This monitor is meant to identify major developments in the context of youth-related issues and policies in Pakistan. This study will help in identifying key trends and topics of interest among the youth of Pakistan and may also contribute towards removing certain hurdles that exist in the way of bringing forth pro-youth reforms.
Prime Minister launches ‘Innovation Hub’ to Empower youth
July 01, 2022 Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announcd the government has launched an ‘Innovation Hub’, a platform to facilitate exchange of ideas between the public and policymakers, as it looks to empower the youth. Effective participation of citizens in policy making has the potential to renew the relationship between government and citizens. The PM, in his address at the inaugural ceremony of the hub, said: “Modern science is the need of the hour, as nations move forward only through education, research and debate[1].”
Govt to provide laptops to 100,000 students: SAPM
July 19, 2022 Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Youth Affairs Shaza Fatima Khawaja has said that the work on Prime Minister’s Laptop Scheme is in progress, under which free laptops will be distributed among 100,000 youth of government universities and colleges soon. Under the scheme, high quality laptops will be provided to the youth purely on merit, she said while talking to APP on Monday.
“These laptops will be provided to all PhD and post graduate students while the top performers in undergraduate programs will also be included in the scheme” she informed. She said that the quota for the students of Balochistan has been doubled in the laptop scheme, while the quota has also been allocated for the disabled students, adding, 50 percent quota has been allocated for women in scheme.
As many as 100,000 youth, she said, will be trained in skills and information technology through Prime Minister Skilled Programme, she remarked. She said that the Prime Minister Youth Program was started by the Pakistan Muslim League (N) government in 2013, which included 6 steps to empower the youth[2].
Youth Conference: Speakers for complete reorientation of policy towards youth ( July 02, 2022, Karachi)
Speakers at seminar on Friday urged that the present education system in the country is flawed and there is a need for complete reorientation of policy toward youth to end violent trends and promote critical thinking as well as reasoning among them. They said this at the launch of the report “How Youth in Sindh View State, Society, Religion, and Politics” released by Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) here on Friday. Lawmakers, academicians, students, journalists, human rights activists, and representatives of civil society participated in the event. The report is based on a three-fold assessment including workshops providing the youth of Sindh an open forum to share their views and observations, and pre-and post-event surveys conducted by PIPS. Senior journalist and intellectual Ghazi Salahuddin said that education was the only means to provide equal opportunities to citizens. “Education is meant to be an equalizer, but it has become a divider in Pakistan.” Kapil Dev, a rights activist, said that the slogan of state was not inclusive as it represented the majority only. “The state should make its slogan inclusive. This could help the youth to become diverse and inclusive.”
Senior journalist Wusatullah Khan said that the class difference has increased in the wake of the rapid growth of private schools in the country’s education sector. He stressed that the policymakers should look into this problem. Earlier, Muhammad Amir Rana, PIP’s executive director, in his introductory remarks said that the purpose of the exercise was to identify loopholes in the education system and the issues faced by the youth. “The purpose is to share the same with the policymakers, and lawmakers to help them bring necessary changes in the curriculum and introduce new policies for the betterment of the youth,” he said. Ahmed Ali, PIPS’ program manager, shared the findings of the report with the participants. The report underlines that Sindh, the second largest province of Pakistan, has been seeing an upsurge in incidents of violence against religious, sectarian, and ethnic minorities since the beginning of the 21st century. The province, which has the largest Hindu population in the country, is also grappling with issues like forced conversion of Hindu girls and vandalization of Hindu temples, according to the study report[3].
20-year-old mountaineer from Lahore, reaches the Nanga Parbat top
Shehroze Kashif, a 20 year old mountaineer from Lahore, reached the Nanga Parbat top on Tuesday July 05, 2022 morning at around 8:54am Pakistan time. The summit is the 8th climb of over 8,000 metre of his career. He was already the youngest climber to summit the Mount Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu and the Broad Peak[4].
Sitting atop Makalu, the fifth highest mountain, the record-breaking mountaineer announced his achievement in a Twitter post, stating that he was the youngest person to summit the seven highest peaks of the world, all of which are above 8,000 metres[5].
His twitter message read: “No one believed, yet i did 3x8000m in 23 days. I was promised Rs.10 lac by govt. & i got Rs.450k only. Pakistanis fall behind due to such lack of support & interest despite proven talent & track record. I might miss Pakistan’s world record due to this behaviour. I did my best.”[6]
Two Pakistani female mountaineers Samina Baig and Naila Kiani create history
Two Pakistani female mountaineers Samina Baig and Naila Kiani created history on Friday July 22, 2022 by achieving what no other woman from the country has ever done reach the top of the second highest peak in the world, the 8,611m high K2.
