President General Pervez Musharraf finally made his long delayed address to a joint session of Parliament on Saturday amid nerve testing behaviour by the Opposition parties' members, who kept thumping on their desks and chanting slogans against him.
Ignoring the protesters, he made a wide ranging speech to allay public apprehensions vis-à-vis the issue of terrorism as well as the country's nuclear programme, and went on to talk about the government's economic performance and the need to alleviate poverty.
As is customary on such occasions, he began his speech by invoking the dreams of the national poet, Iqbal, and the ideals of the Father of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, to make the high sounding promise of transforming Pakistan into a modern, enlightened welfare state.
So far as the first two goals are concerned, the country may already have turned the corner; but given its economic situation the idea of making it a welfare state, at least for now, belongs only to the realm of distant hopes.
General Musharraf did not reveal anything new when he said that the country is facing allegations of being involved in terrorism in Afghanistan and across the LoC, and of promoting nuclear proliferation and extremism.
And that this had earned the country a negative image abroad. Rather unexpectedly, though understandably, the government's recent international commitments led him to refer to the accusation of terrorism not only in Afghanistan but also across the LoC.
However, he made the crucial distinction between the two situations as he articulated an unqualified plea for removing foreign fighters from the tribal areas, and averred that the only way out of the Kashmir imbroglio is a solution of the problem that is just and in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people's aspirations.
During the recent months, some in the Western media have been accusing Pakistan of providing nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and even Saudi Arabia.
Hence, for the benefit of the international community, General Musharraf iterated that Pakistan remains a non-proliferationist, responsible nation.
The reports of international pressure necessitated that he also reassure his own people that the government is not about to make a compromise on the issue.
Hence his assertion that Pakistan's nuclear power lends strength to its defence capability, and therefore, it needs to maintain and strengthen its nuclear as well as missile power.
These are our basic defence assets, he said to the satisfaction of many anxious Pakistanis, and cannot be ignored.
On the issue of extremism he repeated his usual but valid argument that most people in this country are moderate, and that they reject extremism.
Further, there is need to root out extremism from this society for good. Regarding the state of the economy, too, he re-stated the familiar government claims - again, not without justification - that the macro economic indicators are positive, adding, however, that there is need to improve fiscal discipline, to create balance of payments surplus, to reduce debt, and to increase exports and revenue.
His speech also carried reverberations of the government's new poverty reduction rhetoric as well as its recent emphasis on the prevalence of poverty being more of a rural than urban phenomenon.
While the prescription he presented for ending rural poverty was construction of new dams, canals and other irrigation systems as well as railways and roads, the panacea for urban poverty, according to the President, is to bring in more investments in order to create more job opportunities.
No doubt, the rural areas have remained much neglected for long, which has resulted in a rapid increase in rural-to-urban migration.
The need to put in place rural development projects, such as the one approved by the federal cabinet a few days ago, cannot be underestimated.
But the government must also come up with some solid employment generation plans for the cities rather than to tell the urban poor to wait until potential investors find the climate conducive enough to put their money in new projects.
General Musharraf's announcement that the power rates will be reduced so that people can buy it easily, is indeed laudable.
One of the causes of rampant economic hardships in the urban areas, in fact, is the dreadfully high utilities' rates.
Even from the standpoint of the power producers, that is a self-defeating policy.
The rates being as high as they are, ordinary consumers have no choice but to make as sparing use of electricity as possible.
Consequently, the country's electricity generation capacity far surpasses the consumption.
Like in any other production sector, higher volume of consumption by itself can lead to lower costs for the energy producers, which should enable them to reduce the price.
The consumption can go still higher with new possibilities to export electricity to India's energy-starved northern and western states.
But for that market to be open for Pakistani electricity, its rates will have to be sharply cut down in order to create compatibility with the cost of utilities in that country, which is very, very low.
Besides, the government must also give a thought to bringing down the price of petrol, gas and oil products by reducing taxes on them.
That one measure alone can go a long way in making our exports competitive in the international market, besides putting disposable incomes in people's pockets.
That in turn can give a decent boost to the economy and create jobs without having to wait for foreign investments, which may not come anytime soon.
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