Pakistani Hindu Women Ride High On Thar Development Wave
As the world celebrates the International Day of the Girl today, the Thar development boom is empowering Pakistani Hindu women with jobs in nontraditional occupations ranging from engineering to truck driving, according to multiple media reports. These pioneering women will hopefully be a source of inspiration for young girls.
Thar Development:
Thar, one of the least developed regions of Pakistan, is seeing unprecedented development activity in energy and infrastructure projects. New roads, airports and buildings are being built along with coal mines and power plants as part of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). There are construction workers and machinery visible everywhere in the desert. Among the key beneficiaries of this boom are Thari Hindu women who are being employed by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) as part of the plan to employ locals. Highlighted in recent news reports are two Hindu women in particular: Kiran Sadhwani, an engineer and Gulaban, a truck driver.
Thar Population:
The region has a population of 1.6 million. Most of the residents are cattle herders. Majority of them are Hindus. The area is home to 7 million cows, goats, sheep and camel. It provides more than half of the milk, meat and leather requirement of the province. Many residents live in poverty. They are vulnerable to recurring droughts. About a quarter of them live where the coal mines are being developed, according to a report in The Wire.
Some of them are now being employed in development projects. A recent report talked of an underground coal gasification pilot project near the town of Islamkot where "workers sourced from local communities rested their heads after long-hour shifts".
In the first phase, Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) is relocating 5 villages that are located in block II. SECMC is paying villagers for their homes and agricultural land.
SECMC’s chief executive officer, Shamsuddin Ahmed Shaikh, says his company "will construct model towns with all basic facilities including schools, healthcare, drinking water and filter plants and also allocate land for livestock grazing,” according to thethirdpole.net He says that the company is paying villagers above market prices for their land – Rs. 185,000 ($ 1,900) per acre.
Thar Development:
Thar, one of the least developed regions of Pakistan, is seeing unprecedented development activity in energy and infrastructure projects. New roads, airports and buildings are being built along with coal mines and power plants as part of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). There are construction workers and machinery visible everywhere in the desert. Among the key beneficiaries of this boom are Thari Hindu women who are being employed by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) as part of the plan to employ locals. Highlighted in recent news reports are two Hindu women in particular: Kiran Sadhwani, an engineer and Gulaban, a truck driver.
 |
| Kiran Sadhwani, a Thari Hindu Woman Engineer. Source: Express Tribune |
Thar Population:
 |
| Hindu Woman Truck Driver in Thar, Pakistan. Source: Reuters |
Some of them are now being employed in development projects. A recent report talked of an underground coal gasification pilot project near the town of Islamkot where "workers sourced from local communities rested their heads after long-hour shifts".
 |
| Hindu Woman Truck Driver in Thar, Pakistan. Source: Reuters |
In the first phase, Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) is relocating 5 villages that are located in block II. SECMC is paying villagers for their homes and agricultural land.
SECMC’s chief executive officer, Shamsuddin Ahmed Shaikh, says his company "will construct model towns with all basic facilities including schools, healthcare, drinking water and filter plants and also allocate land for livestock grazing,” according to thethirdpole.net He says that the company is paying villagers above market prices for their land – Rs. 185,000 ($ 1,900) per acre.
Hindu Women Employment:
Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), the largest contractor working in Thar desert coal project, has committed itself to hiring locals wherever possible.
When SECMC launched its Female Dump Truck Driver Program near the town of Islamkot in Thar, Kiran Sadhwani, a female engineer, visited several villages to motivate women to apply for the job and empower themselves, according to Express Tribune newspaper. “Not all women who are working as dumper drivers are poor or in dire need of money. It is just that they want to work and earn a living for themselves and improve the lives of their families,” she told the paper.
SEMC is hiring 30 women truck drivers for its Thar projects, according to Dawn newspaper.
Summary:
As the world celebrates the International Day of the Girl today, it's good to see the Thar development boom empowering Pakistani Hindu women with jobs in nontraditional occupations ranging from engineering to truck driving. These pioneering women will inspire and empower young girls to pursue their dreams in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world.
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Working Women Seeding a Silent Revolution in Pakistan
Thar Development Boom in Pakistan
Abundant, Cheap Coal Power for Pakistan
Fact-Checking Farahnaz Ispahani's Claims on Pakistani Minorities
Pakistani Hindu Population Fastest Growing in the World
Recurring Droughts in Pakistan
Thar Drought: Pre-cursor to Dust Bowl in Pakistan?
Campaign of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt About CPEC
Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), the largest contractor working in Thar desert coal project, has committed itself to hiring locals wherever possible.
When SECMC launched its Female Dump Truck Driver Program near the town of Islamkot in Thar, Kiran Sadhwani, a female engineer, visited several villages to motivate women to apply for the job and empower themselves, according to Express Tribune newspaper. “Not all women who are working as dumper drivers are poor or in dire need of money. It is just that they want to work and earn a living for themselves and improve the lives of their families,” she told the paper.
SEMC is hiring 30 women truck drivers for its Thar projects, according to Dawn newspaper.
Summary:
As the world celebrates the International Day of the Girl today, it's good to see the Thar development boom empowering Pakistani Hindu women with jobs in nontraditional occupations ranging from engineering to truck driving. These pioneering women will inspire and empower young girls to pursue their dreams in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world.
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Working Women Seeding a Silent Revolution in Pakistan
Thar Development Boom in Pakistan
Abundant, Cheap Coal Power for Pakistan
Fact-Checking Farahnaz Ispahani's Claims on Pakistani Minorities
Pakistani Hindu Population Fastest Growing in the World
Recurring Droughts in Pakistan
Thar Drought: Pre-cursor to Dust Bowl in Pakistan?
Campaign of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt About CPEC
Comments
https://www.brecorder.com/2017/12/30/389797/investment-of-4-5-billion-in-thar-is-very-significant-governor-sindh/
The Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair has said that the investment to the tune of dollars 4.5 billion in Thar is something very significant.
He was expressing his views at an interactive session on energy held at the Governor House here on Friday.
The Governor referred to the Thar coal reserves containing 175 billion tons and said that these would help meet country energy needs for a long time to come.
The coal would not only be used for the generation of energy but would also be for provision of basic needs to the residents of the area.
Zubair said that for the betterment of infrastructure 250- bed hospital as well as schools are also being built.
The government is taking every step so that the people of Thar could benefit from the natural resources of the area.
The Governor assured that the federal government would extend every cooperation for the welfare and betterment of the people of Thar.
He informed that generation of power from Thar coal would commence from the year 2019 and this will contribute towards prosperity in the area.
Zubair said that new avenues of development would also open in Thar.
The Chief Executive Officer of Sindh Engro Coal Mine, Shamsuddin Shaikh, said on the occasion that 76 percent of jobs in Thar have been provided to the local people.
He said that the time period of the project span over 42 months but it would be completed in 36 months.
He said that first phase of the project would be executed in 2019.
The company, he added, would also adopt all the schools in Thar.
The company required 500 drivers and intermediate pass youngsters were provided training and appointed as driver with the company at the monthly salary of Rs. 30,000.
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21736185-just-1-vast-reserve-discovered-1992-could-supply-fifth-countrys-current
PAKISTAN’s enormous mineral wealth has long lain untapped. Since a 1992 geological survey spotted one of the world’s largest coal reserves in Thar, a scrubby desert in the southern province of Sindh, prospectors have hardly dug up a lump. Among those to flounder is a national hero. Samar Mubarakmand, feted for his role in Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons programme, has just shut the coal-gasification company he founded in 2010, when he vowed on live television to crack Thar.
---
To such qualms, the government offers three rejoinders. First, severe power shortages have long blighted the nation, and renewable sources cannot offer the daylong, year-round power it needs. Second, coal accounts for less than 1% of current generation, compared with 70% in neighbouring India and China. And third, domestic coal would allow the country to forgo expensive imports of the fuel for newly built power stations, a drain on fast-dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.
