ISLAMABAD: Perturbed by the alarming number of 26.2 million out-of-school children (OOSC) across the country, the newly appointed education minister, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, on 20 March 2024 called for imposing an `education emergency` to address the issue. He made these remarks while chairing a meeting on the affairs of the education ministry at the ministry headquarters. Dr Siddiqui, who is also the science and technology minister announced his `intention to advise Prime Minister
Child Rights in Focus
A man accused of sexually assaulting a minor girl in F-9 Park has been arrested. The Islamabad Capital Police have successfully apprehended an accused named Sajid Ali who was accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. The case was registered under section 376-PPC against the nabbed accused in Margalla police station. The Islamabad Capital City Police Officer (ICCPO), Dr Akbar Nasir Khan took immediate notice of the incident and issued directions to ensure the
A judicial magistrate on 20 March 2024 handed over the custody of five teenage girls, who had disappeared from Saeedabad last month and recovered on Tuesday, to their parents. The investigating officer, Irshad Ahmed, brought the five teenage girls three daughters of Zameer Abbas and two daughters of Zulfiqar Ali along with two suspects factory worker Mumtaz and rickshaw driver Rashid before Judicial Magistrate (West) Zarmina Laghari. The IO informed the court that the
A special court for gender-based violence has awarded life imprisonment, along with 14-year jail term, in a case of sexually assaulting a minor girl. Sanda police had registered the FIR in 2021 against accused Imran on the complaint of the minor’s father. The accused, a brother-in-law of the complainant’s elder daughter, took the five-year-old girl to a shrine where he sexually assaulted her. Additional District and Sessions Judge Kaneez Fatima Bhatti, the presiding judge
A couple involved in torture on an eight-year-old maid was arrested by Gujjarpura police according to news report. Mother of the victim Areeba told police that her daughter was employed at the house of Rais Ahmad in China Scheme. When she went to see her, she saw the suspect Rais was torturing her daughter with belts. She said that Rais’ wife Hina and daughters would also subject the victim to severe torture. Police has
A Quran teacher allegedly raped a minor girl in Faisalabad`s Jaranwala tehsil, Chak 35-GB according to a news report. According to an FIR registered by Satiana police under Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code, the complainant stated that his eight-yearold daughter was learning the Holy Quran from the suspect, who forcibly raped her in a room of his house. The police have arrested the suspect. Acknowledgement: Published in Dawn News on 21st March
As the prime minister directed the authorities to set up Daanish schools in Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the federal education ministry on 18 March 2024 expedited efforts to materialise this initiative at the earliest. As per the PM orders, three schools each will be set up in Azad Kashmir and GB and one school will be constructed in Islamabad. According to a statement issued by the PM`s office, `These boarding schools
Dacoits gunned down a primary schoolteacher, when he was driving to his school on a motorcycle along Hazaro Shakh (water channel) on Magsi-Karampur road near Tangwani town, Kandhkot-Kashomre district, on Monday. The teacher Allah Rakhiyo Nandwani, a resident of Khando Khan Nandwani, taught at a cluster primary school in Nasrullah Khan Bijarani village, which was considered a ‘no-go’ area. He had recently earned fame and great respect through his videos uploaded on social media
Minister for elementary and secondary education Faisal Khan Tarakai on 18 March 2024 directed the provision of textbooks to the students in all the public sector schools by the beginning of the new academic year so that their education wasn’t affected. He issued the directives while chairing a meeting of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Text Book Board. He assured the participants of the timely release of funds for the purpose. KP Text Book Board chairman Faral
A tragedy that could have been prevented. Six months after researchers at the National Institute of Health’s Pakistan Polio Laboratory flagged the presence of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV-1) in sewage samples collected from Dera Bugti in Balochistan, a 30-month-old child has been paralysed by the virus. The child had been suffering weakness in his lower limbs, which worsened progressively. Doctors recently diagnosed it as poliomyelitis, after discovering the poliovirus in biological samples collected
The second polio case in as many days has once again raised concerns over the efforts to end the crippling disease from Pakistan. The latest case has been reported from Balochistan’s Chaman district, where a 52-month-old child has been paralysed by the wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1). According to the Regional Reference Lab for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, WPV1 was isolated from the child`s stool samples. The isolated
THE chief minister of Punjab, Ms Maryam Nawaz, has said that Punjabi will be taught across schools in the province. This was announced at the Punjab Culture Day ceremony last week. It is a welcome announcement. Some 80 million people speak Punjabi in Pakistan and, worldwide, Punjabi speakers number around 110m. Why should the language of so many not be taught in schools? If 80m or so speak the language and are able to