Daily Times

Second economist resigned from Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) in protest over Dr Atif Mian being asked to step down from the body over his Ahmadi faith. University College London (UCL) Professor Imran Rasul in a series of tweets on Saturday announced that he had resigned from the EAC. “With a heavy heart, I have resigned from the EAC this morning,” he tweeted. “The circumstances in which Atif was asked to step down are ones I profoundly disagree with,” he said.

Terming the reasons for Atif’s removal and subsequent resignation as ‘irrelevant factors’, Imran expressed his disappointment and said it would be hard to replace the Princeton economist. Commenting on the formation of the economic body, he added the body offered a great opportunity for development of a better economic policy but “events these past 10 days have shown the best and worst of Pakistani politics at the moment.” “I wish the government and the EAC luck in their future work, and remain willing to offer non-partisan, evidence-based advice that can help improve economic policy making in the country,” he added.

Dr Atif R Mian, a professor at the Princeton University and Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy, had said he was resigning because the government was facing pressure regarding his appointment. In the evening the same day, Dr Asim ljaz Khwaja, professor of international finance and development at the Harvard Kennedy School and a leading international economist of Pakistani origin, also stepped down from the EAC in protest over Mian’s exclusion. “Have resigned from EAC. Painful, deeply sad decision,” Dr Asim had said in a message on Twitter, adding that he was “ever ready to help” Pakistan.

On Friday, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had taken to Twitter, saying, “The government has decided to withdraw Dr Mian’s EAC appointment. The government wants to move forward taking along ulema and all segments of the society, and if a different perception develops through a nomination, it is not right.”

Published in Daily Times, September 9^th 2018.