Scholars advocate increased female labor-force, micro-enterprise and collaborative corporate culture as antidote against socio-economic misery in Sindh.

Byline: Ihsan Ali Abro

JAMSHORO -- A highly thought-provoking, informative and insightful discourse came to Sindh University as its Bureau of Students Tutorial Guidance/Counseling Services and Co-curricular Activities (STAGS) in collaboration with JS Bank Limited and Oxford University Press, Pakistan organized an inspiring and extensively interactive panel discussion on the book 'The Economy of Modern Sindh: Opportunities Lost and Lessons for the Future' with VC-SU Prof.

Dr. Fateh Muhammad Burfat as event president, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Institutional Reforms and Austerity and former Governor State Bank of Pakistan Dr. Ishrat Hussain, President and Chief Executive Officer JS Bank Limited BasirShamsie, Prof. Aijaz A. Qureshi and Nadeem Hussain as panelists; whereas Imran Haleem Shakih and Dr. Ghulam Ali Buriro facilitated the moot as moderators. Dr. Ishrat Hussain, in his erudite deliberations said that merely writing of the book on the economy of Sindh was not enough; arguing that it was essential to build upon the book in form of holding of critical discourses on its contents among academia and students to cascade its import to the widest possible range of masses.

'This philosophy has brought us to SU today', Dr. Hussain asserted. 'Five motivations served as causative forces behind our inking of this book: i) As nation, we are a sizeable entity but without having recourse to tangible data evidence at micro level; ii) we do not also have any reliable textual reference on the economy of Sindh; iii) Government of Sindh also did not have tangible evidence base, upon which it could formulate policy frameworks; iv) there was no narrative in existence upon which a critical discourse based on reason, rationality, logic, facts and evidence could be set into motion, and v) lastly there was no trigger-material at hand to serve as impetus to spark authoring of more books on economy of Sindh dealing separately with each subject-head discussed in our book. Our book fills all these gaps', Dr. Hussain elaborated. Dr. Hussain sent alarm-wave to the audience when he shared that Sindh was ahead of other three provinces in per capita income at the time of partition by 55 percent in 1955, 30 percent in 1990, and 15 percent in 2014-15 and in 2019 it (Sindh) was lesser in per capita income to all the other four provinces of Pakistan. 'This is shocking picture to weigh. We need to flip this phenomenon', Dr. Hussain urged. Dr. Hussain opined that Sindh...