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President's
meeting with the delegation of Task Force on Education (PTEF) |
Islamabad, 29 July
2010: President Zardari today called for
focussed attention to develop primary
education facilities in the country saying “it
was not merely a matter of education but also
of national survival, development and security
in the long run”. The degree of focus on
education today will determine the
survivability and quality of life of the
people tomorrow, he said.
He said this
during his meeting with the delegation of Task
Force on Education (PTEF) at Aiwan-e-Sadr
Wednesday.
Pakistan Education
Task Force (PETF) is a recent initiative being
implemented with the assistance of United
Kingdom with the objective to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals of universal
access and gender parity in the education
sector.
The members of the
delegation included among others Ms. Shahnaz
Wazir Ali, SAPM, Mr. Adam Thomson, UK High
Commissioner, Ms. Nehnaz Aziz, Dr. Fareeha
Zafar, Mr. Rachid Benmessaoud, Country
Director World Bank, Mr. David Taylor, Deputy
Head of Programs DFID, Dr. Philip Powell
Davies, Senior Human Development Advisor, Dr.
Warren Mellor, Director UNESCO Islamabad, Mr.
Atussa Ziai, Education Advisor GTS and Ms.
Katie Donohoe, Acting Director USAID
Islamabad.
Sardar Asseff
Ahmed Ali, Minister for Education, Mr. M.
Salman Faruqui, Secretary General to the
President, Mr. Imtiaz Kazi, Secretary
Education, Mr. Sibtain Fazal Haleem, Secretary
EAD and Spokesperson to the President former
Senator Farhatullah Babar were also present
during the meeting.
The President said
that the Government attaches great importance
to the development of education sector and is
focussing on not only bringing about
qualitative change in the education sector but
also extending the network of education
institutions and eliminating ghost
institutions in the far flung areas. He said
that the assistance of the international
community was greatly needed in direct
investments in the people of Pakistan
especially in education sector.
He said the
government was aware of the fact that the
budgetary constraint was a major debilitating
factor for launch of various initiatives and
providing incentives to the parents to
persuade them to send their children to
schools and that is why it was resorting to
the international community to assist the
Government in education sector especially. He
said that lack of proper education facilities
with poverty was not only hindering our
national progress but also enabled the
militants to mislead the impoverished youth by
offering them free shelter and food in
institutions that preach hatred and extremism.
However, the
President said, merely more allocations and
resources will not address the problems and
issues in the education sector. While it is
important to increase allocations for
education, it was no less important to ensure
that the additional resources and increased
allocations were also translated into
enhancing the learning skills of the children,
he said.
The malaise that
plagued our education sector was less that
enough children did not go to schools and more
that the children already going to schools
were not learning well, the President said.
He said that
quality education was steel armour that
equipped a student to fight battle of life
while spurious education was like wooden
armour and of no help in the battle of life.
We must provide our children and youth with
the steel armour, the President remarked.
The President said
that the quality education depended largely on
quality teachers and quality curriculum which
in turn call for a shift in investment towards
developing the human resources in education
sector particularly in the primary school
teachers. Calling for giving more incentives
to primary school teachers the President
advised the Government to examine the
feasibility of pressing into service the
incentive program of BISP (Benazir Income
Support Program) and the associated Smart Card
for this purpose. Giving incentives through
BISP will help creating a new corp of quality
primary school teachers to ensure that
children already going to school also learnt
well.
Ms. Shahnaz Wazir
Ali, Co-Chair PETF and SAPM, briefed the
President about achievements of the Task Force
so far and said that PETF started its work by
simplifying the National Education Policy to a
7- point agenda that consist of setting clear
standards for learning, school performance and
district performance; developing and
implementing simple and transparent processes
for monitoring purposes; informing citizens;
providing state support and funding to
non-government institutions, focussing on
provision of quality text books and
professional development for teachers,
building the capacity and providing basic
facilities for every school. She said that
Government was visualizing 86% literacy by
2015 as compared to 57% of the present
literacy rate with an objective of achieving
universal primary education by 2015. She said
that the focus of PETF was on improving the
quality of education, equitable access,
improving management and better education
financing.
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Graduate Bilawal
gets wide applause |
On successful
completion of graduation by PPP Chairman,
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the office bearers of
party’s Lahore organisation have congratulated
their leader, reposing confidence in his
leadership.
Bilawal has completed his graduation in
history from Oxford University.
Praying for the
long life and good health of Bilawal Bhutto,
they have also congratulated party Co-chairman
Asif Ali Zardari for this success.
