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.
Strengthen good governance
The federal government has needlessly chosen to lock horns with provincial government in Sindh over Karachi’s problems. This is not to say that problem is completely insignificant, but ruling coalition’s intention to take over administrative affairs of Karachi from a democratically elected government is wholly unwarranted. Article 149 of the Constitution, which allows Centre to “give directions” to a province only extends to preventing a “grave menace to peace or tranquillity or economic life of Pakistan” and Karachi’s current situation hardly fits this definition.
Present Karachi problems do not affect peace or tranquillity in the country and Karachi’s status as economic hub of the country also implies that no economic crisis is imminent as a result of these issues. In any case, central government has no basis for believing that it can do a better job in Karachi – the PTI government’s six-year reign in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a year in the centre have not given us any evidence of an unblemished public service record. The PTI government is already struggling in many matters of state on its own; handing over a city to its stewardship will likely not help the city in any way.
This is yet another instance of PTI taking confrontational path against other political parties and causing artificial crisis in the process. The federation is strongest when it is unified, and provinces do not believe their rights are being subverted without cause. The blame for this irresponsible and unnecessary confrontation falls squarely at PTI – it must not get greedy in its bid to govern the country and leave other democratically elected leaders to exercise their mandate, as is their right.
AZFAR SIDDIQUI
Karachi
College without transport
Hoshab city is located east of Kech district in Balochistan. Our Inter College is located 5 kms from the city. Students face many problems to reach the college as most of the students belong to poor families and cannot afford daily bus fares that are quite high due to fuel cost.
It is our request to provincial education minister Zahoor Buladi and CM Balochistan Jam Kamal to provide a bus to our college so that students could reach on time for their classes.
AQIL ALI
Tank Hoshab, Balochistan
Understanding problems
Challenging issues being faced by the country in 21st century mainly relate to health, climate change and food security yet these unfortunately always remained on second priority list of every government. A World Health Organisation (WHO) report of 2012 shows in that year 56 million people died worldwide. Out of it 620,000 died due to human violence (war killed 120,000 people, and crime killed another 500,000). In contrast, 800,000 committed suicide, and 1.5 million died of diabetes. Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder. Another report of the same organisation claims in 2017 the number of people who died because of pollution and diseases caused by pollution was seven time more than those causes by terrorism.
The story of Pakistan is not different from the remaining world. According to terrorist database report, 1267 lives were lost in Pakistan in the year 2017, while in the same year more than 15,000 lives were lost in traffic accidents. But not a single talk show has been conducted on this issue nor any politician has ever talked about it. Furthermore, governments as a whole have failed to formulate a robust policy to tackle these issues.
Similarly condition of health sector in all four provinces in general and in Sindh particular has deteriorated to a large extent. The cases of death due to scanty food, malnutrition and unhygienic food have increased in Sindh. A recent report claimed more than 150,000 HIV patients throughout the country while majority of them belong to Sindh. Staggeringly, 65 per cent of total patients of HIV in Sindh are children.
Moreover, successive governments in Pakistan have remained neglected to climate change and global warming. Two cities of Pakistan, Lahore and Karachi are among the world’s most polluted cities. The air quality of Lahore is highly contaminated causing various diseases related to respiratory system, asthma and cough. In Karachi, the biggest city of Pakistan, piles of garbage can be seen everywhere. As monsoon rains are continuing, it has caused great problems for people living in Karachi mostly because of poor drainage system.
The government can tackle all these issues effectively and can pull the nation out of gloom if it recognises real challenges. Pakistan has all the resources to feed its people and provide people with a better life style. It only lacks in efficient administration and management as Dr Ishrat Husain puts brilliantly in his book ‘Governing the ungovernable’. He says, “Pakistan has no crisis but the crisis of management and administration”.
ALI HASSAN
Via email
Education in our universities
Trend of adopting and achieving new technologies is on peak, but still many institutions lack in getting the knowledge of these useful technologies. In order to compete all over the world, we must follow trends and innovations done by developed countries like AI, Robotics etc. Many universities in Pakistan, especially in Sindh are working on just book related knowledge. They are not providing necessary awareness that what skills are required by different organisations.
The other issue is that they are busy in following the customs of western world, which are irrelevant to ours. Just lecture and rote learning have made students to remember and don’t ponder deeply on ideas. If Artificial intelligence technology is adopted by universities and they engage interested students to work on it, they can get much more opportunities for upcoming career change. The new trend of AI can create more jobs and skills for people, where they can show their hidden talent. Economically it can boost the growth of universities and country.
If you don’t work on new trends and you let go these trends, your brains will drain out on unimportant subjects that are not practically useful. So don’t feel hesitated to initiate such innovations for welfare of society. Make universities as much capable of handling and making students technical entrepreneur and successful businessmen. Promote AI, promote safe and secure future.
SYED ZAHID ALI
IBA, Sukkur
Inclusive subjects
This refers to inadequacy of our educational institutions who make students blind to the subject knowledge of computer science whereas the whole world is converting into digital age where computer science emerges as a leading subject. The fact is that our existing education system prefers knowledge of medical science and physical science much above all other subjects. This notion is primitive in nature because study of subjects like physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology and biotechnology is need of the hour. The one who studies pre-engineering shall become an engineer and the later who studies pre-medical will become a doctor in future.
The other fields of study like commerce and computer science is ignored at initial stage of learning though the societies stir and shapes as developing countries with advancement in computer science and commerce studies. This is not too late to realise the faults in our educational institutions because there is still time to reshape the policy of study and introduce the subject of computer science in primary as well as secondary level. The government has to play the role very effective in upgrading the quality education and implementing the practice of teaching computer science subject in all schools either at primary or secondary level.
The youth is the future of nation if they are kept ignorant regarding computer science then they shall lag behind in development. The world is advancing in technology because they teach their youth at early age what is the importance of computer and make aware to use it properly. Introducing their youth to computer science is their right policy because that is making them to involve in modern age. It is high time for us to bring knowledge of computer science as primary subject in our curriculum at level. The private as well as government schools are to ascertain that they shall teach the computer subject as compulsory subject at premise. The faculty of computer shall teach the students proper knowledge and shall make students aware about bad consequences of misuse of computer.
MUJEEB ALI SAMO
Larkana, Sindh
