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World Statistics Day | CSS Essay Material

By: Ch Sajid Rasul

This article will be helpful for CSS English Essays, Current Affairs, United Nation Days and International Relations

“On this first World Statistics Day, I encourage the international community to work with the United Nations to enable all countries to meet their statistical needs.” Ban Ki Moon on World Statistics Day, 2010.

The modern growth of digital data sources escalated the demand for statistical literacy. It is now an unquestioned and accepted truth of life that we live in a world dominated by science and technology and that this inevitably requires a workforce and members of society, in general, to be more scientifically literate and numerate. Without having the right statistical care no one organisation can better utilise their statistics for proper planning and running of their businesses. Public sector organisations rely heavily on accurate statistics to make timely decisions regarding budgets, public policy, programme implementation, and general organisation priorities.

To promote the importance of statistics and statistical literacy around the world, the United Nations Statistical Commission celebrates a World Statistics Day in global collaborative endeavour after five years. The first World Statistics Day was celebrated on October 20, 2010 with the theme “Service, professionalism, integrity: celebrating the many contributions and achievements of official statistics”. On June 3, 2015 the United Nations General Assembly designated October 20 2015 as the second World Statistics Day and decided to celebrate the day every five years on October 20. The second day was celebrated with the theme “Better data, better lives”.

This third World Statistics Day is being celebrated around the globe on October 20, 2020 with the theme “connecting the world with data we can trust”. This theme reflects on the importance of trust, authoritative data, innovation, and the public good in national/regional statistical systems. The Statistics Division of the United Nations Department of Economic Affairs is the global coordinator of the campaign, defining global key messages and making outreach resources to countries and other partners available through this website.

The role of statistical institutions in promoting statistics and statistical literacy always remain exceptional at the federal and provincial levels in Pakistan. The Bureau of Statistics Punjab, as the premier statistical agency of the province contributes to promote the vision and scope of World Statistics Day every time. The Bureau of Statistics (BoS), Government of the Punjab is the hub of statistical data activity in the province and is responsible for the collection, processing, and dissemination of statistical data through periodic publications and electronic media. BoS, Punjab is an attached department of the Planning and Development Department. The functions of BoS, as standardised by the National Statistical Council, are to carry out provincial-level data collection, to coordinate and support statistical activities across the province, to liaise with the Federal Statistical System, to act as Provincial Electronic Data Processing Agency for various provincial departments and to prepare and disseminate provincial indicators by collecting information through institutional sources as well as by conducting new censuses/surveys.

In this regard, BoS Punjab has planned to celebrate the World Statistics Day 2020 by spreading statistical literacy through conducting a symposium on the theme of World Statistics Day 2020 and poster presentations to policymakers and researchers. The symposium is arranged to be held at the Planning and Development Board, Lahore on October 20, 2020. Participants would include senior officers from the P&D Board, Provincial Statistical Cells, and renowned academicians. The Minister of Finance Punjab, Mr Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht, will be the chief guest on the occasion. A poster presentation, related to the Theme of World Statistics Day 2020, will be arranged at BoS Headquarters Johar Town on October 21, 2020.

The mission statement of BoS states, “To develop and harness capable human resources, build a dynamic organization, develop proactive planning and client feedback system, enhance collection sophistication & integrity of data and increase simplicity & user-friendliness of statistical outputs.” The vision states, “The Bureau of Statistics, Punjab strives to be the leading statistical agency of the province, providing accurate, relevant, timely and user-friendly data whilst ensuring professionalism, transparency and integrity.”

The field of statistics is the science of learning from data. Statistical knowledge helps to use the proper methods, collect data, employ the correct analyses, and effectively present the results. Statistics is a crucial process behind how we make discoveries in science, make decisions based on data, and make predictions. Statistics allows you to understand a subject much more deeply.

The increasing demand for more and better statistics has brought to the front position the importance of statistics as a strategic resource for national and international development. Statistics are now recognised internationally as part of the enabling environment for development, and constitute an essential element in improving the ability of the government to develop appropriate policies, manage the economy and social development reform policies, monitor improvements in the living standards of the people and report back this progress to the public using solid pieces of evidence. According to the World Bank, good quality statistical data are needed to manage results, to set targets and monitor outcomes, to design development policies and strategies, to make evidence-based decisions about the allocation and management of the scarce resource.

Good decisions on effective policies, services, and behaviours require timely, accurate, and relevant information. Yet there is a striking disconnect between the need for information and the ability to respond to that need. To collect, collate, analyse, and communicate the necessary information in a timely and understandable fashion requires organised processes and procedures.

If nothing was uncertain we would not need statistics.

Since nearly everything varies in some fashion, we need a way to describe and work with that variability. We already know this and we know about statistics as being the right set of tools. Yet we hesitate, avoid, and refuse to pick up the appropriate tool. We learned and practiced using data collection, measurement error calculations, hypothesis testing, statistical process control, and design of experiments as part of our work.

Please encourage and support the use of statistics.

Basically, expect the use of statistics to design, conduct, and analyse experiments. Do experiments to learn and reduce uncertainty.

We would say, “Let the data talk.”


Courtesy: The Nation


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Why is Pakistan the only country that does not recognise Armenia?

Why is Pakistan the only country that does not recognise Armenia?

WRITTEN BY: Andrew Korybko

The frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is one of Eurasia’s geopolitical time bombs just like Kashmir.

