People Of Pakistan Research Articles

Political Existence and Question of Historical Agency: Performance of Pakistan People’s Party in Punjab (1999-2018)

Pakistan People’s Party has gone through difficult times since 1999. They went through split in the parliamentary party by giving birth to ‘parliamentarians’, lost leadership, attained power and experienced the lowest electoral score in the political history between 1999 and 2018. These two decades have been crucial not only for the Pakistan People’s Party but also for the overall political development in Pakistan. Enforcement of emergency, introduction of ‘enlightened moderation’, war on terror, charter of democracy, eighteenth amendment and above all the slogan of ‘tabdili’ accredit this era for a deeper analysis of the events. Plethora of work has been done on the political, social and economic aspects of this period in the political history of Pakistan. This paper analyses the relationship of political existence with the historical agency to understand the events of political success and failure in the light of historical standards of existence. It defines the historical standards on the basis of sociocultural dynamics of society and on the basis of these standards analyses the performance of Pakistan People’s Party. It argues for the deterministic presence of History as an agent in the social and political development. This paper extends the argument, while answering the question of nature of socio-cultural and historical relevance of a political party, to the understanding of existing material on political development, understanding of socio-cultural transitions and by understanding the emerging socio-cultural realities. It concludes the discussion with linking the performance of Pakistan People’s Party with the historical dimension.

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever among general people: A cross-sectional study in Pakistan

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) continues to pose a serious threat to the fragile healthcare system of Pakistan with a continuous increase of morbidity and mortality. The present study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding CCHF among general people who resided in Pakistan. An online cross-sectional survey design was applied, and a convenience sampling technique was used to recruit 1039 adult people from Pakistan. Data were collected from September 08 to October 12, 2021. The questionnaire consisted of a total of 32 questions in four parts assessing socio-demographics, as well as knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding CCHF. All statistical analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), and logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the factors associated with good knowledge, positive attitudes, and good practices. Alarmingly, 51.5% of participants heard about CCHF infection before administering the survey. Among these, 20.2%, 33.3%, and 48.2% of the study participants had demonstrated good knowledge, positive attitudes, and good practices, respectively. Binary logistic regression analysis revealed that education and income status had a significant impact on knowledge and attitudes (p<0.05). Similarly, the mean attitude scores differed significantly by age, education, and income status (p<0.05). The findings reflected inadequate levels of knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding CCHF among general people in Pakistan which may regard as lower than expected. As CCHF is a highly contagious disease, it's urgent to initiate a comprehensive approach to handle the situation before it spreads further in Pakistan.

ENHANCING PAKISTAN-CHINA COOPERATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

This paper focuses on the cooperation between China and Pakistan in the field of higher education which covers various aspects i-e Science and technology, Engineering, Medical Sciences, Social sciences and Natural Sciences. China and Pakistan are coming closer day by day due to CPEC project. Numerous “Research and Development” projects have been initiated by both countries due to which large number of opportunities has been opened for the students and intellectuals of both countries. Various scientific research centers, Chinese and Pakistanis research centres are installed so that the people of China and Pakistan can take advantage form these projects. This paper also discusses various education projects that are specifically linked with CPEC project. Different conferences on “CPEC Consortium of business “has been arranged so as to promote business-to-business contact between China and Pakistan. Apart from that the student exchange programmes between these two neighboring countries that is benefiting both countries has also been discussed in detail. The data for this paper has been taken from secondary sources. The method that has been used is qualitative in nature.

Dengue awareness among faculty members of government college university, Faisalabad

Background: As Pakistan is a developing country with limited sources and overpopulation, facing problems like earthquakes, water shortages and floods has affected the health conditions of people of Pakistan. Dengue has been a grave problem in Pakistan due to the availability of no vaccine, insufficient sanitation system, presence of polluted water for drinking and overpopulation for a very long time but still each year there are dengue cases reported along with deaths caused by it. Even for being present for a very long time and being prevalent, there is lack of sufficient awareness in the people of Pakistan. Aims: There are awareness studies conducted on various aspects of the population and in different areas but neither there are any studies conducted on faculty members nor consequently there are awareness programs based for the faculty members that are the source of knowledge for the society and specifically the newer generations. Thus, this study focused on determining the level of awareness in faculty members which might help in designing awareness programs for them later on. Method: The sampling technique used in this study was convenient sampling and the sample included 50 faculty members (men = 28, women = 21) from different departments of Government College University, Faisalabad. A self-constructed structured dengue awareness questionnaire was administered onto the participants i.e., the faculty members. Later on, the data obtained through these questionnaires were quantitatively analyzed and interpreted through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences SPSS version 26. Later on, the results were reported.

