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.
What about teaching staff salaries?
Federal and Provincial Education Ministers in their deliberations on Monday have announced closure of all educational institutions from November 26 till January 10 in view of speedy acceleration in Coronavirus cases in the second wave as the people by and large still do not observer SOPs and even do not bother to wear face masks.
They somehow have not dilated upon an important aspect of teaching staff salaries payment by the respective managements of educational institutions during closure of all educational institutions. During last lockdown and closure of educational institutions, managements had charged tuition fee from the students and not paid salaries to the teaching staff on the pretext of educational institutions closure due to lockdown.
Even the media people did not ask questions in respect from the federal and provincial teachers at their press conferences in Islamabad and Lahore. The federal and provincial governments are urgently requested to deliberate on this important aspect and make it compulsory on the educational institutions, both government and private ones, to ensure they pay salaries to their teaching staff as usual as they charge tuition fee from their students otherwise the teachers will be suffering financial and other problems.
M Z RIFAT
Lahore
Love jihad
One is amused by the oxymoronic ring of the phrase, ‘love jihad’, which has recently been popularised by certain Hindutva groups in the country. The phrase is designed to denote a communal conspiracy in which Muslim boys marry Hindu girls after entrapping them in love affairs. There is nothing wrong if a Hindu girl decides to marry a Muslim boy, or vice versa. But rightwing groups with vested interests project any incident of a Muslim boy marrying a Hindu girl as part of a larger conspiracy aimed at converting Hindus to Islam. This leads to dramatic Hindu-Muslim polarisation, which the Hindutva groups take advantage of. On the other hand, the government is trying to interfere in the personal freedom of individuals guaranteed in the Constitution. It is trying to solve a contrived problem with bad legislation for political gains of appealing to its Hindutva base. In reality, this law once passed will give outside parties, a handle to interfere in other people’s personal affairs, with state sanction.
JUBEL D’CRUZ
Mumbai, India
Gwadar goes fully operational
Contrary to the perception being created by some quarters that Nawaz Sharif’s overthrow was meant to halting ‘his initiated’ CPEC project, the reality on ground seems different as the Gwadar Port has now gone fully operational. It means the projects of national interest are not tagged to certain personalities. Building the Gwadar port and running the CPEC project haven’t been proved easy because these have posed a serious challenge to the enemies.
Pakistan has so far faced, and thwarted, numerous attacks and threats to both Gwadar and CPEC. Towards its going fully operational, there are hundreds of sacrifices in the background. One was confident that the chairmanship in Asim Salim’s hands would definitely lead to its completion, though a lot of work is still to be done. His tweets on work underway on dam project and other initiatives seems encouraging.
With Gwadar Port going fully operational, annihilating malevolent plans of adversaries, Pakistan will be on road to connectivity and prosperity, because the port has an existing capacity of handling 50,000 deadweight tonnage bulk carriers at 12.5-meter maximum depth with three multipurpose berths – 200-meter long each – while the construction of three additional berths will complete in the next two years. This deep seaport is CPEC’s starting point, which is the cheapest route to China and Central Asia – a much shorter and inexpensive route to ship oil, gas or minerals from the Middle East and Africa.
HAMZA ALI
Turbat
A tribute to frontline workers
The other day, the area where I live was in the dark for 4-5 hours as there was a major breakdown in the electricity supply line. Local complaint number 051 9272115 was busy often. I was lucky to get my call through and someone named Asghar spoke. I made a complaint about no electricity and Asghar gave assurance that in 30 minutes of time WAPDA technical team would arrive at your residence.
I was impressed when the technical team was outside my home almost in 45 minutes. One person loaded himself with various instruments, wore a belt around his waist and started climbing the electricity pole. He was wearing yellow gloves. He was so close to high voltage electricity wires and with his hands was using various instruments to fix the problem. One of his colleagues who were standing on the ground with me was approached by me. I asked him what if (God forbids) any incident occurs and the man on the pole is hit by electric current.
The man standing had no convincing reply to my question. This is what it is. WAPDA has not got enough resources to safeguard us with special dresses while we perform our job. Many of our colleagues have left us many might leave but we have no other way as we have families to feed. Listening to all this, my heart was heavy. We hardly pay tribute to frontline workers of various departments such as Cantonment Board Cleaners, PTCL line men, Sui Gas workers, MES Water Line men who are working in spite of Covid -19 and harsh weathers to make our life comfortable.
SHAHZAD LODHI
Via email
