Representation of Gender in Pakistani Comedy Dramas

Media in its various forms has become a significant part of everyday social life. It influences both how we see ourselves and the world around us to some extent. At different screens of media, images of men and women are presented in different ways and with different characteristics. Studies have been conducted at large regarding representation of gender in movies and television drama serials. This paper was meant to be an addition to this vast canvas of research through analysis of gender representation in the comedy dramas of Pakistan. According to West and Zimmerman’s theory of ‘doing gender’, gender is performed by the people in their everyday actions and interactions. Keeping in view the concept of doing gender this study analyzed roles of males and females and tried to find out how different characters maintain their gender identities in comedy dramas. Results suggested that the characters were, at many places, observed to be acting contrary to the roles associated to their genders by the society. They did or performed gender to maintain their identities.

Performance Assessment of Canal Irrigation: A Study of Pehur Main Canal, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Low performance of irrigation systems is a major concern worldwide. This situation is more alarming in the developing countries where agriculture is facing decreased availability of water due to competition from growing needs of industrial and municipal sectors. Irrigated agriculture is pressed hard to produce more food to meet increased demand from rapidly growing population. The pressure on irrigation resources is intensifying in many regions of the earth. The public investments in canal irrigation schemes are declining due to low performance of existing irrigation projects. The additional water resources to expand irrigated agriculture can only be salvaged from wastage through better management strategies. The performance assessment of canal irrigation is used to promote this objective. Research methodology for this study was developed based on the extensive literature review. The measures of performance i.e. Productivity, Equity and Reliability were selected for in depth analysis. The relevant data was acquired from the official records of Irrigation Division I & II Swabi. Outlet-wise register (Mogawar) refer to designed discharge, area to be irrigated, area actually irrigated, crops assessed in each growing season, water tax (abiyana) collected in each growing season. Field surveys and Focused Group Discussions were conducted to validate official data at certain points. Productivity, Equity and Reliability were measured on a scale of zero to one (0—1). In ideal conditions values will be closer to one (1) and the average of all values from head to tail must also be closer to 1. Data analysis demonstrated that majority of the values were closer to 0 (zero). This situation indicated a very low level of performance of the Pehur Main Canal system. In very few instances the values were higher than half of scale and that‘s too in the middle of the system instead of head. The data analysis revealed that the middle of the system was performing better than the head and on individual canal level some middle sections doing better than head sections while tails better than middle parts. This situation indicated that the operation of the system was not stable enough to ensure the rational behavior throughout the system.