tuesday, 22 January, 2013 rabiul awal 9, 1434rs 17.00 vol iii no 206 19 Pages Lahore Edition

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President Obamasays decade of war ending

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Former MNA blowswhistle on ‘dual national’ MPs

Pakistan adoptedresponsible approach to defuse LoC tensions

Senators for linkingAfghan peace withend to drone strikes

ISLAMABADTAyyAb HuSSAin

Members of the Upper House of parlia-ment on Monday expressed grave concernover the passage of a bill by the US Con-gress allowing CIA to conduct drone strikesinside Pakistan “at will”, urging the gov-ernment to link the country’s help to theUS in the Afghan peace process with anend to drone strikes. The senators also de-manded the government take up the mat-ter with the United Nations SecurityCouncil, as the bill was in violation of theUN conventions and threatened the sover-eignty of the Pakistani state. The matterwas raised by opposition Senator SyedZafar Ali Shah and was duly supported bythe treasury benches, with PML-Q’s Sena-tor Mushahid Hussain Sayyed asking thegovernment to link the assistance inAfghan peace process with halting droneattacks. Speaking on a point of order,Mushahid said the US congress had em-powered the CIA to conduct drone attacksinside Pakistan that were unacceptable toPakistan. “On one hand, the US is seekingassistance from Pakistan for negotiationsin Afghanistan to restore peace in the warhit country, while on the other it is allow-ing more attacks inside Pakistan,” headded. Mushahid said with the US forceswithdrawing from Afghanistan, such aheavy logistic operation was going to takeplace in region that a truck with logisticswould be passing through Pakistan everyseven minutes. “Such a heavy logistic exer-cise is impossible without assistance fromPakistan. We should link assistance inAfghan peace process with halting droneoperations,” he remarked.

ISLAMABADSTAFF REPORT

Employees and officers of the NationalAccountability Bureau (NAB) onMonday protested against themysterious death of Kamran Faisal, theofficer investigating the Rental PowerProjects (RPP) corruption case, as NABChairman Admiral (r) Fasih Bukharisaid proceedings in the RPP case wouldremain pending until the conclusion ofthe enquiry into Faisal’s death.The mourning employees in all NABoffices rejected the government-appointed judicial commission,demanding a sitting judge of theSupreme Court be tasked with enquiringinto the mysterious death of Faisal, whowas found hanging from a ceiling fan in

his apartment. The post mortem reporthas suggested Faisal committed suicide,however, his family has rejected theclaim, saying he was murdered as theyfound torture marks on the NABofficial’s body. On Monday, the federalgovernment appointed Sindh AdditionalInspector General of Police Rafiq Buttand Hazara Division DIG InvestigationAzad Khan as investigation officers toassist the judicial commission headed byJustice (r) Javaid Iqbal to probe Faisal’s“suicide”. Meanwhile, IslamabadSecretariat Assistant CommissionerNouman Yousaf, who is conducting theenquiry into the killing and a team ofIslamabad police headed by SP City Capt(r) Ilyas, recorded the statements ofsome officials of NAB as well asemployees of federal lodges, where the

body was found. A team of Islamabadpolice also visited Mian Channu – thehometown of the deceased to collectinformation. Police sources said they alsorecorded statements of Faisal’s fatherand some other close relatives, however,the deceased’s wife refused to record astatement. Sources said they were alsoascertaining who would have been thebeneficiary in case Faisal was murdered.On the other hand, police is still cluelessabout Faisal’s laptop.Police sources said they came to knowthat Faisal had been receivingpsychological treatment at Poly Clinicfrom Dr Najma Aziz. However, DrNajma refused to give a statement whenapproached by police, telling them shewould not comment without theapproval of the hospital’s executive

director. Police were now trying to getpermission from the ED.NAB OFFICIALS’ PROTEST:Earlier, officials of the NAB RawalpindiBureau went on a pen-down strike, woreblack armbands and staged protestsagainst the death of their colleague,demanding the NAB chairman tonominate an officer who would file anFIR against Faisal’s death and would getthe case investigated.The protesting employees also called onthe NAB chairman to implement theSupreme Court order of June 15, in whichthe court ordered the arrest of PrimeMinister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and 15 otheraccused in the RPP corruption case.

NAB chairman says RPP probe postponed untilcompletion of Kamran Faisal’s death enquiry

NAB employees reject judicial commission,demand implementation of SC orders for PM’sarrest, probe by sitting SC judge

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02News

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uS envoy meets PAF chief, reaffirms commitment to Pakistan’s security China plans emergency measures to control worsening air pollution

Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

Ready for talks withmilitants, says Asfandyar

PESHAWAR: AwamiNational Party (ANP) chiefAsfandyar Wali Khan onMonday said his party wereready to hold talks withmilitants for the eliminationof terrorists. Addressing agathering in connection withthe death anniversaries ofANP founder Khan AbdulGhaffar Khan, popularly

known as Bacha Khan and Rehbar-e-Tehreek Khan Abdul WaliKhan, Asfandyar said the nation needed to be united in the fightagainst terrorism. He also said terrorism was not only ANP’sproblem but it had caused damage to the whole country, adding thatpeace was a prerequisite for the development of the country. OnlinE

5 children die of measles inMohmand Agency MOHMANd: At least 10 children have died of measles in Balochistanwhile five have fallen prey to the disease in Mohmand Agency, raisingthe death toll to 459 across the country, of which 429 children died inSindh alone. According to reports gathered from various parts ofSindh, two children died in Kandhkot in the last 24 hours, raising theoverall toll in the district to 157. The most affected cities have beenSukkur with 84 deaths, Shikarpur with 55, Khairpur with 50, Ghotkiwith 33, Thul with 14, Larkana with eight while four children have diedof measles in Hyderabad. Fifteen children have died of measles inPunjab since the outbreak gripped the province. Four children died inDera Ghazi Khan, 7 in Rajanpur, Ahmedpur, Sharqia, Liaqatpur,Taxila, and Hujra Shah Muqeem. OnlinE

Qadri, son won’t contest electionsTehreek-e-MinhajulQuran chief Dr TahirulQadri has decided not toparticipate in theupcoming election, aprivate TV channelreported on Monday. Perdetails, Dr Qadri hasdecided that neither henor his son wouldcontest the upcomingpolls. The channel said

Dr Qadri had taken the decision following consultations with hisclose friends. He will make an announcement in this regard today(Tuesday), the channel said. MOniTORinG dESk

Polio spreads from Pakistan to EgyptA state of emergency has been declared in Egypt’s Alexandria andCairo after authorities found spread of polio virus in the twocities, reportedly transferred to the country from Pakistan.Meanwhile, Prime Minister’s Polio Monitoring Cell in Pakistanhas directed all provincial governments to set up polio counters atairports and all internal and external routes across the country.In a joint statement, World Health Organisation, UNICEF andPolio Monitoring Cell have termed this situation as critical andalarming for the anti-polio campaign in Pakistan. The statementfurther adds that children under the age of five would not beallowed to leave Pakistan without having had polio drops. On theother hand, emergency has been imposed in Alexandria and Cairocities of Egypt where anti-polio drive would soon be launched for3 million children. Before this recent outbreak, Egypt had beenpolio free since 2004. MOniTORinG dESk

ISLAMABADAGEnCiES

A local court on Saturday summoned editor-in-chief of The Friday Times Najam Sethi in adefamation case filed by the registrar of theSupreme Court of Pakistan Dr Faqir Hussain.

The plaintiff’s counsel argued that defama-tory content appeared in the anonymous sectionof the magazine, which implied that the plaintiffwas benefiting from real estate tycoon MalikRiaz. The registrar is seeking Rs500 million indamages. Dr Hussain’s counsel admitted hisclient owned two houses in Bahria Town, owned

by Riaz, but argued that they were purchased inthe open market. District and sessions judgeRaja Jawad Abbas Hassan heard the defamationcase. The said article in The Friday Times ap-peared in the anonymous ‘Such Gup’ sectionunder the title of “Tip of the Iceberg”. The articleread, “The Tony affair is just the tip of the ice-berg, we hear. The contagion seems to havespread to other officials associated with the hal-lowed halls of justice. It is rumoured that thegent who’s supposed to register all and sundryhas also been the recipient of the Town Tycoon’slargesse to the tune of two houses.” The case hasbeen adjourned till January 26.

QUETTASHAHzAdA zulFiqAR

WHILE repeating their demandfor lifting of the governor’s rulefrom Balochistan, the lawmak-ers of Balochistan Assembly onMonday claimed that they

would again form the government by winning theupcoming general elections.

The Balochistan Assembly session met aboutone and half hour late with Speaker Syed Matiul-lah in the chair. Only 14 lawmakers out of total 65were present during the session, but none of themembers pointed out the incomplete quorum.After the imposition of governor’s rule, the sessionwas summoned by the speaker on requisition of19 members. A motion was moved in the Houseon the part of 17 members for debate on the rec-ommendations of the Islamic Ideological Council(IIC), headed by JUI-F leader Muhammad KhanSheerani. JUI-F parliamentary leader AbdulWasay moved the motion which was approved bythe House for debate. Initiating debate on the IICrecommendations, Wasay said it was regrettablethat some political parties were celebrating the

imposition of governor’s rule but they should re-member that they (JUI-F and coalition partners)would succeed again in forthcoming elections.

Criticising media, the JUI-F leader said thatmedia was giving maximum coverage to undemo-cratic forces and the real representatives of thepeople were being neglected.

He said that due to struggle of their elders theIIC was formed so that all legislations could bemade in accordance with Shariah, adding thatafter the constitution of 1973 parliament andother institutions did not adopt its recommenda-tions. He said that Pakistan was formed in thename of Islam and thousands of people renderedtheir lives for an Islamic system.

He lamented that the IIC recommendationshad not been given due importance in the past,but Sherani prepared the recommendations anddispatched them to the assembly for legislationwithin a short period of two years.

He said that when President Zardari couldimpose the governor’s rule in Balochistan througha presidential decree, similarly the recommenda-tions of IIC should also be implemented with apresidential decree in the country.

Wasay criticised the National Accountability

Bureau (NAB) which initiated investigationagainst ministers for alleged illegal practices andmisappropriation and said that it was tantamountto blackmailing the whole Balochistan Assembly.He said that NAB could arrest and malign law-makers of the Balochistan Assembly, but it couldnot eliminate them from the hearts of people.

BNP-Awami lawmaker Asad Baloch criticisedthe federal government for imposition of gover-nor’s rule in Balochistan and said that theprovince was being run like a British colony. Fol-lowing imposition of governor’s rule, their fundswere suspended, he said, adding that if they weremembers of the provincial assembly then theirfunds should also be put on their discretion oth-erwise the assembly should also be dissolved.

Other members such as Ainullah Shams andShahnawaz Marri also criticised the federal gov-ernment for imposition of governor’s rule in theprovince and termed it against the mandate ofmillions of people. They said that some forceswere paving the way for opposition parties likeNational Party and Pakhtunkhwa Milli AwamiParty to win upcoming elections, adding that theJUI-F and the Balochistan National Party werebeing implicating in false cases.

BA lawmakers say they willform government again

Court summons journalist

in defamation suit

ISLAMABDAGEnCiES

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has asked PresidentAsif Ali Zardari to use his special powers togrant amnesty to Mumtaz Qadri, the self-con-fessed murderer of former Punjab governorSalmaan Taseer.

Qadri had confessed to killing SalmaanTaseer in the ATC court which subsequentlyfound him guilty and pronounced the deathpenalty for killing Taseer and breaching hisoath as a policeman. His defence counsel hadfiled an appeal against the sentence in the Is-lamabad High Court. “[JI] urges the President

to announce amnesty for Qadri like manyother cases especially under the NRO,” said aresolution adopted by JI Shura. “The govern-ment should withdraw the case against himfor murdering Taseer in the public interest.”

The JI referred to the thousands of casesagainst criminals and politicians which hadbeen withdrawn under the National Reconcil-iation Ordinance (NRO) whereas Qadri wasnot given any such concession; The JI leader-ship observed in a meeting adopted numer-ous clauses on hot issues. “Qadri gunneddown Taseer for criticising the Blasphemylaw in line with the sentiments of themasses.”

JI seeks presidential pardon for Mumtaz Qadri

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03NewseditorialThe border incident:

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The peace process stalled.

kuldip nayar says;

Blood at the border: I wish the two sides to consider the LoC sacred.

Rabia Ahmed says;

The earthquake that wasn’t: Does the nation owe Mr Qadri?

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Ali zafar to play action hero in kill dil iMF advice recipe to bail out economy from mess no home tests holding Pakistan back: Misbah

Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

THE government members in thePunjab Assembly (PA) on Mon-day rejected a Pakistan People’sParty (PPP) proposal for the for-mation of a single southern Pun-

jab province rather than two separate ones.Meanwhile the opposition in the assembly

endorsed the federal government’s proposedbill for the formation of a Bahawalpurprovince in the region that would includeDera Ghazi Khan and Multan, and demandedthat PA Speaker Rana Iqbal Khan nominatetwo members from the house for representa-tion on the commission for the formation ofnew provinces.

Speaking on a point of order, Noor HaiderNiazi of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)noted that the Punjab Assembly had passedtwo resolutions on the matter, one for the for-mation of a South Punjab province and onefor the formation of a Bahawalpur province inorder to restore the autonomous status the re-gion enjoyed until 1955.

He said that the PPP proposal would in-clude the areas of DG Khan, Multan, Muzaf-fargarh, Rajanpur, Mianwali, Layyah,Lodhran, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khanin the Bahawalpur province. He said that thePPP should ask the people of these districtswhether they wanted to be part of a Ba-hawalpur province before tabling the bill in

the assembly. He said that Mianwali shouldnot be part of the Bahawalpur province.

PML-N MPA from Multan Chaudhry Wa-heed said that Multan and Muzaffargarhshould not be included in the proposed Ba-hawalpur province.

Shaukat Mehmood Basra of the PPP,speaking on a point of order, said that form-ing a new province in southern Punjab wouldreduce the sense among people of the regionthat they were being deprived of their rights.

Leader of the Opposition Raja Riaz saidthat the house had passed unanimous resolu-tions for the formation of new provinces, sothe speaker should immediately send twomembers of the house to represent the Punjabon the commission for the formation of newprovinces.RESOLUTIONS: The House also passed aresolution in favour of democracy before pro-ceedings were prorogued indefinitely.

“The house supports the continuity ofdemocracy and democratic institutions. TheConstitution supports rule of law and thehouse expresses full confidence in the Elec-tion Commission of Pakistan. The house sup-ports the politicians’ stand regardingelections on time and vows that any conspir-acy against democracy will be foiled,” statedthe resolution.

Samina Khawar Hayat of the PML-Q wasthe only member to object to the resolution,saying she did not have full confidence in fourof the ECP members.

Punjab Assembly rejectsPPP’s one-provincein South proposal

ISLAMABADAnwER AbbAS

Pakistan did not react to the harsh state-ments made by the Indian leadership re-garding the recent skirmishes along theLine of Control (LoC) only to defuse thetension and avoid escalation of hostili-ties, Foreign Minister Hina RabbaniKhar said on Monday.

Responding to a critical speech deliv-ered by Leader of the Opposition in theNational Assembly Nisar Ali Khan in

which he criticised the president, theprime minister and the foreign ministerfor adopting an “inappropriate andextra-soft stance over the recent Pak-istan-India tensions on the LoC”, Kharsaid Pakistan, unlike the Indian leader-ship, had adopted a calculated and re-sponsible stance on the issue. Theforeign minister said Pakistan made amark in the entire world by dealing withthe situation responsibly.

She said as a responsible country,Pakistan had resorted to available mech-

anisms to put across its point that in-cluded meetings of the director generalsmilitary operations (DGMOs)‚ summon-ing of the Indian high commissioner tolodge a protest with him and offering aninquiry into the LoC incidents by the UNMilitary Observer Group in India andPakistan.

She said India was told that these in-cidents were contrary to the peaceprocess being pursued by the two coun-tries.

Khar assured the House that the gov-

ernment was not oblivious to the chal-lenges emanating from the eastern bor-ders.

She said Indian Prime Minister Man-mohan Singh‚ the foreign minister andarmy chief issued harsh statement butPakistan did not resort to a course thatwould have led to more escalation of ten-sion on the LoC. Earlier, in a writtenreply at the National Assembly’s Ques-tion Hour, Khar said the resolution of theKashmir issue remained a fundamentalprinciple of Pakistan’s foreign policy.

LoC vioLations

Pakistan adopted responsible approach to defuse tensions: Kharg foreign minister assures House government not oblivious to challenges emanating from eastern borders

DHAKAOnlinE

Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunalsentenced a popular Islamic tele-vangelist to death on Monday, thefirst verdict by the controversialbody set up to probe abuses duringthe country’s bloody struggle forindependence.

Per foreign media agencies,Abul Kalam Azad, a former mem-ber of Bangladesh’s biggest Is-lamist party, was found guilty oftorture, rape and genocide duringthe war for independence fromPakistan in 1971. Police believe hefled to Pakistan last April and wastried in absentia.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinaset up the tribunal in 2010 toprobe abuses during the conflictthat claimed about 3 million livesand during which thousands ofwomen were raped. Another 11people are awaiting trial.

The tribunal has been criticisedby rights groups for failing to ad-here to standards of internationallaw, while opposition parties say itis politically biased.

“The ICT (International CrimesTribunal) in its verdict ordered fordeath penalty,” said Shahidur Rah-man, a lawyer for the prosecutionin a trial that drew a huge crowdoutside the court in Dhaka amidtight security.

Critics say the tribunal is beingused by the prime minister as aninstrument against her opponentsin the country’s two biggest oppo-sition parties, the Bangladesh Na-tionalist Party and theJamaat-e-Islami. Begum KhaledaZia, Hasina’s arch rival, has calledthe tribunal a “farce”.

Human Rights Watch has saidthe law under which the accusedwere being tried fell short of inter-national standards of due process.It cited defence lawyers, witnessesand investigators as saying theyhad been threatened during thetrial.

Hasina’s party has denied alle-gations of bias.

ISLAMABAd: A local jirga in Kurram Agencyis preparing a list of over 150 prisonersbelonging to various parts of Kurram whowould be released by the government by nextmonth, Pakistan Today has learnt throughreliable sources. Sources told Pakistan Todaythat the Kurram jirga was preparing a list ofmen detained by law enforcement agencies oncharges of an alleged murder attempt on the lifeof Haji Bakhat Jamal – leader of the AnjumanFarooqia, Kurram Agency and member of theMangal tribe – to get them released. The menwere detained from Pevaar, Amir Bahail,Maggla, Karrman, Malli Kalay, Daal, Zahraanand Ahmedzai villages and have been in prisonfor the last several months. No formal case hasbeen registered against them, the sources

added. Following the recent sit-ins staged inKurram against Shia and Hazara killings, anagreement took place between the government,Kurram Political Agent Yousuf Rahim andToori-Bangash Jirga with efforts of Air Marshal(r) Qaisar Ali Shah, brother of deceased PPPMP Dr Riaz Hussain. Shah guaranteed thatboth sides would act upon the deal as decidedwith consensus reached between both factionsin the agency. Under the current agreement,the government and Kurram political agenthave ensured the locals of releasing thedetainees, except those involved in theassassination bid on Haji Bakhat Jamal. Thesources said the prisoners from Kurram werelikely to be released next month and would behanded over to the agency’s jirga. AnwER AbbAS

Cleric sentenced to death inhistoric Bangladesh verdict Over 150 detainees from

Kurram set to be released

LAHORE: A devotee

lights an earthen

lamp during the Urs

of Hazrat Mian Mir

on Monday. ONLINE

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04 Tuesday, 22 January, 2013News

Zafar Ali Shah said theUS Congress had passed abill allowing the CIA to carryout drone strikes inside Pak-istan “at will” which was aviolation of the UN laws andalso the sovereignty of thestate. “Even when the Indianhome minister has admittedthat the BJP is harbouringterrorists inside India, thereis no action by the US. How-ever, the US has given blan-ket powers to the CIA toconduct drone strikes inPakistan despite our sacri-fices made in the war againstterrorism,” he added.

