The true nature of learning ‘anything’ in Pakistan is far grim, let alone the modern education standards. As a matter of fact, the overall learning attitude is nothing short of a horror story. People seem to be in a continual denial of the reality and let their children waste their time in their most prime time of learning in this…
According to a UNICEF report, around 22.8 million children between the ages of five to16 are out of school in Pakistan. Unsurprisingly, these kids can neither read nor write, as a result of which they are labelled as illiterate or uneducated. Some scholars believe that such labelling is unjustified because children…
October 5 is World Teacher’s Day, and for Pakistan, it should be…
WHY would children, given an option, ever want to stay on the…
14-year-old Rizwana was allegedly subjected to brutal torment over a sustained period of some six months by her employer in Islamabad. When her parents received Rizwana, the child was in critical condition. They went to the police station to lodge a first information report (FIR) against the employer, the wife…
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Hailing from Gharo, Lachmi, aged two months and weighing just eight kilogrammes, was brought to our clinic by her very worried mother, who reported that she was not able to breastfeed Lachmi as she could not afford meals most days. Lachmi underwent various tests before being diagnosed with Severe Acute…
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What PM Shehbaz Sharif blurted out recently isn’t quite a national secret. Though none in high office can admit it publicly, in a moment of despair he admitted that wherever he visits, disdain is written on the faces of hosts. Respecting those who keep asking for loans and rollovers is…
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National and sub-national human rights commissions, established under the Paris Principles, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, are independent institutions responsible for protecting and promoting human rights at the national and regional levels. In simple terms, these commissions act as watchdogs and advocates, who keep a close…
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The true nature of learning ‘anything’ in Pakistan is far grim, let alone the modern education standards. As a matter of fact, the overall learning attitude is nothing short of a horror story. People seem to be in a continual denial of the reality and let their children waste their…
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Watching the news recently, I heard the IG of Punjab Police berating women for having the audacity to be out protesting in public. He used the damning word ‘modern’ to describe them. Society fears disruptors — those elements, sometimes individuals or groups or even political parties, that throw away the…
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In many regressive societies, the term ‘child bride’ calls to mind the unsavoury practice of marrying a child, even a preteen, to someone much, much older. This is true for South Asian countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, carrying the highest burden of child marriage in the world. Recent Unicef estimates…
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ACCORDING to media reports, initial figures generated by the ongoing census put the country’s population at 235 million, a whopping increase of 27 million or 12.98 per cent since 2017. And there is already a hue and cry over the official data being supposedly well below the actual numbers. By…
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According to UNICEF, child marriages are on the decline, but not so much that they could be abolished for another 300 years, while a perfect storm of crises could still reverse the trend. “We have definitely made progress in abolishing the practise of child marriage, especially in the last 10…
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The recent murder of Dr Ajmal Sawand, an Assistant Professor at Sukkur IBA, has sparked protests against feudalism and tribal chiefs in Northern Sindh. However, the question remains: where do these tribal chiefs derive their power from, and why does this ancient system persist in the region? One of my…
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