June 02, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1429

HYDERABAD, June 1: Members of civil society staged a demonstration outside the press club on Sunday in protest against the officiating secretary of the Sindhi Adabi Board and urged the government to appoint a permanent secretary for the board through the Public Service Commission.

Ilyas Khokhar, Shamsuddin and others alleged that the present secretary was involved in corruption and demanded a detailed inquiry into the board’s affairs.

They demanded that a separate production department comprising publication, computer section and press should be set up, the board should be run strictly in accordance with its constitution, the board members and governors should not be removed for at least three years and sale points for the board’s books should be established in every major city and town of the province.

They said that the board was a big organisation, which had been entrusted with the important task of publication of classical books and promotion of Sindhi language and literature.They said that in past the organisation was headed in past by very illustrious people like Meeran Mohammad Shah, G.M. Syed, Pir Hussamuddin Rashidi and Dr Nabi Bux Khan Baloch. But for the last few years, the secretaries were appointed on political basis, who had destroyed the board, they regretted.

They said that the civil society was unanimous in its demand that a genuine scholar should be appointed as permanent secretary of the board through Public Service Commission.