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F. S Aijazzuddin // DAWN: 06 February 2025
Commentary: This column is difficult for beginners but holds a wealth of knowledge of recent history.
TIMING is everything, especially in politics. Mistiming can be fatal, as three recent leaders, now out of power, have learned. In October 1999, PM Mian Nawaz Sharif decided to remove COAS Gen Musharraf, even while Musharraf was returning home from Sri Lanka. In June 2019, PM Imran Khan transferred the then head of ISI, Gen Asim Munir. Both prime ministers paid for their misjudgment.
On July 21, 2024, US president Joe Biden stepped aside in favour of his vice-president Kamala Harris, a few months before the elections. His selfish delay cost their Democratic party the presidency.
Americans may recall the 1980 presidential elections that lost Jimmy Carter the presidency. A year earlier, on Nov 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran and detained 66 American diplomats and staff. Fourteen managed to escape. The remaining 52 were held hostage for 444 days.
Carter ordered two rescue missions, which failed. In September 1980, a US-friendly Iraq invaded Iran. Two months later, Carter contested the presidential election and suffered a landslide loss to Ronald Reagan. Immediately after Reagan was sworn into office, the Iranians obliged him by releasing the embassy hostages.
That scenario has been replayed 45 years later, this time with different actors. Donald Trump replaces Reagan, and Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas the hostage holders.
Over a year ago, on Oct 7, 2023, 250 hostages were captured by Hamas when it attacked Israel. The attack triggered Israel’s retaliatory military offensive which, over the next 15 months, killed over 47,500 Palestinians, injured more than 110,000, and destroyed everything above the ground in the Gaza Strip.
On Jan 15, 2025, five days before Trump’s swearing-in, it was announced that an agreement had been reached between Hamas and Israel. Hamas agreed to release 33 out of 98 hostages in the first phase. In exchange, Israel would release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Not all the hostages were Israelis. Almost half were citizens from other countries: Thailand, Nepal, Philippines, the US, Russia, France, Germany, UK, Ireland and Argentina.
Over the period of their incarceration, these hostages were visited by the International Red Cross and other NGO teams. One report was bureaucratese at its best, or worst. Who but someone luxuriating in Geneva would describe the condition of the hostages in Gaza with this euphemism: they were “prone to immediate mortality”?
The unwise might be tempted to ask why Israel had not tried to rescue the hostages. It certainly had the capability. It had with precision targeted and then annihilated Hamas’s top leadership.
According to a recent BBC report, specific Hamas victims were: Yahya Sinwar (the architect of the Oct 7 attacks); Ismail Haniyeh who was killed during a visit to Tehran; Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades; Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of al-Qassam Brigades, killed in a tunnel beneath the Gaza Strip; and Mahmoud Zahar, who was injured when an Israeli plane dropped a bomb on his house in Gaza City in 2003.
Perhaps the most intriguing was the botched attempt in 1997 to kill Khaled Meshaal (one of the founders of Hamas). Under direct instructions from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel’s Mossad spy agency entered Jordan on forged passports and injected, KGB-style, a toxic substance into Meshaal. The BBC disclosed: “The late King Hussein of Jordan asked Israel’s PM for the antidote for the substance Meshaal was injected with. Facing pressure from then US President Bill Clinton, Mr Netanyahu provided the antidote.”
Given such murky depths in international politics, it is not inconceivable that Hamas kept the hostages in a place known to the Israelis and perhaps also the countries whose nationals had been abducted. That may explain why the impression was created that the hostages were primarily Israelis and therefore bargaining counters between Israel only and Hamas. Why did Hamas need to hold citizens of Thailand, Ireland, Argentina and the Philippines? Unless it was done at Israel’s behest.
An Israeli-British hostage released recently said that she and other hostages were kept at facilities run by UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees. Interestingly, the day after being sworn in, President Trump halted support for UNRWA. Israel proposes to ban it. A generation ago, during the peace talks in Shimla after the 1971 war over Bangladesh, Mrs Indira Gandhi offered Mr Z.A. Bhutto return of 5,000 square miles (approximately 13,000 square kilometres) of captured land, or 93,000 Pakistani PoWs & CUPCs. He opted for the land. He knew she could not hold the hostages indefinitely. Israel and the US gave the Palestinians no such choice. The Palestinians have lost both their lives and their land.
