Biting cold

Pakistan – in fact all of South Asia – is currently in the grip of a severe cold snap. People, especially those with meager incomes, are braving the biting cold largely on their own with little help from the authorities. In harsh winter firewood appears to be the only savior for the poor as they lack appropriate winter clothes and blankets. Considering the severity of the problem at hand, Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minster Mehmood Khan to provide shelter and food to homeless people suffering from cold weather conditions.

Even though this directive evoked a derogatory aside from his arch foes, PML-N, whose spokesperson taunted that the PM is advising people to live in shelters and feed on Langarkhana meals after depriving them of their roofs and means of sustenance, the measure is the need of the hour as people are genuinely in need of state succour. Aside from winter trouble, people in Punjab have also been grappling with a blanket of fog for long, which has put their ordinary lives in a mess. The state machinery needs to rev up into action to mitigate people’s sufferings in a weather that induces many illnesses and causes many fatalities.

Consider how things are in our neighbourhood. Bangladesh has reported 50 people dead as cold weather has been sweeping across the country. In India, an unusual and powerful spell of ‘western disturbance’, originating in the Mediterranean Sea, has made the Hindi heartland shiver for the past fortnight, according to Indian media. There are forecasts that the spell, striking once in four to five decades, will continue to freeze people on New Year’s eve too.

The nip in the air – all around – warrants timely steps to ward off its negative fallout.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2019.

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