HYDERABAD, March 11: Activists of the Pakistan Human Rights Forum on Friday held a rally outside the press club in protest against increases in prices of petroleum and essential commodities.

Chairman of the forum Mehboob Sangi, secretary-general Ghani Khoso, Khalid Unnar and Amir Bux Khoso said with the increase in prices of petrol, the prices of other commodities had also gone up.

They said people were forced to commit suicide due to rampant unemployment and it was difficult to get a job without paying bribe.

They said incidents of kidnapping and atrocities against women were on the increase.

They said employees of the Sui gas company had not been reinstated in service despite orders of the Supreme Court.

They said many localities of Latifabad and Qasimabad had been deprived of civic facilities.

They demanded that the government should take steps to tackle price hike, employment and lawlessness and launch development programmes in neglected localities.

MUET STUDENTS: Hundreds of students of MUET Jamshoro under the banner of SPSF-SB staged a protest sit-in outside the press club here on Friday for resolution of their problems.

Speaking on the occasion, Shoaib Domki, Abbas Umrani, Babar Pitafi and Adnan Abbasi said the university administration had taken no steps to resolve the problems of the students.

They criticized increase in fees and complained of shortage of library books, laboratory equipment and transport.

They demanded that the NAB should conduct inquiries into alleged corruption in the development work and fake degrees issued by the examination branch.

They demanded that self-finance scheme should be abolished.

They warned that if the problems of the students were not resolved, they would hold a series of protest demonstrations throughout Sindh.

NCE: The University of Sindh has completed paper work and prepared a PC-I for establishment of the National Centre of Excellence in Fossil Fuels and Minerals.

In this connection a meeting of scholars from the department of geology and experts of various subjects related to different branches of geology was held here on Friday.

Under the PC-I Rs700 million will be required for the National Center of Excellence in Fossil Fuels and Minerals.

Six main fields of geology would be focus of research leading to M.Phil and Ph.D research programme.

These branches of geology will be sedimentology and stratigraphy, petroleum geology and geophysics, hydrogeology and engineering geology, mineralogy and mining geology and environmental geology and micro-palaeontology.

For establishment of National Center of Excellence, the chairman of the Higher Education Commission, had promised and announced funding and fixed time of four weeks for submission of PC-I.