Is Calamity Strike a Nature’s Vengeance?

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Dengue fever is curable but is fatal if left untreated. Symptoms include high fever, severe aches, and in the worst cases, a severe drop in platelet counts. The aedes aegypti mosquito - carrier of dengue has been hitting Lahore and the vicinity where more than 6000 dengue cases have already been reported so far.

The chaos in hospitals is overwhelming. Severely sick patients are being placed on mats in corridors and medical staff is having hard time coping with the scenario.

Ironically, media has turned its binoculars away from terrorist and drone attacks and are now focussed on dengue attacks instead. The ongoing upsurge of dengue related illness is the most widespread “vector borne virus.” As commonly seen, a combination of higher temperatures and greater humidity invites a breeding environment for the dengue mosquito to grow its population. 

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 What goes around comes around:

Most obviously, a prolonged abuse of “Nature’s original set up” is only coming back to us in the form of abnormal weathers, rains and overflowing rivers. Resultantly, there is a breeding ground for “guerrilla type mosquitoes;” they are addicted to attack the humans at will.

Miserably enough, we failed to plan ahead of time to deal with the aftermath of abnormal weather conditions. Admittedly, a screwed up weather system is the fault of our selfish progression ignoring the demands of Nature. Constantly ignoring the related damage to the normal climate-as designed by the Nature for the benefit of humankind has further contributed to the problem.

No doubt, the “Industrial Revolution” had provided a good lifestyle to the whole world but at extremely high cost. Now we are to live with the messed up atmospheric adjustments. It is still believed, the resulted climatic change is responsible for the overall loss of environmental balance. Yet, many people intentionally ignore the fact that the “Godly System” has been falling apart for quite a while due to repetitive misuse of it by all involved. Pollution including Industrial gases, smoke, other gases from air conditioners, fridges and smoke from vehicles has been slowly rupturing the ozone layer (a protective layer against the poisonous heat from the Sun and other gases).

Currently, the weather system is going through malfunctioning phase, and it is too confused to regulate rains and melting glaciers. Floods and other diseases such as dengue virus and many other diseases are just natural result of unnatural human behaviour. However, more research is needed to establish a link between climate change, abnormal rains, flooding and dengue or other viral diseases. Nevertheless, any abuse of the “natural set up” is always followed by surprises such as the ones we are presently faced with. No matter what! We always tend to shift blame of these natural repercussions onto “misfortune” or “Divine’s vengeance.”

Too late too little: A global consensus is building up to agree that climate change is humankind’s greatest threat in modern times and is likely to have profound consequences for socio-economic sectors such as health, food production, energy consumption and security and natural resource management.



Sadly but surely, despite Pakistan’s very little contribution to the overall greenhouse gas emissions, it remains severely impacted by the negative effects of climate change by the following factors: Glacier melting in the Himalayas is likely to increase flood activity affecting water resources within the next two to three decades. Followed by decreased river flows over time as glaciers recede, freshwater will decrease leading to biodiversity loss. Coastal areas bordering the Arabian Sea in the southern Pakistan will be at the greatest risk due to increased flooding from the sea and rivers. A drastic decrease in crop yields in Pakistan is already showing up.

Recent flooding is so catastrophic that it has displaced approx ten million people in Sindh, while dengue epidemic in Lahore alone has reportedly affected local residents in very large number- forcing educational institutions to remain closed for ten days. Angry people are voicing their opinion claiming that the floods in Sindh and dengue outbreak in Punjab are both man-made disasters due to a lack of appropriate planning ahead of time. Naturally, the blame game goes against the incompetent governance, ailing administration on account of their selfish intentions and general laziness. It seems clear; we will be living with dengue for some time to come. According to the visiting Sri Lankan experts it could take up to a decade to strategically eliminate the virus. 

Source Google

Currently, Sindh is undergoing a catastrophic situation, as six million acres of land including two million acres of cultivable land is under water. Out of desperation, the stranded people are in need of emergency rescue. Although, assistance is coming in, but external donors are hesitant to directly fund the government or its agencies because of our bad image.

On the other hand, a bitter reality is that our leaders remain addicted to carrying beggar’s bowl as usual to raise funds to deal with the current dengue and flood crises. Islamabad and the UN have jointly launched an appeal for raising $357million for flood relief in foreign donations to urgently help seven million victims of catastrophic floods and dengue virus.

It’s a painful truth that the rulers are not serious or sincere enough to build more reservoirs or dams probably because of their political interests, affiliations or other reservations.

