our children and grandchildren, because it is their world that is at stake.

In short, we need to persuade our elected representatives and leaders to support the changes outlined in Plan B. We need to lobby them for these changes as though our future and that of
our children depended on it—because it does.

Educate yourself on environmental issues. If you found this book useful, share it with others. It can be downloaded free of charge from the Earth Policy Institute Web site. If you want to know what happened to earlier civilizations that also found themselves in environmental trouble, read Collapse by Jared Diamond or A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright.

If you like to write, try your hand at an op-ed piece for your local newspaper on the need to raise taxes on environmentally destructive activities and offset this with a lowering of income taxes. Try a letter to the editor. Put together your own personal listserv to help you communicate useful information to friends, colleagues, and local opinion leaders.

The scale and urgency of the challenge we face has no precedent, but what we need to do can be done. It is doable. Sit down and map out your own personal plan and timetable for what you want to do to move the world off a path headed toward economic decline and onto one of sustainable economic progress.

Set your own goals. Identify people in your community you can work with to achieve these goals. Pick an issue that is meaningful to you, such as restructuring the tax system, banning inefficient light bulbs, phasing out coal-fired power plants, ending the use of tax money for bottled water, or working for “complete streets” that are pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly in your community. What could be more exciting and rewarding?

The choice is ours—yours and mine. We can stay with business as usual and preside over an economy that continues to destroy its natural support systems until it destroys itself, or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that changes direction, moving the world onto a path of sustained progress. The choice will be made by our generation, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to come.

Past Plan B Updates and all of the Earth Policy Institute’s research, including this book, are posted on our Web site www.earthpolicy.org for free downloading.

Lester R. Brown is President of Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit, interdisciplinary research organization based in Washington, D.C., which he founded in May 2001. The purpose of the Earth Policy Institute is to provide a plan for building a sustainable future and a roadmap of how to get from here to there.

(Copyrights permitted by the Organization)