Scientists join tobacco companies to fight cancer

by Agencies on Jun 24th, 2015 at (1 month ago) 

 

Health News, Tobacco Cancer : Scientists who have devoted years developing medicines to cure disease are now working for tobacco companies to make e-cigarettes.

Philip Morris International Inc has hired more than 400 scientists and technical staff at its research facility in Neuchatel, Switzerland, including toxicologists, chemists, biologists, biostatisticians and regulatory affairs experts.

Altria Group Inc, makers of Marlboro, has recruited dozens of scientific and healthcare experts, as have independent e-cigarette companies such as NJOY. They bring experience developing inhalation devices and navigating the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, valuable knowledge in the new world of electronic cigarettes.

They say they’re trying to improve public health.

“We were looking at drugs that make people very ill and maybe extend their life by 12 to 14 weeks,” said Gizelle Baker, a PMI biostatistician based in Neuchatel who previously worked at the cancer drug developer Poniard Pharmaceuticals. “If you have a product that prevents cancer in the first place you can have a much bigger impact on public health.”

The goal is to improve the current generation of e-cigarettes and, where possible, provide evidence that they reduce the risk of disease. Companies that succeed could have an advantage in a market that Bonnie Herzog, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, sees surpassing combustible cigarettes in the U.S. within the next decade.

Products declared reduced risk by the FDA could be treated with a lighter regulatory hand.

“If tobacco companies can prove there is reduced risk, e-cigs are likely to remain less regulated and taxed than cigarettes,” said Philip Gorham, an analyst at Morningstar who views PMI as leading the way in the industry. “If they can’t, they will likely be subject to the same restrictions.” Reuters

Govt trying to convince MQM, JUI-F to withdraw PTI de-seating resolutions

 

 

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ISLAMABAD: The government is trying to convince the MQM and the JUI-F to withdraw resolutions seeking to de-seat Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers from Parliament, Information Minister Pervez Rashid said Wednesday following a meeting of the prime minister and leaders of political parties in the Parliament.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) had prepared resolutions to table in the National Assembly on Tuesday, asking to de-seat lawmakers of the PTI after they remained absent from Parliament for 40 consecutive days during their party's protest sit-in last year.

But voting on the resolutions was deferred for a week after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar asked NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq to ensure that Parliament does not rush the matter.

Speaking to reporters today, Rashid said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had requested MQM and JUI-F leaders to withdraw their resolutions against the PTI.

He said that representatives from both parties expressed their views and discussed the matter in detail during the meeting, during which constitutional and political sides to the issue were also discussed.

Following the premier’s insistence, representatives from both the MQM and JUI-F sought time from the government, saying they would inform Prime Minister Sharif after discussing with their respective parties.

The information minister said that the prime minister has given his ministers responsibility to keep in contact with MQM and JUI-F leaders and to continue efforts to ensure that both parties withdraw their resolutions, so that all political parties maintain their rights to represent the people of Pakistan in Parliament.

He said that, following the report by the elections inquiry commission, it was “time to close this chapter” and for all parties to move forward and focus on addressing pressing challenges faced by the country.

JUI-F not to withdraw resolution to de-seat PTI lawmakers

 

 

 

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ISLAMABAD: The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) has decided not to withdraw a resolution seeking to de-seat Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) lawmakers for remaining absent from Parliament for 40 consecutive days during their protest sit-in last year.

The JUI-F and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had prepared resolutions to table in the National Assembly on Tuesday to de-seat the PTI MNAs, but voting on the resolutions was deferred after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar asked NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq to ensure that Parliament does not rush the matter.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held a meeting with leaders of political parties in Parliament on Wednesday in an effort to convince the JUI-F and MQM to withdraw the resolutions. But the government's efforts appear to have gone in vain as both the JUI-F and the MQM have now declined to withdraw from what they say is a principle stance and a matter to upholding the law and Constitution.

During a meeting of their parliamentary party, JUI-F leaders agreed that the PTI lawmakers had tendered their resignations themselves and that they want to enter Parliament now through the backdoor.

