In Pakistan, be a General if you want water

By Vijay Kumar

Abid Sher Ali had, presented a one-line poverty alleviation formula that every mother in this country should give birth to a general-son to have a prosperous family with all facilities at her door-step. He is right. It may sound personal but this is an example of the problems a civilian tax-payer faces. I have a working family and we jointly pay more than Rs 50,000 income tax per year. But we have no water at our home (in Rawalpindi cantonment where the devolution of power, like all cantonments in the country, has not taken place) and we have been spending Rs 3,000 per month to purchase water for the last six years. And the MES bousers supply free-of-cost water at the residences of all military ranks day and night. We, the 150 million civilians, as Aitzaz Ahsen had said in his budget speech, are not in the focus when our economists make the budget for a national security state.

Rana Qaisar in the Daily Times, Pakistan - But this proves that there is a lot of press freedom in Pakistan.