---
Eight years ago Engro bought the rights to one of Thar’s 13 blocks, containing 1% of the reserve (more than enough given the gargantuan size of the mine). To work on extraction, it formed the country’s biggest ever public-private partnership, the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), in which Engro digs and the state provides infrastructure. Relying on the state can break strong firms. Engro itself almost went bankrupt in 2012 after the government refused to honour a sovereign guarantee to provide gas to one of its fertiliser plants. Yet without similar government support, no other Thar block-owners have secured financing, leaving Engro’s diggers, which began work last year, to move ahead.
The endeavour benefits from being in the group of infrastructure projects that make up the $62bn China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a hoped-for trade route. Western banks shook their heads when approached about a coal project, so Engro has relied on Chinese financing. Analysts note an irony in China’s promotion of coal abroad as it withdraws from the fuel at home. Handling the extraction at Thar is the China Machinery Engineering Corporation, a state-owned firm with expertise beyond Pakistan’s reach.
Around 126 metres below the sands of Thar, with just 20 more to go, Engro’s diggers can now almost touch their prize. When the coal is reached, as is expected in mid-2018, it will feed a pit-mouth power station constructed by Engro, and, in time, three others owned by partners in the SECMC. These stations will furnish around a fifth of the country’s electricity for the next 50 years. The financial rewards could be vast. “All my richest friends are jumping up and down [because they did not get there first]”, says the boss of one big multinational construction business.
Hurdles remain, not least complaints from nearby villagers about the disposal of the vast quantities of wastewater from the mine on their ancestral grazing lands in the form of a reservoir. In reply, Engro stresses its social work in the surrounding district of Tharparkar, the poorest in Sindh, which includes the construction of several free schools. More self-interestedly, it is training locals to drive so they can man the dump trucks that trundle day and night around the mine. According to Shamsuddin Shaikh, chief executive of Engro Powergen, the conglomerate’s energy division, Engro also has its sights on Reko Diq, a gargantuan and long-stalled copper mine in Balochistan, the least developed of Pakistan’s provinces. To tap one of the country’s two largest and most niggardly mines is hard enough. Imagine cracking them both.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/307505-thar-the-future-of-pakistan-by-senator-rehman-malik-sitara-e-shujaat-nishan-e-imtiaz
Population of Tharparkar district is around 1.65 million and Thar is spread over both sides of India and Pakistan where the life always remained hard because of the non-availability of sweet water.
The region derives its names from Thar and Parkar. The name Thar is from Thul, the general term for sand region or sand ridges and Parkar literary means “to cross over”. The region was earlier known as Thar and Parkar, later theses became one word, Thar and Parkar coined together and formed a beautiful name Tharparkar.
The people of Thar have been underfed because the area being desert has no reliable irrigation system. The lands, whatsoever, are irrigated on rainwater. Historically, Thar receives low pour but when it receives rains it makes the desert lush green where peacocks dance and sing making the scene most fascinating.
The water is drawn out from deep water wells but that water also contains highest volume of TDH.
The people of Thar used to face various health hazard problems such as waterborne diseases, inadequate health facilities, famine and lack of basic infrastructure. Apart from it, poverty, population growth, lack of clean drinking water, unemployment and high illiteracy had trapped Tharparkar in a state of catastrophe. Therefore, people used to migrate from Thar to revering area to save them and their cattle and those who fail to migrate used to lose their dear ones and cattle, the only source of their livelihood.
Crop failure due to low rainfall, coupled with loss of small animals has greatly reduced the impoverished communities’ purchasing power. Poverty is endemic in the sparsely populated district with acute malnutrition rates in children as high as 20 per cent, well above the emergency threshold of 15 per cent.
The biggest reason perhaps of disease and death in Tharparkar is malnourishment of its mother. It is no secret that Thar people do not have access to clean water, health facilities or food because of which mothers in Tharparkar give births while their hemoglobin level is as low as four.
Death is a regular visitor at the doors of Tharparkar’s mothers. More than 190 children have died and 22,000 have been hospitalized in Tharparkar district in 2016 because of drought-related waterborne and viral diseases. Tharparkar is facing severe drought for the fourth consecutive year, and access to health services is reported to be very difficult, with families travelling an average distance of 17 km to reach the nearest health facility.
Whereas sweet water condition in Tharparkar is worst and access to water is a key problem for the district of Tharparkar, which comprises an area of 22,000 sq km. More than 1.4 million people and about five million heads of livestock live in the area, where annual rainfall averages can be as low as 9mm, and drought is common.
Barely 5 percent of the population has access to a sweet water supply. Even the district capital, Mithi, [only] gets sweet water twice in a month. Laying down water supply lines at high cost is also open to question. Most of the population relies on dug wells. The worst conditions are basically the byproduct of non-availability of basic needs of life. There are deserts in the world, which are now productive and life is more than normal. Just take the example of UAE with total area is 83,600 km and part of UAE is producing oil and gas and rest of the UAE is desert but the good planning and attention has converted the area into a most developed area.
Thar coalfield is located in Thar Desert. The deposits—16th-largest coal reserves in the world, were discovered in 1991 by Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) and the United States Agency for International Development.
"It made me believe in miracles," said 24-year-old Lata Mai who drives a 60-ton dump truck in a coal-based power plant in Thar desert of Pakistan's south Sindh province, a project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
READ MORE: Ethiopia appoints Africa's only female president
Belonging to an area where women are usually underprivileged and less educated, Mai dared to dream big.
The childhood dream of Mai, now the mother of two, was to drive a vehicle on the barren road of Thar. But she knew it was a fancy thinking that would probably never be realized, until one day her husband brought a pamphlet home which said that the Thar coal project was hiring women to drive trucks.
Mai, who had never shared her dream with anyone, hesitantly expressed her wish to apply for the post.
Her husband merely laughed at the idea, but after seeing her determination, he agreed to support her.
READ MORE: Everything feels in rhythm, says Curry after 51-point night
Naseem Memon of Sindh Engro Mining company, a member of the committee that hired Mai and dozens of other young women in Thar, told Xinhua that the women drivers are undergoing a 10-month training and will get behind the wheel in December.
"Unlike other sectors, in a coal project, most of the mining jobs are related to truck driving. When we observed that women in Thar walk two to three miles a day in temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius, we believed that if we bring them to job sector, they can do wonders. We were right, they did not disappoint us, they are more hardworking than their male counterparts," said Memon.
"You can imagine how CPEC has changed the lives of these women in a far flung desert of Pakistan. Women, who were utterly dependent on men, are now freely driving heavy dump trucks."
Kiran Sidhwani, a young woman living in the Thar desert, also witnessed a surprising turn in her life after she got a job opportunity in the Thar coal power project.
READ MORE: US mail bombs: who has been targeted?
"She is a young university graduate who is working as an electrical engineer with us. Apart from Sidhwani, we have also hired a female civil engineer who will join work after completing her training," Memon told Xinhua.
Pakistan's Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari said earlier this week that when CPEC moves beyond road construction to enter into the building process of economic zones, the standard of workforce will be raised in the country.
"As special economic zones are coming to play, multinational enterprises will bring corporate social responsibility with them. With the bringing in of great corporate social responsibility, we will see the rise and improvement in the standard of workforce, including the women workforce," said the minister.
According to the latest study of CPEC Center of Excellence, CPEC has the potential to create around 1.2 million jobs through the currently agreed projects, and the number may go up with the inclusion of new projects under its long term plan.
READ MORE: Spain Supreme Court orders trial of former Catalan leaders
The CPEC projects, including energy projects, infrastructure projects, Gwadar Port and industrial cooperation proposed under special economic zones in different provinces of the country, will immensely help reduce the unemployment rate in the country.
Analysts believe that female employment rate in CPEC is low at this stage as the project mainly offers blue collar jobs, but with the development of economic zones, more white collar job opportunities will be offered and more women workforce will take part in it.
A primary school has been established in Gwadar where 498 students including 348 girls are provided quality education to enable them to reap the benefits of CPEC-related projects in the Gwadar port.
For the first time in Pakistan’s judicial history a woman belonging to Hindu community has been appointed as civil and judicial magistrate.
Suman Bodani, hailing from Sindh’s Shahdadkot district, was declared eligible for the post after passing her judicial officers’ examination with flying colours – securing 54th position on the merit list, Express News reported on Monday.
