After getting over with exams, children look forward to summer vacations, but soon find it to be boring if they have nothing to do. There is good news for the parents to engage their children in some constructive work to explore their hidden talents and make use of their time in a constructive way. I visited the Saudi Aramco Cultural Program in Dammam and it is beyond description what I found there. There are different places for different activities like 1001 Inventions, Ice Park, Generation Oasis, a food court and many others. In one go, one can only visit one stall as they have many activities for kids. When I visited Generation Oasis, I found different experiments done by children who could make their own models and get the scientific concepts clear. There was one section of how the world would be in 2050 and it would be transformed into virtual world. There was a very interesting place where in a playful manner kids are taught traffic rules and they drive their own cars getting a license. One section comprised of robotics and kids playing games like football, gymnastics, and weight lifting with the help of robots. I request the parents to make use of the time and to visit such a place where you will find your child getting away from cell phones, computer games to utilize their potential to do some constructive work. (Mumtaz Rizvi, Dammam)
Journalistic activism
After the spectacular performance of judicial activism by the Pakistani Supreme Court during last few weeks, we witnessed an outstanding act of journalistic activism on June 25. That afternoon all of a sudden all TV channels were in the grip of only one breaking news that President Zardari has commuted the death sentence of an Indian spy Sarabjit Singh who was earlier convicted in 1990 bomb blast case. That was enough for the right-wing media mongers and religious parties to create havoc on electronic media. Most of the TV talk shows campaigned with each other to condemn president’s humanitarian act to release a prisoner who has already spent 21 years in jail. By late evening, President’s spokesman clarified that Sarabjit Singh’s sentence has not been commuted but another Indian spy Surjeet Singh is being released. As Surjeet Singh, who was serving life sentence, has already spent 30 years in jail, therefore, it was considered illegal to keep him imprisoned beyond the stipulated punishment period.
If we keep aside the mix-up of spies names which kicked the right-wingers to get ready for street demonstrations, my only question to these religious parties and their media-mongers who must have spent a sleepless night on June 25: Why there was no hue and cry and condemnation when last Sunday Taleban attacked Pakistan army posts in Upper Dir wherein score of soldiers were killed and injured. Later Taleban released a video showing the remains of 17 beheaded Pakistani soldiers. Why the religious parties maintained a pin drop silence on the Dir atrocity. What should we call this — hypocrisy, double standard or simply can’t afford to even pay lip service to condemn our own blue-eyed boys! (Masood Khan, Jubail)
Kangaroo court
This refers to the letter “Kangaroo court.” It was unfair to say that Pakistan’s apex court disregarded the principles of law and justice. The reality is quite the other way around. Our present judiciary has always been generous enough by giving ample time to the defendants especially dealing in cases of the ruling party, Pakistan’s Peoples Party (PPP). The chief justice rightly asked while pronouncing the judgment that how can a convicted person be the representative of 180 million people? This was the basic plea taken by the petitioners, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf. The chief justice in his order said that the Speaker was not an appellate authority to overrule the verdict of a trial court. Besides, he clarified that “since no appeal was filed against this judgment, the conviction has attained finality, therefore, Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani had become disqualified from being a member of the Parliament in line with the article 63(1)(g) of the constitution and he also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan with effect from April 26, 2012.” It seems, the writer Masood Khan who named it a judicial coup was not aware of the complete facts of this case. (Farooq Iqbal, Riyadh)
Letter — Summer break
