The Quiescent Traffic Managers

I have already driven the car that gives you driving directions to your desired destination with road descriptions. Feed the address and the car will take you to the destination. Future is coming when drivers will be able to look forward to receiving information on junction location, traffic jams, weather conditions and diversions. They will also be able to know about accidents, advice on speed including in-vehicle information on the current enforceable speed limit. The information will appear on a display controlled by switches on the steering wheel. Messages will be stored, so drivers can access the information they need at any time via the easy-to-use menu. It may be possible also to keep passengers informed about things like flight arrivals and departures, and connecting services.

The developed countries are refining their planning with time and making leaps into the future. Lucklessly, (mis)management of traffic in Pakistani cities has choked the roads, endangering lives of commuters. It seems as if our traffic managers have no role in planning or execution of programs and plans. Taking bribes from motorbike riders has turned out to be the most sacrosanct duty of the cops. The unplanned constructions and rampant encroachments have also suffocated the city’s roads. With overt and covert intentions both the traffic police and the municipal corporation have seemingly demonstrated their lack of skill and ability to handle the problem.

No innovative methods have ever been used in developing a unique approach to road traffic management and congestion control. And never any theoretical continuing research on the fundamental relationship of traffic flow and their interpretation under congested road conditions has been carried out.

Poor planning by the traffic police is causing enormous problems. Cars, motorbikes, cycles, animal drawn traffic and even the pedestrians have not been educated how to use road. In cities some roads have been divided into lanes (some with wrong marks though), the road users have not been told what do they signify.

Research and development on road traffic management methods maybe found physically, but not functionally. Consequently, there is no road traffic monitoring and surveillance, traffic accidents prevention, vehicle safety, road traffic planning and guidance, safety equipment and its inspection, and the application of the Hi—tech to traffic management.

The poor performance of Traffic Police illustrates that no training center for senior traffic management personnel is in place to introduce the modern traffic management theory and the advanced engineering technologies.

Also lacking is an integrated freeway traffic management system intended to improve safety, optimize the real capacity of the highway and provide a better level of service to motorists without the addition of more traffic lanes. This can be accomplished by faster detection and response to incidents on the highway and through balancing of traffic volumes between the highway and other viable alternate routes.

Planning should take account of the likely level of resources, such as improvements to infrastructure, traffic management measures such as reallocation of road space for cycles and motorcycles and realistic targets for growth in cycling. Priority should also be accorded to create an encroachment-free culture with particular priority given to the busiest and most important routes. It is unknown why our traffic managers rampantly neglect downtown and thickly populated areas. Consequently, no rule of law exists there. This doesn’t mean, however, that it exists elsewhere.

In the future more highly developed vehicle devices will open new perspectives for effective transportation and fleet management on the basis of the Toll System. The advantage of the system is by using automatic toll collection the user can settle the charge without having to stop. Modern technology redefines the world of mobility.

Increasing number of marriage palaces, commercial complexes, hotels, restaurants and other public places without parking facilities have added to the chaos. So, if the car owners park at roads, they are not responsible. After all they have to park somewhere, if not on road then where? The presence of fork lifters to move away such vehicles can be interesting scenes for foreign tourists but most dangerous to traffic. This also lay bare the weird policy planning and lacking integration.

Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death by injury and the 9th leading cause of all deaths worldwide. Such injuries are projected to become the third leading cause of disability-adjusted life years lost worldwide by 2020, surpassed only by heart disease and major depression. Pakistan must also think about this serious problem.

Planning should use the tools of traffic management to improve the environment in towns and cities, by re-allocating road space and giving greater priority to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport, thus creating better conditions for people to move around. It should introduce traffic regulation orders to restrict the use of vehicles - local pedestrian schemes or speed reduction initiatives.

Most roads are with no posted speed limits. Posting speed limits and strictly enforcing it will virtually stop overtaking. Thus, by reducing number of lanes for cars, a lane exclusively for cycles and motorcycles can be included. This will organize the traffic flow.

