LAHORE, Feb 13: Prof Dr Aurangzeb Hafi, 32, has been declared as "Man of the Year 2003 in Interdisciplinary Sciences" by the International Scientific Council on the basis of the factual rationality and the widest strong impacts of his contribution.

He has won the position leaving five other top scientists from Britain, Denmark, Japan and India behind. In all, 1376 scientists from 900 universities of 60 countries were in race. Six of them were short-listed for a final consideration.

"... Scientific Honours Scrutiny Committee has reached the conclusion that after a careful assessment and review with the best possible competency and intellectual honesty it was found that, out of the major unusual works in interdisciplinary sciences, Aurangzeb Hafi Magnetic Sectorial Model was found to be of the widest multidisciplinary R&D implementation capacity and having multifaceted impact on indisciplinary scientific research", the principal assessor, Dr Walter Bodmer said in a statement.

The short-listed contestants in addition to Prof Dr Hafi were: Prof Dr J.A Walker, Dr I.J. Richards (UK), Prof Dr Okada (Japan), Dr J.F. Larson (Denmark) and Dr S. Nevelli (India).

Talking to Dawn after winning the title, Dr Hafi, a resident of People's Colony, Gujranwala, said that because of his research work now Pakistan would be in a position to export agro-forestry technology even to the developed countries. The value of these exports, he said, could not be quantified at present.

He said he had rejected the Rs210 million offer along with the British citizenship to take part in the contest from a non-Pakistan platform, but now he was happy that "my country" would be able to earn billions because of exports based on his technology.

Dr Hafi said his victory had brought an end to the discrimination between Commonwealth member states and others. In response to a question, Dr Hafi said his multi-dimensional research would also help pre-birth child retardation. Also, he said, the post-birth mental and physical disabilities would also become easy to treat.

He said his achievement had given the country an edge in this field and now other countries wanting to join the field would have to follow. Dr Hafi said he would not use the benefits coming from the title to make his living luxurious. Instead, he said he would like to use the money for the treatment of retarded children.

He urged the young scientists to pay more attention on biomagnetics, assuring them that he would be happy to offer any cooperation and guidance to the governmental and non-governmental academic fora. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Scientific Research Council has congratulated Dr Hafi on his great achievement.