19 mineral water brands unsafe: analysis

Source: The News

Date: July 21, 2010

ISLAMABAD: As many as 19 brands of bottled/mineral water out of a total 66 available in the market have been found unsafe by a government agency for human consumption as these contain chemicals.

The Ministry of Science and Technology’s Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) announced its findings after conducting a scientific analysis of samples of bottled water collected from 11 major cities, a copy of the analysis available with The News revealed.

The scientific analysis was conducted by ISO-17025 accredited National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) in Islamabad for physico-chemicals and microbiological parameters.

In all, 47 brands were safe, the percentage was 71, 19 unsafe brands formed 29 percentage, 48 brands were chemically safe, 18 were chemically unsafe, 65 were microbiologically safe, 01 was microbiologically unsafe, while 30 brands were found consistent in market.

PCRWR Chairman Dr Muhammad Aslam Tahir, when contacted, pointed out that quite interestingly, as many as 33 brands disappeared from the market after they were identified as unsafe earlier. “It is not clear whether they have come up with a new name and improved quality or not. Moreover, 36 new brands have surfaced,” he noted.

Samples of 66 commercially available brands were collected from 11 cities of the four provinces of Pakistan. These samples were collected by the PCRWR head office and regional offices from April to June 2010. A set of four bottles of each brand was collected and sealed on site. Identification codes were allotted to all the brands according to the PCRWR Bottled Water Classification System.

The brands that were found unsafe (chemically) are: Coozy, So Safe, Alfa, Golden, Pak Crystal, Light Water, Nation, Taiba, Fairmount, Omni, Niamat, Aqua National, Pacific, Lock, Pan Pura, Clear, Fine Soul and Unique water, whereas Hunza bottled water was found chemically safe but was unsafe microbiologically.

For more information : http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=30204

 

Poverty on the rise, concedes Finance Ministry

Source: The News

Date: July 20, 2010

The Ministry of Finance on Monday conceded that poverty was on the rise in the country after increased prices of POL products and food commodities in international market since 2008, although no official survey was done in last three years rule of the PPP-led regime on the issue.
“We do hope that the macroeconomic stability has been reversed on path of prosperity that will now help dent the increasing prevalence of poverty,” Sajjad Ahmed Sheikh, National Project Manager of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Secretariat, Ministry of Finance, said on the occasion of launching annual progress report of PRSP-II for 2008-09 during a dissemination workshop here.

Participants of the workshop raised questions that despite increase in poverty related expenditure in recent years the number of people living below the poverty line increased to the range of around 40 to 50 million out of the total 170 million population.

 There is lag between expenditure in the name of poor and its actual outcome and there is need to come up with accurate answers, they said.

The PRSP Secretariat of the Ministry of Finance along with Ministry of Education has decided to conduct analysis by approaching people at grassroots level to determine the reasons for declining trend in primary enrolment rate from 56 percent to around 55 percent in latest Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement (PSLM) survey. The same exercise will be done to determine facts related to health indicators.

For details: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=251681

 

Can the role of middleman be eliminated?

Source : Dawn News

Date: July 19, 2010

THE role of middleman in the commodity trade is back in focus. The Sindh Assembly has enacted the Wholesale Agricultural Produce Marketing Development and Regulation which empowers the provincial government to eliminate the middleman’s role.

The act has come after Punjab’s continuous maligning of the middleman for more than a decade and repeated attempts to reduce his role. But Punjab has not been able to even reduce, leave alone to eliminate, the middleman’s role. Can Sindh succeed where Punjab has failed?

Punjab failed to throw the middleman out of the commodity trade (especially wheat) because it treated him as an ‘outsider,’ who jumps in at the time of trading, exploits farmers, makes money and gets out of market. The reality, however, is different. The middleman is very much part of the production process.

In rural economy, the farmer uses land and his labour power and the middleman provides money to facilitate production. Without middleman’s credit, over 80 per cent farmers would not be able to buy seed and fertiliser. They will not even be able to prepare their fields for sowing if the middleman does not provide money for the diesel. That is how ground realities define the role of the middleman and make him an essential part of the crop cycle.

The financial role of middleman can be gauged from the fact that of the total loan requirement of around Rs1,000 billion, the formal sector (banks) provides around Rs275 billion. The government banks hardly provide Rs80 billion.

