Dr. Siddiqui & Recent Faculty Appointments

What is the basic difference between the way Dr Ghazi used to run IIUI and Dr Siddiqui does now? There might be a number of differences and answer may differ from person to person but the most important difference that sets both apart is their attitude towards disposing off the day to day affairs of IIUI. People who are experienced in the affairs of IIUI would testify that Dr Ghazi used to take much longer in deciding about matters and marking the files. The eye-witness accounts of Ghazi sahib’s marking practices show that Dr Ghazi would keep on classifying the files that he would inspect for marking. He would mark some and leave some unmarked. He would keep some files after marking on his right side and some on his left. Some of the files would go to the ground and some would go to one of the cabinets. Dr Siddiqui is very straight in this matter. He must be appreciated for his uprightness as well as his quickness in deciding about the files that come to him and he does not leave his office until all the files of the day are marked and returned. Now in this quickness, there is a possibility that some decisions are not as sound as others but in all honesty, it is better than never deciding the matters.

Dr Siddiqui should also be appreciated for developing the physical infra-structure of IIUI in terms of accommodations for students as well as faculty blocks. It would have a long term impact on the expansion of IIUI in future. Similarly, the way he upgraded the posts of IIUI faculty as per the decision of HEC is also worth appreciating. One of the recent actions of Dr Siddiqui for which we want to pay him a tribute and which has raised the eyebrows of many at IIUI is the appointment of some faculty members as full professor in BPS 21. We think that the faculty should also join us in appreciating Dr Siddiqui’s bold decision. We think it is for the first time in the history of IIUI that some members of the teaching faculty have seen their rise to a scale that was earlier the sole monopoly of simple graduate bureaucrats. The IIUI faculty is also aware how people on the administrative side in IIUI with a lowly qualification rose to grades higher than many teachers. So in the context of such examples, the faculty at IIUI should be happy and they should also try to improve their qualification and publish papers which are a prerequisite for such promotions and use the recent promotions as a precedent for their case.

This is not to suggest in any way that merit should be trampled at IIUI. Any promotion bypassing merit must be condemned. As far as we have been able to investigate, we believe that the two recent appointments in the department of Computer Science (Professor Muhammad Sher) and department of Law (Professor Farkhanda Zia) appear to be in accordance with the merit. Those interested to see the works of Muhammad Sher, please check the following link:

http://www.av.tu-berlin.de/?sher

The case of Farkhanda Zia is more interesting in the sense that she is a graduate of IIUI who has made her mark in the legal world by publishing research in internationally reputed journals. Faculty of Shari’ah and Law and IIUI should be proud of her and we believe that she has been rightly rewarded. Some of the following links and papers demonstrate her ability and skills to publish:

http://lsr.nellco.org/uconn/cpilj/papers/32/

http://perseus.herts.ac.uk/uhinfo/library/c90671_3.pdf

Farkhanda Zia-Mansoor, “The dilemma of child soldiers: Who is responsible?” published by King’s College Law Journal (Summer 2005)—(35th item)
http://www.cameronmay.com/store/index.php?ProductID=92

Farkhanda Zia Mansoor, "Exploitation of child domestic labourers: the limits
of the current law", International Journal of Discrimination and the Law,
2006, 8(3), 169-189?

WTO Obligations And Opportunities: Challenges of Implementation / Editors, Koen Byttebier And Kim Van Der Borght ; Associate Editors, Jan Wouters & Farkhanda Zia Mansoor.

We hope that Dr Siddiqui would not hesitate rewarding other IIUI faculty who fulfil the conditions for a specific post and the faculty members would consider it an incentive for them.