Raja Zafarul Haq of thePML-N said President Bar-rack Obama had taken oathfor his second term as theUS president, but the sign-ing of the law allowing CIA afree was to be held in 15-days’ time. “We hope theForeign Ministry, armedforces and the governmenttake up the matter with theUNSC,” he added. RABBANI REVOLU-TION: Senator Raza Rab-bani said the ParliamentaryCommittee on National Se-curity (PNSC) would alsotake up the matter. Speakingon a point of order, Rabbanisaid a drone attack wasbeing made on the demo-cratic process in the countryand the long march was partof a failed attempt to subvertthe democratic government.

Rabbani said the revolu-tion never came, but thiswould not be the last at-tempt to derail the demo-cratic process in the country.

He said there was a percep-tion in the country followingthe 18th and 20th amend-ments that the role of theruling elites in formation ofthe Election Commissionand installing of the care-taker government had cometo an end and an elected gov-ernment would complete itsterm and a peaceful transi-tion would be made. “How-ever, an effort is being madefrom the backdoor to ensuresome role for the rulingelites in the nomination ofthe caretaker governmentand the formulation of ECP.Under this scheme, the elec-tion commission is beingtargeted,” he said. Rabbanisaid the demand to dissolvethe ECP was aimed at seek-ing some influence of theelites to steal the elections,as had been the practice inthe past. “But Article 213 hasblocked this possibility,” headded. Rabbani said Article215 made it clear that thechief election commissionercould only be removedthrough Article 209 and onlythe Supreme Judicial Coun-cil could remove the CEC.

“Don’t play with fire. Electionsin Balochistan should be held in atransparent manner, otherwise, itcould have serious consequences.Moreover, the caretaker govern-ment could be installed in consul-tation with all politicalstakeholders under Article 223.The demand of consultation withthe judiciary and the armed forcesis unconstitutional,” he added. ARMY, JUdICIARY: Hesaid if the army and judiciarywere consulted for caretakergovernment’s formation, it

would be a violation of theconstitution as the army’soath did not allow it to takepart in politics, while underthe principle of trichotomy ofpowers, the judiciary couldnot be consulted.

“Moreover, if the judici-ary is consulted, no courtwould be able to hear anywrit petition against thecaretakers, as the judiciarywould be a party in care-taker’s nomination,” headded. The PPP leader saidefforts were on to stem thesupremacy of parliament,adding that the demand forverification of candidates’nomination papers in 30days was absurd and againstthe law. Senate ChairmanNayyar Hussain Bokhari in-terrupted Rabbani, saying amatter could not be debatedon mere assumption. Mean-while, the Upper House ofparliament unanimouslypassed a resolution askingthe federal government torecommend the name ofShaheed Bashir AhmedBilour for Nobel Prize.

Meanwhile, PML-Nmembers staged a walkoutfrom Senate proceedings toprotest the remarks by Inte-rior Minister Rehman Malikagainst Dr Tahirul Qadri.They said Malik likened DrQadri cap with that of apope, who was a respectedfigure across the globe. Theyasked the minister to submitan apology. The walkoutwas called off when PPPChief Whip IslamuddinShaikh assured the Housethat Malik would clear hisposition in a few days.

senators for linking afghan peace

KARACHI: A judicial magistrate

on Monday issued non-bailable arrest

warrants of a couple in a case in which

a servant of the Sindh minister for local

governments allegedly kidnapped a 15-

year-old Christian girl and married her

after converting her to Islam.The court ordered the investi-

gation officers to submit final chargesheet against the accused and ad-journed hearing until January 23.As per reports, the judicial magis-trate expressed his anger at the in-vestigation officer over his allegedfailure to submit the final chargesheet against the accused. The mag-istrate then issued non-bailable ar-rest warrants of the couple oninterim charge sheet, and orderedthe police to arrest them. The mag-istrate also ordered the investigationofficer to submit the final chargesheet before the court, and ad-journed the hearing until January23. It has been almost a month thatthe mother of Asma, daughter ofRehmat Masih, lodged a first infor-mation report (FIR) against the ser-vant of Sindh Minister for LocalGovernments Agha Siraj Durani forkidnapping her 15-year-old daugh-ter, but the police have failed to raidthe minister’s house despite re-peated court orders. On the night ofDecember 10, 2012, Ghaji Khan, sonof Haji Khan, had kidnapped Asmafrom her house numbered 428,Street 23, Neelum Colony in Clifton.Asma’s mother had lodged a com-plaint against Ghaji Khan on De-cember 22, 2012, with the BoatBasin Police, and the police finallyregistered the case numbered644/12 under Section 365/B onnon-recovery of kidnapped girl. Thecase has been pending before the ju-dicial magistrate (South). The judgehad repeatedly ordered the investi-gation officer, Sub-Inspector AbdulGhaffar, to raid the minister’s houseand arrest Ghaji Khan but the policedid not raid Durrani’s bungalow at44/2, DHA Phase-IV to arrest theaccused. On January 19, the judicialmagistrate had ordered the police toproduce the kidnapped girl beforethe court on January 21. Talking toPakistan Today, Khursheed Bibi, wifeof Rehmat Masih, alleged that thepolice was using delaying tactics onpresenting her daughter before thecourt because of the political affilia-tion of the accused. She alleged thatGhaji Khan had kidnapped herdaughter on the night of December10, 2012, besides looting Rs 90,000in cash and gold jewellery, and later

married her forcefully. She allegedthat Ghaji Khan was running a pros-titution business, and pushed girlsinto sex trade after marrying them.She said that she had rented out aportion in her house to Ghaji Khanfor some period, and meanwhile theBoat Basin Police had raided her por-tion two times and recovered somegirls from the spot. She alleged thatGhaji Khan was running the businesswith her second wife Zarina Begum.She claimed that Ghaji Khan hadforcefully married her daughter, whowas less than 18 years old.

She said that Ghaji Khan hadproduced a certificate issued by MuftiAbdullah of Jamia Yousufia at Malir,and according to the certificate,Asma had embraced Islam and hernew name was Farzana. “Althoughmy daughter has embraced Islam,but she is under 18, and according tothe country’s law, she cannot marryanyone,” she said. She further saidthat her lawyer Jamil Virk hadprayed before court to set a medicalboard to know Asma’s exact age andsend her to Daarul Amaan until thecase was decided. She claimed thatGhaji Khan’s second wife was alsoagainst him because he had “forcedher to run the prostitution businessafter marrying her”. Zarin Bibi, thesecond wife of Ghaji Khan, told Pak-istan Today that her husband hadforced her to run prostitution busi-ness. “I got married with Ghaji Khansome six years ago, and after mar-riage he forced me to run this badbusiness. I belong to Sahiwal, a cityin Punjab, and I have two sons frommy first husband. I run the prostitu-tion business in the city as my hus-band forced me to run it in hisabsence. My husband marries inno-cent girls and then forces them to runhis prostitution business,” ZarinaBibi burst into tears and discon-nected the call. The investigation of-ficer of the case, SI Abdul Ghaffar,said that police did not have evidenceagainst Ghaji Khan to arrest him.“We cannot raid the minister’s houseuntil we have solid evidence againstGhaji Khan,” he said, adding thatFarzana, Asma’s new name afterconverting to Islam, had told policethat she had embraced Islam andwilfully married Ghaji Khan. “The girlis hesitating to appear before the courtdue to her family, but she will be pro-duced before the court,” he added. Healso rejected the claims of KhursheedBibi that the police was supportingGhaji Khan, adding that he would bearrested if the allegations against himprove true. AAMIr MAJEED

WASHINGTON SPECiAl CORRESPOndEnT

DECLARING that thedecade of American war isending, President BarackObama Monday com-menced his second term

with the promise to resolve US differenceswith other nations peacefully. Speaking athis colorful inauguration ceremony on theimposing Capitol building, Obama alsovowed the United States’ unstinted sup-port for democracy in Asia and the MiddleEast. “We, the people, still believe that en-during security and lasting peace do notrequire perpetual war,” Obama told hisenthusiastic supporters – estimated to beunder one million - who crowded at theNational Mall for the grand public swear-ing-in festivities while freezing winds blewacross the District of Columbia.

Constitutionally, the second term forthe US president and the vice president

commenced on Monday, as both BarackObama and Joseph Biden took oath in pri-vate ceremonies. Obama’s comment onend to the decade of war referred to theU.S. conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq,started by his predecessor George W Bushin the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks.Obama brought the Iraq war to an end inhis first term and has pledged to concludethe combat mission in Afghanistan withdrawdown of American forces by 2014. Inhis carefully worded, speech Obama paidtribute to the American men and womenin uniform and observed that, Americans,seared by the memory of those lost, knowtoo well the price that is paid for liberty.

“The knowledge of their sacrifice willkeep us forever vigilant against those whowould do us harm. “But we are also heirsto those who won the peace and not just thewar, who turned sworn enemies into thesurest of friends, and we must carry thoselessons into this time as well,” the firstAfrican-American president, joined at the

ceremony by the First Lady MichelleObama, their daughters, and members ofCongress, added. Obama promised to “de-fend our people and uphold our valuesthrough strength of arms and rule of law.”

“We will show the courage to try andresolve our differences with other nationspeacefully – not because we are naïve aboutthe dangers we face, but because engage-ment can more durably lift suspicion andfear. “ America, he stated, will remain theanchor of strong alliances in every corner ofthe globe. “We will renew those institutionsthat extend our capacity to manage crisisabroad, for no one has a greater stake in apeaceful world than its most powerful na-tion. “We will support democracy fromAsia to Africa; from the Americas to theMiddle East, because our interests and ourconscience compel us to act on behalf ofthose who long for freedom. And we mustbe a source of hope to the poor, the sick, themarginalized, the victims of prejudice – notout of mere charity, but because peace in

our time requires the constant advance ofthose principles that our common creed de-scribes: tolerance and opportunity; humandignity and justice.” Commenting on theissue of climate change, Obama said Wash-ington would respond to the threat of cli-mate change, “knowing that the failure todo so would betray our children and futuregenerations.” “Some may still deny theoverwhelming judgment of science, butnone can avoid the devastating impact ofraging fires, and crippling drought, andmore powerful storms. The path towardssustainable energy sources will be long andsometimes difficult. But America cannotresist this transition; we must lead it. Wecannot cede to other nations the technologythat will power new jobs and new industries– we must claim its promise. That is howwe will maintain our economic vitality andour national treasure – our forests and wa-terways; our croplands and snowcappedpeaks. That is how we will preserve ourplanet, commanded to our care by God.”

Police unable to arrest‘influential’ accused

‘FORCED CONVERSION’ OF CHRISTIAN GIRL Obama says decade of war ending

LAHORE: Non-bailable warrants for thearrests of Sargodha DPO Dr Muhammad Rizwanand Sub-Inspector Ahmed Sher were issued byAdditional Sessions Judge Sargodha RanaMuhammad Azam for not being part of the trialas accused in a private complaint filed in FIR No.506/12. The complaint was filed by formerAdditional SP Nasir Qureshi for falsely involvinghim in the murder of one Tahir Cheema. Thejudge had admitted Qureshi’s complaint andsummoned DPO Rizwan on January 21, but theDPO did not comply with the orders and did notappear in court. In response, non-bailable arrestwarrants were issued, to be served on or beforeJanuary 28. Meanwhile, the court also directedthe Sargodha DPO and Cantonment PoliceStation SHO not to harass the staff of SP Nasirbecause they are witnesses in the case against theDPO and others. STAff rEPOrT

Non-bailable arrestwarrant issued forDPO Sargodha

2 soldiers killed, 9 injured inmohmand landmine blastMALAKANd/PESHAWAR: Twoofficials of the Pakistan Army weremartyred and another nine wereinjured on Monday when their vehiclehit a landmine in Mohmand Agency.According to security officials, avehicle of the security forces hit alandmine in Dozai area of the Agency,killing two personnel and completelydestroyed the vehicle. The securityforces rushed to the scene soon afterincident and cordoned off the.Meanwhile, unidentified gunmenopened fire on a Frontier Constabularyvehicle in Zakakhel market in theLandikotal area, killing one FCpersonnel and injuring two others. Theinjured were taken to where theircondition was reported to be out ofdanger, according to a private TVchannel. The FC personnel were onroutine patrol when they came underfire from the assailants. ONLINE

Sui Northern, CNG associations ink agreementISLAMABAd:The managing director of Sui Northern GasPipelines Limited and CNG associations have unanimouslychalked out a formula making way for CNG stations remainingopen four days a week. The CNG associations and SNGPL reachedan agreement in talks on Monday. The MD assured the associationthat CNG stations in Punjab would be unlocked for four days aweek per the previous schedule, while those in the Potohar regionwould remain open from Sunday to Wednesday. ONLINE

intelligence agencies arrest indian spy, 4 others near Wagah LAHORE: Intelligence agencies claimed to have arrestedfive alleged spies, including one Indian national, news reportssaid on Monday. According to the reports, in an operation inBurki and Jora Pul areas near Wagah border, securityagencies arrested five suspected spies. The arrested includedone Indian spy while the rest were Pakistanis, according topolice sources. ONLINE

The employees also requestedthe chairman to immediately fireall temporary employees toensure transparent andindependent investigations. Aspokesman of NAB said areference for condolence on thesad demise of Kamran Faisal washeld at the NAB HQs in which allofficers of NAB regional offices

participated on video.After prayers, the chairmanaddressed all officers and spoketo them on all issues being aired,discussed and speculated uponby various segments of themedia.The chairman assured allofficers that he would ensure thatthe enquiry regarding theunfortunate demise of Faisal wasfree, fair, independent andtransparent.

RPPs enquiRy Put on hoLdContinuEd froM PagE 01

ContinuEd froM PagE 01

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Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

LAHOREwAlEEd MAlHi

Residents of Ichhra, Samanabad, Rehmanpura andShama have been facing serious water supply prob-lems because of the Bus Rapid Transit System(BRTS) project that is underway on FerozepurRoad, Pakistan Today has learnt.Residents complained that water supply remaineddisconnected most of the time during the daywhile dirty water was being supplied at night. Res-idents of Ichhra claimed that water supply had notbeen restored in the area for over three months.They said that even though they had filed severalcomplaints regarding the issue, no government of-ficial or public representatives had visited the areato address their problems. Another resident of Shama said, “The Punjab gov-

ernment did not make a backup plan for such crisissituation and while BRTS is being flashed all over themedia, nobody is ready to take care of these issues.The government has to finish this project soon to in-crease its vote bank.” Yaseen Hayaat, a resident ofIchhra, while talking to Pakistan Today said, “Wehave been running from pillar to post to get ourwater woes registered with the authorities con-cerned but all our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.The WASA officials blame the bus project for fre-quent suspension of water and say they are help-less because it is the chief minister’s own project.”Taking to Pakistan Today, another resident ofRehmanpura said; “The water pipes supplying waterto this area were connected to the main pipe from theother end. We only get water when all the other pipesare full or overflowing.” He further said that if theother pipes were not full, there was no water for hoursat a time, adding that his area only received waterfrom 10pm to midnight during the entire day. An en-gineer from the Al Barka Construction Company,which was given the contract for the BRTS, told Pakistan Today on the condition of anonymity that itwas the responsibility of WASA officials to providethem a map of the underground water pipes. “We carried out drilling according to our plan. Thereis no way for us to know the exact location of thewater pipes,” he said. According to WASA SDO Amir Khaliq, “The restora-tion process has been started and about 90 percent ofthe pipes have been restored. The remaining work ofwater supply will be soon finished.”

LAHOREwAlEEd MAlHi

The project of changing billboards on the Mall has been ap-proved by Dilkash Lahore Committee in a meeting with LahoreDistrict Coordination Officer (DCO) Noor-ul-Amin Mengal,Pakistan Today has learnt.In the first phase of the project, the changing of billboard design atBaba Dinga Singh Building has been approved and the implementa-tion will be soon stared. The designs are specially made to revive thebeauty of the historical buildings.Bata, Service Borjan and Bank Al-Habib designs are proposed andconsist of the logos or the brand writing of the particular shop. The purpose of the committee is to revive the glory of historicalfaçade of the building of the metropolitan.A resource centre has also been created which will keep an inventoryof all historical buildings of the city. At a later stage, architects asso-ciated with the resource centre will recreate the façade of historicalbuildings to help owners restore the buildings’ old glory.Taking to Pakistan Today, a member of committee Rafay Alamsaid; “This was a sensitive issue. But celebrating trade unionsof Mall Road, we made an effort to restore the façade of the his-torical buildings”.He further said that the original maps of the historical buildingswere used to restore and renovation process. “With the help of LESCO and other authorities concerned, we willmove electricity poles and try to portrait the original significance ofthe buildings,” he said.

Dilkash Committee approveschanging of billboards

BrTS leaveswater scarce inmany areas n WASA, BRTS’ construction companycontinue blame game

LAHOREuMAiR Aziz

THE measles epidemicacross the province hasonce again highlightedthe failure of health of-ficials in performing

the mandatory routine immunisa-tion against diseases among chil-dren, Pakistan Today has learnt.

The government spends millionsof rupees on the Expanded Programof Immunisation (EPI) for childrenunder five years. The programme in-cludes vaccination against TB, Polioand pentavalent (whooping cough,tetanus, diphtheria, pneumonia andhepatitis), while two dozes againstmeasles are carried out.

However, sources on good au-thority revealed that the data showsaround 85 percent of the affected chil-dren did not receive the mandatoryroutine vaccination against measles.The other 15 percent missed one ofthe two mandatory dozes. Amongthose who received vaccination, theprotection rate was only 70 percent,while the remaining 30 percent stillremained vulnerable to the disease.

“In this case what is alarming isthe fact that the district authoritiesfailed to administer injections to anoverwhelming majority of the reportedcases. The question remains thatwhere do all those millions of rupees offunds go if the health authorities fail tocomplete a routine procedure that isongoing for the past many decades,”an official, on the condition ofanonymity, told Pakistan Today.

The official further said a recentthird party evaluation on Punjab’sEPI reported 60 percent coverage,showing clear gaps in the objectives.

“The vaccinators have becomeafsars and they are not interested intheir work. A large network of ladyhealth workers also provides sup-port, but the objectives are notachieved because they don’t performvaccination or a follow up as men-tioned in the standard operatingprocedure,” he added.

According to details, Chief Secre-tary Nasir Khosa himself called ameeting of all DCOs to ensure imple-mentation of the routine EPI in alldistricts. Similar meetings were heldbefore for dengue and polio vaccina-

tion campaigns. The outbreak of thisepidemic has however manifested theinefficiency and the indifference ofthe field formation in complying withthe orders from the top authorities.

According to authorities, around14 districts were affected and 1,476measles cases were reported duringthe current year in Punjab. Around 30cases had been reported in Lahorealone, while problem persisted in Gu-jranwala, Rawalpindi, Sialkot,MandiBahudin, Khushab, Layyah, Mi-anwali, Bhakkar, DG kahn, Rajanpur,Rahimyar Khan, Bahwalpur, Vehari.

A senior health expert said thosechildren who were breast feeding de-velop natural immunity for ninemonths, while the “modern” childdrinking bottled milk remains unsafe.

“Natural immunity is already lowin malnourished children, who are farmore vulnerable to the fatal disease,”he said. “The World Health Organisa-tion (WHO) also provides technicalsupport in achieving the EPI and con-ducts tests and compiles data andshares it with the government. How-ever, despite so many levels of offi-cers, the problem still persists.” EPIDirector Dr Tanveer Shaiq revealedthe root of the problem was “mis-management”, as same resourceswere given to all districts, but someofficials “just don’t perform”.

Nine EDOs were removed lastyear on the basis of poor EPI to senda message to others, he said.

To a question, he said that weak-nesses were prevalent and the higherauthorities had been focusing on fix-ing the same for the last six months.

To another question, he said theEPI coverage was 90 percent in the1990s, but the momentum could notbe built afterwards.

Punjab govt in another health crisis?