Donatio organorum- reluctance to organ donation medical students; a cross-sectional descriptive study

Organ donation is the act of removing an organ or tissue from a donor and transplanting the said organ/tissue to a recipient. Despite being the only definitive treatment for end-organ failure, there is a lot of hesitation surrounding the practice of organ donation. Even among medical students, who are more aware of the benefits of organ donation than the general public, this reluctance is widespread.Therefore, we conducted this research to determine the basis of this skepticism, so that the root causes can be identified and eradicated. Our research sought to ascertain the overall attitudes of Rawalpindi Medical University, Pakistan's students towards organ donation, the associated factors that influenced this attitude (religious devotion, gender, age, year of study) and the reasons for the hesitance. A cross-sectional study targeting the students of first to final year MBBS was conducted at Rawalpindi Medical University, Pakistan in the year 2022. The sample size was calculated using OpenEpi software, and came out to be 292. The students enrolled at Rawalpindi Medical University during the year 2021-2022 were made a part of the study. A self-structured questionnaire that was developed after substantial research was used to collect the data using a non-random convenience sample technique. Chi Square test was used to determine significance after data analysis using SPSS-22. A total of 290 students participated in the study, 58 from each year. All of the participants were Muslim. A very strong correlation was found between high devoutness and willingness towards organ donation (p=7.4252E-13). Only 9/290 (3%) of people in Pakistan have joined The Transplantation Society of Pakistan; the main cause of this low ratio is that very few people were aware that such a group even existed (according to 62% of the responders). The mistrust of doctors and the belief that appropriate efforts would not be done to resuscitate patients who have signed up for organ donation is a significant factor in the anxiety surrounding organ donation. There are several reasons why people are reluctant to donate their organs, including a lack of understanding of religious perspectives on the subject, mistrust of medical professionals and medical administration, and general public ignorance. We can make a significant progress toward closing the gap between the demand for and supply of organ donations if these problems are remedied. The most effective strategy to stop organ trafficking is through organ donation. Through seminars, conversations, and workshops, we need to raise awareness about organ donation.

Pakistan sign language to Urdu translator using Kinect

The lack of a standardized sign language, and the inability to communicate with the hearing community through sign language, are the two major issues confronting Pakistan's deaf and dumb society. In this research, we have proposed an approach to help eradicate one of the issues. Now, using the proposed framework, the deaf community can communicate with normal people. The purpose of this work is to reduce the struggles of hearing-impaired people in Pakistan. A Kinect-based Pakistan sign language (PSL) to Urdu language translator is being developed to accomplish this. The system’s dynamic sign language segment works in three phases: acquiring key points from the dataset, training a long short-term memory (LSTM) model, and making real-time predictions using sequences through openCV integrated with the Kinect device. The system’s static sign language segment works in three phases: acquiring an image-based dataset, training a model garden, and making real-time predictions using openCV integrated with the Kinect device. It also allows the hearing user to input Urdu audio to the Kinect microphone. The proposed sign language translator can detect and predict the PSL performed in front of the Kinect device and produce translations in Urdu.

Pakistan sign language to Urdu translator using Kinect

The lack of a standardized sign language, and the inability to communicate with the hearing community through sign language, are the two major issues confronting Pakistan's deaf and dumb society. In this research, we have proposed an approach to help eradicate one of the issues. Now, using the proposed framework, the deaf community can communicate with normal people. The purpose of this work is to reduce the struggles of hearing-impaired people in Pakistan. A Kinect-based Pakistan sign language (PSL) to Urdu language translator is being developed to accomplish this. The system’s dynamic sign language segment works in three phases: acquiring key points from the dataset, training a long short-term memory (LSTM) model, and making real-time predictions using sequences through openCV integrated with the Kinect device. The system’s static sign language segment works in three phases: acquiring an image-based dataset, training a model garden, and making real-time predictions using openCV integrated with the Kinect device. It also allows the hearing user to input Urdu audio to the Kinect microphone. The proposed sign language translator can detect and predict the PSL performed in front of the Kinect device and produce translations in Urdu.

