IT was time for the announcement of the results for the Karachi Press Club’s annual election. In those days it was the middle-of-the-year event unlike these days when the polls take place in December. On July 4, 1971, as reported by the media on July 5, the official results for the election to the seats of members of the governing body and office-bearers of the KPC were announced. Anwar Husain of Dawn was elected president of the club and S.M. Fazal of Daily News, vice-president. Mirza Ismail of Dawn won the seat for KPC secretary while Hasan Shahriar of Dawn was elected joint secretary and Masood Haider of ENA became the club’s treasurer for the next 12 months. Members elected to the governing body were: Hamdan Amjad Ali (Dawn), Abdul Hameed Chapra (Weekly Mail), A.M.A Qaiyum (Morning News), Mohammad Jami (Daily News), Mrs Sultana Meher (Jang), M.N. Beg (Dawn) and G.A. Nanji (NY Times).
Holding polls every year is a healthy exercise for democracy to take root in any society. But the same day, July 5, a study conducted by Civil Hospital talked of a health hazard. According to it, the incidence of anemia in Karachi had increased manifold in the last few years. Its main cause among the married women was repeated pregnancy. Experts believed that the anemia prevalent among married females in the city was due to improper spacing–two to three years’ gap had to be given between childbirth. Most women patients belonged to the lower socioeconomic group and suffered nutritional deficiencies.
On July 8, another disturbing study came to light. As per stats available with Karachi Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) health department, smallpox had claimed 921 lives since 1967, of which 140 deaths occurred in the last six months alone. A total of 2,271 people had been brought to the KMC hospitals from that time (1967). It, however, did not include the figures of the ongoing year.
But the current situation was not good either. On July 11 it was reported that hundreds of patients at Civil Hospital were facing the problem of shortage of several essential drugs as they were said to be ‘out of stock’ for the past many days. Wards at the hospital had been sending their requirements to the hospital stores but their demands were being turned down with the plea that the drugs and medicines were not available. As a result, the doctors were compelled to ask the patients to purchase the prescribe medicines from the market.
Perhaps bearing the hygiene situation in mind, on July 8 the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) proposed that it wanted to have its own laboratory to test water supplied in bulk by the Karachi Development Authority (KDA). The chairman of KPT, Commodore Anwar Saeed, felt the necessity of such a lab to ensure that water given to ships and other establishments was free from bacteria.
On an optimistic note, which Karachi’s artistic facet always exhibits, on July 10, the Karachi Council for Child Welfare organised an exhibition of over 300 paintings lovingly painted by young school children and admired by hundreds of them opened at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi. The artworks were actually entries from Sindh for the annual presidential awards for children for the year 1970.
Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2021
