My last article on the Hijab row poster girl attracted a flurry of comments from across the border. The readers were not nice to me. They called me a religious fanatic as well as Indian-centric. I would not accuse them of having poor reading comprehension or judgment. A second reading of the column may clear the air: the column is about the power of social media to bring about changes.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), the first part of this column is also about the diplomatic power of social media. Frankly, I am keenly following the aspect of digital media as with time, it is evolving.
If the Karnataka college footage has brought two religious communities face to face, a few tweets by multinational businesses on Kashmir in Pakistan have caused the Indian ministries of foreign affairs and commerce sleepless nights forcing them to go after the companies to get the social media posts retracted. Social media posts can cause diplomatic upheaval and break business deals. The story is that on Kashmir Solidarity Day (February 5) this year, Pizza Hut, KFC, Toyota and Hyundai outlets in Pakistan posted tweets in favour of Kashmir. Though many in Pakistan would not have noticed the posts, they, however, did not go unnoticed on the other side of the border. A sane approach would have been to let them go but the Modi government ordered these companies, which have flourishing businesses in India, to pack up and go. First, the embassies of the relevant countries were contacted, and later on the issue was taken up with their governments. The way India has reacted to the posts, the Kashmir issue has gained more strength and more support all over the world in the wake of the Indian government’s reaction to social media posts. It is heartening to see that the Indian government feels unsafe over a few social media posts on Kashmir. Thank you, MNCs for standing by Kashmir.
Recently, federal cabinet members underwent the feelings of school-days exam result day.
Prime Minister Imran Khan came up with an award list of the 10 best performing federal ministries under his government.
We all can imagine the level of worry ongoing in the heads of the ministers before the announcement.
The Ministry of Communication headed by Murad Saeed came at the first position followed by the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives headed by Asad Umar and the third position was awarded to the Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division which is under Dr. Sania Nishtar.
The premier talks about the importance of the reward and punishment system which can be used to enhance performance in school and otherwise. With these appreciation certificates, the prime minister aims to have healthy competition among all ministries so that they may work harder in future in order to attain positions in the top 10.
Will the system work?
No. Never.
As celebrations erupted among the top 10 winners, the remaining ministries have started coming up with their own versions of complaints.
All of them are complaining about the dubious criteria of evaluation.
The first rule about fair assessment is: everybody knows the rule.
The system of awards and penalties can bring about an improvement in the governance system only if it is based on a fair assessment.
The prime minister wants to introduce rapid changes through his revolutionary ideas, as he realizes that the system is broken and cannot sustain such changes.
In itself, the prime minister’s initiative will develop a system of healthy competition among ministries and this may result in better performance.
