Historically, the social development of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has never been a priority for the rulers despite the fact that these areas, bordering Afghanistan, have served the interests of international, regional and national players time and again.

Under the British rule, the areas were converted into a buffer zone to safeguard the interests of the jewel in the British crown -- that is, India. After the independence, successive Pakistani governments have maintained a so-called independent status for FATA for a host of reasons. None of the Pakistani regimes has ever considered developing the tribal areas in social terms. This has resulted in widening disparities between the tribal and settled parts of the country, for instance, regarding access to basic amenities of life.

But changes in international politics after 9/11 are forcing the government as well as donors and lending agencies to allocate more money for the development of infrastructure in the tribal area. In the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the outgoing fiscal year (2005-06), allocation for FATA had swelled to Rs 5.1 billion. This money was in addition to the one allocated for the tribal areas under foreign funded projects. Compared to this, FATA's development budget was only Rs 1.5 billion in 2000-01.

Also, this time round the speed of implementing development projects in FATA is electric. Agencies responsible for the uplift of tribal areas are almost in the final stages of devising an ambitious ADP for 2006-07, though the fiscal year has hardly started.

Officials involved in the preparation of development plan say the money to be allocated under the current fiscal year (2006-07) will be in the range of Rs 6.5 billion, Rs 1.5 billion higher than the allocation for the outgoing fiscal year (2005-06).

The budgetary allocation, these officials claim, will reach Rs 10 billion by 2008-09 in line with President General Pervez Musharraf's announcement he had made while addressing a tribal jirga at the sprawling lawn of the Governor's House in Peshawar few months ago.

Covering a total area of 27,220 square kilometres, with a population of 3.1 million living in seven agencies and six frontier regions (FRs), the tribal areas offer a unique development challenge because of their mountainous terrain, geo-strategic location and socio-economic peculiarities.

Observers believe FATA's development requires drastic changes in the thinking of the policy makers. The only way to make it possible is to make it demand-driven with active participation of the community. This, so far, has been the major missing link in the uplift strategy of the government, they say.

"Announcing huge developmental budgets should help in mitigating the deep-rooted backwardness and innate poverty of the tribal belt but to realise these goals more needs to be done than making money available. Current development strategies and plans do not fulfill the needs of communities in FATA. If the administration keeps up its old practice of obliging its blue-eyed boys, the maliks (tribal elders), by letting them decide on uplift projects without giving priority to the voice of local communities, nothing can improve. This must be changed now," says Naveed Shinwari, chief executive of the community appraisal and motivation programme (CAMP), an NGO working in FATA.

But some legal issues may need to be tackled first, even if the government decides to take the community into confidence regarding development plans and projects. Land settlement in most of the tribal areas is a long-standing issue. Since the British rule, tribes or clans hold the right of ownership of lands. The state has limited role in the transfer of property. This century-old system sometimes leaves the government agencies at the mercy of the maliks. The maliks, being the heads of the tribes and the clans, provide land for development projects. This make them eligible for the few government jobs that the these projects provides, leaving all the rest of the FATA population high and dry.

The other issue is ineffective monitoring and evaluation of development projects. This has in the past resulted in a number of abandoned public buildings in every tribal agency, causing wastage of precious resources. Hundreds of buildings constructed in the tribal areas either for housing a school, a hospital or a vocational center have not been put to the use they were built for. Owing to a lack of proper check and balance in the execution of development projects, it's likely that more money gets spent on building facilities which provide no service.

Naveed Shinwari says he has found out 1,13 girls primary schools in Mohmand Agency alone. But most of them, he says, were in dilapidated condition and there was no teaching staff there as well. Situation at the Agency Headquarter Hospital was no different where patients were provided no facilities, though the hospital had a huge operational and maintenance budget.

"FATA, in many areas, has better infrastructure than the settled areas have. But the only thing is its effective operationalisation to keep the facilities in running condition. This can be achieved only through community participation," Shinwari remarks.

He believes the integration of FATA with settled areas, introduction of major changes in the governance structure of the tribal areas and community involvement through its genuine leadership are the ways to put the tribal areas on the track of development.

This highlights the importance of political changes in FATA. One important step in this direction was the formation of agency councils by former NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain for every agency. Half of the members of these councils are elected, while the other half is nominated by the political administration headed by political agent. Election of agency councilors is a big step forward in empowering common tribesmen through their elected representatives.

Some things still need to be fixed, though. For the last two years, agency councilors have been demanding that they be given their rights as prescribed by the government at the time of the formation of the councils.

"Agency councilors are better aware of the problems and needs of a tribal area than a bureaucrat. So their advice should be given due importance," says Malik Waris Khan Afridi, an agency councilor from the Khyber Agency.

He says, like him, almost all agency councilors sent development plans for their respective agencies to the government some two years ago. "But these proposals are not given priority. The government agencies continue to design and formulate development plans without giving public opinion due weightage."

Afridi, who is also a recognised malik, admits that some of the tribal elders may be misusing their position for personal gains. But he also believes that it can be contained through effective monitoring.

Independent analysts consider the absence of true tribal leadership in policy making as a major obstruction in achieving sustainable development in the tribal areas.

Sang-e-Marjan, a former bureaucrat, believes maliks might have represented their tribes in the past but now this powerful channel of communication between the political administration and the tribal people has become ineffective.

"For accommodating the voice of common tribesmen in policies or strategies, the government should share power with tribal elders by strengthening the agency councils through the true tribal leadership. It will create a sense of ownership towards development projects at the local level," Marjan observes.

He also believes a FATA council comprising all the elected representatives of the areas -- like the members of the National Assembly, Senators and agency councilors -- can assume the role of an advisory body for designing development plans and strategies for FATA.

Lack of capacity at the project implementing agencies is also a major constraint in the development of tribal areas. In the absence of professional expertise and trained personnel for the job, political authorities are left to look after development projects in addition to their routine administrative duties.

To over come the problem, the government created a FATA Secretariat. Its basic mandate was to deal with the ongoing reform process in the tribal areas in an institutionalised way. Its creation was also aimed at improving the working of the government departments in the field. One of the basic ideas behind the creation of the secretariat was to evolve better coordination among the departments. Still little progress has been made to achieve this objective, ultimately hampering the development process in the tribal areas.

"FATA Secretariat is simultaneously corresponding with the Prime Minister's Secretariat, the President's Secretariat, federal ministry responsible for FATA, the provincial government in NWFP and the international donor agencies. This is causing muddle and confusion. None of the entities listed above, therefore, can have a true understanding of what's being done by the secretariat and its future plans for developing the tribal areas," says an official, asking not to be named.

But the problems of FATA secretariat go deeper than that because most of its staff positions are yet to be regularised. The secretariat is, in fact, functioning without any rules for carrying out its business.

Lack of coordination among government departments and donor agencies is sometime causing duplication of work and wastage of resources. It is also resulting in financial and administrative complications.

