White Lies

The PCB might go out of the frying pan and into the fire.

You see, after the terrible performance of the national team at the Asia Cup and the World T20 Cup, people are out for the scalp of not only Shahid Afridi but also the Chairman of the Board and other key figures.

Najam Sethi, the journalist who first made it to the position of Chairman, had to be removed after public pressure, settled to remain the Éminence grise, the power behind the throne. This was the result of creating a position called Chairman, of the executive committee.

Well, it seems now that another journalist, a gentleman who does a programme on a channel whose name rhymes with gin, is angling for the job.

As long as it remains within the journalists!

*****

Well, the Punjab CM certainly likes his pet projects. There’s the Daanish School system. There are the red lines of the Metro Buses in Lahore and Rawalpindi/Islamabad. There’s the upcoming Orange Line. There are some pretty impressive centres of excellence like the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology.

Well, hot off the assembly line of pet projects is the Dolphin Squad within the police. Inspired by a Turkish police force of the same name (well, yunuslar in Turkish) and trained by the Turks as well, the force is set to be a corps of RoboCops.

They are going to be equipped with 500cc motorbikes costing Rs1.5 million per unit (and there are going to be 300 of the bikes alone) and microchip-fitted suits costing Rs50,000 per piece. That’s going to rack up quite a bill. And then there are maintenance costs. Seems impressive at the moment, but what happens when the money runs out?