Speaking to a foreign news outlet, Bodani said she belonged to an underdeveloped rural area of Sindh, where she witnessed poor struggling to cope with various challenges life throws at them. “They cannot even afford to lodge cases, and that is the reason behind my decision of joining law [studies] so I can bring justice to them,” she was quoted as saying.
After completing her intermediate from her native town Shahdadkot, Bodani persuaded law and acquired Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from Hyderabad and Master of Laws (LLM) from Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) in Karachi.
Bodani also said she faced resistance form her own community as they did not like girls working in the law field. However, her family including her father and siblings extended their full support to her. “My family did not pay any heed to what people would say and helped me achieve my goal.”
Last year, Justice Syeda Tahira Safdar made history after becoming the first woman chief justice of a high court in the country.
She was also the first woman appointed as a civil judge in Balochistan and holds the distinction of being the first woman in the province appointed as a judge in the Balochistan High Court.
Pakistan Senate’s first Thari Hindu woman, Krishna Kumari Kolhi on the occasion of International Women’s Day is chairing a session of the Upper House on Friday.
Senator Faisal Javed made the announcement on Twitter of Kohli chairing the session to commemorate the International Women’s Day being celebrated across the globe.
“Chairman Senate of Pakistan decided to make our colleague Krishna Kumari Kohli aka Kishoo Bai to Chair the Senate for today on #WomensDay #DoYouKnowRealPakistan,” he tweeted.
Before starting the session, Kolhi expressed her gratitude for being given the chance: “I consider myself very fortunate today to be sitting on this seat, I salute Pakistan and I salute Pakistan’s people and I am proud to be a Pakistani and only Pakistani.”
The 39-year-old Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader hailing from Nagarparkar in the vicinity of Tharparkar became the first one in the senate to have roots from an isolated caste.
akistani Punjab's Information Minister Fayyaz-ul Hassan Chohan of the ruling PTI has been sacked after facing severe criticism from members of his party for making derogatory remarks about Hindus.
The PTI government in Pakistan’s Punjab on Tuesday, 5 March, tweeted that it had “removed Fayyaz Chohan from the post of Punjab Information Minister following derogatory remarks about the Hindu community”.
“Bashing someone’s faith should not be a part of any narrative. Tolerance is the first and foremost pillar on which Pakistan was built,” the party had said.
‘Cow Urine-Drinking People’
Chohan had referred to the Hindu community as "cow urine-drinking people" at a recent press conference, as per IANS.
"We are Muslims and we have a flag, the flag of Maula Ali's bravery, the flag of Hazrat Umar's valour. You (Hindus) don't have that flag, it isn't in your hands," he had said.
"Don't operate under the delusion that you're seven times better than us. What we have, you can't have, you idol worshippers," he had said in a video that went viral on social media.
‘Won’t Tolerate Remarks Against Minority’
His remarks were condemned by Prime Minister Imran Khan and other key political leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) for his insensitivity towards the Hindus, a minority in Pakistan.
Khan had termed Chohan's remarks "inappropriate" and said, "We will not tolerate remarks against any minority community."
The minister had then apologised and said his comments were directed only at Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian media.
fbtw
"I was referring to Narendra Modi, RAW and Indian media," he said on Samaa TV's programme Naya Din on Tuesday. "The remarks weren't meant for any person in Pakistan. My message was for Indians.”
"I didn't demean any religion. The things I said are a part of Hindutva. I said things that are a part of their religion," he added.
Also Read : Pakistan Minister slammed over anti-Hindu remarks
But it seems the statements failed to quell anger. PTI's leader Naeemul Haque said, as per IANS, "The derogatory and insulting remarks against the Hindu community by Fayyaz Chohan... The PTI government will not tolerate this nonsense from a senior member of the government or from anyone. Action will be taken after consulting the Chief Minister."
Ministers of Human Rights Shireen Mazari tweeted, "Absolutely condemn this. No one has the right to attack anyone else's religion. Our Hindu citizens have given sacrifices for their country.”
“Our Prime Minister’s message is always of tolerance and respect and we cannot condone any form of bigotry or spread of religious hatred,” she added.
fbtw
Finance Minister Asad Umar had also condemned the remarks. He said, "Hindus of Pakistan are as much a part of the fabric of the nation as I am. Remember the flag of Pakistan is not just green... it is not complete without the white which represents the minorities."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-hindu/pakistan-court-rules-teenage-hindu-girls-converted-to-islam-voluntarily-idUSKCN1RN1AB
Two Pakistani Hindu sisters whose parents said they were kidnapped and forced to change their religion to marry Muslims had converted voluntarily, a court ruled on Thursday, in a case that has attracted attention in Hindu-majority India.
The court had ordered the government to take custody of the sisters, both teenagers, in late March after accusations spread on social media that they had been forced to convert to Islam.
Another video showed the sisters saying they had married two Muslim men and converted to Islam of their own free will.
The court said the two were adult enough to make their own decisions and that they were not forced to convert.
Police say the teenagers left their home in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh on March 20 to be married in Punjab province, where the law does not bar marriages of those younger than 18, unlike Sindh.
The police detained ten people in the case and registered a formal case of kidnapping and robbery on complaints from the girls’ parents.
The incident prompted a rare public intervention by a top Indian official in its neighbor’s domestic affairs, when Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter she had asked India’s ambassador in Pakistan for a report.
Pakistan was “totally behind the girls”, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said on social media in response to Swaraj’s message, but asked India to look after its own minority Muslims.
https://theconversation.com/forced-conversions-of-hindu-women-to-islam-in-pakistan-another-perspective-102726?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitterbutton
if we wish to fully understand why these girls disappear, I believe it is crucial to engage with the Hindu community’s patriarchal structures. I believe that behind some cases of forced conversion we actually find a family’s attempt to avoid social stigma.
Rural parts of Sindh (but also other parts in Pakistan) are highly patriarchal and daughters who decide to marry a man of their own choice are frequently a reason for shame.
By labelling an eloped daughter as the victim of a crime, Hindu families avoid ridicule and embarrassment. I base this assumption on my lengthy collaboration with Hindu rights groups in Sindh as well as the study of affidavits taken from Sindhi newspapers (called Qassamu Namo in Sindhi).
Women commission such documents with the help of court clerks. These affidavits are published a few days after the girls have left their families and serve as proof that they had willingly eloped.
I believe that explaining cases of forced conversion with religious zeal, fails to see the complexities behind the economic, social, and political realities of many Pakistani-Hindu women.
This short essay shows the myriad ways in which non-Muslim women are commodified within Pakistan’s patriarchal society. Local influential elites, for example, might utilise religious sentiment as an insidious tool to cover up sexual harassment.
By Kamal SiddiqiPublished: April 15, 2019
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1950826/6-bloom-in-the-desert/
It seems now there are plans for a permanent bloom in Thar. Last week, PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari inaugurated the Thar coal power plant. It is a unique project.
The power plant has the capacity to generate 660 megawatts of electricity and consists of two power generation units of 330MW each. The first such unit came online this month. The project is a coal-fired power plant in Tharparkar district, 25 kilometers from the town of Islamkot near the village of Singharo-Bitra.
The project is being developed as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (a joint venture between the Government of Sindh and Engro Corporation) and China Machinery Engineering Corporation in the Thar Block-II of the Thar Coalfield. For this project to move ahead, the Sindh government provided a sovereign guarantee of $700 million.
It is believed that this project will change the fortunes not only of Thar but of Pakistan as well given how indigenous fuel is being used to generate the much-needed power for the national grid.
The social aspects of this project seem to be also looked after. The villages of Senhri Dars and Thareo Halepoto are being relocated. Developers of the project also have pledged to refill coal pits once coal reserves are exhausted, and have also pledged to “plant hundreds of thousands of indigenous trees to maintain the natural ecosystem of the desert.” Nurseries have already been set up for this purpose.
This isn’t on paper. It has become a reality. At its peak, it is expected that 3,000 unskilled workers — mostly locals — will be given employment. It is very encouraging to see these people working in different positions side by side with others from all over Pakistan. We are also seeing the establishment of a campus of NED University of Engineering and Technology in Thar to help enhance skills of local people.
