Education vital to curb extremism, ignorance: minister

LAHORE
THE 78th convocation of Kinnaird College for Women was held here on Thursday in which the graduating students were awarded degrees.
Punjab Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan was the chief guest while Chairman Board of Directors Bishop Alexander John Malik, Principal Rukhsana David and a large number of students and their parents were also present on the occasion.
Addressing the ceremony, the education minister said the new generation would have to be equipped with education for coping with all challenges, including extremism, unemployment and ignorance being faced by the country.
Rana Mashhood said the girl students of Danish School Hasilpur had won laurels for Pakistan by getting 5th position in international competitions arranged by NASA whereas a student getting education through scholarship of Punjab Educational Endowment Fund (PEEF) obtained second position in the prestigious engineering university of USA.
The education minister said it was mission of the government that no child should remain out of school by 2018 under ‘Parho Punjab-Barho Punjab’ Programme. He said besides modern education, information technology was the need of the hour and the Punjab government had distributed laptops among students for meeting this need and tablets would be distributed among students in future. He said campuses of 11 universities of international standard were being set up in Lahore Knowledge Park for providing best educational opportunities to the students.
Meanwhile, according to a handout, Rana Mashhood also inaugurated a pictorial exhibition arranged by United Nations at Lahore Museum. He said Pakistani people were peaceful and loving and this exhibition reflected this fact. He said the extremists who tarnished the image of Pakistan should be defeated jointly and the soft image of the country should be brought before the world.
overcharging: City District Government Lahore continued its drive against overcharging here Thursday and arrested 67 persons besides imposing heavy fines on the shopkeepers.
The drive was carried out in all the nine towns during which price control magistrates raided at 774 premises and arrested 67 shopkeepers. The price control magistrates imposed a fine of Rs131,600 on the shopkeepers. Meanwhile, DCO Lahore Capt (r) Usman directed all the price control magistrates to remain in fields and take strict action against hoarders and those who are not following government’s price lists.
Sanitation: On the directives of Chief Minister Punjab, the Environment Protection Department (EPD) Punjab, has directed all the District Officers of Punjab to launch a sanitation week from April 27th to 2nd May, 2015.
During the sanitation week, special arrangements will be amde for the cleanliness and safe disposal of industrial waste all over the Punjab. In view of the directive, all DOs Environment of Punjab will hold meeting with industrialists and chambers of commerce.
During this campaign, the DOs will also inspect junkyards, under-construction sites, nurseries, warehouses of industries and tyre shops for dengue.