Measles situation under control: salman Rafique

LAHORE: Special Assistant to Chief Minister forHealth Khawaja Salman Rafique on Monday said thatthe measles epidemic in Punjab was not as bad as thesituation in Sindh. Talking to journalists, he said thatPunjab government had taken effective steps to ensureprovision of necessary healthcare to citizens. He furthersaid that steps had been taken to contain the spread ofthe disease. Moreover, Rafique said that that a mop-upcampaign in the affected areas, in accordance with theguideline of World Health Organisation (WHO), was

underway. He said that under this campaign, preventivevaccination was being carried out for children belong-ing to age groups of six months to ten years. He furthersaid that routine immunisation was being made moreeffective to ensure the eradication of measles virusamong the children. He said that as many as 1,476measles cases had been reported during the currentyear in Punjab, whereas seven suspected deaths had oc-curred, one each at Gujranwala and Kasur, while fivehad been reported at Rajanpur. STAFF REPORT

nChildren infected by measles didnot receive the routine vaccination

placing a question mark on the efficacy of the Health Dept

Proposed billboard style that wasapproved by the committe. STAff PhOTO

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cine Star dabanGG 2 01:00Pm

PH: 35157462 tHe laSt Stand 03:30Pm

tHe Hobbit: an unexPected journeY 05:30Pm

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dabanGG 2 01:00am

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PH: 36674271 matru ki bijlee ka mandola 12:00, 02:45 10:45 Pm

tHe laSt Stane 08:30 Pm

Sozo Gold dabanGG 2 12:00, 02:30, 10:30 Pm

PH: 36674271 matru ki bijlee ka mandola 07:30Pm

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PH: 111-602-602 jack reacHer 07:45 Pm

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matru ki bijli ka mandola 10:15 Pm

Lahore Tuesday, 22 January, 201306

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

LAHORE DevelopmentAuthority (LDA) Com-mercialisation Direc-torate on Mondayconducted an operation

and sealed at least 30 showrooms forfailing to pay commercialization fee.

Furthermore, LDA decided to reg-ister criminal cases against the ownersand tenants who would try enter thesealed showrooms by breaking locks.

LDA sources said that the ownersand occupants of the properties hadrepeatedly been served notices fordepositing the commercialisation feeand had been granted a number ofextensions in the time for payment as

well. For facilitating the calculationof the fee to be paid for commerciali-sation of these properties, the LDAstaff also measured the area of theproperties which were being used forcommercial activities.

Moreover, LDA said that permis-sion for temporary/annual commer-cialisation had been ceased on 46declared roads as well as on roads ofre-classification area of GulbergScheme from 31 December 2012.

LDA sources said that owners andoccupants of these properties hadbeen served notices for getting theseproperties permanently commer-cialised without delay by paying therequisite fee.

They had been advised to applyfor permanent commercialisation of

their properties within seven days,failing which their properties wouldbe sealed without further notices.Furthermore, LDA Director GeneralAhad Khan Cheema dismissed two of-ficials on account of their involve-ment in preparation of a bogusproperty file of Mustafa Town, forg-ing exemption and illegal transferingof plots in the scheme.

The dismissed officials includeStaff Officer Muhammad Anwar andSenior Accountant Khalid Iqbal.

They will be tried under PunjabEmployees Efficiency, Discipline andAccountability Act 2006 and havebeen directed to submit their reply tothis show cause within seven days fail-ing which it shall be presumed thatthey had no defence to offer.

LAHOREPRESS RElEASE

Imran’s Tigers was a group of individuals who, back inthe 1990’s, played powerful role in setting up ShaukatKhanum Memorial Hospital.Recently, Imran’s Tigers launched a Facebook Appli-cation by the name of Imran’s Tigers Mission to createImran’s Tiger Scholarship Fund for the deserving stu-dents of Namal College (Mianwali). The Facebook Ap-plication has been launched after a rigorous six monthlong social media campaign which informed today’syouth with the work done by the Imran’s Tigers duringthe 1990’s and the necessity of investing in Educationfor Pakistan’s development. The Imran’s Tigers Mis-sion can be accessed from the Official Imran’s TigersPage (Facebook.com/OfficialImransTigers) and dona-tions can be made on Namal College’s official website(/donate/imrans-tigers-scholarship-fund/). These ac-tivities not only give the people a chance to contributeto the field of Education but also present fans with aunique opportunity to meet Imran Khan in person.After providing a basis to Imran’s Khan’s dream ofbuilding and maintaining the first-ever Cancer Hospi-tal in Pakistan, Imran Khan is once again called on hisTigers to help him realise his dream of building thefirst-ever Knowledge City in Pakistan: Namal Knowl-edge City. The campaign should later expand to of-fices and colleges across Pakistan where students andprofessionals alike will be invited to participate in thefundraising drive for Imran’s Tiger Scholarship Fund.

Imran’s Tigers launchfacebook application

LDA seals 30 showrooms,dismisses two officials

Prof Dr Bilquis Fatima, ex-princi-pal Fatima Jinnah Medical College,died after protracted illness. Shewas the mother of Dr MoeedAhmad of Services Hospital. HerNamaze Janazah would be offeredon Tuesday, January 22, at 1:30pmat her residence, 29 Mason Road.

Yda strikeenters day 6LAHORE: Patients contin-ued to suffer as Young Doc-tors Association’s (YDA)strike entered in sixth dayon Monday across theprovince. The Punjab gov-ernment’s action againststriking doctors continuedand suspension orders wereissued against three doctorsto date. Moreover, theprovincial government alsoauthorised hospital adminis-trations to take action againstdoctors causing obstructionsto daily routine operations.Lahore High Court (LHC) onFriday issued fresh notices tothe parties and sought a replyby January 25 over the peti-tion filed for action againstdoctors who had assaultedtheir senior in Gujranwala.STAFF REPORT

DEAR DEPARtED

LHR 22-01-2013_Layout 1 1/22/2013 2:00 AM Page 6

low

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5:36 7:00 12:15 3:09 5:28 6:53

citY directorY

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HoSPitalS

blood bank

fatmid 35210834-8

iSlamic alliance 37588649/37535435

comPlaint

waPda 111-000-118

Sui GaS 1199

railwaYS

citY Station (enQuirY) 117

reServation 99201772

railwaY Police 1333

airPort

fliGHt enQuirY 114

Pia reServation 111-786-786

colleGeS / univerSitieS

Punjab univerSitY 99231257kinnaird colleGe 99203781-4Queen marY colleGe 36362942Govt. colleGe univerSitY 111-000-010umt 35212801-10lumS 35608000uet 36288666lcwu 99203072SuPerior colleGe 111-000-078

mid citY 37573382-3

ServiceS 99203402-11

maYo 99211100-9

General 35810892-8

SHeikH zaid 35865731

Sir GanGa ram 99200572

ucH 35763573-5

ittefaQ 35881981-85

cmH 366996168-72

SHoukat kHanum 35945100

jinnaH 111-809-809

adil (defence) 36667275

cHildren’S 99230901-3

defence national HoSPital 111-17-18-19

PartlY cloudY

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15°c

inteRnationaL jouRnaLisM ConfeRenCe 2013

fri jan 25 at 02:00 am

venue : Pearl continental Hotel

the conference focuses on the impact of social,

economic, political, technological and

educational changes on the practice of

journalism.

the tRiWizaRd touRnaMent

the triwizard tournament is a Harry Potter Quizopen for all school, college and universitystudents.

Sat jan 19 at 10:00 am

venue : forman cHriStian colleGe

Shahjiwana international debating

championship is the annual debating

championship of the university college

lahore.

fri jan 25 at 02:00 am

venue : univerSitY colleGe laHore (ucl)

10th shahjiWana inteRnationaL

debating ChaMPionshiP

reScue 1122

edHi control 115

motorwaY Police 130

Police 15

Governor’S HouSe 99200081-7

cHief miniSter’S HouSe 99203226

fire briGade 16

bomb diSPoSal 99212111

mcl comPlaintS 99211022-29

laHore waSte diSPoSal 1139

Tuesday, 22 January, 2013 Lahore 07

NEWS DESK

At the moment over

1.3 billion people in the

world live without electricity

and one billion people, including

around 700 million South Asians, will remain

without electricity until 2030 if the nations don’t switch to

alternative sources of energy since conventional sources

would be becoming costlier with the each passing day,

according to a report by the Hindustan Times.

This was stated by Carl Pope, a world renowend

expert on renewable energy, during a programme

organised by IUCN Pakistan on renewable energy at a

local hotel on Friday. The event was attended by a large

number of participants from the development as well as

business sectors.

Renewable energy is energy that comes from natural

resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and

geothermal heat. About 16 percent of global final energy

consumption comes from renewable resources, with 10

percent of all energy from traditional biomass, mainly

used for heating, and 3.4 percent from hydroelectricity.

New renewables (small hydro, modern biomass, wind,

solar, geothermal, and biofuels) accounted for another 3

percent and are growing very rapidly. The share of

renewables in electricity generation is around 19 percent,

with 16 percent of electricity coming from hydroelectricity

and 3 percent from new renewables.

He shared comparative figures as to how the cost of

coal, a major fossil fuel, has soared in the recent years.

According to him, the cost of electric grids was increasing

over the time with escalating cost of copper, a major raw

material, making a case for focussing on renewable

energy options.

He was of the view that

the demand for coal was

expected to rise in the world

markets, mainly because growing

economies like India and China have constructed

more coal plants than they could run.

He mentioned that the good news was that the price of

renewables like solar and LED lights has declined in the

past few years in comparison.

He said the key was to making it economical for the

communities to bear the upfront cost of renewable

products like solar panels, wind turbines, etc.

The renewable energy expert also suggested the widely

used model of “Pay as you go” which can now be

accomplished though mobile phone payment mechanisms.

He opined that Pakistan has huge potential to develop

renewable energy projects since it was the third largest

off-grid population after India and Bangladesh and has

excellent solar, bio-mass, micro-hydro opportunities

coupled with centralized landowning, which could make

credit guarantees easier.

“In Pakistan, electricity crisis is severe and destabilizing

and there is an acute need to cut down on electricity

generation costs. Due to this energy crisis, the country

has suffered huge losses, making hundreds and thousands

of people jobless,” he added.

Mir Hussain Ali, Sindh Secretary for Environment and

Alternate Energy, talked about several projects that the

government was currently working on.

Talking about the opportunities in the wind corridor, he

said that the government was working on about 40

projects with various investors with total generation

capacity of 2000 MW in the next two years.

LHR 22-01-2013_Layout 1 1/22/2013 2:00 AM Page 7

08News Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

ALGIERSAGEnCiES

ALGERIA has warnedother nations to preparefor a higher body countfrom a hostage bloodbathat a gas plant that was

overrun in what France called an "act ofwar" by al-Qaeda-linked fighters.

Algerian troops on Sunday report-edly found the bodies of 25 hostagesand captured five kidnappers at the InAmenas gas plant, deep in the Saharadesert, a day after storming the remain-ing part of the complex still in rebelhands. Governments scrambled totrack down missing citizens as moredetails emerged after the final show-down between special forces and fight-ers who had taken hundreds hostage,demanding an end to French militaryintervention in Mali.

Dozens of hostages appear to havedied. Survivors' photos seen by AFP newsagency showed bodies riddled with bul-lets, some with their heads half blownaway by the impact of the gunfire. "Theywere brutally executed," said an Algerianwho identified himself as Brahim, after

escaping the ordeal, referring to Japanesevictims shot dead by the hostage-takers.

JAPANESE ExECUTEd: Witnesseshave said nine Japanese people con-nected to plant builder JGC were killedin the 72-hour ordeal. One Japaneseman who survived gave a chilling ac-count published on Monday in the DailyYomiuri newspaper.

The unidentified man was quoted astelling colleagues how the gunmen haddragged him from his barricaded room,handcuffed him and executed twohostages standing nearby. "I was pre-pared to die," he said, before his captorsabandoned him and other hostages whohad been bundled into a vehicle thatcame under a hail of bullets. He thentrudged for an hour through the desertto safety.

Sixteen Filipinos have been ac-counted for, four remain missing, four re-main hospitalised in Al-Azhra hospital inAlgiers, and four have already arrived inthe Philippines. Almost all of them workfor the Japanese company. At least 23 for-eigners and Algerians had been con-firmed killed since the crisis erupted onWednesday.

Ennahar television reported thatthe bodies of 25 hostages were found onSunday by security forces combingthrough the plant, and that fivehostage-takers had been captured alive.

Thirty-two kidnappers were alsokilled in the standoff, and the armyfreed 685 Algerian workers and 107 for-eigners, the interior ministry said.

"I fear that it (the death toll) may berevised upward," Algerian Communica-tions Minister Mohamed Said told aradio station, ahead of a news confer-ence at 1330 GMT on Monday by PrimeMinister Abdelmalek Sellal.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French de-fence minister, described the hostage-taking as an "act of war" because of thelarge number of hostages involved.

The one-eyed mastermind of thehostage-taking, Mokhtar Belmokhtar,said in a video posted online that it wascarried out by 40 fighters from the Mus-lim world and "European countries".

His al-Qaeda-linked group "Signa-tories in Blood" threatened to stage at-tacks on nations involved in theFrench-led operation to evict Islamistsfrom Algeria's neighbour Mali, and saidit had been open to negotiations.

'WE'RE LOOKINg FOR CHRISTIANS':Most hostages were freed on Thursdayin the first Algerian rescue operation,which was initially viewed by foreigngovernments as hasty, before the focusof public condemnation turned on thehostage-takers.

Among the hostages killed were atleast one Algerian, one Colombian, oneAmerican and two Romanians. Thosestill unaccounted for include severalJapanese nationals, five Norwegians,two Americans and two Malaysians.

The plant is run by Britain's BP,Norway's Statoil and Sonatrach of Alge-ria. An Algerian employee of BP whoidentified himself as Abdelkader said hewas at a security post on Wednesdaywith colleagues when he saw a jeep withseven people inside smash through thebarrier and screech to a halt.

One of the fighters demanded theirmobile phones and ordered them not to move, before disabling the secu-rity cameras.

"He said: 'You are Algerians andMuslims, you have nothing to fear.We're looking for Christians, who killour brothers in Mali and Afghanistanand plunder our resources'."

BAMAKOAGEnCiES

French and Malian troops have enteredthe key central Malian town of Diabaly,which has faced heavy airstrikes andfighting since being seized by al-Qaeda-linked rebels a week ago.

A convoy of about 30 armoured ve-hicles carrying some 200 French andMalian soldiers moved into the town onMonday at about 9 GMT, without meet-ing resistance. Diabaly, 350 km north ofthe capital Bamako, had harboured themain cluster of rebels south of thefront-line towns of Mopti and Sevareuntil French airstrikes forced them toflee or attempt to blend in with locals,residents said. A colonel in the Malianarmy had said earlier that a "fringe ofthe Diabaly population adheres to thejihadists' theories and we must be verycareful in the coming hours".

French television footage from Dia-baly has shown charred pick-up trucksabandoned by al Qaeda-linked rebelsamid mud brick homes. One residentsaid the rebels had fled the town whichwas abandoned by many of its resi-dents, and those remaining lacked food

and other essentials. France began itsmilitary offensive in Mali on January 11,and has said that African nations musttake the lead though it could be someweeks before they are ready to do so.

Rebels in Mali were reported Sun-day to be abandoning some of their po-sitions and converging on themountainous region of Kidal, theirnorthernmost bastion, 1,500 kilometresfrom Bamako and near the border withAlgeria. Kidal was the first town seizedby an amalgam of militants, some linkedto al-Qaeda, and Tuareg separatistgroups that started the rebellion inMarch last year. Al Jazeera's Rowlandsaid there are reports of further Tuareg

defections from the rebels as they feeltheir rebellion has been "hijacked" bythe al-Qaeda affilated groups. “The Tu-areg have sensed which way the wind isblowing and they’re afraid of ending upon the wrong side as and when this con-flict is resolved,” Rowland added.

Meanwhile the planned deploy-ment of nearly 6,000 African soldierscontinued slowly into Bamako, ham-pered by cash and logistical constraints.Only 150 African troops had arrived bySunday. Senegal, Benin and six otherWest African nations are contributingto the African mission which is expectedto take over the baton from France, andChad has also pledged 2,000 soldiers.

Patriot missilesarrive in turkey

ISTANBUL: A German ship carryingpatriot missile equipment arrived in theTurkish port of Iskenderun as part of aneffort to stop violence in Syria fromspilling over its borders. The SueciaSeaways vessel arrived on Monday afterthe Netherlands-registered Louise Russship also carrying missile kits pulled intothe area on Sunday night. The daybefore, 240 German troops toucheddown in Turkey and will be deployed tothe border with Syria, as part of a NATOmission. The German batteries are partof a NATO contingent of Patriot missilesthat intercept incoming ballisticmissiles, which will remain in Turkey fora year. Two Dutch and two US batteriesare also being deployed to other parts ofsouthern Turkey. In December, NATOannounced its decision to positionPatriot anti-missile systems nearTurkey's southern border to defendagainst the threat of cross-borderattacks and bringing the United Statesand its allies closer to the civil warraging between Syrian opposition rebelsand President Bashar Assad's regime.Turkey, a NATO member, requested themissiles to boost its air defences.Violence has flared along the border inrecent months, with Turkey firingartillery across the frontier to retaliatefor Syrian shells hitting Turkish soil.Syrian opposition leaders meeting inIstanbul have postponed forming atransitional government, the SyrianNational Coalition said on Monday, in asetback for efforts to fill a power vacuumin the war-torn country. The talkslaunched on Saturday were theopposition's second bid to form agovernment, with its credibility at stake.The 70-member coalition was formedwith Western and Gulf backing in Qatarat the beginning of December. Powerstruggles among its members haveundermined efforts to agree atransitional government. A five-membercommittee would to put forwardproposals on a government to thecoalition within 10 days, it said onMonday. The committee would "consultopposition forces and the Free SyrianArmy and friendly states to get theiropinion about forming the governmentand the extent to which they can honourthe necessary commitments for itsfinancial and political viability," thecoalition said in a statement. AGEnCiES

Algeria warns hostage death toll to worsen

French and Malian troops enter Diabaly

washington prepares for obamainaugurationWASHINgTON: Washington DC ispreparing as hundreds of thousands getset to witness President Barack Obamatake an oath to “protect and defend'' theUS Constitution, a day after officiallyaffirming the duties of president in aprivate White House ceremony. Monday’sceremony, which will consist of paradesand fancy dress balls will mark thebeginning of Obama's second four-yearterm as US president. After taking oath,Obama is expected to follow the recenttradition of walking at least part of theway back to the White House, surrounded

by cheers. In a briefceremony on Sunday,with family gathered inthe White House,Obama took the oath ofoffice shortly before

noon, as required bylaw. With his left hand

on a family bible held byfirst lady Michelle Obama,the 44th president raisedhis right hand andrepeated the time-honoured words readout by Supreme CourtChief Justice JohnRoberts. AGEnCiES

SAnA'A: A boy wears a paper mask to symbolise silence

during a protest outside the office of the United nations

on Monday. the demonstration was held in protest

against the silence of the international community over

the plight of Muslims in regions of conflict.

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09NewsTuesday, 22 January, 2013

ISLAMABADinP

JA M A A T - E - I S L A M Ichief Syed MunawarHasan has said the partywas willing to considerseat adjustment with the

PML-N, PTI and JUI-F at theprovincial level for the upcomingelection.

Talking to senior journalists onMonday, Hassan, however, did notsee electoral alliance among the po-litical parties at the national level.

He called upon all political par-ties to get united on a single pointagenda of timely elections, as it wasthe only way to change and resolu-tion of country’s problems.

The JI chief said the decision ofthe party to boycott the 2008 elec-tion was wrong, as the boycott pro-vided space to other parties.

Hasan said not holding elec-tions led to hatred and divideamong the nation.

He said the JI had been sup-portive of implementation of Arti-cles 62 and 63, but suggested thatthe political parties field such can-didates that met the requirementsof these articles.

Hassan regretted that partiesawarded tickets to well-off and win-ning candidates and if the ElectionCommission fully implemented thetwo articles, it would create a lot offuss. He said he would not eventouch upon the issue of long marchby Dr Tahirul Qadri, as it wouldmean giving importance to a personhaving no position.

However, he said Dr Qadri wasable to gather enough people forthe march despite harsh weather.

He said there was still an im-pression that some powers were be-hind Dr Qadri to organise themarch with some specific objec-tives. The JI chief added that therewas an impression that the US

wanted to create violence and anar-chy in Pakistan before withdrawalfrom Afghanistan in order to putthe country’s nuclear programmeunder international control underthe pretext of volatile security.

ISLAMABADSTAFF REPORT

Twenty-four political violence incidentsbetween January 12 and 18 claimed 45lives and injured another 74 across Pak-istan, reported the Free and Fair ElectionNetwork (FAFEN).

