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A letter
from China
On September 17th, 2021, five days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, three astronautic heroes Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo came back to earth from the space by No 12 spaceship after working and living in Tianhe space station for three months.
On September 20th, only two days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, No.3 cargo spaceship was successfully launched and entered into its orbit and docked with Tianhe space station the same evening.
It’s a new great achievement of China scored in its space enterprise. Autumn is a very beautiful and fruitful season in China as well as in Pakistan. Mid-Autumn Festival is an important traditional festival of China and a happy occasion for family reunions.
Under the moonlight, family members used to enjoy eating moon-cakes, drinking tea and reciting poems together.
During the festival this year the Chinese people are especially happy because of the great successes we achieved during the season. Looking at the very big and round moon, I wrote a poem in traditional Chinese poetic style “qigu”.
The poem, translated into English, is as follows:
A bright moon hung in the sky at mid-autumn evening,
Everybody in China is looking at the sky.
Three heroes just came back from space to earth,
The new space cargo ship was launched again and docked with Tianhe Space station.
When we are celebrating the Party’s centennial,
The sky and the earth are full of good news.
The Chinese people are overjoyed this evening,
All say this evening‘s moon is especially complete and round.
Lu Shulin, is former Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan
Ghost of Lord Macaulay
The Ghost of Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay continues to haunt the corridors of power in their pursuit of autocratic rule and this was once evidenced in Islamabad High Court when FIA resorted to a colonial law which continues to be part of our rules even after his death on December 28, 1859. The Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court questioned the state for resorting to such black laws.
How can any government justify that even after our independence on 14 August 1947, we should retain repressive laws enacted to govern an occupied colony by the British Raj? Such black laws have no place in Jinnah’s Pakistan, just like the authoritarian regimes that have ruled and under whose watch we suffered enormously.
Macaulay studied law and served as Secretary of the Board of Control which supervised administration of India by the East India Company.
In 1839, he served as Secretary of War. Macaulay’s children are referred to people born of Indian ancestry who adopt Western culture as a lifestyle and display attitudes influenced by colonialism, with implications of disloyalty to their own country, for which locals were recruited in Indian Bureaucracy to serve the Raj.
His final years in India were devoted to creation of a Penal Code in 1860, to counter Indian Mutiny of 1857, which laid the basis of Criminal Procedure Code in 1872 and Civil Procedure Code 1908.
Macaulay advocated the right of Britain to administer its colonies in an autocratic fashion. He was instrumental in creating Indian Bureaucracy to help the Raj prolong their rule in India.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
PM’s gift for youngsters
Prime Minister Imran Khan has launched Digital Media Wing Development Program in order to eradicate unemployment across the country. PM focuses on digital media and his mission is to expand the state narrative.
Imran Khan is the very PM who worked on the state narrative and in 2020 he made the initiative narrative after the launch of Digital Media Wing Development Programme.
The Premier encourages the youth to avail this opportunity. The government has welcomed the youth in PM House and selected one hundred young for the first batch training and this training rotates batch-wise.
Experts of the world four famous companies; Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter will conduct workshops and train the young interns because these companies’ experts are only effective in narrative building.
The main motive of launching Digital Media Wing Institution is to develop the ecosystem, empower the youth and build a strong state narrative.
Pakistan state narrative has already made its place but the government aim to expand it to international level.
However, the youth be made to learn industrial skills and to promote new ideas and innovative. The interns will receive monthly stipend by support of Nations Development Program.
Now it is incumbent upon every young Pakistani from every corner of Pakistan to avail this opportunity and compete the world.
MUNA MANZOOR
Turbat
Can India
afford exporting vaccines?
Fully vaccinated people are being infected by COVID-19 which clearly is an indication that anti-bodies built after getting the jab only last for a few months and every citizen will require a booster dose even after the mandatory two doses of the vaccine.
The government is silent on the booster dose due to shortage of vaccines as not even half of the population has been fully vaccinated as yet.
The COVID-19 virus is evolving every now and then which means we may need an altogether different booster dose to protect ourselves from the virus in future.
Vaccines should not be exported till we fulfil the requirements of our own country. Committing exports at this stage when our own requirements are uncertain seems to be a decision taken in haste. Vaccine doses at times of a life threatening pandemic become an essential commodity.
Exports of vaccines should be completely banned under the present circumstances like any other commodity at times of national need where citizens of the country deserve to be given a priority.
Vaccine manufacturers should be compensated on the amount they lose on exports as they too need funds for research to better the product.
JUBEL D’CRUZ
Mumbai, India
