ON Jan 1, when one could see New Year’s greetings being sent to the loved ones on tickers running on some TV channels, it was amazing to find people sending birthday wishes to numerous persons born on Jan 1 as shown on crawlers.

All those born on Jan 1 in different years perhaps do not know that they were not actually born on that date.

When one does not have a proper record of the birth date, it is common practice to put Jan 1 as the date of birth of that person and the year is also put according to the estimated age of that person.

In my career in the army most of the soldiers belonging to rural areas had Jan 1 as their date of birth and their ages appeared different from what had been written in the record.

The same formula must be in vogue in police and other government departments or private organisations.

As far as producing a birth certificate is concerned, it is not difficult to procure one of any date in a country where our parliamentarians can produce graduation degrees and in some cases PhD without appearing in the examinations.

Of course, each certificate or degree has its own price.

M.AZHAR KHWAJA Lahore