Shehri Tv

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The popular figure of Aziz Memon, a renowned entrepreneur and social worker, was re-elected as the President of the English Speaking Union of Pakistan (ESUP) during its recent Annual General Meeting (AGM). A new face in the ESUP leaders, elected unopposed for the term of 2020-2021, was that of Hussain Basrai, one of the leading chartered accountants of the country, who has also been the Senior Partner at the prestigious firm KPMG Taseer Hadi & Co. He was, quite fittingly, elected for the post of Treasurer.  According to the election results declared by the ESUP, Kalim Farooqui and Tariq Ikram have been re-elected as Vice Presidents and Majyd Aziz will continue to be the Secretary General.  Akram Wali Muhammad, Athar Iqbal, Bakhtiar Khan, Irfan Qureshi, Moin Fudda, Pervez Madraswala, Shahzad Sabir, Sirajuddin Aziz, and Syed Jawed Iqbal have been elected to the executive committee.  ...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) Popular poet Arif Shafiq has passed away in his home, Karachi, at the age of 62, after protracted illness.  He was being treated for respiratory problems for quite some time after having suffered brain haemorrhage.  His funeral prayers were offered at Al Falah Masjid in F C Area and he was laid to rest on December 14. Besides his widow, he has left behind two sons and two daughters.  Born in Karachi on October 31, 1956, as many as eight poetic collections of his saw light of the day in his lifetime and he was famous in the literary and social circles for his verses.

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, opened the 12th International Urdu Conference at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, on December 5.  Declaring the multilingual city of Karachi as the hub of the cultural activities, he reckoned that the culture harmony in Pakistan was stronger than any other country in the world.  “Pakistan is a country of different cultures and there is a need to promote cultural activities in every province,” he emphasized.  The Sindh Cultural Minister, Sardar Shah, observed that just as the Indus River was joining the whole of Pakistan from Kashmir to Karachi, Urdu language was uniting the whole Pakistan as a nation.  “Despite the heaviest of odds, Urdu has survived as the language of communication and cultural harmony in Pakistan,” he added.  The President of the Arts council of Pakistan, Muhammad Ahmed Shah, stated that there were h...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services)  The 15th Karachi International Book Fair 2019 got underway at the Karachi Expo Centre on a hazy morning of December 5 but there was plenty of action inside the three gigantic halls, attracting a large number of people. The event will continue until December 9. It’s the 15th edition of the international book fair in Karachi, being organized by the local chapter of the Publishers & Booksellers Association (PPBSA) with the collaboration of the National Book Foundation (NBF).  Having been launched in 2005, it has gone on to become an important cultural event of the city. The 15th KIBF 2019 was inaugurated by the Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, whose speech on the occasion was telecast live by the various television channels.  His assurance that the provincial government would take every possible step to enhance reading habits across the province was viewed with skepticism becaus...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) Pakistan’s economic and social development indicators will continue to lag behind other counties until it rethinks its approach to gender equity and commits to gender mainstreaming, according to the experts speaking at a conference at Aga Khan University (AKU) in Karachi. The speakers at ‘The Time is Now: Gender Equity and Women in Leadership’ noted that there was widespread misinformation about the scale of gender inequality in the workplace and society as a whole.  They explained that while most people are willing to assert that men and women should be treated as equals, they rarely question why there continues to be a lack of women in upper management and leadership positions across the public and private sector.  Pakistan has the second lowest rank in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2018, behind all other countries in South Asia. Estimates suggest that it will take over 70 ...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services ) As many as 350 fresh graduates celebrated the completion of their programmes at the Aga Khan University’s convocation ceremony on November 30 where they were urged to remember the importance of courage, perseverance and agility in the years to come. The chief guest at the event, Dr Sania Nishtar, special assistant to Pakistan’s prime minister on social protection and poverty alleviation, spoke to the graduating class about integrity, or staying true to one’s moral principles.  “The crux of my experience leads me to believe that in order to make lasting and sustainable change you have to root your actions in integrity. It has become a bit cliché but the time-old adage of doing the right thing for the right reasons is something that you must hold very dear to your heart as you walk into the real world,” she remarked  The real world is beset by many challenges: widening inequities, demographic c...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi ( Pakistan News & Features Services) The Aga Khan University (AKU) has become the first higher education institution in South Asia and East Africa to be recognized by Advance HE, a global body that strives to promote excellence in teaching and learning in higher education.  The AKU President, Firoz Rasul, announced the University’s three-year reaccreditation with Advance HE while addressing the inaugural session of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference in Karachi.  Advance HE, based in the United Kingdom, works with higher education institutions across the globe to benchmark teaching quality against the rigorous UK Professional Standards Framework, UKPSF.  While talking about the importance of effective teaching and learning methodologies, President Rasul noted their role in engaging students and bringing excitement and stimulation into the classroom.  This encourages students to be responsible for thei...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi Pakistan News & Features Services) Up to 95 per cent of the population of Pakistan could be carrying bacteria that makes them resistant to life-saving antibiotics, according to the speakers at the inaugural session of the annual National Health Sciences Research Symposium (NHSRS) of the Aga Khan University (AKU) in Karachi. The theme of the 22nd three-day symposium is ‘Antimicrobial resistance: an opportunity to transform global health’. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) happens when microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites change when they are exposed to antimicrobial drugs. Microorganisms that develop AMR are sometimes referred to as superbugs.  As a result, the medicines become ineffective and infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of spread to others.  A recent UN report warned that the threat of AMR can be a global health crisis that could lead to 10 million deaths every year by 2050. Pakista...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) The Amir Rajput Group, one of the leading events and catering companies in Pakistan with more than two and a half decades of experience in event management, wedding functions and highest quality catering services, has been assigned the task of taking care of boarding and lodging of the visiting Sikh pilgrims at Kartarpur Gurdwara. Exhaustive arrangements have been made for lodging and boarding of the Sikh pilgrims (yatrees), who have started pouring in from various parts of the world to participate in the 550th anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak to be held at Kartarpur Gurdwara, due to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan on November 12.  Elaborate arrangements have been made to provide free food to the visitors. The arrangements include providing food to 2,000 pilgrims at a time. Gurdwara Nankana Sahib is decked up with lights to mark the 550th birth anniversary of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev....

