LAHORE – Three-day event ‘A World of Tomorrow’ organized by Beacon house School System in Lahore attracted a large number of people on its second day on Saturday.
Students, teachers, intellectuals, politicians and literary figures came in droves on the second day to participate in different panel discussions held in Royal Palm Golf and Country Club.
On the second day, a session was held with former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar. In the session, Khar highlighted the issues of Pakistan’s relations with other countries and also narrated her personal experience while in office as FM.
“We received enormous pressure from the United States to hand over Dr Shakil Afridi to the US in the aftermath of the killing of Osama Bin Laden but our government did not budge from its initial stance of not releasing Afridi,” Khar said, while counting the success of her ministry.
Talking about US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Khar said that Hillary strongly believes in the ‘American Exceptionalism’ and that she would win the election. In response to a question, she said that the incumbent government of Pakistan had fallen into the trap of matching the ‘Modi mantra’ and the government must avoid following Modi so as to maintain peace in the region.
“There are two types of foreign policy; pro-active and reactive foreign policies. Reactive foreign policy refers to the policy of tit-for-tat and Pakistan should avoid reactive policy especially in the context of India,” Khar said.
In another session titled ‘Wo Subha Kabhi Tou Aye Gi’, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said that dreams could be materialised only through commitment and strong determination. He said that stability and continuity were essential for ensuring development in the country, adding that the country had a lot of potential.
“We want peaceful relations with all the neighbouring countries as the progress is not possible in war,” the minister added. Iqbal said the world of tomorrow will be different from the world of yesterday and today. The minister said that despite of all the challenges, the present government had doubled the budget of higher education in three years.
To another query, he said strengthening of institutions was significant to overcome corruption, adding that vibrant and robust civil society was necessary for ensuring transparency.
As many as 60 interactive sessions will be held in three days in which more than 160 speakers will participate. The issues related to art, music, politics and education will come under discussion in these sessions.
