ISLAMABAD: In November, during a huddle of parliamentarians from the ruling party, Pakistani Tehreek-e-Isaaf (PTI), a lawmaker launched an unexpected attack on the government’s flagship poverty reduction program.
He took aim directly at the soft-spoken Dr. Sania Nishtar, special assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on social protection and poverty alleviation, accusing her of rolling out initiatives benefiting the voters of his political opponents, Dr. Nishtar recalls, instead of his own. A few other voices chimed in.
There is “a small minority” within the cabinet, the special assistant conceded to Arab News this week, which is used to the old way of doing things-- politicizing social protection programs.
“Programs like these were in the past used for political purposes, for creating a vote bank,” she said, seated in her office in the capital, Islamabad.
“The prime minister is very clear that our program will run apolitically. And while I am here, it cannot be otherwise,” she said.
The South Asian country of 208 million people, has a huge poverty problem. According to its last national survey conducted in 2015-16, 38.4 percent of Pakistan’s population lives in multidimensional poverty. This means not only do they have low incomes, they do not have access to health, electricity, clean water and education, among other things. A majority of those who live in extreme poverty are in the country’s largest (area-wise) province, Balochistan, in southwestern Pakistan.
An updated poverty survey is expected to be completed this year.
In March last year, Pakistan’s newly elected government launched its largest and most ambitious poverty alleviation plan, the Ehsaas program. Ehsaas is an umbrella platform with over 134 pro-poor policy initiatives, aimed at widows, the homeless, orphans, laborers, students, farmers and the elderly.
It was a tough task. The doctor knew she was staking her legacy on a plan which would face resistance from political quarters. When the prime minister first approached her to join his cabinet, she said she hesitated, but agreed once she was promised complete freedom without political interference, to carry out her work.
“Prime Minister Imran Khan came across to me as someone who was genuinely interested in the problems of the poor. I am, to this day, never stopped from doing what is right. And if I did not have the prime minister’s complete support, I would not be sitting here today,” she said.
Since March, one after another, an initiative is rolled out every month in much-publicized ceremonies personally attended by Khan. Some ongoing projects include soup kitchens and shelter homes for the homeless and the Kifalat program, through which women, who do not have any other source of income, receive a small monthly stipend of Rs. 2,000 ($13).
Dr. Nishtar is powering through, while the pushback has only intensified.
Last month, the doctor announced the removal of over 800,000 people from the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), a cash transfer plan launched in 2008 for women who do not have any source of income. The BISP now falls under Ehsaas.
The names excluded, Dr. Nishtar told reporters, were “undeserving” of the income support.
Upward of 140,000 of the claimants were government employees against whom disciplinary action would be taken, she said. Others listed on the BISP had homes and cars registered under their names while some had made foreign visits in the last few years.
Soon after, leader of major opposition party Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, called the exclusion of names an “economic attack on poor women.”
Recently, a member of the national assembly from the ruling party walked into the doctor’s office to complain about a woman employed at his home who was removed from the BISP only because she traveled to perform Umra.
“I asked him, does the woman live with you? He said yes. Do you provide her food and pay her medical bills? He said yes. I then asked him, don’t you think another woman who has nothing is more eligible for the program?” Dr. Nishtar said and added: “The BISP is for the poorest of the poor.”
Combined, the BISP and Khifalat aim to support seven million women in Pakistan. Ayesha Bano, who lives in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said she had been on the BISP for over a decade.
“Without it my household would be difficult to run,” she told Arab News.
Previously, parliamentarians were given thousands of BISP forms each, to fill out on behalf of women they thought were deserving. These forms were often misused. But that has now changed. The doctor and her team, through non-governmental organizations and analytical data, is identifying those who deserve the Rs. 5,000 quarterly as a stipend. Last week, Dr. Nishtar announced that quarterly figure would be increased to Rs. 6000 ($40).
She said that until now, she had only zeroed in on the federal and provincial governments, while other state departments still remained to be examined, to weed out officials exploiting the BISP.
“They [officials] are not giving me data because they know what I intend to do,” she said.
