LAHORE: The Centre for Governance & Public Management (CGPM) at the Suleman Dawood School of Business (SDSB), Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), organised an International Conference on Creating Inclusive Organisational and Public Spaces. Renowned academics, development practitioners, post-graduate and undergraduate research students and professionals from numerous business and civil society organisations attended and participated in the conference. The two- day event commenced with an inauguration ceremony where LUMS Vice Chancellor Dr Sohail Naqvi, SDSB Dean Dr Jawad Syed and CGPM Director Dr Azfar Nisar welcomed the audience. The inauguration was followed by the first keynote speaker session of the conference, where American University of Beirut, Lebanon School of Business Associate Professor Dr Beverly Dawn Metcalfe, delivered an invigorating keynote speech on Islamic feminism. Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Andleeb Abbas said, “In the domain of female participation, there exists not only a huge gap in their workforce participation compared to men, but they also fall behind in the realm of political participation. In order to improve these in Pakistan, one should not merely provide them with 33 percent reserved seats for women, but within these seats there has to be a criterion where real representation is reflected.” Commenting on the occasion, economist Dr Kaiser Bengali said, “The conference provided valuable intellectual discussion for the audience and the participants alike. I’m glad to say by arranging such events LUMS has successfully served as a platform for discourse of a high level.” While addressing the audience, Quaid-e-Azam University Assistant Professor Dr Aasim Sajjad Akhtar said, “The question of free space, democratic space, exclusion, marginality are important issues. However, the singular point to be emphasised is the need to recognise that all these are political questions. The question of freedom of expression, space and exclusion, are political questions.” He said that even this construct of civil society often has a self-characterisation that is a-political or non-political and that is almost the case of stepping over one’s own feet, because whoever is struggling against marginality and exclusion, at material ground, regardless of the struggle’s magnitude, these are all forms of politics. “So until all these forms of politics come together to develop a coherent alternative to this structure of power, we are all like headless chickens fighting our own issues with respect to activism and space. This does not amount to transformation of how this exclusionary and oppressive social and political order works. This is not just Pakistan specific but it is a global question as well,” he said. Published in Daily Times, April 6th 2018.