By M Azeem Samar
Karachi
The open sale of laptops on footpaths of the metropolis was a strange sight indeed. Either it was a manifestation of immense proliferation of information technology in our society, or an indicator of serious flaws in various spheres of national trade and economy; a disturbing parallel to conditions in war-torn countries. Right after attending a daylong seminar comprising of speeches and eloquence in support of the protection of intellectual property rights of scientists, scholars, and innovators of the country, I witnessed pavement-selling of laptops.
Indeed the nature of such activities on the pavement is undoubtedly detrimental to the causes of protection of intellectual, marketing, and business rights of inventors and manufacturers of the laptops and other major commercial establishments involved in their lawful trading. Ironically, at the seminar I heard numerous novices in the ranks of proponents of the cause of intellectual property rights. After the seminar, I couldn’t help thinking that these experts should witness footpath-based laptop sales.
Surely, this experience would compel them to reconsider their claims regarding intellectual and technological growth in the country. Ironically, the Saddar area site (area in Saddar) where this pavement-trade of laptops was being conducted is not too far from the hotel on Sharah-e-Faisal where the seminar on protection of intellectual property rights took place. The laptop was not the only item displayed by the two vendors under my observation, who were near Madina Market of Saddar. LCD-screen telephone sets, digital cameras, MP3 players, and other digital accessories for computers and mobiles were also on sale.
It was perhaps for the first time that motorists and pedestrians of Karachi saw such a modest, and absurdly reasonable sale of laptops. As expected, these laptops were fairly outdated in comparison to laptops on sale in regular computer markets of the city. Nevertheless, the ridiculously low prices attracted the usual visitors of Saddar market areas.It could well be a debatable point for the planners and managers of our national economy whether or not to encourage such open and unregulated sales of technologically advanced consumer items.
However, further promotion and augmentation of such street computer markets would surely provoke an unfavourable reaction and negative feedback from major business concerns, including multi-nationals involved in the well-regulated and legitimate sale of hardware and software items. The major national and international technology firms, despite being engaged in activities beneficial to the national economy, already have serious reservations and objections over unchecked and pirated modes of selling hardware and software items. According to a senior journalist, the sale of laptops on footpaths should be construed as yet another manifestation of the Western countries’ blatant dumping of second-hand, outdated computers and other technological scrap in the third-world.
He further stated that ‘laptop vendors’ did not represent technological and socio-economic progress and advancement of the society. On the contrary, they were yet another feature of the free market economy; developed and industrialised Western countries were fully allowed and encouraged to dump their waste, outdated material and gadgets in less-privileged, third-world countries.According to Abdur Rehman, one of the Pashto speaking Saddar footpath ‘laptop vendors’, throughout their journey from Vesh market in Afghanistan, near the Pak-Afghan border, to Karachi, these second-hand laptops had not been subjected to any checks or scrutiny by the border, customs, and other law-enforcement authorities. He said that mostly long-route inter-city buses were availed to bring in such items from the Afghan border to Karachi.
He added that he and other vendors like him were used to bringing in 100 to 150 laptops on every journey between the Afghan border and Karachi. He said that previously they had not been examining and checking laptops before buying them in bulk from the open Afghan market. Thus, they met with considerable economic losses on the procurement of faulty computers. However, for some time now they had been properly verifying hardware and software properties of the laptops before buying them from the Afghan open and wholesale markets.
Rehman also stated that the arrival of laptops from the Afghan border market was just another sign of the free Pakistan-Afghanistan transit trade through the ports of Pakistan. The practice of bringing foreign-assembled consumer electronics and other items in Pakistan from the Vesh and other such Afghan markets has been ongoing for the past several decades.
The magnitude of the technological impact of unregulated sales of laptops and other electronic items remains to be ascertained. However, this much is certain that illiterate or semi-literate vendors like Rehman have to acquire considerable knowledge of using information technology tools, in order to decrease risks of business losses incurred due to the purchase of defective items.
