Every year, for the past four years, I have been doing something in January, I write to Pakistani banks, via their websites (online) and gauge them on their response and customer service. Whilst for the past four years I was doing it purely out of curiosity, this year I decided to test our online banks and see how responsive (or lack thereof) they are to online customer queries.

The goal is simple:

• I have three questions that I shall be asking them, during different times of the week.
• All three questions are different.
• All the emails will go out from Gmail and Yahoo (so they cannot claim, that they never received it)
• I will gauge the banks on the following:

• Average time to reply
• Was the Question answered (Yes/No)
• Was there the response adequate
• Professionalism in their reply
• and other ancillary information that I will post (but not yet). Don’t want to give the whole thing away.

The report would be placed online, here on my blog as a downloadable PDF. It would be interesting to see how this detailed experiment of mine goes.

Stay tuned.

First of, its not by eating a whole lot of baked beans, though I can see what that would yield to!

On a serious note, individual investment into a wind farm can often be too costly, and a point of envy for the neighbors. A great was to get started on a personal wind farm is to involve the neighbors. For reasons that would immediately be understood by you, however, let me amplify.
(a) Start with education. You can contact your neighbors and ask them to attend a voluntary educational get together you are doing on ‘alternative’ energy (don’t just stick to Wind farm, just as yet). This is perhaps the hardest part. You will meet resistance, you will have no shows and you will need to shampoo-rinse-repeat many times over. But do not worry. Your delivery pitch will only get better. You will learn revise your presentation and also you will learn to document and research the areas in alternative energy better.
(b). Your education process will be a long one. Do it over a Bar-BQ, or drinks, or a visit to each household on the weekend with your laptop and do a 30 minute presentation. If your presentation invokes an interest (which it should), these neighbors of yours will also be compelled to learn/read about alternative energy.

(c). Your next goal is to make them ‘game’ of “How about we all pitch in and setup something?” A farm of anything (solar, wind etc.) will require permits (perhaps), cooperation from neighbors, and land. The more the merrier, but do not make the project too big. Make a small committee (people love being on a committee, and give assignments and titles). It just makes the whole cause more legit and serious.

(d) When you make an effort on a community level (30-50 houses), you will be taken more seriously by financial institutions and the companies that deliver wind farms, etc. (usually they have a mechanism to fund you as well – depending on the geography you are operating on).

(e) The goal should be ‘small’ to start off with, something where say A porch light in all the houses can be started (bad example, but nothing better is coming to mind right now). You can divide the costs amongst the 20, 30 or 50 households, it will be very much affordable and provide great insight on how to get started with your experimental project (and that is what it should be termed as). An experimental project. So if things don’t work out, everyone is in agreement, its no biggie.

(f) Contact some commercial vendors in this field and ask them to come around and make presentations. The numbers they will throw at you (depending on the salesmen) will vary. It could be horrendously expensive or too cheap-too-good-to-be-true. Either way, you goal is to have many of them visit, do a survey and propose some solution. Let the companies work and find a solution for you.

(g) Once you have a solution in place and financials, see which is the most appropriate one and have your committee vote on it – or make a decision and go with it.

One area I would definitely recommend you research is Vertical Axis Wind Turbines – which is a preferred design for small wind farms and the designs have improved a lot.

Your best approach is to take your neighbors into consideration, as the economies of scale and the sanity of the project will be in your favor. There is guaranteed not to be any NIMBY (Not-In-My-Backyard) people. Green technology everyone loves and promote. It is being taught all around from children to adults and everyone knows this is the right thing to do.

Good luck.

The questions that everyone wants an answer to. I have been writing to PayPal for 10+ years to solicit a reply from them – as to why they are not here in Pakistan (you can read that correspondence onwww.faisalkhan.com)

PayPal operates in various countries but a few countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, (amongst the larger ones) are missing. When countries like Somalia, Yemen and Rwanda are included in the list of countries where PayPal is available, one begins to wonder why Pakistan is not included.

It is not primarily about market size, I am sure Pakistan’s market size is a whole lot larger than many countries (combined) where PayPayl currently operates in.

The issue is country risk. <- I cannot sum it more accurately.

A financial institution like Paypal does risk assessment in their own way to assess which country it should and should not do business with. PK, whilst a large market size (compared to say Sri Lanka or Yemen or Rwanda) still poses a high-risk due to the factors like:

• KYC (Know Your Customer)
• AML (Anti-Money Laundering)
• OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control)
• SAR (Suspicious Activity Report)
• Beneficiary Information

The above (IMHO) are the major issues that PayPal faces, not being able to accurately gauge the above, is a risk that PayPal does not want to take.

They, PayPal can be penalized by the financial regulator in the country they operate FROM (not To), and the risk of account freezing, etc. All these factors they have to weigh against how much money they can earn (and they have a pretty good estimator for this). The risk vs the income – makes them conclude that PK is a risk country as far as business is concerned.

In addition to this, a small group with PayPal is trying to convince their management to look into Pakistan, whilst a large portion of members within the PayPal corporate world are literally biased and oblivious towards Pakistan as well (this is not an empty statement, but the ground reality within PayPal). PayPal itself is not entirely ‘clean or fair’ in its efforts. The ruckus that Pakistan is a money laundering country, etc. fails and pales in comparison to the amount of money laundering done in the US, and Latin America. As with every Pakistan/Indian issue, there are bigoted people within PayPal who are still harboring the animosity towards each other, is also another unsaid reason why Pakistan and Bangladesh have not gotten PayPal.

There is absolutely NO written notification and/or official circular from the US Government or Federal Reserve that ‘prevents’ Pakistan from having PayPal or tells organizations PayPal to discourage the Pakistani market. This myopic stance within PayPal is biased and unfair.

As previously speculated on many forums, it has NOTHING to do with SECP, SBP, FBR, etc. – - – that is not the issue (nor ever was).

