Spread the word

General

By Zubeida Mustafa

THERE is a problem with our health sector. It has been heavily ‘medicalised’. Taking their cue from the pharmaceutical companies, many physicians and surgeons tend to adopt the curative approach preponderantly, depending on diagnostic technology and drugs. Preventive medicine has been pushed aside, as have been its essentials — public health awareness, nutrition, personal hygiene, lifestyle and sanitation.

As a result, healthcare has become so costly that it is increasingly out of reach of the masses. Only the rich and privileged can hope to obtain satisfactory treatment when they are ill, while the country’s national health indicators are shockingly dismal.

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Ban the gun

General

By Zubeida Mustafa

ON March 1, a burst of gunfire snuffed out the life of a gentle soul in Washington D.C. He was a social worker helping the mentally challenged and drug addicts. He was Jawaid Bhutto, a teacher of philosophy and a progressive scholar in Pakistan before he moved to the US. I knew him as my friend and the husband of a former colleague Nafisa Hoodbhoy. Bhutto’s death grieved us immensely.

The irony didn’t escape me on this occasion. Here was a man who was known to be an ardent advocate of peace and love as well as gun control laws being killed by someone who was not entitled to be carrying a gun, given his mental state, so it was reported.

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Getting to know Change

General

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani  

WE ARE now more than six months into a federal government formed by the PTI. The party disrupted the emergent tradition of two main federally operative parties: the PPP and the PML(N) have now to contend with a powerful entrenched third factor.

      Today, the PTI’s voice resonates as the country’s. Apart from a reiteration of the conviction that the PPP and the PML(N) are entirely responsible and answerable for each and every ill that besets Pakistan; what is it saying for us and to us? And what is it doing to treat those maladies or to dispel political and socio-cultural misgivings as felt and voiced by the people themselves rather than presumed or ascribed to them?

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An uphill drive

Books, Children and Youth, Education, General, Language, Library, Mental health, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE road that takes you to the Khatoon-e-Pakistan School, Karachi, is a steep one. It has been an equally uphill drive for Shehzad Roy’s Zindagi Trust to transform the institution it adopted in 2015.

The school was in a shambles a few years ago like all peela schools I have visited. They have huge buildings and expansive playgrounds testifying to the vision of their founders from the early years of Pakistan. But lacking maintenance and good governance, they have fallen into decay.

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Say no to GM maize

General

By Zubeida Mustafa

THERE is bad news and there is good news for our environmentalists, agriculturalists, healthcare givers and all those who care for the welfare of Pakistan. First, the bad news.

In January, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Cargill, the global food and agricultural producer with an annual revenue of $114.6 billion (2018), will be investing $200 million in Pakistan in the next two to five years. This announcement came after two top-ranking executives of Cargill met Prime Minister Imran Khan. It seemed innocuous, at least to people who know little about biotechnology giants.

One of them, Monsanto (now merged with Bayer), fathered the genetically modified organism (GMO) in 1983 which did terrible damage to numerous crops and farmers all over the world. As a result, we saw a spate of high-profile lawsuits in which the company admitted to having bribed officials abroad. At least 35 countries have now banned GMOs.

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Why Language is important in Education

Education, General, Language

By Zubeida Mustafa

I shall begin this paper by listing five myths which have dominated our collective thinking on language in education in Pakistan. This thinking also shapes the narrative on education in many other countries that were decolonised  less than a century ago.

Myth # 1

Language has no bearing on a child’s education, Irrespective of which language is used in the classroom, it is the quality of teaching that determines the quality of education.

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Luring readers

Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Education, General, Library


By Zubeida Mustafa

A DISCUSSION on libraries always leads to the chicken-and-egg debate. We have few libraries because there are no readers. Or people do not read books as there are no libraries. In Karachi, both are in inadequate numbers.

Belonging to a literary family, the newly appointed commissioner of Karachi, Iftikhar Ali Shallwani, has rightly decided not to get trapped in this debate. He has proceeded to address the issue of the state of libraries by setting up a Council of Karachi Libraries comprising 12 members. These councillors have been tasked with the “restoration, revival and revamping” of the public libraries of the city and upgrading them. For this, the members will visit every library and prepare a report on its working. Hopefully, they will also make suggestions on how libraries can promote the book culture in our society.

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Provincialism and centralism: Levers?

Administration, Balochistan, Economy, Guest Contributor, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

Pakistan’s federal and provincial connectivity – which has a fraught history to put it mildly – is being subjected to increasing stress directly and indirectly, in ways great and small. Is it ingenuousness or ingenuity that is responsible: How reckless can political rivalries and pro-interventionism get?
There have been some sudden shocks but a steady nibbling at consensual accord on inter-provincial and collective national mutuality of interest is unpleasantly discernible. Wiser heads – such as the PPP’s Senator Reza Rabbani and Sindh’s former governor Zubair of the PML(N) — pinpoint errors, counsel and forewarn. Unfortunately, accusative demagoguery is more engaging and accessible in talk-shows that can tincture and define public opinion. Legitimate grievances and fears are voiced inside and outside the parliament by legislators and the executive but without doing much to allay misgivings or subject their manifestations and causes to constructive analysis and review in the houses. Parliamentary conduct appears narcissistic, rather than publicly representative. Outside of parliament, the President of Pakistan and provincial governors are national figures, symbolizing the federation. If they seem to prioritize party preference and objectives in over-frequent public appearances and off-the-cuff comment they are misreading the tenor and constitutional nature of office. Continue reading Provincialism and centralism: Levers? →

A dubious solution

Health

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) is once again in the limelight, unfortunately for negative reasons. An ordinance signed last week by the president (himself a dentist by profession), who should have understood its implications better, provides for the constitution of a 17-member council to run its affairs. The PMA, the body that represents the doctors, has rejected the ordinance on the grounds that it is ‘undemocratic’.

The document provides for members of the PMDC being nominated by the prime minister, the chief ministers of the four provinces, the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) and the armed forces. Its tenure will be for three years and it will elect its own president. Its composition is diverse with some laypersons also being included to represent the public in addition to the medical professionals. The sceptical response from some quarters is understandable. It is feared that the ordinance will allow some vested interests to monopolise control of the PMDC for their own advantage.

The fact is that the PMDC has had a controversial history from the start. It was introduced by the Ayub regime in 1962 through an ordinance and since then has mostly depended on ordinances for its existence. On some occasions, the government of the day (the PPP in 2012 and the PML-N in 2014) brought the PMDC issue before parliament for enacting a law but that was jettisoned by a subsequent ordinance. The approach has basically been an ad hoc one.

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Peace in Afghanistan will come at a price

International Politics, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE U.S. is now trying desperately to pull its forces from Afghanistan. Seventeen years of war is long enough. The human toll has been heavy, with more than 2,200 American lives lost and 20,000 soldiers wounded. This figure doesn’t include the Afghan and Pakistani men, women and children who have suffered. Imperial powers still have to learn that it is easy to jump into another country that is weak and unstable—but to get out is a tougher job. And waging war in Afghanistan has never been a cakewalk for any outsider.

Moves are afoot there to work out a compromise, but the U.S. government has no understanding of how the present moves will change the diplomatic contours of Southwest Asia, the hub of America’s longest war in history. An American negotiator of Afghan origin, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been talking to the Taliban since August 2018.

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