LSHORE – Pakistan needs an educated, visionary and clean leadership and civil society should catalyse the process of change, former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Friday.He was addressing a seminar on the problems facing Pakistan at the Tech Society. Qureshi said that the country was in “intensive care” and the intellectuals should rescue Pakistan from its weak position. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader said that God had given him more respect now compared to the time when he was foreign minister.
He said that when his party leadership made him foreign minister, he had prayed to God to give him the strength to fulfil the responsibility. Qureshi said that the economic crisis was the biggest challenge facing Pakistan and people are very concerned about the present state of the nation. “People are depressed about the country’s present situation,” he lamented. The former foreign minister said that the country’s macro economic indicators were going in the wrong direction and a large number of people lived below the poverty line.
He said that the country’s youth were depressed and losing motivation which was forcing them to settle abroad. “The youth of our nation have become delusional and distorted”, Qureshi said. The former foreign minister said that law and order was the second biggest challenge the country was facing. “For the first time, individuals feel insecure even when sitting in their own homes”, he said.
The PPP leader said that the politics of reconciliation was the only way for making progress and polarisation be avoided. “Corruption has become a culture which is not confined to any department, region or class”, Qureshi said, adding that corruption was not limited to any province, sect or party. Former foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed, renowned journalist Qayyum Niazi and others also attended the seminar.