Civilians remained the major target,constituting 49 percent of the total victimsfollowed by security forces (38 percent)and militants (7 percent).

Sindh reported nine incidents, KhyberPakhtunkhwa (6), Federally AdministeredTribal Areas (5), Balochistan (3) and Is-lamabad (1). However, no incident was re-ported in Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and thefrontier regions.

The death toll decreased sharply fromlast’s week 205 to 45 in the reporting pe-

riod. The number of those injured fell too,from 263 to 74. Political violence incidentsalso dropped down from 51 to 24.

As many as 26 people died and 43 in-jured mainly in terrorism incidents inFATA. In KP, 17 people were injured inan attack on a political party leader anda clash between political parties’ studentwings. In Sindh, 11 people were killedand five injured in terrorism, targetkillings, sectarian violence and attackson political party workers. Terrorismclaimed eight lives and injured one inBalochistan while in Islamabad eightpeople sustained injuries in a clash be-tween police and protesters.

Most attacks (14) targeted civilians fol-lowed by five each aimed at the govern-ment and private property and securityforces. Those against property included

public transport being burnt by arsonistsin Karachi; an attack each on a govern-ment-run school and basic health unit(BHU) in Charsadda; targeting of a CDsshop in Nowshera and a Khyber Agencygovernment-run school.

In the reporting week, 15 terrorismincidents killed 34 people and injured 49others. Five attacks targeted state secu-rity forces while four were aimed at pub-lic. Similarly, three attacks each wereagainst public and private property. In at-tacks on political party leaders and work-ers and a clash between student wings ofpolitical parties, five people were killedwith 17 injured.

In Karachi, gunmen shot dead fourMQM workers, including a member ofSindh Assembly. A Sunni Tehreekworker was also gunned down. In

Charsadda, an improvised explosive de-vice hit an ANP leader’s convoy leavinghim and 15 others injured. In Mardan,two student activists of PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf were injured in a clashwith a rival student group. Three peoplewere shot dead in as many target killingincidents in Karachi with five sustaininginjuries in an incident of tribal conflict;two got killed and five were injured inKhyber Agency while a sectarian violenceincident claimed one life in Karachi.

During the reporting week, the mostlethal tactic was the use of firearms thatkilled 39 people and injured 50 others. Im-provised explosive devices, used in eightinstances, killed six people and injured 16others. In another incident involving theuse of firearms and stone-pelting, eightpeople sustained injuries.

Political violence occurred in sevendistricts, down from the preceding week’s13 districts. Khyber Agency was the mostviolent region where 26 people werekilled and 43 injured in attacks on statesecurity forces, anti-Taliban tribal lead-ers and the public. Target killings, sec-tarian violence and attacks on politicalparty workers in Karachi claimed 11lives, injuring five others.

In an incident involving the use of im-provised explosives device, an ANP leaderand 15 others were injured in a clash be-tween police and protesters of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran, eight people got injured,including two cops. Five policemen werekilled in an attack on a police van in Pan-jgur while one attack each on a NATO sup-ply vehicle and the public left three peopledead and one injured in Quetta.

JI willing to adjust seats withPML-N, PTI and JUI-F: Hasan

PESHAWAR: After the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) on Monday said they would not participate in the AwamiNational Party’s (ANP) all-parties conference. Advocate Israrullah, thespokesman for the JI, said after the meeting of the JI KhyberPakhtunkhwa chapter it was decided that they would not take part inthe proposed APC. “The Centre has also approved the decision thatwas taken in the meeting,” he added. Israrullah said the ANP wasworking on American agenda, adding that the party’s policies hadincreased terrorism. Earlier, JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman had refusedto participate in the APC being held by the AN P. Other majoropposition parties, including the PML-N, are indecisive on whether toattend the APC, largely because they seem unconvinced that theconference would make any difference at this point in time. All theparties in the ruling coalition including the PPP, the MQM and thePML-Q have however accepted the invitation extended by the ANP butthis support is being seen by the opposition parties as a political movein a bid to drive political mileage in the elections and to save the rulingcoalition from public criticism over its failure to deliver in its fiveyears’ rule. OnlinE

ji refuses to attend anP’sall-parties conference

HAFizAbAd: A view of soil erosion by water at baraj bayan on River Chenab. INP

Week-long political violence claims 45 livesg in khyber agency 26 people were killed and 43 injured in attacks on security forces, anti-taliban leadersg target killings, sectarian violence and attacks on political workers in karachi claim 11 lives

US envoy meets PAF chief,reaffirms commitment toPakistan’s security

ISLAMABAd: Ambassador Richard Olson onMonday reaffirmed the importance of a strong US-Pakistan security relationship during an exchange ofideas with Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal TahirRafique. Both sides affirmed their mutualcommitment to a strong defence relationship whichthey agreed should focus on achieving commonobjectives. The US envoy and the air chief reviewedthe F-16 programme and visited the home ofPakistan’s F-16s at PAF Base Shahbaz. “This visit, andthe Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 programme itself,represent concrete examples of US-Pakistancooperation to support our shared security goals andto promote peace and stability in the region,” Olsonsaid. The PAF chief welcomed the US ambassador,saying, “Ambassador Olson’s visit is importantbecause it focuses on achieving common objectivesand it shows the US and Pakistan are working togetherto strengthen cooperation to support each country’ssecurity interests.” The PAF has been operating F-16ssince the early 1980s. In 2008, the PAF bought theadvanced Block 52 model using national funds. Theupgraded version of the aircraft provides all-weatherday/night precision targeting capability. The USForeign Military Assistance Program is helping thePAF upgrade its fleet of older F-16 aircraft to matchthese new capabilities. OnlinE

Shahrukh undergoes medicaltests for age confirmationKARACHI: As the family of Shahrukh Jatoi, themain accused in the Shahzeb Khan murder case, onMonday claimed that their son was less than18 yearsold, authorities performed x-ray and other tests toconfirm his age. A police surgeon shifted Shahrukh toCivil Hospital for x-ray under strict security. Sourcessaid the x-ray report would be presented before thelocal anti-terrorism court today (Tuesday).Meanwhile, investigators probing the murder casealso nominated Shahrukh’s cousins Salman Jatoi andAsif Lund as suspects. The decision was taken in lightof the statements provided by eye-witnesses.Shahzeb, the young son of a police officer, was shotdead in the upscale Defence neighbourhood ofKarachi on December 25 over a petty dispute.Shahrukh, the prime suspect who had slipped awayfrom the country to evade arrest after the murder,was brought back by the police after he was deportedfrom Dubai. He was identified as the alleged killer bywitnesses during an identification parade. OnlinE

ISLAMABAD inP

Cold wave on Monday continued throughout thecountry, and temperature in Islamabad has fallendown to below zero level.

Routine life has been disturbed in Abbottabadand adjoining cities; while power and gas load shed-ding has increased people’s problems manifolds.

Intermittent snow fall and rain continued innorthern and upper parts of the country, includingAbbottabad, Hunza, Murree, Chitral and Gilgit.

According to Meteorological Department, coldand dry weather to continue in most parts of thecountry for the next 24 hours, while fog would re-main in plain parts of Punjab and in Sukkur divisionin early hours of the day. Lowest temperature wasrecorded in Kalam at -13, in Qalat, Astore, Skarduand Parachinar -10, Quetta -8, Dalbandin and Sibbi-4, Rawlakot and Hunza –5. While in Gilgit andMurree -3 degree Celsius were recorded.

In upper parts of the country bone-chillingweather has increased difficulties of the people.Snowfall has closed roads in upper KP and Gilgit-

Baltistan.Meanwhile, prolonged gas load shedding has

also irked the people in Murree, Abottabad, Quettaand other parts of the country. Firewood prices havebeen hiked owing to increasing cold and gas loadshedding. On Monday, cold and fog enveloped plainareas of Punjab. Lahore Motorway was reopenedafter reduction in fog intensity. Motorway fromThokar Niaz Baig to Pindi Bhattian was closed for allkind of traffic owing to low visibility. Fog also dis-rupted flight schedule at the Allama Iqbal Interna-tional Airport, Lahore.

Cold wave continues in Pakistan

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It is an unfortunate coincidence thatthe border clashes and ceasefire vio-lations between India and Pakistanhave been at a time when PrimeMinister Lal Bahadur Shastri had

signed the Tashkent Declaration some 37years ago to bind the two countries into apeace pact. He consecrated it with his death.Yet the Declaration could not avert the 1971war, nor the subsequent skirmishes.

Strange, there was not even a mentionof the Declaration either by the media or bythe political leadership. It appears that thetwo countries have remained jingoistic.One incident happens and the entire accu-mulated bias comes out.

Beheading soldiers is nothing new. Thearmy on both sides has indulged in it be-fore. What is annoying is Pakistan’s flat de-nial of the incident. The brigadier at theflag-march meeting came with a preparedtext and returned to Pakistan after readingthe brief. There was no regret, no grief.

The UN probe to verify facts could havebeen a possibility. But since New Delhistopped the International Court at TheHague from taking up a Pakistani com-plaint against India on the plea that the twocountries settle their disputes bilaterally, itcould not bring in a third party.

However, the incident is too serious to beleft at that. India should make the evidencepublic, particularly when it is alleged thatHafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Toiba chief, wasat the border before the clashes. Pakistan onits part should order a probe. Maybe, it is thedoing of irregulars who, regretfully, seem toconstitute part of Pakistan’s combative force.The country is already experiencing violencefrom within. The Taliban are daily killing 20to 25 Pakistanis and there is no place whichis beyond the range of their guns.

When there is unabated domestic violenceand when Pakistan is fighting against the Tal-iban in the Federally Administrative TribalAreas, it is not understandable why it shouldopen a front with India. In fact, Islamabad haswithdrawn some forces from the Indian bor-der to fight on the west. Inter Services Intelli-gence (ISI) has declared publicly that it would

concentrate on the threat posed by internalforces instead of engaging India. Therefore,there is no question of unnecessary hype.

New Delhi should realise that Pakistan isits front state. If it ever goes under, Indiawould be directly threatened by the Talibanand face the danger of destablisation. The pol-icy should be how to retrieve Pakistan fromthe hopeless situation it is in. A weak Pakistanis a threat to India, however powerful.

Any escalation of tension or a suitableretaliation at an appropriate time would onlyaggravate the situation. The dialogue is theonly way to improve and it should never besuspended or downgraded. There is no op-tion to talks. Pakistan’s Foreign MinisterHina Rabbani Khar, otherwise irresponsiblein her statements, has said emphatically thatthe dialogue between the countries shouldnot be affected by skirmishes at the border.

Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khur-shid has shown restraint and maturity in hisresponse. But the government’s decision tokeep the new positive visa policy on hold willonly lessen people-to-people contact whichis essential for better understanding. PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh’s statement thatbusiness with Pakistan cannot be as usual isunderstandable when the BJP is demandinga harsh reply. Yet my experience shows thatIslamabad resiles from its rigid stand if andwhen New Delhi steps back and reflects. We

have to learn how to live with intransigentPakistan. Director General of Trade, IsmailKhan, in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir saidthat trade and travel across the ceasefire linewould remain suspended until the skir-mishes subsided. This is an unwise stepwhich will hurt Pakistan as much as India.

For some reasons, former military offi-cers on both sides have turned out to bemore hawkish in their comments. I wasshocked to hear Admiral Iqbal of the Pak-istan Navy reminding India about the Mus-lim rule in the country for 1,000 years.Equally jingoistic was the suggestion by aretired army major general that the solutionto India’s problems with Pakistan wasthrough a military action. Both should re-alise that the engagement of the two coun-tries would not be a street brawl. They have

nuclear weapons and the worst can happen.Civil society in both the countries has

proved to be disappointing. Instead ofanalysing the situation dispassionately,they have supported the stand of theircountries. Regretfully, civil society is al-ways on the side of the establishmentwhenever there is a clash on the border orwhen a dispute assumes dangerous propor-tions. Were the two civil societies to puttheir weight behind peace and call a spadea spade, their voice would matter.

New Delh’s estimate that the ceasefire vi-olations were meant to give cover to terroriststo sneak into Kashmir may be true. But thesecurity forces in the valley are strong enoughto chastise them. The fallout of tensions af-fects the people in Kashmir. They feel moreinsecure. The killing of elected panchayatmembers has made 30 others to resign.

On the other hand, the image of theHurriyat leaders gets more tarnished. MostIndians link their visit to Pakistan lastmonth to renewed ceasefire violations.They are held responsible for requestingPakistan to internationalise the Kashmirproblem. Such moves by the Hurriyat alien-ates in India even the liberals who want asolution that respects the special statusgiven to Kashmir in the Indian constitution.

What the ceasefire violations have doneis a blow to relations between India and

Pakistan. They have been improving for thelast few years and would have beenstrengthened after the resumption of tradeand the new visa policy. The clashes on theborder have pushed the two countries tothe starting point. There should be a way togo forward. Hockey and cricket playersshould not be barred from playing.

I wish the two sides to consider the cease-fire line sacred. This was converted into theLine of Control (LoC) through Shimla Agree-ment. The then Prime Minister, Zulfikar AliBhutto, hailed it as the “line of peace” in aninterview to me. And it has been seldom vio-lated for the last two decades. Blood at theborder has scotched even a limited hope.

The writer is a senior Indianjournalist.

The peace process stalled

the border incident

Preparations to hand over power to the next generation inIndia begin at a time when Pak-India relations havetouched a new nadir. It was therefore encouraging to findRahul Gandhi, new Vice-President of the Indian Congress

and proposed prime ministerial candidate ahead of next year’spolls speaks sense. Referring to the border incident on the LoCwhich has understandably inflamed public sentiment on the otherside of the border, he told the charged party leaders and activistsat the party’s Jaipur caucus that decisions on Pakistan cannot bebased on emotion.

The current border incidents started with the killing of aPakistani soldier in an attack launched by the Indian side. Thiswas followed by an incident where two Indian soldiers were killed,one of them decapitated. This led to a strong reaction from Indiabeginning with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who called it aninhuman act and maintained that relations between theneighbours were “no more business as usual”. The Indian armychief warned of India reserving the right to retaliate “at the timeand place of its choosing”. It was not realised at the time that thiswas in fact a fourth incident of beheading of an Indian soldier andthat Pakistan army was never found to be involved in earlierincidents. Soon after there was a wave of jingoism in India, andPakistan hockey players there for the Indian Hockey League weresent back under public pressure. Demands were made thatPakistani singers should also be forced to go home. The process ofeasing of visa restrictions and enhancement of trade was put onhold by New Delhi.

Pakistan offered India an inquiry by the UN which was turneddown. The BJP which had suggested recourse to the UN waspersuaded to withdraw the statement. An offer by Hina RabbaniKhar to resolve the issue at the level of the two foreign ministersmet with a cold response. The standoff has somewhat eased afterthe meeting between the DGMOs from both sides. The peaceprocess moving apace prior to the incidents however remainssuspended, which suits neither the Pakistani nor the Indianpeople. There is a danger of losing whatever gains have been madethrough bilateral talks between the two sides.

The barbaric incident does not bear the signature of Pakistanarmy, which is a disciplined force. The Indian establishment hasto realise that the provocation might have been carried out bynon-state actors, operating from either side of the LoC, averse tothe normalisation of relations between the two neighbouringcountries. Pakistan too has to earnestly conduct a thoroughinquiry to uncover those behind the heinous act. This wouldproduce the right atmospherics needed to move the peace processforward.

Blood at the borderi wish the two sides to consider the loC sacred

border CrossingsBy Kuldip Nayar

Arif NizamiEditor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36375963-5 Fax: 042-32535230Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9 Fax: 021-35381208

Islamabad – Ph: 051-2287273Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk

Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

10 Tuesday, 22 January, 2013Comment

Given recent events, onething is clear: it is alwayspossible to learn, even from

a donkey:“It’s snowing,” said Eeyore

(the donkey), gloomily. “And it’sfreezing.”

“However,” he said, brighten-ing up a little, “We haven’t had anearthquake yet.” —A A Milne

And so we haven’t had anearthquake, that is, not this time.Instead, we were all harmlesslyfreezing to death one day, when outof the blue a strange man in around hat appeared and started a‘long march’. The march went fromLahore to Islamabad in bitterlycold weather, as mentioned, so fourdays later when it started rainingand became colder still, negotia-tions ensued and the participantsof the march dispersed. There wereno major results either one way orthe other; therefore, one can bepositive and look at the lessonsTahirul Qadri taught us.

Normally a poster putteringaround town on the ‘backside’ of

every rickshaw, he suddenly ap-peared in person, waggling hisforefinger on every television chan-nel from where he spoke, and hespoke and he spoke. You have togive Mr Qadri a capacity for amarathon waffle. And since waffleis what appeals most to our public,it found its mark surely and onceagain, playing an important role inthe proceedings.

“I am here from Mecca to jointhe revolution,” shouted one par-ticipant, his face shining with zeal.Thousands like him made the lessdistant but more arduous trek fromLahore to Islamabad in the wake ofa mobile bunker containing theMullah from Mississauga (presum-ably his address in Canada, sincethat’s where Pakistanis live whenthey aren’t at home).

Four days later after negotia-tions witnessed through a windowin the fuggy bunker, the partici-pants of the march and theirleader claimed victory. Severalthousand (several million, if onesets any store by what Mr Qadri

says) tired and semi frozen would-be revolutionaries returned totheir homes leaving the haplesscitizens of Islamabad surroundedby a sea of crap. Even thoughthey’re used to it, the clean upmust have caused them consider-able inconvenience. Mr Qadri hadpromised to clean up after him,but eventually he just embracedeveryone, and called it a day.

There are some obvious les-sons here. Firstly, that given its re-peated occurrence, a ‘long march’is rapidly becoming a cliché in thiscountry. Quite possibly any futurelong marches will have less im-pact, but it is without doubt a lo-gistical nightmare. It is best forthe long suffering citizens of Is-lamabad not to be caught un-awares again. So either thecountry sets by a (very large) stockof mobile toilets, or much better,mobile toilets and mobile biogasplants which can be wheeled in thewake of the next long march col-lecting waste from the thousandsof participants willing to camp out

till they die or until the rains ar-rive, whichever comes first.

Given the power shortage inthe country, these biogas plantscan be useful even outside of longmarches to satisfy the require-ments of a prolific nation. In fact,and although it may be a debatablepoint, if the power and other re-quirements of this country are sat-isfied, long marches may wellbecome redundant and thereforeless recurrent. Just think: if youhad money in your pocket, a decentlife and a peaceful old age withoutthe ever present hurdles to attain-ing any considerable age at all,would you really listen to a man ina strange hat shaking his finger atyou, telling you that the ProphetMohammad (pbuh) asked him todo this? Extremely unlikely.

There is a certain mindset thatis attracted to such talk, and it isreadily present amongst the peopleof Pakistan because so much elsethat should be present, isn’t: nofood, no money, no education, andno security. So long as things re-

main this way, it will be an open in-vitation to any person or group ofpersons able and willing to manip-ulate the situation.

Because who, after all, set MrQadri on us? Was the entire eventhis brainchild? Was it the brain-child of the army? The CIA? Willwe ever know? And do we reallycare? The best defence is, as sug-gested, to work on changing condi-tions so that the man on the streetcan thumb his nose at the nextdemagogue and tell him to go takea long walk, alone.

Although the PPP says it is ‘notafraid of long marches’, maybethose elected in the next govern-ment from whichever party willheed this mild rumbling of anearthquake that could have been,and improve their performance. Ifthat happens, if anyone ever trulylearns a lesson, the nation will oweMr Qadri, but not until then.

The writer is a freelancecolumnist. Read more by her athttp://rabia-ahmed.blogspot.com/

The earthquake that wasn’tdoes the nation owe Mr qadri?

By Rabia Ahmed

on the other hand, the image of the Hurriyat leaders gets

more tarnished. most indians link their visit to Pakistan last

month to renewed ceasefire violations. they are held

responsible for requesting Pakistan to internationalise the

kashmir problem. Such moves by the Hurriyat alienates in

india even the liberals who want a solution that respects the

special status given to kashmir in the indian constitution.