The dreadful driving of illiterate rickshaw, wagon, and truck drivers compel us to make the driving permits harder to get. Before allowing someone to drive, driving skills and knowledge about traffic rules must be ensured without any let-up.

The government should revitalize the Traffic Engineering Department for modernizing road traffic management, and to serve the functions of developing road traffic engineering technologies, training traffic management personnel, inspecting traffic safety equipment, and providing traffic management information.

Traffic awareness campaigns can play an important part in the proper use of road on sharing and yielding basis. The traffic managers should wake up for developing awareness campaigns at the local level, working jointly with neighboring local authorities and other interested parties as appropriate. Nevertheless, businesses, community, schools and hospitals also have a part to play in alerting people to the problems and the solutions. (www.asifjmir.com)

Toll Tax of Large Dams

A huge dam construction project is under way in China in the Three Gorges area on the upper Yangtze River. Apart from the expected benefits of the project, it will nevertheless cause problems, such as flooding upstream, possibly an earthquake, displacing people, eliminating tourist trade to the area, and destroying important archaeological artifacts.

After completion Three Gorges will become world’s largest dam, sinking 13 cities, 140 towns, and 1,352 villages and requiring the resettlement of 2 million people. The dam will also bury hundreds of archeological sites, put several highly endangered species in jeopardy, and infinitely deface the magnificent beauty of the Three Gorges Region. This is the classic example of the devastation that all large dams cause.

In the same category, at Bakun, in Sarawak, Malaysia, the mega dam threatens 70,000 hectares of prime rainforest, and is hugely controversial. Large dams are built in Laos, Lesotho, Argentina, and Chile with the aid of military to suppress opposition.

Despite what promoters say, the academic literature belies that dams and reservoirs are purely benign, they have serious effects including earthquakes, coastal fisheries impacts, mercury pollution of food chains, destruction of local subsistence economies, loss of valuable fisheries and local extinctions, to mention but a few.

Large dams often destroy important, irreplaceable archeological evidence - burial grounds, antiquities, ancient building sites, and more. Although the promoters talk about engineering triumph they have enormous negative side effects that adversaries do not consider as progress, like the forced relocation of millions of people.

In the present planning process, the cost of environmental and social impacts is considered only to the extent required for fulfilling the legal requirements. This does not fully account for the real costs.

Such dams are also short of poverty reduction benefits of decentralized renewables. They are capital-intensive and dependent on large centers of demand and long transmission lines. They are among the most expensive infrastructure projects on the planet. The advocates of large dams regularly underestimate costs and exaggerate benefits. They have regularly underestimated the economic costs of large hydropower projects as well as the number of people requiring resettlement or compensation for lost lands, homes, and sources of livelihood. While costs are on average far higher than predicted, large hydropower dams often generate less power than promised.

The developers of large dams do not take into account the hydrological impacts of climate change. They build dams with designs that do not allow for the new extremes of drought or floods that global warming is predicted to cause. This has serious implications for dam performance – particularly droughts will sharply reduce hydropower generation – and safety.

There is no technology transfer benefit from large dams. Global renewable funds and carbon trading mechanisms are supposed to facilitate the transfer of new technologies from Northern to Southern countries and to provide the support needed to increase production and bring down unit costs of these technologies. These arguments do not apply to large dams, which is already a mature technology and well established in Southern countries.

Large hydro projects have major social and ecological impacts. According to the World Commission on Dams, large dams are responsible for the evictions of 40-80 million people, with many of the displaced receiving no or inadequate compensation. Millions of people have also lost their land and livelihoods, and have suffered because of downstream and other indirect impacts of large dams.

Efforts to mitigate the impacts of large dams typically fail. Many impacts of large dams go unacknowledged or underestimated, and measures to prevent or reduce them frequently fail. Even when people are recognized as eligible for resettlement they rarely have their livelihoods restored.

