Pakistan: Fixing the civil-military imbalance
By Raza rumi: Sovereignty is the flavour of the month in Pakistan. Since the capture and questionable assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the Pakistani discourse has been dominated by endless references to national sovereignty, honour, defence and pride. This jolt to the Pakistani state of mind has come at a time when media is relatively free, a vibrant boundless Internet flashes news by the second and there is quasi-democracy straddling between opportunism of the political elites and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Civil Service, Pakistan
A Tale of Two Classes
This article was originally published in Dawn. It makes a very interesting read and makes some extremely incisive points. By Muhammad Waseem In Pakistan, two dominant classes compete with each other for influence and privilege. One is the middle class, which provides the catchment area for the civil bureaucracy, technocrats, the military’s officer cadre and the business community. The other can be called, for lack of a better term, the political class that includes political entrepreneurs of various kinds at various levels, led by the landed and tribal elite. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Army, Civil Service, Democracy, Identity, Religion, Society
The national narrative
Salman Tarik Kureshi Daily Times, June 12, 2010 What happened through the 1950s was the piecemeal articulation of a national narrative for the new state. Jinnah’s liberal, inclusive vision was converted into a faux Islamic exclusivism. Conformity was imposed on political pluralism and a unitary state, belying the Quaid’s crusades for provincial autonomy, was created Pakistan, we learn, is rated among the five most unstable countries in the Global Peace Index. Scarcely surprising, given the ongoing civil … Read entire article »
Filed under: Army, Civil Service, Colonialism, Constitution, Democracy, History, Judiciary, Media, Pakistan, state
Acting upon the Freedom of Information Act
By Naeem Sadiq In September 2009 I wrote to two Sindh government departments seeking harmless information on matters of education and pollution that should anyway be available to all citizens. I was confident that a formal request under the much trumpeted and much ‘seminar’ed Freedom of Information Act will do the trick. The law requires a response within 21 days. When nothing happened for 4 months, in Jan 2010, I approached the Sindh Ombudsman (as suggested in the law) to ask the concerned departments to do the needful. After digesting my request for 3 months, the Sindh Ombudsman finally asked the concerned departments (Education and Environmental Protection Agency) to appear and explain why they did not provide the information that had been asked for. I too was asked to appear. So I spent … Read entire article »
Filed under: Citizens, Civil Service, Conservation, Democracy, Education, Environment, executive, Law, Pakistan, Rights, Sindh
Nahid and the Secretary: Liaison d’Amour
By Pervaiz Munir Alvi It is London, June 4, 1953. The official delegation of the Dominion of Pakistan, headed by Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra, who also holds the portfolio of Ministry of Defence, is staying at the Claridge’s Hotel. Included in the entourage is the Secretary Ministry of Defence. Only two days earlier the Secretary, as part of the delegation, had attended the pomp and show filled coronation ceremony of Queen Elizabeth II. Today a telegram from the office of Air-Vice Marshal Cannon, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Pakistan Air Force arrives stating that the Secretary has lost his twenty year old son in a tragic plane accident. The Secretary is devastated. Comforting him in this moment of grief are his few close friends and a thirty-nine year old women named … Read entire article »
Filed under: Civil Service, Pakistan, Partition, Politics
The 1935 Mindset
By Brigadier Samson Simon Sharaf Political stability has evaded Pakistan since 1947. Bureaucratic intrigues, repeated military interventions and exclusion of popular governments have fortified the role of elites. They have directly and indirectly toppled governments to ensure that Pakistan’s political clock clocks what they want. These elites have exploited the many gaps in political structure of Pakistan for entrenchment, wherein even apparently popular governments once in opposition adopted a similar approach. According to Rafay Alam: “There has been no revolutionary exertion of rights in this part of the world; it is not difficult to conclude that the Pakistani state did not acquire a fresh personality at its birth and that instead, it inherited the worst possible mindset for running a country.” Similarly, Dr Mubashir Hassan has often made slanted references to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Army, Citizens, Civil Service, Colonialism, Democracy, History, Pakistan
NRO- The monster finally caged!
The monstrous crimes committed, to fabricate illogical laws and illegal ordinances, created by these criminals to protect their own self and others who participated in those practises to ruin Pakistan has now finally taken place with Supreme Court’s verdict on 16th December. The looters, plunderers will have to face the consequences of their actions and face those trials which they avoided through any means available to them- through NRO, through political needs of survival in … Read entire article »
Filed under: Activism, Army, Citizens, Civil Service, Democracy, Economy, Education, human rights, Islamabad, Jinnah, journalism, Justice, lawyers movement, Media, movements, Multinational Corporations, Pakistan, Parliament, Politics, poverty, Zardari
Shahbaz Sharif sets a leadership benchmark
<By Raza Rumi While the pundits have rambled on the venality of the politician and the slothfulness of the bureaucracy, Pakistan’s largest province has witnessed the rise of a unique phenomenon in terms of provincial public management articulated by its second-time Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. In terms of efficacy of the public services and the administration of state machinery, the younger Sharif has set a leadership benchmark that daunts the political class as a whole. What are the points of departure here and how did this formidable image develop in less than a decade? From 1997-99, arguably not a long stint in office, Shahbaz Sharif demonstrated the maximalist application and range of political will — from policy setting to micro-managerial interventions. It was a style that went down well with the populace, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Civil Service, Democracy, Pakistan, Politics, public policy, Punjabi
Civil Service Is No Longer An Alluring Career for Pakistan's youth
Raza Rumi A little news item that appeared a few weeks ago was ignored by our all-knowing analysts and TV channels. Reportedly, the Federal Public Service Commission failed to recruit all the vacancies that were advertised for the CSS competitive examination held in 2007. Out of 290 available posts, the number of successful candidates in the 2007 CSS competition was merely 190, leaving almost 100 vacancies unoccupied. In the photo above Founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah … Read entire article »
Filed under: Civil Service, Pakistan
BOOK REVIEW: A non-futile life in bureaucracy
BOOK REVIEW: A non-futile life in bureaucracy by Khaled Ahmed Fard-e-Hayat; By AK Khalid; Allied Press Lahore 2006; He went on to do his MA in History and Persian, and collected those tough degrees in Persian and Arabic known as Adeeb Fazil, Munshi Fazil and Maulvi Fazil. A cowherd from Gujrat had come to Lahore with nothing in his pocket and had walked away with the city’s best degrees Abdul Karim Khalid is a tall dapper man in his eighties … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books, Civil Service, Pakistan, Reviews, Writers
Pakistan's Civil Service Entry Exam Fails to fill Vacancies
Raza Rumi Is it the case that finally the centuries old steelframe is getting irrelevant in the fast changing urban Pakistan. In a country of 170 million, there were not enough competent and interested candidates to fill up the vacancies for the competitive examination. If on one hand, this trend betrays the decline of institutions, on the other it spells doom for the future of Pakistan’s governance. There can be no compromise on a capable civil service to manage and implement policies. Singapore and many other countries attract the best and here we are, with massive unemployment, not finding enough people to fill the vacancies. Yes the private sector is more attractive and perhaps should be but what about state’s regulatory and redistributive functions? CSS Exam fails to fill 100 vacancies – Daily … Read entire article »
Filed under: Civil Service, Economy, public policy, state
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