Speaking to reporters today, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said that the JUI-F had not been satisfied on the constitutional aspects of the PTI MNA's National Assembly membership.

He said that the party was raising its objection within the ambit of the constitution and that it was not based on any personal differences.

He said that in the past, legislators of the MQM had faxed their resignations and they had been accepted. The resignations of Muttahida Majil-e-Amal (MMA) lawmakers had also been accepted immediately in the past.

“On what basis is the PTI being granted concessions today?” he asked.

The JUI-F is expected to formally convey its position to the government later today.

 

The Mohajir question

Author: Blogger Posted On: Thursday, January 23, 2014 Source/Reference: http://worldpur.blogspot.com/ ALTAF Hussain’s demand for a separate province, despite subsequent clarifications, has reignited debate on the role, status and even nomenclature of Mohajirs. Such debates take two extreme positions. Some argue that Mohajirs should not use the term ‘Mohajir’ since its meaning does not accurately describe their present status. But then people, places and groups are often named idiosyncratically. Their name meanings often do not reflect their present status. People are named Alamgir (world conqueror) without conquering anything. Native Americans were called Indians for centuries because Columbus mistakenly thought he had reached India. Even Pakistan’s meaning is an inaccurate descriptor of its current corruption-ridden nature. Thus, the meanings of names are irrelevant; what matters is common recognition. Such arguments also assert that Mohajirs should consider themselves Sindhis only and learn Sindhi. It would be excellent if people learnt neighbouring languages to increase national and provincial unity. However, people usually learn other languages not based on a sense of civic duty but on need or passion. Even the Punjabis and Pakhtuns permanently settled in Karachi speak little Sindhi. Knowledge of Balochi among Balochistan’s Pakhtuns and of Pashto among KP’s Hindko speakers is mixed. These groups, like Mohajirs, are demographically inhabitants of their respective provinces but ethnically maintain their separate identities without subsuming themselves into the province’s majority group despite decades and centuries of cohabitation. So, like everyone else, Mohajirs have the right to maintain their separate identity within the rubric of their Pakistani citizenship and Sindhi demography. Conversely, some Mohajirs and even periodically the MQM when under pressure, argue that Mohajirs are a distinct ethnic group which deserves its own province or country. Nevertheless Mohajirs are not a cohesive ethnic group, unlike other Pakistani groups, but an identity group consisting of several highly distinct ethnic groups. Their common identity is relatively recent and is based on the common experience of them or their ancestors migrating from far-flung parts of India after partition to Pakistan, but unlike Punjabis, not finding ethnic cousins there to subsume with. Demands for separate provinces and countries usually come from groups with centuries of common identity and links to the land. Secondly, it has been observed that Mohajirs may soon become a minority in Karachi. Even today, there may not be majority support for separation in Karachi. Thirdly, even mega cities rarely become provinces. Devolved local governance is seen as a better solution for their unique problems. Thus, the solution to Karachi’s problem lies not at the top two tiers of governance, i.e., separate country or province. It lies at the third tier through genuinely devolved local governance — more devolved than for even other large Pakistani cities due to Karachi’s enormous problems and economic and demographic size. Such special devolution can provide nationwide economic benefits. Unfortunately, such special devolution is often dubbed as a move towards Karachi’s separation. Such fears are exaggerated given Pakistan’s difficult constitutional process for forming new provinces which make difficult the division of even Punjab and Balochistan where there is more rationale for division given their disproportionate demographic and geographical sizes respectively. If Sindh was not divided during the 2000s, when the president and prime minister were from Karachi and assemblies were pliant and non-representative, how can it be divided today because of higher local devolution? However, such special devolution will only succeed if the city government works for all ethnic groups. Unfortunately, the MQM is as loath presently to doing this locally as the PPP and PML-N are provincially and nationally. At the time of partition, Mohajirs dominated Pakistan economically, politically and culturally. Along with their higher education and industrious nature, their initial domination of government greatly helped Mohajir elites economically. They are probably still Pakistan’s most affluent group. Politically, they have lost ground to Punjabis under Ghulam Mohammed, Pakhtuns and Hindko-speakers under Ayub and Sindhis under Bhutto. As Pakistan’s only group cut off from its rural hinterlands, which now lie in ‘enemy’ territory, according to some, Mohajirs also face cultural erosion since isolated rural hinterlands help conserve group cultures. These challenges have helped crystallise the Mohajir identity. Many Mohajirs feel betrayed at the perceived lack of gratitude shown by others for what they see as their role as Pakistan’s architects. They feel discriminated against, though in reality they face reverse discrimination, i.e., policies adopted against dominant groups to help weaker groups advance. However, such policies have been implemented crudely in Pakistan. Malaysia’s quota system, while more sweeping, furthered national integration and economic advancement, unlike Pakistan’s. Luckily, private job and educational opportunities have expanded significantly since the 1970s so that the quota system has become a less salient issue today in Pakistan. In between these two extreme positions lies a third one. While Mohajirs have the right to maintain their separate identity, robust local governance rather than a separate province remains the best route to resolving Karachi’s problems.