A lot many forums and discussion boards have proposed that if PayPal cannot come to Pakistan, we should have our own payment system for the world to accept and adopt.

If you track payment systems, there are currently over 250+ payment system, after discounting the top 10-15 payment system, the rest of them COMBINED together probably do not do more than say #14 or #15 on the list. Having a payment system is one thing, having it adopted and be utilized and accepted by others is another matter entirely — and in some cases the key.

Lets talk about inward micro-payment options (barring PayPal) – you have none. No other micro payment system exists currently other than Paypal (sub $1 payments notwithstanding) that is worth mentioning or worth trading or transacting on. Even if you will make one, do you actually think your buyers in the international arena will adopt it? (I dont think so). Even some famous ones are having issues adopting.

The same can be applied for outward settlement. The fees structure for settling payment outside of Pakistan is quite complex. Daily reporting on transactions, along with the KYC and AML needs to be reported to the PRI division of SBP.

Without having any a priori information on the subject matter, people can comment and propose all they want, but seriously ask your self a question, how many hours? days? week? months? or years? have you applied towards the understanding of various payment systems that exist today? Have you ever spoken to them? Understood the back-office and legal issues, met with them in a seminar, etc.

So proposing that Paypal do this or that — is frivolous, (they are way more informed than you and I – combined).

Also – proposing an alternate payment system – how will that fair, if say tomorrow Google checkout becomes a micro-payment system, or the same were to happen with Twitter, or what many consider the inevitable, that Facebook launches either itself or in partnership with someone else, launches an payment/virtual-currency, that allows cross-border settlement and micro-payments? How will you payment system work.

Also remember, Paypal does not allow external payment system to integrate with them.

I do not mean to stomp the idea, but believe me, I have spent many years reading this all and do not make a statement just on heresay, but one that is based on hard statistics, fact and a whole lot of communication.

We may be #3 or #2 on some freelancing project network site, but what are we processing in terms of real-$-value per day? Do we do $30 Million a month – if not – we’re nothing as far as the financial transaction settlement world is concerned – an average ACH in the US transaction more than the $1 Trillion per day (yes, that’s is correct 1 Trillion, and no its not a typo). US ACHs transact more than $30-$45 Trillion per day, depending on the day of the week.

So, swallow your pride and understand and live with what we have. In the fiscal world as far as income – we are NOTHING. Accept that. In the world of RISK, believe me when I say we are almost #1. If people (rather financial institutions are NOT willing to do business here), then there is nothing you can do about it – Government or No-Government Pressure!

Let me give you an analogous example, please bear with me on the humor. The mangoes export of this country is FAR greater in number ($-wise) than say the inward and outward money combined from freelancing. Yet, the US chooses that we cannot export mangoes to the US, and there is NOTHING we can do about it. This has been true for over 25 years. Now – if we cannot export mangoes to the US, then what comical sense do we bring to the table asking Paypal to come here, because we are #2 or #3 on some work portal. [Yes, as an update, I know of the recent mangoes export to the US  -  for the first time.]

After years of writing to PayPal to solicit a reply, which they eventually did (via unofficial channels), I decided to buy a domain called PayPalAlternatives.biz to highlight the alternative payment systems that users can opt for in countries where either PayPal is not available or restricted.

Here is the test of the letter I received:

from ip@ebayenforcement.com reply-to ip@ebayenforcement.com to babushka99@gmail.com date Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 12:30 AM subject Your Domain Registration – paypalalternative.biz [Case #49847] mailed-by ebayenforcement.com

Header Credentials

Now, whilst I really wanted to comment on it, both my US and Pakistani Legal Council has requested I do not do so.

Here was my reply to this email:

Dear Edith,

I intend not to be bullied by eBay / PayPal. Both these organization have a lot of explaining to do, and chose to do so, only when they feel its there time to do so. 1,000s of people suffer by the injustice done to their PayPal account everyday  - it is not even funny. If you visit websites like paypalsucks.com, screwpaypal.com and many others, you will get an idea of what I am talking about.

I have full intentions of publishing a personalized blog that highlights the various payment systems, that pose as an alternative to PayPal. If the domain is ever snatched away from me, believe me, a very befitting reply in the form of a large scale campaign against PayPal would be made by me.

I was (and perhaps still am) an ardent lover/fan of the PayPal money system and keep wondering why they continue to shun Pakistan, but when they stoop down to dirty legal arm-twisting like this – rest assured, I too shall twist their arm in return.

CPLC (Citizen Police Liaison Committee) has published a document called “Security Measures for Family & Child Safety“.

I believe this is a must read document for everyone who lives in Karachi (or Pakistan for that matter). The document can be downloaded from here (PDF 1.85MB).

The original document can be found on CPLC’s Official Website (on the very first page/main page).

Please help spread the word.

Energy, or more specifically alternative energy has always been a solution aimed at this world that is currently depended on fossil-fuel (oil) based energy. In Pakistan, this is no different. However, massive adaptation of alternative energy sources is missing. I keep wondering why? Most of the people in the finance world I talk to – have a decent understanding of what alternative energy can translate to as far as a viable business model is concerned, but the ROI (Return On Investment) which is measured in years for alternative energy, is one that does not pique the interest of the financiers.

The most notable alternative energy sources available to us are nuclear,  hydro, solar, wind, wave power and if you can count, fuel cell technology.

The ultimate goal would be to have an energy source, where we (as in consumers) don’t have to buy any fuel for the energy system we deploy (solar, wind, hyrdo, wave come into this vertical). I won’t discuss nuclear, hydro and ocean power, as these are something beyond the grasp of a common man, or business for that matter.

Lets discuss what option we do have and can exercise, specifically, solar power.

With the power shortfall in Pakistan hovering between 2,000 Megawatts to 4,000 Megawatts (depending on many factors, including time of the year, rain, fuel prices, etc.), the energy crises in this country is not going to disappear anytime soon.

