Pakistan Floods worst modern day disaster - Page 6

Strapped for aid, Pakistan shuns India's sympathy (Rashmee Roshan Lall & Divya A, TNN, Sep 12, 2010, 12.45am IST)

NEW DELHI: Flood-ravaged Pakistan may be appealing to the world's generosity but it is not so hard-up as to officially reverse its policy of refusing help from individual Indians in India.

Less than 48 hours after Hollywood star Angelina Jolie asked people everywhere to donate "cash, something, anything to make the situation better" for Pakistan's 21 million flood victims, an official at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi told TOI it was impossible for Indians to help in any way.

"We are not allowed to accept any aid from India in cash or in kind as there is no channel in place through which the aid from India could be routed to flood victims in Pakistan," said the official, who refused to identify himself but said he was authorized to tell it like it is to anyone who rang to ask.

He added, "Right now, there is no policy under which we could accept anything from Indians be it an individual, an organization or an NGO."

He agreed that large numbers of Indians were ringing to offer help. The Pakistan mission's brusque response is that they direct their charity to the UN. It sits oddly with Pakistan's September 3 appeal in New York, jointly launched by Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations, Abdullah Hussain Haroon and Rajmohan Gandhi of Illinois University.

Haroon said there is going to be a humanitarian crisis of a sort the world has never seen and pleaded, "A million tents (are) needed; we only have distributed about 100,000 so far. That's 900,000 more tents. So I was telling the Indian ambassador, I was saying, please send tents."

Wealthy peaceniks Suresh and Mala Vazirani in Mumbai would send this and more in a flash if Indian and Pakistani officialdom would only allow it.

The Vaziranis are typical of the Indian who wants to help their neighbour. The couple wants to dispatch medicines worth Rs 1.5 lakh to "fellow Sindhis" and insists this should be "through India ' not through overseas channels ' as there is a special significance to that".

The Confederation of Indian Industry ( CII), which wants to send 25 trucks loaded with relief material but is unsure how and when it will manage this, agrees it is symbolically important not to route aid through any external agency.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Strapped-for-aid-Pakistan-shuns-Indias-sympathy/articleshow/6538499.cms