But to get to this point was a struggle. In his speech at the inauguration of the power plant, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah recalled how time and again the Sindh government and interested parties were told that this project would not succeed. It took sheer grit and determination to push through and make this project succeed finally and change the fortunes of the people of Thar and Pakistan. One wonders how many more of such projects are being denied by the babus in Islamabad for reasons best known to them.
Whether it is the Islamkot Airport or the artificial lake that has been created 26 kilometers away to drain the saline water extracted from the coal mines, the Thar coal site continues to impress not only because of the technology used but also how it has started to change the lives of the people living here.
There is much to see here. The women drivers of dumper trucks who bring the coal to the power plant. The amazing sight of the open cut coal mine. The power plant itself — with its chimney — is believed to be the highest man-made structure in Pakistan today.
Thar coal is not just an achievement of the Sindh government but of Pakistan. That is why it was sad to see that no one was there from the PTI or from the Centre to celebrate the inauguration of the power plant. Old mindsets seem to continue to proliferate in the new Pakistan. We need to think of Pakistan.
https://www.ft.com/content/78bb819e-a822-11e9-b6ee-3cdf3174eb89
In the Thar Desert (in Pakistan), communities already face an existential threat: there is nowhere near enough food to go round. Hundreds of thousands of people in Tharparkar, more than half the district’s population, face acute food insecurity, meaning they experience hunger but can go entire days without eating anything. Some 400,000 children under five are acutely malnourished, according to the FAO. More than 500 children died from hunger-related causes last year.
As crops fail, and livestock wither and die, the communal nature of life that has bound people in the Thar Desert together for so long is breaking apart. Villagers can no longer afford to stay on their lands. Ebu says that “most healthy men” have had to migrate to cities or towns where they hope to find work as day-labourers. “When they return,” she says, “they only bring things for their own family.”
Others complain in similar terms. Bheel calls it a “drought in community”. Perhaps it is this — the sense of togetherness evaporating — that causes most unease. “We are constantly worried,” says Ebu. “We’re in a constant state of anxiety. It’s as if we are drowning.”
As with most slow-motion humanitarian crises, the issue is not that there are no solutions — but that they require political will, finance and attention. For dry-land communities like those of the Thar Desert, technologies such as land terracing, drip irrigation and mulching can save water and preserve soil quality, sustaining the livestock and crops on which people depend. Such steps would mean major financing as well as government and international support.
The broader need to meet Pakistan’s energy requirements is also not unattainable; billions of dollars of investment are pledged at climate conferences every year. Some of this money could and should be invested in developing countries like Pakistan, enabling them to shift their fossil fuel-powered growth models towards renewable energy alternatives. Overall, it is a massive project and, in relative terms, there is very little time. It’s hard to feel optimistic.
By 2050, Karachi will have a population of 24 million, and experience ‘deadly heatwaves’ of 49C on an annual basis
One evening, Bheel tells me several tales, from legend and personal experience, recalling djinns (ghosts) and deos (spirits) and the alarming feats of the goddess Aver Devi. “My grandmother’s ghost stories were the worst,” he says, “because they seemed so true.” Reality is beginning to attain something of these stories.
Late one night, with a guide, I visit a village in the desert. The moon and stars are bright enough to reveal our shadows on the sand. In the monochrome light, the landscape resembles a blackish sea. In silence, we come across some abandoned thatched huts; black shapes in the darkness.
We find other huts. Two figures emerge. A man says his eight brothers and their families have left this village. His is the last family left. It is a ghost village. Soon, because of climate change, places like these will be uninhabited, and the desert wind will be the only sound; a long, drawn-out gasp of what once was.
A Pakistani Hindu girl Pushpa Kohli has become the first police officer from her community in Sindh province.
Kohli has been posted as Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) after she passed the provincial competitive examination taken by hundreds of other candidates.
The news of her appointment was shared by tweeps on social media and has gone viral. The news was first broken by Pakistani human rights activist and blogger Kapil Dev on Tuesday night on his twitter account. Kolhi is the first woman from the Hindu community to join the provincial police force as ASI.
“Pushpa Kolhi has become the first girl from #Hindu community who has qualified provincial competitive examination through Sindh Public Service Commission and become Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) in Sindh Police. More power to her!,” he tweeted
Kapil Dev
@KDSindhi
Excellent News: Pushpa Kolhi has become the first girl from #Hindu community who has qualified provincial competitive examination through Sindh Public Service Commission and become Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) in Sindh Police. More power to her! #WomenEmpowerment
Earlier in January this year, another Pakistani Hindu girl Suman Pawan Bodani, was also appointed a judge to the civil and judicial magistrate.
Bodani said she belongs to an underdeveloped rural area of Sindh, where she has seen the poor struggling to cope with various challenges.
She added that her family, including her father and siblings, had extended their full support to her and this had helped her in achieving her dreams to become a judge, according to Pakistani media reports.
The arid Thar desert has turned verdant after much-needed spells of rain fertilised the soil.
Many Thar residents, who had migrated to other pastures with their livestock or to earn livelihood due to a shortage of water, have returned to their villages in order to plant crops and resume cattle farming.
Following are some pictures of the desert after recent showers.
This is not the Hindu paradise they had crossed the border to join, they said. This is not the India Mr. Modi promised them.
In Pakistan, local officials say the pressure for Hindus to weigh moving to India has not been this great since a wave of sectarian violence led many to migrate in the 1990s, after a Hindu mob in India tore down a 16th-century mosque, the Babri Masjid, leading to retaliatory attacks in Pakistan.
The current migration is because of Mr. Modi’s open appeals to Hindu identity in India, they say, stripping the country of the secular framework it was founded on to give supremacy to their religion.
Since Mr. Modi’s election victory, Pakistani Hindus say they have had an easier time obtaining religious or pilgrimage visas to India, which they can then convert to long-term visas if they seek Indian citizenship.
Though the exact number of Hindu migrants is hard to pin down, indications of a wider push to go to India can be seen in the numbers of those long-term visas. In 2018, the Indian government granted 12,732 long-term visas, compared with 4,712 in 2017, and 2,298 in 2016, according to the Ministry of External Affairs. About 95 percent of long-term visas are granted to Pakistani Hindus, officials say.
Millions of Hindus remained in Pakistan when Britain carved out the state from the subcontinent to create a Muslim homeland at independence in 1947. They were unwilling to abandon their homes and businesses, like the millions of Muslims who ended up on the Indian side during partition, where now about 200 million live.
-----------
Even among Pakistani Hindus who are considering going to India, there are very real reasons to hesitate.
Kumar is one who is torn. Though he was shaken by the recent violence in his hometown, he said he was still reluctant to pick up and leave when the trains start running again. He has said goodbye to neighbors who have migrated to India, only to see them return to Pakistan months or years later, disappointed.
Bhagchand Bheel is one of the disappointed. When he migrated to India in 2014, he was grateful to leave the violence and pressure of Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub. He boarded the Thar Express to Zero Point Station, the last stop before the border, where he and his family lugged their bags by foot into India, settling in a camp in the city of Jodhpur.
He was among his people, he thought, and could finally be free. But he is of a lower caste, and when he tried to enter a Hindu temple, he was barred entry by the priest because of it, he said. And when a friend tried to drink from the community water well, he was physically assaulted by upper caste Brahmins who accused him of polluting it.
“In Pakistan, the only thing that matters is if you are Hindu or Muslim,” said Mr. Bheel, whose last name is derived from his tribe. “Because we are Hindus, in Pakistan we were discriminated against. But in India, I face discrimination because I’m a Bheel.”
----------------
Mr. Bheel is wracked by doubt, the same doubt his grandfather had when he chose to keep the family in Pakistan during partition. Did he make the right choice?
He left his home and siblings in Karachi, trading a lucrative job as an administrator of a medical clinic there to live as a migrant in India. His medical diploma, one of the few possessions he brought with him, hangs proudly on a wall, although it is not valid in India. He struggles to make ends meet here.
According to the details, a seven-member delegation of Shanghai Electric called on Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at the Chief Minister’s House in Karachi today to discuss the project.
