LAHORE: “It is the time to think what we have given to our nation, not what the nation has given to us,” Dr Amjad Saqib said on Tuesday at a ceremony at the Punjab University to distribute cheques to the position holders of the BA/BSC annual examinations.

Punjab Educational Endowment Fund (PEEF) Vice Chairman Dr Saqib urged the students not to get inspired from the West.

Position holder students Huma, Zara Nasir, Maryam Saba, Mansoor Ali, Faryal Shahbaz and Attiqa with their teachers and parents were present.

Dr Saqib said 25 million children were out of schools in the country while the living standard of 70 per cent of the population was poor. He said the Akhwat Foundation was the largest movement against usury in the world as it had benefited 1.5 million families, means 10 million people. He said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif wanted to encourage talented students, so the PEEF was established seven years ago with a Rs1 billion seed money. The PEEF has provided scholarships to 150,000 students and now it has Rs17 billion funds.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran said great nations were under the control of a financial elite of the world because of the system of usury which had led to concentration of wealth. The other big issue was the ignorance of the Muslims and their disinterest in seeking knowledge. He said Australian scientist Gideon Polya in his book “Body Count” said of the 1.3 billion avoidable deaths from 1950-2005, 600 million were Muslims. He said America’s GDP was around $18 trillion and it spent two to 2.7 per cent of it on research and development per year while Pakistan had a GDP of around $250 billion, and of it only 0.1 or 0.2 per cent was allocated for research and development per year.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2016