Officials with experience of serving in the tribal areas believe that evolving close working relation and effective coordination among government departments and other partner institutions should be one of the purposes of reform initiatives that currently are under way.

A senior official at the FATA Secretariat, without wanting to be named, says strengthening the institutions in tribal areas is one of the major goals of the reform process. A FATA Development Agency is, therefore, being established for the effective implementation of the development project.

The 1284-kilometer Silk Route linking Islamabad with the Chinese province Kashgar, a stunning thoroughfare winding through the huge mountain ranges of the Himalayas, Karakorams and Pamirs, is one of the greatest wonders of the world. The route, also known as Karakoram Highway or KKH, first opened for traffic in 1970. It is an incredible feat of engineering for which 810 Pakistanis and 82 Chinese engineers sacrificed their lives at the time of its construction through one of the world's most difficult terrain. The almost 1300 kilometer journey on KKH starts from Hassan Abdal through Haripur, Abbotabad, Mansehra, Battagram, Kohistan and then enters the Northern Areas, running through Gilgit and Hunza valleys and leading towards the neighbouring Xinjiang province in China.

President Pervez Musharraf, while he hailed KKH for what it is -- the Eighth Wonder of the world -- believes there is more to add to its beauty. "We are capable of creating the 9th and 10th wonders in the form of railway and (energy) pipeline linkages between Pakistan and China," he said inaugurating the state of the art Pakistan-China Dry Port, set up at more than 10,000 feet above sea level at Sust, 87 kilometers from Khunjerab Pass and 455 kilometers from Chinese city of Kashghar.

The port, spread over 201 kanals of land, will help Pakistan become a trade and energy corridor for China as well as landlocked Central Asian countries. It will provide China with the shortest access to the world markets through Pakistan's deep-sea ports. The dry port initially has the capacity to handle 40 Chinese containers a day but its capacity will increase to 400 containers per day in the near future. This silk route dry port currently generates Rs 714 million every year in customs and import duties. Through Sust, Pakistan imports Chinese goods worth Rs 2.4 billion and exports its own goods amounting to Rs 180 million to China.

Pakistan's imports include auto parts, watches, toys, crockery, fruits and garments among other things while our exports consist of cotton, cloth, dry fruit, dates and leather goods. The two countries will issue 3000 permits each to their registered transporters to carry goods between them. Each permit will be valid for one-round trip but the number of permits will be gradually increased as per demand.

The Chinese custom point, located on the other side of the border and first inaugurated in 1982, normally remains open to goods and passengers from May 1 to December 31. During the remaining months, the area is covered with thick layer of snow. The opening of the post this year, however, was further delayed due to a harsher than usual winter.

By inaugurating the dry port, jointly constructed by the two countries, Pakistan hopes the facility will boost bilateral trade to new levels and facilitate the realisation of Pakistan's potential as the hub of intra-regional trade. "This landmark project is poised to impart further depth and strength to Pakistan-China economic and political ties as well as help expand Pakistan's commerce linkages with the regional countries including Central Asian states. The Sust Port will not only enhance trade and economic linkages between Pakistan and China through increased co-operation, it will also help forge deeper links between their people," said President Musharraf.

Besides, bridging Pakistan and China closer together, the dry port is likely to increase local trade activities and thereby improve the economic conditions of Northern Areas. It was not for nothing that President Musharraf highlighted this aspect in his inaugural address. "I am sure the construction of Bhasha-Diamer dam, the widening of KKH, and commencement of services at Sust Dry Port will accrue tremendous gains for the local people and will bring them at par with the developed parts of the country."

"The trading activity will multiply with the commencement of the new dry port facility and the revenue generation (from the dry port) will reach Rs 20 billion per annum," assesses Deputy Chief Executive of Northern Areas, Ghazanfar Ali Khan. He says the government should pay attention to some of the special problems faced by local people for their rapid economic growth. Some of the measures he suggests include facilitating Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the provision of agricultural loans.

Exporters and importers are also happy with the new facility, saying it will minimise the cost and time of their shipments. "It will not only improve the relations between the traders community of both the countries but will also curb the smuggling. It will also offer a lot of job opportunities for the locals," says Ziaul Haq Sarhadi the chairman of a standing committee on the dry port set up by the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industries. In the absence of the dry port, exporters and importers had to transport their goods through sea via Karachi which meant a much longer route and heavier costs of transportation.

Zia demands for expediting the work on railway track from Abbotabad to Kashghar which, he says, will further improve trade ties between the two countries.

Some industrialists and businessmen fear that the opening of the dry port will further increase the flow of Chinese goods into Pakistan, already flooded cheap imports from China, from toys, clothes, vegetables and fruits to electronics.

But the influx of Chinese goods into the local markets has forced local companies to reduce their prices. The consumers are over the moon.

Pakistan and China have also started a passenger bus service on June 15 to link Gilgit with Kashghar, to give more opportunities to their criticizes to see with each other. Besides tourists, traders and exporters will be able to take the 16-hour, 550-kilometers long journey through the picturesque Silk Route across the border three times a week. A decision has also been made for launching a bus service between the two bordering towns, Sust and Tashugran, on daily basis.

"The response here is overwhelming, it is beyond our expectations," says Zafar Iqbal, an official of the Northern Areas Transport Company.

Every art exhibition, which opens in Lahore, leads to a fresh round of skirmishes between the artists and critics. Much of it is fueled by the disagreement over how does art communicate. Some critics expect art to communicate to us instantly and directly, in a manner an essay or a newspaper article does. They assume it to be an act of communication comparable to an act of speech or writing.

These expectation and assumptions reflect a conflation of two communication activities, which are anything but similar. The point of the article is to identify the different nature of communication process at work: in words and in images. Let's take written/verbal communication first.

Every non-visual communication act, be it verbal or non-verbal, involves a medium through which it carries a message and delivers it to a receiver in time and space. An act of writing or speech contains an argument. An argument carries a message and delivers it to a receiver in a certain amount of time, through the medium of writing or speech. (A dense argument may take more time to deliver).

Two things should happen if a message is to be delivered effectively. The message should lose its utility once it has reached the receiver (otherwise it may involve the risk of non-communication). Second, different receivers should get the same message, if a proper communication is to occur.

The present article, for instance, is an act of communication. It contains an argument (a message), expressed through writing (a medium) to be delivered to the readers (receiver) in a certain amount of time. Ideally speaking, in order for an effective communication to take place, the argument should be understood by all readers equally well, without leaving any room for conflicting interpretation. Moreover, once it has reached to the readers, this argument should run out its utility and may lead to another argument or counter argument. This is how we communicate through words in daily lives.

An essential feature of an effective verbal or written communication is linearity. Ideally, a speech or writing act is linear and unfolds over time in a straight line. It starts from a point A and moves along a uni-linear progression (of ideas and concepts) to conclude at a point Z in time. It is because of the linear nature of intellectual activity that even an entire book of 1000 pages can be described in a series of schematic statements.

