ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has said that Pakistan is actually quite a peaceful and a rapidly developing country against the murky picture that is portrayed by some international media outlets. Addressing the inauguration ceremony of the five-day 10th International Scientific School in the capital, the minister urged foreign delegates to tell people in their respective countries about the peacefullness of Pakistan. He said science and technology were the key drivers for development, because technological and scientific revolutions underpin economic advances, improvements in health systems, education and infrastructure. “It is a fact that to promote technological advances, developing countries should invest in quality education for the youth, as well as continuous skills training for researchers and scientists, and should ensure that knowledge is shared as widely as possible across society,” Ahsan Iqbal said. He said the development of physics was a collaborative enterprise and this enterprise was the reason of many modern inventions. “Economic growth of advanced economies depends in large part on a strong infrastructure for science and technology, an infrastructure that can lead to the development of new industries, improved competitiveness of existing industries and the creation of new jobs opportunities,” he added. Among the world’s advanced nations, he said a few nations have successfully leveraged advances in science and technology to stimulate economic activity. He informed that the Planning Commission of Pakistan had approved two projects from the Public Sector Development Programme fund including up-gradation and strengthening of R&D labortaties of National Centre for Physics at a cost of Rs 441.380 million and the other is for the up-gradation of silicon strip tracker and Muon System for the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, Research & Development of Rs 275.752 million.
Published in Daily Times, March 13th 2018.
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