Handling Balochistan
No death in the world is a cause for celebration. Given the present geo-political and domestic circumstances, Nawab Akbar Bugti’s reported demise is a moment of extreme concern for the nation. Riding a camel he left Dera Bugti holding aloft a rifle as symbolic of his revolt, it was pure showmanship and he well knew how to exploit the media. He exchanged the camel for a “4 by 4” jeep a mile or so down the metalled road. Akbar Bugti’s followers were certainly targetted, he was scrupulously left alone to avoid his being killed, this has now come to pass more by accident than by any design. The location of the caves he was residing in was well known to the authorities, Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan could have got him anytime during the past year or so. In the emotive circumstances availing, announcement of such deaths at the hands of security forces have to be carefully crafted. Indeed what was the need to do so without recovering his body? Mohammad Ali Durrani can grandstand for his two bosses, what he says as Federal Minister for Information cannot be delivered like a speech in Nishtar Park. The national forum is not a “Pasban” pulpit, Durrani’s display of his “more loyal than the king” posture can adversely affect the destiny of the nation.
Creeping Economic Anarchy
In order of priority the three major sectors of our economy are, viz (1) agriculture (2) industry and (3) services. Our planners set very ambitious targets for Financial Year 2000-01, most of which cannot (and will not) be met. Because of acute shortage of water (and other reasons including WAPDA’s shift to metered electricity in place of a flat fee), farmers were forced to reduce acreage under cultivation. The output of sugarcane and rice declined by as much as 19.1% and 11.4% respectively. Cotton registered a slight increase of area under cultivation, the overall production remained the same. Punjab harvested more wheat, it was offset by decreases in Sindh due to lack of irrigated water, even if grain production manages to reach 700,000 tons if the rains do come, it will be well short of the projected 772,000 tons. Given that cotton, rice, sugarcane, grain and wheat account for 94% of the agriculture sector, there will be an overall decline in all the levels forecasted. According to the Islamabad-based dream merchants’ optimistic predictions the people will not starve, shortages will be made up from buffer stocks but even they concede that the overall economic outlook for the year 2001-02 is exceedingly bleak. Given that acute water shortage is imminent, we are well on our way to a creeping economic anarchy.