Another round

Author: Blogger Posted On: Thursday, January 30, 2014 Source/Reference: http://worldpur.blogspot.com/ PAKISTAN blipped briefly into view here in Washington D.C. this week as Sartaj Aziz and Khawaja Asif did the circuit in another round of the Strategic Dialogue. In a visit less than 72 hours long, they met with the secretary of state and gave a press conference. Then came meetings with the CIA chief, the secretaries of energy and defence, and a two-hour long intense session with National Security Adviser Susan Rice. The president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (Opic) and Rajiv Shah, administrator of USAID also managed to get a word in edgewise in a dialogue that is otherwise all about Afghanistan. Along the way they managed a stop at the Atlantic Council where adviser Sartaj Aziz spoke about “his vision for regional peace”. The talk focused mostly on why regional cooperation is the key to economic development, as well as overcoming the menace of terrorism. A few throwaway caveats by adviser Aziz pointed to the supposedly toughening attitudes towards terrorism back in Islamabad — reference to the “so-called Mujahideen” of the 1980s, for instance. But the adviser also showed a nuanced view of the menace of terror. The threat operates on three layers he said: sectarian, ethnic and ideological. In different places, at different times, these three levels combine in varying ways to produce a multifaceted danger that will take skill as well as force to eliminate. Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Centre and host of the event, cut to the chase in the question-answer period, where he opened with this question: are the people of Pakistan and the various institutions of state behind you in this fight? “There is a broad spectrum of opinion in Pakistan regarding the question of terrorism and how to deal with it,” replied Aziz, and went on to talk about the role that conspiracy theories have played in muddying the discourse. “But democracy is about building consensus,” he reassured the audience, and that his government was comfortable it would be able to go into any operation with a consensus. Alan Kronstadt — the lead researcher on Pakistan at the Congressional Research Service — was the first to speak from the floor. America has given billions of dollars over the years to Pakistan as counterinsurgency support. Where has all this money gone? “Those funds were not wasted,” countered the adviser. They were used to build forces that can be used in the fight, but these forces now need better coordination, particularly intelligence cooperation. Those forces are now dispersed across the provinces, and across the various services. “We need to pull together the scattered elements of our experience,” he said, to fashion an effective response with all the tools that those billions have created. The advisor was careful to remind his audience that America needs to think about more than just its own interests when departing. “We hope Pakistan’s concerns can also be kept in mind, unlike in the early 1990s when our concerns were not kept in mind when that war drew to a close.” What role will Pakistan play in Afghanistan following America’s departure? The adviser sought to put such anxieties at ease by pointing out that he himself has had three separate meetings with Karzai since the new government came to power in Pakistan, following which the stream of negative comments about Pakistan subsided. “In his own meeting, Prime Minister Sharif managed to convince Karzai that Pakistan sees Afghanistan’s stability as important to its own stability.” Sure, but how deep does that reassurance run? Between Pindi and Kabul might yet be a bad place to find yourself in a few years’ time. But here’s what’s on my mind when I look at post-withdrawal Afghanistan: central to securing Afghanistan’s stability is the Afghan National Army. And the ANA is wholly dependent on foreign funding to pay its expenses. In 2013, the US pumped close to $12 billion into the ANA, but its annual expense is estimated at just above $6bn post departure, assuming costs don’t spiral out of control. Thus far the US has had little success finding partners willing to help foot this bill in any meaningful amount. An army without a fiscal apparatus behind it is like a car without fuel. And a car that runs out of fuel in a bad neighbourhood usually gets stripped down and sold for parts. The vision for regional peace and development that adviser Sartaj Aziz laid out before us was one that is widely accepted, and stays within the bounds agreed on in Istanbul 2011: trade, particularly in natural gas, can tie the region together in mutually beneficial partnerships. The massive energy surpluses of Central Asia and Iran can feed the growing energy hunger of South Asia for decades to come, and create transit rents along the way, enough to give the ANA maybe half of a fiscal framework. But governments in Pakistan have been talking about this agenda for almost a decade now. Some progress towards regional integration has indeed been made over this time, and it would be unfair to doubt the adviser’s wisdom in urging his government to adopt this course, as well as the latter’s sincerity in pursuing it. But as Aziz Sahib himself pointed out, not everything that needs to happen to realise this vision is under the control of the government of Pakistan.

