Articles and letters may be edited for the purposes of clarity and space. They are published in good faith with a view to enlightening all the stakeholders. However, the contents of these writings may not necessarily match the views of the newspaper.
Exposing sugar, flour mafias
The recent sugar and flour ‘shortage’ and price increase has shown the true face of business mafias in Pakistan to the PTI Government. The timing of these price increases also indicates the mafia’s sinister designs. The PTI Government now has an opportunity to once and for all end these mafias by exposing and prosecuting them. If the government fails to take action against them, these mafia’s will come to bite them again and this time much harder.
Take the example of flour crisis in the KP. The people there have been a witness to yearly flour crisis for many decades. It is achieved by a simple three-step formula. Step one: hide all flour stock in KP, Step two: Stop transport of flour from Punjab to KP, Step three: Using media create hype for flour shortage. After this the mafia sits back and enjoys selling at higher prices for a few months before normality is restored.
Therefore, the flour and sugar mafias should be exposed, their process of creating these shortages should also be highlighted and proper measures should be taken to stop these mafias from using this process to create shortages in the future. I also think the Government should consider banning parliamentarians from working for industries and companies. Membership of Parliament is a full-time paid job and parliamentarians working for companies can help mafias in creating shortages in future as well.
SHAHRYAR KHAN BASEER
Peshawar
Research projects in schools
The standard of our education system is awful. We want higher marks, it doesn’t matter our concepts are clear or not. Cramming is dominant in our educational system. Actually, we observe the intelligence of students on the basis of their marks. We are lacking in the research field. We have only a handful of research centers in our country. Unfortunately, they are not playing their role well.
Research projects should be started from the primary level. Schools need to change their pattern. They need to promote research as much as they can. Our society doesn’t need higher marks, we need to find a solution to our problems. For this purpose, we need to promote the value of RESEARCH in the education system. On the other hand, Government should build up more Research centers in
NIMRA ANJUM
Faisalabad
Skin colour
Being dark skin colour is not a crime. Nowadays, in a country where women face a lot of problems and discrimination based on skin colour is a major one too. In Pakistan colourism is very common and people prefer light skin colour. As our Holy Prophet (SAW) made this clear that there is no moral values attached with colour of someone. We cannot judge any body’s spirit manifesting on their expression and skin tone like it is never important that someone who has bright colour is definitely brilliant.
In our society, beauty status and attractiveness related with fair complex, Now that I have become an adult and understand that, it is extremely disappointing to see young girls being treated the same way. There are many women advertising other girls to apply products that whiten the skin, for example, bleaching creams and cleansing creams etc are often recommended to lighten the skin.
We live in a country where most of the peoples prefer marrying bright-skinned girls and reject the dark-skinned ones and it is extremely disappointing. All that matters is perfect figure and white skin, so it is good to apply all the whitening creams available. I think it is extremely important to create awareness among women that this is nearly of to sell products. We are all beautiful in our own ride.
MARYAM AFTAB KHAN
Karachi
Women role
Women are integral part of every society. In recent years, although women’s status and role have been elevated beyond being a homemaker, but the priority is still given to men in politics, education, employment and related occupations. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan stipulates equal rights for men and women. However, the reality shows women in lower status than men in every scope of life whether it’s education, food, healthcare and freedom of choice of partner. According to human development report 1999 of UNDP, the gender empowerment measure (GEM) rank of Pakistan among 185 countries is 100. This rank determines the women empowerment on a country basis.
This measurement results in unequal status of women in economic resources, participation in political as well as economic decision-making. In spite of the fact that the Holy Quran dictates the equal rights for women’s wellbeing and development, women have always been the main target of rights violation in Muslim countries. The typical subjugated image of Pakistani women reflects the centuries old patriarchy deeply rooted in the subcontinent. Although, emancipation and empowerment has always been documented in the legal documents, this has not come to the reality fully yet.
HADIA AZIZ
Islamabad
You are being observed by social networks
It seems quiet scary that our activities are being observed by someone and on the other hand it seems quite funny, actually it is very alarming situation. It is happening with almost all of us as we are surrounded by these so-called social networks that are actually not social but antisocial networks. They are destroying not only our mental health/physical heath / social interactions but also making us addicted to these evil machines. I can say we are no more social animals but we are more social machines created by these social networks. We are producing human machines instead of human beings. If we take a look on our journey from birth to death it starts with a click, taking first picture and posting it on social networks for comments and ends-up with our last picture with the status of “Rest in peace”.
Throughout our lives we are under the pressure of these evil networks. We feel helpless and we are bound to share our information on these sites. It takes control over our body and gradually captures our minds. We post our day-to-day activities unintentionally and we are unconsciously giving our information to these sites as a result we do not have much time for our fellow beings who are sitting next to us and are waiting for our sweet company. Even our relationship with Allah is affected through these anti-social networks. We do perform our religious activities but without feelings. We do take selfees with Khana-e-Kaba and Roza-e-Rasool (PBUH) proudly but there is no passion in our “Ebadas”.
To sum-up, I can say that we are humans but without souls as we are spending artificial life, we love to show off that how luxurious life we are living and in this way we are forgetting our roots and going away from the nature.
KOMAL JAVAID
Lahore
