Karachi Inter Pre-Medical results 2011

BIEK HSSC-II (Pre-Medical) results
Karachi, Sep 06: Chairman Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) Prof Anwaar Ahmed Zai has said on Monday that the results of Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) Part-II (class 12th) Pre-Medical 2011 would be announced on Tuesday (today) at BIEK auditorium. Position holder students, along with their teachers and parents, were invited. On the occasion the students would be awarded with trophies and gifts, said a press release issued, here on Monday. Results could also be seen at BIEK website: www.biek.edu.pk.

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KU schedule for submission of examination forms
Karachi: The University of Karachi (KU) has on Monday announced schedule for submission of examination forms of BEd and MEd for session 2011. Candidates of BEd and MEd (morning and evening) session 2011 were advised to submit their examination forms at their concern colleges till Sept 17 without any surcharge, said a KU press release issued on Monday. Candidates of BEd have to submit their examination forms with a bank voucher of Rs 3,350 and candidates of MEd would submit their examination form with a voucher of Rs 4,250. Candidates who were enrolled in 2005 or before could also submit their examination form with extra surcharges of Rs 2,500 beside the examination fee.

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DUHS announces admission in MBBS & BDS
Karachi: Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) has announced admission in first year MBBS & BDS (Session 2011) at Dow Medical College, Sindh Medical College and Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan Institute of Oral Health Sciences (Dental College). Application forms can be obtained from UBL branches, including Baba-e-Urdu Road Branch, Drigh Road Township Branch, Main Rashid Minhas Road Branch, Civic Centre, Gulshan-e-Iqbal Branch and Gulshan-e-Zubaida, North Nazimabad Branch on a non-refundable fee of Rs 1000. Last date for submitting application forms is Sept 17 till 05:00pm in the same branch. Entry test will be held Oct 02. Candidates can visit DUHS official website for further details. Daily times

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BDC principal appointed
Karachi: Dr Kashif Ikram was appointed as the Principal of Baqai Dental College. He is the first principal who is the graduate of the same college. He has acquired fellowships in the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Oral Medicine from the Royal College of Surgeon of England and Royal College of Surgeon of Ireland, the spokesperson said in a press release issued on Monday.

His appointment is retrospective effect from August 2011. Prior to his current appointment, he was Head of the Department and a consultant in Baqai Dental College Hospital.

Dr Ikram's special interest of practice is maxillofacial trauma, reconstruction of face and dental implants. The Chancellor F.U. Baqai, Vice-Chancellor, Pro Vice-Chancellor and the faculty members of the college welcomed him and expected that the standard of teaching, he said. The news

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Of libraries, rare collections and our 'love for books'
Karachi: A few weeks ago I spotted a personal collection up for sale at the Sunday book bazaar that has resumed recently at Karachi's Frere Hall, or Bagh-i-Jinnah. In that collection there were books, some of them rare, and some personal belongings including view cards, replicas of paintings, photo albums and wads of personal letters with original envelops. A woman, apparently a foreigner, was browsing the items in the collection. She grabbed a book, an old hardbound volume with pale pages, and looked at the bookseller. He mumbled a few words and the woman handed him a thousand-rupee note, which he gleefully pocketed.

Off went the woman, but I was shocked when I saw that the collection belonged to a man who had held high positions in pre-independence India and the early years of Pakistan. The collection included even the speech he made at the inauguration of the State Bank of Pakistan in 1948, and also the printed copy of the farewell address presented to him on his retirement.

Much pained, I asked the bookseller to go to the state bank's library and offer them the treasure, telling him that they would offer him a much higher price while in fact thinking that the collection might be preserved that way. But he did not look much interested. His indifference made me think that the treasure might have been gotten illegally because I could not imagine the family selling off such invaluable items as photographs with celebrities and other fond memories of a life so well spent. It was the kind of treasure the generations take pride in.

I have seen, with a heavy heart, personal collections of many scholars and well-known personalities being sold on Karachi pavements - and not all of them were illegally acquired.