Link: http://epaper.dawn.com/ArticleText.aspx?article=19_07_2010_603_002

 

Balochistan bleeds

The following article  " Balochistan bleeds" by Harris Khalique , source "The News-July 16, 2010”.

The murder of Habib Jalib Baloch, a seasoned lawyer, former parliamentarian and secretary general of the Balochistan National Party (Mengal), is the most high-profile murder of a politician after Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti in recent years. This came a couple of days after another veteran political leader, Maula Bakhsh Dashti, a Central Committee member of the National Party and former Nazim of Kech district, was shot down in Turbat. Already sizzling separatist sentiments in Balochistan will gain more heat in days to come. Islamabad shows its concern, sends condolences to the traumatised and aggrieved family and party-mates instruct the provincial government to institute a judicial inquiry.

For details: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=251052

 

 

 

Gilani cautioned on state of economy

Source: Dawn

Date: 13 Jul, 2010

ISLAMABAD: While the rest of the country was fixated on the face-off between the media and the PML-N, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was provided a reality check last week about the precarious economic situation in the country.

 He was warned by the finance ministry that with the fiscal deficit touching 6.2 per cent of GDP (Rs925 billion) last year, the government ran the risk of IMF backing out unless it earned Rs500 billion through additional revenue or reduce its expenditures drastically during the current fiscal year.

More serious still, he was informed that the only way of controlling expenditures was to ask the provinces not to exercise their powers to raise additional funds under the new NFC award.

This was the gist of the message hammered home during a presentation by Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and his team to the prime minister during his visit to the ministry.

For details : http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/govt-must-contain-expenses-pm-cautioned-on-state-of-economy-370

 

Punjab-Sindh water issue

Source: The News

Date: July 13, 2010

 

ISLAMABAD: The Punjab will today (Tuesday) adopt an aggressive posture and take on the Federal and Sindh governments by floating three interlinked questions pertaining to the Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal and shall also seek expansion of the Indus River System Authority, arguing that the existing faulty composition of Isra had rendered it unable to ensure equitable water distribution between the four federating units, a top functionary of the Punjab government, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The News.

This stance is to be presented in the meeting of Punjab and Sindh chief ministers, convened by Prime Minister Gilani today (Tuesday), to resolve the water disputes, including opening of the Chashma-Jehlum Link Canal and reconstitution and expansion of the Indus River System Authority.

The official said the Punjab will initially seek the appointment of Federal member in Irsa from the federal government and not from Sindh to make the Irsa operational based on equal representation of all the provinces. “Moreover, the Punjab will also seek the expansion of Irsa, seeking inclusion of two more members each from Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir. Since Gilgit-Baltistan shares water of Indus River, as it runs through the said area, and likewise the AJK also shares Jehlum river water and other than that Mangla dam is built in the AJK, so they also need to get membership in Irsa.”

Punjab will also seek, the official claimed, that the chairman of Irsa should not be less than a retired Supreme Court judge with strong credibility and his appointment should be for three years to depoliticise the entity as currently the slot of chairmanship of Irsa rotates between the provinces due to which water regulator body has become highly politicized.

Link: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=250498

 

'Climate change may cause food insecurity'

Source: Dawn

Date: 12 Jul, 2010

KARACHI, July 11: A UK-based environmentalist expecting exceptional implications of climate change for the coastal city of Karachi and other parts of the province in socio-economic sectors has suggested certain measures to the government to prevent drought, water shortages, rising sea levels and infrastructure disruption.

In his report submitted for a climate change project funded by the Deputy British High Commission in Karachi, climate change expert Matthew Savage said that the climate change could result in food insecurity with the erosion of coastal and agricultural lands.

 He added that the Upper Indus Basin, which meets much of the water demand for Karachi and Sindh province, might experience reduced flows due to melting glaciers after 2050.

He said Karachi was likely to experience an average increase in temperature of up to 3.9 degrees centigrade by the end of this century. While the country’s overall climate would become warmer than the global average, the increase in temperature in the north would be somewhat higher than in the south. This

increase was expected more in winter than that in summer.

Mr Savage added: “Changes in precipitation will not be as significant. However, the monsoon is likely to become more variable, with some projections

stating a later onset, characterised by more intense downpours.”

For more information : http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/local/climate-change-may-cause-food-insecurity-270