By Irfan Shahzad*

KEERANWALA, Pakistan, Nov 21 (IPS) – Mansha, a middle-aged farmer here in this village in Punjab province, surveys his ready-to-harvest rice crop with delight and is optimistic about the next wheat crop to be sown after the rice harvest in mid-November.

   By Irfan Shahzad*

 With a new and efficient sewerage system in place, residents in this slum area need not endure filthy surroundings any more.

 
KARACHI, Pakistan, Oct 2 (IPS/AMIC) - Unlike his neighbours in the opposite lane, Muhammad Salam lets his children play out in the street without the slightest worry.

   That’s because Salam, a resident of Ghaziaba locality in the large Orangi informal settlement in this port city, is happy with the fact that there is concrete flooring along the street he lives in. Beneath this is a sewerage lane that efficiently collects wastewater  from all 24 houses in the area.

By Irfan Ahmed Chaudhury

ISLAMABAD, Aug 9 (IPS) — Faced with acute water shortages, the Pakistan government has launched a 1.3 billion U.S. dollar subsidised drip irrigation programme that could help reduce wastage over the next five years.

By Zofeen Ebrahim

DADU, Sindh, Jul 24 (IPS) — ''Our stuff is already packed and we’re ready to evacuate," said Allah Rakha, 50, at a mobile medical camp set up on the Main Nara Valley (MNV) embankment which is, miraculously, still standing up to rainy weather and pressure from flood waters.

Centenarian Rehmat Bibi refuses to leave her home in Bhundar, an island off the Sindh coast in Pakistan.

 

 

   “I will not move an inch as I was here long before (the nearby) Port Qasim was here; even before this country came into existence,” says a defiant Bibi. “This is my home.”

   Bibi says she has lived there since she was 10. “I will die here,” says the fragile old woman, taking a long puff at the hookah (hubble bubble) and ending her bold diatribe with a bout of cough.

Centenarian Rehmat Bibi refuses to leave her home in Bhundar, an island off the Sindh coast in Pakistan.

 

 

   “I will not move an inch as I was here long before (the nearby) Port Qasim was here; even before this country came into existence,” says a defiant Bibi. “This is my home.”

   Bibi says she has lived there since she was 10. “I will die here,” says the fragile old woman, taking a long puff at the hookah (hubble bubble) and ending her bold diatribe with a bout of cough.

   The government continues to allow the use of asbestos-enforced cement in pipes that supply drinking water to the public, and this has come under criticism.

    Dr Muhammad Yusuf, a family physician, points to a strong link between asbestos use in water pipes and the rising number of gastrointestinal patients in different parts of this South Asian country. The consumption of drinking water supplied through such pipes also results in cancer of kidneys and lungs, he says.

Interview with Mustafa Talpur, senior programme officer for ActionAid
in Islamabad and one of the inspection requesters

Q. Why were the findings by the Inspection Panel not shared with the
requesters, like they were shared with the World Bank?

A. According to the panel's rules, final findings are sent to the
Bank’s board and management. In the light of findings, management has

The World Bank's inspection panel was established in 1992, after the
mass mobilisation of people against World Bank-funded dam projects in
India, especially Narmada valley dams. Because the Bank enjoys
immunity under the Geneva Convention, neither the people nor the
country can sue it for the violation of rights or any crime. Due to
growing public voices against the Bank’s projects and the lack of an