TIMERGARA: Jamaat-i-Islami provincial chief Mushtaq Ahmad has called for full participation of women in the electoral process.

He was addressing the JI Lower Dir monthly congregation at Ahyaul Uloom here on Thursday.

Lower and Upper Dir are the districts where women in the past were barred from voting by all political parties, including the PPP, ANP and PML-N.

Mr Ahmad stressed the role of women in reforming the society, saying the spouse of Holy Prophet (pbuh) Hazrat Ayesha Siddiqa led a political life and worked side by side with the prophet. He said the Election Commission of Pakistan had been empowered to declare results of constituencies null and void where women votes were less than 10 per cent of the total. “The political parties having strong women organisations can win the next general elections,” he said, adding the JI had its own women wing that needed to be functional at village, tehsil and district level.

He asked the JI workers to arrange conventions for women voters in both Lower and Upper Dir.

TRAINING WORKSHOP: A three-day training workshop for religious scholars and representatives of seminaries concluded on Friday.

The department of English, University of Malakand, organised the workshop, which is part of a thematic research grant project funded by the HEC to investigate problems and challenges to English language teaching reforms in religious seminaries.

Project’s principal investigator Dr Qaisar Khan said the workshop would help create research-based awareness on the existing linguistic resources at seminaries. He announced an international conference to be held on November 15 and 16 where researchers would highlight challenges to reforms in light of the policies implemented since 1947.

MEDICAL COLLEGE: Minister for finance Muzafar Syed on Friday directed the district administration to ensure purchase of land so work on the construction of Timergara Medical College could be started soon.

He was chairing a meeting of the officials concerned, including deputy commissioner Attaur Rehman and project director Dr Shaukat Ali.

The minister was briefed about the progress on the project.

Dr Ali said temporary classes would be started at a college building in Rani for which all arrangements had been finalised.

The minister said the government had allocated Rs2.59 billion for the first phase of the project.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2017