The writer is an author.
www.fsaijazuddin.pk
Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2025
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Ahmed Bilal Mehboob // DAWN: 06 February 2025
Summary: In this column the writer tells us why the recent raise in the salaries of parliamentarians is justified.
A RAISE in the salaries of members of parliament and the provincial legislatures in Pakistan always evokes a strong negative reaction, at least from vocal segments of society, including the media. In 2019, the increase in the salary of Punjab Assembly members by the PTI-led provincial government led to such intense criticism that the raise had to be held back on the directions of the then prime minister Imran Khan, but was silently implemented after a few weeks.
The most recent raise granted to MNAs in January this year was no exception, as widespread criticism was heaped on the legislators from all major parties who, despite their differences, had taken a unanimous stand to demand a hefty salary raise. In response to mounting pressure from the legislators, the National Assembly Finance Committee, constituted under Article 88 of the Constitution and headed by the Speaker, ended up approving in the last week of January an increase of about 176 per cent, almost three times the previous salary of Rs188,000 enhancing it to Rs516,000 per month for MNAs. The committee’s decision received Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s approval within days, and the new salaries were notified by the Speaker by Jan 31. The increase became effective from Jan 1, 2025. A similar raise for senators is also in the works and it is expected that the increase in this case will also be effective from the same date.
MNAs had received their last raise about nine years ago. Interestingly, although Section 14B of the Members of Parliament (Salaries and Allowances) Act, 1974, updated as of July 2024, provides that the “salaries, allowances and privileges of members shall automatically be increased by the Finance Committee of the National Assembly Secretariat by notification in the official Gazette in proportion to the increase in the emoluments of the civil servants”, no such automatic increase was approved in the past years, apparently because of fear of a public backlash. This is so despite the fact that the salaries of civil servants were increased almost every year at the time of the passage of the annual budget. During the approval of Budget 2024-25, for example, the salaries of civil servants of pay scales one to 16 and from 17 to 22 were increased by 25pc and 20pc respectively.
In the meantime, the procedure to adjust salaries of members of parliament has also been altered. Earlier, the Members of Parliament (Salaries and Allowances) Act, 1974, was amended by parliament each time a change was to be made, but later, the National Assembly Finance Committee was authorised to approve the adjustments in the Finance Act, 2024.
The Balochistan Assembly had taken the lead to significantly increase the monthly salaries of its members to Rs440,000 in October 2014. The Punjab Assembly sprang into action much later in 2024, when the salaries of its members were increased from Rs176, 000 to Rs500,000 per month. The members’ monthly salaries in the provincial assemblies of Sindh and KP, in the meantime, remain modest at Rs145,000 and Rs160,000 respectively. It seems that it won’t be long before these two assemblies also increase the salaries of their members after seeing the pattern of increase in the other two provincial assemblies and the National Assembly.
The recent increase in the salaries of legislators is not out of sync with similar raises given to other public officials. The house rent and judicial allowance of the judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts were increased by over 200pc in November 2024, after which the salaries of their lordships are estimated to touch around Rs2 million per month, excluding perks such as fully maintained and chauffeur-driven vehicles, etc. The salaries of the superior court judges are generally higher than the salaries of national legislators but an analysis of the data presented in the Commonwealth Parliamentarians Pay and Remuneration Survey Output Report indicates that the salaries of judges are higher by a much greater margin in Pakistan than in several Commonwealth countries such as Australia, where judges earn 198.74pc more than legislators. In India and Bangladesh, judges earn around 150pc and 91pc more than legislators respectively. In Pakistan, this disparity was around 433pc in 2021. Although it has come down to 287pc after the recent raises in legislators’ salaries, it remains higher than in many countries.
