SPEAKER'S BIOGRAPHIES
Writer, Economist, Journalist ‘Daily Times’
Originally
from Pakistan, Dr. Manzur Ejaz was the founder member of ‘Nationalist
Students Organization’ (NSO). This was the main progressive student’s
organization in Punjab. He completed his Masters in Arts from Punjab
University and later taught in the same institution at its New Campus in
Lahore during ‘70s.
He is the founder of a Punjabi magazine ‘Eur Lekha’ and a publishing house ‘Punjab Adabi Markaz’. A collection of his poems has been published with the title, ‘Nazman’. He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines.
He is the author of:
1.
Epistemics of Development Economics: Toward a Methodological Critique and Unity, Green Publishers, Connecticut2. Ranjhan Yar, A play in Punjabi
Presently, he writes for Wichaar, Daily Times, Pakistan Post, BBC and other magazines.
Dr. Manzur Ejaz has a Ph.D. in Economics from Howard University, Washington, DC.
Human Rights Activist
Mr.
Iqbal Tareen was born in Shikarpur, Sindh and graduated from Sindh
University Engineering College, Jamshoro. During his student years, he
actively participated in the movement for the restoration of sovereignty of
Sindh. Mr. Tareen was the founding president of Jeay Sindh Students
Federation. During the regimes of Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Z.A. Bhutto, he
was incarcerated for extended periods of time. In 1969, during Yahya Khan's
regime, he was moved from Hyderabad to the notorious Central Prison of
Multan and kept in solitary confinement for seven months. He continued to be
politically active till he took up a teaching assignment at Dawood College
of Engineering & Technology in 1974. He was also involved in the performing
arts at the Karachi Television Center.
In 1982 he migrated to the US. Currently, Mr. Tareen is working as Vice
President, Sales and Marketing, for a Richardson-based IT and Telecom
Solutions and Consulting Company in Texas. He is the Chair of the Sindh
Rights Committee of Sindhi Association of North America. He has also chaired
SANA's People-Against Kalabagh Dam Action Committee, and served as Sr. VP
and President of Sindhi Association of North America. Between 1988 and 1993,
he edited Sindh Monitor - a publication voicing Sindhi American opinion on
issues relating to Sindh and South Asia. As a Sindhi American, he strongly
supports an active American foreign policy that takes moral stand against
dictatorial regimes, ethnic cleansing, hate crimes and homegrown and
overseas terrorism.
President, WSI
Mr.
Zahid Makhdoom, President of the World Sindhi Institute's Board of
Directors from 2002 to present, was born in Sindh in 1954 and moved to
Canada in 1984, where he continues to reside today. During persistent
struggles for human rights for the people of Sindh, Makhdoom was arrested
and imprisoned for ten months in 1971-2. He now lives in Vancouver, British
Columbia in Canada with his wife and works as a Sitting Justice at the
Provincial Court of British Columbia. Mr. Makhdoom is an extremely engaging
and dynamic speaker, with extensive knowledge of the politics and culture of
Sindh, Pakistan, and the various political relations between and with both.
University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada
Dr. Nizamani teaches Political Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. From 2001 to 2003, he was a Global Security and Cooperation Fellow of the Social Science Research Council at UBC’s Institute of International Relations, as well as a Visiting Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad. From 2000-2001, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Nizamani is the author of The Roots of Rhetoric: Politics of Nuclear Weapons in India and Pakistan. Additional works by Nizamani have appeared in a number of reference journals worldwide.
Voice of America
Ms. Hoodbhoy was staff reporter for Dawn newspaper in Karachi, Pakistan for sixteen years. In January 2001 she taught a course entitled “Gender Politics of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran” at Amherst College on a Ford Foundation Fellowship. She taught a related course, “Gender Politics and Mass Media in the Muslim World” at UMASS, Amherst in the spring of 2002. She has helped produce several radio and video documentaries. Currently, she is writing a book on the last twenty years of Pakistan’s politics, based on her experiences working as a journalist.
Through nonviolent means,
The World Sindhi Institute works relentlessly
for universal human rights and humanitarian law for the
Sindhis of Sindh, in southeastern Pakistan.