Poor and dead

Author: blogger Posted On: Friday, January 31, 2014 Source/Reference: http://worldpur.blogspot.com/ THERE is hardly a family in Pakistan, middle-class or above, that does not have a relative in Canada, or a juvenile working in its kitchen at home. As one migrant put it, he does not mind having to vacuum his home in Toronto but he would look askance at equating himself with a servant by clearing the meal table in Lahore. Here, we live our own version of the British sitcom Downton Abbey, in which the landed gentry lived in comfort above while their menial staff slaved in the pantry below. In that series, when the young daughter of the aristocrat lapses by marrying their driver, it is the driver who moves up the social ladder into the big house, not the other way round. A serial shown on a local television channel had a parallel storyline with a difference. A middle-class Pakistani father discovers his daughter is interested in some boy of whom he disapproves. Irate, he forces her to marry their young servant, and when that marriage collapses (the servant becomes more interested in his master’s wealth than his daughter), the father makes her marry her juvenile underage cousin. Millions of families throughout Pakistan must have watched that serial and empathised with the trauma of the young girl. Not one of them is likely to recall the plight of the teenaged housemaids assaulted or beaten to death by their educated employers. If anything of them remains, it will be as statistics in a thin file, buried in the cemetery known as police records. In Pakistan, the good die young; poor housemaids die even younger. Whoever chooses to write a social history of Pakistan will find it difficult to pinpoint the exact moment our hearts stopped beating for our fellow citizens. Was it in the 1950s when the anti-Ahmadi riots stained the Mall at Lahore red? Was it when we chose after 1971 to ignore the sufferings of the thousands of prisoners of war and civilians in protective custody? Was it when in 2007 we watched the streets of Rawalpindi being hosed down, diluting a fallen leader’s blood as it trickled down the drain? Or was it when we saw body bags being delivered to hospitals throughout the country as if they were daily medical supplies? Of course, there never is any one single trauma, no unique Pearl Harbour, that causes a nation to galvanise into a unified remonstrance. Reaction to tragedy is a slow process. It takes time. Meanwhile, crises, like the relentless drip of water on a prisoner’s forehead, gradually numb a people’s consciousness into an inert, unresisting acceptance. Pakistan can be described as a country whose leadership over the years has institutionalised callousness and indifference to a level where it is indistinguishable from public policy. The state’s ownership of its citizens has been privatised. It no longer has a stake or interest in them. Were doomsday to occur tomorrow, were Pakistan to implode suddenly, it would solve all its myriad problems. It would certainly satisfy many an armchair Cassandra. Countries with a population of over 180 million humans, however, do not disappear into a black hole of non-existence. They continue to exist because like Mount Everest they are there. The more mundane reason is that international creditors cannot bring themselves to unplug the life-support system that sustains such bedridden economies. The truth is nations survive because ultimately the will of the people is more resilient than the wilful errancy of its leadership. In India, class barriers have been eroded by the tsunami of widespread education. In Pakistan, class barriers have themselves become the barriers to the wider dissemination of education. And again, while India has demonstrated that mass education produces a vibrant middle class, Pakistan has inverted that maxim and made the middle class responsible for its own education. Anyone in government concerned with education would be hard-pressed to provide a clear vision of the contours of Pakistanis in 2030. Will they be open-minded citizens capable of integrating in a modern world? Will they continue to remain stratified in the present class distinctions? Or will they migrate and clear tables in Toronto? There are some who would maintain that the churning of a troubled childhood produces geniuses. Take Charles Dickens and Charlie Chaplin. Both of them spent their precious childhood doing menial labour. Dr Abdus Salam (our sole Nobel laureate) came from a backwater: Maghiana in Jhang district. Dr Salam’s birthday anniversary on Jan 29 should be celebrated as our equivalent of Martin Luther King Day in the US. King lived and died championing emancipation; Salam lived and died advocating education. Salam, Dickens, and Chaplin are names those unfortunate maidservants would never have recognised. But then, they could barely write their own.

