Category Archives: Social Issues

No standards set

Administration, Health, New, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE health sector should be of concern to all — even to those who go to the best private medical practitioners. Disease transcends borders, and strikes the rich and poor alike, though the latter are more vulnerable. Besides, health issues affect the country’s international status as was demonstrated by the polio emergency that led to the imposition of new conditions on Pakistanis embarking on foreign travel.

Hence should not the concerned citizens be involved in what can be termed the regulation of the medical system as they are reaching out in the education sector? Not just altruism or civic responsibility but also narrow self-interest should prompt the intelligentsia to take more interest in the healthcare delivery system. Continue reading No standards set →

Education myths

Constitution, Culture and the Arts, Economy, Education, History, Human Rights, New, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

IT is budget time in Pakistan and one issue of special concern to the people is the attention that the education sector will receive from those who hold the purse strings. In the federal budget for 2014-15 Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced an allocation of Rs63bn for higher education. The true picture will emerge only when the provincial budgets are presented, as they address the bulk of the education sector.

There are, however, a number of myths that surround this vital area of national life. One that has been perpetuated for long is that the more funds poured into education the more the latter will improve. For long the size of the education budget has been used as a yardstick to measure the government’s commitment to this sector. Hence the boast generally in budget speeches about the size of the education expenditure. Continue reading Education myths →

The human touch

Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Housing, Labour, New, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

A SPARK has been lit in a 3,500-strong community living in the backwaters of Larkana district. Known as Khairo Dero, the place was the antithesis of what its name implies: it was one of the most depressed goths in the area. A turning point came in 2004. A young female journalist touring rural Sindh was deeply moved by the neglect and apathy she witnessed, especially in Khairo Dero, her ancestral village.

That was Naween Mangi, today the Pakistan bureau chief of Bloomberg, a premier American business and financial news channel. It took her four years to internalise the despondency of her people and think of a strategy to breathe new life into their existence. Thus she hoped to bring about the ‘silent revolution’ she had begun to dream of. Continue reading The human touch →

One year ago…

Human Rights, Law & Order, New, Notable Personalities, Perween Rahman, Social Issues, Terrorism and Violence, War and Peace, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

ON Thursday, March 13, it will be exactly a year to the day when a brutal killer snatched away from us a gentle, soft-spoken soul whose love for humanity was almost legendary.

Perween Rehman has been described as a caring, versatile development worker, a brilliant teacher, an architect who used her professional skills for the poor, an irreplaceable friend and an amazing woman who broke barriers from below. Above all, she was a woman of courage who defied her detractors.

It was after she was no more and the outpouring of grief wouldn’t cease that the world realised what it had lost and how many lives she had touched in the three decades of her professional association with the Orangi Pilot Project. She is still grievously missed. And there has been no closure for us — her family, friends and colleagues. Continue reading One year ago… →