Prevalence and Correlates of Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Knowledge among Women Aged 15–49 Years in Pakistan

Pakistan is ranked second among the countries in pacific Asia where the AIDS epidemic is spreading rapidly. Objectives: This study examines the comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge and measures the relationship between knowledge and socio-demographic characteristics of women aged 15-49 in Pakistan. Methods: It is based on secondary data analysis of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-2018. Data were collected from 50,495 married women aged 15-49 through the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were applied to summarize the data while bivariate analysis was conducted to find out the correlations. Results: The study found that Pakistani women have a low level of knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge and wealth index as well as with the level of access to information. It shows that women from the richest households with moderate access to information had a high level of HIV/AIDS knowledge. Conclusions: Social stigmas regarding HIV/AIDS are rooted in Pakistani traditional society which is consequently the cause of the lack of knowledge regarding this epidemic among people in Pakistan

Post‐flood infectious disease prevention and control: Current scenario in Pakistan

Post‐flood infectious disease prevention and control: Current scenario in Pakistan

ROLE OF MICRO FINANCING INSTITUTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF STANDARD OF LIVING

Today, in the presence of highly competitive business environment, the current condition of Pakistan’s economy is not so good, as many people are unemployed and are also willing to use the facility of micro-financing for bringing changing in their life and change the ways of living standards. Micro-financing institutions has number of different independent variables which need to be properly monitored in order to reduce the poverty level of the people and once the poverty level is improved, the overall Standard of Living of people in Pakistan will also be improved as they are correlated with each other. In simple context, it can be analyzed; the poverty level is directly proportional to the standards of living of people in Pakistan. The economic growth can only be considered in the positive context if the challenges related to the poverty are properly addressed. However, micro-financing institutions and the loan facility provided by these banks are considered as the key parameters in bringing improvement in the transforming standard of living of people in Pakistan. In this research context, questionnaire technique has being utilized to evaluate and measure the standard of people living in Pakistan through availing the loan facilities and how they have been able to address the challenges related to the poverty level, thus resulting into overall improvement of the standard of living of Pakistan citizen. Questionnaire has developed on the basis of the variables. The research study has evaluated the impact of variables linked with Bank loans in transforming standard of living in Pakistan through measuring these variables relationship. The data collected by the respondents has being analysed through implication of tests that includes correlation and regression. The research findings have reflected that through availing the loan facilities provided by the micro-financing institutions, living standards of the people is being improved and will also improve in future. Key words: Micro financing institutions, Standard of living, economic growth, poverty, economy

RANKING OF IMRAN KHAN’S POPULARITY IN PAKISTAN’S MEDIA

This study analyzed Imran Khan as the populist leader’s ranking in Pakistan’s media prior to and after becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan. The election was held in 2018, and Imran Khan was considered the most popular leader among the people of Pakistan. The content analysis of four mainstream English Newspapers (Express Tribune, DAWN, The News International, and The Nation) was carried out. The total number of news stories framed in four newspapers was 1158 (N=1158). The study aimed to analyze the ranking of the popularity frames of Imran Khan in newspapers. For this purpose, popularity frame's categories were operationalized into five themes, Personality, People’s Leader, The Savior, Poise Reformer, and Crisis Manager. These were further divided into ten subthemes with negative and positive connotations attached. The findings revealed that the hypothesis, “ranking of Imran Khan’s popularity prior to election in 2018 is higher than after election in Newspaper of Pakistan,” is not supported, i.e., Spearman correlation rs (ρ) =.125 and value of p=.568, that is not significant at level 0.05. Keywords: Crisis Manager, People’s Leader Personality, Populist, Poise Reformer, The Savior

Exploring Political Polarization, Shaming and Ideology through Tweeting: A Critical Perspective

The present study is an attempt to identify and address political polarization and shaming in the language of the political discourse of Pakistan on social media. It is an endeavour to examine the hidden patterns in the linguistic choices of politicians for the production, maintenance, and prorogation of their institutional identities. The methodological framework of the study is Norman Fairclough’s (1995) three-dimensional model of critical discourse analysis which is employed to analyze polarization and shaming in the language of social media by focusing on the General Assembly Elections of Gilgit-Baltistan held on November 15, 2020. The data has been taken from the Twitter accounts of three parties and their representatives including Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz Sharif), and Pakistan People's Party. The research data is related to political discourse as it consists of linguistic elements regarding the production, development, dissemination, and maintenance of power, ideology and institutional value. The findings of this study unfold that discourse is an integral component of every individual, group, institute, and nation that produces, promotes and maintains the ideological identity through legitimizing their actions and executing their power. Furthermore, tweets are constructed, formulated, propagated, maintained, and legitimized through ideologically guided power structures and discursive patterns.