As the common denominator in our fuel equation is oil (which is imported), pricing of almost everything in our lives is dependent on the price of oil. Oil makes things move. Cars, trucks, buses, industry, power, you, me. Increase the price of oil, and the price of everything changes. Decrease it – vice versa.

The most plentiful power source we have in Pakistan is solar – as anyone who sweats in the heat here would know! – the sun is upon us almost 365 days a year and that too with harsh intensity. Why do we not convert this great source of energy into electricity – on a mass level – baffles me.

Currently, we employed concentrated efforts to have the photovoltaic cell absorb sunlight and convert that into electricity. Even within the photovoltaic category, there are currently over a dozen different types of solar cells, (example: thin film, monocrystalline silicon, polycrystalline silicon, and amorphous cells, etc.) Which one will become the most dominant – remains to be seen. High-Cost solar cells with High-Efficiency convert best and are approaching their theoretical limit of about 30%-33%. But they are very high cost with ROI time-frames anywhere from 10 years to 15 years.

The solar power panels you and I commonly see, are the 2^nd generation of photovoltaic cells, and convert at an average of 20%.

To understand what this means, you must understand how much ‘energy’ falls in on Pakistan on a per square meter basis. The answer is 1,400 Watts / hour per square meter. That means, 10 square meters would receives 14kWatts of energy! That’s a lot. But conversion and storage are all the challenges.

The method of conservation for small units is to employ batteries (to store energy when sunlight is not available) to ensure near 24/7 supply of uninterrupted electricity.

For almost 20-30 years not much had changed in the photovoltaic cell industry. The pricing gradually came down, the cost of manufacturing inverters decreased, efficiency and pricing of batteries improved, more specifically, the use of VRLA batteries (valve-regulated lead-acid battery) – specifically gel based. But other than this, nothing monumental happened.

So, just to summarize the photovoltaic cells:

First generation of solar cells are those made with semiconductor p-n junctions.

Second generation of solar cells are those made with thin-film (to reduce cost), but employ the same p-n junction methodology.

The third generation of solar cells, would be able to over-come/break the technical theoretical limit of 30%-40% efficiency (also known as the Shockley-Queisser limit).

No third generation solar cell product exists (as a commercially manufactured end-product)  to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing of this blog article.

In Pakistan, because of the flat-roof construction, even the smallest of all habitats, you can get a roof covered area of minimum 300-400 square feet to deploy a solar powered solution. That is a lot of energy coming to your rooftop that you can put to good use.

Needless to say, for the Pakistani economy or average household that uses electricity, solar powered deployment can seem reasonably expensive. If you take items like the battery, inverter, cables and charger out, the most expensive component still remains the solar array. However, you must understand that despite it being expensive, a solar array has a life of 15-20 years.

A solar powered solution essentially has four components:

The Solar Array

This is what receives sunlight and then converts sunlight into electricity.

The size of the solar array would directly equate to the number of Watts you are deploying. For example in the picture above, you are seeing eight solar arrays. Each array is 400Watts, giving you a combined capacity of 3,200 Watts. So, quite simply, the larger the power requirement – the larger the solar array you would have to deploy.

Solar Controller (or Regulator)

Electricity that is flowing from the solar array needs to be controlled (or regulated) before it goes into the batter. Because the Current (measured in Amps) may fluctuate, etc. you need to control it into a steady fixed value (or stream) in order to charge the battery.

Batteries need to be charged at specific values (both for Current and for Voltage), the job of a solar controller is just that – and it does so, without damaging the battery (over or under charging can seriously damage the battery).

Batteries

Without batteries, it would be pretty difficult to keep that power on tap. Batteries can be a little difficult to understand, as they are both a factor of voltage and Amps per hour that are flowing into it.

Here is an excellent link that will help you ‘design’ your battery setup. In addition, I would highly recommend gel based, closed battery systems. Though they are expensive, they are virtually maintenance free. You can opt for your traditional acid-based car or truck battery solutions that are readily sold in Pakistan, its just a matter of how comfortable and regimented you will be with regards to maintenance and efficiency. Here is a great link to help you understand the equation of batteries in a solar power deployment.

Power Inverter

Now that you have stored electricity in your battery system, the next point of order is to actually be able to use it. As with the localized domestic UPS solution, an inverter is used to convert the DC (Direct Current) in the batters to AC (Alternating Current) that your household appliances, lights/fans would use.

Power Inverters come in Watts. Typically 750 Watts, 1,000 Watts, and can go all the way up to 5,000 – 10,000 Watts. Like the domestic UPS solution is 1,000 watts, the same is true for the Solar Power system. Typically, your Inverter will be slightly larger than the Wattage for which your Solar Array was designed for. Simply plug in your appliances and you’re good to go.

One cautionary note, improper cabling or sub-standard cabling, and devices (like charger, batteries and inverters) can lead to a serious degradation of power and efficiency. Invest in the best and your hard earned money will last you a long time.

Secondly, it is important to familarize yourself with the charging times, efficiency, Amperage and Wattage of a solar power system. Whilst on the outsert this may seem like rocket science, I assure you it is not. It is very simple. 100s of YouTube videos are there to help you learn about Power, Inverters, Batteries, Solar Panels, Solar Power Systems, Controllers, Cabling, Meters, etc.

Spend a little time researching, and it would be well-worth your time, before you decide to spend money towards a solar power solution. Better informed would also mean, that shop owners who sell solar power systems, etc. cannot make a fool out of you.

Just like everyone else, who has been thinking about how to reduce the power bill, solar power is an excellent alternative, provided you also understand that the typical ROI on such a system is 5-10 years (minimum). If you are comfortable with that fact, solar power is something you should definitely look into.