Speaking on the occasion, Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the financial close of the project will be by the end of this year. He said that the project will also generate employment opportunities for locals. Back in April, Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had inaugurated the Thar coal power project.
Thar coal power project has the capacity to generate 660 megawatts and consists of two power generation units of 330MW each.
The project was completed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s (CPEC) flagship public-private partnership with the Government of Sindh. For this project, the Sindh government had given a sovereign guarantee of $700 million
ON NOVEMBER 1, 2019
https://www.borgenmagazine.com/female-empowerment-in-pakistan/
UNDP Supports High Altitude Farming
In the Pakistan territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, harsh mountain terrain makes it difficult for families to grow enough food to support themselves. It becomes especially difficult in the winter. In response, UNDP came up with a solution that helps tackle food insecurity and empower women. It has provided tunnel farms that are owned and run by local women. Tunnel farms are plastic, hooped greenhouses that protect crops from winter weather. These farms give the region access to fresh vegetables throughout all seasons.
By placing the tunnel farms in the hands of women, UNDP is supporting economic empowerment for women in the region. The women are able to make money for themselves and their families by selling the vegetables they grow in local markets. Between January and April 2019, these women were able to grow approximately 16,500 seedlings in the tunnels. Each tunnel earned approximately $247 for its produce. This income supports women, families and communities. The tunnels are an important step toward greater female empowerment in Pakistan.
UNDP Provides Training to Rural Women
In the Sultan Shah village in the Noshki district of Pakistan, UNDP is taking a different approach to helping women become economically empowered. The district suffers from severe poverty. Women often need to find employment to make ends meet for their families. Due to a lack of employment opportunities in the village, many need to travel long distances to find work.
Bibi Hajra, a recent widow, walked hours each day to be a domestic worker for wealthier families and was still not making enough to adequately support her family. She stated, “The houses where I worked were a long distance away from my own home. Each day, by the time I reached the neighbourhood, I was already exhausted — my actual job of cleaning the houses still lay ahead of me,” she said.
In response to the difficulties faced by these women, UNDP supported a stitching center to train women in marketable embroidery and sewing skills. Though this initiative is on a fairly small scale, it reflects the importance of addressing the specific needs of women in different contexts. The stitching center has had a significant impact on women in the Sultan Shah village. Bibi Hajra now making enough money to adequately support her family without traveling.
U.N. Women Fights for Equal Employment Opportunities
U.N. Women is also committed to supporting female empowerment in Pakistan. Recently, they worked with the local energy company Engro Energy Limited (EEL) to ensure equal employment opportunities for women in Sindh, Pakistan. Being rich in natural resources, there has been a lot of development for local energy companies over the past few years. This has increased employment opportunities for both men and women. Women are now working “unconventional” jobs, including transport, entrepreneurship and engineering.
EEL has committed to supporting female employment by signing the “Women’s Empowerment Principles.” These principles formally agree to help women participate fully and equally in the job force. It is important to note that the company had already set a precedent for supporting women and giving them equal job opportunities. Many women have been working as truck drivers for the company. The agreement is another way to continuing EEL’s commitment.
One woman, Rukhsana, has benefited greatly from truck driving. She stated, “Through this driving training, I gained the strength and courage to face the world,” She added that the income has had a significant impact on her family’s well being, allowing her sons to attend school. She hopes to provide them will better opportunities in the future by enabling them to go to college. EEL hopes to recruit more female truck drivers and give them an opportunity to become economically empowered.
According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the country’s population in 2017 was 207 million, growth of 146% from 1981. While Pakistan has not yet revealed the religious composition of its population in the latest census, the 1998 census pegged the population of Hindus at 2.1 million. In 1998, Hindus comprised 1.6 per cent of Pakistan’s population which made them the biggest minority group in the country. Assuming that the proportion of Hindus in Pakistan’s total population remained the same, the number of Hindus in Pakistan, according to its latest census, would be around 3.3 million.
Since 1981 until the latest census, the Hindu population in Pakistan had grown 93 per cent. The Muslim population of Pakistan during the same period had increased one-and-a-half times. The Hindu population in India during the three-decade period from 1981 to 2011 grew by 72 per cent. Unlike Pakistan, India has always conducted and published its census on time. The Muslim population in India more than doubled during this period. Even though Muslim populations in both India and Pakistan more than doubled, the Muslim population in India grew at a relatively slow pace of 114 per cent. A majority of Pakistani Hindus live in the Sindh province of Pakistan.
LAHORE: Members of Hindu community dancing and throwing colours during their Holi celebrations at Neela Gumbad G Sawami Temple in Lahore.
Holi celebrations in Lahore. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has sent his good wishes to the Hindu community on the occasion of their festival of Holi.
Pakistani Hindu celebrate the Holi festival in Karachi on March 9, 2020. Holi, the popular Hindu spring festival of colours is observed in India and across countries at the end of the winter season on the last full moon of the lunar month.
Members of Hindu community dancing and throwing colours during their Holi celebrations in Hyderabad. The festivities mainly happened in Hyderabad, the second largest city of southern province of Sindh. Temples were decorated with colours and special prayers were also offered there for development and prosperity of the country.
Jubilant Hindu community in Hyderabad during Holi celebrations. Holi marks the end of winter and the start of spring. This year, the Hindu community across the globe celebrated the day on March 9.
The journey began in 2015 when 10 women planted 50 fruit berry (Jujube) trees grafted with indigenous wild berries. They received garden management trainings by Sami Foundation — a local civil society organisation — with the support of ActionAid-Pakistan and the Ariz Zone Research Institute (AZRI) Umerkot.
Each of the women is in charge of five trees. They spend two hours on every alternate day, watering the plants, weeding out grass and placing organic fertiliser
https://www.dawn.com/news/1536581
---------
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/222313-Kitchen-gardens-in-Thar-provide-safe-food-for-all-seasons
HYDERABAD: Women in the Thar Desert are picking the first harvest of vegetables that they had cultivated in their fenced communal kitchen gardens before the rains. The vegetables that have yielded in less than two months are tinda (round gourd) and guar (cluster bean), the most favourable food for the community often faced with food insecurity.
Other vegetable plants and edible leaves that usually grow after rains have also sprouted in the gardens, keeping the village women happy. Under the indigenous nutrition programme, initiated by a local Rural Development Association (RDA) in 13 villages of Tehsils Islamkot and Diplo of Tharparkar District, these women feel secured in terms of having safe food at their doorsteps.
They do not use any chemical inputs to grow food, and since the land is fertile and consumes little water, the gardeners continue the inspiring practice of planting kitchen gardens during winter as well.
Women in groups have prepared larger plots inside their fenced courtyards to cultivate vegetables and edibles leaves as well as trees to fight against the prolonged dry spells and delayed rains. The recent rains have already recharged water wells for domestic purposes and irrigating the small fields inside homes.
This nutrition-sensitive initiative intends to address the endemic issue of malnutrition in the district, which has been recognised as the topmost cause of high incidents of infant and maternal mortality in recent studies conducted by government and other humanitarian organisations.
The communities are already aware of sustainable use of water, which is the most essential, expensive and very scarce commodity in the desert. The people of this region encounter frequent dryness for many months, and pay a heavy price of the impacts of extreme weather conditions in the form of malnutrition, death, and hunger.
Muhammad Siddiq leading the RDA said the association gave technical assistance for land preparation, building protective fencing, and procurement of materials, watering equipment and seasonal vegetable seeds.
https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/china-push-sees-coal-fired-generation-rise-to-record-in-pakistan
Coal’s surge in the South Asian nation is symbolic of the difficult choice that the region’s developing countries face as they seek affordable energy to support economic growth while trying to limit chronic air pollution. Asian demand is expected to support the commodity as its usage drops in most of the developed world in a transition to cleaner or renewable energy sources.
Is Canada's real estate forecast too optimistic?
Pakistan’s coal-fired power generation jumped 57% to a record in the fiscal year through June, according to data from the government’s National Electric Power Regulatory Authority. Coal accounted for about a fifth of total output, backed by supplies from the country’s first coal mine in its Thar region, developed as part of China’s Belt and Road plan.