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) Another book on Prof Dr Nasim Fatima, a former chairperson of the Library & Information Science department at the University of Karachi, has recently been published under the auspices of the Library Promotion Bureau (LPB).  The 132-page book titled ‘Dr Nasim Fatima: Bio-Bibliographical Study’ has been edited by one of her students, Huma Mannan Butt, with Abdul Qudoos and Saima Qadeer being the compilers while the foreword has been penned by Syed Khalid Mahmood.  “She was my teacher and chairperson at Department of Library and Information Science, University of Karachi. She is an asset to the Pakistan librarianship. Widely respected, she has had the quality of respecting each individual to have come across her,” Huma Mannan, now working as Chief Librarian at PN Central Library in Karachi, wrote in her introductory remarks in the book. “Dr Nasim Fatima has had a tremendous academic record th...

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi (Pakistan News & Features Services) Following is the text of the foreword, penned by Syed Khalid Mahmood, to the recently published book ‘Dr Nasim Fatima: Bio-Bibliographical Study’ highlighting the accomplishments of the prolific library scientist: “No hard-and-fast rules about forewords, allowing room to be creative and even have some fun, makes the task of penning my maiden foreword simpler than it could have been otherwise for a firm believer and practitioner of out-of-box thinking!  Indeed it’s a great honour to be asked to write the foreword to such a significant book, bringing to light the accomplishments of Prof Dr Nasim Fatima, the famed library scientist, teacher, scholar, researcher, writer, author, editor and mentor, yet one of the unsung heroes.  Her multi-faceted personality has been talked about with great awe over the years but she hasn’t been granted the kind of recognition she so richly deserved. On the contrar...