Pakistan Simply has to Eliminate Tuberculosis on March 23, 2023Tuberculosis remains a dreaded disease even today although its causative organism Mycobacterium Tuberculosis was identified By Robert Koch in 1882. It has almost always been present in the human population, as evidenced by pathological signs found in bony fragments of Egyptian mummies from 2400 BC. The major brunt of the disease is faced by low […]
Sahibzada Farooq Ali Khan-A Man of Substance on November 13, 2022While going through our national history, we rarely find men of integrity with self-effacing qualities, who work silently and diligently towards their cause without drawing any undue attention to themselves. One such luminary is Sahibzada Farooq Ali Khan, who had the distinction of being the ninth Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, following in […]
The Life and Times of Hassan Nasir on May 6, 2022The International Labour Day brought to mind the extraordinary life story of Hassan Nisar. Independence and the creation of Pakistan during August 1947 seems to have brought about a substantial change in the mindsets of the scions of the aristocracy that had shared in the governance of British India together with the British themselves. The […]
Pakistan’s Fairy Godmother Bilquis Edhi Bows Out on April 22, 2022Bilquis Bano Edhi passed away last Friday; plunging the country into shock and grief. Caught up in hectic political storms over the past three weeks, people could reasonably be excused for not even learning about her terminal illness. Less than six years ago, on July 8, 2016, the nation had lost her legendary husband, Abdul […]
Devolution of Pakistan’s Health Sector on April 12, 2022The 74th birthday party of the World Health Organization (WHO) fell on April 7. As we observed this day, with the theme ‘Our Planet, Our Health’, it afforded us an opportunity to deliberate on the state of Health in Pakistan. For over two years, we have been afflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it is […]
Tubercolosis — The Forgotten Deadly Pandemic on March 29, 2022Tuberculosis (TB) has been claiming human lives throughout history, starting with records of human deaths dating back to over 9,000 years ago. As its killing spree peaked in most of the Western world, it assumed titles such as the “Captain of Death” or “The White Plague.” After the eighteenth century, it began to decline in […]
Commemorating World TB Day 2022 on March 23, 2022World Tuberculosis (TB) Day is here again to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the discovery of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis as TB’s causative agent by Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch. Having been associated with the program in Pakistan since 1998 or 1999 when we seriously initiated an inter-provincial dialogue on the need for a proper mechanism to adopt […]
Welcome to World Immunisation Week on April 25, 2021This weekend, Pakistan joins the international community in celebrating World Immunisation Week 2021 (April 24-30) under the theme: Vaccines bring us closer. Promoting vaccinations to protect people of all ages against disease is as urgent as ever since it is imperative that routine jabs doses are not missed amidst the scramble for COVID-19 shots. Pakistan […]
A dialogue on World Health Day 2021 on April 11, 2021We live in an unfair world. Nothing seems fair or equitable right from the time we are born. The great English writer Charles Dickens summed up this sentiment well in one of his novels. “In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and […]
Pakistan television’s first lady Kanwal Naseer An Obituary on March 31, 2021She was a princess while her mother was the uncrowned queen of broadcasting in Pakistan. The mother Mohini Das had joined All India Radio in 1938 at the age of 16 years as a drama artist and later compere its children’s program from Lahore with the pseudonym “Apa Shameem”. She would perform the latter role […]