Alpine Club of Pakistan confirmed that 22nd July 2022 was the busiest day on K2 in history as around 100 climbers in different groups reached the summit. The summit push started late Thursday night as soon the rope fixing teams completed their jobs. 31-year-old climber Samina Baig’s team confirmed that she, along with other members of her team, summited at 7:42am PST on Friday[7].
Pakistani students win the global Huawei competition
July 26, 2022 Sateesh Kumar, Bhagchand Meghwar and Iqra Fatima, winners of the Sixth Huawei ICT Competition 2021-2022.They were able to beat competitors from different parts of the world at the Global Final of the event held in Shenzhen, China.Mr Kumar belonged to a remote village of Tharparkar that is not even listed in maps while Bhagchand Meghwar hails from a village in Dadu district.
Out of around 12,000 applicants in Pakistan in 2021, six were selected and Huawei managers formed two teams – team 1 and 2 for Pakistan. Sateesh Kumar led team 1 which continued its winning streak to beat competitors in the global final. The competition attracted 150,000 hopeful students from more than 2,000 universities in 85 countries and regions around the world.
The first prize in the competition was $20,000 for the winning team, along with mobile phones for each participant. Public Relations Director Wu Han said the success of the 2021 competition has shown that there was huge potential of growth among Pakistani youth[8].
Youngest Deputy Speaker elected in Punjab Assembly
July 29, 2022 Mr. Wasiq Qayum Abbasi a 35-year-old politician belonging to Rawalpindi has been elected as the youngest Deputy Speaker by the members of the Punjab Assembly. Mr. Wasiq Qayum Abbasi was born on June 24, 1987 in Rawalpindi and completed Bachelor of Science in Electronics & Communication in 2013 from University of Lahore. He is a businessman, who was elected as Member, Provincial Assembly of the Punjab in General Elections 2018[9]
24 years old girl from Pakistan hired by Google
July 31, 2022 Shafiqa Iqbal, A Punjab University graduate claims that the organizations like google and Facebook value the work done in open source. Shafiqa is a native of Sadiqabad and a Punjab University graduate. Shafiqa Iqbal, a Pakistani Wonder Woman, Big Data Engineer at Google, Global Ambassador of Women in Tech, and Top-Rated Seller on Upwork. She is also knowledgeable about cloud computing, backend development, database migrations and development, ETL pipelines, and logical programming, among other things. She created scalable, dispersed solutions for businesses all across the world[10].
Balochistan jobless youth seek extension in maximum age limit (July 21, 2022)
The Jobless youth of Balochistan on Wednesday requested Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo to extend the official notification of maximum age limit for further five years. Former chief minister Balochistan Aslam Raisani had issued an administrative order increasing the government’s maximum age limit from 28 to 43 for the jobless youth of the province. The date of the notification has recently expired that created a great turmoil and agitation among people who are seeking government jobs[11].
References
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Business Recorder https://www.brecorder.com/news/40183767/pm-launches-innovation-hub-to-attract-youth-ideas accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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APP Daily Times https://dailytimes.com.pk/968604/govt-to-provide-laptops-to-100000-students-sapm/ accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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Business Recorder https://www.brecorder.com/news/40183892/youth-conference-speakers-for-complete-reorientation-of-policy-towards-youth accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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Faizan Lakhani The News https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/971783-shehroze-becomes-youngest-person-to-climb-nanga-parbat accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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Express Tribune https://tribune.com.pk/story/2364481/shehroze-summits-3-highest-peaks-in-23-days-laments-lack-of-support accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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https://twitter.com/Shehrozekashif2/status/1543191566977744898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1543191566977744898%7Ctwgr%5E5a234d73195750709ce90bb5aa3696180f633b68%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftribune.com.pk%2Fstory%2F2364481%2Fshehroze-summits-3-highest-peaks-in-23-days-laments-lack-of-support accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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Faizan Lakhani The News https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/976058-samina-naila-create-history-by-scaling-world-s-second-highest-peak-k2 accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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Kalbe Ali Dawn https://www.dawn.com/news/1701749/pakistani-students-win-laurels-in-international-competition accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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ANI https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/pakistan-punjab-assembly-speakers-elections-to-be-held-today20220729072106/ accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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Bol News https://www.bolnews.com/international/2022/07/shafiqa-iqbal-data-engineer-from-sadiqabad-hired-by-google/ accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
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APP Daily Times https://dailytimes.com.pk/969691/balochistan-jobless-youth-seek-extension-in-maximum-age-limit/ accessed on August 11, 2022 ↑
