Students week again in the doldrums: Campus Round-up

As on several previous years, there may again be no students week at Karachi University. The week is aimed at grooming students in leadership qualities and promoting constructive extra-curricular activities on the campus. It used to be quite a tradition, but now seems to be doomed.

Efforts were made from time to time to revive the week. The university administration occasionally succeeded in holding the event in a controlled environment, but it has failed to be sustained on an annual basis.

Teachers blame the students, who have affiliation with different student groups. They say these groups try to turn the event into a political one and make it a show-case for their political objectives.

The university administration had planned to hold a series of extra-curricular activities at the level of departments and at the university level as well during September, and various sports competitions among departments are now in progress.

Debates, poetry sessions, exhibitions and other events were to be held at the departments in the last week of September or the first week of October under the supervision of the respective student advisers.

However, some activities by a couple of student groups in recent days have compelled the university authorities to have second thoughts, an official said. Funds were allocated and dates were finalized for the events, but now the administration may not go ahead with its plan.

They are in a fix as different groups of students have breached the "code of peace" on campus by holding meetings in the Arts' lobby, by putting up wall-chalkings and displaying political posters and slogans, the official added.

Different events for the students' week were organized in the hey days of the university to interact with renowned scholars and prominent people from different walks of life.

Peeping in the past, a senior lady teacher said that mushaira used to be a popular forum for all seasoned as well as budding poets who fascinated the campus population by their emotional poems, couplets and ghazals and they would talk about every things from the weather, faces, sentiments, solitude, politics and even prison.

Another teacher referred to a Roobaroo programme held in 1991 at the convocation ground of the university. Whether it was a doctor or an actor, a jail officer or a sports player, a singer or a teacher, a compere or an umpire, a nurse or a marriage consultant, an administrator or a professor, all the guests were appreciated during the question-answer session, which continued for three hours and was witnessed by over 5,000 teachers, non-teaching employees, students of the university and of other educational institutions.

Adventurers within student bodies have been a source of unrest on different occasions on the campus, but placating them on putting off the "week" will simply not help, some students said.

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Work on the establishment of a dental science institute at the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) will formally begin next week, when the Sindh governor will lay the foundation stone to mark the commencement of renovation of an old building of the Sindh Medical College (SMC).

The project director of the proposed institute, Prof Noushad A. Shaikh, who is also vice-chancellor of the SMC, said that the ceremony will be held on September 28.

The old building which is to house the dental institute was an army barrack constructed in 1865. The SMC was established in the same old building, which remained in the use of different institutions, in 1973.

The estimated cost of the dental institute project is Rs 30 million. The authorities have decided to admit the first batch of 50 students to the institute in January.

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A cermony was held to mark the completion of renovation work at the girls' hostel of the Sindh Medical College the other day. Among others, noted writer and adviser to Sindh chief minister Fatima Surayya Bajia, secretary of the Sindh information department, Mehtab Akbar Rashdi, vice-chancellor of DUHS, Prof. Masood Hameed, and the principal of the SMC, Dr. Noushad Shaikh, attended the ceremony.

The SMC has one hostel for male students near the college premises and another one for girls situated in PECHS. The women's hostel was established in a donated building some 30 years back and repair and renovation was overdue, said the SMC principal, adding that an industrialist has extended financial support for the hostel construction.

Sugarcane crushing issue

Kawish writes that the Sindh government has issued a notification asking sugar mill-owners to start sugarcane crushing from October 1. Besides, the chief minister has warned mill-owners of action if they fail to start the crushing on time.

The daily says that only twice over the past five years notifications were issued about starting the crushing in October in accordance with Sugar Factories Control Act. Last year, mill-owners ignored the notification, called for starting it in November and actually undertook the work in December.

Moreover, they did not pay the sugarcane price fixed by the provincial government. Because of the delay in the crushing season, wheat could not be sown on time. The crop could not get enough water due to late sowing which resulted in reduced output.

This year, the government has taken a welcome step by issuing the notification requiring the crushing to start in October but it must take follow-up measures and ensure that mill-owners abide by the decision.

Ibrat writes that water shortage in the current Kharif season has badly affected rice and cotton crops in Sindh and it is feared that the province will face 75 per cent shortage in the coming Rabi season. To overcome the situation, the Indus River System Authority has evolved a new formula for water distribution in the Rabi season.

However, the irrigation secretary of Punjab has rejected the formula which was prepared in a meeting presided over by the prime minister. The paper says that Punjab's objection is the continuation of a discriminatory attitude towards Sindh in water distribution.

It argues that Punjab keeps on receiving more than its share even when Sindh faces a water famine. Now that Irsa has decided to provide relief to Sindh to save its Rabi crops, it comes as the right of the water-starved province and not a concession.

Hilal-i-Pakistan deplores that Rangers shot and killed three women in a Balochistan village on the border of Punjab, and in retaliation, the villagers have killed two Rangers.

The incidents are said to have been caused by a dispute over water between the villagers and the Rangers. The daily condemns the use of force by both sides and calls for an inquiry.

Awami Awaz points out that a parliamentary committee, promised by former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to discuss the Balochistan issue, has not been constituted so far. It calls for resolving the issue through dialogue and urges the government to refrain from use of force in the volatile province.

Referring to the plight of the employees of the Sindh food department, Such says that they have resorted to demonstrations for regularization of their jobs and payment of dues. The previous provincial government had approved a summary in this regard and the delay in a decision on the matter is causing unrest among the employees.