Quite a few companies in Pakistan offer solar-powered solutions (in no particular order or preference, you can see the list at the end of this article), including reference links:

• Haider Engineering
• Inter Solar Technics
• Pakistan Solar Power
• Solar System Pakistan
• Akhter Solar
• Elecktro Control Industries
• Pakistan Solar Power (different from the above listed)
• Watts Chart Calculator
• Power Tech Group
• Fusions Group
• Intech Solar System
• Understanding Solar Chargers

For many years now – I have been writing to the CEO/President of PayPal and their parent company Ebay, asking then why they are not present in Pakistan. Despite all the communication via email, faxes, and letters that I dispatch every year, I have never managed to solicit a reply from them. Not even a squeak.

Today, many campaigns are afoot on the Internet in the hopes of getting PayPal’s attention and getting them to come to Pakistan.

Some people are supposedly even in touch with PayPal through their Far East office, London office or US office. Some have claimed to have met them, each vying to bring PayPal to Pakistan. In some minor cases, some of these elements are just not playing fair and present a fair picture to PayPal. They do so because they want to do business with PayPal and get paid for it (hint: law firms), others want accolades, etc. Just for the record, I want none. I just want them to be here.

Today, people fly to Singapore,Dubai, London and even the US to open a bank account just so that they can have a PayPal account.

Most of the activity that is done on PayPal on behalf of Pakistan is done so by what I call Acquaintance-PayPaling! – i.e. using the PayPal account of your brother, sister, uncle, niece, cousin, friend, relative, associate, etc.

Coming back to topic – the present situation is – we still do not have PayPal in Pakistan. Rumor mills are abound with the reasons why PayPal is not in Pakistan. I will not go there, but perhaps try to address what in my opinion I believe is stopping PayPal from coming to Pakistan.

PayPal as you know operates in quite a few countries. In our immediate region, i.e. South Asia, large economies like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc. do not have PayPal, yet countries like Rwanda, Botswana, Fiji, Panama, Sierra Leone, Tonga and Zambia have access to PayPal.

Even Yemen and Somalia have access to Paypal.

Is this fair? Certainly not!

PayPal’s reluctance to operate in Pakistan is due to Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist activities.

It is also rumored  (I cannot confirm this), that there  is a strong Indian lobby, that very tactfully yet and with sane reasoning positions Pakistan as a country which PayPal best avoids, despite the numbers that work in favor for PayPal to operate here.

No one – on their own wants to take ownership within PayPal and convince the New Business Development Department and the Legal team that Pakistan holds the potential of a very strong market for PayPal.

Having said this, there are some genuine people in PayPal who are literally fighting a case for Pakistan. I wish them good luck and request that they read on what I have written below.

So to summarize:

1. PayPal wants to do business in Pakistan, but are hesitant due to AML and for it (PayPal services) to possibly be used for terrorist activities.
2. People in Pakistan desperately want PayPal.

There are three concerning bodies in Pakistan that PayPal needs to get in touch with:

1. State Bank of Pakistan (the central bank of Pakistan)
2. Pakistan Remittance Initiative – a semi-autonomous body within SBP that is focused on inward remittances and how to legalize them, and provide better KYC, etc.
3. FMU – Financial Monitoring Unit – the AML arm of SBP.

In an unofficial capacity I can state, that all three are willing to talk to PayPal and pacify and address their concerns which prevents them from operating in Pakistan.

Especially PRI – the folks at PRI are more than willing to sit and listen to PayPal and advice them of our laws that we have in place and to correct any misconceptions that they might have with respect to Pakistan.  They can help you get PayPal services rolled out at a National level – and under a one-window operation for PayPal.

PRI is the most pertinent body that can help PayPal and will guide you if you need a banking license or a money-exchange license, how to get incorporated (if required by SECP) how to get integrated with the two ATM switch operators in Pakistan: 1Link and MNet – I’m very sure PRI will also help PayPal with any Tax related issues / consultation with the Tax Authorities (i.e. FBR).

Sitting in a cubicle in California – things are a whole lot different when Pakistan is viewed as a potential country to do business with. It would be conniving of PayPal not to get in touch with PRI / SBP / FMU – all three which operate under the auspices of Ministry of Finance and have the hurdles addressed.

Sitting in Pakistan, you cannot fathom our disbelief that we are blatantly being ignored by PayPal  -  the silence to all the communication/campaigns is deafening.

10+ years of PayPal and no service in Pakistan is just not fair to the 20 million internet users here. We are NOT a camel country! We don’t have sand dunes and people sitting in huts squatting flies. We are not running around naked in sewers begging for water. We do have almost all the conceivable luxuries and infrastructure that is prevalent out in the West. Especially digital infrastructure.

For god’s sake, stop being obtuse PayPal and open your eyes!

For good order’s sake – study us, and do your homework. We are the largest Non-Nato partner for the US in this war against terror. You really think that terrorist networks are only existing in Pakistan? they are all over the world – including UK, Germany, France, Somalia, Yemen, Rwanda, South Africa, Canada, countries where you operate. And please, do not associate the word terrorist with “Islam” or “Muslim” god knows how many home grown terrorist organizations are out there. Juxtaposing such labels on Pakistan is unfair, uncalled for and plain myopic business attitude. Radical white supremacist are gaining numbers everyday in Germany and Austria and UK, do you not consider them when you do business there? India has its own share of problems as far as terrorist organizations are concenred – including the Indian Maoist movement known as the Naxalites, but that does not stop PayPal from operating there now does it? So please think rationally when it comes to Pakistan and stop generalizing and compartmentalizing us.

Pakistani individuals and small businesses are making great strides on freelancing portals (like Elance, oDesk, RentaCoder, etc.) and other web outsourcing platforms where they deliver fantastic services.

Users here are forced to pay hefty fees associated with bank wire transfers, Western Union, 2Checkout, Liberty Reserve, Moneybookers, etc. to get paid.