In a joint press
statement, PPP’s Lahore President, Ch Asghar
Gujjar, General Secretary, Akbar Khan and
Secretary Information Azhar Mughal said that
Bilawal Bhutto would be accorded warm welcome
on his return to Pakistan after completion of
his studies. They said they wanted to see
Bilawal in the role of country’s prime
minister in the future. They also expressed
the hope that he would struggle for peoples’
rights along with party workers to complete
the mission his grandfather Z.A Bhutto and
mother Benazir Bhutto Shaheed.
Meanwhile, sweats
were also distributed at the residence of
party worker Rana Farooq Ashraf, where a
number of workers gathered to celebrate the
event. Dua was also held on the occasion for
the success and long life of Bilawal Bhutto
and Asif Ali Zardari.
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President Speech on the Signing Ceremony of 18th
Amendment Bill 2010 |
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 April
20, 2010: We
have achieved a milestone in Constitutional reformation
and in giving rights to the provinces, we must devote
our full time and attention to the problems of the
common people. These are problems of load shedding,
unemployment, inflation and law and order. I call upon
all political parties and leaders that just as they
joined hands to reform the Constitution, they should now
join hands in the same spirit to find solutions to the
problems of ordinary citizens. We will pursue the path
of reconciliation just as we decided to do even on the
day when Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was martyred
and some advised us to choose the path of confrontation.
Read
more...
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PPP welcomes UN
Inquiry Commission Report |
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 The
UN Inquiry Commission’s report has endorses the
apprehensions of the Party expressed from day one that
the governments of the day was responsible first for the
criminal neglect in providing security to Shaheed
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and second by hushing up
available evidence to cover up the crime. The Pakistan
Peoples Party welcomes this endorsement as the main
thrust of the UN report, said former Senator Farhatullah
Babar Spokesperson in a statement today.
Read
more... |
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Report of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry into
the facts and circumstances of the assassination of
Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto |
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After
a request from the Government of Pakistan and extensive
consultations with Pakistani officials as well as with
members of the United Nations Security Council, the
Secretary-General appointed a three member Commission of
Inquiry to determine the facts and circumstances of the
assassination of the former prime minister. The duty of
carrying out a criminal investigation, finding the
perpetrators and bringing them to justice, remains with
the competent Pakistani authorities.
Read
more... |
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Musharraf regime failed to protect Benazir from threats:
UN report |
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None
of these entities took necessary measures to respond to
the extraordinary, fresh and urgent security risks that
they knew she faced. “The federal Government under
General Musharraf, although fully aware of, and
tracking, the serious threats to Ms Bhutto’s security,
did little more than pass on those threats to her and
provincial authorities and were not proactive in
neutralizing them or ensuring that the security provided
was commensurate to the threats. “The federal Government
failed in its primary responsibility to provide
effective protection to Ms Bhutto on her return to
Pakistan.”
Read
more... |
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NA unanimously adopts 18th Amendment |
 All
292 members present finally voted for the Constitution
(Eighteenth Amendment) Bill drafted by an all-party
parliamentary committee after separate positive votes
cast for each of its 102 clauses ranged between 255 and
289. This was much more than the required 228 votes, or
two-thirds majority of the 342-seat house, thanks to a
broad consensus of political parties, though a clause
changing the name of the North-West Frontier Province to
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Read
more... |
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President Asif
Zardari's Address to Joint Session on April 5, 2010 |
I am happy that Allah gave us the
opportunity to rise to the expectations of the people.
It shows that given political will, Parliament can
deliver. That if we keep aside our prejudices and egos,
we can move mountains. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir
Bhutto refused to weaken democracy by rejecting offers
made to her to boycott Parliament, when her Party had
only 17 members in the National Assembly. In line with
her philosophy in November last year, I gave up the
National Command Authority, and placed it under the
Parliament through the Prime Minister, Although I was
neither asked nor required to do so.
Read
more... |
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We’ll serve masses at the cost of
our lives, says Zardari |
 GARHI
KHUDA BUKHSH: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its
leaders will continue to serve the country and the
people, even if it means laying down their lives for
this purpose, President Asif Ali Zardari. PPP would
continue to pursue the policies of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
and Benazir Bhutto for the uplift of the people. It was
Bhutto’s philosophy that has continued to garner the
overwhelming support of the masses.