Political and bureaucratic challenges aside, there is one other problem – money. Social welfare programs like Ehsaas are expensive and require government revenue in order to bankroll them. In the last budget, the government allocated Rs. 80 billion to the initiative. This figure could be increased to Rs. 120 billion this year.
“Elaborate social welfare systems require the governments to collect a large proportion of their GDP’s in taxes,” explains Shahrukh Wani, a prominent Pakistani economist.
“Pakistan doesn’t collect enough (tax) to provide a basic level of service delivery, let alone enough under which it can provide comprehensive social protections. It is unlikely any such program can work in the absence of a large and extensive tax infrastructure.”
Dr. Nishtar agrees that Pakistanis out of the tax net have a connection with how the program is funded and its effectiveness.
“Social protection programs are largely funded through revenue,” she said. “The predictability of the budget has to be there.”
'Some in PM cabinet want to use Ehsaas for votes' says Pakistan poverty alleviation chief
https://arab.news/m6p5r
'Some in PM cabinet want to use Ehsaas for votes' says Pakistan poverty alleviation chief
- Dr. Sania Nishtar says there are some in PM cabinet who want to use program for political gain
- National survey concluded 38.4 percent of Pakistanis live in multidimensional poverty
Pakistan reviewing proposal for resumption of trade with India — Foreign Office
- Pakistan suspended trade with India after New Delhi’s revocation of special autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019
- The rift has since impacted businesses on both sides who previously traded in textiles, agricultural products and medical supplies
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Office said on Thursday it was reviewing a proposal from the business community to resume trade with India.
Pakistan downgraded its diplomatic relations and suspended bilateral trade with India after New Delhi’s revocation of the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019.
The geopolitical rift between the two countries has since impacted businesses on both sides who previously benefited from cross-border trade in textiles, agricultural products and medical supplies.
Speaking at a weekly press briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson referred to a statement by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and said the business community had expressed in review of trade with India.
“Examination of such proposals is a regular exercise in the Government of Pakistan, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where we continue to consider all such requests and assess our policy,” she said.
Baloch, however, clarified that there was no change in Pakistan’s position at present.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between Pakistan and India since their independence from the British rule in 1947.
Both countries rule parts of the Himalayan territory, but claim it in full and have fought three wars over the disputed region.
Pakistan PM says modernizing revenue collection system to revive frail economy
- Pakistan is currently making efforts to introduce economic reforms under an IMF program that helped it avert a default last year
- Islamabad has expressed interest in a new program, expected to come with fiscal tightening measures, including increase in revenue
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Thursday his government was working to modernize the country’s revenue collection system to revive the frail $350 billion South Asian economy, describing it as “top priority” of his administration.
Pakistan, which has been facing an economic meltdown, is making efforts to introduce structural reforms under a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program that helped it avert a sovereign default last year.
The country this month cleared second and final review of its $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program which would pave the way for the release of $1.1 billion after helping Islamabad avert a default in last June.
Islamabad has expressed its interest in securing a new loan under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program with the IMF, which is expected to come with fiscal tightening measures, including an increase in revenue.
“A plan is underway to modernize revenue collection system,” PM Sharif was quoted as saying by the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster.
“The Federal Board of Revenue is being fully digitized and efforts are afoot to increase the tax base.”
He said a “whole-of-government approach” was being adopted to check power theft that was worth billions of rupees, according to the report.
Privatization of government-owned enterprises, institutional reforms, internal and external investment and austerity were also the government’s priorities in this regard, he added.
‘Act of Devotion’: Pakistani artist turns worn Qur’anic pages into works of art
- 28-year-old visual artist Saad Mehmood began restoring Qur’an pages ready for ritual disposal as part of BA final-year thesis
- Renowned artists describe the effort as “positive,” say it is vital to expand ways in which we experience the holy book
LAHORE: For Saad Mehmood, it was a routine visit to a mosque in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore for Friday prayers in 2017 when the then 22-year-old stumbled upon a store room with sheaves of paper stored carefully on a shelf.
The worn pages were fragments from everyday copies of the Qur’an, which were awaiting ritual disposal. In Pakistan, pages of the holy book that are disposed are often called shaheed, or martyred, copies.