Ideological Underpinning of Political Slogans of Mainstream Political Parties of Pakistan: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Language is not merely a means of communication; it is also a carrier of the ideology of the people who speak it though it may not be easily discernible at times. This implies that language and ideology bear a very close relationship with each other. The present study reports how language and ideology are interwoven in the form of slogans found in the political gatherings and rallies of three mainstream political parties of Pakistan: PMLN(Pakistan Muslim League, N),PPP(Pakistan People's Party) and PTI(Pakistan Tehreek –e- Insaf). To critically analyse the selected slogans,methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) offered by Van Dijk and specific meanings which are not clear to the ordinary audience. The present study also aimed at finding out how the hidden ideology manipulates the judgements and reaction of the public.

An Analysis of the Role of 13th National Assembly (2008-2013) in the Constitutional and Political Development of Pakistan

In order to fulfill the administrative requirements of the military regime, General Pervaiz Musharraf (1999-2008) transformed the parliamentary form of government as originally provided by the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan into a quasi-presidential system. Afterwards, the government of Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) tried to revive the constitution in its original form. During its term of five years, it not only successfully incorporated 18th, 19th, and 20th Constitutional Amendments but also kept the 13th National Assembly (2008-2013) more functional in terms of ordinary legislation mainly focusing on the socio-political welfare of the general public. Another milestone that was achieved during the said period was the approval of the 7th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award. The current study intends to review the functioning of the federal legislature during the said term of PPP in order to assess whether or not the Assembly effectively represented the general will by formulating public policies or worked as mere debating house. A descriptive and analytical methodology is used to find the conclusion. It has been revealed that the said Assembly remained vigorously active and functional during the 2008-2013 tenure of PPP government. Besides passing the abovementioned crucial Constitutional Amendments, it preferred to legislate for the welfare of general people particularly of women.

Work of Underage Individuals in Pakistan: Social and Economic Contributing Factors

Work of underage people or child work denotes the engagement of children in any type of activity that divests them from their childhood. The present study piloted to investigate the social and economic determinants of work by underage people in Pakistan. The study uses probit and logit estimation techniques for the purposes of analysis. The study found that education of the underage individuals and of the household head condenses the probability of work by under agers. The wages of household head indicates the financial situation of the household. This exerts inverse impact on the labor by under agers.

Machine Learning-Based Fragility Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Buildings.

In the past, large earthquakes caused the collapse of infrastructure and killed thousands of people in Pakistan, a seismically active region. Therefore, the seismic assessment of infrastructure is a dire need that can be done using the fragility analysis. This study focuses on the fragility analysis of school buildings in Muzaffarabad district, seismic zone-4 of Pakistan. Fragility curves were developed using incremental dynamic analysis (IDA); however, the numerical analysis is computationally time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, soft computing techniques such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Gene Expression Programming (GEP) were employed as alternative methods to establish the fragility curves for the prediction of seismic performance. The optimized ANN model [5-25-1] was used. The feedforward backpropagation network was considered in this study. To achieve a reliable model, 70% of the data was selected for training and 15% for validation and 15% of data was used for testing the model. Similarly, the GEP model was also employed to predict the fragility curves. The results of both ANN and GEP were compared based on the coefficient of determination, R 2. The ANN model accurately predicts the global drift values with R 2 equal to 0.938 compared to the GEP model having R 2 equal to 0.87.

Presentations and Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis in Pakistan: A Retrospective Review of 188 Cases.

