Conference highlights human rights issues in South Asia – The News International tnlivenews.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tnlivenews.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Zubeida Mustafa
ONE aspect of I.A. Rehman’s priceless legacy was his restless spirit that drove him to champion the cause of freedom and human rights in Pakistan. The huge community of human rights activists in the country drew inspiration from his rational and encouraging leadership.
Many of us his juniors were constantly turning to him to draw from his limitless pool of knowledge and saw him as a pillar of strength. In the gloom that followed his death I felt comforted when I received a book of poetry that resonated with me. It touched the same causes Rehman Sahib had inspired us to espouse. Titled Eik Subh Aur Aaygi and containing 103 poems by Anis Haroon, the book is a powerful statement on the sad state of human rights in Pakistan that has brought the country to the brink of a catastrophe.
By Vikas Kumar
In an interview to three of us , prominent Pakistani physicist and noted peace activist Dr Abdul Hameed Nayyar talks of the dynamics of nuclear disarmament between India and Pakistan. Dr Nayyar taught nuclear physics at Quaid-E-Azam University, Islamabad, for 30 years and was a visiting scholar at at the Princeton University. He is well known for voicing for education reforms and military arms control.
Q) Can you tell us about your work on nuclear disarmament and MND : Movement for Nuclear Disarmament in Pakistan?
We were a group of university professors who in 1985 started educating people about horrors of nuclear weapons. We started around 1985, much before Pakistan’s nuclear programme became any serious. We reached out to prominent people in media and civil society and received a very good response from all of them. We wrote many papers on disarmament which were published. Some of us were invited by the Pakistan Military to discuss strategic matters.