By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
MARCH 8 is international women’s day. One can expect a lot of hype on the women’s issue on this occasion. While the feminist activists will be vocal in decrying the poor status of women in Pakistan, others championing the cause of the establishment will be quick to point out the progress which has been made in the field.
Continue reading A new role for female lawmakers
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
ON February 15, peace activists in 60 countries and 400 cities of the world joined hands to demonstrate against the impending war on Iraq. Nearly ten million people are estimated to have responded to their call and turned up at the rallies that were organized. Once again it was plain that the phenomenon of the shrinking of international borders and the globalization of the peace movement has come to stay.
Continue reading The multitude’s quest for peace
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
TODAY as the world stands poised on the edge of war, a paradoxical phenomenon is emerging on the international scene. This is the worldwide peace movement which has been spawned by the growing thrust towards war. The massive turn-out at the rallies in Washington, London and other European capitals against an American attack on Iraq should leave no one in doubt about the strong pacifist sentiments the world over.
Continue reading Joining hands across borders
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
FOOD security is fast emerging as a major challenge for third world countries and that includes Pakistan. It was not sheer coincidence that two meetings held on the same day but more than a thousand miles apart last week focused on identical issues and shed light on some stark realities.
In Karachi, Shirkat Gah held a conference on food security and economic sovereignty to create awareness about the problems which loom large and also offer some solutions. The same day in Islamabad, the Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre launched its annual Human Development in South Asia report for 2002 focusing on agriculture and rural development.
Continue reading The fate of our farme
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
THE slide in the quality of social services in Pakistan has prompted some serious thinking in concerned circles on who should pay for the education and health care of the people. Now that the idealism of the left is no longer fashionable and market-mania (to borrow the Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen’s term) has swept aside all rational considerations, it requires some courage to suggest that the state must be responsible for educating its citizens and attending to their basic health needs.
Continue reading Who pays for health & education?