Day: July 11, 2011

CHENAB NAGAR: A man allegedly chopped off his sister’s legs with an axe after she returned home from her in-law’s house.

According to police officials, Moza Kalari resident Shahnaz Bibi recently returned to her parent’s house after a quarrel with her in-laws, upon seeing her back home her brother, Asif took an axe and chopped off her legs.

Shahnaz Bibi was shifted to Allied Hospital in serious condition and doctors said that her legs could not be reattached. “She has lost far too much blood and she will not walk again,” said Dr Qasim Safdar. Shahnaz Bibi’s mother Maryam Bibi said that her son, Asif had fled after attacking his doctor. Shahnaz’s husband Taru Sanbal said that he had registered a case with the local police against his brother-in-law. “We had a quarrel and she returned to her parent’s house but it was nothing serious. I was planning on giving her time to cool off before bringing her back home. Asif had no right to ruin her life,” he said. Shahnaz’s parents have told police that they do not know the whereabouts of their son.

“We are conducting an investigation and searching for the accused but we were told of the incident two days later and he has already left town,” said Station House Officer Rehmat Qadir.

Source: Express Tribune

Date:7/11/2011

LAHORE: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that the government is focused on political and economic empowerment of women for harnessing a viable role for women in society.

“The empowerment of women will establish their social status and bring about a change to facilitate the process of development in the country,” he said while presiding over a meeting of the PPP women parliamentarians from the Punjab Assembly here on Sunday.

Gilani said that the elected women representatives have an important role in promoting and evaluating policies of the government as well as their party. Admiring the role of women parliamentarians and PPP workers in promoting the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), he said the BISP is primarily a women-focused project aimed at helping out the poor segment of the society and they should work whole-heartedly for the promotion and enhancement of the program.

The premier said that the data collected through the Poverty Survey under the BISP is a very important document which would help reveal the exact details regarding the economic status of the masses in various areas of the country, adding it would help the government to prepare policies and chalk out plans to reach out to the downtrodden and poor strata of society as well as work for their socio – economic uplift.

Regarding different government initiatives for women, he said that the women’s parliamentary caucus in the National Assembly of Pakistan and the Federal Commission on the Status of Women have played useful role in highlighting the issues concerning women in Pakistan.

The prime minister said that the government has already granted autonomy to the commission so that it could work independently for the betterment of women. Regarding the women development and minorities, Gilani said that the ministries of minorities as well as women development have been devolved under the 18th Amendment, reassuring that policy- making vis-‡-vis women will remain the prerogative of the federal government while the Ministry of Human Rights will look after women rights and minorities issues.

Source: The News

Date:7/11/2011

By Mohammad Ashfaq

PESHAWAR: The University of Peshawar decided to reduce the powers of internal examiners to effectively tackle the issues of harassment and exploitation of students, official sources said.

They said that the decision was taken after the issue of harassment of girl students of the university surfaced few months ago. The issue was also raised in the provincial assembly by a woman MPA.

“In the wake of alleged harassment of girl students by their teachers, senior professors suggested to the university administrations to curtail powers of internal examiners of four-year Bachelor of Science (BS) programme,” sources said.

They said that the university administration decided to establish a separate body to conduct examinations of the students of BS programme.

A new post of controller examinations and other supporting staff would be created to conduct the examinations, sources added.

The university started BS programme in 2009 in 25 different departments while it had already been launched in four departments including Micro Biology, Environmental Sciences, Pharmacy and Fine Arts. Presently 2,500 students were enrolled in the BS programme, sources said.

“The chances of harassment and exploitation will be decreased with reduction in powers of internal examiners,” they said.

Currently the entire evaluations of the students are conducted by their internal examiners as they have the powers of 100 per cent marking.

The internal examiners set papers and also check answer sheets of students after examinations.

“In the existing system of examination, there are many chances of exploitation and harassment as the internal teacher of a subject has all marks in hands,” sources said.

They added that a student having good relations with the teacher could get high marks while a competent and bright student could not shine in the examinations if he had bad relations with his examiner.

The students having good relations with their examiners could get marks without even submitting their thesis, they said.

Now examinations would be conducted in a centralised manner wherein 70 per cent evaluation would done by the external examiners and 30 per cent by the internal examiners, sources added.

Source: Dawn

Date:7/11/2011