Coal is set to expand further as China pushes funds into building more power plants in the country and mines to feed them. Pakistan is one of the flagship markets for China’s Belt and Road initiative, with more than $70 billion of projects including coal and liquefied natural gas fired power plants helping the nation end decades of electricity shortfalls.
“China has been cutting back on coal at home but it has no compunction about using coal in things that it funds outside of China,” said James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “Chinese can be willing but they need a partner to go along with them. In this case it’s the Pakistani government.”
Belt and Road progress has slowed recently with overseas energy spending last year dropping to the lowest in a decade, dogged by accusations that China is luring poor countries into debt traps for its own political and strategic gain. China’s President Xi Jinping has publicly urged more clean energy as part of the program, and the plan found new life in Pakistan recently with an agreement to build two hydro-power generation projects.
Until 2016, Pakistan had just one coal-burning power plant. It now has at least nine and more are in the making. The first target of these plants has been to replace expensive fuel oil-based generation facilities that burdened the nation’s economy with heavy costs and pollution.
The rise in coal power has come because of supplies from the Thar coal mine, Power Ministry spokesman Zafar Yab Khan said. The country will balance rising coal use with more renewable energy and its coal plants will use low-emissions technology, he said.
With the shift to coal, average generation costs dropped 11% during the fiscal year, according to data from Karachi-based brokerage Arif Habib.
“Pakistan has increased coal-based generation to make it its new base to replace its previous expensive fuel oil-powered power plants,” said Tahir Abbas, head of research at Arif Habib. “This has also helped bring down the power prices, energy import bill and increase the share of an indigenous energy source.”
July 30, 2020 at 6:36 PM
Akhil Bakshi met a Hindu Pakistani on a flight. This is what he learnt, much to his surprise.
AKHIL BAKSHI
https://www.thequint.com/voices/blogs/citizenship-amendment-act-nrc-hindus-in-pakistan-religious-persecution-indian-govt
In August 2018, on my way back to India from Madagascar, I was off-loaded in Nairobi by Kenya Airways on two consecutive nights. On the second night, at the facilitation counter, I bumped into Ravi Kumar, a pleasant-looking and smartly attired man in his late twenties. After an hour of arguing with grim-faced, insensitive airline staff, I looked forward to engaging him in a refreshing conversation as we waited for the transport to drive us to our hotel.
As soon as we had exchanged pleasantries in Hindustani, he said, smiling wryly: “Let me clarify that I am not an Indian. I am a Pakistani.”
“A Hindu, no doubt,” exclaimed I.
“That's right,” he said, boldly.
‘It Must be Difficult for Your Family to Live in Pakistan?’
I looked him up and down, searching for scars on his face, grime in his hair, sadness in his eyes that revealed the fret in his heart. My mind was instantly filled with sorrow for my ‘long-suffering’ fellow Hindu who, surely, must be leading an ‘undignified’, ‘baleful’ existence in Pakistan. Weren't Hindus in Pakistan ‘thrown to the wolves’ by state tyranny? I wanted Ravi Kumar to share his agonies, and that of other helpless victims, with me.
“It must be difficult for your family to live in Pakistan?” I asked a leading question.
“On the contrary, we are extremely happy there,” he retorted, astonishing me.
“Are you not discriminated against?”
“Not at all! We feel like equal citizens. My family lives in Karachi and nobody has ever bothered us. We are a successful business family trading in rice.”
“But isn't the Hindu community in Pakistan generally impoverished?”
“Not in Karachi. We are probably the most prosperous community. The entire rice trade — milling, retail and wholesale — is controlled by Hindus. They all live in great comfort. I have relocated to Benin — from where I supply rice to West Africa.”
‘I’m a Pakistani at Heart. India is the Last Place I Want to Migrate to’
“Haven't you ever thought about relocating to India? Do you not want to free yourself of a dismal, perilous existence in Pakistan and migrate to India to seek succour of freedom and a liberal democracy?” I asked.
He looked at me with a hard stare but replied politely: “You are trying to put words into my mouth. Firstly, our life in Pakistan is not miserable. We are very much a part of the mainstream. I am a Pakistani at heart. Secondly, India is the last place I would like to migrate to. I have been to Bombay thrice — to source rice for West Africa — as Pakistan did not have enough surplus for export. All three times it has been a dreadful experience. Right from the time you land, you are questioned and hounded as if you are a terrorist. I had to report to the police station every day. And all that the authorities did was to pick my pockets. I spent most of my time waiting at police stations than at business meetings. I don't like the undignified way I am treated in India. Now I am on my way to source rice from Thailand — over-flying India.”
‘Pakistani Hindus Didn’t Find Kinship or Compassion in India’
“However, many Pakistani Hindus do want to migrate to India — to enjoy some measure of freedom that is proffered in my country,” I interjected.
“Perhaps. But those who went to India did not find any trace of kinship or compassion. The government provided no assistance to resettle. The lower caste Hindus were not allowed to pray in the temples. They can’t drink from the same well as the upper castes. Before you call Pakistan intolerant and petty, you should think about the bigotry in your own country.”
“I am told all Hindu temples have been vandalised...”
“A few were, some years ago, as a reaction to the demolition of some big mosque in India.”
“Babri Masjid.”
“Maybe. I don’t follow Indian news.”
Akhil Bakshi met a Hindu Pakistani on a flight. This is what he learnt, much to his surprise.
AKHIL BAKSHI
https://www.thequint.com/voices/blogs/citizenship-amendment-act-nrc-hindus-in-pakistan-religious-persecution-indian-govt
I looked him up and down, searching for scars on his face, grime in his hair, sadness in his eyes that revealed the fret in his heart. My mind was instantly filled with sorrow for my ‘long-suffering’ fellow Hindu who, surely, must be leading an ‘undignified’, ‘baleful’ existence in Pakistan. Weren't Hindus in Pakistan ‘thrown to the wolves’ by state tyranny? I wanted Ravi Kumar to share his agonies, and that of other helpless victims, with me.
“It must be difficult for your family to live in Pakistan?” I asked a leading question.
“On the contrary, we are extremely happy there,” he retorted, astonishing me.
“Are you not discriminated against?”
“Not at all! We feel like equal citizens. My family lives in Karachi and nobody has ever bothered us. We are a successful business family trading in rice.”
“But isn't the Hindu community in Pakistan generally impoverished?”
“Not in Karachi. We are probably the most prosperous community. The entire rice trade — milling, retail and wholesale — is controlled by Hindus. They all live in great comfort. I have relocated to Benin — from where I supply rice to West Africa.”
‘I’m a Pakistani at Heart. India is the Last Place I Want to Migrate to’
“Haven't you ever thought about relocating to India? Do you not want to free yourself of a dismal, perilous existence in Pakistan and migrate to India to seek succour of freedom and a liberal democracy?” I asked.
He looked at me with a hard stare but replied politely: “You are trying to put words into my mouth. Firstly, our life in Pakistan is not miserable. We are very much a part of the mainstream. I am a Pakistani at heart. Secondly, India is the last place I would like to migrate to. I have been to Bombay thrice — to source rice for West Africa — as Pakistan did not have enough surplus for export. All three times it has been a dreadful experience. Right from the time you land, you are questioned and hounded as if you are a terrorist. I had to report to the police station every day. And all that the authorities did was to pick my pockets. I spent most of my time waiting at police stations than at business meetings. I don't like the undignified way I am treated in India. Now I am on my way to source rice from Thailand — over-flying India.”
‘Pakistani Hindus Didn’t Find Kinship or Compassion in India’
“However, many Pakistani Hindus do want to migrate to India — to enjoy some measure of freedom that is proffered in my country,” I interjected.
“Perhaps. But those who went to India did not find any trace of kinship or compassion. The government provided no assistance to resettle. The lower caste Hindus were not allowed to pray in the temples. They can’t drink from the same well as the upper castes. Before you call Pakistan intolerant and petty, you should think about the bigotry in your own country.”
“I am told all Hindu temples have been vandalised...”
“A few were, some years ago, as a reaction to the demolition of some big mosque in India.”
“Babri Masjid.”
“Maybe. I don’t follow Indian news.”
