Pakistan Crisis - Seven Problem, Seven Solutions #54 Raju, If you talk of statistics, Riaz Haq is much better than you. If you talk about ground reality, there are 250+ million slumdogs. What success? My Foot...

Anyways, I find myself incapable of dealing intelligent people like you. So it is my last post for you. Good luck.

Pakistan Crisis - Seven Problem, Seven Solutions #51 raju, every line of your post shows tons of ignorance, loads of bias and heck of gutterness.

If Indian primary schools had somewhat average standards of education, you would have known the role of world bank and the types of loans and aids it provides.

I am surprised how indians call themselves a success story and compare it to Pakistan. I will be ashamed if Pakis ever look towards a billion people slum and ever try to follow them. India is a gutter and will remain one for the forseeable future.

Best regards

Pakistan Crisis - Seven Problem, Seven Solutions #45 Dear Riaz, Inspite of any difference of opinion, we might have, I really am impressed by your statistics skills. :)

Pakistan Crisis - Seven Problem, Seven Solutions hahaha Kamath. I hate delusional Pakis. I hate delusional hindus even more.

Hindustan is a gutter and will remain one for the forseeable future.

regards,

Pakistan Crisis - Seven Problem, Seven Solutions #30 Riaz Haq: What Pakistan needs is leaders who can deliver sustained economic growth of 7-8% creating at least two million jobs a year to provide necessary personal incomes and public revenues to spend on education, healthcare and other human development endeavors.


Yes. Fuc**** economic growth comes like Man-o-salva to the promised people. Kuffars are stupid enough to invest in a war torn country. And all oil reserves will flow towards Pakistan to make this type of growth happen. In which sector will God create these two million Jobs every year? Or educating our youth on "Kill the kafir for toheen e risalat" will increase per capita income? Health care, my foot. Vaccination is haram and iodized salt is jewish conspiracy.

Pakistan Crisis - Seven Problem, Seven Solutions Dr Sahib, Perhaps the worst article of yours... :) (What can I say, you have already set a high standard bar for your articles.)

Pakistan is already in the state of civil war. And it is already a failed state. No matter , how delusional Pakis try to defend it, I believe that we have all those ingredients which make a failed state.

And I believe there is no way to fix this mess. A religious state created in the name of religion and consistently reminded about it, secularism is the last thing which can happen to that land.

I remember, when Mushy introduced "Free Media" policy, people like me were waiting for free thinking revolution. Last time, when I visited Pakistan, I saw that religion has taken over all channels. PTV was perhaps the sanest channel. On rest of them, every tom dick and harry was coming and issuing fatwas of every kind. Earth quake in NWFP was in news and inspite of the fact that these bastards were getting money and aid from kafirs like amrika, europe and even cuba, there telecast was like: "O God, we are the chosen people. Please help us." (Yes, God was helping them through Kuffar's humanism.)

Pakis remind me of "Dolay Shah kay Choohay". When they are born, iron caps of religion are installed on their heads. And when they grwo up, they take of these hats and give it to their children.

Odd Jobs Atlast, something interesting on chowk...

It\'s Yet Another Pakistani Nuclear Anniversary Today Dr. Hoodbhoy... I have a lot of respect for you...

But seriously, logic in your articles lacks touch of a world class researchers... How instability in Pakistan has something to do with nuclear weapons ? (Actually, whatever stability is left in the country, nuclear bomb is one major reason for it.). Either it is 1971, or it is 2009, India looks for ways to destabilize the country... If they are reluctant to step in, it is only because of military strength...

If building technology for defense was this bad, the world would have never seen internet, moon mission, sattelites etc... For every first world country, bleeding edge technology is developed for defense purposes. And the same technology finds civilian uses in later years... Just start counting inventions resulting from 2nd world war...

Dr. Sahib, Actual problem lies somewhere else... And you are confusing the people more by blaming everything on nuclear bomb...

regards,
Charlie

What\'s Wrong With Imran Khan? Taliban , in a recent meeting with tableeghi Jamaat mullahs, told them that members of Tableeghi jamaat were sisters for them as Talbeeghi Mullahs are afraid of picking guns and limited themselves to girly activities of "dawa with peace."...

I am not sure if they are planning to send Choorian to Raiwind or not...

What\'s Wrong With Imran Khan? Yes. I was also disappointed by Imran's article published a few days back...

Imran Khan was best at playing cricket... And then at fund raising... He should limit himself to the things he is good at...

Sufi Muhammed...No More a Joke BB, Jhang is a city. Jang is the newspaper...

Sorry to deviate from the topic though...

Guerrilla Warriors...Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? Let's take an example, Let's say X's father is known as a "Bewaqoof" admi by most around him. But X will call him a "Masoom, Simple, Seedha Sada" person. Similarly, Y's father is known as a "Selfish SoB" by rest of the world, while Y will call him a "Dunya Dar", "Smart" and "Samajhdar" person.


So whoever is upset by Dr. Sohail's article, is upset that a personality for which he had some sympathy is being lined with a similar personality for which he had no sympathy. Dr. Sahib's only mistake was that he defined two categories and put Bewaqoofi amd Simplicity in the same one.

Lahore Terror Attack Targeting Sri Lankan Team: Who is behind it? So any plans to convert Qaddafi Stadium to a Sabzi Mandi now? Obviously, there is no other use left... What about using it for beheading adulterers ?

How Greed Ruins Academia Kindly find in attachment my response to Dr. Hoodbhoys article “How greed ruins academia�. I sent this letter to Dawn on Feb 10, 2009 but for some unknown reasons the Editor did not consider my response worth publication, while it has published letters in favor of Dr. Hoodbhoy.