The very least PayPal can do – is to get in touch with the right institutions here in Pakistan and work with them to have their issues addressed. Until and unless PayPal will not take the first step, the Government of Pakistan and its institutions are helpless, not to mention the 20 million Internet users and the nearing 100 million cellphone users. We as citizens can only do our digital protest in the hopes we get your attention – the walk you must walk!

If anyone in PayPal is reading this, please get in touch with myself, at fk (at) faisalkhan (dot) com and I shall duly put you in touch with the three institutions I mentioned. I do with without any self-servicing agenda or motive. I too like everyone else would like PayPal to be present in Pakistan.

Its been too long for us not to have PayPal and you have it within yourselves, the power, the will and determination to change that for the 20 million Internet users in Pakistan.

"Hope is not a dream but a way of making dreams become reality."

- L. J. Suenens

PIA recently introduced new livery recently.

Livery shots can be seen Here – Here and Here.

There is even the word “Pakistan” inscribed on the under-carriage. I think the new livery is much better than the Euro-White we had going before. Kudos to PIA.

This Article on General Kayani originally was published in Times of India by Indrani Bagchi. It is a very well written article and gives a rare insight to the man at the helm of affairs of this country.

GENERAL IN THE ‘HOOD’

Indrani Bagchi, TOI Crest, Mar 20, 2010, 10.33am IST

Those who know him say he is a brooder. But those who know him well will tell you that’s just one of the layers to the deeply complicated and thinking mind of Pakistan army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The bluster that marked Musharraf has been dumped for quiet gravitas as the man from Rawalpindi goes about turning friends like the US and Britain into closer allies and outmanoeuvering not-so-friendly neighbours like India and Afghanistan at international fora. In a country brought to its knees by terror, corruption and an inept political system, the former ISI chief is putting up a masterly show as he calls the shots.

Sitting with foreign minister S M Krishna this February, US defence secretary Robert Gates said he was going to Pakistan the next day. So who was he going to meet? Oh, a number of people, said Gates, but his most important conversation would be with Pakistan army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “Why not Zardari?” asked Krishna, referring to the Pakistan president. “Because Kayani is the most important man out there,” Gates said matter-of-factly . And Gates should know – in Washington, he’s often described as the most powerful defence secretary Pentagon has had in a long while.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, this low-profile general has emerged from the shadows. The obvious ineptitude of the Pakistan political establishment seems to have finally helped burnish the credentials of the Pakistan Army whose reputation was in tatters in the final days of the last military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf. And with its return has emerged its boss Kayani. Compared to Zardari’s gang that just can’t shoot straight, many in Pakistan seem to view the Army chief as a better bargain – although it’s debatable that they’ll want a return to military rule.

As boss of Pakistan’s infamous spy agency ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), Kayani had a reputation for being slightly nervous. It would now appear that he was being circumspect rather than nervous. As the civil government got its knickers in a twist every so often, the general quietly plotted the return of the military to its position of pre-eminence in Pakistan society.

He has since quietly started calling the shots. Remember how Zardari promised to send the ISI chief Shuja Pasha to India after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and how Kayani vetoed him? That was just the beginning of his new assertiveness.

But who is this man really? Is he a bumbling military brass in the mould of Yahya Khan, who lost East Pakistan because of his ham-handed ways, or is he a modern-day version of the suave Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s first military dictator who introduced the army to the intoxication of political power? Or is Kayani just a product of circumstances, the man who is willy-nilly filling up the political vacuum created by the messy management of Zardari & Co?

Details about the 57-year-old Kayani are somewhat sketchy. He doesn’t have the kind of privileged background that most Pakistan military brass does. His father, Lehrasab, was a naib subedar in the army – in other words, a non-commissioned officer. Born in Rawalpindi in Punjab, Kayani came up the hard way after being commissioned in 1971, the year of the Bangladesh War.

Those who have seen him up close say Kayani is the brooding type. He was given to long, solitary walks until November 2007, when Gen Musharraf named him the army chief – thereafter, it was no longer possible for him to remain unattended. Kayani is a chain smoker – he reportedly lights up every 15 minutes – and is given to long drags on his cigarette as he engages in deep listening during briefings by his trusted commanders. It’s said he interrupts only to seek either a clarification or elucidation of a point.

Kayani’s slightly unnerving silence contrasts strongly with Musharraf’s volubility. But it would be stupid to infer from this that he has little to say. They say Kayani has a lot more going on in his head. He is also a Pakistan army “traditionalist” which means his worldview is India-centric . The eastern neighbour, India, is seen by the army as enemy No1, and policies and responses flow from that basic understanding.

UNFRIENDLY NEIGHBOUR A strategically shrewd army chief, Kayani doesn’t count India among Pakistan’s allies – something that is likely to make him appear in New Delhi to be more dangerous than someone like Musharraf. In any case, since it’s Kayani who holds the reins, New Delhi would do well to sit up and take notice of this man.

It needs to know whether Kayani’s anti-India stance is a strategic move to bind together the army at a time when political parties in Pakistan are slipping fast into an inchoate body of disparate noises, and when the people see the solidity of the army as a source of reassurance. Or is it genetically coded – that come what may, he will be hostile towards India.

Says a top Indian official, “On a scale of 1 to 10 for anti-India sentiment, if Musharraf was at 5, Kayani is at 8.” “And as he is seen increasingly to be in control, it’s bad news for us.”

Kayani started out as an apolitical army chief. Now as he is in the driving seat in Pakistan, he is showing political sense. The way he has latched on to the water issue between India and Pakistan to drum up paranoia about India “starving” Pakistan of water shows he knows how to press the emotive buttons. When India offered foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan, Islamabad took its time to respond, allegedly because Kayani hadn’t given his nod; he wanted a composite dialogue that would include Kashmir, and not just terror. And it was Kayani who gave directions to Pakistan’s foreign secretary, Salman Bashir, when he came to New Delhi to meet Nirupama Rao.

