KARACHI, Aug 19: City Nazim Naimatullah Khan has said that Pakistan has a very rich culture and efforts should be made to promote it.

He was addressing the members of general body and governing body of Arts Council here on Tuesday.

Mr Naimatullah said that the Arts Council had its unique reputation and standard programmes were presented there. However, he said the programmes, presented there, should be hundred per cent educational and literary in character.

“While presenting cultural programmes, it must be kept in view that we do have our own culture and we should not plunge into an inferiority complex highlighting them,” he remarked.

City Nazim observed that a lot of changes had affected our society. But, he maintained that efforts should be made for the promotion of those values that would pave a way for a positive change in society.

He further said that all governmental and private organizations should know about the ideological basis of Pakistan.

“After taking over the charge of Nazim, I had announced to establish Islamic society in Karachi and efforts are going on in this regard,” he admitted.

Mr Naimatullah Khan maintained that people of Karachi had a strong affiliation with the ideological values. In this regard, he referred to the 10-day Dars-i-Quran held at Quran Sunnah Academy and said 5,000 persons attended it on its first day and 40,000 on the last day, which showed the extent of love of people for religion.

He observed that unfortunately the Arts Council had not been funded for the last 10 years. To mitigate deprivation of the council, he presented a cheque of Rs100,000 on behalf of the city government to Secretary Arts Council Yawar Mehdi.

Earlier, in his welcome address, Mr Yawar Mehdi had said that financial aid given to council had been stopped for the last 10 years, which resulted in financial crisis.—PPI/APP