Category Archives: Environment

Who pays the bill?

Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Environment, Housing, Justice

By Zubeida Mustafa

ELECTRICITY and the energy sector have been in the news for a long time now in Pakistan. The enormous shortfalls in power generation have been the most talked about issue. The corruption factor has also figured prominently with circular debts and illegal connections drawing a lot of flak against the government. The heatwave in Karachi in June leading to the death of about 1,200 people and the proposal for a Heat Health Action Plan that came in its wake should focus public attention on a number of core issues.

Against this backdrop, I asked Yadullah Husain, a Canadian-Pakistani journalist, how he perceives the crisis. Husain was my colleague in Dawn 17 years ago and is today the energy editor at the respected Canadian paper, Financial Post. He has recently won the Newsmaker of the Year award given by the Global Petroleum Survey recognising the services of a journalist covering the oil and gas sector. Continue reading Who pays the bill? →

Interview with Yadullah Hussain

Development and Poverty, Economy, Environment, Health

yadYadullah Hussain joined Dawn as a trainee sub-editor in 1993, working at what was then called the Tuesday Review. He says, “I had the unique privilege of working under Ahmed Ali Khan, editor in chief of Dawn at the time. Through my frequent interactions with him I learnt the value of journalism and the quest for the truth. He once said to me, ‘I don’t want geniuses, I want hard working people.’ I took that to heart and it worked well for me as I am not the sharpest tool in the shed! The only way I could get ahead was to work hard.

“I also had the pleasure of working with extremely talented individuals at Dawn, but foremost was the Tuesday Review editor Uneza Akhtar, who gave me tremendous freedom to write on varied subjects and express myself. I would like to believe that at The Review we created a very special literary haven that showcased Pakistan’s artists and literary figures. Continue reading Interview with Yadullah Hussain →

Reconnecting with Nature

Environment, Health, Mental health, View from Abroad

 

By Zubeida Mustafa

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESGeorge Monbiot, one of my favourite columnists in the Guardian (London), wrote this week about a campaign to “rewild” Britain of which he is one of the pioneers. His column was headlined “Let’s make Britain wild again and find ourselves in nature”. This according to him can heal not only the living world but much that is missing in our own lives.

I realised the importance of connecting with nature when we paid a visit to the Niagara Falls on Thursday (16 July). Let me make it clear at the start that I must have visited the falls umpteen of times since 1992 when I first visited Canada. But the last time I had gone there was fourteen years ago when I had my 60th birthday photograph taken against the backdrop of the gushing waters of this natural wonder of the world. Continue reading Reconnecting with Nature →

Save Karachi

Administration, Books, Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Environment, Justice, Labour, Law & Order, Politics, Population, Social Issues

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By Zubeida Mustafa

RUMANA Husain’s recently published Street Smart: Professionals on the Street comes as a reminder of how we are losing the city where many of us have lived and worked for most of our lives. Karachi is no more what I remember of it when I was a child.

Some categories of the blue-collar workers, as Rumana calls the people who are the subject of her book, no longer exist. Mechanisation, technology and lifestyles have made them redundant. That is change, as the new replaces the old. But the tragedy is that the street professionals no longer knit the community together as they once did. Continue reading Save Karachi →

Insecure rights

Balochistan, Children and Youth, Constitution, Culture and the Arts, Development and Poverty, Education, Environment, Health, Housing, Human Rights, Justice, Labour, Law & Order, Notable Personalities, Perween Rahman, Politics, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

A WEEK before Sabeen Mahmud, the ever-smiling ‘active’ human rights activist was gunned down in Karachi, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan launched its annual State of Human Rights report for 2014.

It is widely believed that Sabeen’s decision to host a seminar on Balochistan invited a terrible retribution from the powers-that-be. It is indeed saddening that this staunch defender of all the rights covered by the HRCP report is no more amongst us to act as society’s conscience to remind us that each of us becomes an abettor when the state violates any right the citizen is entitled to and we remain silent onlookers. Continue reading Insecure rights →