The Express Tribune 2 August 2019

Shock victory

Numbers suggested a snowball’s chance in hell for the Senate chairman to survive the no-trust vote brought against him yesterday by the ‘joint’ opposition, led by political hulks — the PML-N and the PPP. But Sadiq Sanjrani did pull off a shock victory for the PTI-led government coalition. In the 104-strong House, 53 votes were needed for the first-ever no-trust motion against a Senate chairman to succeed. But the motion could only earn 50 votes from the 100 present in the House, of which 64 belonged to the opposition parties and 36 to the government and its allies. As many as 45 Senators rejected the motion while five had their votes rejected. Even though the opposition fell short of just 3 votes, the defections actually totalled 14.

The ballot determined how fragile the opposition unity is. This is not the first time that this so-called unity has stood exposed. At the very outset, a potential grand alliance of no less than 11 opposition parties had turned out to be a non-starter when the PML-N and the PPP had failed to agree on joint candidates to fight Imran Khan and Dr Arif Alivi for the dignified offices of Prime Minister and President, respectively. On a number of occasions thereafter, the opposition tried to forge ranks against the government, but failed to actually go beyond statements.

Politics is the art of the possible. While the opposition parties failed to realise the axiomatic truth, the government and its allies proved their consciousness in the context, and managed to avoid the unavoidable. Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal had, well in time, embarked on a ‘Save Sanjrani’ mission to Islamabad where he had held meetings with members of the Senate in his bid to convince them to rise above party lines and say ‘yes’ to their conscience. Sanjrani had himself stepped out in the field to canvass against the unprecedented no-trust vote. And the hectic diplomacy did pay dividends.

Votes apart, the impartial and elegant manner in which Sanjrani had conducted the proceedings of the Upper House is something that hardly any Senator can say no to.

Depressing decisions

The intermittent spells of government announcements to increase the prices of petroleum products, gas and electricity are now a routine phenomenon. This indeed goes well with the remarkable resilience of the masses. In another jolt to the people who are already crushed under the pressures of rising inflation and continuous depreciation of local currency, the PTI government on Wednesday announced a 10 per cent increase in the prices of almost all the major POL products. Ironically, the decision came only days before the festival of Eidul Azha leaving the people frustrated with another economic shock eroding whatever the financial capacity they had to make ends meet.

Little realising that how badly these increases in petroleum, gas or electricity prices impact the day-to-day life of the common man, the government would conveniently attribute it to the on-going appreciation of dollar against the rupee and the fluctuations in the international market. An immediate effect of the

upward change in petrol prices will be an increase in transport fares and freight charges for. Increase in prices of HSD naturally has a direct impact on transport and agriculture sectors. Deprived of the gas facility, these are the poor people in remote rural areas who rely on kerosene while it is the industrial sector that consumes LSD and would conveniently pass on the cost impact on the buyers of its products. The increases not only hit at kitchen maintenance cost and prices of edible items, it leads to escalation in the prices of agricultural produce and cost of transportation.

If the prices of POL products, gas and electricity keep on increasing, the PTI leadership must stay rest assured about its popularity graph going down. Besides if you take essential and necessary commodities out of the reach of common man, people turn to unfair and illegitimate means to earn a living and sustain life and this give birth to a crime-infested society. Remember William Blake saying: A dog starv’d at his Master’s gate/Predicts the ruin of the State.

Melting glaciers

Pakistan is among countries most vulnerable to the harmful effects of climate change. It is therefore taking appropriate measures to combat the monster of global warming, which is one of the consequences of changing weather patterns in the world. In recent years, we have seen several lake outburst-floods in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral as a result of melting glaciers. So it is in the fitness of things that the National Disaster Management Authority and the Provincial Disaster Management Authority of K-P have decided to soon carry out physical inspection of at least 17 potentially-dangerous glaciers in Chitral district.

For the past several years, we have been witnessing fast melting of glaciers caused by increasing temperatures, increasing frequency of both floods and droughts, excessive rainfall alternating with scanty rain and other such freak weather phenomena. Global warming is a double-edged sword: it causes melting of glaciers and as ice sheets melt in the Arctic region and other places it also results in increasing temperatures. Glaciers reflect sun rays which keep temperatures at tolerable levels; but after melting, the dark surface of glaciers absorbed heat, so it results in further raising temperatures. As a result of excessive burning of fossil fuels global temperatures have been rising and heatwave-like conditions are now occurring even in Finland and Canada. Melting glaciers are also resulting in raising the sea level. Bangladesh, India, and American states like New Orleans are already showing up the effects of rising sea level. It is feared that if the sea level keeps rising at the current rate Bangladesh and the Maldives might soon become part of the ocean.

The threat of climate change needs to be jointly tackled by all countries of the world. Yet US President Donald Trump says climate change is a hoax; it is an invention of China. We all should remember: If we violate nature, we should be prepared for the consequences.