Capacity Building of Afghan Youth: How Can Pakistan Help? ( My Opinion for " The Asian Telegraph" )

 

Afghanistan has endured an upheaval of immense magnitude in the past three decades. The disintegration of the republic in the recent past has exacerbated the already tense situation and made ripples in Afghan society and the wider region. Afghanistan is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The biggest casualty of the events has been the youth of Afghanistan, who had to relocate to neighboring countries in search of better life and future. The biggest chunk of Afghan refugees went to Pakistan and many are still stuck. As a responsible neighboring country, it is incumbent on Pakistan to help these youth in distress. It will cultivate the spirit of goodwill and contribute to the foreign policy objectives of reaching out to the people of Afghanistan. In this regard, Pakistan can enable the capacity building of Afghan youth.

According to the former National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA) of Afghanistan, the estimated population of Afghanistan is 38.93 million. Women comprise almost half of (49%) of the population. The institutions of tertiary, middle, secondary, and higher education are struggling to grapple with the immense challenge to cater to the requirements of logistics and trained staff. The emphasis of the Taliban government to segregate on the basis of gender has created peculiar problems for the education sector in Afghanistan. To better cope with the situation, Pakistan can lend its hand to train the staff, give logistic and advisory support to the authorities in Afghanistan. The assistance to the Afghan people must be channeled through educational collaborations and other pertinent sectors. Allama Iqbal Scholarship for higher education has greatly benefited in capacity building of Afghan youth, especially women. Scholarships for female students to study in Pakistan must be enhanced.

Another avenue for possible cooperation can be in sports diplomacy. Sports inculcate a spirit of teamwork, playing by the rules and competition in a positive way. Afghanistan, though war-stricken, has a huge potential in sports. Youth are the main pillars of these extracurricular activities. Last year, a video conference was conducted by Pak Afghan Youth Forum that gathered athletes from both countries. They belonged to diverse categories of sports such as Cricket, Taekwando, Squash, and Football. The discourse revolved around mutual cooperation to train and assist the athletes on a reciprocal basis. Pakistan can assist Afghanistan in providing training and infrastructure for cricket and squash. Conversely, Afghanistan has a vibrant Taekwando and Football culture. Matches can be conducted between the local teams to give a message of harmony among two countries and harbor sports diplomacy in its true spirit.

Food and culinary diplomacy is a developing arena of exchanges between diverse cultures. In the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan, both have cultural affinities. Afghan food is widely popular in Pakistan. Many young Afghan entrepreneurs have successfully ventured into this arena. “Afghani Burger” and “Mantu” are a favorite savory for the people of Pakistan. There is a famous restaurant named “Kabul restaurant” in F7 Markaz Islamabad, filled with Pakistani food lovers. Pakistan must enhance its cultural ties with the neighboring country through unconventional cooperation. Encouraging food businesses owned by Afghans in Pakistan and also exporting the delicious restaurant chains to Afghanistan in cooperation with Afghan entrepreneurs is another such avenue of a win-win situation. Afghan youth will greatly benefit from job opportunities while it will also bring normalcy and employment to the war-torn country.

Youth-led initiatives always bring creative ideas to the fore. Pak-Afghan Youth Dialogue is a major confidence-building initiative of the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) under its Afghan Studies Center (ASC) program to provide a platform for the youth of Pakistan and Afghanistan to interact on issues of bilateral concerns, exchange ideas, and become messengers of peace and cooperation beyond boundaries. Plethoras of events were organized by Pak Afghan Youth Dialogue under the auspices of the Center for Research and Strategic Studies (CRSS), which was attended by dignitaries from the government of Pakistan. It engaged the youth of Afghanistan and Pakistan to discuss the problems pertaining to youth in both countries. Participants enthusiastically gave several suggestions in order to enhance the cooperation between both countries. Such youth-led initiatives should be encouraged on the state level and more of such activities should be planned. It will give the youth of both countries a stake in how their countries should run their policies, especially pertaining to youth affairs.

Afghanistan is Pakistan’s western neighbor and giving back to the young community in Afghanistan is a fantastic way to uplift the spirits of the people in distress. It will have immense social capital while negative perceptions about both countries could be eliminated. People to people ties can the antidote to harboring a new era of cooperation between both countries. A vibrant and strong Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s best interest. Strengthening the social ties with the youth of Afghanistan, who are the backbone of the country, is an exceptional way to achieve this objective.

Link to the article: https://www.theasiantelegraph.net/capacity-building-of-afghan-youth-how-can-pakistan-help/

Elon Musk: The Visionary Entrepreneur and Thinker of 21st Century

 

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla and Spacex, is a South African immigrant who chose USA, the land of opportunities, as a destination for realizing his dreams of making an imprint on the globe. He started with a software company in 1995 and later became the founder of Paypal. Later on, due to problems with the board members, he was ousted from the very same company he helped conceiving. He went on to buy the shares of the company in bidding due to his sentimental values attached to it. Later on, he ventured into aerospace industry and launched his aerospace company Spacex. This man had to undergo rebuke and many administrative obstacles from the industry such as NASA legends Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan for his ambitious dreams to make reusable rockets and land humans on Mars. Elon Musk teared up in an interview when anchor asked him that your hero Euegene Cernan remarked in a congress testimony that: “Now is the time to overrule this administration’s (government at the time) pledge to mediocrity, a direct snide on Elon Musk and Spacex. He never bogged down from such statements and came true on his promises when his rockets successfully landed back with a successful recovery. Currently, Spacex is the leader in aerospace industry and eyeing to catapult 100 metric tons of cargo in space which will enable the humanity to pursue its dreams of landing on mars till 2030. He also launched satellite constellations (star link) which will enable high speed and non disrupting internet facility to areas as far as Antarctica at a phenomenally less premium than its competitors. Elon Musk has launched Tesla which is a clean electric vehicle technology that lessens our dependability on hydrocarbons centric vehicles. The company has shown 300 percent growth in the last five years. He is also funding his brother’s venture to grow sustainable vertical growth agriculture that can guarantee food security in the face of booming population. He also has an ambitious project called “Neuralink” to implant chips in differently abled humans in order to give them the means to live their lives as normal humans with excessive capabilities like better memory and eyes. It can revolutionize the health industry and can enable patients of strokes with another opportunity to live healthy. In order to achieve all this and better concentrate, he has shifted to specially-made minimalistic house which is the cheapest home for a billionaire on this planet.

Due to Elon Musk’s visionary thinking, he may surpass Einstein and Newton in terms of the utility he promises to give to the mankind. Landing humans on mars may enable new avenues for interplanetary research. The search for life on other planets will give clues on the origin of life in the universe. He is pushing the limits of humanity. Through Tesla, he is helping the world cope with global warming and giving sustainable alternative technologies rather than expensive and climate enemy hydrocarbons. With NeuraLink, a new hope has emerged to enable the crippled people with better life. It is not about whether he will achieve all these ambitious ventures but the promise and excitement he brings by going the other way and disrupting the conventional thinking.   

Once Steve Jobs remarked about the disruptors of technology in a Stanford graduation ceremony, an institute from where he had to drop out, that:

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignoring them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people, who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

The above comments suits Elon Musk’s persona and achievements in letter and spirit.