Large reservoirs can emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases. Rotting organic matter in hydropower reservoirs causes emissions of methane and carbon dioxide. While there is still much scientific controversy over how to measure hydropower emissions and compare them with emissions from fossil fuel plants, it appears that hydro projects with large reservoirs in the tropics can have a greater climatic impact per unit of power generated than fossil fuel generation.

They are slow, lumpy, inflexible and getting more expensive. Because of their huge size and site-specific requirements, large dams take longer to build and are more expensive than other types of power plants. While large dams take on average around six years to build, wind turbines and solar panels can start delivering benefits and repaying loans within months of entering construction. The World Bank has found that the costs of hydropower capacity are steadily increasing because the best sites for dams have already been exploited.

Large dams add capacity to power grids in large lumps, while power demand usually grows gradually. Lumpy capacity additions can mean power shortages before the new capacity comes on-line, then costly over-capacity once the new plant is available.

Large reservoirs are often rendered non-renewable by sedimentation. They are depleted over time by sedimentation, a problem that eventually seriously impedes or ends the ability of a hydro plant to produce electricity. The great majority of annual sediment loads is carried during flood periods. The higher intensity and frequency of floods due to global warming are therefore likely to increase sedimentation rates and thus further shorten the useful lives of reservoirs.

Despite overwhelming evidence, dam proponents are repeating the deadly mistake of the Soviet government - ignoring years of respected research. Asian dams continue to proliferate. And foreign dam builders are right in there looking for short-term jobs at the long-term expense of poor Asians.

The projects implemented without public participation and consent are likely to face high risk of delay and cost over-run apart from creating serious social tensions.

The day of the large dams might be over, but we have no shortage of challenges. We all need to become better water managers, and one of the important ways we do that is to change the perspective with which we approach present and future challenges.
(www.asifjmir.com)

The Worst Performer of Asia

Ranking 142nd among 177 countries and 135th in GDP per capita, Pakistan is the worst performer in South Asia in Human Development Index (HDI). HDI is the average progress of a country in human development. It focuses on three measurable dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life, being educated and having a decent standard of living. Thus it combines measures of life expectancy, school enrolment, literacy and income to allow a broader view of a country’s development than does income alone.

Pakistan sustains diverse HDI between provinces and districts indicative of regional disparities in both the level of economic growth as well as in terms of health, education and the quality of life. There is considerable variation across provinces with respect to literacy rates, which vary from 51% in the Sindh to 36% in the Baluchistan. Similarly the primary enrolment rate varies from 75% in the Punjab, to 64% in the Baluchistan. As a consequence while the HDI for Pakistan, as a whole, is 0.541 the provincial HDI varies from the highest in the Punjab, at 0.557, to the lowest at 0.499 in Baluchistan. Islamabad has a greater weight of affluent citizens in its population with a far better social infrastructure than in any province of Pakistan. It is not surprising therefore that the HDI of Islamabad is 0.612 which is higher than that of any of the provinces in the country.

Among the districts, Jhelum has the highest HDI rank at 0.703 and Dera Bugti the lowest at 0.285. Data indicates the large disparities in terms of human development between the districts of Pakistan.

There is also a wide variation in the human development indices within each province. For example in the Punjab, while Jhelum has the highest HDI (0.703), Muzzafargarh has the lowest (0.459). The size and overall development of a district also affects its HDI rank due to intra district variations in income and social infrastructure. Thus for example Lahore has an HDI rank of 0.558 compared to 0.703 for Jhelum because of the much greater inequality of incomes and level of social infrastructure available to the poor and rich parts of Lahore district respectively.