Not a ‘Genuine’ Representative of Pakistani Hindus?
Despite my interventions to ‘poison’ his mind, he stood firm. I was disappointed. He was not saying the words I wanted to hear. I concluded that he was not a ‘genuine’ representative of Pakistani Hindus, and that his business interests did not allow him to bow too much against his government.
It did not cross my mind that he could have been sincerely faithful to his country.
As I write, I am reminded of my visit to Pakistan in 1997. Fifty years after Partition, I had taken my mother to Dalwal, her parental village in District Jhelum. (Call of Dalwal, a YouTube video, has had over 61,000 hits with hundreds of Pakistanis posting sentimental comments).
https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/12/25/best-of-2019-a-woman-farmer-shows-the-way/
https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20eseasia/docs/publications/2018/08/status-of-the-rural-women-in-pakistan-report.pdf?la=en&vs=3739
Almas Perween may seem diminutive, but a great deal of responsibility rests on her shoulders. She is a farmer, and a trainer of farmers, a big responsibility for a woman from a village whose name is just a number – Chak #224/EB. Her farm is about 100 kilometres from the historic city of Multan, in the Vehari district of Pakistan’s Punjab province. In many ways Perween epitomises this year’s International Women’s Day’s theme of “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change”, putting innovation by women and girls, for women and girls, at the heart of efforts to achieve gender equality.
Challenging gender roles
“Why is cotton-picking always a woman’s job?” was the first thing I heard her say. The question carried within it the challenge to traditional gender roles. While Perween is happy to take on the mantle of what is traditionally seen as men’s work, her question took this further, asking why men cannot do what is traditionally done by women.
It has long been said that the soft, fluffy staple fibre of cotton that grows in a boll can only be picked by women’s dainty hands. Perween refused to accept this, claiming it was “just an excuse not to work”.
“It’s literally back-breaking work and takes a heavy health toll on the women,” she said. Drawing from her experience, she added, “village women work longer hours in a day than men”.
Her experience is borne out by research done elsewhere. A 2018 report on the status of rural women in Pakistan said agricultural work has undergone “feminization” employing nearly 7.2 million rural women, and becoming the largest employer of Pakistani women workers. Yet their multidimensional work with “lines between work for economic gain and work as extension of household chores (livestock management) and on the family farm” are blurred and “does not get captured”.
The report pointed out that for women in the agricultural sector (primarily concentrated in dairy and livestock) the “returns to labour are low: only 40% are in paid employment and 60% work as unpaid workers on family farms and enterprises. Their unpaid work is valued (using comparative median wages) at PKR 683 billion (USD 5.5 billion), is 57% of all work done by women, and is 2.6% of GDP of the country.”
Cotton is one of the many crops grown on Perween’s fields. She manages 23 acres of farmland (of which eight acres belong to her mother). With her brother – three years her senior – the family grows maize, wheat, sugarcane and cotton.
-----------------
Despite the success, it has not always been easy for Perween to take the risks she has. She has been lucky to have the full backing of her family. It is not just her brother’s trust, but also her father’s firm support in the face of criticism from both villagers and the wider family, that has helped her find her own path.
“It has not been easy,” she said, “but it is not impossible either,” Perween says, with a note of triumph in her voice.
It is hoped that the market, organised by Tando Allahyar district government and local NGO the Research and Development Foundation (RDF), will encourage more women into the livestock sector. It is part of a six-year Growth for Rural Advancement and Sustainable Progress project to strengthen small-scale agribusinesses and reduce poverty in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, run in partnership with the International Trade Centre and the World Trade Organization.
-----------
In rural provinces, women have always reared animals but are excluded from selling them. A new market is changing attitudes
Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
About this content
Zofeen Ebrahim in Tando Allahyar
Thu 20 Jan 2022 02.00 EST
On Saturday, Rozina Ghulam Mustafa arrived at the market in Tando Allahyar city, Pakistan’s Sindh province, to sell the goats she had raised, milked and fed.
Usually her brother sells the animals, but he sold them too cheaply because he didn’t know their true value. “He has always sold our goats at a much lower price,” she says, standing inside an enclosure with 15 of them.
For Mustafa, joining hundreds of women to trade animals at Marui livestock market – believed to be Pakistan’s first women-led livestock market – was a big moment.
By the afternoon, she had yet to sell any animals, but was unperturbed. “That’s OK; it’s my first time and I will learn how to trade,” she says. “For the first time I felt free, I could make the decision of buying and selling myself.”
Women in rural Pakistan have always reared animals, taking care of nutrition, milking and vaccinations and keeping their barns and sheds clean. But when the time comes for them to be sold, women are excluded. Taking the animals to market is considered a man’s job.
Mustafa’s 65-year-old mother, Rehmat, who accompanied her to the market with Mustafa’s brother, says that when she was younger “it was unthinkable for a woman to come to the market and sell; it was a man’s job”.
“I think this change is in the right direction. If women can rear, women can buy and sell, like men. What is so complicated about it?”
The market is busy. Children run between the animal enclosures and stalls selling homemade ghee (clarified butter), eggs, chickens, animal fodder and ornaments. Other stalls sell food, tea and hand-embroidered women’s clothing. The local government has a stall showcasing veterinary medicines.
Perween Panhwar has just bought her first goat for 19,000 PKR (£80) to start her livestock farm. “When I heard there was a women-led livestock market, I wanted the first animal I buy for the farm to be from this market,” she says.
@PartabShiwani
First ever pilot from Tharparkar n second from Hindu community will fly today to his hometown. Mr. Mahipal (who hails from Chhahro Tharparkar) is very excited to fly over the land wherefrom he dreamt to become pilot. Best wishes.
https://twitter.com/PartabShiwani/status/1579308980278800385?s=20&t=k8Z3Wqdi1I-gkUSJCi-iZA
---------
Mahipal Ladher, a pilot working at Pakistan International Airlines, has been flying people stranded due to the lockdown, desperate to head home. Mahipal is the first pilot from Tharparkar, a poverty stricken district of Sindh province with a population of 1.6 millon people. The Tharparkar desert lies along the Pakistan-India border.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/this-pakistani-pilot-urges-the-world-to-always-stay-united/story-accog6PDTcmnATjMM0TNgL.html
When Mahipal was a little boy, his town didn’t have a single paved road connecting it to any other town. It would take almost 12 hours to reach the nearest town, barely 70 km away. While growing up, Mahipal grazed cattle and at times, walked for a few kilometers to fetch water for his home, like other children of his town. But every time little Mahipal saw an aircraft show up in the sky, his heart would skip a beat. The boy would run after the plane, chasing the contrails, dreaming he would be flying one such aircraft someday.
Tharparkar has always been an example of Hindu-Muslims unity where the two communities draw strength from a shared heritage and history, and perhaps that’s the reason why Mahipal holds the values of co-existence so dear to his heart.
Studying initially in a government school and later an army-run school, Mahipal came to Karachi for higher education and training. “I have been living in Karachi for the past 17 years and thanks to its diversified culture, the two things I have learned here are invigoration and charity. People here just don’t stop living and giving!,” he says.
With COVID19 pandemic being so dangerously contagious, his country is also locked down like other parts of the world. “Like many others, I played my role by raising money for the needy from home. I also had to do my duty. There were people who were stranded and needed to reach home, specifically in the Northern areas of Pakistan where one relies upon the air mode of transport as the roads are covered with snow most of the time. PIA never stopped flying to such areas. I take pride to be a part of the crew that takes such people home and brings a smile on the faces of their loved ones,” he says.
Talking of family, he says the COVID-19 pandemic has made us realise that the whole world is connected, like a family. “Sadly, the only time we start acting like one is when we face such a crisis. Having said that, it is still a positive sign that we are all in this together. We have become the best version of ourselves, trying to help each other in every way possible. All I truly want and hope is that this sense of belonging stays even when this pandemic is over,” he says.
https://theconversation.com/forced-conversions-of-hindu-women-to-islam-in-pakistan-another-perspective-102726
Let’s look at the public discourse around forced marriage (Urd. jabri shadi) or forced conversion (Urd. jabran mazhab tabdili) in Pakistan (but also internationally). Here we frequently find one out of two possible explanations: first that Hindu women wish to embrace Islam due to its inherent attraction (put forward by the Muslim religious right).