Significantly, the day before, Kayani told the defence committee of the National Assembly that the army under him would remain “India-centric” . “India has the capability, intentions can change overnight,” he told legislators.

G Parthasarathy, who was high commissioner to Islamabad, says, “Gen Kayani represents an institutional hostility towards India because promoting it enables the army to dominate Pakistan without responsibility. Given the fact that he is the de facto ruler of Pakistan, India should be prepared for more covert and overt hostility directed at it from Pakistani soil.”

The quiet rise of Kayani hasn’t gone unnoticed in capitals around the world. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton spends more time with Kayani than with the civvies. Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who has had a testy relationship with the Pakistani army, is mending fences with it. Pakistan’s strategic outreach is being managed by Kayani: He made a much talked about power-point presentation at the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) headquarters in Brussels on how he could help the West get out of Afghanistan; he talked turkey with the Turks on keeping control of a key conference in Istanbul on Afghanistan’s future; and he’s assumed the role of the point person on ‘reconciliation’ with Taliban.

This week, Kayani will be the pre-eminent member of the Pakistan delegation at a strategic dialogue with Washington where demand No.1 will be a nuclear deal like the one signed with India, apart from agreements on more mundane matters like trade and agriculture. In preparation for the talks, Kayani presided over a meeting of government secretaries on Tuesday, the first time that top-level bureaucrats have been called to army headquarters in a civilian regime.

WOWING THE WEST It was not always so, even as recently as in 2009. Through most of last year, Pakistan, and its army, were on the back foot. Terrorists in Swat and other parts of FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) and NWFP (North-West Frontier Province) were on the rampage and inching towards Islamabad, setting off alarm bells the world over. To make matters worse, there was talk of the army playing fast and loose with the Americans as well as with the Taliban. The US media was awash with CIA leaks on how Kayani had described Afghan Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani as a ‘strategic asset’.

There was little trust between the two sides.

Cut to January 2010, and the scenario had changed dramatically. Pakistan had ‘fixed’ the trust problem with the Americans. In July 2008, when Kayani and ISI chief Shuja Pasha were ‘summoned’ by General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command, to be scolded about Islamabad’s misdemeanors, especially the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, it was a low point for a country which had tomtommed its “shared anxieties” with America.

By the end of 2009, Kayani was taking the US joint chief of staff chairman Mike Mullen and US commander in Afghanistan Stanley Mc-Crystal on helicopter rides in Swat and Waziristan to show progress in his battle against the Taliban. Pakistan had effectively re-established itself in the West as a part of the solution, even as it continued to be a part of the problem.

Kayani’s message to the NATO brass in January, made adroitly yet forcefully through a 62-slide presentation, was disarmingly simple: Pakistan had a strategic future in Afghanistan well beyond the US presence and should not be taken lightly. This meant the government in Kabul had to be mindful of Pakistani interests; and India had to be out of Afghanistan, or at the very least, needed to greatly reduce its presence.

Kayani scored another big victory at the January 28 London conference on the future of Afghanistan. The idea promoted by the British and backed by the US, that Pakistan would be the lead player in the Taliban ‘reconciliation’ process, was met with enthusiastic response. The army chief came out smelling of roses, confident in his belief that he had successfully outmanoeuvered India even as New Delhi fumbled in its opposition to the Taliban being accommodated.

This was quite a contrast to Musharraf’s last days, when the army stumbled from one political miscalculation to another and ended up with the disastrous storming of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid where radical imams were threatening the state. Meanwhile, the Tehreek-e-Taliban was growing in strength and firepower with a string of terror attacks throughout Pakistan, leading up to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Worryingly for the hawks, Musharraf had also found a common language with Manmohan Singh and back-channel talks with India hinted at some sort of non-territorial adjustment in Kashmir. His ‘out-of-the-box’ proposals on Kashmir as well as ‘tactical restraint’ on the Kashmir jihad between 2004 and 2007 undermined the traditional mindset. As both Siachen and Sir Creek remained unresolved, there rose many voices within the Pakistan military establishment questioning the wisdom of abandoning the old position of bleeding India.

BACK TO BRASS TACKS Enter Kayani, with a 18-handicap in golf and a Plan. Admiral Mullen recently gushed in Time magazine: “Gen Kayani commands an army with troops fighting in what President Barack Obama has rightly called the ‘most dangerous place in the world.’ He’s lost more than 1,000 soldiers in that fight. He knows the stakes. He’s got a plan.”

Convinced of the centrality of the army as the bulwark of the Pakistan state, Kayani was bringing back to it its robbed glory and quintessential values. He has figured that the only way to regain influence for Pakistan would be to somehow make the Taliban a part of the power structure in Kabul and help the US pack its bags. That would force India to leave Afghanistan and help Pakistan regain control of the region.

Until that happens, Kayani knows the India bogey has to be kept alive and leveraged against Pakistan’s efforts at taming the Taliban. Against the US’s better judgment, but impelled by recession and public opinion, Washington is giving the Kayani worldview more than a nod and a wink. Washington’s approach to Islamabad is old-fashioned bribery: sophisticated military toys are winging their way to Pakistan as ‘incentive’ to fight the Taliban.

It knows full well that these weapons will actually be directed against India. As an Indian official explained, “Kayani is pegging the modernisation of the Pak army on US money.” By end-2010 , Pakistan will get an additional $3.4 billion in military aid from the US, bringing the total up to almost $12 billion since 2003.

IT’S IN HIS BLOOD Kayani cut his teeth in the army during the Bangladesh war. Thirty years later as director-general military operations (DGMO), he directed the 10-month stand-off with the Indian army. He earned his spurs with Musharraf when he conducted, with efficiency and confidentiality, the investigation into the assassination bids on Musharraf in 2003. Musharraf has himself reminisced that until Kayani took over, the investigation was a mess. It led to his appointment as DG-ISI in 2004.

