Pakistan likely to get first woman information secretary

ISLAMABAD: Will Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the ‘young brains’ at the Prime Minister’s Office soon give Islamabad Pakistan’s first woman information secretary and also its first woman foreign secretary?

The PML-N has already earned laurels for appointing Dr Maleeha Lodhi as the first woman permanent representative at the United Nations. Who can forget the respect and words of support that Nawaz Sharif gave to filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, the first Pakistani woman to win two Oscars?

But there is also no denying the criticism that surrounds the PML-N as pointed out by analyst Taha Najeeb Khan: “The government’s incompetence and lack of initiative in matters of planning and execution, its flaky confidence in its own ability to lead and deliver and its subsequent outsourcing of responsibilities to the military and judiciary is what nourishes the exogenous elements which thrive in administrative incompetence.”

Saba Mohsin Raza, Additional Secretary (BS-21), is being tipped as the new Information Secretary at the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage as the post has been lying vacant since the retirement of Syed Imran Gardezi.

Some years back, male diplomats at the Foreign Office refused to comment when asked how they felt when Ambassador Fauzia Nasreen, who served as the Additional Secretary (Europe Division), was appointed temporally as the first woman acting Foreign Secretary.PPP’s Hina Rabbani Khar had broken the glass ceiling when she stepped in as the country’s first woman foreign minister.

One of the country’s most respected diplomat Ambassador Tehmina Janjua, Permanent Representative of Pakistan in Geneva, is expected to be appointed the ministry’s first woman foreign secretary. Tehmina with files piled high in her hands was a familiar sight as she moved between the different floors not only as the spokesperson at the Foreign Office but also as Director of Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and also as the Director General of Strategic Planning in the Foreign Secretary’s Office.