Karachi university BS (Hon) aptitude tests

Karachi university admissions to BS (Hon) programme
Karachi, Nov 22: The director of admissions, University of Karachi, has announced that the aptitude tests for admissions to BS (Hon) programme of the departments of business administration, commerce, public administration and biotechnology will be held on Sunday (Nov 22) at 10am.

The aptitude test for admission in BS (third year/masters programme) of the departments of business administration and public administration will be held at 2pm the same day.

All entry tests would be conducted in the faculty of arts, he said, advising all candidates to ensure making it one hour before the tests starting time. Dawn

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KU announced LLB results
Karachi: University of Karachi (KU) has announced the results of LLB Part- II, Annual Examination 2009. According to KU statistics, 819 students were registered, 802 appeared and 319 of them passed the examination. The pass percentage was 39.78. The news

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FUUAST announced BA part-I external results
Karachi: The Federal Urdu University of Arts Science and Technology (Fuuast) on Saturday announced the results of BA part-I (external candidates) examinations 2008. PPI

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Last day of Urdu conference
Karachi: The last day of the 2nd International Urdu Conference commenced on a rather controversial note. The co-organiser of the first session on the literary giant of Urdu fiction Quratulain Hyder was the Anjuman-i-Taraqqi-i-Urdu. The sitting was supposed to start at 11am but was delayed at least for an hour. Later on it came to the notice of all present there that the session that was to take place at the Arts Council Karachi's auditorium had been shifted to the council's lawns because the auditorium was booked for an event unrelated to the conference. This visibly irked officials of the Anjuman. However, things were settled amicably and the session on Quratulain Hyder took off with Dr Asif Farrukhi's exceptional paper on Ms Hyder. A book Quratulain Hyder Urdu Fiction Ke Tanazur Mein was also launched on the occasion.

Dr Farrukhi engaged the audience at the start of his speech attaching due importance to the city of Karachi, which Quratulain Hyder has mentioned in one of her masterpieces, and touched upon the very vital metaphor of the river in her book Aag Ka Darya. He then lamented that the writer's worth was not recognised or acknowledged in her lifetime the way it merited. He ascribed that to some reasons one of which was a series of controversies that she would always be surrounded by. Dr Farrukhi criticised certain critics who viewed Ms Hyder's works with a jaundiced eye, and quoted a commentator who once said that the reason she never got married was that she was an incomplete individual. Dr Farrukhi said that such pathetic and biased approach to writers of Quratulain Hyder's stature is condemnable. Poetess Shahida Hasan presented a poetic tribute to Quratulain Hyder and talked about the textual qualities in her novels.

Poet Jamiluddin Aali said Quratulain is a literary giant, a fact which was recognised by some even in her lifetime. He primarily spoke on the writer's personal disposition, and informed the audience that she was an extremely sensitive human being, and was not only an extraordinary writer but was also brilliant at striking up brainy conversations. He said her name appeared on the literary horizon after Ismat Chughtai's because she was junior to the latter. Dr Mumtaz Ahmed Khan's paper was mainly on the finer contextual points of Quratulain Hyder's magnum opus Aag Ka Darya.

Mustafa Karim talked about three of Hyder's books – Merey Bhi Sanam Khaney, Aag Ka Darya and Aakhir-i-Shab Ke Hamsafar. After briefly speaking on the novels' content, referring to her technique (stream of consciousness and interior monologue) he said though she had read books written by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot, her narrative does not seem to be influenced by any of them. Professor Sahar Ansari made an insightful comment: Quratulain Hyder is to Urdu fiction what Allama Iqbal is to Urdu poetry.

Dr Mohammad Ali Siddiqui said adjectives like 'good' and 'great' are often (ab)used by critics, but Quratulain Hyder was both good and great. The problem arises when we try to fit her into a particular category. She was a traditionalist, a modernist and a progressive writer etc, so it's difficult to pigeonhole her talent. He claimed that leave alone Urdu, what she's accomplished with her writings no one in the subcontinent writing in any language has achieved. Aftab Ahmed Khan in his succinct speech argued that Ms Hyder deserved a Nobel Prize.

Writer Intizar Husain in his typical scholarly style informed the participants of the seminar that Quratulain Hyder wasn't born alone, but saw the light of day with an important phase in history. It was a time when the subcontinent's history and geography were being altered. She had to face that experience. It was a difficult period for the region and for the writer herself. There was bloodletting and the issue of mass migration. At that juncture she raised some very important and pertinent questions related to the experience she was going through and to the time to come.

Intizar sahib said before Quratulain Hyder writers had resorted to social realism to put their message across. Her narrative exposed flaws in that "ism". He said it is because of her books that the issue of separate cultures re-entered our political and intellectual discourse. Dawn

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Youth Affairs Department launched magazine
Karachi: The Sindh Department of Youth Affairs has launched its magazine titled `Jawan Azm'. The launching ceremony was held at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi with Sindh Secretary of Youth Affairs Department, Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, as the chief guest.

In his speech on the occasion, he highlighted the significance of education and said that without making headway in this field no nation could progress. Therefore, he stressed, "Our youngsters would have to concentrate towards the acquisition of knowledge."

Referring to `Jawan Azm', Siddiqui said that this also pointed towards the problems that were being faced by the young generation adding that the government was taking steps for the resolution of these problems.

The secretary further stated that under the leadership of Syed Faisal Ali Subzwari, the department is undertaking projects for the welfare and betterment of the youth.Scholar and poet Prof. Sehar Ansari said that the magazine would foster reading habit among the youngsters.

Secretary of Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, Ahmed Shah, said that Jawan Azm would help highlight the problems of the youth. Director Youth Affairs Sindh, Khurshid Ali Shaikh, presented the vote of thanks. The news

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