All posts by Raza Jaffri

The pleasure of reading

Books, Education

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN a country where a commonly voiced lament is that we are not a society of book readers, any effort to get people interested in literary pursuits is a feat in itself.

From time to time, the National Book Foundation (NBF) has made efforts to promote the reading habit. Its latest move — previously it had appointed ‘book ambassadors’ and honoured authors — has been to institute the Bibliophile of the Year award. For 2011, Ghazi Salahuddin, a senior and competent journalist and for many years my colleague at Dawn, has been named the winner. Continue reading The pleasure of reading →

Physician, heal thyself

Development and Poverty, Economy, Health

By Zubeida Mustafa

AS inflation spirals in Pakistan, the one most seriously affected is the common man. Decent healthcare is said to be beyond the reach of the overwhelming majority. But one man’s meat is another man’s poison and some are benefiting from the misery of the poor.

One beneficiary of this state of affairs is the pharmaceutical sector. The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) website describes its growth of the past decade as a “success story”. It goes on to add: “About half the population has no access to modern medicines. Clearly, this presents an opportunity.”

According to the PPMA, the value of pharmaceuticals sold in Pakistan was over $1.4bn in 2007 and is expected to exceed $2.3bn in 2012. Sixty-five per cent of this comes from private spending. Continue reading Physician, heal thyself →

Policy Brief – The Continuing Biases in Our Textbooks

Education

By Zubeida Mustafa

For decades the textbooks used in Pakistan’s educational institutions, especially the ones used in the public sector, have drawn serious criticism from experts and concerned citizens. Besides being shoddily produced, the textbooks lack creativity and fail to stimulate a child’s imagination. The most serious charge against them is that the content, wholly or partially, is biased, selective and inculcates in the child a parochial and subjective outlook. The charge is primarily levelled against the textbooks for the disciplines of History, Pakistan Studies and Islamiat, but is not confined to these subjects. For the most part the content of these textbooks seeks to stem analytical thinking and follows what some have described as the “curriculum of hatred”. In addition to creating a sense of nationhood grounded in religion, these textbooks have served to entrench denominational thinking that leads to religious bigotry. Continue reading Policy Brief – The Continuing Biases in Our Textbooks →

Restless soul at rest

Books, Culture and the Arts, Education, Media, Notable Personalities

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE headline above is not mine. It is Murtaza Razvi’s, a colleague and friend from Dawn. I have borrowed it from the obituary he wrote of his mother, a writer, for Dawn’s Books & Authors when I was editing it.

Now, a decade later, it gives me a sense of sadness to use the same words for Murtaza whose life was cut short so brutally a week ago. It was January 2002. Murtaza’s mother Zaheena Tahir had passed away in Lahore. On his return after her funeral, he had resumed work. As I condoled with him, we talked about what mothers meant to their children even after they were no longer children. He told me about Zaheena Tahir and her writings. I was fascinated and asked him if he would like to write a piece on her literary work for me. He agreed. Continue reading Restless soul at rest →

Education in a quandary

Development and Poverty, Education, Human Rights

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN today’s age “of the one per cent, for the one per cent, and by the one per cent” (to quote Joseph Stiglitz) to seek equality — especially in education — amounts to looking for utopia.

Therefore the South Asian Forum for Educational Development, Idara-i-Taleem-o-Agahi (ITA), and other partners were brave to have ‘quality-inequality quandary’ as the theme of the regional seminar they organised in Lahore earlier this month. The idea was to get proposals to resolve this quandary. Continue reading Education in a quandary →