While summers may be welcomed elsewhere, this is not the case in Pakistan as summers increase the misery of the people where load shedding, power failures and voltage fluctuation is the order of the day. This year too, the story is being repeated but on a far greater scale. The numbers and the duration of power breakdowns, especially in Karachi in the first few days of May 2006 alone have surpassed all records. People in certain areas remained outdoors for the entire night. There is no respite for the people who brave scorching temperatures during the day and have to deal with power breakdowns at night. With the privatisation of KESC, efforts should have been made to remove the basic problems at least. Granted that the new management is only 5 months old, yet having heard its spokesman on TV trying to explain away the problem was not very encouraging.

Things are bound to heat up more (literally).

We hope this issue of SP will provide you with some 'cool' reading.

S. Sehgal
Managing Editor