Dr Qaisar Rashid

Ahsan Iqbal, the Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms (PDR), sent an e-mail to this scribe and wrote: “I would like to correct the record that the appointment of [the] Chairman [of the Higher Education Commission (HEC)] was not made by (sic) on my proposal. A selection committee was constituted by the PM with […]

What is the convention for advertising the eligibility of any post of national significance? Is it not qualification first and experience later? This point is known to all but not to the ministry of education, training and standards in higher education. On January 12, 2014, the ministry made history by reversing the order by mentioning […]

On July 3, a news item appeared in the dailies of Pakistan stating that 18 vice chancellors of all leading public sector universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had held a meeting under the chairmanship of Dr Nasir Jamal, the vice chancellor of Kohat University of Science and Technology (KUST), and had aired certain demands. In the […]

A week ago, Times Higher Education (THE), which is considered one of the most prestigious world universities’ ranking agencies, released the 2014 rankings of Asia’s top 100 universities. Unfortunately, no Pakistani universities were named in it. Contrarily, in the 2013 rankings issued by another UK-based world universities’ rankings agency — Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) — seven […]

Thailand is living up to its notoriety as the land of coups. There have been about 12 successful military coups in the country since the thirties and a few unsuccessful ones too — an estimated 19 in all, give or take a few. The recent one with the army taking over the running of the […]

When someone asked Javid Iqbal, a famous cartoonist, how so many ideas crossed his mind to be translated into comic figures, he replied that the ideas were ubiquitous because this country was inflicted with a number of issues ranging from a fragile sewerage and sanitation system, overcrowded buses and wagons plied in cities, manholes without […]

The invitation from Indian Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi to Pakistan’s Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif to attend his oath-taking ceremony in New Delhi has stirred socio-political circles in Pakistan. To the utter dismay of many, Sharif accepted the invitation. Those who were opposed to Sharif’s friendly overture had reminded him of Modi’s past role in […]

Some Pakistanis might have forgotten that Pakistan has passed through a phase when, to the utter surprise of a military dictator, a chief justice of Pakistan refused to accept dictation and resign from his post. The institutional shock that refusal must have given to the military and the institutional strength that refusal must have given […]

The first message is that a Canadian national, Islamic cleric Dr Tahirul Qadri of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) can stir people in Pakistan to achieve the target of reforms set by him in Canada for the welfare of Pakistanis. The other side of the message is that the Pakistani people are still too naïve […]

It is now apparent that the eight hours spent by a television channel in protesting against an armed attack on its anchorperson, Hamid Mir, is bound to change the future of independent (and rational) reporting in Pakistan. Rival television channels cashed in on the opportunity to feed on the slogans of patriotism. If it supposed […]