BANK HELPLINE: The minimum balance required to make a call at bank helplines is often pretty high. Besides, the customer has to stay on call for a long time during which the balance keeps getting deducted. There are times when one has to spend as much as 30 minutes to explain their problem to the customer service representative. If the balance is low, the line gets dropped. In such cases, both money and time are wasted, and the customer has to repeat the process all over again. The second major problem is for people who want information in Urdu. Before talking to the representative, the recorded message in some cases starts playing in English which confuses the caller. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) should intervene in the matter.

Saleemullah Siddiqui
Karachi

CONTROLLED INFORMATION: Apart from the elements of misinformation and disinformation, there is a major challenge in the shape of censored information in this era. It creates an entirely polarised world of opposing narratives by controlling the other side of the view. This is clearly evident in case of US-Israeli bombardment of an Iranian school that claimed a lot of innocent lives. This huge loss was reported initially by regional media, but not by the so-called liberal Western media, which opted to censor the atrocities committed by their self-proclaimed democratic states. This was done to maintain an illusion of the sanctity of their inherently weak liberal values in front of their audiences.

Mahrukh Ameer
Lahore

REOPEN RURAL SCHOOLS: The global fuel crisis is no reason to deprive children of their education. Rural schools lie within walking distances, and students do not need petrol to reach them. Moreover, in the absence of basic facilities, one fails to understand how the government can expect online classes to be effective in these areas. The decision of school closure risks pushing people further back. The government should reopen rural schools and ensure that education remains accessible to all children.

Riaz Ramzan Rajar
Jamshoro

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2026