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Mr Arif Nizami in his recentarticle “Hostility across the border”has prudently highlighted all theissues confronting the countryinternally and externally, includingthe conclusion of Qadri’s wellprepared drama of long march thatended in a victory of democracy whenthe government did not compromiseon constitutional matters but agreedto hold elections under article 62, 63and 218 of the constitution ofPakistan that shall seal the fate ofmajority of sitting politicians bothfrom treasury and oppositionbenches. It has been welcomed by theCEC of Pakistan who is nowdetermined to ensure implementationof these clauses.

As for as the skirmishes on theLoC, threats and counter allegationsby India are concerned, these

definitely need careful considerationand should not be taken lightly. Thewriter has rightly concluded by givingspecific example of how the situationhas changed abruptly withManmohan Singh’s declaration thatstates that it is “no longer business asusual with Pakistan”. How can Indiabe granted MFN status when ourmain issue Kashmir is sidetrackedalong with almost settled issues ofSiachin and Sir Creek?

Recent developments haverebounded badly and Pakistan nowstands where it was at the start. Whata tragedy for both the nations that inspite of great flexibility shown byPakistan, especially during GenMusharraf’s era when he surrenderedmost of the demands under the aegisof CBMs CD (Composite Dialogue),and present government’s Aman Ki

Asha campaign, the progress has beensmashed by India by going back onsettled issues. Musharraf gaveconcessions to create history and inprinciple it was a principal error. Itotally agree with the writer that anyarrangement without the backing ofpeople of Kashmir shall provefruitless. But, nevertheless Pakistanshould take seriously the threats ofManmohan Singh and forget aboutbilateral hoax of talks withoutderiving any benefits.

Pakistan stands at a much weakerwicket due to internal disorder andactivities of TTP that has ultimatelyforced Pakistan to free Talibanleaders who were responsible for themassacre of innocent people and ourbrave soldiers. In fact, there is weightwhen writer says that bilateralrelations may prove to be a distant

dream because both sides in futureare going to have fresh mandate. Ourstrength lies in unity and solidaritythat appears to be a distant dreamunder present set of rulers, but nationshould remain awake to what iscoming from across the border.

India-Pakistan tensions have agrave bearing on regional andinternational security. Equally, theintentions are also clear: India-Pakistan tensions would give the USmuch-needed leverage with both NewDelhi and Islamabad at a juncturewhen its regional strategies –‘rebalancing’ to Asia, Afghanendgame, establishment of USmilitary bases, etc – are in the meltingpot. Meanwhile, the India-Pakistanpeace process must continue.

MUKHTAR AHMEDKarachi

Editor’s mailSend your letters to: Letters to

Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-ShaareyFatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan

Fax: +92-42-32535230E-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk

Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively

choice is in our handsIs it difficult to understand the script or we don’t

want to understand? When Pakistani soldiers arekidnapped and beheaded in the country’s northernareas, not once but repeatedly, to whom Pakistanshall take the complaint to? In this backdrop, ifsame type of gruesome incident takes place insideIndian-held Kashmir by soldiers wearing Pakistanarmy’s uniform, then how much it’s credible that itwere Pakistani soldiers who did this?

Who is the beneficiary of having a tense LoC(Line of Control) across the volatile Kashmir valley?Pakistani hockey players who were packed backhome from the Indian Hockey League, Pakistanimusic and film artists who are being threatened inIndia, or the senior citizens of both countries whowere promised on-arrival visa at the border? If thesenon-political people are not the beneficiary of thislow in Pak-India relationship, then who else couldbe? Yes, it was a boost for BJP to seize theopportunity to lash the central government, it’s agreat moment for Indian army to assert it and issuethreatening warnings to Pakistan. Similarly,Pakistan army has a cause to defend its Kashmirpolicy and demand for additional funds.

Have we got any real leaders in the subcontinent— leader who can lead the people, not the one who isled by public opinion, opposition parties, and narrow-minded military and rating-hungry media? It’s hightime not only for India, being a big player in theregion, to play a positive role, but also for Pakistanthat there are enemies dressed as friends who will tryto avail every opportunity to kill and maim whetherthe opponent is a Pakistani or an Indian.

Let India accept Pakistan’s offer to go forimpartial investigation of these allegations underthe auspices of the UN. Unless truth is brought tolight, non state actors will continue to keephijacking the peace process while these countrieswill play blind in the face of a common enemy.Choice is in our hands.

MASOOD KHANJubail, Saudi Arabia

imf disclosureThe recently reported disclosure by the head of

IMF mission in Pakistan that there is a deficit of16.24 trillion rupees in the annual income andexpenditure of the country largely due to massivethefts of electricity and writing off the bank loansis an alarming piece of news.

The prolonged dependence of generating powerfrom imported fuel instead of hydel energy is infact responsible for prohibitive power rates of Rs16 per unit while the inhibition in building megadams to produce cheap power at Rs 2 per unit isthe prime motive for power theft.

This point has not sunk in the minds of ourpolitical rulers which is the main malady inflictingthe economy of the country.

The IMF diagnosis of our financial troubles liesin power thefts and loan defaulters that havesucked the country dry. The IMF says that the16.24 billion dollars deficit cannot be removed bymore loans or rescheduling of loans but only byserious restructuring of the economic policies ofthe government.

This is however a moot point as it does notseem possible when a single person like DG ofOGRA runs away with 82 billion rupees of publicmoney and the govt so far has failed to apprehendhim inspite of clear orders of the Supreme Court ofPakistan.

DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTILahore

food for thoughtPakistani society has been regularly witnessing

slogans of revolution from parties like PTI for longand most recently from Dr Tahirul Qadri. It hasbeen a historical fact that whenever a nation isdeprived of her basic rights and the system fails tomeet the expectations of people, the call forrevolution instils in. But it’s important to maintainthe difference between revolution and reformation,so to ensure a clear vision.

Reformation is an evolutionary process. Itaccepts the structure of present system and callsfor legislative changes with the yardstick ofexistent system.

Revolution is the process of political birth anda hardline change but reformation is subordinatedto established institutions. Political reform withinthe premises of state architecture never bringsabout the change in political principles but adhereto them.

If someone calls for changes in constitution,then he must know that it’s not the call forrevolution because constitution is legislativeexpression of the existent state and idea, whereasrevolution is overthrowing it with installation ofalternate state and idea.

Working under the umbrella of constitution butrejecting the system means cutting the trunk of thesame tree which you have climbed and is insane.

On the other hand, time has witnessed theFrench Revolution, the Communist Revolution andthe Islamic Revolution in Madina. Theseinsurrections didn’t go for gradual changes withinthe pre-existing system rather moved to collapse ofregimes and installation of totally different modelof governance in place.

In simple words, with partial legislativechanges capitalist society can neither betransformed in to Communist nor Islamist societyand vice versa.

Though there are differences betweendictatorship and democracy but for 65 years bothprocesses have implemented capitalism. IfPakistan continues to revolve or evolves within thesame system, then the word “revolution” must notbe politically exploited.

Second choice is a different ideological modelof governance; the two most likely options areSocialism and Caliphate. Later fits the fabric ofPakistani society. Peaceful transitions areimpossible if people in power refrain from standingwith the people.

SAYYED BILALLahore

india-Pakistan relations

conspiraciesThe entire country has been gripped

in the cobweb of conspiracies and virtu-ally stage dramas. People’s trust andfaith on individuals and on institutionsof the country have gone down to belowzero level. Even religious scholars noware in this category. How does one expectthat what these religious scholars, whoused to be once referred to as religiousauthority, are preaching is also a truth ora farce? State politicians, business peopleand civil administrators were commonlyknown for false statements for personaland timely gains. But religious scholarsand teachers were never doubted. Theywere always respected and looked at bythe people as a last resort in resolvingtheir social and family problems.

One dictator used Islam as a tool tojustify and extend his rule, but he de-stroyed the faith of a common man in thewake. Now the entire nation has witnessedanother drama played by Dr TuQ. He goeson to use Karbala, Yazeed, and HazratImam Hussein (RA), the martyrdom of thegrandson of our Holy Prophet (SAW) forhis vicious motives and deceitful role. Hesurely did a good job by his oratory su-premacy but he has destroyed and crippledthe minds of innocent millions (the realmillions and not his millions) by turningsides and somersaulting. His cynical smilecould even be seen through cameras andfoggy glass of his castle-type container.

We will have democracy and Pak-istani-styled democracy at that, we will nothave military rule, we may or may not havegood or bad governance, we may or maynot have poverty alleviation, we may ormay not come victorious in our great waragainst terror, but if we look at the price ofgetting all this or our attempt to hope forthis; the price is enormous. This is what wecall collateral damage. My heartiest con-gratulations to those who have gained fromDr TuQ and my heartiest felicitation tothose who brought him to Pakistan but letme remind them all that they have cor-roded the very ground on which they arestanding or will stand. Billions of dollarsthey may have made or ensured for them-selves on earth in the coming years butthey will have leave this world all alone.

AMJAD H MIRZALahore

11Tuesday, 22 January, 2013 Comment

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12Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

Singer-actor will finally get to play an action hero in

Shaad Ali’s forthcoming film. Looks like his long-time

dream of essaying an action hero is finally coming to

life. In Shaad Ali’s next, the Pakistani singer-actor Ali Zafar

will pump iron. He was earlier scheduled to act in the

Bollywood remake of South hit Vettai but later the film hit a

roadblock. And with Shaad stepping in with his new project,

the actor couldn’t be happier. Sources say, “Ali will star

alongside Parineeti Chopra and Ranveer Singh. Ali believes

that this film will break his image of the romantic hero.” Ali

says, “I am happy with the kinds of roles that are being

offered to me. I will get a chance to perform some stunts as

well.” The actor, who is currently working on music concerts,

will start work for Shaad’s film as soon as his project with

yaami Gautam wraps up. nEwS dESk

Ali Zafar to play actionhero in Kill Dil

FILM director, food writer and bon viveur

Michael Winner died today aged 77 after a

long illness. Winner was a food critic for the

Sunday Times as well as the director of more than

30 films including his famous Death Wish series

starring Charles Bronson. He had been unwell for

some time, revealing last summer that specialists

had given him 18 months to live due to heart and

liver problems - and that he had considered going

to a Dignitas assisted-dying clinic in Switzerland.

His wife Geraldine confirmed his death at their

home in kensington today. Mrs Winner paid tribute

to him in a statement: “Michael was a wonderful

man, brilliant, funny and generous. A light has gone

out in my life.” The pair married nearly two years

ago at the Chelsea Register office after a courtship

spanning 50 years. nEwS dESk

AjokA, whose performance at the Bharat Rang

Mahotsav was cancelled, has staged its play

kaun Hai yeh Gustakh here. Amid the flare-up of

border tension, Ajoka’s performance at the National

School of Drama theatre festival was cancelled last

Thursday. The artistes were reportedly heading home

but civil society members and the theatre fraternity

arranged a show on Saturday at Akshara theatre. Ajoka

theatre director Madeeha Gouhar said: “This was really

special. We were so sad that we would go without

performing. But this gesture of Indian society has

touched us.” Gopal Sharma, one of the Akshara theatre

owners, said he immediately agreed to let out the

auditorium when approached by activists and theatre

personalities. “I felt bad that the play was cancelled. The

Pakistani group was invited here and then their plays

were cancelled. It reflects badly on our liberal and

tolerant culture,” Sharma said. nEwS dESk

Michael Winner dies at 77

Ajoka stages play in Delhi

NEWS DESK

HoNEy Singh, who courted

controversies for his songs

allegedly based on sexual

themes, makes his debut

as a leading man in

Punjabi film “Main Tera Bai Tu Mera

Bai”. He will display his comic skills

alongside Punjabi star Amrinder Gill in

the movie and says it is just one-off

project. Speaking about what he calls

his reluctant role as an actor, Honey

Singh said: “Frankly, I don’t think I’m

ready to get into acting as yet. I still

have a long way to go as a a

musician.” Honey Singh had done a

cameo in another Punjabi film

‘Mirza’. “And when this director-

friend of mine, Amit Prasher,

offered me the lead in a comedy

about two brothers, I refused. But

he was hurt. He said, ‘Tu doosre ki

picture kar sakta, mera nahin?’ I

had to say yes,” he added. Honey

had a ball romancing the

burlesque. “It was fun doing

the film. It’s out-and-out

comedy about two brothers from

Canada and their adventures in

Punjab. But there’s also an underlying

message about Indian values and

family ties. Hanste-hanste film bahot

kuch keh jaata hai (the film has

something serious to say amidst the

laughter).” Honey won’t be accepting

acting offers for now even if “Main

Tera Bai Tu Mera Bai” turns into a

blockbuster. “I’ve just begun to

explore the musician in me. It will be

a long time before I feel confident to

make the jump into acting like

Himesh Reshammiya did,” says

Honey. Incidentally,

producer Sunil

Bohra already

has plans of

buying the

rights of

“Main Tera Bai Tu Mera Bai” to remake

it into Hindi.Bohra insists he will cast

only Honey Singh in the lead. “He is a

natural-born actor with an instinctive

flair for comedy. He will rock

Bollywood. you

mark my

words,”

predicts

Bohra.

Being UN Ambassadormade me a strongerperson: Angelina

NEWS DESK

Angelina Jolie has opened up about her role as aUN ambassador, saying the experience has madeher a better person. The mother of six told Total

Film magazine that her firsttrip changed her

completely, the DailyExpress reported.

“They’re not cryingbecause they don’thave time for it andI’m not helpingthem by justfeeling for them. Ihad to stay

practical andfocused,” she said.

She also said that thepeople affected were

not crying becausethey don’t havetime for it andshe’s not helpingthem by justfeeling for them.The 37-year-oldadded that shehad to staycalm, practicaland focused.Jolie has alsokept a diary tohelp deal with

some of theharrowing

scenes, which shewitnessed during hertravels to the ThirdWorld countries.

Batmobile sold atauction for $4.62 million

NEWS DESK

The Batmobile, the futuristic car used in the “Batman” television show, hasbeen sold at auction for $4.62 million, US media reported Monday. Thecrime-fighting vehicle was built by George Barris, who bought a 1955Lincoln Futura at a junk yard for just $1 and transformed it into one of themost recognizable vehicles in entertainment history, the ABC televisionnetwork said. It was used on the “Batman” television show from 1966 to1968. The ABC said the sale took place at the Barrett-Jackson car auctionin Scottsdale, Arizona, on Saturday. The buyer has not been formallyidentified, but the Hollywood Reporter newspaper said it was RickChampagne, owner of a Tempe, Arizona-based logistics company.

HONEY SINGHturns hero,TRIES COMEDY

Overwhelmed to see Ranbirclapping for me: Richa

Richa Chadda, who won Filmfare Critics’ Awardfor Best Actor (Female) for her strongperformance in Gangs of Wasseypur talks to TOIabout her excitement and nervousness whilereceiving the award. “I was very happy to get theaward. I was not expecting as I was nominated

for supporting actress award which was doneand later I was going to leave. The moment myname was announced, I got so nervous andwent on the stage. It was really difficult to beon the stage and face actresses like Rekhaji,Madhuriji and Srideviji,” said Richa. Onbeing asked about her celebration plans

after winning the Filmfare Award, she said,“Yes, I am going to throw a bash for all

my friends and now my phone isjamming as everyone is wishing me.”

“It was such a great moment andwhen I went to get the award Dia

Mirza wished me and I also sawRanbir Kapoor clapping for

me. When I see establishedstars encouraging new

talent I feel good andhappy. That’s why Isaid that theindustry is good tothe outsiders,”concluded Richa.

nEwS dESk

Oscar not going to help my box-officerecord: Samuel L Jackson

NEWS DESK

Samuel L. Jackson says he won’t bedisappointed if he never wins anOscar as he thinks that success isn’tjust about golden statuettes. Theactor has so far received only oneAcademy Award nomination- for hissupporting role in 1994’s ‘PulpFiction’. The 64-year-old said he hada pretty good career in Hollywoodand that winning an Oscar will nothelp his box-office record, the DailyExpress reported. With box-officehits such as Jurassic Park and theStar Wars prequels, Jackson isone of the highest grossing movieactors ever. And he’s receivedrave reviews for his latestteaming with ‘Pulp Fiction’director Quentin Tarantino inhit Western ‘DjangoUnchained’.

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13Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

NEWS DESk

Some interesting comments made by celebrities

at 58th Idea Filmfare Awards. once again the

Filmfare night arrived and the most celebrated

personalities from the industry graced the event.

As the celebrities walked into the venue, they had

something or the other to say about the event,

the winners and the nominations. While someone

was recollecting their memories, the other was

found hooting for their favorite nominee and few

others were just looking forward for the night to

rock. Here are some of the quotable quotes from

the overall event.

YAMi GAUtAMi:“This is my first year at Filmfare

and I must confess that watching Filmfare Awards

on television and actually being here at the venue

is an altogether different experience”.

ViDYA BALAn: “This is the first time I am

coming with my husband (Siddharth Roy kapur).

Interestingly I met Siddharth for the first time at

the backstage at Filmfare Awards some years

back. So it is a very nostalgic feeling for me today

“.

Vidya Balan (after she received the Best Actor -

Female Award): “Thank you (cinematographer)

Setu for making a pregnant women look beautiful.

As a child I would stay glued to the TV to watch

Filmfare. As the bible says ask and you shall

receive”.

ARJUn KAPOOR, “The fondest memory of my

Filmfare is watching it with my mother but today I

am walking the red carpet with my sister as she is

my hottest date.” CHOREOGRAPHER CEASAR:

“The song Auntyji was a challenge, not because of

kareena kapoor but because of Imran khan. It

was a challenge to teach him. Imran also got

inspired by Bosco who featured in the song as

well. In fact the actors made us dance to their

tunes”

YASH CHOPRA’S wife, Pamela Chopra (while

receiving the Lifetime achievement award for yash

Chopra): “yash ji came to Bombay with Rs 200 in

his pocket, dreams and his mother’s blessings. He

was the humblest person I have known in my life.

He never knew he was yash Chopra - his greatest

quality. Three things he loved - films, food and

family - in the same order”.

POOJA MiSHRA: “I love the lady in the black so

I have too dressed in black.” MAnOJ BAJPAYEE:

Everyone who is nominated is a winner”

MADHURi Dixit nEnE: “I have 6 Filmfare

trophies.”

PRitAM: “I grew up listening to RD Burman’s

music and I am greatly influenced by him. Even

today when I listen to his music, I get nostalgic. I

am really happy to win two awards. I wasn’t

expecting two trophies”

AFtAB SHiVADASAni arrives with his girlfriend

Nin and confirms his wedding bash, “We have

decided to marry each other. It’s no more a

secret. The date is not confirmed yet but

inshaallah it will be this year for sure”.

PARinEEti CHOPRA, who was nominated in

the Best Actress category for Ishaqzaade says she

wants her cousin Priyanka Chopra to win for Barfi.

“I want all the awards to go to Barfi. Ranbir

kapoor as the Best Actor, Anurag Basu as the Best

Director”.

Filmfare Awards2013 Winners

NEWS DESK

Dashing and refined actor Ranbir Kapoor has once againrepeated the history after winning the Best Actor awardfor his acclaimed film Barfi! at the 58th Idea FilmfareAwards, held in Mumbai. The actor had previously wonthe 57th Idea Filmfare Awards in the same category forRockstar movie. Not only Ranbir but actress Vidya Balanhas also repeated her success just like the previousFilmfare Awards after winning the Best Actress categoryfor Kahaani this time. Here are the other winners....

POPULAR AWARDS Best Actor Ranbir kapoor (Barfi!)

Best Actress Vidya Balan ( kahaani)

Best Film Barfi!

Best Director Sujoy Ghosh (kahaani)

Best Dialogue Anurag kashyap, Akhilesh

jaiswal, Sachin k Ladia, Zeishan Qadri (Gangs of Wasseypur)

Best Screenplay Sanjay Chouhan & Tigmanshu

Dhulia (Paan Singh Tomar)

Best Story juhi Chaturvedi (Vicky Donor)

Best Supporting Actor (Male) Annu kapoor (Vicky Donor)

Best Supporting Actor (Female) Anushka Sharma

(jab Tak Hai jaan)

Best Music Director Pritam (Barfi!)

Best Lyrics Gulzar (Challa), jab Tak Hai jaan

Best Playback (Male) Ayushmann khurrana (Paani Da

Rang) (Vicky Donor)

Best Playback (Female) Shalmali kholgade (Pareshaan)

( Ishaqzaade)

RD Burman Award For Upcoming Talent In Music Neeti

Mohan (jiya Re) (jab Tak Hain jaan)

Lifetime Achievement Award yash Chopra

Sony Trendsetter of The year Barfi!

