In the first place there is shortage of everything. From wheat to rice and from milk to vegetales everything is scarce and whatever is available in the market is of low quality and of extremely high and unaffordable price. The common people of Pakistan which comprises of 99% of the population are compelled to cut down the meals and now most of the households are living on just one meal a day and that one meal is not lavish by any means.

These are the times when people like Bushra of Lahore commit suicide along with her children and these are the times when Zareena of Multan puts her children for sale. Bushra's husband earned hardly Rs. 3000 monthly and was unable to feed his family and that is the same story of Zareena's husband who just earns the same amount every month. Both ladies went to extreme because their husbands lost their work due to load-shedding and their children were unable to understand the unavailability of food.

Zareena took her two children: daughter Arooj Fatima (8) and son Rehan (10) to a nearby Qaddaffi Chowk, and sat them on the footpath and hung “For Sale in their necks and started weeping. Passerby people got shocked, they probed into their pockets to help the lady a little, but then they recalled their own hungry children. Police came afterwards, took the family to police station and threatened the lady to not to do it again, as it gave bad name to the authorities.

The inflation rate is soaring and with the rising oil prices it will get worse and ultimately will burst at the seams by sending the people back to the stone age. To counter that and to render some semblance of breathing space to the hapless people of this land of pure, the government must do something drastic.

A nation wide austerity program should be initiated starting from the top, and food budgets of Army, Police and other security officials must be made simple and short while there must be a strangled restriction on meals provided in the government functions in the country.