The structure and character of written or spoken communication can now be contrasted with art or visual communication. The prevailing confusion about what an art objects says lies precisely in the fact that it is not comparable to a speech or written act of communication. If we try to understand or read a work of art as an act of writing containing a specific message, we will end up in frustration. The reason lies in the fact that aesthetic communication leaves the sphere of rational discourse and enters into the realm of untheorised experience and feelings. The fabric of art is the province of subjective feelings, which lends itself to formulation through images.

The art or aesthetic communication is an on-going process. It does not start or stop at definite points. It neither contains an essential message intended by the artist, to be communicated to the spectator nor the message will be finished once the communication act is over. The great works of art never finish to communicate to the viewer. Theoretically speaking, a masterpiece should let you discover new meanings and messages every time you look at it. It is mainly because of the open-ended nature of the aesthetic communication that generation after generations can live off the aesthetic experiences of great works of arts, without losing their capacity to generate new messages.

Given these contrasting features of aesthetic communication and non-aesthetic communication, one can begin to understand the conflicting views held by artists and critics. The former tends to see their work as a part of on-going aesthetic experience and later see it as a product of finished intellectual message. A 'structure of intelligent dialogue' between critic and artist, can only be established if the fundamental differences between the two communication acts are placed in their respective contexts. Other social explanations, including curbs on critical thinking in our society, of course, reinforce and split this divide further.

Globalisation has led to increased growth and an enormous amount of new wealth, but the redistribution of this wealth is highly uneven and there is a widening gap between the poor South and the rich North, with large groups in the South living in extreme poverty. Labour migration and brain drain follow the money routes, including through illegal people trafficking and smuggling. In 2005, it was estimated that there were 175 million migrants in the world.

Refugees and other forced migrants are estimated to be 50 million, with half of them being internally displaced persons (IDPs). Almost 15 million refugees live in camps, including 4.5 million Palestinians who live in countries surrounding their homeland. The United Nations Refugee agency UNHCR assists only a fraction of these needy people.

Many refugee situations are protracted and last for more than five years. On average, refugees are displaced for well over ten years -- some for even decades, like the Afghan refugees who mainly live in Pakistan and Iran, and the Palestinians whose case has not been solved in two generations. Recently, almost three million Afghan refugees have returned home from Pakistan but almost as many of them still reside in Pakistan, though not all of them are refugees.

It took Europe 20 years to find permanent placement for its refugees after the Second World War, and the High Commissioner for Refugees at the end of that era said that it was a "black spot on the conscience of Europe to have people in refugee camps".

Let it be added that in some cases, especially in Africa and some places in Asia, it can be better to live in a camp than to be an urban refugee. But the situation is in any case not sustainable. It doesn't offer hope for normalcy and prosperity. It is certainly not out of choice that people live like this; it is rather out of desperation.

Refugees have become less important in the eyes of the international community than they were during the Cold War. Today, we seem to have lost some of the compassion for displaced people, and we see refugees less as an asset and more as a burden, and sometimes also as a security risk. We suspect them as people seeking better lives abroad rather than being those forced to leave their home countries. This is especially significant in regions where the neighbouring countries have huge differences in living standards and opportunities, such as Mexico/Central America and Sub-Saharan Africa on the one hand and the United States and Europe on the other.

We have not yet developed systems for free but regularised migration flows. Capital, goods, and production plants can move freely, and to a large extent educated manpower, too, but not ordinary people. In earlier generations they could. That was how America, Canada, Australia and the far north of Europe were populated.

At the same time, some civil wars and internal conflicts are forgotten, such as the many conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We have recently been reminded of the unresolved situation in Somalia, where fierce internal fighting has led to an Islamist militia taking over. The North-South conflict in Sudan seems to have been settled with a fragile peace agreement in place, but some five million people displaced displaced by this conflict still need to find permanent settlement. The country's Darfur region is in the news but the international community has not yet found solutions to provide the urgently needed humanitarian and security help to avoid further genocide there.

It is hoped that the G-8 Summit in St Petersburg, Russia, over the weekend will seek to address these monumental crises, and also others not mentioned here. The main reason why the leaders of the eight most industrialised nations take urgent steps to tackle the situation is that the volume of development and humanitarian aid is not growing. Large industrialised countries only give 0.2-0.4 per cent of their economic output in development aid, whereas the UN several decades ago agreed that the rich countries would give at least 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product in aid.

We should remember that only 15 per cent of all the people living in the world are the citizens of the rich countries and that no less than 20 million deaths annually can be directly related to poverty. Two thirds of the world's poor struggle along, many on a dollar or two a day.

It can be useful to remember that the rich in the North often have common interests with the rich in the South and, similarly, the poor also have common interests worldwide.

The aid is also becoming more bilateral -- the donors and the recipients preferring to deal with each other on one-on-one basis. This leads to weakening of the United Nations and the other multilateral and inter-governmental organisations, including the controversial World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the regional development banks.

The United Nations, with its many and ever increasing number of specialised agencies and programmes, and also the finance institutions, were established to increase security and avoid wars in the world, improve cooperation among countries, reduce poverty and make it possible for everyone to live dignified lives in reasonable comfort, with access to basic education, health services, the right to free assembly and speech. Developing equality, prosperity and dialogue among people -- but perhaps most importantly generating hope for a better future -- are where the key can be found to reach a safer world for everyone. Simple as this may sound, every mother and many fathers and schoolteachers know this is the only way to reduce local and international terrorism, wars and other violent conflicts. Thus, the 'war on terrorism' will be won by peaceful means, not 'by a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye'.

These were also the ideals when the United Nations and other organisations for security, humanitarian aid and development cooperation were established after the Second World War. Unesco, for example, was established in order for people to come closer together, to work together, to get to know each other, and through that, it was hoped that conflicts of the type of the Second World War would never happen again.

Now, more than 60 years down the road, we have seen many improvements in our world, but, sadly, we have also seen hundreds of wars and conflicts. Let us celebrate some of the achievements first: Colonialism is gone, the shameful era of institutionalised apartheid is over, and huge numbers of people have achieved better living standards and social services, especially in the West and in middle-level income countries. It is also true that the an increasing number of countries is following the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, though it has suffered some setbacks after 9/11. The international development aid has also done a lot of good in the Third World.

But there have also been major failures, such as the World Bank's so-called structural adjustment programmes, which often destroyed poor countries' fragile health and education systems, especially in Africa, until the Bank itself abolished its disastrous experiments. But before they were given up, many people had already lost the battle for a dignified life. It is possible that the Bank's 'ideas' were good but were not matched with large enough funds to take care of their social consequences.

The development aid has also not lived up to its promise. Though it is often disbursed with good intentions, its poor implementation and control procedures and lack of competence and anthropological understanding on the part of the donor agencies and their 'experts' make its real impact rather suspect.