The second one emphasised by liberal Pakistani media and Hindu nationalists is that that Muslim predators aim to spread Islam through the forced conversion and marriage of minority women.
But nuanced explanations taking into account Hindu women’s agencies are difficult to find.
The case of Rinkle Kumari, a Hindu girl from Ghotki in northern Sindh, who vanished from her home in 2012 serves as an apt example. Even though her case gained significant public attention, it is still not completely clear why and how Rinkle disappeared. Rinkle gave a few public statements, these, however, were alternately interpreted as coerced by her kidnappers or pressurised by her family. Even though Rinkle talked publicly, her words had no impact on the male-dominated public discussion.
Engaging with Hindu patriarchal structures
Finally, if we wish to fully understand why these girls disappear, I believe it is crucial to engage with the Hindu community’s patriarchal structures. I believe that behind some cases of forced conversion we actually find a family’s attempt to avoid social stigma.
Rural parts of Sindh (but also other parts in Pakistan) are highly patriarchal and daughters who decide to marry a man of their own choice are frequently a reason for shame.
By labelling an eloped daughter as the victim of a crime, Hindu families avoid ridicule and embarrassment. I base this assumption on my lengthy collaboration with Hindu rights groups in Sindh as well as the study of affidavits taken from Sindhi newspapers (called Qassamu Namo in Sindhi).
https://propakistani.pk/2023/06/21/woman-from-thar-passes-css-after-studying-on-youtube/
Kiran Khatri, a resident of Mithi in the Tharparkar district of Sindh, recently achieved a remarkable milestone by joining the inland revenue service after successfully passing the Central Superior Service (CSS) exam.
In her own words, she holds the distinction of being the first woman from Thar to pass the exam and the sole Hindu girl from Tharparkar to accomplish this feat. She is the third Hindu girl from across Sindh to achieve this significant milestone.
Originally, Kiran had aspirations of joining the police, but she was selected for the inland revenue sector instead. Her training will commence in October, and she anticipates the substantial responsibilities that will accompany her new role.
Kiran completed her MBBS from Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences in Jamshoro in 2020. Following that, she pursued her house job at Civil Hospital, Hyderabad in 2021. Subsequently, she worked as a lecturer at Indus Medical College, Tando Mohammad Khan.
It was during her house job that Kiran became acutely aware of the challenges faced by doctors, motivating her to prepare for the CSS exam. Kiran diligently studied at home in Mithi, with the support of her father, who serves as a deputy director in the education department, as well as online classes available on YouTube.
Kiran utilized social media by curating her accounts to focus exclusively on CSS-related content. She is grateful for the support she received from her parents throughout her journey.
Tharparkar, the largest district in Sindh in terms of area, has a population of 1.6 million, with approximately half of the residents being Hindus. Within Sindh’s health department, Hindus represent around 30 percent of the medical staff, including a significant number of female doctors.
https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-solar-energy-empowers-women-in-tharparkar/video-61772142
In the desert areas of Tharparkar in Sindh province, Pakistan, employment at a solar energy plant has been a game changer for local women. In a region with high poverty levels, they are pleased to have a regular income — but can their jobs undo the impact of climate change?
------------
Coal firm plans Pakistan’s largest industrial solar project
https://www.pv-tech.org/coal-firm-plans-pakistans-largest-industrial-solar-project/
A Pakistani coal and power firm has contracted Karachi-based solar EPC firm Reon Energy to build a 5MW PV project to help power its mining operations, in what will be a first for Pakistan.
Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) wants the project to be installed at its Thar Coal Block II in Sindh Province and it will become the largest private C&I solar plant for captive consumption in the country to date, it claims.
SECMC is working on Pakistan’s first open-pit coal mine in the Thar Block II Islamkot. A powerplant is being constructed by the Engro Powergen Thar Limited (EPTL) at the mouth of the mine and this is expected to start generating electricity at the end of the current year.
In a release, SECMC said it was eyeing up both energy cost savings and a reduction in carbon emissions from the solar plant. The firm has the option to extend the contract during or after project completion, wherein Reon will provide O&M services for a 15-year period and then hand over the operations to SECMC.
Syed Abul Fazl Rizvi, COO of SECMC, said: “The 5MW solar energy system will contribute benefits equivalent to planting of about 220,000 trees and will be the largest private solar PPA in the country. This is also the first-ever initiative by a mining company in Pakistan to install solar power plant for it mining operations.”
Reon Energy CEO Mujtaba Haider Khan said: “Pakistan enjoys a geo-strategic advantage for producing abundant amounts of solar energy. Advancement in solar technology has not only improved solar’s efficiency but has also led to a massive reduction in costs. This is a landmark project that’ll significantly reduce the operating cost and carbon footprint.”
He also noted that the project would create dozens of jobs.
Reon is part of the investment holding company Dawood Hercules Corporation.
The Pakistani regulator, NEPRA, recently issued its tariff determinations for 300MW of solar with tariffs significantly below grid parity.
AFP
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/women-ride-pakistan-s-economic-crisis-into-the-workplace-101725765400181.html
Amina Sohail veers through heavy traffic to pick up her next passenger the sight of a woman riding a motorcycle drawing stares in Pakistan's megacity of Karachi.
The 28-year-old is the first woman in her family to enter the workforce, a pattern emerging in urban households coming under increasing financial pressure in Pakistan.
"I don't focus on people, I don't speak to anyone or respond to the hooting, I do my work," said Sohail, who joined a local ride-hailing service at the start of the year, transporting women through the dusty back streets of the city.
"Before, we would be hungry, now we get to eat at least two to three meals a day," she added.
----
Sohail used to help her mother with cooking, cleaning and looking after her younger siblings, until her father, the family's sole earner, fell sick.
"The atmosphere in the house was stressful," she said, with the family dependent on other relatives for money. "That's when I thought I must work."
"My vision has changed. I will work openly like any man, no matter what anyone thinks."
Pakistan was the first Muslim nation to be led by a woman prime minister in the 1980s, women CEOs grace power lists in Forbes magazine, and they now make up the ranks of the police and military.
-----
"I am the first girl in the family to work, from both my paternal and maternal side," said Hina Saleem, a 24-year-old telephone operator at a leather factory in Korangi, Karachi's largest industrial area.
The move, supported by her mother after her father died, was met with resistance from her extended family.
Her younger brother was warned that working could lead to socially unacceptable behaviour, such as finding a husband of her choice.
"My uncles said 'get her married'," she told AFP. "There was lots of pressure on my mother."
At the changeover of shifts outside the leather factory, workers arrive in painted buses decorated with chinking bells, with a handful of women stepping out amid the crowd of men.
Nineteen-year-old Anum Shahzadi, who works in the same factory inputting data, was encouraged by her parents to enter the workforce after completing high school, unlike generations before her.
"What is the point of education if a girl can't be independent," said Shahzadi, who now contributes to the household alongside her brother.
Bushra Khaliq, executive director for Women In Struggle for Empowerment which advocates for political and economic rights for women, said that Pakistan was "witnessing a shift" among urban middle class women.
"Up until this point, they had been told by society that taking care of their homes and marriage were the ultimate objective," she told AFP.
"But an economic crunch and any social and economic crises bring with them a lot of opportunities."
----
The sprawling port metropolis of Karachi, officially home to 20 million people but likely many millions more, is the business centre of Pakistan.
It pulls in migrants and entrepreneurs from across the country with the promise of employment and often acts as a bellwether for social change.
Nineteen-year-old Zahra Afzal moved to Karachi to live with her uncle four years ago, after the death of her parents, leaving her small village in central-eastern Pakistan to work as a childminder.
"If Zahra was taken by other relatives, she would have been married off by now," her uncle Kamran Aziz told AFP, from their typical one room home where bedding is folded away in the morning and cooking is done on the balcony.
"My wife and I decided we would go against the grain and raise our girls to survive in the world before settling them down."
Afzal beams that she is now an example for her sister and cousin: "My mind has become fresh."