Best Debut (Male) Ayushmann khurrana (Vicky Donor)

Best Debut (Female) Ileana D’Cruz (Barfi!)

Best Debut (Director) Gauri Shinde (English Vinglish)

CRITICS AWARDSCritics’ Award for Best Actor (Male) Irrfan khan (Paan

Singh Tomar)

Critics’ Award for Best Actor (Female) Richa Chadda

(Gangs of Wasseypur)

Critics’ Award for Best Film Gangs of Wasseypur

FILMFARE TECHNICAL AWARDS Best Action Sham kaushal (Gangs of

Wasseypur)

Best Cinematography Setu (kahaani)

Best Editing Namrata Rao (kahaani)

Best Production Design Rajat Podar (Barfi!)

Best Sound Design Sanjay Maurya & Allwin Rego

(kahaani)

Best Costume Design Manoshi Nath & Rushi Sharma

( Shanghai)

Best Choreography Bosco-Caesar (Aunty ji - Ek

Main Aur Ekk Tu)

Best Background Score Pritam (Barfi!)

Louvre mostvisited again

NEWS DESK

The Louvre said recently its new Islamicart wing helped cement its position as theworld’s most-visited museum with nearly10 million visitors in 2012, over a millionmore than last year. The exact figures willbe released early this month, but in themeantime, the Paris museum said therewas a “remarkable progression in Chinesevisitors, who now figure in the top threegroups (of non-French visitors) alongsideAmericans and Brazilians”. Next cameItalians and Germans, it said in astatement that noted that its website hadseen more than 11 million visitors andthat its Facebook page had 800,000followers. The museum’s new wing ofIslamic art, with about 3,000 preciousworks from the seventh to the 19thcenturies, opened to the public inSeptember and since then has attracted650,000 visitors. Costing nearly €100million, it is funded by the Frenchgovernment and supported byendowments from Saudi Arabia,Morocco, Kuwait, Oman and Azerbaijan.

Quotable quotes of 58th Filmfare Awards

Victoria Azarenka’s ear-piercing shrieking is not toeveryone’s taste — but it’s gone down well with herreputed boyfriend, LMFAO musician Redfoo, who’ssampled it for a new song. The world number one, whohas been supported by the crazy-haired Redfoo at theAustralian Open in Melbourne, said the song featuringher distinctive high-to-low grunt would be out soon. “It’smy grunt. It’s not my vocals. I don’t take high key or lowkey there. It’s just natural,” she said, when asked if shehad sung on the track. She added: “I was a little bit shyand quiet, so you can only hear his voice there.”Azarenka, last year’s champion in Melbourne, said shelistened to music before matches to help her focus —and LMFAO was top of her playlist. “I got the new mix,actually a new song. It didn’t come out yet. So I have afirst hearing of it,” she said, when asked what shelistened to before she hammered Elena Vesnina 6-1,6-1 on Monday. “It’s really good, called ‘Sweet Baby’,something like that. I came up with the name. Idon’t think it has a title yet. It’s just an amazingmix. It’s a remix of an old song.” She added:“(Music gives you) focus, pumps you up, getsyour feet a little bit moving, kind of get excited.So I kind of get in the zone, and that’s it. “It justmakes me feel good. When I feel good inside, Ilove to go out there and do the best job as I can.”Azarenka’s noisy play has not been a hit witheveryone. Last year, sections of the Melbournecrowd mimicked her ‘haah’ shrieking on herway to the final — against MariaSharapova, another notorious grunter.The “scream queen” match-up waspoorly timed for the Women’s TennisAssociation, which had pledged totake action against gruntingfollowing concerns it was aturn-off for fans. nEwS dESk

AZARENKAshrieking in newLMFAO song

Joseph Gordon-Levitt &Julianne Moore at DonJon's Addiction debut atSundance Film Festivalin Park City, Utah.

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A man set himself on fire in

Prague today, apparently to

commemorate a student who died

by self-immolation there some 44

years ago, Reuters reports. today’s

incident occurred in front of the

national Museum in Wenceslas

Square, where a Czech 36-year-old

set fire to his jacket and had it

quickly doused with snow by police

officers. Student Jan Palach

immolated himself nearby with

flammable liquid on January 16,

1969, to protest the Soviet

invasion of former Czechoslovakia.

Palach died three days later, but

today’s activist suffered only finger

burns. “in all likelihood the man

did not want to commit suicide,”

said a police spokeswoman. “He

said it was only a remembrance to

Jan Palach.” NEWS DESk

CHINA is planning to stepup its enforcement of anti-pollution measures afterweeks of foul air in Beijingfuelled public discontent

over the environmental and healthcosts of rapid economic growth.

Among a set of emergency meas-ures to be formalised are the closingof heavily polluting factories andfining drivers whose cars are heavypolluters. The rules would be imple-mented during periods when pollu-tion is particularly harmful “toprotect the health of people in thecity”, an air pollution bill drafted bythe municipal government and re-leased on the Xinhua news agencysaid. The hazardous levels of pollu-tion that blanketed Beijing last weekwere mostly caused by car emis-sions, burning coal and the particu-lar atmospheric conditions. Butcritics say the deeper underlyingcause is an obsession with boostingthe economy, regardless of the envi-ronmental costs.

Beijing’s lung cancer rates arereported to have increased by 60 percent in the past 10 years. The Vice-Premier, Li Keqiang, pictured left,who is expected to take over as Pre-mier in March, said last week that

tackling pollution would be a long-term process.

Heavy snowfall in Beijingbrought some relief yesterday, whenthe US Embassy’s air quality index,measuring PM2.5, or particulatematter with a diameter of 2.5 mi-crometres, gave a merely “un-healthy” reading at 197, down frommore than 400 the day before.

PM2.5 particles are small enoughto go deep into the lungs and cancause lung cancer, bronchitis and

asthma. Last week there were read-ings off the scale – more than 500,up to 755 at some points, and possi-bly beyond. A level above 300 is con-sidered “hazardous”, while the WorldHealth Organisation recommends adaily level of no more than 20.

Data released at the weekendshowed that Beijing’s permanentpopulation reached 20.69 million atthe end of last year, but the swellingnumber of permanent residents hasnot been matched by efforts to keep

tabs on pollution. And Beijing isnowhere near the worst – it ranked75th worst for air quality out of 149cities in China listed at the weekend,with the worst reading in the north-ern city of Harbin.

There is a belief that privilegedCommunist Party members and ris-ing inequality are somehow linked toa disproportionate effect of pollutionon the poor. Most residents of Bei-jing do not have the luxury of air pu-rifiers at home, or iPhone apps toread air quality.

This bout of pollution has beenmarked by unusually open coveragein the newspapers and on state TV,and the Beijing city government hasinvited residents to comment onthe draft rules.

Wang Conghu, a professor ofpublic management at Renmin Uni-versity, thinks the measures are apositive step. “This shows the gov-ernment is trying to do something,and it will be an important measureto cut pollution,” he said.

A Beijing-based traffic expert,Xu Kangming, told Jinghua Times:“Whether they are actually enforcedand whether real action will be takendepends on how the individual de-partments enforce them.” nEwS dESk

Teacher ducks rape charge by saying ‘I do’

Aformer teacher in North Carolina hasavoided statutory rape charges aftermarrying the alleged victim, the

Wilmington Star-News reports. Leah Shipman, 42,was accused of sleeping with a 15-year-old studentin 2009, but prosecutors reduced the charge to amisdemeanour after she divorced her husband of19 years and married the student in 2011. In NorthCarolina, a defendant’s spouse can only testifyagainst the defendant in certain cases—andunderage sex didn’t fit the bill.“None of the statements made in this case wouldbe admissible without the victim,” said an assistantDA. “The state pled (her) to what we could provewithout the victim.” Shipman allegedly slept withstudent Johnnie Ray Ison when he was 15 andmarried him with his mother’s permission after heturned 17. Ison reportedly admitted the affair toinvestigators, but they could only pin it onShipman if he testified. Shipman was ordered togive up her teaching license, serve 12 months’probation, and pay $345 in restitution. Her charge:resisting a public officer. nEwS dESk

British professor admits relatively polite vandalism

ABritish professor who specializes in citiesand urban life has been convicted ofdamaging luxury cars with graffiti that was

surprisingly polite. Stephen Graham was foundguilty yesterday of using a screwdriver to scrawlwords such as “very silly,” “really wrong” and“arbitrary” into the paintwork of vehicles includinga Mercedes, an Audi, and a Volvo. Police peggedthe damage at $29,000. The 47-year-old academicpreviously blamed a bad reaction to alcohol,antibiotics, and prescription drugs for hisbehaviour. He gets sentenced next month. nEwS dESk

Celestial wonder looksuncannily like a manatee

Awatery-looking nebula in deep space is beingrenamed after the sea creature it stronglyresembles: a manatee. The nebula is the

leftovers from a star that died in a supernovaexplosion about 20,000 years ago. Before it died, thegiant star puffed out its outer gaseous layers, whichnow swirl in green-and-blue clouds around the deadhulk of the star, which has collapsed into a black hole.Known officially as W50, the celestial object is beingdubbed the Manatee Nebula by the National RadioAstronomy Observatory (NRAO), during a ceremonytoday (Jan. 19) at the Florida Manatee Festival inCrystal River, Fla. The NRAO will also unveil a newphoto of the nebula taken by the Very Large Array(VLA) radio telescope network in New Mexico. “Whenthe VLA’s giant W50 image reached the NRAOdirector’s office, Heidi Winter, the director’s executiveassistant, saw the likeness to a manatee, theendangered marine mammals known as ‘sea cows’that congregate in warm waters in the south-easternUnited States,” NRAO officials wrote in a statement.”At Winter’s suggestion, NRAO decided to collaboratewith the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to confer thenew nickname on the nebula. Manatees are hugemammals that average about 10 feet (3 meters) longand tend to weigh over 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms).These gentle giants propel themselves with flippers,and spend up to eight hours a day munching on seaplants. The new photo shows the manatee nebulaseemingly mimicking a trademark pose of the animal,which is often seen floating on its back, with flipperscrossed over belly. Manatees are endangered, in partbecause boat propellers often cut deep gashes into theherbivores’ sides, injuring or killing many manateesevery year. The nebula, too, bears streaky scars carvedout by particles in the two protruding jets emittingfrom the black hole at its core. Crystal River Refuge,established in 1983 to protect the endangered WestIndian manatee, is the home of the largest naturalconcentration of manatees in Florida. The ManateeNebula, which lies 18,000 light-years away in theconstellation of Aquila, isn’t the only celestial objectnamed after an Earthly creature: It is joined in thecosmos by the Crab Nebula, the Eagle Nebula, andthe Pelican Nebula, among others. nEwS dESk

China plans emergency measuresto control worsening air pollution

A Queens woman has been charged with crim-inal possession of a weapon, endangering thewelfare of a child, and more, after leaving a.22-caliber pistol and a flare gun in her 7-year-

old son’s backpack—something the 7-year-olddiscovered only after arriving at school. Deb-orah Farley, 53, says she put the guns in theboy’s Batman backpack before going out withit this week, and forgot to take them out beforesending him to school, police tell the NewYork Times. When she realized what she’ddone, she rushed to the school to try to re-trieve the weapon. By then her son had alreadyfound the flare gun and given it to a classmate.When his mother asked him to hand over thegun, he said he’d given it away—not realizingthe .22 was in his bag, too. Farley alerted theprincipal, who locked down the school andalerted authorities. Now the boy and his 9-year-old brother have been taken into protec-tive custody. Their father, Walter Orozco, 56,says things could have ended more tragically,because his son is often bullied. nEwS dESk

Tuesday, 22 January, 2013 Infotainment 14

Moon and Jupiter: A great sight tonight

FRIGID air is coming in and it will be a chillyinauguration but later this evening, even ifthe wind picks up and any clouds break up,

well worth a quick look outside. The gibbous moonand the brilliant planet Jupiter will be less than 1°apart tonight. What astronomers call a “conjunction”Tonight the moon is about 250,000 miles away andJupiter is about 413 million miles away (almost2000 times farther away) yet they will appear to bealmost touching in the night sky. nEwS dESk

Mom put gun in 7-year-old’s backpack

LHR 22-01-2013_Layout 1 1/22/2013 2:02 AM Page 14

Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

A captain by any other name should man-age just as well. That must be what SouthAfrican cricket thought when the processto replace Graeme Smith as limited-oversleader began in August 2010.

Two and a half years on, they havebeen through four captains but have notfound a long-term replacement. Thesearch for someone who has security inteam position, aptitude and the willing-ness to do the job full time is still on asconcerns grow about AB de Villiers’ suit-ability. It is something South Africa haveto address seriously as they plan for threeICC events in three years.

Johan Botha was initially namedSmith’s successor and he was a goodchoice. Botha is a natural leader who iscomfortable enough with himself to knowwhen to delegate and when to takecharge. His tactical acumen is solid andhe thinks about the game in interestingways.

But Botha was not kept in the framefor long. He was stripped of the role 11months later when South Africa’s man-agement structure changed. Followingthat, Botha was slowly shifted out of theteam to its fringes. Eventually, sensingthe end was near, he asked to be releasedfrom his national contract to take up aposition at South Australia, where hewould captain the state team in all for-mats. Botha last played for South Africaat the World Twenty20 last Septemberand all indications from both him and theadministrators are that he will not returnto the fold.

When Botha was dislodged, a newthink-tank was put in place with AB deVilliers and Hashim Amla as Smith’ssidekicks. Although de Villiers had nevercaptained a team before, at any level, hisenthusiasm and team-man attitude made

it seem he was the perfect man for thejob. Amla was a less obvious choice, hav-ing always shied away from leadership.He excitedly said he was ready for a dif-ferent challenge and understood hewould be de Villiers’ understudy in lim-ited-overs teams, even though he was nota regular in the T20 side at the time.

It has been 18 months since those de-cisions were made and questions arebeing asked about whether they were thecorrect ones. De Villiers appears increas-ingly uncomfortable with the role andAmla has shunned his part in it. InsteadFaf du Plessis, who at the time of the ap-pointments was only just starting to es-tablish his place in the ODI side but hassince become a regular across all threeformats, has captained South Africa in aT20 series and will now take charge of therest of the ODI series against NewZealand because of de Villiers’ suspen-sion.

A slow over-rate cost de Villiers thechance to immerse himself in the intrica-cies of captaincy, as was the plan for thisseries. To that end, he gave up the wicket-keeping gloves so he could get a differ-ence perspective on the game.

It was this time last year, almost tothe day, that de Villiers captained SouthAfrica for the first time against Sri Lankain Paarl. South Africa won convincinglyafter scoring 301 and bowling Sri Lankaout for 43. De Villiers was hugely satisfiedwith the win but looked hassled. He con-fessed that because things had happenedso fast, he wasn’t able to have sufficienttime with his bowlers to discuss fieldplacements and strategies and he felt outon control as the match went on.

De Villiers has been in charge in ninemore ODIs and eight T20s. Before thisseries, he said almost exactly the samething he did after the crushing win overSri Lanka. He still felt he needed to becloser to the bowlers so that he could

communicate better with them and hesaid felt rushed on the field.

That his concerns were almost iden-tical to what they were a year ago couldsimply mean de Villiers needs more timeto get to grips with captaincy. It couldalso point to his own uncertainty and in-decisiveness, two traits that should ap-pear only in very small quantities in acaptain’s kit but seem to feature morewith de Villiers.

To illustrate that, consider that notonly has de Villiers struggled to get togrips with leadership but he has also hasalso continually wavered about his role inthe team. Long before he was consideredcaptaincy material, de Villiers made itclear he wanted to become the best bats-man in the world and did not want tokeep wicket. He has since, in the words ofconvenor of selectors Andrew Hudson,“changed his mind” to the point where hewas willing to sacrifice of “a year of mycareer,” because of his bad back, to do thejob.

When de Villiers was asked to take

over as a limited-overs captain, it was putto him that the triple task of keeping,leading and batting would be too much.De Villiers did not agree with such sug-gestions. Neither did those who ap-pointed him, specifically Gary Kirsten,although he has also changed his mindabout that now and said he was “alwaysconcerned” the burden on de Villierswould be too great.

As a result, they have had to make aplan to rest de Villiers so he can continuekeeping in Tests. He passed the gloves onin limited-overs, a dual solution that alsoallowed him to “focus on captaincy.” Itappeared a clever solution to all de Vil-liers’ concerns but it did not ease the oneabout his ability, not willingness, to cap-tain.

De Villiers continually claims to beunsure of the skills needed and the styleof captaincy he should adopt. He has yetto find his way despite a reasonableamount of time in the job. He could havehad even more time if he had gone to theunofficial T20 tri-series in Zimbabwe toJune last year.

Instead, it was Amla who took SouthAfrica to that event, as a vice-captainrightly should. The same Amla who nowwants the armband as far away from hisshirt as the alcohol sponsors logo.

Although Amla captained SouthAfrica at Under-19 level and had a stint incharge of Dolphins, he has always been areluctant leader. At Dolphins his periodas captain coincided with a lack of runsand that seems to have put him off cap-taining for good.

Still, Amla stood in for de Villiersonce in what was supposed to be de Vil-liers captaincy debut against Australia inOctober 2011. De Villiers picked up an in-jury at the Champions League so Amlaled South Africa to a T20 series draw andODI series loss. His own form sufferedand he indicated it was not a job he would

want again.That view has not changed. When ES-

PNcricinfo spoke to a source close to theteam minutes after news broke that deVilliers was ruled out of the remainingODIs against New Zealand, they said itwas unlikely Amla would take over. ACSA release later confirmed that Amlawanted to “concentrate on his batting,”and selectors would grant him his wish.

Amla, like Jacques Kallis, obviouslywants no part in captaincy. In beinglargely left alone to play his own game,Kallis has given South Africa more thanany other cricketer. Amla may be thesame. Then he has to lose the vice-cap-tain tag. He probably won’t even noticeits gone.

It should probably go the way of duPlessis, who has emerged as a candidateto take over the main job too. Du Plessiswas a captain at school level and a formerleader of South Africa’s A side and seemsto enjoy the extra responsibility.

Promoting du Plessis, maybe evenabove de Villiers, should not be seen asan insult to de Villiers or Amla. It shouldrather be seen as responding to thechanging times. When de Villiers was putin charge of the limited-overs teams hewas not the Test wicketkeeper and hisconcerns about the captaincy had notbeen developed. Circumstances and expe-riences may require a shift in policy.

A decade of Smith meant that SouthAfrican cricket had not had to debateabout another leader for most of thattime. Even when Smith doubts started toemerge it was always clear that he had theability to lead and the presence thatwould prompt others to follow him. Intwo weeks time, Smith will captain SouthAfrica for the 100th occasion in a Testmatch. He is undisputedly the best cap-tain this country has had and if they wantanother like him, sensible decisions mustbe made to find one.

SOUTH AFRICA STILL LOOKING FOR A ONE-DAY LEADERg most parts of South africa’s cricket are running smoothly at the moment, but that is not the case with the captaincy of the one-day team

FIRDOSE MOONDA

Comment

JOHANNESBURG AGEnCiES

PAKISTAN are losingground on test rivals be-cause they cannot hostinternational teamsowing to security con-

cerns and accordingly play fewer testmatches, captain Misbah-ul-Haq Mis-bah-ul-Haq said on Monday.

As his team prepared to take onthe world’s top-ranked test team SouthAfrica in the three-test series startingin Johannesburg on Feb. 1, Misbahsaid Pakistan were at a disadvantagebecause of the “limitations”.

“As a team it is very difficult whenyou not playing a format on a regularbasis. You really have to work hard.But we have to adjust, you could say itis a limitation for us but we are profes-sionals, we have to do well,” he told anews conference.

“We don’t have home series andwhen you aren’t playing at home thenyou miss a lot of cricket and you playonly about five or six tests a year whenother teams are playing 15 or 16 testsa year. It really does affect your team.”

Pakistan have not hosted a test-playing team since armed militants at-tacked the Sri Lanka team bus inLahore in 2009, killing eight Pakista-nis and wounding six Sri Lankan play-ers.