Persons selling a book collection, or a part of it, on a footpath usually tell me that children or grandchildren sell the books to make room for 'other things' in their homes. In some cases financial constraints may also play a part but generally the heirs do not want to see those 'old-looking, unsightly things' in their homes. No one knows what great treasures have simply been thrown into dustbins or just handed over to junk dealers for a pittance, which usually end up at plants that recycle paper into cardboard. One can blame the new generation's indifference to books on their overindulgence in modern gadgets. But are we really interested in reading as a nation? Have we ever been genuinely interested in books? These questions have been haunting me for days. The answer came from an article by Hakeem Mahmood Ahmed Barkati he wrote some 50 years ago:

"The extraordinary interest that Muslims have shown in books has been a pet topic of 'storytellers' from Maulana Shibli Naumani to date. It's a pity that repeating these tales of our love for books has not produced the intended results," wrote Barkati Sahib in his article titled 'Kutubkhana-i-Tipu Sultan' (Tipu Sultan's library).

In the article he also says: "Tipu Sultan ruled for about 17 years and he had amassed a very fine collection of manuscripts. An identical number of years have passed since the creation of Pakistan but during these 17 years we could not do even as little as bringing Tipu's collection to Pakistan from the India Office Library. It shows how much we love books; there is no limit to our love for books!" Of course he was sarcastic and his cynicism seems justified when we read in the footnotes to the article that when Barkati Sahib tried to get a copy of the catalogue of the much famous Tipu collection as a reference for the article, it was not available in any library or personal collection in Karachi. Finally, the late Dr Syed Moin-ul-Haq came to his rescue and secured a copy of the catalogue for him from the India Office Library.

The article is included in Hakeem Sahib's new book 'Muntakhab maqalaat'. Just published by Maghribi Paksitan Urdu Academy, Lahore, the book includes quite a few articles on books, libraries, rare collections and manuscripts. In addition to Tipu Sultan's collection, he introduces us to the rare manuscripts of Vazeer-ud-Daula's library in Tonk. As we know, Tonk was a princely state in the pre-partition era and was known for its mosques, scholars and libraries that, without exaggeration, numbered in their hundreds.

According to Hakeem Sahib, the love that the people of Tonk had for books can be judged from the fact that the city of Tonk, with a population of 50,000, had some 50 bookbinders who were known for their exquisite binding skills. Vazeer-ud-Daula was the ruler of Tonk and his library had some extremely rare manuscripts, which have been described in the book.

Another article in the book is about the manuscripts of books on medicine and health sciences. These manuscripts are preserved in Pakistan's different libraries, museums and personal collections and some of them are as old as 1,000 years. The book also introduces the reader to Urdu's first and oldest book on medicine.

Another article sheds light on an 18th century manuscript of a book on surgery. After reading these articles, one cannot help think that thousands of manuscripts are gathering dust in our libraries and museums and nobody cares to read them, let alone edit them. These days the scholars of Urdu, and especially our youngsters seeking a doctorate in Urdu or oriental studies, do not bother to think of the manuscripts and rather prefer to carry out so-called research on some of our contemporary writers.

Some extremely important texts of Urdu's classical literature are lying buried in museums or personal collections as if waiting for a messiah to resurrect them. But we no longer have scholars; what we have are the seekers of PhD degree.

Barkati Sahib has been writing scholarly articles for long but the articles had been lying buried in the files of old periodicals and we should be thankful to Dr Mazhar Mahmood Sherani, who dug out and put them together in a volume. Just like Barkati Sahib, Mazhar Mahmood Sherani is also a true successor of his grandfather, the renowned scholar from Tonk Hafiz Mahmood Sherani.

The book consists of over 30 articles, which have been divided into four sections but the section that is of much interest to me is the one titled 'kitaab khane aur kitaaben' (libraries and books). Other sections in the book deal with some literary and religious personalities and a few of them are on the philosophic ideas put forward by Muslim scientists and philosophers such as Ibnul Haisam.

Following in the footsteps of his grandfather Hakeem Syed Barkat Ahmed - who was a religious scholar, poet, writer and a practitioner of eastern medicine - Mahmood Barkati Sahib got degrees in Arabic, Islamic Studies, medicine and literature.

Born in the state of Tonk, Rajputana, in 1926, Mahmood Barkati is a writer, scholar and upholder of all traditions old and eastern, including love of books and eastern medicine. Having taken part in the Pakistan movement, it had become increasingly difficult for him to stay in India and he migrated to Pakistan in 1952. Here he started his practice anew and kept writing on medicine and history. Another favourite topic of his is biographies of great scholars as is evident from the book. Dawn

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