HYDERABAD, April 14: The Sindh Minister for Culture, Sassui Palejo, has said that culture department is laying a network of culture complexes across the province and introducing performing arts in Jacobabad to help rid the area of tribal feuds and ease its suffocating environment.

Talking to journalists while inspecting construction work of Benazir Bhutto culture complex in Tando Allahyar on Saturday, the minister said the museum in the proposed complex would be named after young poet Hassan Dars. A music academy would also be part of the cultural complex, she said.

She said that extremism and terrorism could be curbed by spreading message of Sufis. Performing arts would be introduced in Jacobabad so that people could get rid of tribal feuds and get a respite from suffocating environment.

She said that efforts were under way to complete work on the complex by June although development schemes and economy were severely affected in Sindh by rains. The project cost is Rs100 million.

She said that a big auditorium was part of the cultural complex which was a gift for people of Tando Allahyar. The complex’s museum had been named after Hassan Dars, art gallery after Mohammad Hussain Kashif and library after Syed Annat Nasarpuri.

She said that culture ministry had to start work from scratch in archaeology sector. The ministry signed pacts with Unesco and other institutions for the preservation of archaeological sites, she said.

Ms Palijo said that Sindh government was holding a probe into threatening letters and the federal government had also launched investigations into the matter through FIA. Whenever a democratic government was at the helm of affairs terrorist activities were perpetuated under a conspiracy, she said.

Centre for advance studies in MUET

The USAID would set up a centre of advance studies in the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), which would award 250 degrees and provide opportunities to employees and students to visit America for training, said a handout.

The centre would work for the development of water energy and agriculture sectors. Under an agreement between the USAID and the Higher Education Commission the former would spend $127 million on four centres to be set up in Agriculture University, Faisalabad, MUET, Peshawar University and National University of Science and Technology (NUST).