Building the capacity of women Pakistan ranks 120 out of 144 countries. It is the worst performer in South Asia. The gender empowerment measure implies whether women take an active part in economic and political life. It focuses on gender inequality in key areas of economic and political participation and decision-making. It tracks the share of seats in parliament held by women; of female legislators, senior officials and managers; and of female professional and technical workers- and the gender disparity in earned income, reflecting economic independence. Economists agree that the greater the gender disparity in basic human development, the lower is a country's gender disparity index relative to its HDI. Pakistan ranks 76 in Female administrators and managers, 79 in female professional and technical workers, and 139 in ratio of female earned income to male earned income.

The poor governance is a leading cause of lack of human development in Pakistan. Economic stagnation, dire poverty and social inequalities are the result of continued corruption, inefficient management of public resources, and the exclusion of the poor in the development process. Transparency and accountability are lacking in Pakistan's government structures. In effect, it encourages a people-centered approach to better governance in Pakistan and highlights the importance of participatory governance for growth, poverty reduction and sustainable human development

Today the changing ideas are about sources of growth. The institutions are seen as fundamental. Development can be thought of as a process of creating and sustaining the economic and political institutions that support equitable and sustainable growth. Rather than building and consolidating institutions, Pakistan’s institutions are lucklessly being hanged loose.

Sustained poverty reduction requires equitable growth-but it also requires that poor people have political power. And the best way to achieve that in a manner consistent with human development objectives is by building strong and deep forms of democratic governance at all levels of society.

Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. Pakistan needs to understand that people are the real wealth. Its development should thus be about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And this implies much more than economic growth, which is only a means —if a very important one —of enlarging people ’s choices.

Fundamental to enlarging these choices should be building of human capabilities —the range of things that people can do or be in life. The most basic capabilities for human development are to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living and to be able to participate in the life of the community. Without these, many choices are simply not available, and many opportunities in life remain inaccessible.

The way of looking at development, often forgotten in the immediate concern with accumulating commodities and financial wealth, is not new. Philosophers, economists and political leaders have long emphasized human well-being as the purpose, the end, of development. As Aristotle said in ancient Greece, “Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for the sake of something else.”

In seeking that something else, human development should share a common vision with human rights. The goal is human freedom. And in pursuing capabilities and realizing rights, this freedom is vital. People of Pakistan must be free to exercise their choices and to participate in decision-making that affects their lives. Human development and human rights are mutually reinforcing, helping to secure the well-being and dignity of all people, building self-respect and the respect of others. (www.asifjmir.com)

The Illiterates of 21st Century

Futurist Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can not read or write but those who can not learn, unlearn and relearn. In his book Future Shock, he told us that the traditional way of incorporating new information was to learn, learn more, and then learn more. The tasks before us, however complex, allegedly would be solved if we simply worked a little harder, studied a little longer, and applied ourselves more. As Toffler suggests, what's necessary today is to approach your work and life from the perspective of learning, unlearning, and relearning.

When you switch from an old model car to a new model, most of what you know about the earlier model is of little value when it comes to using the new model. You have to unlearn—forget what you have known—and march into completely new territory. Fortunately, the operation will be a success, and you won't go back, but it is painful, and gives you moments of great anxiety.

The next time you need to make a major car change, more fully embrace the concept of learning, unlearning, and re-learning–let go of what you used to know. You'll be far more proficient.

This imperative for learning is clear as we have witnessed in the global corporate world what happened to many so called "corporate dinosaurs" when change surges through faster than their people’s ability and willingness to learn and adapt to the environment.

Learning organizations are therefore those companies that subscribe to the importance of getting all its members to continuously upgrade their skills, knowledge and experience. They provide the necessary support and ensure that learning takes place as a group in the workplace and in the process increases the competencies and capabilities of their organizations to deal with change and compete in the market place.

The learning organization promotes the continuous cycle of learning, unlearning and relearning. It recognizes that the speed of change in the market place will make obsolete some of the knowledge and skills of its people. It puts great value on the ability to constantly innovate and translate learning into new opportunities in the market place.

