LAHORE: Philanthropist and humanitarian Bilquis Edhi has been declared the ‘Person of the Decade’, along with UN rapporteur on human rights Prof Yanghee Lee and the US ethicist Stephen Soldz by an international organisation.

A spokesperson for the Edhi Foundation told the APP that as per the domino effect verdict, announced on Friday by the Impact Hallmarks [IH], Bilquis Edhi was declared the most impactful person of the first two decades of the 21st century.

Bilquis Bano Edhi is a professional nurse and she heads the Bilquis Edhi Foundation. She has spent more than six decades of her life serving humanity. Her charity has saved over 42,000 unwanted babies so far by placing jhoolas (cradles) at the Edhi Homes and centres across the country.

Called the Mother of Pakistan, Bilquis has already been given various national and foreign awards including Hilal-e-Imtiaz, the Lenin Peace Prize, Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice (2015), and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, she received along with her husband Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1986.

The Impact Hallmarks [IH], an international web-based organisation that conducted the process, said in its announcement that the three persons Bilquis Edhi, Prof. Yanghee Lee and Stephen Soldz have stretched and segmented the top of the decades impact hallmarks and the opinion polls top triarchy as well.

Another honour the contest brought for the country was the declaration of another Pakistani an erudite, a polymath and a discoverer, Prof. Aurangzeb Al Hafi among ‘Top of the Top Ten’ for his scientific discoveries. He was listed on position six among the most impactful persons of the world.

The three scientific discoveries shortlisted by the Impact Hallmarks were: the first-ever scientific demonstration of Magneto-Hydro-Tropism (MHT), his IRT Model of Terato-kinetics, and the first methodological baselines engrossed annotation-broadsheet with reference to the Covid-19, which was made available to the World Health Organisation, and others concerned on March 3, 2020 for the academic considerations.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2021