Dear Chowk Readers

I am not sure if I can be of any service but if you need an accounting major based in Minnesota State University Mankato I can always help out!

Also I am forwarding your message to all Pakistanis in this university and other universities in Minnesota (we have a good network here) so that whoever is interested can help out.

The best way for a country to develop is by focusing its resources on science and technology. Your efforts in this regard are just awesome!

Dear Dr. Hoodbhoy,

My introduction is that i am Ph.D student at University of delaware USA, in the Electrical Engineering department.

I have been a regular reader of your aritcles and books, and i sincerely admire your effort to boost scientific and rational thinking among people of Pakistan. My best wishes for the success of all your efforts.

One thing I would like to add is, your emphasis on pure science education is very rational and comply with its importance in growth of a civilized nation, but i would also request you to shed some light on Technological aspects of science, that are immensely affecting our way of life.

In this respect, there is a rapidly advancing field of Information Technology which needs our attention. The potential entailed in the particular field, if tapped properly can atleast get Pakistan out of its economic turmoil.

Nowadays Science & Technology ministry is working in this direction but due to lack of experts in said field, in my opinion they are not making much progress as was expected.

I would request you to write some words in this regard.

Wassalam

Muzammil Iqbal Khan

Dear chowk, this is my very first mail.i am still getting to know the way u all work, as this is the first time i have visited this site. i am a medical student, doing my 3rd yr in M.B;B.S.i do not think that i fit into any of the afore mentioned options for help,but i would really want to know how i can b of help to people who want to make a difference in our society & in our nation, as i don`t think that merely writing about problems, can bring about solutions.

Regards, Bushra.

Dear Dr. Hoodbhoy,

I am a student of Veterinary Microbiology and I am a great admirer of your books and articles. I have read your book ``Religious Orthodoxy and the way to Rationalism`` and also gave it to my friends to read it - if only it could be translated in Urdu to benefit larger community, we have to cultivate a culture of rationalism in our masses and for that we have to use our local languages. Inspite of the opposition there are still many people in our country who are thirsty for such stuff.

I must commend you for opting for television to spread the message of science and that too in Urdu. I can`t help you technically but can give humble donation for the success of your noble project. One more thing, can I get copy of Bazm e Qainat series from you, I will pay.

I hope to have a long friendship with you.

Bye Bye,

Manzoor Ahmed Cheema.

Dear Perwaiz sahib ASA

I was very happy to see your colums in the Chowk Magazine and was inspired by your initiative for science and technology in Pakistan.

being a physician I have several things in my mind which if developed scientifically can help alleviate many problems in pakistan. I am here in US nut my heart i s in Pakistan and spend more than 2hours daily reading articles comments about Pakistan. However your initiative is an exciting one and prompted me to at least share my idea with others in the same field.

``

EMERGENCY MEDICINE and AMBULATORY CRITICAL CARE``

THIS IS ONE FIELD IN WHICH I WANT DEVOTE MY TIME AND ENERGY . We need to devlop a system of EMERGENCY MEDICINE in our country so that services could be provided at the door of patient. In emergency just transferring patient in an ambulance without urgent medicacal care actually breaks the chain of life and we read numerous numeruos reports stating p``patient was tranferred to hospital by ambulance but could not succumbed to injuries or illness``.Disabilities resulting from inappropriate patient transfer are probably never realised or reported.

I wish we could have a scientific way of transferring patient from the scene to the hospital and provide all necessary arrangement enroute.

Abid Mohiuddin MD

Internist and Emergency room Physician

reply to shekhar #42: if india is doing so good then how come per capita GDP of Pakistan is twice that of India. The new prosperity in india you are talking about now, we Pakistanis are used to it for a long time.

I greatly appreciate the efforts done by Dr. Hoodbhoy all his life not only for exposing the bigotry done in the name of science and Islamic science etc but the positive contribution of his vision in the form of this and other efforts.

I am a firm believer in God. But this in no way hinders my attitude towards science. Although it hinders my vision of free society.

The reason is simple.

Science does not make laws and phenomenon. It discovers them and utilize them. Those laws are already present and made by God. Now if a religion is a true religion, it cannot contradict those laws and phenomenon.

Or was there a need for God to make laws and phenomenon contradictory to religious teachings to confuse the people, for all times.

With this simple thing in mind. I don`t stop pursuing a scientific study because it will ultimately lead to truth.

Religion is a powerful tool and each age reflect its notion of religion according the stage of development. And in this democratic age there is no way we can have any other vision of religion but democratic and still be an advanced society.

And my above remarks in no way contradict the truth of religion and God. It only shatters the superstructure of religion which has been erected in past as true religion.