Read
more... |
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PPP Co
Chairman felicitates Begum Bhutto on her 81st Birthday |
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 Begum
Sahiba is a living example of a life standing tall
despite unspeakable tragedies inflicted upon her by
successive dictatorships bent upon destroying the
social, political and constitutional fabric of the
country to perpetuate themselves in power. In the
struggle for democracy she witnessed and endured the
execution of her illustrious husband through judicial
abuse, the tragic assassination of her two sons in the
prime of their lives and of her daughter, the Muslim
World's first elected Prime Minister. The head injury
that she received during one of the protest
demonstrations at the hands of the minions of
dictatorship eventually resulted in the loss of her
memory.
Read
more... |
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Punjab S&GA audit objects to
Rs. 614m spending :
Sasti Roti scheme caused
irregular expenditure of Rs. 1bn |
|
 The audit report
observed that a loss of Rs300 million was incurred
due to change in the mode of insurance policy. The
irregular auction of vehicles in the office of
Additional Chief Secretary caused a loss of Rs166.83
million. Similarly, the report also observed that
irregular purchase of 30 Toyota Corolla GLI in
Additional Chief Secretary Office caused a loss of
Rs41.97 million in violation of rules.
The audit observed that
supply of subsidised flour to tandoors in Sasti Roti
Scheme was grossly violated, as reference of
authority was not given in the sanction orders. In
case of Lahore, the Towns Committees officials like
naib qasids, electricians, building / tax inspectors
received subsidised flour. Also the claims were not
supported by the acknowledgements of tandoor
operators and owners. The flourmills were paid
subsidy on the rates fixed by the DCO instead of
Government.
Read
more... |
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Celebrating
nationhood and constitutionalism |
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 The
honour of removing constitutional aberrations and of
restoring the 1973 constitution will has bestowed on the
PPP government under the stewardship of President
Zardari, with the participation of all major political
forces in the country. President Zardari had planned to
complete the transition to democracy and to return the
country to the foundations of the 1973 constitution from
his first day in office.
Read
more... |
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President
Greets nation on Pakistan Day: Says Parliament poised to
reform Constitution and make it truly democratic |
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Mar 22, 2010: It is
an auspicious occasion as on this day seventy one years
ago the Muslims of the subcontinent formally committed
through a Resolution to work for achieving a separate
homeland for themselves. With the blessings of Allah and
through the heroic struggle of our peers the Muslims of
the subcontinent achieved their objective on August 14,
1947, within a short span of seven years of the
expression of their resolve.
Read
more... |
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President Zardari first president to donate all body
organs March 18, 2010 |
|
 Mar
17, 2010: President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday became
the first President to donate all his body organs, after
signing a landmark bill to regulate transplant of human
organs in the country. The President made the
announcement of “donating his whole body” after his
life, as he inked the document in a ceremony held at
Aiwan-e-Sadr, also attended among others by Federal
Ministers and health experts.
Read
more... |
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President Asif Ali Zardari's Address at Garhi Khuda Bux
December 27, 2009 |
 Garhi
Khuda Bux is the Karbala of Shaheeds (Martyrs) and the
PPP is the heir of all those martyrs. Every child of the
PPP is a son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and every daughter
is a daughter of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.
Now Garhi Khuda Bux is asking me what was the fault of
Shaheed Benazir Bhutto? I say that her only mistake was
that she continued the mission of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
She committed a mistake by bringing missile technology
to Pakistan. Her fault was that She completed the
unfinished mission of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She added
missile technology to the nuclear capability of
Pakistan.
Read more... |
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Welcome to
Pakistan Peoples Party |
 The
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was launched at its
founding convention held in Lahore on November
30-December 01, 1967. At the same meeting, Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto was elected as its Chairman. Among the express
goals for which the Party was formed were the
establishment of an egalitarian democracy and the
application of socialistic ideas to realize economic and
social justice. A more immediate task was to struggle
against the hated military dictatorship at the height of
its power when the PPP was formed. The Party
also promised the elimination of feudalism in accordance
with the established principles of socialism to protect
and advance the interests of peasantry.
Read more » |
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The Life
Chairperson - Pakistan Peoples Party |
Political
activist with the PPP, 1977-84; repeatedly imprisoned
and kept under house arrest by the Pakistani government;
political exile in London, England, 1984-86; returned to
Pakistan in April, 1986; Pakistan co-chair, beginning in
1986; After elections held November 1988, invited to
form the government, became Prime Minister in 1988 but
her government was illegally dismissed in August 1990.
She again came to power after her Party won a majority
in elections held in October 1993. Her government was
once again dismissed illegally in November 1996. Since
then PPP under her leadership has been subjected to
political persecution first by Nawaz's regime and then
by Musharraf regime. The leadership faced all the
difficulties with courage and has remained united under
her leadership despite coercion and intimidation.
Read more »
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