Their ‘home’ matches since thenhave been held at neutral venues,mostly in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, whilePakistan have not played a test series

anywhere since July last year.Misbah said that the success of the

two-match series between a World XIand a Pakistani All Star team in Octo-ber last year showed that Pakistancould safely host internationalmatches.

“Pakistan is such a big cricketingnation and the world has to thinkabout bringing international cricketback (to Pakistan).

“The T20 tournament in Pakistansaw full stadiums for every match.There were no (security) concerns. Thepeople should have internationalcricket,” he said.

Misbah’s words were echoed byPakistan team manager NaveedAkram Cheema who said that the situ-ation in Pakistan was a lot safer thanoutsiders perceived.

“Our people in Pakistan are beingdeprived of international cricket.There is a difference between percep-tion and reality. People don’t come (toPakistan) on the pretext of securityconcerns. But I can tell you that it is assafe as any country in the world,” hesaid.

Bangladesh were due to tour Pak-istan this month but it was postponedfor security reasons.

No home tests holding Pakistan back: Misbah

Pietersen cautioned

over dissentRANCHIL:Kevin Pietersenhas been given agentle reminderover his on-pitchbehaviour fol-lowing the obvi-ousdisappointmenthe exhibitedafter his dis-missal in thethird ODI in

Ranchi. Pietersen was adjudged by um-pire S Ravi to have been caught behind offIshant Sharma for 17 but lingered in thecrease for several seconds in apparent dis-belief at the decision. While Pietersenmay well have been unfortunate with thedismissal, replays suggesting that the ballbrushed only his thigh, England’s limited-overs coach, Ashley Giles, supported theaction of the match referee, Andy Pycroft,to have an informal chat with Pietersen.Giles was particularly keen to remindPietersen how difficult umpiring could bein conditions as noisy as the ODI inRanchi where umpires have little hope ofdistinguishing between the noise of thebat clipping the pad or the ball clippingthe edge of the bat. “Andy was right tospeak to Kev,” Giles admitted, “but I thinkcommon sense prevailed. It was just a lit-tle word. I didn’t think it was a reaction,more disappointment from Kev. “Butwe’ve got to be careful with reactions todecisions. It’s tough for the umpires here,it’s so loud that decision making is tough.We understand that.” Pycroft also had abrief conversation with Giles, taking thechance to talk with the England coachafter bumping into him in the toilet atRanchi airport. “It was in the gents,” Gilessaid. “So that was a nice scene for my firstmeeting with the match referee.” AGEnCiES

inzamam not a

part of Pakistan’s

tour of South africaLAHORE

STAFF REPORT

The PCB has decided not to continue withInzamam-ul-Haq, the former Pakistanbatsman, as the team’s batting consultantfor the tour of South Africa for which theteam departed on Sunday morning. Inza-mam was supposed to travel for the tourbut it is understood that the PCB did notapproach him.Inzamam was appointed for the role justbefore the team’s short limited-overs tourof India. He helped the team prepare forthe tour but did not travel to India withthem due to his commitments with a TVchannel. However, he was committed togo to South Africa. Even though there wasno written agreement between the PCBand Inzamam over covering the SouthAfrica series, both had an understandingto carry out the deal.“We have engaged the services of Inza-mam ahead of the India tour,” PCB chair-man Zaka Ashraf had said last month onappointing Inzamam. “He won’t travel toIndia with the team but will help the bats-men in the camp as batting consultant. Hewill be part of the touring unit that goesnext year to South Africa.”The PCB had planned to recruit a special-ist coaches with separate people takingcharge of batting, bowling and fielding,but gave head coach Dav Whatmore theadditional responsibility of a battingcoach. The idea was then shelved and thePCB opted to go series-by-series instead ofappointing a full-time batting coach.Pakistan will play three Tests, twoTwenty20s and five ODIs in South Africaduring their two-month tour, starting witha tour match between Pakistan XI andSouth African Invitation XI at BuffaloPark, East London from January 25 to 28.

LHR 22-01-2013_Layout 1 1/22/2013 2:02 AM Page 16

Touring Afghan cricketers to have four-week training in Pakistan

Sports 16Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

AFGHAN cricket team willgreatly benefit from its fourweek training tour of Pak-istan by attending NationalCricket Academy’s coaching

programmes besides playing one and T-20matches. This was stated by DirectorGames development, NCA, Intikhab Alamat a news conference flanked by captain ofthe Afghan team,Kabir Khan and managerNouraiz Mangal here on Monday atGadaffi stadium. Senior general manager,NCA, Ali Zia was also present.

Intikhab said the prime aim of Afghanteam’s tour is to build their team for theWorld Cup Qualifying round to be held inMarch. “ Our experienced coaches will beimparting finer points of the game to bringimprovement in the batting, fielding andbowling of the players to prepare them forthe Qualifying rounds to get productive re-sults “,said the NCA official.

He said apart from attending the train-ing programme at NCA the Afghan teamwill also be playing 8 one-day games and 4T-20 matches against Pakistan A team toget much useful competitive practiceahead of their participation in the qualify-ing rounds.

Afghan teams captain described thetraining programme at NCA “ very impor-tant “ in order to lift the fortune of theirteam by overcoming flaws in different de-partments of the game.

“ It is a very good opportunity for ourplayers to learn from coaches at NCA “,hesaid adding “ We are focusing on prepara-tion of the team for the qualifying roundsand we strongly believe that training atNCA will add to our experience and confi-dence to perform upto a higher level in theevent (qualifying rounds)”.

To a question, he said , will pay fortheir training at NCA .” Before we were at-tending such programmes at Sharjah butNCA is the most suitable place where allmost modern cricket facilities are availableunder one roof for training for any inter-national vent “.

He said Pakistan always supported thecause of cricket in Afghanistan even in dif-ficult situation in their country and theyare thankful to PCB for its support in or-ganizing cricket in their war-torn country.

“We strongly believe that the visit ofour team will help in dispelling the impres-sion that Pakistan is not a safe country forstaging international cricket and our pres-ence will motivate the other foreign teamsto visit Pakistan in due course of time “,heasserted.

Afghan team manager Nouraiz said itis the not the first visit of Afghan team toPakistan and they are delighted to be hereagain to get support from PCB and NCA togroom their team for a tough challenge.“PCB regime led by its Chairman, Moham-

mad Zaka Asrhaf is extending full supportto Afghan cricket”, he added.

He praised the initiation of the Pak-istan Super League and vowed to be part ofthe activity. He further said that his boardis going to sign a five years contract with

the PCB for exchange of tours and permis-sion to be part of cricket in Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, Intikhabsaid that he will try to induct Afghanistancricket team in domestic cricket so thatthey can play in the ODI tournament.

laHore: intkhab alam, director international

cricket, zakir khan, director domestic cricket,

kabir khan, afghan team caoch and captain

naurain mengal during après conference.

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

The Sports Board Punjab on Mondaypresented new racing cycles to the win-ners of the Cross Country Cycle Race ofthe Punjab Sports Festival 2011-12.Deputy Speaker Rana Mashood AhmedKhan, who is the chief organizer of sportsin the province and Usman Anwar, Di-rector General Sports Board and YouthAffairs Punjab, gave away the cycles toTariq Sunny Anwar and Fiza Riaz.

Rana Mashood said that the sportsculture revived by the Punjab govern-ment will all have several event to be or-ganized in February. “The GuinnessWorld Record team will be here in Feb-ruary to declare the Punjab Youth Festi-val 2012 at the biggest event of the worldwhile there are around 16 more worldrecord attempts we intend to make tobring more records for Pakistan,” headded.

He further said that blue turf at theNational Hockey Stadium is ready to useand the committee has given its recom-mendation. Now the Chief Minister Pun-jab Mian Shahbaz Sharif will be holdinga meeting to announce the date of theturf’s inauguration and the forthcomingcamp training of the national hockeyteam will also be held at the NHS bluedesso turf.

He further siad that the winners of

the Punjab Youth Festivcal will be giventheir prizes and awards during the clos-ing cedremony of the festival whcih islikely to be held in March 2013.

The SBP organized the PunjabSports Festival having a participation ofaround 1.2 million people throughoutthe province in which around 80 sportsevents were organsied at tehsil, district,division and provincial levels in the final

provincial phase the winners of thelower levels moved to the final provin-cial level to show their skills in differentsporting events. In the final provinciallevel 14 sports events were contestedwhile the entire PSF was held from De-cember 2011 and concluded in March2012.

The final phase was held on Febru-ary 27 to March 10, 2012 with the clos-

ing ceremony scheduled on the footstepsof Badshahi Masjid and Lahore Fort inwhich the winners of the festival weregiven awards while the cycle race win-ners were promised of new racing cyclesand which were presented to them onMonday.

In the cycle race of the PSF around150 cyclists contested the 22 kilometresrace on racing cycle and about 60 con-tested on ordinary cycles and fromamong those participants Tariq SunnyAnwar came out as a winner with 24.04minutes time while in the girls competi-tion of 17 kilometres, about 45 femalestook part and the ultimate winner wasFiza Riaz who clocked 45 minutes.

The PSY was taken as the revival ofsports culture in the province in whichnot only around 4000 grounds were re-covered from the occupants and were fa-cilitated for sports activities. It was theon the same line the record-setting Pun-jab Youth Festival 2012 was organizedon the same grounds.

Rana Mashood said that the sportswere revived in the province in accor-dance to the vision of Punjab Chief Min-ister Mian Shahbaz Sharif.

“The sports culture was once againrevatilised in the province with the ef-forts of the SBP and the Punjab govern-ment. It was that base which helped uslater in the creation of several GuinnessWorld Records,” said Usman Anwar.

SBP to attempt another 16 world records next monthWinners of PSF cycle event awarded new bicycles

nazeer memorial

bridge concludesLAHORE: The Azhar Nazeer MemorialBridge Championship held under the su-pervision of Punjab Bridge Associationconcluded at the Lahore Gymkhana Bridgetables yesterday after two days of competi-tive activity where the events at stake werethe Pairs championship and the TeamEvent. In the contest for honors in the pairsevent,the pair of Muzzafar Bokhari andSajjid Bokhari combined extremely well toemerge as the top pair with 65.77%.Thepair of Farrukh and Yasser managed tograb the second slot with 61% while thepair of Rashid Nabi Malik and Sajjid NabiMalik came third.The best mixed pair prizewent to Najm and Muzzafar.The Team event was contested over fiverounds and a total of twelve teams from allover Punjab participated in the quest forhonors and prizes.Noticeable were thetwists and turns as leading teams tried tooutdo each other and in the end the MindBridge team comprising MudasirRahim,Hamza Liaqat,Salman Qasim andMuhammed Imran came out as the topteam with 97 victory points.Mind BridgeTeam was in outstanding form in theirmatch against Sherdils whom theythrashed and tilted the victory their way.The Sabres team comprising AVMNiaz,Air Cdre Qamar Kiani,Yasser Rahimand Farrukh succeded in coming secondin this prestigious championship.Amongst the ladies Naureen andNausheen were declared as the best ones.Mian Aamer Masood distributed theprizes at the conclusion of the BridgeChampionship. STAFF REPORT

LONDONAGEnCiES

Arsene Wenger is aware Arsenal’s 2-1 de-feat at Chelsea has left little margin forerror in their pursuit of a place in nextseason’s Champions League.

The Gunners are six points adrift ofthe Premier League top four and facingthe very real possibility of failing to qual-ify for Europe.

Successive losses to Manchester Cityand Chelsea have seen Arsenal loseground, and Wenger admits their situa-tion is hard to accept.

“The table is the table. We have losttwo big games in the last week and that’svery damaging for us,” said the Gunners

boss. “It’s very damaging for our positionin the league and difficult to swallow.

“We cannot afford to drop points anymore if we want to be in the top four.That’s a concern.”

Arsenal were lucky to be trailing only2-0 at half-time after being picked apartby the movement of Chelsea playmakersJuan Mata, Oscar and Eden Hazard.

Mata fired the opener in the sixthminute after collecting CesarAzpilicueta’s pinpoint lofted pass andFrank Lampard doubled the lead fromthe spot after Ramires fell before a chal-lenge by Wojciech Szczesny.

But the suicidal defending that ham-strung Arsenal in the first half was re-placed by determination to overturn the

deficit, and they were rewarded in the58th minute when Theo Walcott tuckedhome Santi Cazorla’s pass.

Stamford Bridge was gripped by anx-iety as Chelsea threatened to endure a re-peat of their midweek 2-2 draw withSouthampton, but this time they heldfirm.

“We had a similar start to Man Citylast week, didn’t defend too well and gavethem too much incentive,” Wenger said.

“We didn’t play well in the first half,but we were much more dangerous in thesecond half, with a different attitude.

“Unfortunately we didn’t makeenough of our corners, free-kicks and thechances we created. That’s why we lostthe game.

“It’s very damaging for our positionin the league and difficult to swallow.

“The team has fantastic quality andspirit, but we come into the game when

we’re 2-0 down. At the moment, that’sworrying.

“In the big games, once you start 2-0down it’s very difficult.”

Wenger admits to UCL concerns

LHR 22-01-2013_Layout 1 1/22/2013 2:02 AM Page 17

Sports17 Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

Pakistan attains

top position in ibSf

men’s rankingLAHORE

STAFF REPORT

Pakistan has attained top position ininternational men snooker ranking dueto awesome performance of Moham-mad Asif for winning the World title.Asif’s title victory helped Pakistan toget 120 points and accumulated total172 points to attain top position in theMen Snooker Ranking for the year2012. Pakistan had 52 points after pre-vious year’s championship and was atNo.8.The ranking is based on points accu-mulated for their performance in cur-rent year and immediate previouschampionships,said a spokesman ofPakistan Billiard and Snooker Federa-tion here on Monday.Both the players from England reachedin Quarter finals and one moved tofinal helped the country to gain 100points and placed England at position3 with total 142 points. Last year Eng-land was at Position 10.Poland and Switzerland also performedwell to better their positions as 16 and17 from previous bests of 28 and 32 re-spectively.Countries that have dropped down no-ticeably in the ranking list includesThailand (down to Rank 4 from top po-sition), India (from 2 to 6), Ireland(from 3 to 8) and Afghanistan (from 9to 23).

Stags beat Qarshi

in lahore veteran

cricket leagueLAHORE

STAFF REPORT

SPM Stags notched up 70 runs winover Aftab Qarshi in a match of theLahore Veteran Cricket League matchhere on Monday at Stags cricketground.Scores: Stags, batted first 177/6 in 30overs.Man of the match and the topscorer Masroor Hussain 53, KamranKhan 44, Zahoor Ilahi 20, ShakeelMalik 17, Khawaja Naseer ud din 16runs not out& Farooq Shahzad 16 runsnot out. Aftab Qarshi bowling NazeerHussain 2/23, Jameel Bhatti 1/32,Mohsin Aftab 1/39 & Tahir Saeed 1/30wickets. In reply Aftab Qarshi were bowled outat 107 in 26.3 overs. Javeed Akhtar 31,Sohail Fazal 14, Muhammad Amir 11 &Hassan Idrees 15 runs Stags bowlingMasroor Hsussain bowling well 3/23,Faheem Malik 1/0, Rehan Rauf 1/19,Zia ud din 1/7& Farooq Shahzad 1/12wickets. Javeed Ashraf and Muhammad Asifwere the umpires and & AbdulHameed was the scorer.

PHf condoles

aslam roda’s

deathLAHORE

STAFF REPORT

President, Pakistan Hockey Federationand Secretary, Mohammad Asif Bawjaon Monday condoled the death ofknown hockey organizer MuhammadAslam Roda, who passed away inGojra.They expressed their heart felt sympa-thies with the members of the be-reaved family and termed his death ahuge loss for the hockey. “ Roda ren-dered meritorious services for thecause of hockey at grass root levelwhich will be long remembered in Pak-istan hockey history “,they said.They prayed that Allah Almighty mayrest the departed soul in His InfiniteMercy and give solace to the bereavedfamily members to bear this loss withfortitude.

MELBOURNEAGEnCiES

VICTORIA Azarenka en-joyed an easier outing atthe Australian Open onMonday, cruising into thequarter-finals with a rou-

tine win over Elena Vesnina.Defending champion Azarenka was

pushed all the way by Jamie Hampton inthe previous round on Saturday with theAmerican threatening a major upsetuntil her chances were undone by a backinjury.

There was no such drama on RodLaver Arena on Monday with Vesninanever looking as though she could unset-tle the top seed.

The world number 47 was overpow-ered and out-thought by Azarenka, whowon 6-1 6-1 to advance to a last-eightmeeting with Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The Hampton match aside it hasbeen plain sailing for all the top seeds inMelbourne and this was another contestwhich did little to enhance the reputa-tion of the women’s game.

Azarenka ran through the openingset with three breaks, and although Ves-nina claimed the Azarenka serve at thestart of the second she could not win an-other game as the Belarusian easedthrough in just 57 minutes.

“I think it’s getting there,” she saidwhen asked to assess her game.

“With every match you build up, thetop battles are starting now and it’s ex-citing to be this far in the tournament.”

A clash with resurgent two-timegrand slam champion Kuznetsova prom-ises to be much tougher.

The Russian on Monday camethrough a tricky three-setter with formerworld number one Caroline Wozniacki6-2 2-6 7-5.

“I’m happy with the result but stilldisappointed with the second set,” saidKuznetsova, who is enjoying a return tofull fitness after a disjointed end to 2012.

“I had knee problems so I had tospend two months on crutches. I had agood pre-season and I am fresh and it isshowing on the court.

“I’m happy to be in the quarters.”American Sloane Stephens contin-

ued her impressive run in Melbourne byreaching her first grand slam quarter-final with a 6-1 3-6 7-5 defeat of Serbia’sBojana Jovanovski.

The 19-year-old will meet the winnerof Monday night’s clash between titlefavourite Serena Williams and MariaKirilenko.

Azarenka eases into last-eight

tsonga wins battleof the frenchmen

MELBOURNE: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga isthrough to the quarter-finals of theAustralian Open after beating compa-triot Richard Gasquet in four sets onMonday. Gasquet hit back from losingthe opening set but was powerless toprevent Tsonga from running awaywith it by breaking early in the thirdand fourth. After completing a 6-4 3-66-3 6-2 win, the seventh seed said: “Iam just very happy to go through.“Richard is a very good friend and Ihave known him since I was 10. It’snever easy to play against a friend.”Tsonga will meet the winner of the laterclash between Roger Federer and MilosRaonic in the quarter-finals. AGEnCiES

MELBOURNEAGEnCiES

Serena Williams wasat her enigmatic beston Monday after shebludgeoned her wayinto the AustralianOpen quarter-finalswith a 6-2 6-0 winover Maria Kir-ilenko.

The 31-year-oldAmerican wasted lit-tle effort in demol-ishing the 14th seedin 57 minutes to setup a showdown withyoung compatriotSloane Stephens, yetas far as Williamswas concerned shestruggled against theRussian.

“I was sur-prised. I felt likeMaria played reallywell,” Williams toldreporters. “I was just trying to play well,just to keep up.”

Kirilenko tried to execute a high-riskgame plan against Williams, but the thirdseed simply swatted her aside with con-temptuous ease. She served six aces to Kir-ilenko’s one and her top speed for servewas 201kph. Kirilenko’s was 170kph, threekph below Williams’s average.

Williams’s first serve completion was87 percent and her second serve was just aspotent with Kirilenko adding she thoughtshe had made only one successful return.

Williams also gave up just three break-point opportunities, none of which theRussian converted. Williams converted five

from seven. TheAmerican also ham-mered 22 winnersand forced Kirilenkointo 15 errors.

That dominancehas continued atrend Williamsbegan after twistingher ankle in her first-round clash againstRomania’s EdinaGallovits-Hall.

Last year at Mel-bourne Park,Williams entered thetournament with abadly injured anklethat she said con-tributed to herfourth round exit toEkaterina Makarova.

This year, she isnot taking anychances, blastingaway at every oppor-tunity. So farWilliams has

dropped just eight games and spent a totalof four hours, 12 minutes on court althoughalmost 10 of those were while getting treat-ment for her ankle injury against Gallovits-Hall. Kirilenko simply shrugged hershoulders in her media conference after thematch. “I played like I want to play some-thing unbelievable, every shot I want to dothe good shot but sometimes you just haveto play simple, maybe just through themiddle,” Kirilenko said.

