This weekend was dedicated to the issues of Pakistan and the debates on them, which took place in Pakistan Youth Leadership Conference at Oxford University. I was there to represent Committee For Interior Affairs. There were many other committees as well, Finance, Foreign, Education, Legal, Environment, Health, and Women Empowerment. Women Empowerment is the new addition to the committee list of PYLC. It was a three-day event and day one I have already covered in my previous blog post.

On the morning of Saturday, Allah Almighty was very kind to us as we were enjoying a very fine weather that was very different from the usual weather of Oxford. Members of all the committees were heading to the respective venues for the discussion on the issues regarding their committees. Committee of Interior Affairs reached Harris lecture hall. That was the place where almost all of us were disconnected from the world outside, as there were no mobile signals, no access to the internet. In such environment, Chair Adnan Rafique and Co-Chair Tuba Omer started the session. Our topics were The Balochistan Issue, Domestic Terrorism, and Ethnic Violence in Karachi. We covered the first two topics on that day in two sessions. During one session, Mr. Imtiaz Gull gave a talk about the Balochistan issue, and in second session, Dr. Haider Ali of ANP joined us. About Dr. Haider I must say that he is among a very few sensible and intellectual politician that I have ever met.

The next event according to the schedule was a talk and Q&A session with Farooq H Naik at Oxfordshire County Hall. That was a 29 minutes long speech by Chairman Senate that put the Pakistani High Commissioner Wajid Shams ul Hassan and Mr. Bukhari, President PPP UK to sleep (I have got the pictures if anyone has any doubt).

In this long speech, he talked about PPP most of the time and still at the end, he claimed that he is non-partisan. Kamran Shahid of express news moderated the Q&A session. That was a heated session as everyone who got chance to ask a question, came up with a question wrapped in the frustration and anger that the effective democratic government of PPP has given. Out of 23 questions, Mr. Naik only answered 2 one was about legislation and other was about giving quota to the work force of Balochistan for Gawadar. I think it is a record to face so many questions, answer them, and still let them remain unanswered.

The dinner was a great networking session got chance to meet different people including Kamran Shahid. During night, there were discussions and amusement session was taking place at YHA however that was unofficial.

Sunday was the last day of the event, oxford was showing its original weather to us and all the delegates were again at their respective college for the final round of session. After the discussion of more than four hours, the committees made some resolutions to present in the joint assembly session. Joint assembly session started in the evening at Oxfordshire County Hall. Faizan Rana of NUPSA and Ayyaz Malick of Oxford University Pakistan Society chaired the session.

More than 90 percent of the resolutions were passed with the majority and only a few were rejected by the house. I will put the detail of the resolution as soon as I get them. The final part of the whole conference was the panel discussion where chairs of the committees were on one side and some of the main political figures were on the other side. This debate was also moderated by Kamran Shahid. In addition, after this session there as note show recording of front newer the topic of discussion was “Role of media In Pakistan“. However, my journey with PYLC was over much before that, as I had to catch my bus to get back home in time.

That was a great experience where I met so many herewith diverse yet meaningfully opinion, learned so many things. However, there were some shortcomings. Such as things, almost every event started later then the time mentioned in schedule. There was no Baloch in the committee of interior affairs that was discussing Balochistan issue, it is another factor that was not completely digestible for me.

overall it was great event and organizers have done return job. Such events are necessary where some of the best brains from Pakistan sit and talk about the solutions. Another PYLC is taking place on this 25^th at Islamabad. I would like to wish best of luck to the organizers of PYLC Islamabad edition, and congratulations to team NUPSA and OU Pakistan Society for successfully arranging this event. And a special thanks to Sana Agha of NUPSA, I bugged her a lot during registration process and she has been kind enough to help me out, and Faizan Rana and Muhammad Ali Yaqoob who provided me every required information regarding the event.

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