Satellite to help provide education to kids in remote areas
 

In not so distant future, Pakistani children in remote areas with no access to education would be able to link up with classrooms in the cities while patients needing medical care in the rural areas could link up with major hospitals to be treated by doctors and specialists.
Next month in October the little known Pakistani space programme entirely in the civil sector will start its commercial operations after having earlier launched its communication satellite PAKSAT-IR.
Briefing the media on Pakistan s space programme, its potential and problems, CEO of the Strategic Technology Resources (STR) Dr Shireen Mazari spoke about the brief history of this programme and the spurred start and then neglect and delays caused by foreign collaborators and lack of sufficient allocation of funds .
Today, says the STR, the programme is with SUPARCO through the Strategic Plans Division where the spin-off is that in the future it can also be used for defence purposes.
The programme has much to offer in terms of aiding socio-economic development within Pakistan, especially in agriculture where by means of remote satellite sensing it would forever
eliminate the role of the patwaris - which will rectify the corruption and inefficiency in land records, sales,
land claims agricultural tax assessments etc , said Mazari.
A surprise for the media was the fact that there
exists today a Space University on the outskirts of Islamabad involved in research projects.
Of importance is the fact that unlike more developed nations there was a complete disconnect between the research and development and the knowledge that has created in the public and private sectors.
This is a malaise that prevails across the board in Pakistan where industry does not link up to the universities , said Mazari.