The development aid has not been able to make the massive changes we were told it would and its volume has remained quite modest considering the huge requirements. If we hear figures in millions or billions of dollars we may be lured to think the world has a lot of aid to tackle, but if we compare these figures with the budgets of the rich countries, they indeed become 'crumbles from the rich man's table'. (For instance, Norway's total development aid to Tanzania is equal to the budget of the University of Oslo.) Most of the poor people never get to hear about development aid and new projects that it brings along, let alone see any concrete effects accruing from them.

Still, a case can be made for massive increase in development aid and money transfers from the North to the South, as the 2005 edition of the G-8 Summit did. Simultaneously, there is also a huge need for developing new procedures for its implementation as much as donor countries are required to allow participation to the recipients in the process so that better results can be achieved.

Given that fact that corrupt states and governments in the poor countries cannot be relied upon to handle taxation system, private and foreign investment and other economic policies in a way that they provide for universal education and other social services for all their citizens. Therefore, money transfers to these countries need mainly to be in form of development aid.

The development aid actually began with the United States investing heavily in rebuilding Western Europe after the Second World War under Marshall Plan. Through this plan, Europe was tied to America's economic and ideological system and served as a market for the American goods. In the absence of the aid from the United States, some Western European countries could have drifted closer to the Soviet Union.

The aid to the Third World countries followed the Marshall Plan in Europe. In hindsight, development aid was partly a replacement of colonialism. It was often provided as credits with conditions, and not always as grants. Through this, former colonies remained tied to the stronger economic powers, usually their former colonial masters.

At the same time there was the Cold War, with competition between the West and the East block for influence all over the world, each competing in tying poorer countries, mostly Third World countries. This continued until the Soviet Union fell apart fifteen years ago.

At present, the West's influence has become all the more indirect, including through the system of multi- and bilateral organisations like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group. Perhaps it is safe to say that these institutions will do what is good for the poor countries only if it is also good for the rich countries. It's a fact that international institutions were set up by the West even before most of Africa, for instance, could win independence. The West, besides deciding on who will replenish the coffers of these financial institutions and by how much, had also established international business rules then. These institutions were mandated to operate parallel to the United Nations' development aid system for reasons which are not easy to justify. So, in a way their role was more or less cut out for them from the word go. But what about forums like WTO? Though almost all the countries and key international institutions are included in the organisation, many developing and under-developed countries enjoy little power in it.

Though is great uproar over the need for the United Nations to restructure, so far no concerted effort has been launched to revamp and reform the international financial institutions, which sometimes are called the Bretton Woods institutions, named after the resort where they were set up on America's rich east coast?

It would have been great if the G-8 Summit now under way had begun discussing some major reforms of those institutions. The summit could have set the ball rolling for abolishing some of them altogether, instead giving the United Nations, including its development forums and programmes, more power over policies.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the rich countries were discussing what is called a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Under this order, they used to work for fair trade internationally, though it was then logical and necessary for them to work on it from their own perspective. Then they abandoned these efforts. Fair trade isn't likely to be discussed at the G-8 Summit going on now, but in some years, it will force its way back on the global agenda.

It also doesn't help the poor countries that most of them have corrupt regimes, with little transparency, democratic control, and redistribution of resources internally. However, in an increasing number of countries, people can at least voice their concerns through a freer press and other media. The Internet and other technological advances have changed the free flow of information in a way, which was unthinkable a few decades ago. There is still some hope left for positive developments.

It helps to remember that it is still the West that has the upper hand in all international trade and other matters, led by the only superpower left, the United States. In the course of the next decades or so, China, India and some Latin American countries may gain some ground and become more influential globally. Though geo-political strength is important and should possibly precede economic strength -- otherwise the rich and the powerful countries will keep taking advantage of their rising but still poor counterparts -- The emerging economies will also have to improve their own people's standards of living. All economic development should boil down to how well people live in a country. Given today's abundance of wealth, this can be possible even in the poorest countries of the world simply by ensuring that the economic pie not only grows but is divided equitably both among and within countries.

The next decades are likely to be Asia's decades and also Latin America's decades -- that is, if the West permits them to go on which it may do only if it also sees self-interests in the form of increased markets and avenues for spreading its economic and ideological influence. But none of the 'newcomers' should make too much a mess in 'reaching the warm waters' of the Persian Gulf and controlling oil and gas resources there. Otherwise, global conflict will be endemic not just because there will be simultaneously more contenders for international leadership than the history has ever seen.

If we spend less on weapons and wars, we can easily have enough funds for development and reduction and abolition of poverty. I hope that good people like Bob Geldof, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and many other individuals and groups will continue their efforts in doing good in development aid. Given huge piles of wealth lying with the rich countries, it is in a way strange that the world has to rely on these people and groups but if they have the money and desire, they should be welcome to contribute. They have the status and popular appeal and they have or can mobilise funds, sometimes larger than what governments can do. All these advantages notwithstanding, the private sector cannot take the lead in policy issues. It is so far the prerogative of the governments.

In this the rich countries' governments have a major role to play, along with those of the poor countries, the United Nations, other inter-governmental organisations, the civil society and the private sector.

Those who will probably be more powerful and can force governments to change will be peaceful interest organisations and movements, which allow people in the South and the North to join hands in the struggle for a just and safe world for all. This is also the only way to win the struggle against terrorism and hopelessness. The first step is to make sure that there is universal primary education -- including literacy and civic education -- so that the downtrodden people can have the basic tools to fight for their interests -- or put positively -- so that we can create a world where people's potentials can be put to individual and common benefits.

But this struggle only our children and grandchildren will carry out. The rest of us are too set in old-fashioned mindsets and thinking that belong to Europe is belonging to 'old world' and belonging to America is belonging to 'new world'. We rather need to belong to 'the whole world'. The West must be part of shaping this 'whole world' because many of the institutions and values that the West and other countries have fought hard for are major human achievements. For instance, labour movements, women's movements, various religious movements have all fought and given us universal (or close to universal) rights and values, which are essential for everyone worldwide.

I hope G-8 leaders had time to discuss some of these issues in St Petersburg. But even if they didn't this time, I hope that our children and grandchildren will not only be interested in material comfort and own career developments but that they will also help those who are poorer than they are in their own neighbourhoods and globally. (Unfortunately, a good number of today's young adults, and some of them will be tomorrow's leaders, are more selfish than their parents. Hence, my insistence on children and grandchildren!)

If G-8 leaders want a just world, and probably they do, I don't think they have the institutions to implement this visions. In fact, they don't quite have the mindset to understand the problems involved. But St Petersburg is not the last venue for them to meet. Perhaps in the coming summits they will be hit upon a formula for doing just that -- creating a fair world order.

Deal that solves nothing

The lobbying by the Indian community in the United States on the US-India nuclear deal is heating up as the summer goes on. Unfortunately, it is a case of effort and energy misspent.

