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Request
to PM
This letter of mine is a request to Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan to instruct quarters concerned to redo an old anti-smoking advertisement on national print and electronic media in a bid to discourage health hazardous habit of smoking.
The original advertisement showed cricketer Wasim Akram while jogging. And during his work out, perhaps, a young child questions Wasim Akram:
‘Wasim Bhai, Aap thaktay Nahi’? In reply, Wasim Akram says ‘ Nahi, Main Cigarette Nahi Peeta’.
Let’s redo this advertisement on Shaheen Afridi, for argument purposes to save the young lot from smoking.
There is a dire need to keep hammering this message as approximately 170000 people die in Pakistan due to smoking
SHAHZAD LODHI
Lalazar, Rawalpindi
Need of
the time
Cigarettes have been around for quite long now. About one in five (20%) adults in the world regularly smoke, despite wide-spread knowledge of the harmful effects of cigarettes on health and repeated tobacco control efforts around the world.
This data naturally calls for measures that can help to reduce cigarette consumption, while also acknowledging the sheer number of people who will continue to smoke and thus the need to reduce the harm to their health.
Non-combustible alternatives, products that do not burn the tobacco and do not produce smoke, respond directly to this need.
A number of researches, such as by Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians, show the potential of these products to help smokers reduce harm to their health as opposed to continued smoking.
Many countries such as the UK and New Zealand have already included these products as part of their tobacco-control efforts, and regulate them differently from cigarettes, because of the potential such products carry for public health benefit – if masses switch to less harmful products than cigarettes, the burden on the country’s healthcare system stands to be significantly reduced.
Our government and relevant authorities also need to pay attention to these latest developments across the world and think about including these products as an additional pillar to our existing tobacco control efforts.
MAHA RAIS
Karachi
Sialkot: Extremism at its pinnacle
The macabre manifestation of grisly extremism at Sialkot Lynching incident has appalled and shattered every sane Pakistani.
The cold-blooded and brutal killing of Sri-Lankan national, Priyantha Kumara Diyawadanage, who was foreign worker in garment factory of Sialkot—has experienced humanity hangdog and undoubtedly made a deadly and indelible scar on the gloomy face of Pakistan.
The vicious/roughshod killing of a foreign national on alleged blasphemy is not a first case but horrifying and poignant remembrance of killing of Mishal Khan and burning alive of Shama and Shahzad Masih are case in point.
The youth in Pakistan are simmering with wrath and frustration with the chanting of slogan with religious attributes makes them believe that they are doing right for the glorification of Islam and finality of dthe Last Prophet (PBUH).
Weaponization of religion and squalid persecution in the name of it is strictly forbidden and against the teachings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). Pakistan is distinctly dissimilar in ethno-socio and religio-political dimensions.
There is a strong need to reconstruct the misplaced religious thought by being diffused the narrative countering radical extremist ideologies.This complicated and labyrinthian task can be done by the intellectual and enlightened response to critical ideologies, the revival of moribund cultural and social values.
USAMA MUGHAL
Kandhkot, Sindh
Effects of import on economy
Major issue of Pakistan’s economy is the trade deficit. We import more things and export less.
Even if we can make the things locally that we import, then our economy can be stabilised and more opportunities of jobs will be created due to this.
Unfortunately, in the countries like Pakistan many political influences are there and many people are also there who do not want to let that Pakistan grow up.
As I am a Chemical Engineer I know that our country imports hundreds of chemicals which we can easily make locally and support our economy.
Unfortunately many people don’t bother to look at these problems. Some multinational companies are making imported chemicals to some extent but still there is a need to make more of them.
Investors and Government should bring up engineers from different fields and manufacture the things that we import the most, so that our economy can be stabilized and more people would get benefit from this because if we make things locally then the cost will be lower.
ZUNAIR AAMIR
Lahore
Exploring
the universe
Cosmological scientists have been exploring secrets of cosmology/universe over centuries; some suggested cosmos is in a constant flux, some opposed it but the investigative process lengthened out in time and space.
The Muslim Book of knowledge, Al Quran, in verse 30 of Surah Al Anbiya, is conclusive on the topic: the verse says both the sky (upper heavens) and the earth were united in their natal stage but the Creator of the universe – God Almighty – separated both, sky and earth.
Scientists call this process as Big Bang. Quran predicts a coming disaster that on Doomsday both the sky and the earth (together called cosmos or universe) shall unite with the collapse of the upper skies: the sky shall be wrapped up like a paper scroll.
After collapse an all-side darkness shall overtake the disaster-hit universe. It is Quranic foretelling of the coming cosmic devastation.
More about the topic: in verse 104 of the same Surah God says a new sky (after the collapse and attrition of the first one, maybe after several billions years interregnum) shall be created, and that “it is our pledge which has had to be executed/fulfilled”.
Creation of a new sky should be taken generally as creation of a new universe, a new world of water and matter; but here a relevant question arises as to the final disposal of the dead masses of peoples of the earlier destructed universe; where dead people of the dead universe shall be relocated? Some sages view that the good ones among the dead lot shall be transferred for rehabilitation in the new universe/earth plus sky.
However, scientists should now study process of attrition of matter (of earlier original universe) that composes current universe. The study shall, certainly, evolve into big exploratory trajectory and surprises.
HAMEED SHAHEEN
Rawalpindi