Objectivity of Academic Council’s Decisions at QAU

Professor Pervez A. Hoodbhoy in his article “How greed ruins academia� appearing in Dawn February 09, 2009 has discussed the merit of two decisions taken by Academic Council of Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU).

The first decision was not to concede to the demand of Professor Hoodbhoy to transfer certain powers for faculty appointments from the University’s Selection Board to particular department. The Academic Council did not agree with the proposal in order to minimize the role of powerful chairpersons in victimizing candidates for teaching positions on the basis of personal and ideological liking or disliking. As an elected member of the QAU Syndicate I am aware of how Chairman of a department tried to misuse his authority in destroying the career of his junior colleague, a bright Assistant Professor. First, the chairman recommended termination of his colleague just because he could not perform well in a short seminar in which he was not allowed to speak freely beyond a few minutes. The chairman ignored several teaching evaluation reports filled by students, recommendations of foreign referees and an enviable research record of the concerned teacher, who produced many more research articles in the past five years than the chairman himself. The Syndicate, where majority consists of prominent academicians from outside QAU, a supreme-court judge and a senior officer from the HEC, rejected the chairman’s recommendation. The chairman then tried to deny his same colleague the right to join as Assistant Professor on Tenure Track System (TTS) despite recommendation of Selection Board and approval by Syndicate. The Syndicate had to intervene and the aforementioned Assistant Professor’s joining was finally accepted by the Vice Chancellor himself.

With this backdrop of nonacademic considerations, the Academic Council took a wise decision in not giving veto powers to departments and rather voted to continue relying on foreign referees’ reports and recommendations of Selection Board in which chairperson of the concerned department, two of his/her nominees as subject experts and Dean of the faculty also participate along with several external members.

The second decision taken by the Academic Council was to abolish the condition of passing Graduate Record Examination (GRE) for obtaining PhD degree in any subject. This condition was faulty to begin with for several reasons.

During the 1970s and 1980s GRE used to be considered as one of the several yardsticks for measuring suitability of candidates from all over the world with diverse educational standards, seeking admission in certain American universities. But years of experience has shown that the value of these examinations is quite limited because it is much easy to secure good marks by mastering specific tricks to minimize the proportion of incorrect answers with little knowledge of the subject. This is the very reason why GRE has remained confined to a few North American universities. Most top-ranking universities in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia, Australia and Japan do not require GRE in any subject. GRE in certain subjects, like economics has now been abolished and even the top-ranking USA universities such as Harvard, MIT, Chicago, Columbia, John Hopkins, no more require GRE in these subjects.

Another reason why GRE was scrapped was that it was recommended as a requirement for obtaining PhD degree, not for obtaining admission into the PhD program for which it was originally designed. Imposing this condition will degrade the value of our PhD degree.

Yet another reason was that GRE examination is offered in few subjects only. In most of the disciplines, like electronics, geophysics, statistics, computer, IT, economics, international relations and history, no GRE is offered. What is the merit of developing a local GRE test in these subjects if the masterminds of the test did not consider GRE desirable, in certain cases after years of bad experience?

As regards greed, the amount that the University pays for successful supervision of a PhD thesis is Rs 60,000, which is equal to just six working days salary of Professor Hoodbhoy, who considers himself head and shoulder above the rest of his community. In the subject of economics of which I have a fairly good idea, if a supervisor gives two hours a week to his/her PhD student for three years it amounts to about 300 hours. If this amount of time is used to teach an undergraduate course in a private-sector university, one can earn five to ten times more money. A plumber with little formal education earns about twice as much in 300 hours as a PhD thesis supervisor The only reason a university teacher supervises a thesis is that it adds to his/her research profile.

Being an old colleague of Professor Hoodbhoy I am aware of his enormous academic potential. Unfortunately over the past few years he has lost his race in academics and has turned his attention to media for glorification. I, like most of my colleagues, do not have unlimited time and energy to respond to his continuous criticism through print and electronic media. All I can ask him is to disclose to general public the number of PhD theses and research articles published in academic journals to his credit during the past 10 years. I also request him to disclose to general public the data source for his magic number of 80% of the university teachers who do not know the art of teaching.


Dr. Eatzaz Ahmad
Professor of Economics
Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad
Emails: eatzaz@qau.edu.pk

How Greed Ruins Academia Hoodbhoy reminds me of "Zakir-e-Sham-e-Ghariban". Now, it is debatable if education system in Pakistan is as horrible as was the death of Hussain and co.

How Greed Ruins Academia #13 About ring wing professors taking control of Paki universities:

When I used to be a student, I felt that most of my religious minded friends opted to go back to Pakistan as they had trouble finding "Halal food", offering prayers during working hours, trying to find a lota for washroom (and some of them used to convert washrooms into swimming polls during their lotafication process) etc etc. They genuinely missed Pakistan and they ended up in Pakistan.

On the other hand, "liberal and secular" friends had no trouble with tissue papers in toilet, halal/haram and namaz stuff. Rather they were happy that they could have girl friends and evenings in bars and pubs. They got jobs in multinationals, opted to stay abroad to concentrate on careers instead of wasting their knowledge in Pakistan. (Exceptions are everywhere and I do have a lot of respect for someone who has the courage to sacrifice his career for his country.). So, most of them ended up in the west.

So, when all religious people go back to Pakistan and seculars remain abroad, what will happen to universities in Pakistan. They will be full of right wing Molvis. Well, That's what exactly happened to most of the universities.