khyber pakhtunkhwa

This is a second interview with Jawaid Khalil from Peshawar.   He stresses the importance of using purer Pashto by institutions such as Pashto Academy, Peshawar University's Pashto Department and Television Channels (AVT Khyber, Mashriq and PTV) . Many people listen to them and can learn Pashto from them. We apologize for the background noise. 

This episode contains an interview with Jawaid Khalil from Peshawar. He is a huge proponent of Pashto Language and has worked as a Senior Banker in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Singapore. We discuss how other languages have influenced Pashto and what needs to be done to maintain and uplift it. He proposes that institutions, experts and individuals pay special attention to it. Google Translate for Pashto is mentioned as a tool that can make a big difference.   https://translate.google.com.  Additionally, geography and its relation to the two main dialects in North (khey) and South(shey) are explained. We apologize for the background noise. 

The primary education in KPK, Pakistan,  faces many challenges. Most students are unable to read a simple story and are unable to divide a two digit number. In this episode, we discuss the need for proper teachers,  teaching methodologies suitable for little kids and the importance of having small class size.

As the Covid pandemic continues to dominate world headlines, there is growing interest in better understanding how some low and middle-income countries have achieved considerable success in responding to this global crisis. Vietnam is one such country that has been successful in combating Covid. Another is Cuba. And the state of Kerala in India has also received much praise for its handling of the pandemic. But for the past few weeks a rather unlikely, success story has emerged. It is that of Pakistan, which has been branded as a bright spot, having achieved remarkable progress despite numerous predictions, including one study from June, which had warned of millions of infections and at least a hundred thousand deaths. But Pakistan appears to have, at least for the time being, defied these odds and the Covid curve appears to be flattening. And although experts say it is too early to claim victory over the virus, Pakistan’s somewhat unheralded achievement merits closer attention, especially given the long history of its dysfunctional and fragmented healthcare system.

Dr Usman Mushtaq is a Norwegian-Pakistani medical doctor who for the past year or so has been working as an advisor for Pakistan’s Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination. It was Dr Zafar Mirza, until recently Pakistan’s Minister of Health, who  asked Dr Mushtaq to join his team in Pakistan. 

Dr Mushtaq is a member of the Board of Trustees of EAT Foundation and has previously been a member of the EAT Advisory Board and Director of Policy and Global Strategy for EAT. He is also a member of the Norwegian Labour Party. 

• Usman Mushtaq on Twitter
• Dan Banik on Twitter
• In Pursuit of Development podcast on Twitter

Questions, comments and suggestions: InPursuitOfDevelopment@gmail.com

Host

Professor Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)

Apple Google Spotify YouTube

Subscribe: 

https://globaldevpod.substack.com/