POWER BROKER For all his loyalty to Musharraf, Kayani was an admirer of sorts of Benazir Bhutto, having served as military secretary to her. In 2007, when the Americans started pressuring Musharraf to work out a “reconciliation” with Benazir, he sent Kayani to do the job. On March 9, 2007 when Musharraf’s aides read out the riot act to Justice Chaudhry, demanding he step down, Kayani was part of the team. But presciently, he remained silent through the meeting and refused to present an affidavit to Chaudhry along with the others.

That paid him rich dividends later when he brokered a deal between Zardari and the judiciary during the lawyers’ Long March in 2008 and the most recent constitutional crisis with the judges’ appointment in 2009, which eroded Zardari’s credibility but enhanced Kayani’s . In 2008, Kayani compelled Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani to reinstate Chaudhry as CJ. In December 2009, Kayani once again made Zardari accept a decision by Chaudhry and the Supreme Court overturning the immunity earlier granted to Zardari from prosecution for corruption.

In a previous age, the army chief would have had ample reason by now to take over power, but Kayani seems to prefer playing puppeteer. “From the beginning, Kayani took the civilian leadership into confidence, but the onus of unifying the country was the army’s ,” says Imtiaz Gul of the Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad.

When Zardari assumed office in February 2008, and Musharraf was turfed out, the new army chief declared his intention to stay apolitical even though he reportedly loathed Zardari and others in the corrupt leadership. Although he firmly believed that the army was the mainstay of Pakistan, Kayani was sensitive to the unusually strong public outrage against the army. It needed to go back to the barracks if it had to get back a modicum of its earlier prestige. In one of his early acts, Kayani withdrew hundreds of army officers from civilian jobs in the government, leaving the job of running the country to civilians.

RETURN TO GLORY With the campaign in Swat later in the year, Kayani salvaged a lot of goodwill. Mosharraf Zaidi, political commentator in Islamabad, said, “Kayani’s deft handling of the Swat crisis helped turn the tide in favour of an overarching national narrative of support for a military fighting to protect Pakistanis from the threat of Taliban thugs overrunning the country.”

In the past few weeks, Kayani has closely supervised the consensus to replace the 17th amendment of the Pakistan constitution with the 18th, effectively moving the Pakistani system back to the 1973 constitution and a parliamentary democracy. This means Zardari can’t gather any more powers , having surrendering many in the last year, including the nuclear command authority.

If the constitutional amendment goes through, Gilani will be more relevant than Zardari and Kayani will find it much easier to control the levers of Pakistan. But more significantly , because Kayani is proceeding without the hoopla that accompanied Musharraf’s actions, and is keeping the other generals in the army in the loop, his actions, though just as autocratic, have greater acceptability within Pakistan.

The US, for all its democratic avowals, was the first to read the tea leaves. In March 2008, the Americans ‘selected’ Kayani for the US Army Command and General Staff College’s International Hall of Fame. “The hall honors those officers of United States allies’ militaries who have attained the highest command positions in their national service component or within their nation’s armed forces,” the citation said.

BLEED INDIA But even as Kayani wowed the West, he turned the heat on India. The word was out: India was fair game again, particularly in Afghanistan. The Haqqani network-executed terror attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7, 2008 was a direct result of this and there was little attempt to cover the trail that led back to the Pakistan army. By the time 26/11 happened, it was clear in India that Lashkar-e-Taiba had been blessed by the army. In 2009, the embassy in Kabul was attacked again, and in 2010, Indian civilians in Afghanistan are sitting ducks for Pakistan-supported terror.

In the immediate aftermath of 26/11, when Manmohan Singh made the unprecedented request to Pakistan to send its DG-ISI , Shuja Pasha, Kayani torpedoed it, saying “The Indians will be asking me to go next.” In the present context of resumed talks, top Indian officials say Kayani is not particularly interested in exploring any new engagement; for him maintaining tension is more important.

The jury is still out on how far Kayani will go in allowing groups like LeT and HuJI to carry on their activities against India, with ISI support. Pakistan refuses to acknowledge Indian concerns on LeT, saying instead that the more India focuses on LeT, the more difficult things will get. The US and other countries have read out the riot act to Kayani several times on these groups. But as Kayani said, “Pakistan’s long-term national interests would never be sacrificed for someone else’s short-term interests”.

THE TROUBLE WITH TERROR And yet, nobody possibly knows better than he the intricate connections between these groups and how they’re spawning daily terror in Pakistan itself.

Terrorism is, and will remain, Pakistan’s weak spot, and its encouragement will always be counter-productive . Despite the campaigns against the Pakistan Taliban, the army continues to maintain an ambivalent posture of tolerance towards these groups. If Musharraf was attacked by Jaish-e-Mohammed in 2003, Kayani himself was the target of an assassination plot by Ilyas Kashmiri in May 2009. Even today, HuJI leaders, Kashmiri and Saifullah Akhtar, are operating from South Waziristan and carrying out terror attacks in Punjab with the help of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. But somehow, the Pak army continues to believe these groups can be controlled.

For India, it’s clear that as long as terror groups from Pakistan attack India with help from its military-intelligence complex, it will remain focused on terrorism. With virtually no official engagement between India and the Pakistan army, New Delhi’s in a bizarre situation where Kayani appears to have assumed the role of chief interlocutor for Pakistan with the rest of the world, but not India.

There’s a view that India needs to make a greater public effort to engage the Pakistan army. But the signals are mixed. On the one hand, ISI chief Shuja Pasha’s “dropping in” at the Indian high commissioner, Sharat Sabharwal’s iftaar party, was a potent invite to India. But on the other, the Pakistan army has by and large been reluctant to defreeze relations with its Indian counterparts. India had proposed polo matches between the armies about a year ago, but there was no response from Pakistan.

