It was quite exhilarating to come to know about the befitting and most welcome response by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to the mischievous attack by Indian pilots in the early hours of May 7. The PAF pilots knocked down five Indian aircraft and forced the rest to flee.
Despite India’s numerical superiority, Pakistani pilots have always been well ahead of their Indian counterparts. This is mainly due to their superb training, skills and, above all, their fighting spirit and devotion.
It is this very devotion that we seem to be missing in other domains of our national life. There was a report in the media the same day — ‘Amid global decline, Pakistan ranked among 26 lowest HDI states’ (May 7) — stating that, among the 193 countries in the world, Pakistan stood 168th on the Human Development Index (HDI), with Afghanistan being the only other South Asian country behind it, and the other 24 countries in that specific category belonging to Sub-Saharan Africa.
As a nation, we surely need to learn a few lessons from our own air force. A comparison of performance levels and results among various sectors is critically necessary in order to ensure that credit is given and taken only where it is due.
S R H HASHMI
KARACHI
