RECENTLY in the National Assembly a special committee was formed to suggest the name for the new Islamabad International Airport. The PPP’s parliamentarians want it to be named after Benazir Bhutto.

Let us review how many public institutions are named after her during the five-year PPP rule from 2008 to 2013: the number is countless.

As a matter of fact, if a major donation from personal coffers is offered, the donor qualifies to get recognition. For example, whether it was Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore, or Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, the named personalities built the institutions entirely out of their own resources or donated a major share in raising the institutions.

At a time when a live chicken cost one paisa, Lady Reading donated Rs50,000 to build Lady Reading Hospital.

Let there be a ruling that unless a personality has donated more than 51 per cent of the cost of any project out of own pocket, no infrastructure should be named after him or her: an exception can be made in the case of soldiers who lay down their lives for the country.

Sayed GB Shah Bokhari

Peshawar

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2018