LAHORE: Participants in a seminar on cyber harassment against women are of the view that efforts should be made to make the digital world a safer place where females don’t feel threatened.

The seminar was organised by the Punjab University Institute of Social and Cultural Studies (ISCS) in accordance with resolution number 101/19 of Punjab Assembly on Thursday.

ISCS Director Prof Dr Rubeena Zakar, Digital Rights Foundation members Zaina Durrani and Shumaila Khan, faculty members and a number of students participated in the seminar.

Ms Zakar said women were more likely to be victims of cyber harassment and awareness must be raised among them about protection of their digital privacy.

She said women must be aware of the process through which their personal data could not reach out to the unwanted hands.

She said women must not fear any such harassment as the government had implemented laws on cyber crime and major penalties were being imposed on [cyber] criminals.Zaina Durrani and Shumaila Khan explained various forms of online harassment that women were facing and informed students about the salient features of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016.

CONFERENCE: A two-day international conference on education under the theme of “Research and development in education for sustainable future” concluded at the University of Education, Township, on Thursday.

UoE Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Rauf-i-Azam said new vistas of knowledge opened for the participants in the conference, including faculty members and students.

He said the world was changing with every passing moment and it was marked by rapid change, uncertainty, complexity and various issues relating to economic instability, climate change, loss of biodiversity and migration.

He said it was the responsibility of teachers, educators, researchers, natural and social scientists to create a culture of collaboration to address these changes.

Dr. Lance Cummings of University of Carolina and University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Vice Chancellor Dr. Talat Naseer Pasha also addressed the conference.

FAPUASA: The Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association said the government by shelving various projects had been compelling the teachers to take to streets.

In a statement issued by FAPUASA Punjab chapter President Prof Dr Hamid Mukhtar on Thursday, he said the federal and provincial higher education commissions were not providing any funding to university teachers for participating and presenting research papers at international conferences abroad and it was like discouraging the researchers who put efforts to do research, write papers and get them published in reputed foreign journals.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan had taken notice of the HEC’s restrictions on PhD programmes for faculty members, as well as the closure of six major projects of the commission, but nothing had been done practically yet to restart the funding.

He said the rolled back programmes included faculty development programme, start-up research grants for fresh Ph.D holders, grant for repair and maintenance of scientific equipment, access to scientific instrumentation programme, research travel grant for university faculty and scholars and grants to organise seminar, conference and training workshop.

Mukhtar said the situation in provincial HEC was even worse due to the absence of a regular chairman for the last many months, and it was not even providing any funding to university teachers for presenting their papers abroad.

He said they had strong reservations on the criteria and composition of search committees for the selection of prestigious positions of vice chancellors in public sector universities and the government had not done anything in this regard.

He threatened to launch a protest campaign if the situation was not improved immediately and PHEC and HEC didn’t start funding for the projects.

SEMINAR: The NAB organised an anti-corruption awareness seminar at the University of Okara.

The seminar was a part of NAB’s drive to ensure a corruption-free environment in both public and private sector organisations.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2019