Urban battleground

Author: Blogger Posted On: Monday, February 03, 2014 Source/Reference: http://worldpur.blogspot.com/ SINCE the killing of Chaudhry Aslam, there’s been growing alarm about the onslaught against Karachi’s police officers. The number of officers killed on the job has been steadily increasing each year, from 41 in 2009 to more than 160 in 2013. The renewed interest in this trend is primarily a manifestation of fears about the outlawed Talibanisation of Pakistan, with each cop killing being viewed as a step further in the Pakistani Taliban’s encroachment of Karachi. But the violence against police officers, and the official and public response to it, has far greater implications for Pakistan’s future than in the context of the fight against the Taliban. The killing of police is hardly a new issue in Karachi, a city in which officers who do their duty, and those who don’t, are equally under threat of violence. When the police stay within their jurisdiction and perform their role as law-enforcers, they become the target of reprisal attacks by the groups they pursue. For example, Aslam made it to the Taliban’s hit list for capturing and killing numerous militants. Similarly, dozens of police officers involved in Operation Clean-Up in the early 1990s have been abducted or killed over the years. Ironically, the police’s failure to enforce the law also leads to the targeting of officers. Karachi is a savage city, the battleground of various violent actors, including political parties, criminal gangs, militant groups and extortionists. The police are yet another violent actor in this embattled landscape: they too are armed, and they too compete for the same resources that criminal elements do — the proceeds from smuggling, prostitution, extortion, and land grabs. The competition for these resources is brutal, and police officers can be killed alongside gangsters and smugglers for taking too much of their share or trespassing on a rival’s turf or takings. Much has been written about how the police need to be made less corrupt and apolitical, not only to improve law-enforcement but also, it increasingly seems, for the sake of their own safety. But the security of police officers also has broader relevance for law and order in the city, and Pakistan. It is troubling that the government has failed to respond to this violence by providing the police with more recruits, training, better equipment and support from paramilitary and military forces, when needed. Rather than reinvigorate the police, the state’s response is often to replace them: think of the Rangers carrying out special operations in Karachi or the Frontier Corps reigning in Balochistan. Even in Swat, where the army was meant to hand over security to local police, it’s instead establishing a cantonment to make its presence permanent and pervasive. The police force’s growing inability to protect itself, and the state’s instinct to replace rather than reform, risk making the institution redundant. As it is, many officers in Karachi are refusing to show up for duty, while others stay sequestered in thanas, scared of what might befall them if they play an active role. The gradual withdrawal of the police from the urban landscape will only exacerbate existing problems, not least, it will allow violent groups to proliferate and operate unchecked. Even more than it is today, Karachi will become a city of enclaves, each guarded by a private militia, each primed to fight its neighbours. And in a fast urbanising Pakistan, other cities may start to face similar challenges in the absence of strong policing. The retreat of the police from its traditional law-enforcing role will also result in the expansion of the military’s role in domestic law-enforcement. We have already seen this cycle play out in Balochistan, and also witnessed its grave consequences. Militaries, even when they operate in a domestic context, continue to tout the mantra of national security to avoid transparency and accountability. They also impose security from the top down as a self-serving entitlement, rather than a service to the public. But the domestic need for policing has little to do with securing the nation — it’s about maintaining order from the bottom up, community by community. The difference between the army and the police is the difference between orders and negotiations, protocol and understanding, big picture and hyper local, absolute means and arbitration. Communities need policing, not securing, to function and endure. Moreover, a growing military role in domestic law and order would enable the army to hold on to power and large budgets at a time when the institution should be scaling back to create more space for civilian governments. Ensuring that the police feel safe enough to do their jobs is essential for Pakistan’s democratic trajectory.

