By Zubeida Mustafa
RECENTLY I received a call from Ali Mohammad Goth (in Jahoo Tehsil, population 40,033) in Awaran, Balochistan. Jahoo Tehsil has only two high schools for girls. Scores of students from one of these schools had demanded books to read. This message was conveyed to me by their headmistress Ms Sabar-un-Nisa, courtesy Shabir Rakhshani, the education activist of Awaran. This made me jump up.
Continue reading Reading trendsBy Zubeida Mustafa
BALOCHISTAN is a paradox — like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that do not fit. The recent tragedy — the brutal mass murder of 11 Hazara miners in Mach — is testimony to this paradox. It is bizarre that, periodically, a cultured people with a rich tradition of poetry and learning should be subjected to such atrocity on the soil of Balochistan by brutes under the protection of non-Baloch.
Continue reading Baloch paradoxBy Zubeida Mustafa
TIME and tide — and also season and weather — wait for no man. Taking this truism to heart, the government decided to move on a vital agricultural sector that has never failed to stir controversy. That is cotton production — the key cash crop for our economy. This time the government has decided to be discreet and avoid ‘unnecessary’ publicity.
Foremost came the devastating news that Pakistan had once again fallen short of the target set for cotton production this year as disclosed by the Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association in January. Only 8.3 million bales were produced as against 10.4m last year. Cotton production has been on the decline for more than a decade. Punjab, the province which has the largest share of the country’s cotton, has obviously suffered the most. It has also seen a fall in the area under cultivation and yield per acre.
Continue reading GMO or organic?By Rifaat Hamid Ghani
VIRAL fear is experienced by young and old alike globally – but not uniformly. Viral pandemic, it is certified, Covid-19 is also a search engine on the stratifications of globalization. The impact is manifold and varied culturally and economically, and we may only learn empirically if there are any impermeable layers. There is interaction and adaptation; yet there may be responses and outcomes that will never be felt in common and so a separate-ness be reaffirmed.
By Zubeida Musrafa
IF a child of seven is separated from his family to be sent to a village 50 kilometres away to attend school, how would it affect him? Obviously, it would be traumatic. The pain and anguish of separation would be deep for him as well as his mother.
Such a situation would also make me feel a surge of anger against those responsible for creating such oppressive conditions that leave parents with no choices but ugly ones: send the child away for the sake of his future or keep him home to remain illiterate for life. That is what Balochistan has been reduced to.
Continue reading Awaran, O Awaran