Pakistan needs elderly-friendly policies (Prof. Dr. Nizam)

Pakistan needs to generate hard core data on changing demographic environment to devise appropriate strategies for the welfare of the elderly. These views were expressed by University of Gujrat (UOG) Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mohammad Nizamuddin at the launching ceremony of How the Elderly Live in Punjab: A Field Survey of the Living Conditions and Health Status of the Elderly of Pakistan here today.

The report has been produced with the financial support of the United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA) and technical support of the Bureau of Statistics, Government of the Punjab. It involves interviews with about 4,200 respondents aged 60 and above from 14 districts of Punjab.

According to the survey findings, overall conditions of the elderly are the worst in Southern Punjab. Moreover, there is a pronounced disparity in living conditions and health status by gender and residence: the women are much more vulnerable than the men; and the rural residents are in a much worst condition than the urban residents.

The survey also found that even though one-half of the elderly suffer from one or more chronic diseases, the majority of them perceive themselves to be in good health. In addition, the majority of the elderly is not employed and has no independent source of income.

The survey recommended that the National Assembly should pass the law for the establishment of Council for Senior Citizens to safeguard the interests of the elderly. Moreover, the government should introduce universal pension system for all the elderly, both contributing and non-contributing, as has been done in neighbouring countries like India and Nepal.

Other salient recommendations of the survey include establishment of day care/recreational centres for the elderly and increase in the age of retirement, which currently is 60 in Pakistan, considering that the country would not have the human resource to fill the gap created by the retirement of experienced professionals, especially in the area of education and development. Finally, the survey recommended that universities, research institutes, civil society groups and NGOs should conduct longitudinal studies on various aspects affecting the life of the elderly, with the main purpose of improving their overall wellbeing

Dr. Nizamuddin also shared some of the future plans of UOG for improving the living conditions and health status of the elderly, the most important of which was to conduct a similar survey in other provinces of the country. The launching ceremony was also attended by UNFPA Country Representative in Pakistan Daniel B. Baker and officials of the Punjab government.

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Blogging is Not Poetry

As I said in my earlier post that blogging is continuously growing in every culture, race, discipline and society. Politicians, celebrities, brands, individuals, students, schools, universities, Government, NGOs everyone seem to have a blog now.

Blogging is not poetry any more. You may be having a cat blog or boss blog (as Seth Godin writes in his eBook); still you have to work hard to run them. Some of the bloggers have taken upon them to change the world by blogging. They determine and then research global issues and address them in a positive manner to help people around. Research is essential for economic growth, imperative to educational excellence and intrinsic to the development of community. Research is pivotal to national and regional growth as the means to diversify the nation’s economy, enhance educational offerings and develop areas that affect the community, such as health, education and environment.

The blogger under reference shall not write about personal things but identify and write on such issues (like international issues, democratic problems, education, men and women issues, economy, current trending technology and human behaviors and the like) to help and improve the quality of life. This hopefully, will on the one hand broaden our approach and outlook by viewing existing social issues from different angles and on the other hand contribute towards grooming of future policy planners and executives.

By organizing research before blog posts shall not only produce a corps of social media scientists but also develop among them policy planners and better executives. Today’s blogger may undertake research on behalf of civil society organization and or private sector so as to assist them in the core areas for their institution work. By incorporating research in to their daily blog posts will setup an archive for international data-base in order to provide data sets for researchers and students in higher classes (post-graduate, M.Phil, PhD). Thus the search engines will become an online institution or class rooms for online users as currently the search engine results are not as resourceful as it need to be. What you think?

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