Chinese 91st Army Day marked

Chinese ambassador Yao Jing and defence attaché Maj Gen Chen Wenrong hosted a large reception at Marriott Hotel in Islamabad to mark the 91st anniversary of the Founding Day of the Chinese Liberation Army.

The chief guest on the occasion was Gen Zubair Mahmood Hayat, chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

In the speeches, the particularly cordial relations between China and Pakistan were emphasized, with expansion and deepening of cooperation in all fields, CPEC being one.

The event was very well attended by defence attachés and civilian diplomats from a number of embassies, including colleagues from Pakistan.

Farewell dinner for Romanian diplomat

Romanian Ambassador Nicolae Goia hosted a farewell dinner for defence attaché Col Catalin Cirlanaru and his wife Emilia at the new embassy premises in Islamabad last week.

The event was attended by ambassadors and defence attachés and some other guests. Col Cirlanaru served in Pakistan for well over four years and was also dean of the defence attachés in the country, a mostly ceremonial function now taken over by Col Mehman Novruzov, Azerbaijan’s defence attaché.

In his speech Ambassador Goia praised the work of the highly respected defence attaché and his wife. He underlined Col Cirlanau’s high professionalism in the defence field and as an overall diplomat. He said he was impressed by his language skills, indeed his close to fluency in Urdu language.

“I cannot remember any other diplomat, after the legendary former Argentine Ambassador Rodolfo Martin Saravia, who has been as popular in the diplomatic community in Islamabad. They say there were more than a hundred farewell parties for him”, joked a guest.

Send-off for Erasmus+ scholarship holders

EU Ambassador Jean-Francois Cautain hosted a pre-departure reception for Erasmus+ scholarship winners for 2018 at his residence.

He said Erasmus was about building bridges between universities.

“In 2014, we decided to open this programme for all students globally and the worldwide leg of the programme is 1.7 million Euros. It is a very competitive programme and the young students here were competing with not only Pakistani students but students around the world,” Mr Cautain said.

“We do believe in the EU that education is the key to making society not only more prosperous but also more peaceful. We feel that a programme that allows students from across the world to come to the European member states fosters greater understanding – we can get rid of clichés about each other”,” he added.

Dr. Tariq Banuri, chairman of the Higher Education Commission, spoke to the scholarship winners, saying: “I want to tell you to take your time, be successful, do good work – write good papers – and come back when you’re ready, when you feel you have something to contribute to Pakistan. If you’re successful, we’re successful.

“Our goal is the success of our students. You will be learning about other cultures, bring that knowledge back with you. We also want to find a way to bring European students, professors and researchers to Pakistan. Diversity is as important here as it is there. Please remember that you are the ambassadors of Pakistan, behave in a way that makes us proud!”

Anam Zahra, one of the students leaving for Europe, said, “I’m going to Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Hungary and I will be studying Image Processing and Computer Vision. I’m very excited, this is a dream come true. I had a two year study break and I had to work very hard to make it to this place. We have some of the best researchers in this field in this programme and that is an amazing opportunity. This is an emerging field and it was added to the Erasmus programme this year.”

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2018