Leaders of learning organizations have the courage to abandon old assumptions, which are no longer true, although they were the basis of their success in the past. They encourage staff to unlearn outdated ways of doing things, which are no longer suitable in the new market place. They get their people to relearn the latest processes and systems that will enable them to be more competitive. The leaders in a learning organization are not sentimental to old technologies and systems that are no longer effective.

Those leaders realize that an environment of continuous change requires a commitment to continuous learning to prevent their organization from becoming a corporate dinosaur. Let the lesson of failure from the Encyclopedia Britannica be a warning to those who take lightly of the need for change.

Encyclopedia Britannica had their most profitable year ever in 1993 and then went bankrupt in 1995. The company continued to sell only printed encyclopedias, ignoring the powerful CD-ROM technology. They rose to the top of the industry and then became a corporate titanic that sank because they did not see the need for continuous learning and change.

Leaders in learning organizations avoid the tendency to impose their views on subordinates. They understand that leadership is not about monopolizing. It is about liberating. They help employees break free of constraints whether real or perceived to achieve a higher level of performance. They encourage employees to stretch their capabilities to the maximum. They encourage initiative and tap the creativity of their staff to improve work.

To encourage commitment and elevate the self-esteem of employees, they give credit where it is due. They do so because they know that people will be more committed to their responsibilities if they are credited for the ideas or suggestions. They are slow to criticize ideas that do not work and quick to praise those that do. Learning organizations are open to new ideas from their employees as well as those outside such as customers, suppliers, government and even competitors.

Environmental monitoring undertaken by companies help detect early signs of changes in the market place that are about to take place and prepare them to respond swiftly. They study customers, suppliers, competitors, government policies, technology makers and economic conditions of the environment and assess the implications on their business today and the future. They undertake competitor benchmarking and set goals to model after the best companies in their industry. In some areas where they are the market leaders, they innovate and drive the industry by creating the future. Thus they may come up with new products or services, which reinvent the industry and have all other companies trailing their footsteps.

The challenge of learning organizations is to learn and adapt faster than its competitors. The ultimate test of a learning organization is its ability to translate its training and learning into practice. Learning organizations makes it possible for training and learning in the classroom to be translated into practice.

Besides extrinsic rewards leaders also take time to provide people with the intrinsic rewards such as organization-wide recognition, praises, letters of commendations and special dinner invitations.

To keep on in a time of rapid change and also to beat the increasing competition in the market place, Pakistan’s companies are required to produce their products or services faster, better and cheaper. To be able to do this, they need to learn new skills, technologies and processes at a faster rate than their competitors. In fact, to survive the turbulent and accelerating change, and to keep off from becoming the illiterates of the 21st century, they need to continue to learn, unlearn and relearn. (www.asifjmir.com)

The Founding Fathers of Terrorists

There’s a reason to believe that the past US foreign policies have relevance with the occurrence of terrorism. The terrorists of today are the magnum opus of America’s wrongheaded policies. The American leadership has yet to explore this viewpoint to any depth.

The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan galvanized Usama bin Laden. He supported the Afghan resistance, which subsequently became a jihad (holy war). Ironically, the US turned out to be a major supporter of the Afghan resistance. It also helped in setting up Islamic schools (madrassas) in Pakistan for Afghan refugees.

By the mid-1980s, Usma bin Laden had moved to Afghanistan, where he established an organization, Maktab al-Khidimat (MAK), to recruit Islamic soldiers (mujahideen) from around the world who later formed the basis of an international network. The MAK maintained recruiting offices in Detroit and Brooklyn in the 1980s.

The Saudi born millionaire, Osama bin Laden, served as a veteran of the 1979-89 Afghan war against the Soviets where he came to understand the conflict in the light of Muslim versus heretics based on the Qur’an. Interestingly, the US government supplied arms to Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden and the Taliban rulers.