In Islam, widely accepted methods of disposing worn pages of the holy book are to wrap them in a cloth and bury them, ideally in a mosque, or to burn them respectfully.
But Mehmood, at the time a final year student of fine arts at the Beaconhouse National University (BNU), was inspired by the worn copies and decided to restore them as part of his thesis.
“Saad asked for some of these pages that were torn or worn out, and started to restore the ordinary, mass-printed sheets with gold paper and the finest ink — bringing that which was ‘martyred’ back to life,” the artist’s statement accompanying an ongoing exhibition of his works in Lahore reads.
The effort is “an act of artistic devotion,” Mehmood told Arab News at the exhibition last week, saying all his work now revolved around restoring the holy pages and turning them into artforms.
“This work started in 2017,” Mehmood, now a 28-year-old visual artist, said. “I collect the pages of the Qur’an that are shaheed, then there’s an entire process to their restoration, I fill in the damaged parts so that the pages are readable again.”
Mehmood said he had done extensive research on damaged Qur’anic pages and what happened to them and where they went from storerooms of mosques and homes.
“I saw that they’re buried in graveyards, or floated in clean and flowing water. Sometimes, I even saw the pages being burned and their ashes buried in some corner of a graveyard,” he explained.
This got Mehmood thinking: instead of disposing of the sacred texts, he could restore them.
The process of restoration was a difficult one, as many Qur’an pages Mehmood came across had no references.
“When we open these [Qur’anic] collections… there are [some] smaller pages which don’t have any references [which ayat, surah, what page number],” he said. “So, this was a conundrum… how do I restore them when there’s no reference to work with?“
Mehmood decided to make a collage of such pages.
“So, at least they are still visible, still accessible,” he said. “So, we don’t accidentally disrespect the words, they will remain in front of our eyes, and then turn them into art to be appreciated.”
Mehmood has also visited multiple religious scholars to present his idea and his work.
“There are a lot of organizations in Pakistan like Tahaffuz-e-Auraq [who dispose of pages in the prescribed manner],” Mehmood said. “I restored them and then I started showing people that basically this is the work I’m doing.”
The idea found wide acceptability, he said.
“GOLD LEAF”
The ongoing exhibition in Lahore, organized by the Pakistan Art Forum, includes collages of restored Qur’anic fragments, concentric circles around Islamic calligraphy, decorative additions like gold leaves, and paintings with Arabic diacritics on Vasli and white paper. And this is all by design.
Mehmood said he wants to further explore this Islamic art form and create something new, like his painting of the diacritics without any words, or of punctuation marks without any sentences.
“The Qur’an came to us from Arabia, and the diacritics were added later, so that non-native Arabic speakers [Ajmi] could understand the text,” he said. “[Helping] in how to pronounce and enunciate it, zeir, zabr, that is also something I’ve worked on, and will continue to work on.”
There is also a reason why Mehmood uses gold leaf so often.
“When you look at my work… I have used gold leaf on the shaheed [damaged] Qur’anic pages,” he said.
“I used that gold leaf specifically and consciously, because gold is considered a divine material. And where the words are missing, pages torn, I’ve also used gold leaf to show the preciousness of the lost words, using a precious material.”
“EXPAND WAYS TO EXPERIENCE QUR’AN”
The visual artist has held a number of group exhibitions at the Alhamra Arts Center in Lahore and Sanat Gallery in the southern port city of Karachi. Last week, he held his second solo show in Lahore, titled Al-Qadr, referring to the night when Muslims believe the Qur’an was first revealed.
While most of the visitors to the Lahore exhibition said they had come out of curiosity, they left with admiration for the intricate work and beautiful calligraphy or collage technique that Mehmood uses.
“Calligraphy is a part of [what I do], but this is something else [entirely],” he explained. “You can call it a collage. You can call it an installation. You can call it painting, you can call it artwork.”
Shahid Rassam, a famous Pakistani painter and sculptor, described Mehmood work as “positive,” saying he had seen other works, though rare, in which worn Qur’an pages were restored as a form of art.