Some of the exertion to get the deal passed by the US Congress is driven by seemingly rational considerations, such as a desire to get India off a dependency on fossil fuels like oil and coal. But the notion that nuclear power can help India do this has been demolished by experts such as M V Ramana, formerly at Princeton University and now with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development in Bangalore. "Nuclear power is an expensive, risky and unsustainable way to produce electricity," Ramana writes in a recent column for the Economic Times. "The deal with the US does not change this."

But for the Indians lobbying for the nuclear deal, this is slightly beside the point, since their effort is largely motivated by something else -- a craving to get India and the United States into a strategic partnership so that India is recognised as a major power on the global stage. This desire has been boosted by a flurry of recent coverage of India surrounding President Bush's India visit, which has put India on the cover of Time, Newsweek, The Economist, and Foreign Affairs in just the past few months.

Never mind that the US foreign policy establishment intends to use India as a junior partner to counter the rise of China, a line of thinking distilled in an April column in the Wall Street Journal by President Clinton's Defense Secretary William Cohen, in which he thus wrote of the two countries: "Perhaps, however, our greatest long-term confluence of strategic interest is shaping the positive emergence of China as a global power."

This doesn't matter to the Indian community in the US, which has been galvanised on the nuclear issue like rarely ever before. The Hindustan Times has jokingly referred to the community as "NRIs: Nuclear Rallying Indians."

"Now, we have the nuclear deal to unite us," businessman Arjun Bhagat is quoted as saying in another article in the Washington Times. "I have been contacting my own congressmen here in California, and I know many of my friends and colleagues are doing the same. The whole fight has brought out of the woodwork Indian-Americans who were never involved in politics at all."

I just throw my hands up in the air when I read about such misplaced zeal. That the Indian community in the United States thinks this to be the most important issue to focus on is nothing short of astonishing to me. So many inhabitants of India are literally facing life-and-death issues each day in their country, and I can only imagine the beneficial effects that such intense lobbying could have in giving these people a lifeline.

An April story in the New York Times pointed out that more than 100,000 Indian children die every year from measles "for want of a 15 cent vaccine." The Indian government is unable to carry out a vaccination drive due to a lack of resources. The Measles Partnership formed to globally combat the disease, which includes the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has raised a mere fraction of the money needed to help countries like India. What a service to humanity would it be for Indians to lobby Congress in the same way to increase US funding of this global initiative!

When I had a phone conversation with the spokesperson (who, for some reason, wanted to remain anonymous) of the US Indian Political Action Committee (USINPAC), the major group lobbying on the nuclear deal, she admitted that she was unaware of this calamity and that her organisation had not lobbied at all on this issue.

Let's take a better-known instance: India is now the home of the largest number of HIV-positive cases in the world, an amazing 5.7 million! Although funding for this tragedy, both from the US government and from private foundations such as the Gates Foundation, is better than for measles, it is nowhere near what is needed, given the staggering nature of the problem. To be fair to USINPAC, the organisation's spokesperson said that it had done extensive work in the past to get increased funding to combat the pandemic. But, she conceded, this issue had "been placed on the backburner," since USINPAC was too busy lobbying on the nuclear deal to currently pay attention to AIDS!

I have many times come across the inexplicable attachment in the Indian community to India's nuclear programme and have often borne the brunt of this. I've lost count of the number of times I've gotten into debates over the issue. At a supposedly progressive forum a couple of years ago organised to watch Anand Patwardhan's anti-nuclear documentary, War and Peace, I had the task of facilitating discussion about the film. When I criticised the Indian nuclear weapons programme, I was accused by some members of the audience of being an apologist for the US nuclear agenda, an allegation that made me want to laugh out loud, since anyone even remotely familiar with my writings or the magazine I work for would not say that. (Indeed, in the 1970s and the 1980s, The Progressive had such a marked stance in opposition to US nuclear weapons that some people thought it to be a magazine solely dedicated to the nuclear issue.)

This misbegotten pride among the Indian diaspora is in keeping with the misplaced nationalism that has been at the root of the Indian nuclear programme itself. Scholar George Perkovich's India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, a magisterial history of the Indian bomb, reveals the misallocated nationalist sentiments -- rather than real strategic considerations -- that have been at the heart of the programme since the late 1940s. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's statement soon after the 1998 tests that the bomb is "India's due, the right of one-sixth of humankind" is indicative of such feelings.

The Indian lobbying effort marches forward. Key committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have recently approved the deal, and both chambers of the Congress are probably going to put it to a full vote later in the summer. The Indian community will be exerting itself fully to ensure that the deal gets approved. One can only wish that all this energy were instead utilised in the service of something more worthy -- something that would actually have a positive impact on the everyday lives of people in India.

Amitabh Pal is the Managing Editor of an American magazine, The Progressive (www.progressive.org), a monthly political publication founded in 1909. This is his regular monthly column for Political Economy.

In the federal budget for 2006-07, government has levied a new Federal Excise Duty (CED) on cable television connection. The duty will be charged from every cable television subscriber at the monthly rate of Rs 25. A notification issued on the subject by the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) on June 5, 2006 states: "...the cable TV operator shall charge, collect and pay Federal excise duty on monthly basis through Federal excise return, which shall be deposited in the designated branch of the National Bank of Pakistan by the 14th day of the month following the month in which such services were provided or rendered". The CBR estimates that it will be able to collect Rs 500 million through this tax.

But the decision has created unrest, not so much among the subscribers as among the operators. They are taking out protest demonstrations against the decision and are also threatening to stop cable service if the government does not withdraw the duty. They think the tax is likely to have disastrous impact for the growing cable TV operations in the country. "It will not only cripple our operations but also force a large number of businesses to close down. It seems the CBR has taken this decision in bureaucratic ignorance which most of the time goes against the wishes of society," says Imran Nadeem, general secretary Pakistan Cable Operators Association.

Cable operators say that they do not have any objection against the tax but rather against the way it will be collected. "It should not be duty of cable operators to collect this tax," says Imran. He points out that collecting fees and taxes is not as easy as it appears. "Pakistan television, a government institution, has never been able to collect its licensing fee on its own. It now collects this fee through electricity bills." He wonders how, if at all, cable operators, will be able to force people to pay the duty.

Imran says most of the cable operators can't collect their own fee from subscribers till the end of a month. "We start our collection on the fifth day of every month and, in some cases, we have to pay three or four visits to a subscriber to collect our fee. This extends our collection drive till late in the month. How will we be able to deposit the excise duty by the 14th day of every month as the CBR notification requires?"

Others in his trade believe that the tax is based on false assumptions. They say official policy makers have taken Islamabad as a model for the whole country, though the reality is far from it. "In Islamabad, most cable subscribers pay Rs 300 per month whereas in Karachi almost 50 per cent of the subscribers pay just Rs 50 per month," says Khalid Araeen, a Karachi-based cable operator who is also the vice-chairman of Cable Operators Association of Pakistan. "Karachi has a total of almost 0.8 million subscribers. Only in two neighbourhoods -- Defence and Clifton -- they are paying Rs 200 to Rs 250 per month. In all the rest of the city, no subscriber is paying more than Rs 100 per month."

