Advancing clocks: mimicking the British masters

In 1916, for the first time in Britain, they forwarded their clocks by one hour because Britain is situated 40 degrees latitude north and there was a great difference between the day time in winter and summer. To fill this gap and to get an extra hour in day time to work and to divide the day into two working shifts, they forwarded their clocks. In our country, the southern tip of Pakistan is Thatta district witch is situated in 23.4 degrees south latitude whereas our most northern tip is Gilgit situated in 36 degrees north. So we don’t need to forward the clock because our winter days are not too short and our summer days are not too long. To follow the colonial masters is in our blood, that is why we, the people of Pakistan, have been blindly following the western nations in every aspect like dresses, languages, living styles etc. But we don’t follow them in research, education and technology. The Govt’s claime of saving 250 MW electricity in 2008 is baseless because it forgot its own orders regarding the saving of electricity. Like last year, the govt's order banning long hours' wedding programs and arranging alternative street-lights as well as restricting use of air conditioners in office till 11am and the WAPDA’s campaign of using energy savers had helped us save that precious 250 MW electricity. By tampering with the clock we provide an extra hour to work and utilization of an extra electricity throughout the country. In office we can’t save electricity only by forwarding the clock because we don’t have the offices with glass roofs, electricity are used in every office in the same way. In my opinion, two days weekend is the best option if we want to save more energy, fuel, telephone etc.

Bashir Hussain Azad,
Chitral.