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PESHAWAR, Jan 15: The week-long centenary celebrations of the Peshawar Museum ended here on Monday. NWFP Governor Lt-Gen (retd) Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai was the chief guest at the concluding ceremony. NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani had presided over the opening function.
The governor laid the foundation stone of the Tribal Gallery on the premises of the museum and also visited the stalls. Earlier, the chief minister had inaugurated a tourist information centre at the museum and its new administration block besides visiting different stalls.
Main function was held on the second day that was marked with an international conference on ‘Frontier archaeology’ that was attended by researchers, historians and intellectuals from Iran, the US, the UK and Greece.
Participants had presented papers on various aspects of the Ghandhara civilisation, the archaeological importance of the NWFP and historical perspective of the Peshawar Museum. Foreign delegates were also taken to historical places in Peshawar in a traditional Tonga procession.
They examined the ongoing excavation and rehabilitation work of t3he Gorkhutree and visited the newly-established city museum there.
The centenary celebrations had been organised by Secretary Archaeology Abdul Jalil Khan and Director Museums Saleh Mohammad Khan under the supervision of Provincial Archaeology and Culture Minister Hussain Ahmed Kanju.
Vice-Chancellor of the Peshawar Dr Ehsan Ali, former director of archaeology Fidaullah Sehrai and other archaeologists also assisted the archeology department in finalising its programmes.
ECONOMIC POLICY: Federal Minister for Political Affairs Amir Muqam has said the government is pursuing a comprehensive economic policy to overcome problems of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. Viable economic policies have been developed for this purpose.
This he said while speaking at an open Kutchery at his residence in Swat. The minister who is also the provincial president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, said that after achieving micro-economic stability emphasis would be laid on improving the micro-economic indicators.
He said that public sector programmes launched by the government had yielded positive results and poverty, unemployment and illiteracy had shown downward trends. Work on the main Sui gas pipeline to supply gas to Swat and other districts of the Malakand Division was in progress.
The minister, while highlighting the expansion and reconstruction of the road linking Nowshera, Chakdara and Chitral, said that completion of the project would generate a lot of economic activity and would promote tourism in the Malakand Division.
Dilating upon the salient features of the Khushal Pakistan Programme, the minister said that it would go a along way in the provision of basic amenities like electricity, gas and clean drinking water to the people of far-flung areas.
Earlier, the minister met a number of delegations and issued orders on applications pertaining to various departments.—Agencies
