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...