No abstract

<p> <em>This study attempted to compare the management practices in public and private universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Pakistan. The comparison is based on availability of written rules and regulations, distribution of tasks, availability of managers, access to officers, time management, work load, staff promotion procedure and appraisal system. Additionally, the comparison is also based on transparency, political intervention, use of authorities, nepotism and biasness, human resource availability and functions, academic decisions, existence of different decision making bodies, committees and their role in policy making and implementation and management styles. The population comprised all recognized universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and a convenience sampling of six universities included three from public and three from private sector. The findings showed that both sector universities had the required offices, staff members and managers. The areas where private universities were observed weak as compared to public universities were lack of proper staff vacancy advertisements and induction policies, vague appraisal system, low salary packages and limited freedom to managers. Public universities were found unsatisfactory in areas including staff induction on merit based policies and political intervention, lack of monitoring system and lack of collegiality amongst university offices. The study recommends that universities in both sectors should prepare staff and student manuals for transparency procedures, should improve the skills and knowledge of its staff/managers by conducting seminars/ workshops/ trainings in collaboration with HEC and other regulatory bodies on regular basis, and establish public private partnership to improve university management system in Pakistan.</em></p>

Scholars in the arena of media and communication have paid attention to the news framing of the controversial US drone policy in the post 9/11 mainly from the Western media perspectives. Scant scholarly heed has been given to examine the media framing of the US drone strikes from the national media perspectives of the targeted countries. The current study attempts to build on the existing scholarship on US drone policy by exploring the news media framing in two elite national newspapers of Pakistan. Using inductive framing as methodological approach and qualitative analysis as methodology, the study analyzed the editorial discourse in the selected dailies on the US drones. The findings reveal that both the newspapers covered the drones using strikingly different frames. The Daily Times constructed the discourse on US drones using the efficacy frame predominantly- that the drones are effective and doing ‘good job’ against the militants. The Express Tribune framed the drones as violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and counterproductive. The discussion elaborates the possible factors for the differential framing of US drones in the two national dailies of Pakistan.

Newspapers are important ideological sites to construct and articulate ideologies and their dissemination. This study attempts to unravel how the elite press in Pakistan discursively constructs the "other" while reporting a regional conflict. It reveals that the press reproduces and reifies the ethnocentric and nationalistic sentiments in the news discourse by representing the "us" and "them" in highly ideological polarization. India is represented as an "enemy other" in contrast to Pakistan which is represented as peaceful, rule-abiding and under consistent threat from an aggressive India. The distant actors namely the US, UN and international actors are also represented predominantly negatively. The findings are discussed in terms of ideology, national identity and nationalism.