CURRENCY: Demonetization of five-rupee note is illegal

The demonetization of five-rupee currency notes by the State Bank is illegal and must be withdrawn immediately.
Look closely at any note of five to 1000 rupees. It bears a solemn commitment of the State Bank Governor that he will pay to the bearer on demand the face value of the note in rupees. The commitment does not say that it is valid up to a certain date. It does not say that the Governor may back out under certain conditions and refuse to pay the face value. And it also does not allow the Governor to change his mind whenever he wishes. It is a commitment for all times and without any conditions whatsoever.
The State Bank may withdraw from circulation any notes but it cannot fix any date for it. All that it can do is to ask the banks not to reissue any note that it wants to withdraw. The banks must continue to accept the withdrawn notes for payment or exchange whenever presented to them.
From practical point of view, the State Bank has not ensured that every single person in the country, as well as outside, is aware of the withdrawal of five-rupee note. Issuing a news release of a few lines is not enough at all. (It has not given even a single ad.) A single-column, three-line news in newspapers or a sentence in radio and television news bulletins by no means reaches the entire 150 million people of the country. The message does not reach everybody even in the cities, not to speak of the remote villages. The State Bank notification is not a law that everybody is supposed to know.
The consequence of the demonetization will be that the State Bank will be usurping, by its own calculation, literally billions of rupees of the citizens. It is depriving them of their money arbitrarily, something like a daylight robbery. Not even the Government can do it. No law gives this right to the State Bank. Why should a citizen lose his money simply because the State Bank has issued a notification?
After July 1, any person still holding a five-rupee note will have a perfect right under the law to sue the State Bank. Some lawyers may also file a class action suit, compelling the State Bank not only to pay the face value of the outstanding five-rupee currency notes but also damages for causing unnecessary harassment and worry.
Before it comes to that, the State Bank must ask all branches of all banks to continue to exchange the withdrawn five-rupee notes with other notes and then give these notes to it in the normal way.

LOCAL GOVT: Why administrators to replace Zila Nazims?

Tell the Chief Ministers that they will be sent home before the next general elections and the Chief Secretaries of their provinces will replace them. Then see how vehemently they will protest against the idea. It will be against the Constitution, they will say. It will be undemocratic. They are elected representatives of the people. They are very responsible persons. There is no possibility of their misuse of powers and position in the elections. They are capable of holding free and fair election.
Fine. Then why are they pressing for the removal of all Zila Nazims before the coming elections of Local Governments? It will be against the law, as the Local Government Ordinance does not allow the appointment of administrators in place of Zila Nazims. The Nazims are also elected representatives of the people. (In fact, the Zila Nazims are more representative because only a small number of MPAs elects the Chief Ministers.) The Zila Nazims cannot misuse their powers and position because there are so many checks against them.
If the Chief Ministers can be trusted not to use their powers and position to manipulate general election despite the resources of the entire province at their disposal, why is it so difficult to trust the Zila Nazims?
Why are the Chief Ministers so keen to remove the Zila Nazims before the elections? The obvious fact is that they themselves want to rig the elections to bring in their own favorites. They know the Zila Nazims have done tremendous work during their term and are popular among the people. The Chief Ministers know that their own nominees stand little chance of winning against the sitting Nazims. So, they want to deny the people their right to elect their own representatives. So much for their love for democracy. Let us not forget that the very first provincial elections under a sitting chief minister (Mumtaz Daultana) in the Punjab in 1950s were so rigged that the Punjabi term, jhurloo phairna, entered Urdu. No wonder, since then no sitting chief minister was allowed to hold elections.
The President introduced the Local Government system despite stiff opposition from the politicians and the bureaucrats. The demand for the appointment of administrators is an attempt to sabotage the system. He must reject it, along with other unreasonable demands to change the Local Government Ordinance.

REPUBLIC DAY: Let us start celebrating it again

Let us start celebrating the Republic Day once again.
With the promulgation of the first Constitution in 1956, we became the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It was decided that March 23 would be henceforth celebrated as the Republic Day.
Two years later, martial law was imposed. The military regime obviously could not celebrate a Republic Day because the constitution was not there. Therefore, the clever people around the rulers decided that March 23 would be henceforth celebrated as “Pakistan Day.” It did not make sense because August 14 was the day when Pakistan came into being while March 23 was the day when we finally terminated the formal links with the UK and turned the country into a republic.
Since the martial law continued for a long time under various military rulers, the people forgot the significance of celebrating the Republic Day.
Now that we have democracy once again, we should resume the celebration of March 23 as the Republic Day. Let the change take effect with an official notification from the Federal Government.

BBC: Why does it always describe militants as Islamic?

During the BBC news bulletin at 0700 on December 7, 2004, “Islamic” was added every time the word “militant” was used in the story on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Jeddah. There could be some justification – if at all – if Saudi Arabia was a non-Muslim country. With the entire country being a Muslim, why should it be necessary to describe the militants as “Islamic?”
The adjective is not confined to militants in Saudi Arabia. Every time a Muslim is involved in militancy, BBC describes him as “Islamic.”
On the other hand, BBC never ever says “Catholic IRA terrorists” when it would have been perfectly justified because the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland is fighting against the Protestant majority.
The only explanation for the outrageous usage of the BBC editors is that they want to create hatred against the Muslims.

PARLIAMENT: Which one is more representative?

The lower house, Lok Sabha, of Indian Parliament has 525 seats for a population of 1.05 billions, or one member for every two millions.
Pakistan's lower house, National Assembly, has 342 seats for a population of 150 millions, or one seat for 438,596. That comes to less than one-fourth of Lok Sabha.
Which Parliament is more representative of the people?

MOON: Why bother to see it to celebrate Eid?

There is something wrong with the moon. At the beginning and end of every Ramzan, it hides itself behind a veil, like the beloved of our poets. It shows a glimpse only to the people in the remotest parts of Balochistan and NWFP. It makes sure that they do not live anywhere near a place that has a phone. So, the poor fellows travel for hours to convey around midnight the good news to some maulvis in the Lunatic (or Moon) Triangle (Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda) that they alone saw what the entire country could not. Invariably, they turn out to be very pious people, whose evidence can be accepted readily in accordance with strict Shariah standards, without even seeing them.
Since there is no way we may persuade the moon not to behave like the traditional beloved, let us ignore its devious way and follow the Buddhists of Sri Lanka, who know better. After all, they have been watching it for about twice longer than us.
In Buddhism, 14th of every lunar month is a sacred day, when special prayers are offered. So, it is a public holiday in Sri Lanka every month. The Government calculates these holidays every year in advance for all 12 months. It cannot afford to make an error or will have to face the wrath of the entire nation. At the same time, it also works outs the dates of religious holidays for the Muslims. The dates never turn out to be incorrect.
We do not have unanimity on the appearance of the moon despite involving thousands of maulvis in Ruet-i-Hilal Committees all over the country at national, provincial, district and tehsil levels. So, why bother any more? The Government should use astronomical calculations regarding the moon and announce them in the beginning of the year, along with corresponding holidays. If some people want to follow the obscurantists, let them do it. They are already doing it anyway.