The terrorists are now those recruited, trained, organized, and armed by the CIA and its associates in the 1980s, not to help the Afghans, but for reasons of state, power, the usual kinds. In around 1990, they turned against the US for reasons of their own. In 1993, related groups came very close to blowing up the World Trade Center. According to the WTC engineers, if they had a little better planning, they would have killed tens of thousands of people. That’s in 1993, not 2001. Those groups happened to be organized by the West.

You can say the same about plenty of others. Take Israel’s main terrorist enemies — Hezbollah and Hamas. Where did they come from? In part, the origins of Hamas lie in Israeli sponsorship of radical Islamist groups to undermine the secular Palestinian leadership. Hezbollah came out of a US-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon twenty years ago that killed about 20,000 people, and had no defensive purpose whatsoever — it was barely even pretended. It was an attempt to undermine the secular PLO because its efforts at negotiation were becoming difficult to handle. The end result is that it helped create Hezbollah. Incidentally, terrorist acts are just a gift to the most hard line oppressive elements.

The US began covert sponsorship of Muslim extremists five months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. President Carter authorized the covert action. The US foreign policy fomented Muslim extremism as a weapon of policy.

The cornerstone of the program was that the US, through CIA, would provide funds, some weapons and general supervision of support for the mujahideen. The hands-off US role contrasted with CIA operations in Nicaragua and Angola.

In Afghanistan and then in Bosnia, the US sponsored freedom fight was being condemned even officially by the State Department. Because ordinary people would never support such a policy, it was sold to the public as support for freedom fighters (Afghanistan) or as defense of abused Muslims (Bosnia.)

Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujahideen rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a US Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment. It was the largest covert action program since World War II.

By the time the Red Army completed its pullout from Afghanistan, in February 1989, the ranks of the Afghan mujahideen groups were swelled with combatants who had been recruited to fight the "Great Atheistic Satan" in Moscow. Out of that operation evolved a mercenary force that shifted its anger from Moscow to the West, and that now comprise the largest labor pool of potential terrorists ever seen.

Fifteen years later, when some of the very Afghan mujahideen who had given Moscow a bloody nose were turned loose as an international terrorist force, carrying out some of their most heinous crimes on the streets of America. When the US first began pouring in billions of dollars in aid to the Afghans, it had never occurred to anyone inside US intelligence that the program would blow back in such a bloody fashion. The hypothesis that the mujahideen would come to the US and commit terrorist actions did not enter into the universe of thinking at the time. It is a significant unplanned consequence.

With the active encouragement of the CIA that wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.

In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the Bush Administration as "a threat to America"-- is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organizations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

One must ask: if the US foreign policy used Muslim extremism as a weapon once, how can one argue in principle that they would not use it again? Why this action was justifiable against other country and a hellish terrorist act against the US?

When a hegemonic global power centralizes power, wealth and knowledge in the hands of the minority, when there are few avenues to ensure accountability, the marginalization and alienation among the many can lead to disastrous results. (www.asifjmir.com)

Back to School, Vacation's up!

Back to school
Vacation’s up
Heavy bags are back
Everyone’s complaining
No more waking up late
Nor playing with your pup.
School is back!

Lo! It's school time again! Your children must be feeling excited and maybe a little sad that summer is over. Seeing friends afresh following a long vacation can make the first day a good one. Students can make the day feel special by wearing new sneakers and putting a spring in their step. They might also put on a favorite watch, piece of jewelry, or hold a new cell phone to show their personal style. It can make them feel good to be prepared if they possess all the supplies they need.

Whatever is stacked in the backpack, make sure your child packs it the night before. This prevents the morning panic when he/she can't find his/her homework or lunch box. Speaking of lunch, that's something else, that can help your child feel good at school - whether it's the first day or the 100th day. Pack it the night before if your child doesn't like what's on the menu. Try to include a variety of foods in your packed lunch, especially fruits and vegetables.