“But when I played through the mid-dle, then she started to make winners.Maybe I was trying too much. “We didn’teven have long points. It was really difficultto get the rhythm. It wasn’t my day.”

hot-serving serenabludgeons past Kirilenko

melbourne: victoria azarenka returns the ball to

elena vesnina during the australian open match.

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watch it LivePTV SPORTSAustralian OpenTennis 201305:00AM

STAR SPORTSHockey League: Mumbai v Delhi07:30PM

18Tuesday, 22 January, 2013 Sports

Selby seals

third mastersLONDONAGEnCiES

Mark Selby was thrilled to clinch histhird Betfair Masters title and claimback-to-back major victories after a neckinjury left him fearing for his career.The 29-year-old, winner in 2008 and2010, claimed a 10-6 victory over de-fending champion Neil Robertson atAlexandra Palace in London to add theMasters title and the £175,000 firstprize to last month’s UK Championshipcrown.“It’s just unbelievable at the moment,”Selby said.“At one stage I didn’t know whether Iwas going to be playing again and nowI’m sitting here after winning the UKChampionship in December and theMasters in January.“The majority of the match I was reallyhappy with the way I played.“Going into today’s [Sunday] game Iknew I had to play a lot better and scorebetter and be a lot more attacking.“I seemed to do that in the first session,to go 5-1 in front. Neil showed what aclass player he is to come back to 5-3.“Tonight it was the same again, how Istarted off this morning. I’m reallyhappy.”In the best-of-19 final, Australian top-seed Robertson responded from 8-3down by taking three successive frames.World number one Selby, though, wasable to hold off the fightback and see outvictory to join five others who had wonthe tournament three times or more.The Jester from Leicester joined CliffThorburn, Stephen Hendry, PaulHunter, Steve Davis and Ronnie O’Sulli-van, whose presence on semi-final dayignited whispers of him launching aworld title defence later this year.After his £125,000 win in York in De-cember, Selby became the first to winback-to-back majors since MarkWilliams 10 years ago.The midnight finish came after a latenight with a 6-5 semi-final defeat ofGraeme Dott.

Watson won’t play before India squad chosenHOBARTAGEnCiES

Australia’s selectors will have their trust inShane Watson tested by the revelation hewill not play a match in his redefined roleas a non-bowling batsman before the IndiaTest touring squad is chosen. In the latterstages of his recovery from a calf strain thatwas aggravated during the Melbourne Testagainst Sri Lanka, ESPNcricnfo under-stands Watson is expected make his returnto the game in a domestic limited overs fix-ture for New South Wales on January 30.

The national selector John Inverarityhas said that the squad for India is due tobe announced before the end of this month,meaning Watson’s inclusion in the touring

party would have to be made on faith ratherthan form and fitness. Watson trained infront of Inverarity and Andy Bichel in Syd-ney on Sunday and batted in the nets onMonday, but he was ruled out of Australia’sTwenty20 matches against Sri Lanka and aSheffield Shield match for the Blues againstWestern Australia, due to begin on Thurs-day. “He had a good running work-out.Andy Bichel and I were there when he didhis running drills . . . but he didn’t bat,” In-verarity said. “When we left it yesterday itwas uncertain, but he’ll certainly play be-fore the end of this month.”

This means that neither Watson northe man he has effectively nominated todisplace in the Test side, Ed Cowan, willplay a first-class match before the an-

nouncement. NSW’s next Shield fixture isdue to take place against Tasmania in Ho-bart from February 6-9. Inverarity said thathis panel would not be swayed by Watson’spublic airing of his preference to open thebatting. “Not really, no. We’ll consider allplayers on their merits, in a dispassionateway,” Inverarity said. “The captain alwaysdetermines the batting order. We’ve hadmany discussions with Shane. One of thebasic points is he’s always willing to playand bat where he’s asked to bat.” Anotherplayer of interest to the selectors is MoisesHenriques, who is likely to be slotted intothe NSW Shield team to play against WAeven if his Australian duties with the ODIteam in Hobart on Wednesday means hemakes a delayed entry to the match.

Haye worried about

vitali retirementLONDONAGEnCiES

David Haye is worried that Vitali Kl-itschko will retire rather than fighthim.For months the Brit has been callingthe Ukrainian out. And it is the onlyfight he wants, no matter when orwhere it happens.Haye would love to see it signed andsealed for the summer but believes theboxing world, never mind a fierce rival,may not see Vitali Klitschko in the ringagain.“We spent a lot of time working on thecontract when he fought Manuel Charrin terms of finance,” Haye told SkySports.“That side of things is agreed so it’sjust for him to agree a date and a venue- if he wants to do it.“They said fight Derek Chisora, so ofcourse I fought him and beat him - in amuch better fashion than Vitali did -but I haven’t heard from him formonths.“So I can kind of assume that he’s retir-ing and is just waiting to officially an-nounce his retirement.”Haye understands that Klitschko’s po-litical career is taking up more of histime the older he gets, but hopes onceit has settled down, the heavyweightshowdown will come to fruition.The Londoner says he will wait as longas it takes, but realistically wants itsorted by the summer if he is to get an-other crack at a Klitschko.“The way I see it is the longer Vitalileaves it, the worse it is for him,” hesaid.“I’m 32, he’s 41, so I could leave it fiveyears and still be 37, but he’d be push-ing on 50! It’s up to him.“The way I see it is if it doesn’t happenby the summer, I’d be very surprised ifit ever does.”If a Klitschko deal is done though, westill won’t see Haye in the ring untilthen.He has fought just once - againstChisora - since losing to Wladimir inJuly 2011 but would not bother with awarm-up fight if his chance to beat thebrother came his way.“If you look at my recent record, I’veboxed once a year and that it suits medown to the ground,” he said.“People use the phrase ring-rust butthat is only brought out when they putin a bad performance. I’ve not lookedring rusty in my last fight and that wasa year after I lost to Klitschko.“I thought I was razor-sharp to be hon-est and I thought I was firing on allcylinders. It was the best of me interms of heavyweight performances.“I won’t need a warm-up fight. Idon’t believe in them. I’ve hadenough amateur fights and profes-sional fights to know how to peakand train and how to get my body op-timised. And I’ll do that.”

ABU DHABI AGEnCiES

JAMIE Donaldson refusedto listen when a doctor toldhim to quit golf and, nineyears on, vindication of hisdecision to carry on came

when the Briton scored the best win ofhis career at the Abu Dhabi Champi-onship.

Donaldson had such a chronic backcondition in 2004 that one specialistsuggested retirement. But he was giventhe go-ahead after seeking a secondopinion and on Sunday he held aloftthe attractive silver Falcon Trophy inthe desert.

It was his second European Tourvictory and undoubtedly the most im-portant, the blond Welshman havingoutplayed a lineup containing worldnumber one Rory McIlroy and second-ranked Tiger Woods.

McIlroy and Woods missed thehalfway cut before Donaldson had tooverturn a two-shot deficit on worldnumber five Justin Rose to scoop thefirst prize of 336,725 euros ($447,600)in the closing round.

“The first doctor I went to see in2004 said, ‘Don’t play’, so I went to seesomeone else,” he laughed after a clos-ing 68 gave him a 14-under-par aggre-gate of 274 at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club.“That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

“As soon as someone says that, youjust go and see someone else,” saidDonaldson after beating Rose andDane Thorbjorn Olesen by one stroke.“The second guy I saw said I needed todo a load of core stability exercises ...so I did a lot of gym work for a year.

“Now I don’t do that much gymwork any more, to be honest I actuallydo none,” Donaldson told reporterswith a big grin on his face. “I do morephysio stuff these days and I get mas-sages before and after I play.

“But without doing the work I ini-tially did nine years ago I wouldn’thave carried on playing. The back wasreally bad then.”

Donaldson, 37, who claimed hisfirst European Tour victory at the255th attempt when he won last year’sIrish Open, blamed himself for hisoriginal injury.

“I used to practice ridiculously longhours to a point where I couldn’tstretch before or after,” he said. “Iwaltzed on to the practice ground andstayed there all day hitting balls.“When you’re doing that for years andyears on end, you’re going to havesome sort of injury. “Once I got overthe hurdle of stabilising everything Iwas in a position to manage the prob-lem which I now do through physio

and staying flexible and loose, ratherthan spending hours in the gym.”

Donaldson lost his card in 2006and was forced on to the second-tierChallenge Tour the following year be-fore starting to rebuild his career backon the main circuit in 2008.

He has gradually improved seasonby season since then and is now at thestage where he can mix it with the best.

“Perseverance is a big word,” saidDonaldson who has climbed into theworld’s top 30 as a result of his victoryin Abu Dhabi. “I suppose if I look backon my career I was in the wildernessfor about four years after the injury.

“It was a case of finding things thatwork to put in the whole package to beable to keep getting better every year.

“Some of the top names didn’tmake the cut but they were here in AbuDhabi and it made it a very big, grandtournament,” said Donaldson.

“It was a tough field and a brutallyhard golf course so that makes it all themore special for me.”

LONDONAGEnCiES

Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes Formula Oneteam announced a major shake-up onMonday with Austrian Toto Wolff arriv-ing from rivals Williams as a significantminority stakeholder and executive direc-tor. Wolff, who will retain his sharehold-ing in Williams where his Scottish wifeSusie is a development driver, will alsotake over coordination of all of Mercedesmotorsport activities, parent companyDaimler said in a statement.

The latter role was previously held byNorbert Haug, whose departure was an-nounced last month.

Austrian Niki Lauda, the retired triplechampion and non-executive chairman ofMercedes GP, will also acquire a 10 per-cent stake in the team in a managementtrio completed by principal Ross Brawn.

Wolff will own a 30 percent stake,with his and Lauda’s shares effectivelythose previously held by Abu Dhabi sov-ereign wealth fund Aabar Investmentsafter they were sold back to Daimler inNovember. There was no mention of NickFry, the team’s chief executive, in theDaimler statement. A team source said his

role had not changed but was under dis-cussion. “As an entrepreneur, investorand motorsport manager, Toto Wolff hasproven that this sport runs in his blood;at the same time, he is also well aware ofthe economic necessities of the business,”said Daimler chairman and Mercedes-Benz head Dieter Zetsche.

“Together with him and Niki Lauda,we will further develop our motorsportactivities and guide our Silver Arrows intothe next era.”

Asked about a potential conflict of in-

terest, with Wolff holding shares in twocompeting teams, a Mercedes source saidone role was executive while the Williamsinvolvement was purely as an investor.

The publicly quoted Williams GrandPrix Holdings said in a separate statementthat Wolff would relinquish his seat onthe company’s board with his responsibil-ities shared between members of theteam’s executive committee.

The departure of the 40-year-old,who said he was leaving on good terms,will be a blow to former championsWilliams, with the Austrian acting asright-hand man to team founder andprincipal Frank Williams last season.

Frank Williams, who is now 70 andstepped down from the board last Marchwhile remaining the majority share-holder, called him “a key support”.

“Positions such as the one offered tohim by Mercedes do not come aroundoften. Toto has a long history with themand I certainly was not going to stand inthe way of him accepting this once in alifetime opportunity,” he said.

“Toto will retain his shareholding inWilliams and will always have a place atGrove but make no mistake; we will fighthim hard on the racetrack.”

Win proves Donaldsonwas right not to retire

Wolff leaves Williams for Mercedes

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Tuesday, 22 January, 2013

Published by Arif Nizami at Qandeel Printing Press, 4 Queens Road, Lahore. Editor: Arif Nizami

ISLAMABADOnlinE

PRIME Minister RajaPervez Ashraf on Mon-day withdrew his reviewpetition against theSupreme Court’s (SC)

decision on the Rental Power Project(RPP) corruption case.

A three-judge bench of the apexcourt headed by Chief JusticeIftikhar Muhammad Chaudhryheard the petitions filed by powercompanies and the federal govern-ment. The petitions have sought areview of the court’s verdict of

March 30, 2012, which had held theRPP contracts non-transparent andhad ordered that they be rescinded.

During the hearing, Wasim Saj-jad, the prime minister’s counsel, in-formed the bench that his clientwished to withdraw his petition. Thebench accepted the request and thepetition now stands withdrawn.

Also during the hearing, fourcounsels representing different par-ties had requested the apex court toadjourn the hearing until a decisionwas reached on the RPP implemen-tation case. Pervez Hasan, counselfor the Pakistan Power Resources(PPR), requested the court to hear

the review petition after it had con-cluded hearing the RPP implementa-tion case. Responding, the chiefjustice said that action still had to betaken on the verdict. Hasan told thebench that the National Accountabil-ity Bureau (NAB) had exerted pres-sure on the power companies, andhad managed to recover the funds.The chief justice said the review casewas adjourned, adding that the courtwould continue hearing the RPP im-plementation case. Four counsels,representing the parties, had re-quested the bench to adjourn the re-view hearing. The hearing was lateradjourned to February 18.

ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

The Supreme Court on Monday orderedthe government to resolve the issue ofAdiala jail missing prisoners until Tues-day (today).

The 11 prisoners went missing fromthe gate of Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail onMay 29, 2010 after they had been acquit-ted of terrorism charges regarding theiralleged involvement in the 2009 attackson GHQ and ISI’s Hamza Camp inRawalpindi. Later, four of the 11 diedunder mysterious circumstances and theremaining seven were produced beforethe court. They were sent to Lady Read-ing Hospital Peshawar on court orders.After five of them recovered, they wereshifted to an internment centre inParachinar. A three-member bench,headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan

Iftikhar Chaudhry, heard the missingprisoners’ case. During Monday’s hear-ing, the CJP said that the court could notallow anyone to toy with people’s lives.Justice Chaudhry asked about thegrounds for the prisoners’ detention towhich the counsel for the Inter-ServicesIntelligence and Military Intelligence,Raja Irshad said that the intelligenceagencies had morally agreed that themissing prisoners were involved in ter-rorism and the prisoners had been placedin detention under existing laws.

The CJP said the constitution pro-tected the fundamental rights of the peo-ple and observed that four of the 11prisoners had died. He added that four ofthe remaining seven prisoners were se-verely ill. Justice Chaudhry said whowould be responsible if any of the fourailing prisoners died. He added that ei-ther the prisoners should be tried as per

law or should be released. Tariq Asad, thepetitioner’s counsel, said the lawyer ofagencies had given in written that thesepeople were involved in terrorism andwould be tried under the Army Act.

Irshad said they were not tried underthe Army Act. The CJP questioned DeputyAttorney General (DAG) Dil MuhammadAlizai as to what evidence had been foundagainst the prisoners. Alizai informed thecourt that the Review Board evaluatesevery case after 120 days it is brought atthe detention centre. He said further therewas proof against the detainees, addingthat the FATA secretary should be sum-moned as he would be able to produce therelevant record. The CJP said neither thefederal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa govern-ments nor the intelligence agencies wereresponding clearly on the matter. Ad-dressing Irshad, Justice Chaudhry said theintelligence agencies were answerable to

the court. He asked Irshad as to what ac-tion had been taken against the prisonerswho had been in detention since 2006. Ir-shad said the intelligence agencies wereconvinced that the detainees were in-volved in terrorism. The counsel addedthat due to the absence of requisite evi-dence the detainees had not been triedunder the Army Act. In his remarks, Jus-tice Gulzar said the detainees should be re-leased if the authorities had no evidenceagainst them. The CJP added that if therewas any evidence against the prisoners itshould be made available to the court. Hesaid action would be taken against thoseresponsible if the detention was proved il-legal. Justice Gulzar remarked that deten-tion could only be for a certain period oftime and not indefinite. The apex courtsought record of all the meetings of Re-view Board and adjourned the hearinguntil Tuesday (today).

eCP rejects ‘jobfor vote’ policy

ISLAMABADSTAFF REPORT

In order to stop the government from‘engineering’ the forthcoming elections, theElection Commission of Pakistan (ECP) onMonday imposed a ban on all types ofrecruitments in government sector withimmediate effect. ECP also put a bar on thediversion of funds already allocated to variousdevelopment projects. However, FederalPublic Service Commission and ProvincialPublic Service Commission are exempted fromthe ECP ban of recruitments. The governmentwas about to recruit thousands of people tolure their votes and support in the next generalelections, however, the ECP decision shatteredthe dreams of ministers, who were all set toinduct thousands of people in governmentdepartments. The process of newappointments was underway in almost allgovernment departments. Interior MinisterRehman Malik in particular, was very keen tomake thousands of recruitments in FederalInvestigation Agency (FIA) and IslamabadPolice. FIA and Islamabad Police had onMonday completed their process of receivingapplications from candidates. The ECPdecision however, sprung into action and put abar on these recruitments. “All kinds ofrecruitments in any Ministry, Division,Department or Institution of the FederalGovernment or any Department or Institutionof any Provincial and Local governments isbanned forthwith except recruitments by theFederal or a Provincial Public ServiceCommission. The diversion of funds alreadyallocated to various development projects inthe country is banned forthwith and thespending of funds so diverted shall standfrozen forthwith,” said a statement issued bythe ECP on Monday. It said the ECP took thisaction after witnessing grave concerns ofpeople from different segments of society, whosaid some government departments are in theprocess of inducting thousands of people onvarious positions which amounts to pre-pollrigging. “For tangible reasons, the ElectionCommission is of the considered view thatsuch mass recruitments at this point of timewhen the general elections of the NationalAssembly and Provincial Assemblies are goingto take place shortly, will substantiallyinfluence the results of elections, therefore, itis imperative on all standards of legal, moraland democratic ethics that all kinds ofrecruitments except the recruitments whichare made by the Federal and Provincial PublicService Commission be banned forthwith,” thestatement added. It further said thecommission has considered the repeatedconcern of the people as expressed and voicedin the national press that money allocated tovarious important development projects in thecountry is being diverted to the discretionaryfund of the prime minister for its utilisation inthe development of his constituency, which isnothing short of yet another facet of pre-poll-rigging which if not checked and brought to animmediate end is likely to influence theelectoral process adversely and thus send anextremely wrong message to the public atlarge, making the election tainted and fallingshort of the constitutional provisionscontained in Article 218 (3) of the constitution.

former Mnablows whistleon ‘dual national’ MPs

ISLAMABADOnlinE

In an open letter to the chief justice ofPakistan on Monday, former NationalAssembly member (MNA) BegumShehnaz Sheikh submitted a list oflawmakers with dual nationalities,alleging that all dual nationallawmakers were not equally treated.Belonging to the Pakistan MuslimLeague-Quaid (PML-Q), Sheikh’sassembly membership was suspendedby the Supreme Court in October 2012for holding Australian nationality inaddition to Pakistani citizenship. In herletter, Sheikh requested the court to putthe procedure – aimed at reimbursingbenefits enjoyed by dual national MNAs– on hold until the final verdict on thecase. The letter listed the names of 20dual national lawmakers, adding thatsome of those continued to remain attheir posts. The list included the namesof Asim Hussain, Raza Haroon,Shaheen Rizvi, Tayib Hussain, FauziaEjaz and Jameel Ashraf. The formerPML-Q lawmaker alleged that she hadnot been justly dealt with despite herresignation. She further claimed that alldual national lawmakers had not beenequally treated, adding that all dualnational lawmakers were not asked toreturn all the monetary benefits drawnduring the period of occupying thepublic office, including monthlyremunerations, TA/DA and facilities ofaccommodation, along with otherperks. The suspended lawmakerrequested the court to stop allproceedings of reimbursement ofmonetary benefits until a decision wasgiven on the review petition filedagainst the court’s judgment ofdisqualifying 11 members of parliamentand provincial assemblies for holdingdual nationality.

PM withdraws petitionagainst SC’s verdict

RPP CORRUPTiON CASE

sC orders agencies to release 7 adiala inmates

PETROL PRICE HIKED BY 1.65PER LITRE

RS

ISLAMABAd: The Ministry of Petroleumand Natural Resources has granted approvalto a summary for the revision of prices ofpetroleum products. According to thenotification issued on Monday, the revisedPOL prices would be effective from today

(Monday). The price of petrol has beenraised by Rs 1.65 and that of diesel decreasedby 00.92 paisas per litre. Besides price ofkerosene oil has been jacked up by Rs 1.09per litre, while that of light-diesel has beendecreased by 0.01 paisas. STAff rEPOrT

waSHinGton: united States President barack obama addresses his inaugural ceremony at capitol Hill on monday.

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