Notorious notices

Whenever something (good or bad) happens in Pakistan (or somewhere else), the first thing

 the people, who think they are somebody, do is to take notice of the incident.

                                                          (Image courtesy Geo News) 

Notice temptation 

The last thing our president, the prime minister, chief ministers, ministers, governors, 

judges, commissioners, district coordination officers and patwaris were tempted to do is: 

taking notice of Pakistani cricket team’s defeat in the world cup quarterfinal. The Pakistan 

Cricket Board chairman was the last person, who also joined the chorus and took notice of 

the defeat. 

                                             

                                           When in Rome (do as the Romans do)  (Courtesy Express News) 

The familiar phrase – Mr (or Ms) has taken notice of a certain development - exhibits 

power, efficiency, piety and is self-serving.

The perfunctory statement, devoid of any viable action, goes unnoticed by the public and it 

is has been left to TV channels and newspapers to run these ‘notices’ in the form of tickers 

and front-back page stories. 

We never came across this practice so frequently as in the past years.

Notice, notice and more notice 

Eight children die due to 'substandard measles vaccination' on April 17 in Balochistan and 

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif takes notice of the deaths.

On October 14, 2014 Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif rises to the occasion and takes notice 

of the murder of a woman, allegedly by Sargodha police.

The chief minister of Sindh, Qaim Ali Shah, also joins the bandwagon and takes notice of 

the illegal use of official vehicles on April 2.

The tsunami of notice taking has also swept Imran Khan. Though not a formal part of the 

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, Imran took notice of school closure in Bannu for seven 

years. The notice broke the locks of school and classes were resumed the very next day.

All these notices beg questions, in other words.

The powers that be imply through their oft taken notices, as I understand it, that they are 
well aware of transgressions and are well determined to address them once and for all 
because they are keen to root out evils from the society they rule. 

The more notices they take, they more vigilant they are.

This is a load of nonsense.

Several children have died of diseases, malnutrition and due to the shortage of or toxic 

water. Save the Children released a report in February last year that Pakistan had the 

highest death rate on first day, the prime minister was least moved. No special package 

was announced to improve mother-child healthcare to improve facilities at hospitals. Since 

the  report was released in London, it had no political significance for the prime minister to 

take notice of it.   

More notices will stem from every death. But no notice would result in a solid policy to 

improve child health. Instead, compensations will be doled out among the families of the 

deceased children in a manner as the authority was giving them a special favour. 

That is a favour indeed. 

Similarly, the Punjab chief minister’s notice of woman's death was a futile exercise. 

An Amnesty International Report highlighted flaws in laws which gave police extraordinary 

powers to pick and torture people which had ended up in hundreds of death in late 80s. As 

no effort has ever been made to bring about a change in police culture, the 

chief executive of the province deemed it fit to take notice of the woman's death, and that's 

it.

The similar shots by Qaim Ali Shah and Imran Khan are not the last nail in illegal usage of 

official vehicles or illegal closure of schools. A school closed for years would not open 

through some government mechanism.

(Image courtesy Geo News)  

While people are dying, schools are closed, political tolerance is diminishing and 

embezzlement is widespread, the powers that be are interested in strengthening the 

institution of notice-taking instead of strengthening a system that takes its own route on its 

own in the face of all sort of deaths and diseases. 

It's time to eye on these customary notices and force the somebodies to give them up.