All posts by Raza Jaffri

Afghan women’s new role

Women

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

The process of change in Afghanistan is so subtle and the violence so pervasive that not many seem to have noticed the fact that the Afghan women are slowly emerging from the oblivion and coming into their own. According to one report nearly 40 per cent of the voters who have registered themselves for the October presidential elections are women.

That is an impressive figure given the fact that until recently women were not even allowed out of their homes, because of the obscurantist policies of the Taliban who were ruling the roost in Kabul until the end of 2001.
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Complexities of population issue

Population, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

The world population day was observed on July 11 and all the leaders involved with the population programme in Pakistan one way or the other expressed their concern at the country’s demographic profile on this occasion. The official voices which were raised this year were somewhat louder than before.

The president sent a message calling for a balance between population and resources. More importantly, he emphasized a close link between population and the social development of the people especially in the areas of health, education and women’s development.
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Anatomy of numbers

Population, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

The population factor has become quite an enigma in Pakistan. Given the widespread realization that the population growth rate of a country is closely related to its economic prosperity, social advancement and political stability, the government has been inclined to project a rosy demographic picture.

Unsurprisingly, this leads to many contradictions as various government functionaries are at times talking at cross purposes. Take the case of the newly-installed chief minister of Sindh, Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, who was the chief guest at the concluding session of the population welfare department’s seminar held in Karachi last week.
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The battle against backwardness

Politics, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

President Pervez Musharraf got it right when he told the inaugural session of a security conference in Islamabad the other day that the world was in a turmoil because of inequalities in economic development. He pointed out that the world was divided between the haves and the have-nots and that there was need to wage a war against illiteracy, hunger, sickness, backwardness, poverty, and social injustice.

This might appear to be stating the obvious. This has been iterated so very often that now it fails to make an impact. The fact is that the gulf between the rich and the poor of the world is so great today that it is difficult to fully comprehend its implications.
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