what is really happpening here?
The situation on the ground is similar to FATA, in that the government has halted the majority of the military ops. in the province to try and give dialog a chance.
In true FATA fashion, the PPP government in Baluchistan is trying its best to pin the blame for the violence on "vested interests" rather than the BLA and other groups, who are quite disappointed by that since they have been screaming for credit from the roof tops.
But since the GoP wants dialog, and dialog cannot be had with terrorists, the BLA is not responsible, despite Brahamdegh Bugti's statements and acceptance of responsibility for most of these acts.
On the national political scene, which is what the opening post of the thread is related to, some much needed steam is being built up towards fixing some long running flaws in the way Pakistan is governed.
The concurrent list seems set to be deleted, which will delegate a very large amount of autonomy to the provinces. This proposal is part of the PPP-ANP constitutional package related to the judiciary, as is a proposal to rename the NWFP Pakhtunkhwa.
The next steps would be revenue sharing between the Feds and the provinces, something which has also rankled the smaller provinces, and Punjab, for various reasons.
The distribution of revenue this year has gone up to 47 percent for the provinces, from 37 a few years ago, and there are proposals to increase it to fifty. The second major concern is setting the new NFC (national Finance commission) award, which determines how revenues are distributed between the provinces.
The formula has so far been based on population, which understandably does not sit well with the smaller provinces. The proposals being floated now are suggesting a composite formula, whereby lack of development and contribution to revenue generation shall be made part of the equation. Another issue that might be looked at is giving provinces a share/larger share of the revenue generated through resources in their territories.
All of the above has been talked about countless times before with no movement taking place. With the abolition of the concurrent list already part of the PPP's amendment package, and verbal commitments from the coalition leaders regarding a composite NFC accord, plus the already witnessed greater revenue provision to the provinces, I believe people/provincial leaders are hopeful that this government will address a lot of these extremely pressing issues. Given past failures however, there is also a lot of subtle and not so subtle pressure being put on the GoP (through statements such as that starting this thread) that enough is enough, and now is the time to put our house in order.
