Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Dr Farooq Sattar emphasised the need for bringing about a revolution in information and communication technology for developing the soft image of the country.
Sattar said this while addressing a seminar on ‘ICT’ and talking to media that industrial and technological development was indispensable for giving a new identity to the country on world stage. The federal minister while underscoring the need for establishing a university in Hyderabad and assured that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement would ensure that a full fledged general university as well as medical and engineering universities would be set up in the city. “It is the vision of MQM chief Altaf Hussain to impart training and skills of modern technology to the youth so that they can contribute for the country’s development,” he said adding that the cyber revolution in Bangalore, Bangladesh, and Hyderabad Deccan, India, had transformed the cities and lifted the people from poverty to prosperity.
He noted that the country’s youth had been provided mobile phones but there were no jobs for them.
“They use the cheap calling and text messaging rates so that they could indulge in the frivolities,” he added. He wished that if Pakistan had made much progress in the field of information and communication technology like its neighbour, India, then the country’s standing on the world level would have been much better.
“Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might not have visited us for the prevailing issues in bilateral relations, but Bill Gates would have certainly visited Karachi and Hyderabad,” he added.
Sattar said the restoration of the local government system would help in the development of the urban and rural areas of the country and added that the province’s cities specially Hyderabad and Karachi would have been much more developed if the Nazims had not been sent home packing. While talking to the media, the federal minister said the MQM had categorically stated that it was opposed to division of Sindh. “We condemn any movement or conspiracy which wants to divide Sindh,” he added. He urged Sindhis and Urdu speaking people to unite in order to foil any such conspiracy. Sattar said the MQM leaders would go from city to city and village to village in Sindh to meet the people and to dispel wrong perceptions which were being created about the party.
He said feudalism was a stumbling block on the way of development, peace and prosperity. “We will have to adopt Newtonism in order to defeat feudalism,” he said explaining that the scientist Issac Newton formed his proverbial theory of gravity after he observed the falling of an apple from a tree to the ground.
“He didn’t eat that apple but contemplated and observed the process and ended up with giving us scientific observations which paved the way for modern day technological development,” he added.
Sattar complained that the same did not happen to Pakistan when it achieved independence from the Colonial rule. “The rulers who inherited the power ate that apple. And they continue to eat what has now remained only the core and seeds of it. But we have to protect that core and seeds to sow new trees,” he explained metaphorically. The provincial minister for Information Technology Raza Haroon said the internet based media was more powerful than the conventional media. He noted that the social media has reduced the importance of the media adding that “a single Tweet (Twitter message) can reach millions in an instant”. Haroon said that the government could not keep Hyderabad lagging behind in the field of ICT. Sindh Minister for Rural Development Zubair Ahmed, MNA Tayyab Hussain and MPA Suhail Yousuf were also present on the occasion.