Araeen says it's not that cable TV operations are free of taxes. "Cable operators already are paying various taxes like annual licence renewal fee ranging from Rs 45,000 to Rs 400,000 for different categories to Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), a fee of Rs 24 per subscriber per year, 15 per cent federal excise duty on advertisements being aired on in house channels, and a No Objection Certificate (NOC) fee to local governments/societies/authorities along with payment to local electric supply corporations."

He says the CBR should have consulted all stakeholders before levying the duty, but they didn't. "They did not consult even PEMRA -- the regulator of the cable operators -- and the ministry of information."

Araeen says all these factors make it impossible for the cable operators to collect the duty on the government's behalf. "We have already informed Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani that if the duty is not withdrawn, we will be protesting against it in whatever way we can." The modes of protest include a partial closure -- for three to four hours -- of the service starting from tomorrow (Monday). "If it does not lead to a settlement, we can go for the complete closure of our operations."

PEMRA officials confirm that the CBR did not consult them before levying the duty. But they also say that they have taken up the issue with the CBR. "We have already written a letter to the chairman of the CBR," says Muhammad Saleem, PEMRA's spokesman. But he clarifies that fees being charged from the cable operators are not taxes but regulatory charges which are paid "all over the world" by cable TV operators.

The CBR, though, is firm that it will not withdraw the duty at all. Officials at the board say stakeholders are consulted nowhere in the world before levying any tax. "But we are following the rules. The matter was debated in the parliament and also by the economic committee of the cabinet," says Shahid Ahmed, member Sales Tax at the CBR.

He says cable operators should not have a problem because the duty is to be paid by their subscribers, who, according to him, do not have any issue with the duty. "Cable operators apprehend that the CBR is doing all this for documenting of their business. They should know that ultimately they will have to be part of the tax net," he tells The News on Sunday.

Shahid claims that the CBR already has complete data on the cable operators and their subscribers. "We know what they are getting from their subscribers. There is no area in Pakistan where cable operators are charging Rs 50 per month from their subscribers." Also, he asks, "if they can collect their own fee, why can't they collect the duty?"

The CBR official says that cable operations are not tax free anywhere in the world. "Though we should have levied the duty at the rate of 15 per cent of the cable operators' turnover, we have simplified the procedure to facilitate them," says Shahid.

Explaining the rationale for the duty, he says, "in fact, we want to bring services sector into the tax net." In the whole world, according to him, "this sector is one of the main tax paying sectors. "In Pakistan, telecommunication is the only part of the services sector paying enough taxes."

This hardly satisfies cable TV subscribers. "We are already paying Rs 25 every month through our electricity bill as the licence fee for owning a TV set," says Muhammad Khurram, a resident of Garhi Shahu, Lahore. "For those receiving Pakistan television's broadcasts through cable, the excise duty will amount to double taxation," he adds.

Media experts also strongly oppose the levying of the duty. "This tax discriminates against those seeking education and entertainment through the cable," says Dr Inam Bari who teaches mass communication at the Karachi University. Almost all these people come from the poor sections of the society, he says. "We already have very little opportunities of entertainment available in our country and the duty will make them inaccessible for even more people."

Bari says by levying the duty, the CBR is opening another door for corruption because there exists no authentic record of cable TV subscribers in Pakistan. "The cable TV industry is still learning how to walk on its feet. The duty will be a strong policy reversal for the sector and will be discouraging not only for the cable operators but also for investors wanting to launch satellite TV networks, advertisement industry and for the aspiring cable TV subscribers."

The government, in its current budget, has imposed 15 per cent Federal Excise Duty (FED) on air travel on all passengers departing from Pakistan. It has to be paid by anyone travelling by any of the airlines operating in Pakistan.

Initially, it was to come into effect, like all other taxation measures in the federal budget for 2006-2007, from July 1, 2006 and was to be levied even on tickets issued prior to this date for travel on and after it. But then the government deferred the duty for a month. Now, it will be effective from August 1, 2006.

According to a notification issued by the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) on June 5, 2006, "the provisions of these rules shall apply for collection and payment of excise duty by the aircraft operators in respect of passengers embarking on international journey from Pakistan including chartered flights. Hajj passengers, transit passengers and supernumerary crew shall be excluded from the scope of these rules."

The federal finance ministry claims that the duty on international travel is a move to tax the rich. The ministry also says the imposition of the duty on international air travel will bring it at par with domestic air travel where 15 per cent excise duty is already applicable. The levy is not applicable on the Haj fare/tickets because not all passengers going for Haj are rich, the ministry claims.

Not surprisingly, the imposition of the duty has become a source of major concern for the airlines operating in Pakistan. Raising their voice from the platform of Board of Airline Representatives in Pakistan (BARIP), they have termed the duty detrimental to the airlines industry in Pakistan.

BARIP comprises of representatives from Pakistan International Airlines, Emirates, Air France, Etihad Airways, Alitalia, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Gulf Air, Iran Air, Kenya Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Sri Lankan Airlines, Swiss International Airlines, Syrian Arab Airlines, Thai Airways International and Turkish Airways.

But so far their protestation has remained confined to releasing press statements. One such statement issued unanimously by BARIP members and provided to The News on Sunday reads: "The tax will not only adversely affect the already struggling tourism industry, it will also have a negative impact on the business community whose passengers will be left in a quandary over the application of the tax."

The tax, according to the airlines, is not just a financial burden on the passengers, it will add to procedural muddle at the country's airports. There will be great confusion, their statement says, when the excise duty will have to be calculated on the tickets issued outside of Pakistan and in currencies other than the rupee.

But this is not all. Other problems identified by BARIP include the calculation of the tax on fares which don't stay constant for long. The board says that airline fares are updated regularly -- based on market conditions and travel seasons -- which means the tax will have to be calculated for every single ticket issued, increasing the workload at airlines' offices.

The board also points out that it will be next to impossible for airport authorities to read tickets issued in Europe and the United States which carry special codes instead of the currency value of the ticket. The calculation and collection of 15 per cent excise duty on these tickets will not be possible without finding a way to read these tickets.

BARIP tells The News on Sunday that collection of tax from passengers coming into Pakistan will be illegal. According to International Air Transport Association, no passenger can be taxed after he has travelled one leg of his journey. "All airlines collecting the tax at the airports can face legal action by their customers," an official of the board says on the condition of anonymity.

BARIP, however, has little hope that the government will withdraw this tax. That's why it has urged the government to consider its suggestions and extend the date for the imposition of the tax. To this extent, the organisation has been successful, causing the government to defer the imposition by a month thereby "giving the airlines some time to work out the requisite logistics."

According to the BARIP statement, the board has also recommended that the amount of the excise duty is fixed rather than being a percentage of the value of the ticket to avoid confusion. "The duty should only be applicable only on ticket sales made in Pakistan," the statement reads.

