KARACHI BLEEDS: All the talk of preparing for the monsoons, as always, led to zilch in Karachi this year. The city that is the biggest contributor to the national exchequer remained deprived of the required development finances by the federal government. Will the Karachiites ever have an effective say in the matter? We got a clean city at the time of independence, but failed to do justice to it. What a pity.

Parveen Rahim
Karachi

DEFINING EXTREMISTS: This is with reference to the article ‘Extremists targeting extremists’ (Sept 11), which came as a rude shock on two counts; the massive oversimplification about the equation between religion and state, and for advising the Taliban to be secular like the people in Vietnam after they defeated the Americans. In the writer’s view, Vietnam’s renaissance was solely based on secularism. This is preposterous.

Dr Zeba Hisam
Karachi

HUMAN RIGHTS: There has been much noise being made by the United States for women’s rights in Afghanistan following the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban. Has anybody in the US bothered to take a look at its own record when it comes to human rights?

It is pathetic. Can it explain its double standards in Palestine and occupied Kashmir? No. Led by the US, the world has become extremely materialistic. There are no genuine human rights concerns to talk about.

Syed Zeeshan Abid
Chiniot

SAVING ELECTRICITY: On a visit to a university hostel recently, I was taken aback by the wastage of electricity there. I could see the lights on even in rooms that had been locked on the outside. Clearly, the students had gone out forgetting to turn off the lights. A penny saved is a penny earned. Every unit of power saved somewhere is a unit of power available elsewhere. Is this too difficult for us to understand? Apparenlty, it is.

Masood Khalil
Bagh, Azad Kashmir

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2021