Advent of new times
As the triumphant opposition parties' elected lawmakers streamed in to kick off the new National Assembly's inning, sitting sheepishly were the trounced PML (Q)-led coalition's handful legislators who could make it to the house, licking their wounds, mostly self-inflicted. This coalition had had every advantage to become a cohesive, homogenous and delivering entity; it frittered them all, to stay obstinately as a collection of disparate and heterogeneous elements, all assembled together by no worthy cause other than sheer opportunism, expediency and self-advancement.

A New Beginning
Three hundred and twenty-eight members of the National Assembly took oath at the inaugural session of the new parliament held in Islamabad on Monday, almost precisely a month after the February 18 general election. What was on the surface a generally placid meeting of elected representatives was marked by many strong undercurrents. The most crucial of these is the future of a house that seems headed along a path of open conflict with the presidency. The reaffirmation by the outgoing speaker, Chaudhry Amir Hussain, on a pointed query by a PPP-member, that oath would be taken under the relevant clause in the 1973 Constitution indicated how determined the PPP-PML-N-ANP coalition is to reject extra-constitutional steps taken by President Musharraf with the president's November 3 declaration of emergency rule. This clear-cut strategy was confirmed by the declaration by Mian Nawaz Sharif that the 30-day countdown to the restoration of the judges had begun with the swearing in of parliament. Sharif also met with key legal advisers and a retired judge immediately after the swearing in. He, obviously, is eager to bring back the deposed judges without losing any unnecessary time.

The Quest for Oil
Another important step has been taken in the country's quest for oil. Bids have been opened for the Mannar Basin Blocks. Two Indian and one Cyprus company have submitted bids. China will also be involved in the exploration.

Judges resignation triggers doubt about military led government
Some judges of the higher judiciary declining invitation by president to tea as was reported in the media recently created both surprise and dismay, if only because of the unusual nature of the happening. An invitation to tea can, of course, be seen as an innocent gesture, even when the host is the president of the republic himself and invitees are the revered senior judges. But as it turned out, there was more to it than met the eye.

Where is the Independent Judiciary?
Chief Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar has declared that the judiciary is independent in Pakistan. He made these comments while addressing a delegation of participants of a course of National Defence University that visited the Supreme Court on Friday, February 1, 2007. The Chief Justice said that the superior judiciary was focusing on enhancing its capacity to act as a neutral, impartial and fair arbiter of disputes and restore the confidence of public in the system of administration of justice. He said that all the courts were fully independent and functional and were performing their functions under the Constitution and the law by providing relief to the litigant public.

Going soft on terrorism
Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan's insistence that all political parties must make their stance on terrorism clear deserves to be noted. In a television interview, the minister said many parties were going soft on terrorism, and this could help the militants. One wishes the minister had named the parties he had in mind, but one can see that many parties on the extreme right have maintained an attitude that often appears paradoxical, if not intriguing. All political parties are, of course, quick to condemn an act of terrorism when it occurs, but often it appears that this is done for record's sake. The Lal Masjid affair was more than an act of terrorism, and the stand-off leading finally to the crackdown in July last year provided ample evidence of the various parties' stance on terrorism.

A Significant Milestone
Sri Lanka celebrates her 60th anniversary of independence tomorrow. It's exactly six decades ago that we gained independence from the British. This year's independence celebrations are a significant milestone in our nation's history after our Security Forces liberated the Eastern Province from the clutches of terrorism.

Freedom of Election Commission
The countrymen have long demanded independence of the Election Commission from the control of the executive branch of the state. However, successive governments have dragged their feet on the issue on one pretext or the other. Hopefully, the decision will be implemented through requisite legal procedures without any further delay. Here, it is pertinent to point out that the draft ordinance that the law ministry prepared and the council of advisers approved on Tuesday falls short of even the expectations of the Election Commission itself.

Curbing democratic rights of ethnic minority
CG's recent move to curb the democratic rights of indigenous communities comes as yet another distressing sign of the heavy handed and chauvinistic attitude that this government espouses in relation to rights of ethnic minorities. The home ministry, in a recent instruction, has decided to discourage intellectuals and eminent personalities from attending functions organised by ethnic minority groups, which they fear draws attention to the routine oppression and negligence .The ministry's instruction also plans to reduce the media coverage that indigenous rights groups and their demands receive, and plans to actively monitor the activities of high profile ethnic minority leaders such as Jyotirindra Bodhipriyo Larma, better known by his nom de guerre Santu Larma.

Food security: Get the act together to build it up
Nearly ten lakh tonnes of Aman crop loss may have been caused by the cyclone. Annual food deficit has been estimated at 15-30 lakh tonnes in the recent years. Aman shortfall being too large to be met even by a bumper Boro harvest, most calculations put the overall deficit of foodgrains in the region of 40-50 lakh tonnes for the current fiscal year. Both public and private sector will have to go on massive import of foodgrains at high costs these are selling in the international market. Alongside, food grants should be welcomed. We can't scrounge too much from the internal source because these will push the prices up.

Little time for campaigning
PERHAPS no other schedule for a party-based election has evoked so little enthusiasm from the nation as the one announced by the Chief Election Commissioner on Tuesday. The election campaign will be a short, seven-week affair. In the real sense of the term, however, campaigning will be confined to 22 days, since the candidates' final lists will be on display on Dec 16. The PPP has yet to announce whether it will take part in the election, but it is obvious that the party, like other parties, will be there in the electoral arena. From the statements of its leaders it is apparent that PML-N will stay away from the polls.

Time for govt, Election Commission to pause and ponder
The legal notice, issued by the detained BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, to the Election Commission, asking for withdrawal of its invitation to M Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, who was appointed acting secretary general at an eminently controversial meeting of the BNP standing committee, which also made Saifur Rahman the acting chairman, effectively nullifies the effort by the Saifur-Hafiz faction to create the impression that it enjoys Khaleda's blessings and is, therefore, the mainstream BNP.

Politicians: good people
Civil servants must be apolitical. They should not attend political meetings. That is the ECB ruling. What civil servants are asking is, "What does it mean?"

More than just Raj Kapoor movies
India-Russia ties are a classic example of Lord Salisbury's dictum that there are no permanent friends or foes when countries formulate foreign policy - there are only permanent interests. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarkably short 28-hour visit to Russia - the shortest ever in the 60-year history of bilateral ties - reiterates this.

Requisites for a free vote
WILL the elections scheduled for January be credible? This is the one paramount question that overshadows all other questions, linked as they are - the continuation of the emergency, the truly impartial character of the caretaker governments at Islamabad and in the four provincial capitals, and the curtailment of media freedom.

Better informed than before
Rather ironically, the measures to clamp down on news channels have unleashed a wave of information through new technology that is now sweeping across the country.

Uncertainty galore
In proclaiming an emergency, President General Pervez Musharraf had referred to the situation of uncertainty created by the delay in the decision of the Supreme Court regarding his legitimacy to run as a president. After the imposition of the emergency, that uncertainty seems to have crept into almost all spheres of Pakistan's political life and its relations with its allies.

Power craze puts democracy in jeopardy
It is no secret that it is the thirst for power and taste of power that overwhelm individuals, political parties and organisations that cause most problems and conflicts around the world today as it has been so in the past. In most cases, however, those affected by these impulses, politicians in particular, hide them under various pretexts and false facades.

Our energy security
That we need to enhance our power generation level is perhaps stating the obvious, but in Bangladesh the obvious needs constant harping upon to make that happen eventually. Energy is the engine of growth, but this is the sector that has received the least attention, its neglect reaching the nadir during the last government's regime when not even a single megawatt of electricity was added to our energy grid.