PLAYING THE AFGHAN CARD It’s with the Taliban that Kayani is playing a high stakes game. Given that he doesn’t want a regime in Kabul that is ‘unfriendly’ to Islamabad, it follows that he will seek to orchestrate and control reconciliation efforts with the Taliban . Karzai too was doing some “reconciliation” himself, negotiating with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Omar’s No. 2 in the Quetta Shura (which runs the most powerful arm of the Afghan Taliban), when the ISI “captured” him in Karachi. In the weeks since, Pakistan has captured nine of the 18 members of the Shura. One of the theories doing the rounds is that Kayani didn’t want Karzai to upstage him in negotiating with the Taliban, and the swoop on Baradar was aimed at pre-empting any deal between the Afghan president and the Taliban.

Last week Karzai and Kayani, in reciprocal visits, came to an understanding. Baradar could be handed over to Karzai with an understanding that Pakistan has first dibs at this game. Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Haqqani network is Pakistan’s favourite Taliban leader, and ideally, Kayani would like him to be part of the power sharing arrangement in Kabul. But here too, by killing off Sirajuddin’s brother, Kayani has made it clear as to who’s the boss.

Will Kayani deliver al-Qaeda to the US? And at what price? The British are content to play the Pakistan game, but the Americans are yet to be fully convinced. India is out of this one, but has a strong interest in seeing that the Taliban is not part of Kabul with their ideology intact.

HOW LONG WILL HE BE CHIEF? Kayani has many irons in the fire. But if things go as scheduled , the army chief is set to hang up his gloves in November 2010. Will he? The Obama surge in Afghanistan will be in full bloom and without Pakistani assistance, it is unlikely to work. Kayani has become Washington’s man and to make the same investment in a successor at the height of the battle might be difficult. So they may want to see him stay on.

Pakistan’s politics is notoriously fragile and unlikely to sort itself out, and even if Zardari and Nawaz Sharif stop acting like vicious boys, Kayani has emerged as something of a sheet anchor in Pakistan. Pakistan’s future relevance hangs on whether Kayani can ‘manage’ to successfully influence the Taliban reconciliation programme in Afghanistan to keep Pakistan in play there.

That will need Kayani’s combined skills as soldier and spy, along with American and British cheerleaders, to pull it off. Kayani’s chief task now is to bring about an agreement among his fellow generals that he should stay on – he’s more inclined to go down this road than take the my-way-orthe-highway approach of Musharraf.

In what is seen as a test case, ISI boss Shuja Pasha was given a year’s extension last week. Zardari has let out that he has offered Kayani a two-year extension as well. If Kayani agrees, does that also give Zardari some space? Will it be greeted with a sense of relief in Islamabad and Washington? Most important , will he be able to build some sort of ‘collegiate consensus’ in favour of his continuity, which would mean his colleagues agreeing to sacrifice their chances?

Many within the Indian establishment believe Kayani may be biding his time before he edges out Zardari and take over as president.

But if Kayani does go, who’ll take his place? The name most frequently mentioned is Khalid Shamim Wynne, commander of the Quetta-based 12th Corps, with few ties to extremists, but more experience against India. Others in the running are Mohammed Mustafa Khan, chief of general staff; Nadeem Taj, commander 30thCorps, who preceded Pasha as ISI chief but is considered too close to the Taliban; and Tahir Mehmood, head of 10th Corps.

But for the moment, Kayani-controlled Pakistan is playing a good game with very few cards in hand. India would do well to watch the moves closely

I read an interesting piece of news today:

FIA directed to probe piracy of imported movies

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday ordered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to probe into the piracy, rental and sale of movies having been imported legally. The directions came on the request of legal movie operators in Pakistan. The Minister for Interior made it clear that anybody who was found dealing in the sale, rental and airing of legally imported movies on cable would be dealt with severely under piracy law. staff report

Source: Daily Times

Now, I’ll address the lack of technical capabilities of FIA in handling something like this later, but first their seems to be  an issue. Does piracy come under the umbrella of FIA or the regulator – which in this case would be PEMRA.  The news article itself was hilarious…

“… anybody who was found dealing in the sale, rental and airing of legally imported movies on cable would be dealt…”

Now, first of all, who the heck actually imports a movie legally. Times have changed. Torrents anyone?

Secondly, who would “rent” a movie to a cable-wala? Duh!

Third, is FIA itself. Here is an organization that is best suited for working on anything BUT cyber crime / digital crime.

Highly inept organization, when it comes to the ‘digital’ world. Having dealt with them on this front, FIA and its Cyber Crime Division called: National Response Center for Cyber Crimes. I mean if you want to tackle the issue of piracy, why not stop the distribution channel, rather than the users?

If you have a drug problem, do you try to make the addicts kick the habit or do you stop the flow of drugs (the source). I would assume major effort would go towards the source problem.

In case of illegal or “legal” movies, the issue is torrents. You cannot stop torrent, and asking FIA to stop it? Bloody joke. They could not even stop their website from being defaced, and you expect these folks to stop torrents. Sure!

Having dealt with FIA (especially the Cyber Crimes Division) in the past, its a farce believe me. They are amateurs, armed with theoretical knowledge, have no proper investigative skills, most of them have never even been trained in forensic sciences (for the digital world), totally wet behind the ears and above all, you should see them all working together – its down right hilarious.

To tackle the issue of piracy – with respect to say torrents, you will have very limited success. To handle it via-a-vis cable operators to stop airing – how many cable operators will you stop? How many will actually get reported, etc. How many will actually comply?

Case in point, you don’t fight the bear – you learn to dance with it.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan released the NRO (National Reconciliation Ordinance) 2007 Detailed Judgement in which it struck down the controversial NRO law.

The complete judgement can be downloaded from here (NRO Detailed Judgement)  [6.2MB - PDF File]