“Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.”
– Edmund Burke

Investing in solar energy

Solar energy is a renewable source of energy and currently the entire world is benefiting from it. While Pakistan is slowly coming to terms with the importance of solar power, its progress has been rather slow. At the moment, most of our country’s power generation relies on thermal power plants; where electricity is generated through burning of fuels (e.g. furnace oil), proving extremely harmful to the environment. The government has its focus mainly on establishing and backing fossil fuel based power plants, and neglecting the country’s potential to utilise solar power. Efforts must be made to harness and utilise this natural resource to the nation’s economic and environmental benefit.

Mujahid Saigol,
Islamabad

High price for reads

We hang our heads in resignation and wistfulness and say we don’t have enough people in the country who still love to read. We hold seminars to promote reading and literature. But what have we done to make the books easily accessible to the general public? And setting up more libraries or holding seminars is not the answer. Some of the books that were recently released by our local writers were priced way too high for an ordinary kid or even an adult to purchase. If we want to encourage reading habits among our children and people, perhaps we should consider regulating the prices for books by local writers.

Haram Junaid,
Karachi

Off to school, but safe?

Guaranteeing the safety of children should not only be confined to classrooms but to their school vans and buses as well. Most school buses are often left unattended filled with little children outside school. It should be noted that most of these children are too young to be left alone without a bus conductor. Proper conductors should be appointed to not only guard children but to assist students in crossing roads etc. The city conditions are not safe, hereby schools should not only invest in the security of school buildings but in transportation as well. It is time we start taking counteractive measures instead of waiting for something tragic to happen before taking appropriate action.

Ramisha Amar,
Karachi

Other side of tourist sites

Gilgit, Baltistan is certainly among the most raved about tourist attractions in Pakistan. However, to my surprise, I found various areas of the site covered in litter on my trip to the famous location. Wrappers, boxes, food item and bottles were strewn all over the place, diminishing the beauty of the spot. What’s most upsetting is that there were hardly any trash bins in the region. We need to address this problem more seriously if we want Pakistan’s tourism industry to flourish. If the pollution continues to increase at this rate, the area will lose its natural beauty and our country will incur a major economic loss.

Salima Khooso,
Quetta