Approximately 10 out of every 100,000 people in Pakistan have multiple sclerosis (MS), yet there is a dearth of research on MS in the country, with most prior studies limited by small sample sizes. We wish to report on the largest study of MS patients from Pakistan. The objectives of this study were to identify demographic characteristics, disease characteristics, hospitalization causes, and past and current treatments of patients with MS in Pakistan. A retrospective review of patient records of all patients diagnosed with MS was carried out at the Department of Medicine at the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi and the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad. Medical records were used to generate a list of patients who were admitted at participating centers with a diagnosis of MS between December 2019 and September 2020. The diagnosis of MS was based on McDonald criteria. The study was approved by the ethics review committees of both participating centers.The study included 188 patients (mean age, 31.1 ± 11.22 years), with 37.2% men and 62.8% women. Relapsing-remitting MS was the most common type (81%), followed by primary progressive (10%) and secondary progressive (9%). The most common finding on T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery MRI sequences was the presence of multiple foci (69.2%), most seen in the periventricular region (52.1%), followed by the juxtacortical region (49.3%). A single focus of gadolinium enhancement was observed in 20% of patients, most seen in the spinal cord (23.9%), followed by the periventricular area (18.1%).Medication infusion was the most common reason for hospitalization, reported in 16% of cases, followed by exacerbation of MS in 13.8% cases, and infection in 4.3% cases. Ocrelizumab (5.3%), steroids (3.8%), and rituximab (3.2%) were the most common treatments prescribed. Patients had been treated previously with oral and intravenous steroids, azathioprine, and mitoxantrone, as shown in TABLE 1.A detailed study of MRI lesions found multiple foci to be the most prevalent (69.2%), with periventricular and juxtacortical lesions the most common sites (52.1% and 49.3%, respectively). Incidental MS was reported in less than 1% of MRI scans.1 Disease characteristics and MRI findings in our group of MS patients were consistent with publications from other parts of the world.2 We explored reasons for hospitalization, the most common of which were MS exacerbation and medication infusions. Most patients (83%) were not taking any medications at their most recent evaluation. A prior study stated that 95% of patients received pulse steroids.3,4 Other treatments mentioned in literature include interferon beta, methotrexate, mitoxantrone,4,5 ocrelizumab, teriflunomide, alemtuzumab, and, per informal reports from neurologists, rituximab and azathioprine.3 Wasay et al found that less than one-fourth of all patients received disease-modifying therapies, of which 11% received methotrexate, 10% received mitoxantrone, and 1% received interferon beta therapy.4 However, recent years have seen a rise in the use of disease-modifying therapies due to an aggressive disease course or secondary progressive MS.6

Impact of Perceived Influence, Virtual Interactivity on Consumer Purchase Intentions Through the Path of Brand Image and Brand Expected Value.

Many researchers are currently showing interest in researching consumers who are purchasing the products with the help of new tools, and new kinds of markets are emerging rapidly. M-commerce is a prevalent mode of marketing and is famous among young people of Pakistan. Current research is planned to check the status of consumer purchase intentions (PIs) using perceived influence, virtual interactivity, brand image, and brand expected value among customers who purchase their products with the help of m-commerce. Data was collected from customers who were engaged in buying with the help of m-commerce by using the convenience sampling technique and 227 complete questionnaires were used in final analysis. This research examines the direct impact of perceived influence, virtual interactivity, brand image, and brand expected value on PIs and finds the indirect effect of brand image and brand expected value on the relationships of perceived influence and virtual interactivity with PIs. Results indicate that all the hypotheses of direct relationships are accepted except the hypothesis for the relation of virtual interactivity with consumer PIs. Virtual interactivity has an insignificant positive impact on consumer PIs. Brand expected value has a strong positive effect on consumer PIs among all. The current study proposed four mediational hypotheses. All the proposed mediational hypotheses are accepted.

Political Parties and Violence in Karachi, Pakistan

Political parties in many ethnically polarized contexts around the world engage in electoral violence. Why do some parties engage in violence directly while others do so through intermediaries? Existing literature has produced contradictory results about when democracy turns violent and paid insufficient attention to the form that party violence takes. Using qualitative and survey data of both party elites and voters, this paper focuses on two parties in the violent megacity of Karachi, Pakistan: the Muttahida Qaumi Movement—whose cadres directly orchestrated violence—and the Pakistan People’s Party—which outsourced violence to distinct specialists. It argues that where state capacity is contested by multiple competing sovereigns, the economic and coercive benefits to be gained from violence are high. However, even where parties share similar incentives for violence within a particular electoral arena, whether a party engages in violence directly or not depends on its organizational structure and strength.

Contemporary Study: Acquisition of a New Language and its Impacts on a Learner’s Lifestyle

This research paper deals with the influence of acquiring a new language on the learner’s lifestyle. Keeping in view the Pakistani folks, this paper explores how the acquisition of a new language, particularly the English language, influences the people in shaping their future by making them communicative with people across the world. While talking about the acquisition of a new language in general, the paper explores the influence of learning the English language on the people of Pakistan in the context of their academic and financial careers, improvement of communication skills, enhancement of understanding, and endless opportunities to shape the future inside and outside the country.