Essays

Poverty in Pakistan

Pakistan is world’s 6th largest country in terms of population and its population is
mostly rural. The rural population of Pakistan is totally depending on agriculture. As
in most cases where the canal system is lacking or on arid lands, the production of
food is limited as agriculture is said to be subsistence and meager to provide extra
costs associated to quality of life. The quality of life is the measure of development,
the more the development, the better the quality of life. A better life means, better
education, health and sanitation facilities and better future associated for young
population.

The rural areas are relatively poor with respect to urban areas and about 33 percent
of the population is living below poverty line. The determination of poverty line in
Pakistan to measure absolute poverty is differing from rest of world. There are
several techniques to measure the poverty and in Pakistan, poverty line is
measured according to caloric intake technique according to which about 25000 kilo
calories are required for a single individual to be out of poverty.

There are many developments initiatives in order to reduce or contain poverty. Non-
state actors like United Nations have designed interventions all over the world and
in Pakistan for poverty reduction. Human Development Index, which is calculated
annually for all developed and developing countries in order to know the extent of
their well-being of human life, was first proposed by a Pakistani social scientist, Mr.
Mehboob-ul-Haq when he was working in UNDP. Since then, Human Development
Index is calculated all over the world.

My Aim in Life

Human being has been given some specific attributes which other creatures have
not been given by Almighty Allah and at same time, the responsibilities are also
allocated to human beings. After getting particular education, a human being has to
set a specific aim in order to achieve success in life. The success in life is only
possible when one is focusing on aim or goal of life. The aim could be to become a
professional doctor, for example, or to become a engineer, to become social
scientists or dentist. So aims are diverse and their selection is based on an
individual’s appetite.

My aim in life is to become a renowned social scientist. Socio-economic

development is core to nations’ development. First to attain my aim, I have planned
to get quality education leading me to particular specialization like degree of
Philosophy in sociology or economics or social work.

My reason to strive for this aim has been driven by the fact that no human life could
be better off unless accessibility to reasonable resources is provided like better
health opportunities, better education and better quality of life. The inequality in
human settlements is the second reason as my appetite asked me a lot of questions
like why there is inequality, why women are part of decision making process, why
children of poor are deprived of basic human needs. All these questions have
answers and to look for and investigate for these answers, someone should seek
professional training in social science so that he or she can describe the
phenomenon.

I do have convictions that I can make the change and this conviction is the one of
powers leading and driving me to achieve my goal.

A Good Citizen

Citizenship is an honor and all individuals living in a specific county by birth are
considered citizens. Every individual is allocated a citizen number and in Pakistan
this citizen number is provided as National Identity Card Number.

Some says that man is a social animal and many scholars in past have given the
human habits based on greed, monopoly and subjugation of weaker. In reality, as
Islam has given the clear statement that a human being either a man or a woman is
better than all other creatures of God. That’s why Islam has said that saving the life
of an individual means saving all humanity and killing an innocent individual means
killing of all humanity. So man is not a social animal in a civilized world.

The duties of a good citizen first includes to understand his own rights and then to
preserve the rights of others, to avoid conflicts, and live a peaceful life without
harming anybody. Moreover, its duties include respect of law and to abide by the
social, cultural, and legal norms. A good citizen always contributes to the
development of its own being and also the development of collective citizens, he
contributes to the security of his country.

A man as a human being is the unit of a complete society and if one unit is not
doing well, all other units might have its impact. So everybody has to fulfill his own
responsibilities so that no bad impact could be seen in a society.

Pleasure of College Life

When children are sent to their schools, they should be provided an encouraging
environment so that they like to go to schools. College life is different from schools
in many respects. Students are more independent in colleges and more options to
participate actively in different events like debates, games and educational events.

The importance of college life is apparent as it forms the future of students.

Students learn how to study effectively, they identify the role teachers, they learn
how to respect teachers and they develop their education aptitude during college
life.

College life is basically focused to draw lines for future endeavors. Most important
aspect of college life is that it provides basic qualification to contest in professional
exams, provides access to employment opportunities. In college life, students also
learn how to compete for success while only increasing their own abilities. This
promotes the concept of respect for merit.

College life’s important aspect is extra-curriculum activities. These activities include

games, debates and contributing on different forums. These activities are important
in order to establish confidence in students and enhance their role in both academic
and social life. It provides also the exposure to other students and definitely a
learning environment.

The college life also provides the best extract of good students who are leaders in
future expeditions in their chosen careers. The leaders are those who are
distinguished from others in many respects as they have the abilities to come up
out of crises successfully and they are able to lead others.

Education system which is same for all will better contribute to provide best
individuals to serve in different departments but the education system in Pakistan is
lacking the basic principle to provide equal education for all, although some
technical and vocational institutes should develop their own trained students.

College life is unforgettable for me as I was the one who won many titles in games
and also in academic grounds. I have developed a wonderful group of friends and all
are dedicated to their goals.