Backpacks are a necessary item for carrying books to and from school each day. And when used correctly, they distribute weight to the strongest muscles of the body in the most practical way possible. But if a child is carrying the wrong backpack or isn't wearing it correctly, it can lead to serious back problems.

Actually, young children are suffering from back pain much earlier than in previous generations, and the use of overweight backpacks is a significant contributing factor, according to the American Chiropractic Association. A recent study conducted in Italy found that the average child carries a backpack that would be the equivalent of a 39-pound burden for a 176-pound man.

The backpack should never weigh more than 10 percent of your child's body weight. Spread the items out throughout the backpack. Teach your child to bend at the knees instead of the waist while wearing or picking up a heavy backpack. Have a list of important phone numbers, including your work number, in his backpack.

As children act independently, make choices and mistakes, they learn and grow. Thinking positively about and accepting your children unconditionally as they move through this process helps them develop a positive self-concept. It is important for children to come to school emotionally, physically, and socially healthy. When children feel good about themselves are well rested, and well nourished they are more ready to learn.

At schools in developed countries with strong parent involvement are experiencing profound benefits for students, parents, teachers, and administrators. When parents are involved in students' education, those students generally have higher grades and test scores, better attendance, and more consistently completed homework.

Parents are the first teachers—support learning at home. They can get involved in their children's education and future to ensure they have the best educational experience possible. The more involved you are, the better your child's chances of getting a good education.

Frequent communication with your children's teachers and school is the key to academic success. Encourage exploration and discovery. The world is your children's oyster. By encouraging your children to develop their interests and seek out opportunities to try new things you help them make the most of the world around them.

Help your child develop good relationships. All children want to fit in, be accepted, and feel like they belong. Helping your children develop good relationships can have a positive impact on their future development.

By identifying potential risks and giving clear instructions to your children on how to avoid such risks, children can sidestep danger by knowing what to do in threatening situations. Talking to children about safety also increases their understanding of violence and the need for practicing safe behaviors.

The schools teach children how to read, but the environment of the home must teach them what to read. The school can teach them how to think but the home must teach them what to believe. Television is an enemy of good education. In our homes, TV is the greatest obstacle to learning. I urge you to shut it off from Sunday evening until Friday evening during the school year.

Many students try to avoid it, but teaching and learning research indicates that children who spend more time on regularly assigned, meaningful homework, on average, do better in school, and that the academic benefits of homework increase as children move into the upper grades.

Remember it's your children's homework, not yours. Create a specific homework space that's clutter-free and quiet. Encourage editing and double-checking work, but allow your kids to make mistakes, as it's the only way teachers can gauge if they understand the material. It's also how children learn responsibility for the quality of their work.

As parents you are the most important influence in your child's success in school and in life. Reach for the sky—Set high but pragmatic expectations. Taking some time to really look at your children and notice their strengths, talents, and interests, as well as areas where they need assistance, will help them develop realistic self-expectations, thus making them feel and be successful.

Young buddies! You are going to have a fantastic first day after a long vacation: Get enough sleep the night before. Eat a healthy breakfast. Develop good work habits, like writing down your assignments and turning in your homework on time. Take your time with school work. If you don't understand something, ask the teacher. Practice sportsmanship. Keep your face to the sunshine. Be a waking dream, a dealer in hope. Learn from our national heroes … nation looks up to you as our future. (www.asifjmir.com)

Population: The Doom and Gloom

In 1971, population biologist Paul Ehrlich estimated that if human numbers kept increasing at the high rates of the time, by around 2900 the planet would be teeming with sixty million billion people (that’s 60,000,000,000,000,000). But the rate of population rise actually peaked in the 1960s and demographers expect a leveling-off of human numbers this century.

No kidding. If the current growth rate continued, in 130 years Pakistan’s population will be equal to the population of world today.

