Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government contrary to other provinces and Center observed a public holiday on death anniversary of great poet Allama Iqbal . KP government announced on Saturday night that all the offices and schools under provincial government will remain closed on Monday. Earlier, Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan appealed to KP government to keep to observe holiday on Monday on birthday of Allama Iqbal.He said new generation must be taught about the ideology and teachings of Allama Iqbal. “Nations do not exist without ideologies, and Pakistan’s ideology is Iqbal’s ideology.” Imran said.He further said that it is our duty to convey Iqbal’s message to our new generation and this message should be transferred from generation to generation. There is no argument, of course, with the immense significance of Allama Iqbal in the annals of this country’s history and today, but the PML-N government took a step in the right direction — though it should have made the announcement much earlier — by choosing to keep the wheels of government and everything else turning. Important days can be observed without public holidays being declared — which in any case number too many on the official calendar. Indeed, the government needs to conduct an exercise aiming to further rationalise the number of gazetted holidays, squeezing them to the bare minimum so that losses in terms of work output and money are minimised. The country’s news media has already taken the lead in this. The electronic news generation machine does not stop — in fact, days of commemoration see escalated levels of work judging by the extensive programming on Iqbal yesterday. The print media, too, has drastically reduced the number of days in the year when the presses are silent.
pk.shafaqna.com
