The website of the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan still mentions Dr Shama Khalid as the governor.
ISLAMABAD: I would like to point out that the official website of the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) still mentions Dr Shama Khalid as the governor of the region — despite the tragic fact that she is no longer alive! The homepage of the site also incorrectly lists the former chief secretary of GB as still holding that post and also has a ‘news update’ section informing users of the “upcoming Babusar Festival”. This planned event was cancelled in August because of the floods.
The website also has information on the settlement of “28,148 IDPs” displaced because of the creation of an artificial lake after a massive landslide in Hunza. However, it says nothing about what happened to the thousands of people who were affected by the floods and rains that occurred later. There are also serious factual and grammatical errors in the content posted on the site.
The foremost objective of the website should be to share accurate information about the geography and society of the area, apart from disseminating updates about government policies, projects and programmes, as the case may be. This means that it needs to be updated regularly.
Noor Muhammad
Published in The Express Tribune, November 7th, 2010.
