KARAK: Speakers at a seminar here on Monday said that poets and writers played a key role in eliminating extremism from the society.

The seminar titled “The role of mother tongue in the elimination extremism” was held under the aegis of English department of Khushal Khan Khattak University Karak.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Syed Zubair Shah said that pure language got promotion in rural while literature was promoted in urban area.

He said that an artificial distance was created between Urdu and other regional languages.

Dr Syed Zubair said that regional languages were expelled from the universities. He said departments of regional languages should be set up in the universities to unite people of different parts of the country.

Vice-chancellor Dr Jehan Bakht said that importance of the mother language was universal. He regretted that most of the Pakhtun students could not write Pashto.

He stressed the need for translation of books on modern science into Pashto, saying only poetry in Pashto was not sufficient. He said that learning in native language was easy for the students as compared to other languages but it was the collective responsibility of academia to translate the knowledge of science subjects into Pashto.

POWER OUTAGES: The supply of electricity remained suspended for more than 24 hours to different areas of Karak tehsil.

The residents of those areas threatened to take to streets if the power supply was not restored to their localities.

They said that power supply remained suspended for more than 24 hours to Palosa Sar, Sabirabad, Ghundi Mir Khankhel, Isak Chountra and other localities of Chountra due to unknown reasons.

Choutran Welfare Organisation president Ishaq Khattak said that power supply should be restored forthwith otherwise the people of Chountra would take to streets against it.

He said that suspension of power supply for long time was made a routine. He added that the lame excuses of Pesco authorities were no more acceptable to them.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018