'India, Pakistan face same development issues' By our correspondent
Karachi

An Indian delegation of five students was pleasantly surprised as they attended the silver jubilee celebrations of Javed Jabbar's NGO Baanhn Beli, which works for the development of Tharparkar.
The students met empowered women from seemingly less developed areas of Sindh, who made it in life after much struggle. "There was a woman who told me that she could not even talk confidently before Baanhn Beli started its literacy programme, but now she has studied in college and is a teacher at a school," says Tanima Narang, an eleventh-grade student from Delhi.

The delegation was impressed and thought the individual tales were "inspiring". "Here we saw another picture of Pakistan. This is a country which suffers from extreme poverty, but still has the will to fight back. Before this, we mostly interacted with the elite," says Karan Raghav, a university student studying finance. "It takes years to carry on development work in a region and then finally you see the results," says Bhavya Mahajan, who is an active social worker back in India.

A peep into the civil society here brought forward the similarities of issues that plague both countries. "In India, we have similar villages which still live like a society that existed 40 years ago," says another student.

"Illiteracy is India's problem as well. In fact, all developing countries more or less face similar issues," says Bhavya Mahajan.

Sachi Bhuttani, a school student from Delhi, called the trip "eye-opening". "You see all this in India too, but there are kind people on both sides who help the poor and that is what matters."

The students, who landed at Karachi airport on Monday along with a team leader, are visiting Pakistan on a 10-day trip as part of an exchange programme.

The tour is part of an ongoing initiative taken by the Rotary Club and Aman ki Asha, which is a collaboration between the Jang Group and Times of India, to improve relationships between India and Pakistan by helping boost people-to-people contact between the two South Asian neighbours.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Business leaders for economic interdependence Jawwad Rizvi

LAHORE: India-Pakistan business leaders have emphasized to move with a sustainable peace process between the two countries by creating economic .....more

'Trade could increase to $30 billion in 10 years' Mehtab Haider

LAHORE: Pakistan and India can increase bilateral trade level to up to $25-30 billion over the next 10 years if both countries move towards pl .....more

Indian experts keen to study Pakistani social sector public private partnerships Jawwad Rizvi and Amer Malik

LAHORE: Indian social sector experts are keen to study how public private partnerships are being operated in the social sector i .....more

India, Pakistan working to liberalise business visa regime: Sabharwal Babar Dogar

LAHORE: Sharat Sabharwal, the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, has expressed hope that an agreement for liberalising business visa regime b .....more

Indians, Pakistanis click again for peace dividend

Nawaz Sharif paid through his nose for ties with India

MAK Lodhi

LAHORE: Whatever way one may view the PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharifis r .....more

Aman Ki Asha moot begins with high optimism, high hopes

Speakers says two-day conference will prove to be a defining moment in Indo-Pak history; Jang Group's Shahrukh Hasan, Times of India's Rahul Kansal, CII President .....more