DAWN Editorials - 3rd January 2025

[faheemustad]

Kurram peace deal

THE volatile situation in KP’s Kurram tribal district appears to have been defused as the parties to this tribal-cum-sectarian conflict signed a 14-point peace deal on Wednesday. While the area has a decades-old history of conflict, the present round of bloodletting was sparked after a convoy was attacked last November, resulting in at least 40 fatalities. In the subsequent cycle of violence, at least 130 people were killed; in three particularly gruesome cases, the victims were beheaded.

As a result of the hostilities, Parachinar — Kurram’s main town — was under de facto blockade, resulting in a critical humanitarian situation, with shortages of edibles and medicine reported. Particularly appalling were reports that a large number of babies died due to lack of treatment or medicine. Hopefully, with the signing of the latest accord, this cycle of bloodshed and suffering will come to an end, and Kurram’s people can live in peace.

At face value, the peace accord appears to cover all the key factors fuelling violence in the region. The pact calls for a ban on the display of arms while bunkers will also be destroyed. Moreover, land disputes — amongst the main irritants behind tribal tension — will be resolved, while safe passage will be assured on thoroughfares. While such peace agreements have been signed — and broken — in the past, it is sincerely hoped that this time all involved, particularly the tribes of Kurram as well as state institutions, will go the extra mile to ensure that the pact does not fail.

Too many precious lives have been lost in this conflict, while routine life in Kurram has been paralysed for weeks. Furthermore, as this paper has observed in these columns, the sectarian dimension of Kurram’s disputes has the potential to disrupt communal harmony in other parts of Pakistan. Sit-ins in solidarity with Kurram were held in other cities, particularly Karachi, and matters threatened to get out of hand when Shia demonstrators and the police came face to face at the main protest at Numaish. When the banned ASWJ entered the fray and announced to hold sit-ins of its own, there were palpable fears of sectarian clashes. Luckily, efforts to give the matter an ugly sectarian colour were averted, but only by a hair.

Returning to Kurram, it is the state’s responsibility to ensure that people of all sects can travel to and from the district without fear of violence. Moreover, militant and sectarian groups active in the area need to be neutralised, while effective conflict-resolution mechanisms need to be in place to deal with any emergent disputes. The past few months have been a nightmare for Kurram’s people. The state must ensure they do not have to live through such an ordeal again by making sure the peace pact is honoured in full.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2025


Pension reform

THE federal government has finally implemented several parametric reforms introduced in the last two budgets to reduce its annual pension payout, which is estimated to have soared to more than Rs1tr for the current fiscal year and become the fourth largest expense on the shrinking financial resources. These changes in the retirement income system will also slow down the pace of accumulation of the future pension liability. The notifications issued by the finance ministry discontinue multiple pensions, reduce both the first take-home (the lump-sum payments after commutation received upon retirement) and monthly pension, and lower the base for determining future increase in the retirement benefits.

In addition to these changes, the reforms revise the pension calculation methods, ending annual compounding of the benefits by restricting application of increments to the primary pension received by an employee. More significantly, all future pensions will be calculated on the basis of the retiring employee’s salary during their last 24 months of service. This change affects the calculation of any subsequent pensions an individual might receive. There’s no doubt that these measures will significantly slash the retirement incomes of the current federal civil and military employees retiring from Jan 1, but these changes are crucial for future budget stability given the quadrupling of the liability from Rs245bn in 2019. However, the reforms provide for a periodic review of the baseline pension — the net pension (gross pension minus commuted portion of pension) calculated at the time of retirement — every three years by the Pay and Pension Commission to protect the pensioners from the rising cost of living due to inflation and changing economic conditions. Further, digitisation of the pension system for over 300,000 government employees will improve the accuracy and transparency in pension calculations and disbursements, cutting the red tape, delays and corruption. With a contributory pension fund already announced for the employees hired from July 1 this year, the rationalisation of defined pension benefits for those already in the employment of the federal government, especially military personnel, was necessary for the management of the liability in future.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2025


The Indian hand

OFFICIALS of the Modi regime were operating under a rather warped sense of reality, playing out Bollywood fantasies without a worry about the possible ramifications of their activities. It was only last year, after the assassination of a prominent Sikh leader in Canada and a foiled attempt on another in the US, that they finally received a long-overdue reality check. They learned that no matter what India’s economic heft, no sovereign nation takes kindly to assassination attempts orchestrated by foreign governments against individuals residing on their soil. The acknowledgement by the governments in Washington and Ottawa of the involvement of high officials in the Indian government in international murder plots was also a validation of Pakistan’s long-held position that India not only finances, but actively oversees terrorist activities on foreign soil. A recent report in the Washington Post has all but confirmed Pakistan’s assertions: the publicationhas uncovered details of an international assassination programme allegedly run by India that has killed about half a dozen individuals in Pakistan since 2021.

Indeed, the Post has found reason to believe that India was emboldened to begin targeting individuals in the US and Canada based on the assassination programme it had already tested and refined in Pakistan. Its network, operated through middlemen in the UAE, was uncovered because of mistakes very similar to the ones New Delhi made in the US and Canada, including using sloppy tactics and hiring untrained hitmen. It must be pointed out that the then ISI chief had raised Pakistan’s concerns regarding India’s cross-border killing campaign to CIA director William J. Burns in 2022, well before similar plots were uncovered in the US and Canada. Now that the Indian hand is clearly visible, there must be consequences. Any impunity in this regard for New Delhi cannot be countenanced. Whatever its reasons, the fact is that the Modi regime has been murdering people and needs to be stopped.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2025