The launch of the scheme itself was immediately conceived as a corrupt stunt to gain publicity and popularity among the young generation especially in Lahore and other cities of Punjab immediately after several youths rallied massively in support of Imran Khan, the chair of political party Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf which somehow was perceived to be a cause of insecurity for PML N leaders.

Another controversy surrounding the campaign happened when the cheap attempt of PML N to abuse the Punjab government power was observed in form of PML N’s advertisements in the ad space that was bought exclusively for Punjab government ads in largest national news papers. These huge advertisements in national newspapers, some of them were half page coloured ads contain photograph and line from the party’s chairman and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. That’s not all, on the footer of the ad, an SMS number is given and you’re told to SMS your name on that number. Now one would immediately assert that it is to apply for the laptops but to much surprise, this number makes you the member of the political party PML N.

Newspaper ads is only one example, you’ll see several advertisements across the city which replicates the newspaper ad I spoke about.  But the advertisements is not even my real concern. Hell I don’t even know why I brought it up; my real concern is; how is it helping to distribute lavish laptops to students belonging to already privileged class? The reason I call them privileged is that primary target audience for laptop distributions is the university students who are already lucky and privileged enough to make it to the university level which more than 90% of the total population can’t. There are also reports of massive corruption in this particular campaign.

Now with having more than 90% of the population who can’t get a college/degree level education mainly because of financial crises, spending huge funds on distributing laptops to a class who already has access to computer and internet. Pakistan is among the countries having highest illiteracy rate which highlights the critical need to look into the educational policies and prioritize the government spendings.

Then it’s not only the illiteracy that is a matter of concern, we can’t afford to forget the crippling economy, largely in debt and several national crises including energy crises to be the biggest one. Then there is poverty, triggering unemployment what what not! We really don’t seem to be the country to afford such spendings on such campaigns, can we?

I personally am very disappointed, not because I didn’t get the laptop, but because of the obvious wasting of funds which might not concern you for now but I bet they are clearly gonna haunt us and have a strong impact in future.

Photo: Dawn.com

Guppu.Com | News Alert | Int’l Desk
Source/Credit: Express Tribune
By Tribune.com.pk | September 21, 2011

LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday said there will soon be “good news” regarding the Shahbaz Taseer abduction case and that the investigation team had informed him about who the abductors were, Express 24/7 reported [..]

Read full news report here . .

This offer from Punjab govt. is only for the people of Punjab that means the people of Sindh, NWFP, Balochistan and even Federal Capital Islamabad will be forced to buy 20 KG flour bag at around Rs. 600. Now you can well imagine the difference, Rs. 200 in Punjab and Rs. 600 in rest of the country. This might lead to the sense of deprivation in the people of other provinces.

So I really hope the the governments of other provinces will also be announcing such reliefs. And if we analyze the offer even for Punjab only, we have witnessed such relief announcements in the past also, but the implementation on them hasn’t been all that good as was boasted off. For example, According to CM Punjab, Rotti is available at Rs. 2 throughout Punjab but the most of Rotti Shops are charging the regular prices that is Rs. 4-5 per rotti.

That means the implementation within even Punjab hasn’t been all that effective. And when only Punjab will be enjoying around Rs. 400 subsidy on per 20 KG flour, who believes it will benefit the end consumers? I really don’t believe it. All we gonna see is a large queue of people waiting for their turns to be able to buy a bag of flour.

Because in my opinion, if it isn’t enforced, the hoarders wholesalers/retailers will be largely benefiting from the offer by the help of bribing the distributors. As it has happened in the past, they will be stocking the flour bags and will be selling at their own prices. Also the people of other provinces might also start fetching the flour from Punjab so it will be like a real panic.

Therefor as a conclusion, I’d like to suggest Punjab govt. to strictly ensure the availability of the subsidized flour to the end consumers. Also, I’d suggest the other provincial governments to immediately workout a plan to offer subsidized flour in their provinces too.

I am not sure if this really happens or not! but of course, anything can be expected from Zardari’s government. It is also reported that the new CM Punjab might be Qasim Zia and Monis Elahi is going to be the Senior Minister.

Again! I am not sure what happens, and obviously these are the unconfirmed reports and could be rumors only.

Just for the political revenges, they keep on holding a particular case as to be able to use it as a weapon against someone when needed. I ask a simple question; what took so long for the Supreme Court to pronounce the decision? Answer is simple likewise, that Supreme Court continued the hearing and pronounced the decision when Zardari wanted it to. Now who the hell still says that Judiciary is independent in Pakistan?

Furthermore, if I am not wrong, Benazir and Zardari’s corruption cases were also forgiven when the reconciliation order was passed. Why someone doesn’t question that? And about beloved Musharraf’s case, he hasn’t been questioned yet for whatever he had been doing for past 9 years. So it’s really a shame and a slap on the faces of all those who still say that the current Judiciary is free and fair.

About this decision of Supreme Court, my opinion is that the hatred against the government is rising, and the support for Lawyers’ Movement is going to be at its peak. And I think this step of Zardari is enough to create a great political turmoil and to hyper the tensions.