Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 09 July 2018 | Page 10

IN & AROUND
THE SUBCONTINENTAL MENU
DOGINSON CRUSOES
O
NE’S heard of doggy
bags, but doggy boats?
Fishermen are taking their
boats out to Karachi’s ‘dog
islands’ to feed the teeming
islanders. Dogs inhabit doz-
ens of such islands that lie
offshore in the Arabian Sea
just south of the port city.
They are entirely depend-
ent on the goodwill of the
fishermen who bring the m
food and fresh water—but
the only alternative may
be death. The city’s feral
canine population, which
conservative estimates
peg at about 35,000, faces
a massive culling each year
in a country where animal
rights are at a low and reli-
gious doctrine engenders
revulsion toward dogs. The
islands serve as a refuge
where hundreds avoid the
slaughter.
A DAM UNDERMINED
M
ORE than pebbles are at stake as Bhu-
tanese stone mining in the Saralbhanga
river on the border threatens the livelihood
of Indian farmers, who maintain a jury-rigged
stone dam on the river that allows water to be
diverted to irrigate their farms. However, the
increased mining activity from the Bhutanese
side will “increase the current and flow of silt...
the strong current will break our dam as we
are not allowed to use cement, and the silt will
destroy our paddy fields”, says a farmer. The
villagers get no government help as the forest
department says they are encroachers.
MICRO CREDIT, MACRO USURY
M
ICROFINANCE was
never a panacea; it’s
more akin to a pandemic.
Predatory lenders are
extracting their pound
of flesh from Sri Lanka’s
Tamils, many of whom
turned to microfinance
amid failed development
initiatives and a lack of
jobs after 2009. The fine
print of these loans hid
interest rates of up to 70
10 OUTLOOK 9 July 2018
per cent. The debt crisis—
linked to several suicides—
has precipitated a mass
movement. Protests took
place across the northern
and eastern provinces.
Aut­­horities have respo­
n­ded, with the finance
ministry setting aside LKR
50 crore (Rs 21.2 crore) to
relieve debts in the north,
with a promise to write off
interest on loans too.
Rudderless Floats
A
RE election manifestos becoming obsolete? So it would
seem if one goes by the apathy shown to this important
document by the major political parties in Pakistan.
With barely a month left before the parliamentary elections
scheduled for July 25, no major party has come out with a
manifesto—neither the Pakistan Muslim League (N) of the
Sharifs nor the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf of Imran Khan or the
Pakistan People’s Party of the Bhuttos.
In established democracies, the party manifesto is consid-
ered to be the most important part of an poll campaign. It is
through this document that parties give their viewpoint on
important national issues and announce a strategy to deal
with challenges—a “published verbal declaration” through
which parties express their “intentions, views and vision”
about national issues and also make public their “motives”
and “targets” which they plan to achieve.
The English daily Dawn points
out that a manifesto is actually
Though major
a pledge a political party makes
political
to the people before elections
and later it acts as a gauge to
parties have
measure its performance.
blithely
“The manifesto is the best tool
ignored the
to make parties accountable,”
manifestos, the
the Dawn quoted Zaigham Khan,
religious party
a senior journalist, as saying.
grouping, the
But the newspaper report
MMA, has
points out that in Pakistan,
political parties publish only a
dutifully come
few thousand copies of their
out with one.
manifestos before election. They
consider it a mere formality
and the document is only distributed to the media for a
political debate.
Since many parties have failed to function as institu-
tions and due to the lack of ideology-based politics, even
election candidates are often found clueless about the
manifestos of their parties.
It is interesting to note that only the religious-political
parties’ alliance, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, has so far come
out with its manifesto.
The five-party alliance MMA, through its 12-point elec-
tion manifesto announced on June 6, has covered almost
everything, from local government to protection of Muslim
minorities in other countries.
The salient features of the MMA’s manifesto include ind­
ependent foreign policy, enforcement of Shariat, land for
landless peasants and jobs for locals in the projects being
carried out under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Unfortunately, major political parties are yet to show the
same keenness in the matter as the MMA.