TTP’s pre-conditions for peace-talks

Author: Blogger Posted On: Thursday, February 06, 2014 Source/Reference: http://worldpur.blogspot.com/ In relation to all the government-Taliban peace talk hustle a lot have been said from both sides of the opposing spectrums as what the conditions should be, how the talks should proceed, what is going to be offered and what not and so on. However, what came out today was a new piece of thread whereby the negotiators of Pakistani Taliban insurgents said that ‘there was no chance of peace in Pakistan until the government embraces Islamic Sharia law and US-led forces withdraw completely from neighbouring Afghanistan’. So this tough condition came in as a serious heart-breaker to all the high hoping analysts and politicians who were looking forward to the peace talks between the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Talibans which was a beam of hope that could have brought an end to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) insurgency that has rocked the country since 2007. As reported in the media, Maulana Samiul Haq, the head of the TTP's three-man talks team, said, there could be “no peace” in the region while there were still US troops across the border. His comments were corroborated by his fellow TTP negotiator Maulana Abdul Aziz, who also said the TTP's long-held commitment to imposing sharia law across Pakistan was not open to debate. “Without sharia law, the Taliban won't accept (the talks) even one per cent,” he said. “If some factions accept it, then the others won't accept it.” “Their real agenda is sharia,” Aziz said, suggesting that all Pakistan's secular courts based on the common law system be abolished. “I don't think the government will accept this but they should, because war isn't the way forward.” On Afghanistan, Aziz said an endorsement of the security pact with Washington would scupper hopes for regional peace. “We think these (Afghanistan and Pakistan) are two brotherly countries. Peace in Pakistan means peace in Afghanistan and vice versa,” he said. If Afghanistan signs the agreement, he said, “war will continue, and the clash between Muslims and the US will continue.” “If the agreement goes ahead, then the losses they (US) have experienced before, they will experience once again,” he added.“If Americans remain in Afghanistan, there will be no peace in the region, it will be same, it will be unsafe,” said Samiul Haq. It would now be hard to bring about any fruitful results, if the whole system of governance has to be altered before making the TTP’s negotiators to come down to some common ground. The peace talks could become as useless as one could think, if there are to be strict pre-conditions imposed to what would be discussed and done and what not. Let’s see what the talks bring about.

