Convocation: Another batch graduates from arid varsity

Degrees awarded to 1,721 students in various disciplines.

RAWALPINDI:

It was an unforgettable moment for Amna Mushtaq, 20, who was awarded a gold medal for topping the Bachelors of Business Administration programme after five years of hard work.

Amna secured 83.3 per cent marks. She says hard work is the only key to success.

She was among the 36 gold-medal winners from various disciplines who were awarded cash prizes by the chancellor of the varsity, Punjab Governor Muhammad Sarwar.

A total of 1,721 students were awarded degrees in undergraduate, masters, MPhil and PhD courses at Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi (AAUR).

Among the achievers was Anosha Javed, who secured 88.8 per cent marks in BS in Computer Sciences. She said her five-year struggle paid off today. She said she was certain about her success as her parents would often tell that her hard work would not go waste. “What I had sown, I have reaped today and I am happy,” she said.

Another achiever, Muhammad Bilal Khan, who was awarded a gold-medal in masters in Computer Sciences said. “If you have talent and don’t work hard, you cannot succeed in any race. This was what I understood and continued to work hard and today it bore fruit.”

This time too, women outperformed the men, as 29 were awarded gold medals in different subjects.

Sarwar said it was a wake-up call for male students to work harder, lest they keep falling behind their female colleagues.

He appreciated AAUR interventions like rainwater harvesting, ostrich farming, multiplication of arid agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, and successful plantation of olive and grapes.

“Being an agrarian economy, Pakistan needs innovative and modern solutions in agriculture not only for the development and prosperity but also for food security of its people,” he said.

AAU Vice Chancellor Dr Rai Niaz said university has converted its research farm at Chakwal Road into a model farm with provision for collecting rain water into small reservoirs.

He said the water will irrigate its entire farm of 250 acres. Besides conventional cropping practices at the farm, the university has cultivated orchards of citrus, olive, date palm, fig, grapes and vegetables under tunnel farming, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2014.