March 07, 2007	Wednesday	Safar 17, 1428

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LAHORE, March 6: A Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) committee, assigned the task of preparing election manifesto of the alliance, said on Tuesday that the manifesto had included suggestions for women’s status equal to men in all walks of life.

Many other proposals were incorporated in MMA’s election programme at a meeting chaired by senior vice-president Prof Sajid Mir. The meeting prepared the second draft of the alliance’s manifesto which would be discussed at a meeting to be held by the end of March or in the first week of April.

MMA information secretary Pir Ejaz Hashmi said constituent parties had sent their proposals to the committee which were made part of the preliminary draft of the manifesto. He said the manifesto committee believed that the MMA should remove a general impression that religious parties showed bias against women.

“In fact, we understand that women must enjoy a status equal to men and take practical and legal measures to ensure that half of the country’s population meaningfully contributes to the development of society and the country,” he said.

Hashmi, who is also a member of the manifesto committee, told Dawn that mere allocating seats in assemblies and local councils did not mean that women had attained a social status which was guaranteed by the Islamic jurisprudence and 1973 Constitution. Women should be treated on a par with men and all impediments in their way must be removed to ensure the country’s development, he said and added that such a commitment was now part of the MMA election manifesto.

The MMA manifesto also focused on equilibrium between rural and urban centres and incorporated another proposal which ensured that civic facilities in villages should be similar to those in big and small cities in terms of drinking water, health, education, sanitation and other infrastructure.

Hashmi said the MMA had included the proposal to curtail migration of rural population to urban centres and also to save the country’s agriculture which was now seen a degradation owing to the mushroom growth of housing colonies on rural land.

The MMA, he said, was committed to reviving agriculture which was the backbone of the national economy but had deliberately been destroyed by successive governments.

He said that the MMA had decided to provide interest-free agricultural loans to farmers for land development and involve the banking sector help the revival of agriculture.

The MMA, he said, also wanted free education up to secondary school and would raise literacy rate substantially within five years after coming into government.

He said Urdu would be made the medium of instruction and English would be taught as a language and not as a compulsory subject. Uniform syllabi would be introduced and the culture of commercialising education would be discouraged by way of legislation, he said.

He said education in the public sector would be strengthened and the private sector would not be allowed to dominate the scene and promote class education. The MMA would also promote technical, scientific and technological education and establish institutions to impart such learning in rural areas on a preferential basis, he said.

Fixing minimum wages at a rate equal to one tola or about 11 grams) of gold and giving labourers the right to strike were also made part of the MMA election manifesto, Hashmi said. Besides, the alliance had resolved to establish a ‘nizam-i-adal’ or justice system in consonance with the teachings of the Holy Quran and Sunnah.