Pakistan is the only country in the world that doesn’t recognise the independence of Armenia. The South Caucasus country objectively exists and is a member of the UN, but Islamabad’s stance is a principled one practiced as a form of protest in response to Yerevan’s egregious human rights violations against the Azeris of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region. There are some very good reasons why Pakistan doesn’t recognise Armenia, and they’ll be touched upon briefly in this piece.

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Foreign Office needs reform by Maleeha Lodhi | Essay Material

NO institution can perform effectively unless it is able to adapt to changes around it, leverage the opportunities offered by a globalised world and learn new skills to deal with emerging challenges. Periodic review and reform are essential to reinvigorate any organisation and make it fit for purpose. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is no exception to this rule.

For decades little has changed in its working methods, structure, training of personnel and mode of recruitment — and thus in its outlook and approach. If foreign policy is the country’s first line of defence, Pakistan’s foreign service needs serious attention and reform.

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Afghan-Taliban peace talks: Who, What, Where and Why

Talks seeking to end 19 years of war in Afghanistan started this weekend, with an opening ceremony on Saturday. Negotiators representing the Kabul government and Taliban insurgents are scheduled to sit face to face in the Qatari capital of Doha from September 13, 2020.

The intra-Afghan negotiations grew out of a US-Taliban agreement in February.

It outlined the withdrawal of foreign forces from by May 2021 in exchange for peace guarantees and Taliban promises to open negotiations with the Afghan government, which the group had previously refused.

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Kashmir and the United Nations Security Council | CSS Essay Material

By: Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai

India’s Ambassador to the United Nations, T S Tirumurti has asked the UN Security Council to take off the “outdated agenda item” of the “India-Pakistan question’’, from the Council.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Munir Akram responded, “Indian representatives are either deluding themselves, or deluding their public, by asserting that they will remove Kashmir from the Security Council’s agenda.”

In the summary statement by Mr Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General of matters of which the Security Council is seized, was issued on January 2, 2020. 56 items have been considered by the Council at a formal meeting during the period from January 1 2017 to December 31 2019, while, 13 items were not. However, all 69 agenda items were identified “as matters of which Security Council was currently seized,” including “The India-Pakistan Question.”

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When we talk about rights and freedom, instead of going into the specified, limited, to the point reasons and responsibilities, both terms are taken into a very broader aspect which too can create, chaos, disharmony, hatred, racism and many more small but yet important issues. There is a very common and general rule of rights and freedom; “my right stops when it infringes upon your rights”. Usually both these terms are taken into one sense but when we look closely, both these terms are so way part. What is a right? A right is fair, equitable, upright, honorable, honest, moral ethical, lawful and legal well-being and practice of an individual. Whereas when you talk about freedom it represents a whole of a lot and it’s independent living.

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Governance implies control, direction, and rule with authority or administers laws to govern a system to achieve certain objectives. Good Governance implies running administration according to the defined laws to achieve the objective of promoting the welfare of the people in a democratic oriented order. Bad governance means departing from the norms of laws and subjecting system of administration to whims, idiosyncrasies of the rulers to achieve certain ulterior motives at the cost of national interests.

The hallmark of great nations is that they learn from their past experience to become wiser in conducting their current and future affairs. Another distinctive feature of such nations is that they try to understand the emerging long-term trends to identify new challenges, and plan for the future so as to take maximum advantage of the opportunities and avoid the pitfalls that may lie ahead.

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Five ways to improve development assistance

So much is written and said about foreign aid that it has become difficult to contribute meaningfully to the debate about whether it is effective. But if we are charting our fates as citizens of a crowded, fragile planet, then any honest assessment must conclude that progress has been made, whether in terms of child survival or literacy or access to basic sanitation. Still, profound social disparities exist; so too does extreme poverty. And the prospects of those living on less than two dollars a day remain grim. With the stakes as high as they are, the need to challenge the assumptions we make about aid is paramount. Myths and mystifications about aid persist. Whether we speak of feedback loops or best practices — or, perhaps, simply better practices — we have a long way to go.

Despite agreements on aid effectiveness reached in Rome, Paris, Accra, and Busan over the last decade, 80 percent of aid from major bilateral and multilateral donors to fragile countries still bypasses the systems of local public institutions. But the aspiration to improve the lives of those living in extreme poverty through better public health, public education, and public works by definition requires public-sector capacity.

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Judicial activism’s history and scope

Certain legal circles are showing concerns over the proactive role our judiciary is playing in restoring fundamental rights to the common man, and taking cognizance of corrupt practices in institutions of public importance. This proactive role which is termed as judicial activism has been defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as, “a philosophy of law-making whereby judges allow their personal views about public policy, among other factors, to guide their decisions.” Thus according to them any order or decision which is coloured by a judge’s subjective mind rather than the literal application of law would amount to a legal aberration and is therefore likely to cause miscarriage of justice. But the fact remains that when a judge is engaged in the task of sifting truth from falsehood, his objective and subjective faculties are simultaneously at work, and in respect of most of the questions before him, the bare literal application of law would neither be adequate nor desirable.

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Environmental Challenges in Pakistan | CSS Essay Material

Environmental Challenges in Pakistan | CSS Essay Material

Environmental issues in Pakistan have been disturbing the balance between economic development and environmental protection

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