The population of Pakistan in mid-2004 was 159.2 million, births per 1000 are 34 and deaths per 1000 are 10. Pakistan’s rate of natural increase in population growth is 2.4 percent, and projected population in the year 2025 and 2050 would be 228.8 and 295.0 million, respectively. The projected population change in 2004-2050 would be 85 percent.

In 1950 Pakistan had a population of about 40 million people. Since then it has grown many times. But the real population explosion in Pakistan will only come over the next few decades, because the country not only has a very young population, but also still an extremely high fertility - much higher. These large numbers of children and young adults will soon come into reproductive age and will produce a large number of offsprings.

The latest facts and figures state that future population prospects are shaped in large part by the age profile of its citizens. More than half of Pakistan's population is below the age of fifteen; nearly a third is below the age of nine. Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world with an inverse sex ratio: official sources claim there are 111 men for every 100 women. The discrepancy is particularly obvious among people over fifty: men account for 7.1 percent of the country's total population and women for less than 5 percent. This figure reflects the secondary status of females in Pakistani society, especially their lack of access to quality medical care.

In population Pakistan ranks sixth in the world and its land area stands at thirty-second position among nations. Thus Pakistan has about 2 percent of the world's population living on less than 0.7 percent of the world's land. In the year 2050, Pakistan would continue to gracefully stand elevated among top 5 population giants. Pakistan cannot be pulled out of the poverty trap with 3 million additional births every year.

Pakistan is poised to more than double its size by 2050 even as supplies of water, forests, and food crops are already showing signs of strain and other species are being squeezed into smaller and smaller ranges.

A huge consumption gap exists between industrialized and developing countries and Pakistan. The world's richest countries, with 20 per cent of global population, account for 86 per cent of total private consumption, whereas the poorest 20 per cent of the world's people account for just 1.3 per cent.

A newborn in the USA or Europe will put greater pressure on the Earth’s carrying capacity than a whole family of newborns in Pakistan. Numbers and the Earth’s ability to provide are increasingly framed by the realities of gender relations. It is now generally agreed that while enabling larger numbers of women and men to use modern methods of family planning is essential, it is not sufficient. By expanding the choices and capacities of women, a central thread can be formed in the population story. Consumption—what we need and what we want—is, too.

Pakistan's people are not evenly distributed throughout the country. There is an average of 146 persons per square kilometer, but the density varies dramatically, ranging from scarcely populated arid areas, especially in Balochistan, to some of the highest urban densities in the world, such as Karachi and Lahore.

Municipal governments in Pakistan are least able to muster the human and financial resources to contend with these problems, especially when the poorest, non-taxable segment of the urban population continues to grow rapidly.

The risks of instability among youth may increase when skilled members of elite classes are marginalized by a lack of opportunity. It isn’t difficult to find contemporary parallels. The collapse of the Communist regime in the Soviet Union in the early 1990s was partly due to the mobilization of large numbers of discontented young men who were unable to put their technical education to use due to party restrictions on entering the elite.

The greatest challenge before government hence is the need to tackle the underlying factors contributing to discontent among young people, including poverty and the lack of economic opportunity. It can address part of the risk associated with youth unemployment by investing in job creation and training, boosting access to credit, and promoting entrepreneurship.

Eventually, however, the only way to achieve the necessary long-term changes in age structure will be through declines in fertility. Government can facilitate fertility decline by supporting policies and programs that provide access to reproductive health services and by promoting policies that increase girls’ educational attainment and boost women’s opportunities for employment outside the home.

The stewardship of the planet and the well-being of its people are a collective responsibility. Everywhere we face critical decisions. Some are about how to protect and promote fundamental values such as the right to health and human dignity. Others reflect trade-offs between available options, or the desire to broaden the range of choice. We need to think carefully but urgently about what the choices are, and to take every action that will broaden choices and extend the time in which to understand their implications. We need a decision today not just to bring down the birth rate but also to attain a balance between resources and population. For a secure future this goal must be pursued vigorously through sound population management. (www.asifjmir.com)