Newspapers

Newspapers and magazines are the only main form of print media and they are
contributing agents in overall media industry. They are important as they provide
daily updates on news, events and current affairs.

Newspapers are considered as a responsible media which is adherent to the

national interests and portray the true pictures for the population. They play an
important role in deriving decision process within nations. They preserve, respect
and analyze histories of nations, gather most appropriate and relevant information.

Since newspapers are run by professional journalists, the journalism appears as a

delicate profession in which the professionals have responsibilities of nation building
and opinion building. Newspapers also contribute to provide the best opinion pages
for population so that they can understand the logic behind socio-economic and
other aspects of everyday life.

Newspapers are one of pillars of strong nations and this sect of media is mostly
sensitive for population who rely on them. Newspapers are also published in
different languages like in Pakistan we can newspapers in all regional languages and
also in two main languages of Urdu and English.
Newspapers also provide recreational material for general population. On
entertainment pages, they provide most up to date changes in film, TV and Theater
activities. They provide review of the population on these electronic media matters.

Newspapers also provide information on national, regional and international

economic decisions. The market dynamics are collected to be shared with
individuals of nations. The newspapers are also focused on international order in
order to provide information on global level.

The Earthquake Tragedy

Pakistan has some of its areas on fault line. In history Pakistan has seen many
devastating earthquake shocks like in Quetta and also recently in 2005 in
Muzaffarabad and parts of NWFP. Although man has developed huge technological
advantages and has also acquired knowledge to counter many of its survival
threats, but natural disasters are out of control of humanity.

Earthquake has systematic reasons based on movements of Earth’s Plates. The

exact movement of these plates is hardly known to seismologists and so they are
not able to predict the exact time of the disaster. Similarly in Pakistan, a huge lose
was attributed to the 2005 earthquake.

Almighty have powers behind it and no one can know how to secure in the situation
like in past. The destruction caused by earthquake in parts of Pakistan was diverse
and huge proportion of population was affected by it, mostly the children, women
and old age population was affected. Lot of school children were fall under collapsed
buildings and some parts were even inaccessible for rescue work.

The rescue work was immensely started with the help of public and private
departments, institutes. In history, civil society played a tremendous role to help the
vulnerable communities in affected communities. Some buildings in Islamabad like
Margalla Towers were collapsed and human lose was also there. The material
damage could be borne but the human lose could never be repatriated.

We should develop our metrological departments on lines of timely warnings and

population living on fault lines should be guided to shift. Moreover, natural disasters
could not be stopped by human powers unless Almighty save humans but the
rescue departments should be furnished with advance skills and rescue operation
techniques.

Technical Education
Technical education along with general education is as much important for a country
as the air for survival. The public sector could never produce better economic
outputs unless there are a cadre technically educated people.

Technical education is different from liberal education as it focused on time driven

technological learning. Modern state system requires people who are able to run
modern machines in industrial sector and without industry no any country can
integrate development to its economy.

Moving from traditional agricultural economy to modern industrial and

manufactured economy is the aim of every developing country and Pakistan should
focus on technical education as it still needs its industry to flourish.

Technical education would be a success if vocational training is added to the

principle. In Pakistan, the industrial process is in passive situation but present
always there and should be added with the help technical education.

One process should be introduced that technical education could be aligned with
the liberal education. By this way, the population would be able to select objectively
the best for them to have higher and technical education. Since most of the
population in Pakistan is rural, and therefore there is a need to develop rural
industries. These industries could be based on farm lands, livestock farms and fruits
forms etc. The food processing is one of the successful industries in world and there
should be a focus in Pakistan too.

So for economic development, technical education and its usage should be there
and rural industries should also be developed.

Natural Disaster

Natural disasters are of many types ranging from heavy rains, floods, typhoons,
fatigue, and earthquake etc. In Pakistan, we have history of heavy rains causing
floods, and earthquakes. Natural disasters could not be stopped by human
endeavors rather they could be avoided by adopting disaster management
procedures. These procedures could be attributed as pre-warnings and education to
population.

Disasters defer human life activities and they can pose severe danger to life on
earth generally and human life particularly. These calamities and disasters eradicate
human progress and life become stagnant as for example, the floods can destroy
fields of crops and left cultivatable land as covered with mud and sand. All form of
life on earth is endangered by these disasters and most severe disaster is
earthquake during which less time is available for humans to retaliate.

Disasters are associated to every part of the earth and we have examples of
Tsunami and Katrina which had left masses of human beings dead and with lost
physical properties. Also it is not possible to develop measures to cut short the
effects of the Tsunami type of disasters as they are totally hidden and revealed
suddenly, although someone can adopt measure against floods, fatigues etc
provided proper education is delivered to the population and also disaster
management institute’s capacities are build.

In Pakistan we should develop the institutes of disaster management. After the

earthquake in previous years, some steps are taken to develop institutes but their
progress is more focused to build the damage so that no further vulnerabilities exit.