The announcement of the 7th NFC award in 2009 was a major step towards provincial autonomy, which assigned 56.5 per cent share of the divisible pool to provinces for the year 2010-11 and 57.7 per cent for the remaining four years of the award. The 7th NFC award is still effective as both 8th and […]
Retrospective of NFC Award
The National Finance Commission (NFC) award is a distribution of financial resources between the Centre and provinces – the vertical distribution – and among the four federating units – the horizontal distribution. The federal government has two sources of revenue i.e., tax income and non-tax income. The tax income is the divisible part under the […]
The missing links in research culture
In the scenic University of Malakand, I was given an opportunity as a keynote speaker to talk about ‘The Missing Links in Pakistani Research Culture’ at a national conference on Applied Management Research to Solve Indigenous Problems in April 2019. The key takes are presented for a general discourse. Higher education is entering the stage […]
HEC recognised journals
After the restructuring of the University Grant Commission in November 2002, we now have the Higher Education Commission for regulating higher education in Pakistan. The HEC is one of the few organizations which have significantly contributed to the increase in the number of universities, enrollment in universities, producing PhD faculty and number of publications. For […]
PhDs — shifting knowledge and the new middle class
The University Grant Commission was turned into the Higher Education Commission (HEC)in 2002. A move that has reshaped higher education in the country with a significant contribution. Since then, the number of private and public universities/DAIs have increased manifold, from 74 in 2001 to 187 in 2018. Student enrolment was at 276,000 in 2001-02, now […]
‘The New Pakistani Middle Class’ — differentiating new modernity from the ‘lost’ modernity of Lahore
Published by the Harvard University Press in 2017, The New Pakistani Middle Class is a book by Ammar Maqsood. She skillfully unveils ‘new’ modernity from the ‘lost’ modernity of Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan. The author writes about the formation of the new middle class in Lahore while differentiating it from the old middle […]
The possibility of split in PML-N
The ouster of Mian Nawaz Sharif is a great blow to the PML-N. Indeed, it is a tough time for the party to be united till the coming election of 2018. Fundamentally, and relative to PPP, PML-N has a vote bank in right wing ranging from moderate to orthodox Muslims especially in the decisive province […]
Alternative funding for universities
Last week, a friend sent me a notification issued by a Pakistani university, regarding the latter’s financial stringency. The university’s competent authority demonstrated its incompetence by ordering superficial measures aimed at cutting expenditure. This only becomes effective when efforts to generate income are already firmly in place. Pakistan’s universities claim to be academically autonomous. Yet […]
Restructuring quotas for FATA
The constitution of 1973 has the provision for a special quota system through which “posts may be reserved for persons belonging to any class or area to secure their adequate representation in the service of Pakistan”. Domicile holders of FATA, due to the region’s poor standard of living, have access to this quota system. However, […]
Resurrection of Persia
THE toppling of Saddam Hussain of Iraq in 2003 has paved the way for Iran to regain its lost prestige in the region which was rightly titled by King Abdullah of Jordan as ‘Shia Crescent”. Now this crescent has been turning into full moon after successful agreement of Iran with P5+1 on nuclear proliferation which […]