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.
Curse of Unemployment
Unemployment due grave economic recession and poor governance has caused frustration and anger among educated youth. Successive government policies, instead of addressing these issues have been captive to vested interests, rehiring retired civil or uniformed officers and judges making matters worse. Can anybody justify hiring retired paid state employees receiving pension and other benefits like allotment of real estate plots etc, including free medical coverage, on contract whilst more qualified and educated youth, with specialized professional qualifications and skills, remain unemployed.
This has contributed to brain drain, growing discontent and frustration. The acute economic crisis that Pakistan faces is testimony, if any is required, that unless state employs highly qualified individuals who have specialized in economics, technology, medicine and science this country will not recover from the mess.
British Raj trained civil and unformed bureaucracy was to run an occupied country, for sole benefit of HM government.
In the UK, USA etc the state employs best qualified specialists at key assignments where policies are made, whilst civil service officers are confined to administrative posts only.
If Pakistan wants to develop, it must invest in development and optimum utilization of talent to keep at pace with fast technological changes. Our Civil Service is outdated and not trained to serve people as public servant.
They continue to live in islands of prosperity in gated housing societies in palatial villas spread over acres, instead of modest houses at state expense, surrounded by a sea of people living in misery, denied even basic necessities like clean drinking water, with garbage dumps serving as breeding grounds for mosquitoes and an outdated sanitation system infected with polio virus, typhoid and blocked gutters. This is certainly not Quaid’s Pakistan.
ALI MALIK TARIQ
Lahore
Bravo Pakistan under-23 team!
The fourth addition of Asian Cricket Council Emerging tournament is underway in Bangladesh. Pakistan Under-23 team has upset its arch rival India Under-23 team in a nail-biting semi-final by three runs at Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in Dhaka.
In a thrilling semi-final, Pakistan set a competitive target of 267 for the former ACC Under-23 champions. Opening batsman Omair Yousuf and middle order Saif Badar were brilliant with the bat who made 66 and 47 respectively.
In reply, India Under-23 team failed to chase the target in their allotted 50 overs.
The cricket history shows that Pakistan Under-23 team has not won any ACC emerging cricket tournament in the past while Sri Lanka and India Under-23 teams have won twice and once respectively. This is indeed a great opportunity for our emerging players to bring first ever ACC Emerging Cricket trophy home.
In addition, the Pakistan men’s senior cricket team should learn from the emerging boys who have played an extraordinary cricket and are unbeaten in an ongoing ACC Emerging tournament.
Imtiaz Junejo
Hyderabad.
Poverty bomb
Poverty in Pakistan is a fact of life for most of its people. A country of over 176 million people and around 796,095 sq. kilometres of land is not able to even feed its own population despite the fact that nearly two-thirds of the country’s population is employed in agriculture. Although there are bumper crops every year, most people are unable to get enough food.
The main cause of Pakistan’s poverty rate is the fact that many Pakistanis lack basic human rights. Many Pakistanis, often women and children, are begging in the streets throughout their country.
Our people live a very vulnerable life because of poverty. Poverty in Pakistan spreads across a variety of issues: a very fast-growing population, facing lack of education, jobs, technology, capital and investment. Poverty may lead to a high level of stress and mental illness which in turn causes individuals to adopt the criminal behaviour. Social differences are also a factor for poverty. It is the responsibility of the government to remove the causes of poverty in society so that the increasing rate of crimes could be controlled and the society becomes a picture of a civilised nation.
MAIRA NADEEM
Rawalpindi
Gender inequality
It really hurts me to mention that Pakistan has been ranked the second-worst country in the world for gender inequality. It is one of the fundamental duties to provide equality to women in a society.
There is no denying the fact that women play a significant role in many areas of development. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had stated that a nation can never be developed if women are not working side by side with men.
Moreover in 1979 when many nations at General Assembly of United Nations accepted the convention on the eradication of all evil customs against women in society, Pakistan also promised to give gender justice and equality.
But nothing has been practically done to stem the ranking of gender inequality. A majority of women cannot move beyond the status patriarchy assigns to them, thereby remaining excluded from developing necessary skills to be part of the workforce. Employment is also a very important fact to be considered in gender discrimination.
In Pakistan, 98 percent top managers in banks and other financial institutions and industrial units are males. This clearly shows that women are not treated equally as candidates for top management positions. Males are given priority over females in a country where females are more in number. As a result it is high time that we must regret and protest for all such activities against women. And also I want to request the government to please take positive steps for eliminating inequality.
MUHAMMAD USMAN RAJA
Rawalpindi
Price of tomatoes
I AM shocked that there is no protest against the roaring prices in Pakistan’s mega cities while Maulana Fazal ur Rehman blocked roads. Having failed to topple the PTI government in Islamabad, the opposition somehow or the other wants people to come out on the roads and cripple the system.
This is a conspiracy against the democratically elected government. How has the price of tomatoes gone up to Rs 300 per kilo? How have the prices of seeds gone six times higher? Are the fertiliser companies now charging 10 times more?
Are the farm labourers paid 10 times more or less? Has the government taxed agriculture? Certainly none of these things have taken place. The media should have worked out the actual production cost of tomatoes and onions to prove that a syndicate has been formed to raise prices of essential vegetables.
If there is a shortage then vegetables should disappear from market and this is not so. I suggest that government volunteers should purchase vegetables from growers directly and sell it in open markets, starting from poor localities.
KHURAM JAMIL
Islamabad
The third gender
In all forms of social instructions and societies, individuals are usually likely to carry on in harmony to the gender they were born with. Muslims are supposed to love all the creations of Allah SWT, then why do we chose to love the ones that satisfy our needs and we strike away the ones that disgust us?
It is 2019. Much has changed around the globe but not the gender inequality that surprisingly still exists. Driving by the roads of F-10 gives a site of weird lewd behaviour of elderly men: they stop their cars by the road side where cross dressers or members of the third gender community are standing.
These men are not disgusted then – but when it comes to giving these people a job or even greeting them, the action is sickening to them. This double standard is just ruining the environment of our country.
Being a woman in this country is already hard; I cannot even imagine what it must be to be from the third gender community. They are human beings, they deserve respect same as other do. We citizens must all come together to take accountability for our prejudice against these people, and be contrite for the assorted injustices and bad behaviour we may have committed or silently witnessed against them. At the end of the day they are human beings and they need to be respected.
MUHAMMAD SARFRAZ
Rawalpindi
Explain Kashmir issue
Since the partition of the India subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947, the Kashmir dispute has been an intractable one between them. They fought three wars over it in 1948, 1965, and 1999 but have not been able to resolve it.
The partition left the fate of over 550 princely state undecided. They were required to accede to either of two state on the basis of the geographical location and wishes of their people.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir should have acceded to Pakistan because of its Muslim majority population and geographical location, but this did not happen when Maharaja Hair Singh sought military assistance from India to resist the Pakistan tribal’s attacks and ultimately signed the “Instrument of Accession with India since then the Kashmir dispute has been the core issue between both Pakistan and India which also had kept the security of entire South Asia at stake.
So the Kashmir issue has been a major bone of contentions from the day of independence, results in three wars, numerous conflicts between India and Pakistan and severally rigid disploniacy.
Kashmir’s strategic important lies in the fact that its borders meet with China and Afghanistan and also is clause to Russia, almost all the rivers which flow through Pakistan, originate countries ignore stepping back claiming of this tewitory.
ISMAIL IQBAL
Turbat
