A Lahore School of Economics – IMF Roundtable Discussion “International Financial Crisis and the Role of IMF: The View from Pakistan’s Youth,” was jointly hosted by the Lahore School of Economics and the IMF Pakistan Office, at the Lahore School of Economics, on February 22, 2010.

The discussion focused on the current international financial crisis and its national and international effects, implications of the international financial crisis on future economic policymaking, how will it affect economic liberalization, deregulation, and the role of the state? What can be done to prevent a similar crisis from reoccurring? How will the new landscape affect opportunities for addressing the region’s most pressing economic challenges, such as the need to provide employment opportunities, boost competitiveness, and find new sources of sustainable and equitable growth? And, what role can the IMF play in this respect?

At this round table discussion, students gave their opinion on these topics and proposed fresh ideas regarding the IMF’s dialogue with Pakistan and its support for the international economic community currently and in the coming years.  See more images here and here. 

The hue and cry raised by a certain section of the society on the recent banning of Basant by the Lahore High Court compels me to bring forward my point of view.

These people mourn for the loss of a cultural event which attracted thousands of foreigners from all over the world. In the prevailing geopolitical situation, I hardly think that a bunch of colorful kites would be able to lure an already fear stricken foreigner to a death trap. Moreover this cultural loss might be a matter of concern for a handful of socialites and five star hotels but not for the common man.

It saddened me to read the post Sir, we can’t control this. “Then ban it” where the blogger citing reasons for the ban on Basant writes, “The reasons quoted were not many – two in fact, one being the loss to human life and the other being disruption in WAPDA’s electricity supply causing monetary loss”,  as if these two reasons are not good enough. The blogger goes on to write, “The ban on Basant is silly. Loss of life and loss of the ever-so-present WAPDA supply are not reasons at all. And here’s why: the loss of life is not because the kite-flying itself is dangerous. Kite-flying has been around for quite some time. The murderous streak now automatically tagged with basant itself, has been introduced through the development of stronger string”.

Stronger string or not, if kite-flying has been around for quite sometime then so are the deaths related to this festival. Why do we forget hundreds of innocent lives lost which are not related to the killer string but are still a part and parcel of this event? We can try to get scot-free by saying that if someone is run over by a car or falls from a roof top then it is his own fault but can we blame a poor boy for running after the kites which we so lavishly shower just because he too wants to have his share of fun; or can we blame a child for falling off his roof because his father didn’t have enough money to build proper railing around the roof. Our politicians, so eager to climb up on their roofs might not be so hungry for such an amusement if God forbid it was one of their own who had lost his life to this blood thirsty event.

We would view this entertainment very differently and the ban would not look silly anymore if our own child had to run on the roads to grab a kite!

Coming to the ingenious solutions provided by the advocates of Basant. Yes, you may ban motorbikes and bicycles for two days but have we ever thought that for some people that is the only way of transportation and in case an emergency arises it is their only way out. Secondly you may also ban the deadly string but is it administratively possible to keep a check on such a large scale?

With all due respect to everyone’s viewpoint, I am of the opinion that even if one life is lost due to Basant, it is certainly not worth it.

Basant was a thing of beauty and was one of those rare events where a truly cultural event gathered people from all over the world. Yes, the world. Lahore owned basant, regardless where it came from. Even Lahore Metblogs has a separate category just for Basant!
But you had to be living in a hole to not know that basant has been banned for some time. A petition moved sometime around 2005, initially by none other than the mayor of Lahore, Mian Amer Mahmood. Slowly but surely, you witnessed an exercise in ‘how to control and change a city’s very culture through the power of political will’. The reasons quoted were not many – two in fact, one being the loss to human life and the other being disruption in WAPDA’s electricity supply causing monetary loss.
But here’s how I see it all:
The ban on basant is silly. Loss of life and loss of the ever-so-present WAPDA supply are not reasons at all. And here’s why: the loss of life is not because the kite-flying itself is dangerous. Kite-flying has been around for quite some time. The murderous streak now automatically tagged with basant itself, has been introduced through the development of stronger string. A lot of people think that it is the razor-like solution that the string is soaked in that causes the string to be a knife-on-the-loose. Although the sharpness is part of the reason, the main reason is that the string itself is very strong. There was a time, I remember, when I was able to snap the string by pulling on it with both hands. It is a typical way of checking a string’s strength – tug at it and see when it breaks. But recently, I would notice that it has become harder and harder to just ‘snap’ the string. You would have to resort to either some serious pulling or just use to teeth to sever the string. It is the combination of ultra-strong string with razor-sharp solution (a.k.a. manja) that makes the string a killer.
The real culprit has always been the string itself, and building upon that, you can see that the makers of the string are also the culprit. And by culprit I mean the ‘reason’ for the chaos, not the guilty party (guilt is for the courts to decide, remember?)

The reason the basant was and is still banned is not because the festival has turned deadly, it is because some people have invented and then sold this killer string to a lot of unsuspecting people. In fact, the real reason is that the administration has found it beyond them to crack down on the few string producers that manufacture the deadly string.

The flagship parliamentary debating competition of the Lahore School of Economics Association of Debaters, the Lahore School Debate, has started at the Lahore School of Economics (February 5 -8,2010). The Lahore School Debate shall be following the All-Asian Parliamentary Style of Debates, which employs the 3-on-3 debating format, with reply speeches. The Lahore School Debate shall consist of six preliminary rounds (2 closed and one custom free-speech), followed by the knockout stages of the knockout stages of the quarterfinals (8 breaks), semi-finals (4 breaks) and the grand final (2 breaks).

In an another embarrassing episode of Pakistan cricket Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi, a veteran of 293 ODIs, was caught tampering the the ball in the last ODI against Australia on Sunday. This is the second time in his career that Afridi is charged with ball tampering, the first being in 2005. What’s even more astonishing is that Afridi seems to justify his horrendous act: “There is no team in the world that doesn’t tamper with the ball. My methods were wrong. I am embarrassed, I shouldn’t have done it. I just wanted to win us a game but this was the wrong way to do it,” he told Geo TV.

 Imagine, what would happen if this guy is made captain of all 3 formats of the game? What kind of example are we setting for our youth? That it’s okay to cheat as long as you can win? The problem with Pakistan cricket is that similar to our politicians, we never held our cricketers accountable for their actions. We need to makes examples out of the Afridis and Akhtars of Pakistan who again and again tarnish the image of their country and then proudly make a comeback to the national side to become heroes once again.  

 I have had enough of these cheats and wish that for once, we can make the right call and shut all doors on them!