Complex but explainable.

if english is the language of science then how come the people in countries like japan, germany, france, korea, china, russia(list is pretty long) become engineers and scientists. if urdu is not a scientific language then how come Osmania University before the Indian occupation of Hyderabad state produced such a wonderfull class of engineers and doctors who when migrated to Pakistan were among the best.

- I think you should direct your advice to General Musharraf who should now direct the state resources to science education instead of senselessly incarcerating businessmen for being ambitious in trying to industrialize. He can get rid of the army of ardalis and start training technicians who can spill over to the private sector for one.

Dr Hoodbhoy`s pol email is bouncing my emails back for the last few days. Please see the problem.

India is our enemy

By MARION LLOYD

Special to the Chronicle

BHAIR SODIAN, Pakistan - In a dusty courtyard of the Bhair Sodian primary school, 200 female students squat in the dirt, their headscarves the only protection against the blazing sun . While the older girls pore over tattered textbooks, the rest swat flies with their ragged tunics and draw circles in the earth.

The sole teacher - the only one of five assigned to the school to actually turn up - has no choice but to hold class outside. The airless schoolhouse lacks electricity and is an inferno in all but the coldest months. There are no bathrooms and no blackboards. And for most students, no learning.

It is a typical government school in Pakistan, where the literacy rate is roughly 30 percent and half the children never attend class. Many Pakistanis blame state apathy and corruption, not poverty, for the country`s poor education record.

``The government doesn`t care. They have no idea what conditions we have here,`` said Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar, head of the school committee for this village of rice farmers, 60 miles south of the provincial capital of Lahore. He said the last time any government official visited the school was four years ago.

Critics claim that tens of millions of dollars earmarked for education in Pakistan never reach the children and instead go into the pockets of corrupt officials or teachers who never show up in class. They cite as one of the most glaring examples the country`s so-called ghost schools, institutions that have received government money but were not built or lie vacant. Some estimates put the number of fake schools across Pakistan at 20,000.

Such rampant corruption is considered the principal reason Pakistanis almost universally supported the Oct. 12 military coup that toppled the civilian government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif is accused of illegally amassing $100 million in unpaid taxes, loan defaults and embezzled funds - only a fraction of the $5 billion that analysts estimate was siphoned off nationwide during a decade of democratically elected governments.

Education officials acknowledge the existence of the ghost schools, but they claim their hands were tied by the powerful feudal elite who dominated the now-defunct Parliament.

``This is the fault of the group of feudals that have been sent home. They were the biggest bottleneck,`` said Munir Ahmed, a senior adviser in the federal Education Secretariat. ``They would see that teachers were recruited and then worked in their fields.``

The impact of such corruption can be felt in the country`s grim education profile. Officially, 45 percent of Pakistan`s population is considered able to read and write. Most experts, though, say that Pakistan`s real literacy rate is closer to 30 percent. By comparison, India, which has roughly half the gross domestic product, or GDP, per resident, has a literacy rate of 63 percent.

Pakistan also spends far less on education than most developing nations - 2.2 percent of GDP compared with the 5.8 percent it spends on the military.

That disparity bodes ill for efforts to get democracy to take root in this nation of 140 million people. The country has been under military rule for 25 of its 52 years of independence and is now in the throes of its fourth military dictatorship.

``You can`t talk of democracy in a country where you don`t understand what democracy is,`` said Fareeha Zafar, an education expert who runs a chain of donor-funded primary schools in Punjab, Pakistan`s most populous province. She blames government neglect of the education sector for the abysmal attendance levels at public schools.

Only half of school-going children attend public schools. The rest attend either one of the private schools that have sprung up across the country in the past decade, or Islamic seminaries, where education consists of memorizing the Koran and receiving religious indoctrination.

The result is an increasing gap between the rich and poor, who cannot afford to pay the $5 per child per month fee for the private schools where conditions - if not the quality of schooling - are significantly better.

Many private schools are run by profiteers, who capitalize on villages where there are no schools. Their teachers typically have little more than an eighth-grade education. But the villagers are lured by false promises that their children will learn English, a must for upward social mobility in Pakistan.

Since the early 1990s, Pakistan has been under heavy pressure from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to increase emphasis on primary education as a condition for loans. But experts say rather than focus on the quality of education, the government has simply built more schools. Meanwhile, the percentage of students enrolled in rural areas has actually fallen, an 8 percent decline for boys and 1 percent for girls.

``It`s an enormous failure,`` said Fawad Shams, an education analyst based in Lahore, Nawaz Sharif`s home city. ``Education here is really a joke.``

With 600,000 teachers in Punjab alone, education is also big business.

