Category Archives: Social Issues

To go nuclear or not is the question

Archive Edition, Defence and Disarmament, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Foreign Policy of Pakistan, Health, Human Rights, International Politics, Nuclear weapons, Social Issues, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE suspension of American aid to Pakistan has produced one positive result. It has for the first time brought into the open the nuclear debate in this country.

Given the categorical linkage Washington instituted between the flow of economic assistance to Pakistan and nuclear non-prolif eration, Islamabad never encouraged a public discussion on the atom bomb.

To use Stephen Cohen’s term, a policy of ‘designed ambiguity’ was adopted. In other words, the capacity and the will of the government to go nuclear are deliberately kept ambivalent. Continue reading To go nuclear or not is the question →

Catching it early

Archive Edition, Health, SIUT, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

55-05-06-1991

‘A’ has breast cancer. A few years ago this diagnosis would have amounted to sounding the death knell for her. Not so today. Doctors give ‘A’ an excellent prognosis, the very high rate of mortality from this disease notwithstanding.

‘A’ stands a good chance of survival because her cancer was discovered at a very early stage. In fact, when surgery was performed on her, the tumour in her breast was not even palpable — that is it could not be felt.

Now ‘A”s surgeon, Dr Shaista Khan of the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, is optimistic that the disease has been checked since it was confined to the breast cells and had not spread.

It was a mammogramme (an Xray of the breast) taken during a routine examination that showed up the malignant lesion, making diagnosis possible.

What was extraordinary about ‘A’s’ case was the overly cooperative and understanding approach of her husband, who virtually pushed her into being screened for breast cancer. “Normally not all husbands have that attitude,” says Dr Shaista Khan. Continue reading Catching it early →

Development of human resources an elusive dream

Administration, Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Defence and Disarmament, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Population, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

Exactly a week before the Federal Finance Minister presented the budget before the National Assembly, the UNDP released its Human Development Report 1991 which contains extensive data on 160 countries.

Using the key indicators of life expectancy, education levels and basic purchasing power as the criteria, the agency has devised the Human Development Index. Pakistan ranked a shocking 120th on this scale. In fact Islamabad, along with some others, was strongly castigated for its gross neglect of the social sector.

What the UNDP had pointed out a week earlier was vindicated on Thursday by the federal budget. Long on rhetorics and promises of providing food, shelter, education and health care to the people, the Finance Minister’s speech was palpably short on political commitment.

56-03-06-1991b

This was further confirmed by the budget document itself. Small wonder then that in his speech Mr Sartaj Aziz deemed it wiser not to go into financial details of spendings in the health and education sectors.

In the first place, the approach adopted by the government towards the social sector is full of contradictions. By extending the strategy of privatisation and deregulation to the education and health sectors as well, the planners hope to accelerate the tempo of development. Continue reading Development of human resources an elusive dream →

They went unwept, unsung

Archive Edition, Books, Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Education, History, Library, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

When a bookshop goes out of business and winds up, does one write an obituary? Not in our society. In the last few months three bookstalls of long standing have been closed down in Karachi. They went unwept and unsung. The last to fold up was Happy Bookstall on Inverarity Road (opposite Zainab Market) which had been catering to the needs of discerning readers for over 35 years.

London Book Company, which suffered its first blow two years ago when it closed its Tariq Road branch, is another casualty. In Ramazan, its branch in the neighbourhood of Uzma Arcade in Clifton also departed from the scene. Continue reading They went unwept, unsung →

Make women’s work visible!

Archive Edition, Development and Poverty, Economy, Human Rights, Justice, Labour, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

Women have traditionally been the invisible factor in national development in Pakistan as in other Third World countries. That is because the contribution they make to the economy has predominantly, been in the form of unpaid labour that has never been counted.

It is time the women’s role in development was quantified. What better time there is for it than now. The census can easily be used to probe into the gender issue.

India is doing it with the help of UNIFEM. We can emulate them. The idea should be to draw information on the unpaid work done by women in farms and family enterprises. Continue reading Make women’s work visible! →