Mian Naveed Aslam, a Lahore-based corporate lawyer, says the government finds it easy to tax services and products which are high in demand, like international travel. "People have to travel at any cost. Those who travel abroad for recreation are rich enough to pay these taxes whereas those employed oversees have the option to pass it on to their employers," he tells TNS.

Aslam says the CBR, in the current budget, has also taxed services like stock brokerage, bank pay orders and demand drafts, bills of exchange, transfers of money -- including telegraphic transfers, transfers through snail mail and electronic transfers -- bank lockers and debit cards.

Shahid Ahmed Member Sales Tax at the CBR tells TNS that the duty on air tickets has been imposed under the government's plan to gradually increase the share of the services sector in the tax revenue. "The duty will be charged only on the face value of an air ticket, excluding all taxes and fees already levied," he says.

Shahid also explains that the tax is not levied on the airlines. "It's rather levied on the passengers. The airlines will only be collecting it on the behalf of the government."

He says the imposition of the tax has been deferred for a month to avoid inconvenience to passengers who purchased their tickets for travel on or after July 1 before the tax was imposed. "We thought it would be better to give the airlines sufficient time to make their customers aware of the duty."

Shahid, however, does not buy the argument that the airlines industry is taxed quite heavily and will not be able to bear the brunt on the excise duty. "Taxes on air travel are airport tax and fuel charge tax (all applicable on passengers) and also their rates are very nominal."

He claims that the CBR will be able to generate Rs 4 billion from the duty, without making the air travel prohibitively costly. "Air tickets are much cheaper in Pakistan than anywhere else in the world," he says, and they will remain so even after the imposition of the duty.

Pakistan and the United States concluded a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) in June 2003. The agreement was meant to create a formal structure aimed at expanding the bilateral economic partnership between the two countries and promoting US investment in Pakistan. But more than three years after the agreement was concluded, there is still no news of when it will come into effect.

A Science and Technology Agreement concluded at the same time aimed at creating cooperation in these areas, especially in support of scientific exchanges. But there is also no news of when this agreement will come into effect, just as there is no news about the launching of a five-year trade capacity-building programme under the auspices of the US Commerce Department's Commercial Law Development Programme agreed at the same time as the TIFA.

Then Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz signed the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement on Pakistan's behalf. Speaking at the signing ceremony in Washington, Aziz said that Pakistan hoped the TIFA would eventually lead to a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries. There was, however, no promise from the US side to follow up on a Free Trade Agreement.

The question of when the TIFA will come into effect has continued to be the subject of discussions between Washington and Islamabad for the last three years. There were expectations in Islamabad that the issue would be resolved during US President George W Bush's visit to Pakistan earlier this year. But the negotiations failed to yield any result due to the fact that the US side wanted to impose conditions that Pakistani officials felt were too one-sided.

Even if the US agrees to modify these conditions to accommodate Pakistan's point of view, however, it is not clear just how the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement will work. Will it, for instance, facilitate greater access for Pakistani textile goods in the US market, or will such access be torpedoed by the American textile industry lobby, as has happened in the past?

The stated purpose of the agreement is to strengthen and enhance economic, trade and investment cooperation between the two countries. But will it progressively liberalise and promote trade in goods and services as well as create a transparent, liberal and facilitative investment regime?

Also, does the agreement provide a framework for exploring new areas and developing appropriate measures for closer economic cooperation between the two countries? If so, what will be the yardstick by which this closer economic cooperation will be measured? Will it be measured by an increase in Pakistani exports to the United States or by an increase in US exports to Pakistan?

One asks this question because an official US review of the Clinton administration's trade agenda stated that the United States had, in 1994, "concluded textile agreements with India and Pakistan, opening up these huge markets for the first time to US exports of textiles and clothing". The review made no mention of whether the agreements had also opened up the US market to Pakistani and Indian exports of textiles and clothing.

Will the 2003 Trade and Investment Framework Agreement aim at establishing an open and competitive investment regime that facilitates and promotes US investment in Pakistan? Will it allow the two countries to address their sensitive areas in goods, services and investment sectors on the principle of reciprocity and mutual benefits.

Expansion of economic cooperation between the two countries should complement the deepening of trade and investment links and the formulation of action plans and programmes aimed at giving concrete shape to the agreed areas of cooperation. The two countries should also establish appropriate mechanisms for the purpose of effective implementation of the agreement.

A paper written for the Third World Network by Chakarvarthi Raghavan pointed out that the gap between the major industrialised nations and the developing countries over trade and investment relationships and whether any multilateral disciplines are desirable remain unresolved. A World Trade Organization group working on this subject has only made a ‘factual report' and no recommendations.

The WTO Working Group on the Relationship between Trade and Investment (WGTI) was set up under a study programme initiated at the Singapore ministerial meeting in 1996, but discussions and exchange of information within the group has not narrowed down the basic differences.

At a meeting in 1999 the WGTI discussed a paper by South Korea which suggested "a realistic approach" to a multilateral framework on investment based on an optimal standard of protection for foreign investments and a bottoms-up approach to liberalisation.

As Raghavan noted, the South Korean paper spoke of a 'globalisation' school and an 'internalisation' school in regard to foreign direct investment -- with the former viewing a multilateral framework on investment (MFI) as promoting and accelerating free flows of investment at the global level, and the latter believing in minimising external interventions in setting national regulations and reserving maximum rights for governments to take action. In the South Korean view, any MFI would need to reflect different realities of countries.

While the EU and Japan welcomed the Korean initiative, a number of developing countries -- India, the ASEAN, Pakistan and Egypt among others -- spoke against it very critically. These latter countries said they were not convinced about the need to have an MFI, and said that the approach of bilateral investment treaties gave them the necessary flexibility to address national development problems and issues.

Papers presented by India questioned the view that liberalisation of foreign investments leads to transfer of technology or development.

It is not clear whether the agreement between Pakistan and the US will lead to greater technology transfer from the US to Pakistan, or whether Pakistan will continue to be shut out of this process. The US's track record in this regard is not encouraging.

In the context of the Pakistan-US Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, one of the questions that needs to be answered is whether the agreement will have the force of a permanent Bilateral Investment Treaty, or whether it will be something more transitory and subject to chopping and changing, or even cancellation. Only a treaty can provide the long-term framework needed to promote substantial levels of US investment in Pakistan.

One of most celebrated documentary filmmakers from South Asia, Bombay-born Anand Patwardhan is dubbed in the United States as the Michael Moore of India.

He studied at the Cathedral and John Connon School, completed a BA in English literature from the Bombay University in 1970, and did another BA in Sociology from Brandeis University before doing his MA in Communications from the McGill University in 1982.

Anand Patwardhan participated in the anti-Vietnam War movement in 1970-1972; worked as a volunteer in Caesar Chavez's United Farm Workers Union in 1972; took part in Kishore Bharati, a rural development and education project in Central India in 1972-1974; and has been an active member of other movements for civil liberties and democratic rights.

