October 20, 2008	Monday	Shawwal 20, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 19: Speakers at a meeting on Sunday urged the elected government to start working and solve the pressing problems being faced for years by people, who were continuing to suffer even more than six months after the inception of the set-up having a big mandate. The meeting was organised by the Sindh Democratic Forum (SDF).

The speakers observed that the previous governments in the Centre and Sindh province enjoyed limited support among Sindhi people and did not pay due attention to their problems. These problems, they said, had piled up over the past decade.

They were of the view that Sindhis were subjected to discrimination by the previous rulers and the same situation prevailed after the takeover by the popularly elected government.

Fazalullah Qureshi, a former federal secretary, pointed out that out of 22 federal secretaries, only one was a Sindhi-speaking official while only six of the 78 additional secretaries in the Centre were Sindhi-speaking citizens. Similarly, he said, only two of the 42 semi-government corporations were headed by Sindhis.

He said the situation was not much different in other categories, and demanded strict implementation of quota in government jobs.

SDF chief Abrar Kazi said that the people of Sindh had given full mandate to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and expected that it would act swiftly to resolve their problems.

However, he said, the party had started making alliances with those parties and ethnic groups that had been supporting the dictatorial regime in exploiting majority of Sindhi masses.

Dr Sulaiman Shaikh of the Sindh Graduates Association called for action to force a Karachi-based medical university to reverse its decision of granting admission to children of only Karachi-born people.

Zulfiqar Halipoto demanded that decisions to construct any water reservoirs be taken on the basis of the recommendations put forward by AGN Qazi in his relevant report.

Mazhar Jamil called for changes in the NFC formula which presently distributed federal resources among provinces on the basis of population. He suggested that the formula should follow the multiple criteria as was being demanded by smaller provinces. Qamar Shahbaz demanded that Sindhi language be declared a compulsory subject up to the college level across the province.

Prof Ejaz Qureshi, Dr Kamal Jamro and Zubaidah Bhirwani also spoke at the meeting, which was attended by a large number of scholars, intellectuals and writers.