The Right to Bury and that of Mourning

Nusrat Bhutto wife of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (Late)

With the demise of the last veteran Bhutto, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, wife of the late Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and ex-chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Bhutto political era comes to an end, yet again. With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto the practical role of Bhuttos in Pakistani politics had already ended. Nusrat Bhutto was a symbolic continuation and a reminder of the struggle the Bhuttos died for, one after the other.

The only 3rd generation Bhutto family that remains visible and somewhat politically involved is that of late Murtaza Bhutto (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s son) represented by his daughter Fatima Bhutto and son Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Junior who now live in London. Their mother Ghinva Bhutto remains active in very limited politics as Chief of Pakistan People’s Party (Bhutto Shaheed).

Zulfikar Bhutto Junior, Ghinwa Bhutto and Fatima Bhutto

Sanam Bhutto, the only surviving child of late PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and sister of Benazir Bhutto stays out of politics and lives in London.

The Bhutto Family that once was

Many speak of the end of Pakistan People’s Party after Zardari’s take over on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Many yet speak of the need for a young leader from the Bhutto blood-line to take reigns of the PPP for its revival. Many still think that the workers of the Pakistan People’s Party, also nicked ‘Jiyalas’ (the daring brave), are the real carriers of the mission of the late Bhutto. However practically all that remains mere thinking as Zardari continues to mainstream the Zardari family into the core party positions of the PPP. The first step was taken into this direction by making Bilawal Zardari the Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party and changing his name to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in order to highlight his relationship with the Bhutto family.

Bilawal Zardari holds the picture of his slain mother late Benazir Bhutto as the new Chairman of the PPP along with the co-chair, his father Asif Zardari

With the recent news coming in about the differences between Ghinva Bhutto and Asif Zardari (President of Pakistan) on who will get to bury the late Nusrat Bhutto is actually the state to which the cause of the Bhuttos has actually been reduced to: The right to bury over that of mourning.

While the Pakistani nation recounts their memories of the late Bhuttos, their role in Pakistani politics and their tragic history of assassinations and extra-judicial murder, Larkana, the hometown of the Bhuttos struggles to bridge burying rites with mourning.

Big Telco shopping for a new PR agency in Pakistan

Mobile Telecom Companies in Pakistan

 

A leading Islamabad based mobile telecom operator of Pakistan is shopping for a new public relations agency based in Islamabad to replace its current agent. But that is not the news.

Islamabad is the hub of mobile telecom businesses in Pakistan. The reason for frequent switches from one agency to another, especially in the city of Islamabad, is the fact that most of the PR agency businesses are headquartered in Karachi and are by management practices H.O centric with little or no delegation. The generally slim client servicing structure, majorly borrowed from the advertising agency business model, is structured around the client services or account management model whereby a single team of upto 2 members service an account/client. This applies to all major PR agencies in Pakistan. Now for such slim structures the service and quality assurance comes from the very quality of the assigned resources to an account/client. In general practice any such account team handles upto 3-5 PR clients of varying sizes. With little specialization and no investment in the professional development of the client servicing team and no concept of modern management such as delegation and team empowerment the client is the eventual bearer of poor performance. Further due to the extensive market of the telecom service providers their need for having on-ground PR presence across major cities and stations of Pakistan is not effectively met.

This trend has continued for sometime now and has hurt the PR agency business from growth and recognition. The key players in the PR business must take long-term measures to create a nourishing environment for the business to grow. If this does not change soon, the PR clients will tend to, as is already observed, resource players from advertising industry with much bigger organizational size, stronger financial muscle, widest presence, with highly experienced and much more experienced client services teams.

This signifies the importance of maintaining a full fledged and robust PR services infrastructure in Islamabad, which in practice, is difficult to find. The most important aspect is that of qualified and experienced human resource specifically from the mobile telecom sector itself. The matter of fact remains that all branch offices of PR agencies in Islamabad play the role of a coordinating office with all critical support functions like, copy writing, creative and media based at the head-office only.

Warid, Ufone, Mobilink, Telenor and Zong are the mobile telecommunication service providers in the Pakistani Mobile Telecommunications industry. With a total market size of almost 109 million subscribers as of June 2011 the Pakistani mobile telecom industry is getting bigger, diversified and more challenging. In such complex competitive circumstances it becomes imperative to have cutting-edge communication partners for any mobile telco not only to win but for their very survival.