Unfazed by the efforts to censor his work at home, Anand Patwardhan continues his nearly 30-year career of making poignant and often controversial documentary films about issues such as the nuclearisation, religious violence and environmental threats. His critically acclaimed film War and Peace claimed top honours at Kara Film Festival 2003.

He was in Karachi recently to participate in a workshop organised by the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA). An afternoon before his departure, he candidly spoke to The News on Sunday about his conviction in non-violence and the art of documentary film-making. Excerpts follow:

The News on Sunday: Do you think that non-violence can still serve as a means to resisting tyranny and justice in the 21st century?

Anand Patwardhan: I don't have any prediction about future. The question of whether it is going to succeed is not what I am looking at. I think violent struggles have rarely actually succeeded and have more often than not created problems of their own. Even in situations of great injustice, like the oppression of the Palestinians by Israel, the non-violent path has been more effective than the violent one. When the Palestinians were pelting stones at the Israeli tanks during their first Intifada, though a few lost their lives, the world's sympathies were totally with the Palestinians and Israel was seen as a clear aggressor.

Today Israel is a worse aggressor but the world doesn't perceive it like that because of the whole intervening period of human bombs and suicide attacks by the Palestinians on the Israeli civilians. That has clouded the picture and the world sympathy is now divided.

So I think an expressive non-violent movement has a greater chance of moving forward and a greater chance of maintaining democracy within its own ranks (than a violent one). Once you choose the military path or an armed struggle, two things immediately happen. All democracy goes out of the window because you can't have an armed struggle conducted democratically -- armed squads require a commander and an unquestioning loyal force. Power becomes centralised or degenerates into anarchy, secrecy increases and human rights get eroded.

Of course there are counter examples of success, for instance the armed Maoist movement in Nepal which overthrew the monarchy. I think it is an open question, whether that kind of mass support could have been mobilised on non-violent lines (as the Nepali Maoists have managed to gather) and (if it could have) worked even faster with a lesser loss of life.

TNS: As an activist and a film-maker, you must have witnessed a lot of helplessness and frustration. What is it that keeps you still going?

AP: I do get frustrated because over the last 30 years most of the films I made have been under-utilised in the sense that they have not been used to their maximum potential. Had they been shown on television in a proper way by any government that was genuinely interested in fighting communalism or so many of the other ills that these films depict, they would have been effective because a lot of people would have seen them.

Right now we have to fight at every step to get them shown. But to the extent that they are seen I can see the positive effect they have. That keeps me hopeful and keeps me doing the work I do.

TNS: How do you perceive aggressive nationalism as a bedrock for state formation?

AP: I think the jingoist variety of nationalism is a serious problem all over the world. Even in so-called advanced countries like America people are so insecure that they have to fly their American flags on their cars, houses and even wear them on their backsides. They are so insecure. It is pathetic to think that even in the 21st century (one has to do all this). We thought that human society would advance and this idea of nation would begin to recede. (But it hasn't.)

So I think obsessive nationalism is definitely a problem, as great as religious chauvinism. Both have caused war and hatred. I don't see, at this moment in time, an escape from the nation state. We are sadly not yet moving towards the ideal of a kind of federated world society.

Having cultural roots in India, I am an Indian in so many ways. When there is a cricket match I instinctively identify with the Indian players but my nationalism is not at the level of mindless pride in my country, (no matter) right or wrong. Ideologically I see myself first as a citizen of the world. The entire planet is in grave danger today under the evil axis of militarism and consumer madness. Even the religious terrorists that we so readily identify and blame were originally created by the same forces that are destroying our habitat.

TNS: What cinema do you recommend for ordinary folks?

AP: In fact most of the examples from Hollywood and Bollywood today are negative examples. I don't see a lot of very good material coming out from there. And that's for obvious reasons. They are corporate-controlled film industries driven by pure profit motives. The problem is that they have created an audience taste which actually enjoys violence and is excited by horror. A lot of Hollywood, even more than Bollywood, is totally dependent on ridiculous levels of violence and they do it for entertainment!

TNS: Do you think that a successful act of defiance in the modern world can be following in the footsteps of the Iranian cinema?

AP: Yes, they have made some brilliant films but these are not shown in our cinemas except at rare film festivals. That's the tragedy in Pakistan also. Pakistanis want to see Hollywood or Bollywood films, hardly anybody watches good cinema. It is not that the only good cinema comes from Iran, even our own older film-makers, before Bollywood became the Bollywood we know today, produced many gems -- films that fought against obscurantism and orthodoxy like Sant Tukaram, films against communalism like Padosi and Kabuliwalla, the egalitarian films of Mehboob Khan, the works of great filmmakers like Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray and others. I don't know much about older Pakistani films but I am sure if you look at films made in the 1950s and 1960s and perhaps even the 1970s you will find similar gems. It is our modern mainstream cinema that is in steep decline, serving up a lethal cocktail of violence, consumer-nationalism and consumer voyeurism.

TNS: What makes a documentary film different from journalism and a feature film?

AP: My kind of documentary filmmaking is a kind of extended news-gathering, but it is not news-gathering at the stage of current events. It is about real events, which are analysed over a long period of time. Typically my films take three-four years to make. So in three or four years we shoot, think about the issues, do research and edit.

TNS: What is the grammar of shooting and editing for a documentary filmmaker? Is it any different from the feature film?

AP: I shoot and edit my own films. Editing is where the structure of the film emerges. Of course, there is a storyline even in a documentary, but the storyline is not created first. I don't write a script before I make a film. It emerges from looking at the material and seeing what the material is saying, and then constructing it to tell the story as best as it can be told.

TNS: Do you think of your documentaries in terms of images?

AP: Not necessarily in images. For me, filmmaking is a documentation of the things that I have seen. I am not a cameraman's filmmaker. I don't sit with my tripod waiting for the perfect shot. It is rather spontaneous. You go out with your camera and get what you can get at a given moment, whatever the circumstances.

TNS: You have questioned Hollywood's historical documentation of every lash and gash heaped upon Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ though it still ends up with telling lies about the color of his skin?

AP: Yes, Jesus was born in the Middle-East. So, he obviously would have looked more like an Iraqi than a white man. Showing that would have been rather embarrassing! The torture of Jesus may have reminded people of Abu Gharib. Anyway it is not the first time that Jesus's race has been misrepresented. It is standard historical practice that Jesus is depicted as being white with blue eyes! Hollywood is merely reflecting the unconscious racism that prevails everywhere in the white world and in the world they still colonise.

TNS: Is there any conscious attempt on the part of Hollywood to shape up the future by churning out a peculiar kind of flicks?

AP: Yes, it is the case. They have made many films which justify American interventions in various parts of the world. A new crop of desert war films will come out (soon). Occasionally, after the Vietnam War, for instance, for a while they made some anti-war films. But that period was very short-lived. Soon after