Rassam, who has himself made contemporary forms of the Qur’an, including one in which he used metal engravings, said it was “vital to expand the ways in which we experience the sacred text, even as art installations.”
“I think what this young man [Saad Mehmood] is doing is objectively a positive thing,” the artist said. “He’s taking sacred pages and giving them their rightful respect, instead of just letting them lie in poorly-kept stores and boxes.”
Pakistan says attack on Chinese nationals won’t impact CPEC
- Five Chinese nationals were killed on Tuesday in northwestern Pakistan when a suicide bomber targeted their vehicle
- Pakistan has since then enhanced security for Chinese personnel in the country, vowed to punish culprits of the attack
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Office said on Thursday that a suicide attack that killed five Chinese nationals this week would not impact the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other projects.
Five Chinese nationals and their Pakistan driver were killed on Tuesday in Shangla, located in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, when a bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into their vehicle.
The attack occurred in an area vital to CPEC, which encompasses various mega projects crucial for Pakistan’s economy, and the victims were en route to Dasu Dam, Pakistan’s largest hydropower project.
Speaking at a weekly briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Pakistan would not let anyone sabotage Pakistan-China cooperation and such attempts would never succeed.
“Pakistan and China are close friends and brothers and we will continue to work together to develop CPEC and to promote our cooperation,” she said.
Beijing is investing over $65 billion in energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan as part of CPEC, a major segment of Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which will connect China to the Arabian Sea and help Islamabad expand and modernize its economy through a network of roads, railways, pipelines and ports in Pakistan.
Hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians have been working on these projects, primarily in Pakistan’s northwest and southwest.
Tuesday’s attack came less than a week after Pakistani security forces killed eight Balochistan Liberation Army separatists who opened fire on a convoy carrying Chinese citizens outside the Chinese-funded Gwadar port in the volatile southwestern Balochistan province.
Baloch referred to a statement of the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson in which they said that no attempts to sabotage Pakistan-China cooperation would ever succeed.
“This is a reflection of the depth of this relationship and the understanding both countries have that those entities which could be behind such a dastardly attack are attempting to sabotage CPEC and target the symbols of Pakistan-China cooperation,” she said.
“Our message to them is they will not succeed and we will work together to bring the culprits of this attack to justice and to ensure that CPEC and all projects of Pakistan-China cooperation, including the hydropower projects in Pakistan, will continue forward without hindrance.”
Also on Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said his government believed Islamabad would hold accountable the perpetrators of the deadly attack, vowing that Beijing was ready to step up cooperation with the international community against militancy.
“The Pakistani side is working intensively to investigate and handle the aftermath and has taken concrete steps to enhance security for Chinese personnel, projects and institutions,” Lin told reporters during a press briefing.
“We believe Pakistan will get to the bottom of the attack and bring the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible.”
Pakistan, Iran agree to strengthen bilateral ties to tackle regional militancy
- Pakistan’s planning minister meets Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan Dr. Raza Amiri Moghaddam
- Pakistan, Iran both blame each other for not doing enough to root out militancy in border areas
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan Dr. Raza Amiri Moghaddam on Thursday agreed to strengthen bilateral relations between their countries to reduce militancy in the region, state-run media reported.
Pakistan and Iran are often at odds with each other over instability on their shared border. Both countries have routinely blamed each other for not rooting out militancy. Small separatist groups in Pakistan have been behind a long-running insurgency, calling for gas and oil-rich Balochistan’s independence from the central government in Islamabad.
Pakistani anti-Iran militants have also targeted the Iranian border in recent years, increasing friction between the countries.
“Pakistan and Iran have agreed to strengthen bilateral relations to reduce tendencies of terrorism and extremism in the region,” the state-run Radio Pakistan said.
Radio Pakistan said the agreement to bolster bilateral ties was reached between Moghaddam and Iqbal during a meeting in Islamabad.
“The Planning Minister emphasized the importance of enhancing connectivity through trade routes, considering the 900-kilometer shared land and maritime border,” he said.
Tensions reached a head in January between Pakistan and Iran after they exchanged airstrikes against alleged militant targets in each other’s territories. Both countries since then have made efforts to ease tensions and promote bilateral trade with each other.