PPP ~ Development projects and modernisation of Sindh
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Qalandari
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He was of the view that wall chalking should be discouraged. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
#Reclaiming Our Walls: Graffiti to be removed from walls in city
KARACHI: The commissioner of Karachi is aware of everything that goes on in the city. He is aware that a lot of people use the city’s walls to advertise things such as curing impotency and Baba Bangash’s magical love potions. This time, he says he has had enough and wants them removed.
During a meeting at his office on Saturday, he included removing wall chalking as a part of the ‘clean and green campaign’ being carried out by the city’s administration.
“It is the worst example of the manifestation of our social behaviour,” said Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat, a professor at the sociology department of Karachi University. He added that when you travel by train from Karachi to Lahore, you can find this kind of absurd, phallocentric wall chalking at every stop.
He was of the view that wall chalking should be discouraged and the government must take strict action against the inappropriate graffiti. “In every civilised society, it is prohibited to commercialise the walls with [such] cheap advertisements,” he said.
According to Burfat, wall chalkings have been used as a form of protest against the established political and social system. “People express their anxiety, opinions and fears through this discourse of aggression and expression,” he said. “Since wall chalkings — advertisements, political slogans and other messages — make the urban landscape look ‘ugly’, the authorities have launched a drive against it.”
The commissioner, Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, said that the city administration has asked all political and religious parties to step up and remove graffiti from the city’s walls to help keep Karachi beautiful, clean and green. He added that the campaign against wall chalking will continue in different areas of the city till everything was removed. Whitewash will be used to erase all types writings on the walls along with the advertisements.
NaMaloom
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How Karachi’s waste is poisoning Pakistan | Toronto Star
In Pakistan, 350 million gallons of raw sewage flows into Karahi’s harbour each day. It's poisoning what used to be fertile fishing grounds.
ABDUL REHMAN GOTH, PAKISTAN—The Arabian Sea was unusually choppy on a recent day, but fishermen here on the outskirts of Karachi needed money. So they packed into wobbly six-metre boats stacked with nets, bait and enough food to last up to two weeks at sea.
If they are lucky, they will return with enough lobster, tuna and mackerel to earn each of them $30. These days, however, luck seems to be running out for the fishermen and other residents of this 100-year-old village who are struggling to withstand the sickening pollution of Pakistan’s largest city.
“There are no fish at the shore, and all the fish are at the deep sea,” said Ali Muhammad, who, like many villagers, said he does not know his exact age; he guessed about 40. “Earlier we got fish even in this area, but now we have to travel five, six, seven hours continuously, and maybe there will be lobster or bigger fish.”
Located just 25 kilometres from downtown Karachi, Abdul Rehman Goth is a hardscrabble community of 6,000 that feels a world apart from the urban chaos nearby. But as Karachi’s population continues to swell, that sense of distance is fading, and villagers find it increasingly hard to escape reminders of the encroaching city squalor.
When Muhammad’s ancestors settled here, the shoreline was dotted with remote fishing colonies and shaded by dense mangrove forests.
But those features eroded as Karachi’s population exploded from about 2 million in 1960 to an estimated 22 million today. Much of the waste generated by all of those people — as well as by thousands of textile, plastics, leather and chemical factories — flows directly into the Arabian Sea. The mangroves that used to serve as a filter, protecting fish and crustaceans, are disappearing because of sprawl and illegal cutting.
Karachi has just two functional wastewater treatment plants, and it is largely up to individual business owners to determine whether industrial waste is stored or dumped into canals, officials say. As a result, each day, 350 million gallons of raw sewage or untreated industrial waste — enough to fill 530 Olympic-size swimming pools — from the city flows into the harbour, according to Fayyaz Rasool, manager of the Marine Pollution Control Department at Karachi Port Trust.
In addition, about 8,000 tonnes of solid waste is dumped or washes into the harbour each day. Even more pollution enters the Arabian Sea from the Indus River, which travels the length of Pakistan’s sugar cane and industrial belt before emptying near the Pakistan-India border.
“The Karachi port really is a worst-case scenario for pollution,” said Mohammad Moazzam Khan, a leading Pakistani marine biologist and the former head of the country’s Marine Fisheries Department. “This is the worst pollution I have seen anywhere in the world, and I have seen many places.”
Suffering Fishermen
In a country where clean water and trash collection are unavailable to most, the polluted sea hasn’t dramatically changed daily life for most Karachi residents. During the sweltering summer, tens of thousands of people still flock to beaches to picnic or dip their feet in the water. The wealthy still build beachfront villas, and restaurants that advertise locally caught seafood thrive.
But the pollution threatens a way of life that the fishermen have passed down through generations. Not only are there fewer fish, but villagers also suffer from ailments that they attribute to pollution, including stomach pain, hearing loss, and respiratory and skin infections. Some even say pollution is causing their hair to go grey sooner.
“All that I know, three years ago my hair started to change from black to white,” said Waqar Baloch, 16, who wears a “Hang Loose Hawaii” hat to cover up his salt-and-pepper hair.
Located on an inlet known as Hawk’s Bay, Abdul Rehman Goth is a few kilometres from a small nuclear reactor that Canada built for Pakistan in the 1970s. Some residents blame the plant for their health problems, but officials say repeated testing has shown normal radiation levels.
Instead, health experts say, it appears the fishermen are being exposed to the same harmful chemicals poisoning the marine life they are trying to catch. Several recent studies have shown that fish near Karachi contain elevated levels of chromium, cadmium, lead and iron.
“We are seeing a lot of skin problems in communities that live in the harbour area and are directly exposed to the water,” Rasool said. “The good thing is, twice a day, the tide comes in and flushes all the pollution out.”
Rasool said that Karachi officials hope to build several new wastewater treatment plants but that they will cost a total of $170 million and take years to complete. In Abdul Rehman Goth, villagers wonder how much time they have.
