3 Things You Should be Tweeting About Instead of Raymond Davis and His Stupid Book

It’s been, what, four days since Raymond Davis’ book surfaced driving every newspaper-reading-and-talk-show addicted-Pakistani into frenzy? And here I am baffled at why this guy’s getting so much attention all over again? I mean he was a contract killer who committed murder on our soil and then conveniently left on a chartered plane. We established that six years ago! Everything else is unimportant. Who helped him leave, what he was offered to eat at prison in Pakistan (McDonald’s by the way) and how he’s still a deeply disturbed, good-for-nothing monster are all matters that are largely irrelevant six years later.

But here we are giving a contract killer more importance and airtime than news that actually affects us and our future!

So, rather than sulking in frustration I thought about giving all you deeply concerned citizens some REAL news to talk and tweet about instead of wasting time and energy on discussing a book that’s not even well-written! (Yes, I admit, I tried to give it a read but even for a bookworm like me, it proved impossible to go beyond the first few chapters).

In no particular order, here is some actual important news that needs our collective attention!

Pakistan Launches a Final Offensive Against Polio

The polio virus that literally threatened to cripple our children (and hence or future) has been successfully curbed in most parts of the country. However, unlike 98% of the countries around the world where polio has been entirely eradicated, Pakistan is among the three countries (Afghanistan and Nigeria being the other two) where polio still has epidemic status!

As shameful as this sounds, the good news is that the government has planned a final offensive to wipe out this dangerous virus from Pakistan once and for all. Under the plan targeted campaigns will be launched in the most vulnerable districts by the Polio Eradication Program.

If you’re a truly patriotic citizen, please dedicate a few tweets to buck up this much needed initiative!

Punjab Only Has 280 Burn Recovery Beds

Despite being the most densely populated province of Pakistan with a population of more than 122 million people, Punjab only has 280 burn recovery beds! This is a serious concern, which only surfaced after the tragedy in Bahawalpur claimed over 200 lives.

280 burn recovery beds sounds like a joke for the country’s most affluent province. It also highlights the impossible situation in which we expect our medics to save lives, especially in emergencies as huge as the Bahawalpur tragedy.

If you’re a sucker for social causes, here’s one for you to talk and tweet about!

44% of Pakistan’s Children are Still Out of School

I know, I know you keep hearing about how bad Pakistan’s education ranking is and it’s become quite boring to read the same statistics over and over again. But have you stopped to consider why you keep hearing about the education crisis in Pakistan? It’s because despite numerous promises by multiple governments, the situation continues to be quite terrible!

22.6 million (i.e. 2.26 corore) Pakistani children are currently out of school. The worst part is that despite this grave statistic budget allocation for education remains a little over 2% of the country’s GDP and the funds that are made available often times remain unspent! I mean WHAT THE HELL?! This none sense needs to end – and I mean soon!

So, if you want a worthy cause to rant about please, please, please, please, please, please, PRETTY PLEASE talk about sending our children to school!

There you have it! Now be good, patriotic citizens and make sure these three subjects get sufficient public and media attention because unless we solve our real problems people like Raymond Davis will continue to walk all over us and then write stupid books about it!