HYDERABAD, June 19: The second four-day international conference on “Sindh: past, present and future” to be jointly organized by the University of Sindh and the Karachi University will be held in the first week of October in Karachi.

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani is expected to inaugurate it with the first session to be dedicated to Benazir Bhutto in recognition of her intellectual, academic and political contribution towards democracy, rights of downtrodden and human rights.

The decision was taken in a meeting of the organizing committee at the SU on Wednesday, presided over by the Vice-Chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddiqui who is also committee’s co-chairman. It discussed topics and finalized the names of speakers and scholars to chair different sessions.

Topics during three-day working sessions will be language, literature, history, culture, archaeology, anthropology, education, society and media and economy of Sindh. Noted scholars, educationists, writers, economists, sociologists from the country and abroad would present their papers.

The meeting was informed that the Organizing Committee had sent letters to scholars with allocation of subjects for presentation. It was further informed that international scholars had confirmed and given their consent for participation including scholars from India, United States, United Kingdom, Italy and France.

It was decided to invite all concerned ministers from Sindh and federal governments as guests of honour in sessions of relevant subjects.

It was also decided that during the proceedings of the conference, Mushaira and music programmes will also be organized on second, third and fourth day.

Proceedings of first three-day international conference on “Sindh: past, present and future” will be published in a book form to be distributed among participants.

The meeting was attended by noted scholar Dr G.A. Allana, Dr Fehmida Hussain, Dr Noor Afroze Khwaja, Dr Mohammad Qasim Bughio, Prof Aijaz Qureshi, Zulfiqar Halepoto, Professor Saleem Memon and Shoukat Hussain Shoro.