Since legislators are public figures and mostly lead a fish-bowl life, it is natural that their emoluments and raises invite much greater attention. However, populist rhetoric aside, much of the criticism on the recent increase is not justified. Being a legislator is more than a full-time job, and a member who has to do justice to his or her duties within the assembly, parliamentary committees, a large constituency and parliamentary party, has to put in considerable time and effort, often at a huge cost to his or her personal life. It is true that, in general, legislators’ performance leaves much to be desired and that is what prompts most of the criticism, but it is also the strong preference of their constituents which forces them to spend a major part of their time outside the assemblies focusing on resolving the personal issues of their constituents and trying to secure development projects for the constituencies. Unless the quality of our governance considerably improves and local governments become effective, it is unlikely that the legislators’ time will be spent differently.
If we wish to attract accomplished and professional persons to our legislatures, we should be prepared to pay them salaries closer to market rates. We should not assume that all legislators come (or will come in the future) from affluent classes, with huge disposable incomes. Middle-class professionals will require decent emoluments for doing the tough job of a legislator. The increased salaries should therefore be accepted as a cost of the effort to befittingly run democratic institutions.
The writer is president of the Pakistan-based think tank Pildat.
president@pildat.org
X: @ABMPildat
Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2025
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Zofeen T. Ebrahim
Commentary: This column is especially important for the students of Environmental Science
THE Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayan foothills straddling Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India, and Pakistan are increasingly getting a bad rap as the global hotspot of air pollution.
Home to over two billion people who breathe air that is considered unsafe by the WHO, nine of the world’s 10 cities with the worst air quality are in South Asia. A combination of everything — tailpipe emissions, crop residue-burning, chimneys spewing deadly fumes from industries and power plants, and smoke from stoves fired by cow dung or wood — is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year.
To combat air pollution, we must first understand PM2.5 — the minuscule particles that fuel it. At just 2.5 micrometres, they’re far thinner than a strand of human hair and only visible under an electron microscope. These tiny particles can travel vast distances, defying boundaries.
Delhi, with an annual concentration of 98.6 micrograms of PM2.5 particles per cubic metre, Lahore 80 µg/m³, Dhaka 70.2 5.0 µg/m³and Kathmandu 49.95.0 µg/m³, allhave levels higher than the safe air quality threshold of 5.0 µg/m³ set by the WHO, and which countries like Finland, Norway and Sweden have been able to attain. The Air Quality Life Index’s 2024 report states that the average person living in South Asia would gain 3.5 years in their lives if WHO guidelines are met.
While it may be challenging to reach WHO levels, South Asia aspires to keep the annual average PM2.5 concentration below 35 µg/m³by 2035.
Ali Moeen Malik believes Pakistan can leapfrog towards attaining cleaner air by 2035. Co-founder of the startup ezBike, he says the answer lies in popularising electric vehicles. With surplus electricity, if Pakistan can retrofit the nearly 30m petrol-powered motorbikes and convert them into e-bikes, cities in Pakistan can reduce CO2 levels in the air by over 50 per cent, since “motorbikes are the biggest polluters in the transport sector”. With over 40,000 e-bikes across Pakistan, he is confident the number can double by next year with a little hand-holding and oodles of will on the government’s part.
E-bikes are just one of many innovative solutions emerging across South Asia to combat air pollution. The region is strewn with amazing ideas, but none have been scaled up or realised by governments. For instance, a husband-wife duo (in their 80s and 70s respectively) in Delhi have created a green oasis at home, surrounded by 15,000 plants irrigated with fish tank water. Their home boasts an AQI of just 15. They also run online courses teaching others how to embrace eco-friendly lifestyles.
Countries and citizens across South Asia can learn from each other. Pakistan could draw inspiration from initiatives like the one in West Bengal, India, where 12m students were provided bicycles to promote cleaner transportation, or from Bangladesh’s use of brick kiln trackers to identify and monitor polluting kilns. Conversely, other South Asian countries can learn from Yasmeen Lari’s “barefoot social architecture” programme. Pakistan’s first female architect trains villagers to build eco-friendly products that they can sell to each other. Last year, her organisation provided training to a team of villagers from Malawi, who are replicating her model in their country. “The first item they have taken up to build is the smokeless earthen stove,” she said. While energy-efficient mud stoves are being built all over the region, her stoves have an edge as they have lime in the mud, which absorbs carbon in the air.
