HYDERABAD, Jan 16: Eminent story writer and playwright Ms Noorul Huda Shah has said that time has come to rid educational institutions of comrade culture and make them real seats of learning.
'Sindh is in dire need of educated youth and it is highly unfortunate that the very leaders who are raising slogans of Sindh have destroyed its educational institutions by thrusting comrade culture on them,' she said while delivering presidential speech at a function jointly organised by the Sindh culture department, Saranga Literary and Cultural Society and Centre for Peace and Civil Society here on Sunday.
She said that it would be wishful thinking to assume that Sindh could progress without education. 'Sindh is passing through a very difficult phase of its history but the poor people are being hoodwinked into believing that everything is fine and we are very rich and superior, she said.
'Instead of accepting realities, we are promoting cult of personality and the most regrettable fact is that we are not even prepared to accept our mistakes,' she said.Sindh Minister for Culture Ms Sassui Palijo said at the function that it was a sin to even think about division of Sindh and no one had power to do so.She said that the culture department frequently held literary functions to provide an opportunity to writers to interact. The intellectuals had always struggled for the rights of people and they had always suffered persecution for their principled stand.
A large number of writers and poets, including Shoukat Hussain Shoro, Sehar Imdad, Rubina Qureshi, Akash Ansari and Imdad Hussaini attended the function.
SUTA: Secretary Sindh University Teachers Association, Dr Arfana Mallah had claimed that the movement for restoring the dignity and sovereignty of the University of Sindh initiated by Sindh University Teachers' Association (SUTA) in the context of the brutal assassination of Prof Basheer Ahmed Channar is getting wider support from home and abroad.
In a statement mailed to Dawn Sunday night, she said, Ms Humera Rehman, Secretary World Sindhi Institute (WSI) along with president of the Sindhi Association of North America (SANA) Dr Waleed Shaikh, have expressed solidarity with SUTA on behalf of their organisations. She said, Mr Iqbal Tareen, former president of Sindhi Association of North America (SANA) and a well known intellectual among Sindhi diaspora has expressed solidarity with SUTA's struggle for bringingstructural changes for restoring the academic sovereignty and peace at University of Sindh.
Members of the Women Action Forum (WAF Karachi), including Kausar S.K, Nuzhat Kidwani, Uzma Noorani, Hilda Saeed, and Nazish Brohi have also expressed their support to SUTA's struggle regarding the implementation of four demands.
The WAF has also demanded that in the wake of the 18th Amendment the Government of Sindh must ensure justice, accountability and restructuring of higher education institutes in the province.
Furthermore, she said, the office-bearers of SUTA also participated in the dialogue which was arranged by Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO) at a local hotel and majority of the participants, including the students, teachers, politicians and leaders/members of the civil society expressed their solidarity with SUTA's demands and asked for their immediate implementation.
Some members of the civil society, she added, expressed their concern over the suspension of academic activities but it was clarified by the office bearers of SUTA that teachers have resolved that they would conduct extra classes to complete the course once the demands were implemented.