Staying Afloat Despite 9/11 after Shocks

Of course, the harshest impact of the fatal reality was on the economy of Pakistan which began directly or indirectly during the last ten years. And, the most emotive moments of modern times occurred during the decade in question indeed - leading to changes in peoples’ attitude towards the Muslim community. 

 

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Historically speaking, the well organized “Islamophobia manufacturing industry” with a network of funders, activists, and bloggers is believed to be causing hate crimes against Muslims so persistently. In fact, all previous “Islamophobias” - one after the other have been there from time to time in the remote past too. Presently, the groups behind the curse, being the natural beneficiary have also been daringly utilising the golden opportunity to go for the ongoing spell of Islamophobia almost all around the globe. Certainly, the skilfully created "menace of phobia" against a particular community in question has worked really well to push Pakistan deep in to the secluded area where interaction with the outside world is bound to become naturally minimal.

Currently, out of control Islamophobic environment has provided enough of ease to the culprits to create the present state of lawlessness and terrorism in the country.

Sadly, the Religion of Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change. More worrisome is the hostility towards Muslims, which is used to justify all discriminatory practices against Muslims, exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society. Unfairly, anti-Muslim feelings are viewed as normal. It’s so pathetic!

As the hatred against the Muslim populace has been on the rise worldwide, Pakistan is suffering the most under such environment of hostility. Pakistan’s heavy sacrifices in the war against terror have hard time getting international recognition. The result: the warring guerrillas (sophisticatedly armed with state of the art weaponry) have intruded deep into the country - putting a deep dent in the security apparatus. This is one of the main reasons for Pakistan’s economic turmoil.

Lack of helping attitudes of international community towards the Muslim community is something to really worry about.

Furthermore, some presence of biased people among the print or electronic media is a great cause of concern. Of course, a criminal negligence on the part of media with “who cares attitude” regarding the hot issue of ongoing poisoning of attitudes towards the Muslim world is unnerving. As the trend is the most dangerous one, the media is not doing enough to play a pivotal role to neutralize the poison of hatred against the fellow Muslims.

At this very moment, Pakistan definitely suffers from a crippling economy, a mismatched budget and an ailment of peaceful atmosphere. Numerous precious lives have been lost in a war on terror. Collateral damage is not seen as unusual any longer because of all year round 24/7 pursuit of enemy in hiding.

On the other hand, the Tourism Industry is ruined as hotels in some cities had no choice but to shutting down due to security threats posed by the “ever-intruding warring factions” dangerously armed to the teeth. Most of the Industries are at a standstill or facing a major slow down resulting in rampant unemployment, street crimes and other corrupt ways to bring food onto the dining table.

War on terror has claimed the lives of over 35,000 civilians and thousands of security personnel in Pakistan. 





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As a front line supporter of the war on terror, Pakistan’s economy suffered a big setback in its normal trading activities. The cost of trading increased because of higher insurance cover while the growth demands slowed down which resulted in a decline of revenue from tax collection and foreign investment.





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The cost of Pakistan’s

involvement in the war on terror amounts to $67.93 billion, which has affected the education budget, the health and nutrition sector and the sanity projects that could have taken place but were postponed or discontinued due to the presence of the war against militancy in Pakistan.

After the war on terror, Pakistan’s investment to GDP ratio - hit a downfall from 22.5% to 13.5% in just a few years. Economically frustrated Pakistan hasn’t been compensated as yet for such a heavy economic loss.

Among other problems is the “over-active media” creating hype whenever possible. No doubt, media is responsible for an influx of hundreds and thousands of images of  dying people along with irrelevant details. It’s worth mentioning that the media has become a tool for intense sensationalism mainly focusing only on the juicy details of breaking news. This group of the civil society is busy with overly highlighting the exaggerated stories - misleading the audience. Obviously, there isn’t any need of such a large number of TV channels - airing nothing but demoralizing stuff.

The other cunning groups like TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan), Punjabi Taliban or Baluchistan liberation army and others are illegally engaged in war of terror; they continue to destroy the sanctity and sanity of those living within the country.

Sad reality still remains that the kidnapped/brain washed kids are being used to carry out war of terror in order to heavily damage the writ of the State of Pakistan.

Finally, Pakistanis from all walks of life including youth and the seniors are all having just one single desire  - for a permanent peace in the country.

It has been more than enough of targeting people of Pakistan, now the Pro Pakistan Global Powers must give an assisting hand to Pakistan, so that a viable strategy on perpetual basis is worked out to kill all the guerrilla cockroaches in the best interest of Pakistan - now or never.