The more we understand air pollution, the clearer it becomes that it is one area where South Asian countries just cannot work in silos. Countries will have to collaborate and cooperate across borders and with multiple agencies. According to a World Bank report, in major cities in South Asia, over 50pc of air pollution is not local but transboundary in nature.
Fortunately, unbeknownst to many, these countries have been engaged in a quiet dialogue for the past three decades.
From the Male Declaration in 1998 on control and prevention of air pollution, to the Kathmandu Roadmap when the first Science Policy Dialogue was held in Nepal in 2022, followed by the Thimpu Outcome with the second SPD, held last year in Bhutan, where countries aspired to reach the “35 by 35” goal, a strong consensus is emerging on the importance of sharing information, taking collective and cost-effective action, private-public partnerships, ensuring science guides policymaking, and emphasising the role of regional institutions — but most importantly, working towards building trust.
However, everyone agrees science diplomacy alone can only get you that far. All these conversations will remain relegated within the confines of conference halls if political relations in the region remain choppy.
The writer is a Karachi-based independent journalist.
Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2025
====================READ THE FOLLOWING EDITORIAL WITH THE ABOVE COLUMN===================
DAWN EDITORIAL: 06 February 2025
PAKISTAN teeters on the edge of an environmental abyss. Ranked among the most climate-vulnerable nations, it endures extreme heat, apocalyptic floods, prolonged droughts, and choking air pollution.
The annual smog that engulfs urban centres is not merely an inconvenience — it is a broader governance failure. Meanwhile, rural communities watch helplessly as their worlds disintegrate: glaciers retreat, monsoons become erratic, and fertile lands turn to dust.
Yet, climate change concerns continue to remain a footnote as politics dominates the national discourse, surfacing only when disaster strikes. A proactive approach, built on long-term resilience, is the obvious way forward. But what are we willing to do about it?
Dawn’s ‘Breathe Pakistan’ campaign is one attempt to make it central to the national conversation. However, Pakistan needs much more — it needs a revolution in environmental governance.
This demands unprecedented coordination among stakeholders: government bodies, industry leaders, international partners, researchers, CSOs, and communities. The time for symbolic gestures and non-binding commitments has passed.
The path forward requires fundamental shifts. First, climate change must be elevated to the highest tier of national security concerns, alongside terrorism and economic stability. This means overhauling environmental protection frameworks with substantial fines for polluters, stringent emissions controls, and massive investment in public transportation.
Urban planning must pivot from concrete-jungle expansion to green development, with strict preservation of remaining urban forests. Agriculture, both a casualty and a contributor to climate change, also requires urgent reform.
Pakistan’s excessive reliance on water-intensive crops has depleted underground reserves. The solution lies in introducing drought-resistant crop varieties, implementing water-smart irrigation systems, and incentivising farmers to adopt climate-resilient techniques. This revolution must be supported by a parallel energy transition, leveraging our abundant renewable resources — solar, wind, and hydroelectric power.
The private sector, often seen as part of the problem, must be brought into the solution. Corporate accountability on carbon footprints should be non-negotiable, with tax incentives for sustainable business practices.
Pakistan’s international partners, too, have a role — debt relief mechanisms tied to green development, knowledge transfers, and climate finance must be expanded to help chart a sustainable path.
Environmental education needs radical reimagining. Pakistan requires comprehensive climate literacy programmes integrated into school and university curricula. Media outlets must move beyond disaster coverage to sustained environmental journalism, investigating root causes and highlighting solutions. Change begins at the grassroots, and public participation is indispensable.
Pakistan’s survival hinges on its ability to treat climate change as the defining challenge of our time. Either we act now, or we surrender to a future of escalating disasters.
Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2025
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FROM THE NEWS CORNER
Thousands of protesters set fire to the home of Bangladesh’s founding leader, as his daughter, ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina delivered a fiery social media speech calling on her supporters to stand against the interim government.