According to Mehnaz Akbar, an education expert with the private Asia Foundation, the corruption extends from the prime minister to the school janitor. She said many teachers were required to pay $200 to $1,400 for a job. They are then guaranteed a monthly salary of $75 to $100 for life - even if they never turn up in the classroom.

Many collect their salaries and then work in more lucrative jobs or as household servants for rich legislators, who often hand-pick teachers in violation of the law, she said. In addition, absentee teachers pay as much as 50 percent of their official wages to local education supervisors.

Other critics point to the content of the schooling, which they say legitimizes the ideal of the strong state.

In order to advance from the fifth grade, students must be able to identify ``forces that may be working against Pakistan,`` according to the government curriculum guidelines. They must also know in detail about Pakistan`s three wars with India, be able to identify the differences between Hindus and Muslims and explain the need for an independent Muslim state. Perhaps more worrisome for efforts to promote peace, they must be able to make speeches on the ideals of the jihad (Islamic holy war) and martyrdom.

The impact of that curriculum becomes obvious in interviews with students.

``India is our enemy and it should be destroyed,`` said Fatima Omardin, 12, a student at the Bhair Sodian school. The town is 15 miles from Pakistan`s border with India. She added that not all Indians were enemies, saying ``Muslim Indians are good. Hindus are bad.``

Asked where she learned that, the other female students piped up, ``The teacher told us.``

Even more radical philosophies are propagated in many of the Islamic seminaries, whose number has doubled from 3 ,000 to nearly 6,000 during the past five years. The schools, known as madrassas, are widely blamed for the rise in militant Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. They are exempt from the state curriculum and lure students from the poorest families with the promise of free tuition, room and board.

Muhammad Shabir, 12, a student at the Arabic Farroquia madrassa in Arifwala town, in central Punjab, said his parents pulled him out of a government primary school last year because the teacher never came.

Now, he said, ``I can concentrate on the glory of jihad.``

Sir ,

Being a fan of your work ..I figured I should try my little bit in helpin out your ide about promoting these programs in local languages ( in my case it being Pashto ) I contacted a few friends and asked them to pass your info on ..I was disappointed in the end to find out that people in peshawar university `s pakhto acdemy and science dep ..showing little interest in the idea..it not being worth their time or so they say ..a damning indcitment if I ever heard one on people in Pakistans opinion of their own languages ..if I ever heard one ..still I am bhopeful ..of eventually finding someone ...

Re. anamika (#16)

I understand what you are saying, and largely agree with it. However, the results of trying to create TV programs on basic science (e.g., milk curdling)have been terribly dull. We need to learn something from the way these things are done in the West. I have a 4-year old daughter and we watch a lot of learning shows for kids --- from Blue`s Clues and Sesame Street to The Crocodile Hunter and National Geographic (she loves animals) --- and I am surprised at how much she absorbs. I think even very young kids are ready to be charmed by science Look at how dinosaurs have caught on. Or how Star Wars has caught the imagination of kids. I do not think that shows about extrasolar planets and evolution would interest only older children. I remember being fascinated by these things (in a simple way) at a much younger age --- and that was when we just had books, no sexy TV with great color footage. As I said, it is true that such things may not have a very wide audience initially, but the point is to seed the soil.

At the same time, I do think that the way things are presented will be crucial, and relating science to life wherever possible is a good technique. I think a show like Connections is the quintessential example of this approach.

Ali Minai

In response to Dr. Hoodbhoy (message #23)

The point wasn`t to single out, say, the philosophy of science. Rather, my suggestion was on giving at least some exposure to the nature and methodology of science itself, rather than dumb-down extreamly complicated topics for the sake of ``marketing`` science. If it is ``dull`` to some, then so be it. Science is not for them.

In any case, I wish the endevour a good future.

Bon chance.

Re: Goga, #24

It`s for you to figure out God. Don`t blame science for your any religious doubts or insecurities. Leave science out of it.

Re: FARANGI_KUSH, #13

The biggest challenge for the enlightened Musharraf is not the economically bankrupt Pakistan or its morally bankrupt politicians. It is the Farangi Kushes of Pakistan. How do you make the ignorants understand the modern world? This is the challenge that Islamic world failed about 500 years ago, and look where it satnds today. Pakistan and Musharraf cannot afford to fail this challenge now, or Pakistan is doomed.

Farangi, may I ask, if you think you are so much better than the farangis, then what the hell are you doing living in the ``farangi land``?

By the way, the jahalat shown by FARANGI_KUSH is post #13! No. 13! Is it coincidence or what! Isn`t it interesting!!!