Regulation, Pakistani style

Author: Blogger Posted On: Tuesday, February 04, 2014 Source/Reference: http://worldpur.blogspot.com/ GETTING the government to be an enabler rather than a disabler is the real challenge. The weaknesses of our economic system(s) can be traced to a deficiency of governance at one level or another. The most crucial aspect of this is the desire of the state machinery to regulate most activities, a task carried out by creating visible and invisible road blocks. Small enterprises, in view of their size and limited managerial resources, suffer more than larger enterprises from the cumbersome rules and regulations, their uncertain application and arbitrary amendments with little, if any, redress. There is a need to reduce the footprint of the state by dismantling the overextended regulatory framework and apparatus strangulating private activity, facilitating corruption and shackling the economy’s growth prospects. A large part of the regulatory framework is structured around antiquated and superfluous laws and rules. It exists because of lack of clarity on the role of government, in a world that has changed dramatically over time. Frequently, new products and instruments are available that are more effective mechanisms for achieving the objectives underlying the laws or administrative arrangements for their enforcement. For instance, there are building and electricity inspectors to ensure the safety of private buildings used for public purposes. These services are not required if such buildings are comprehensively covered by insurance companies. Through this instrument the owners of such buildings can be spared the frequent visits of such government functionaries, who would be denied opportunities to extort bribes, while assuring the public’s safety in using these buildings. At times the regulations actually block private efforts to improve productivity, efficiency and sustainability of operations. For instance, the sugar industry needs restructuring to become viable, involving mergers and closures of a number of inefficient sugar mills with small capacities. Unfortunately, provincial government policies prohibit the relocation and consolidation of mills, required for achieving economies of scale and maintaining competitiveness, adversely impacting efficiency and productivity of investments. The theological principle to regulate economic activity based on complete distrust of the market and a belief in the state’s omnipotence has restricted the space for private-sector operations. The role of markets is underestimated in the belief that the state is much more knowledgeable and objective and that markets are often rigged and imperfect and private behaviour shortsighted. Even civil society in Pakistan is suspicious of markets and provides the bureaucracy with an excuse to regulate. The bureaucracy opts for direct controls rather than market-friendly fiscal rewards and punishments not only because of the powers that it gives them to extort money but also because they prefer certainty of command and understand little about the subtlety of induced behaviour. Owing partly to the nature and history of Pakistan’s economic development, where even the middle class was not the product of a dynamic growth process but was created through public-sector employment, we seemingly cannot visualise economic growth without support and patronage. Thus, civil society continues to view the state as an all-powerful paternal entity that is supposed to protect us against all risks and also provide for all occasions. Not surprising then that government continues to be large and unaccountable and rules rather than serves. Flawed concepts drive us to mimic big countries in constructing complicated state apparatus. Unfortunately, donors also provide us uniform advice, persuading us to set up the same institutions as in developed countries. Resultantly, we have regulators for each market, at times two for the same market — for example the State Bank and the SECP are simultaneously regulating financial institutions, and in the case of modarabas there is the third regulator, the religious/Sharia board. In several instances (eg Nepra, Ogra, PTA, Pemra, etc) regulatory bodies have been created more to park retiring, well-connected civil servants who clearly do not possess the skill set required to perform the job to which appointed. The official concept of a typical regulator is the head of the agency, two to three assistants (called ‘members’, again mostly retired bureaucrats), PAs and peons, office space, several cars and mobile phones. How the government views their utility is evident from its insistence that their decisions be implemented only after review and notification by the government. And without competent regulators privatisation could result in a public sector monopoly being replaced with a private sector monopoly. Every good organisation makes periodical attempts to clean its own house. All procedures and practices are subject to a fresh review. However, our governments hardly ever question their own mechanisms and practices, except to protect their interests and those of the civil servants. Many agencies in the public sector are moribund with little or no accountability for the quality of their output, even for delivery of services. Hence, there is a need to redefine its role and the way it carries out its business, which would involve a major reduction in the areas of its activity. Based on the discussion above the logical way forward would not be to review individual legislation and rules, and amend them through patchwork (our standard operating procedure), but to disband all regulatory laws in one sweep, demanding that those wanting regulation of an economic activity should argue their case with supporting regulatory proposals. Of course, such an exercise will have to be well planned so as not to create a void in some essential areas that can be readily identified beforehand.