“My eye burns, I lost some of my hair and I have digestive problems,” said Shakeel Ahmed, who estimated his age as 21 and was nursing a bloodshot right eye. “And this is the season of the shrimp, but for the last seven, eight years, day-to-day, there are fewer shrimp.”
===============================================================================
Sadly, the PPP administration & its MQM partners are asleep on issues of pollution and land grab by commercial mafias, cutting down of Karachi's magnificent Mangroves. What a disaster. Being from Karachi, I still remember the black water of Lyari River and Malir River dumping God knows what into the Arabian Sea destroying Karachi's marine life and bio-diversity. Such a shame!
In Pakistan, 350 million gallons of raw sewage flows into Karahi’s harbour each day. It's poisoning what used to be fertile fishing grounds.
ABDUL REHMAN GOTH, PAKISTAN—The Arabian Sea was unusually choppy on a recent day, but fishermen here on the outskirts of Karachi needed money. So they packed into wobbly six-metre boats stacked with nets, bait and enough food to last up to two weeks at sea.
If they are lucky, they will return with enough lobster, tuna and mackerel to earn each of them $30. These days, however, luck seems to be running out for the fishermen and other residents of this 100-year-old village who are struggling to withstand the sickening pollution of Pakistan’s largest city.
“There are no fish at the shore, and all the fish are at the deep sea,” said Ali Muhammad, who, like many villagers, said he does not know his exact age; he guessed about 40. “Earlier we got fish even in this area, but now we have to travel five, six, seven hours continuously, and maybe there will be lobster or bigger fish.”
Located just 25 kilometres from downtown Karachi, Abdul Rehman Goth is a hardscrabble community of 6,000 that feels a world apart from the urban chaos nearby. But as Karachi’s population continues to swell, that sense of distance is fading, and villagers find it increasingly hard to escape reminders of the encroaching city squalor.
When Muhammad’s ancestors settled here, the shoreline was dotted with remote fishing colonies and shaded by dense mangrove forests.
But those features eroded as Karachi’s population exploded from about 2 million in 1960 to an estimated 22 million today. Much of the waste generated by all of those people — as well as by thousands of textile, plastics, leather and chemical factories — flows directly into the Arabian Sea. The mangroves that used to serve as a filter, protecting fish and crustaceans, are disappearing because of sprawl and illegal cutting.
Karachi has just two functional wastewater treatment plants, and it is largely up to individual business owners to determine whether industrial waste is stored or dumped into canals, officials say. As a result, each day, 350 million gallons of raw sewage or untreated industrial waste — enough to fill 530 Olympic-size swimming pools — from the city flows into the harbour, according to Fayyaz Rasool, manager of the Marine Pollution Control Department at Karachi Port Trust.
In addition, about 8,000 tonnes of solid waste is dumped or washes into the harbour each day. Even more pollution enters the Arabian Sea from the Indus River, which travels the length of Pakistan’s sugar cane and industrial belt before emptying near the Pakistan-India border.
“The Karachi port really is a worst-case scenario for pollution,” said Mohammad Moazzam Khan, a leading Pakistani marine biologist and the former head of the country’s Marine Fisheries Department. “This is the worst pollution I have seen anywhere in the world, and I have seen many places.”
Suffering Fishermen
In a country where clean water and trash collection are unavailable to most, the polluted sea hasn’t dramatically changed daily life for most Karachi residents. During the sweltering summer, tens of thousands of people still flock to beaches to picnic or dip their feet in the water. The wealthy still build beachfront villas, and restaurants that advertise locally caught seafood thrive.
But the pollution threatens a way of life that the fishermen have passed down through generations. Not only are there fewer fish, but villagers also suffer from ailments that they attribute to pollution, including stomach pain, hearing loss, and respiratory and skin infections. Some even say pollution is causing their hair to go grey sooner.
“All that I know, three years ago my hair started to change from black to white,” said Waqar Baloch, 16, who wears a “Hang Loose Hawaii” hat to cover up his salt-and-pepper hair.
Located on an inlet known as Hawk’s Bay, Abdul Rehman Goth is a few kilometres from a small nuclear reactor that Canada built for Pakistan in the 1970s. Some residents blame the plant for their health problems, but officials say repeated testing has shown normal radiation levels.
Instead, health experts say, it appears the fishermen are being exposed to the same harmful chemicals poisoning the marine life they are trying to catch. Several recent studies have shown that fish near Karachi contain elevated levels of chromium, cadmium, lead and iron.
“We are seeing a lot of skin problems in communities that live in the harbour area and are directly exposed to the water,” Rasool said. “The good thing is, twice a day, the tide comes in and flushes all the pollution out.”
Rasool said that Karachi officials hope to build several new wastewater treatment plants but that they will cost a total of $170 million and take years to complete. In Abdul Rehman Goth, villagers wonder how much time they have.
“My eye burns, I lost some of my hair and I have digestive problems,” said Shakeel Ahmed, who estimated his age as 21 and was nursing a bloodshot right eye. “And this is the season of the shrimp, but for the last seven, eight years, day-to-day, there are fewer shrimp.”
===============================================================================
Sadly, the PPP administration & its MQM partners are asleep on issues of pollution and land grab by commercial mafias, cutting down of Karachi's magnificent Mangroves. What a disaster. Being from Karachi, I still remember the black water of Lyari River and Malir River dumping God knows what into the Arabian Sea destroying Karachi's marine life and bio-diversity. Such a shame!
NaMaloom
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DHA and Malik Riaz grabbing land like crazy in and around Karachi. PPP sleeping..
Multi-billion rupee mangrove forest land grab: the sequel - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
Multi-billion rupee mangrove forest land grab: the sequel - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
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