President Dr Arif Alvi on Monday said maintaining a social distance like avoidance of handshake was the collective responsibility to contain the spread of coronavirus.
In an interview with a private television channel, he said the people must greet each other by placing hand on the forehead or chest to avoid the contact of one’s hand with the infected ones.
He said the Chinese government had played a vibrant role to contain the virus but it traveled from Iran to Pakistan and called for strict isolation of the cases as did by other countries.
To a question, the president said the national unity was a must to tackle the challenges.
He said Pakistani nation had a unique characteristic of showing compassion to the helpless refugees, philanthropy and also a distinction of successfully eliminating terrorism which other countries could not achieve.
He urged media’s role on certain social issues like protection of women’s inheritance rights, breastfeeding and malnutrition. This way, media could contribute to the development of the country, he added.
To a question, the president said the fourth industrial revolution was of the artificial intelligence and it was a must for Pakistan to join the race.
He said the world craved over Pakistan for being rich with more than sixty percent of its population with less than thirty years of age.
He said Pakistan had sought request from four countries for skilled IT graduates. But unfortunately, the country was not producing the graduates of international standard as out of 30,000 graduates passed out every year, only 6,000 could get jobs while rest remained unemployed.
However, he said under his initiative of artificial intelligence, the experts from the Silicon Valley would train the teachers in Pakistan which would help Pakistan produce quality graduates. Considering the ongoing efforts and potential, he hoped that Pakistan would earn reputation in the field of software exports.