Witnesses said several thousand protesters, some armed with sticks, hammers, and other tools, gathered around the historic house and independence monument, while others brought a crane and excavator to demolish the building.
The rally was organised alongside a broader call, dubbed “Bulldozer Procession”, to disrupt Hasina’s scheduled 9pm online address on Wednesday.
Protesters, many aligned with the “Students Against Discrimination” group, had expressed their fury over Hasina’s speech, which they viewed as a challenge to the newly formed interim government.
Tensions have been escalating in Bangladesh since August 2024, when mass protests forced Hasina to flee to neighbouring India.
The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has struggled to maintain control as protests and unrest have continued. Demonstrators have attacked symbols of Hasina’s government, including the house of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which was first set ablaze in August.
A symbol of the country’s establishment, the house is where Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal), as he is popularly known, declared Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.
A few years later, it became the site of a national tragedy. Mujibur Rahman and most of his family were assassinated at the house in 1975. Hasina, who survived the attack, later transformed the building into a museum dedicated to her father’s legacy.
“They can demolish a building, but not the history. History takes its revenge,” Hasina said in her speech on Wednesday.
She urged the people of Bangladesh to stand against the interim government, accusing them of seizing power unconstitutionally.
The student-led movement behind the protests has voiced plans to dismantle the country’s 1972 Constitution, which they argue embodies the legacy of her father’s rule.
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US President Donald Trump said he wants to resettle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and Jordan, demolish remaining buildings to make way for a Riviera-style development project and place the occupied territory under US “ownership”.
Forcing people to leave their land and taking over territory are prohibited by longstanding treaties. Following is a look at the ramifications of Trump’s plans under international law.
Taking control of territory
Trump said “the US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too…. I do see a long-term ownership position.”
The Gaza Strip is recognised by the United Nations and its highest court, the International Court of Justice, as part of the Palestinian territories under Israeli military occupation.
International law prohibits the seizure of territory by force, which is defined as an act of aggression. The UN Charter says: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
“Ultimately, President Trump’s proposal amounts to a blatant rejection of the core tenets of international law that have operated since at least the end of World War II and the adoption of the UN Charter,” said Assistant Professor of International Human Rights Law Michael Becker at Trinity College, Dublin.
Were the United States to lay claim to the Gaza Strip, “this would amount to the unlawful annexation of territory. Nor does Israel have any right to cede Palestinian territory to the United States or to anyone else,” said Becker.
Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and a specialist in international humanitarian law, said: “There are no circumstances in which it is permissible to seize territory by force. The argument that it benefits populations there or elsewhere is legally meaningless even if it were factually correct.”
Under the UN Charter, responsibility for identifying acts of aggression and responding to them falls to the Security Council, where the United States is a permanent, veto-wielding member.
Aggression is also one of the crimes that can be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court. The United States and Israel are not members of the ICC, but the court has asserted jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories, including over acts committed there by countries that are not members.
Moving Palestinians out
“Forcibly resettling the Palestinians of Gaza would constitute the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer,” said Dill.
Trump has said Palestinian residents of Gaza would want to leave because it has become dangerous. But so far there has been no indication that the 2.3 million residents wish to go.
The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 prohibits the forcible transfer or deportation of protected persons in occupied territory.
According to the founding document of the International Criminal Court, the Rome Statute, “the term ‘forcibly’ is not restricted to physical force, but may include threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power against such person or persons or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment.”
Dill said it was also likely that removing Palestinians from Gaza would require carrying out other large-scale crimes against them.
“The scale of such an undertaking, the level of coercion and force required mean this would very likely meet the threshold of a large scale and systematic attack against the civilian population.”
Preventing Gazans from returning
Trump has said that after Gaza residents leave, he does not envision them returning.
Preventing them from doing so would also amount to a violation of international legal principles under which displaced populations retain a right to return to lands they have fled.
Even a lawful evacuation by an occupying power “cannot involve sending people to a third country and it cannot be a pretext for ethnic cleansing or removing the population from the territory indefinitely or on a permanent basis,” said Becker.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told Al Arabiya TV that taking the population out of Gaza would “create a high risk that you make the Palestinian state impossible forever.”
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