Liberal Narrative in Pakistan about India, and its Effect on Universities Students’ Perception towards Terrorism

The key objective of this paper is to find the relationship between the liberal narratives in Pakistan on relationship with India and its effects on universities students’ perception of terrorism. There is a consensus among some prominent scholars that right wing political parties, security establishment and big media houses are producing a kind of national security narrative based on the troika; India as security threat to Pakistan, Islam as rallying cry for national cohesion, and support from great powers to finance ambitious security dominated foreign policy about the neighboring countries that does not help in counter-terrorism at home. This paper has adopted quantitative research method. It is a descriptive study and data was collected from four major public sector universities through survey questionnaires. The liberal narrative on India is weaker in Punjab on all issues. The findings of liberal narratives on India reject the claims of existing literature that there is a positive relationship between liberal narrative about India in Pakistan and counter-terrorism measures in FATA. Three variables researched in case study of Afghanistan reject the existing literature that there is a positive relationship between liberal narrative and counter-terrorism measures.

Effect of Different Postharvest Treatments on Keeping Quality of Apricot Prunus Armeniaca L. Produced in Northern Areas of Pakistan

Apricot is a highly nutritious fruit with a rich composition of health promoting components with a unique taste. Due to its perishable nature, enormous amounts of fresh produce goes to waste during peak season. In order to reduce the postharvest losses, the present study was designed in three phases. Initially, twelve commonly grown cultivars were characterized for their proximate composition, biochemical attributes, mineral contents and some technological traits. Among the tested cultivars, Habi variety had best physico-chemical and sensory attributes, Jahangir was rich in mineral contents, while Mirmalik had better technological traits. On the basis of overall quality characteristics, Habi variety was selected for the postharvest studies. The second phase was comprised of three experiments. Different concentrations of CaCl2 (1, 2, 3 and 4% w/v), salicylic acid (0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 mM w/v), polyethylene films of varying densities and wrapping paper as packaging material were applied to determine suitable treatment. Physiological, biochemical and microbial attributes were analyzed at two day interval. Three percent CaCl2 maintained quality attributes with lower microbial load and higher sensory acceptance up to 12 days followed by 2, 4% CaCl2 respectively during ambient storage. Similarly, 2 mM salicylic acid and low density polyethylene film significantly retained all the tested nutritional and biochemical traits. The combined effect of the best selected treatments (3% CaCl2, 2 mM salicylic acid and LDPE packaging with KMnO4) maintained acceptable quality of the fruit up to 18 days at ambient temperature. The present study provides a baseline for the effective postharvest application of calcium chloride and salicylic acid along with polyethylene packaging on apricot in order to reduce losses and increase its availability in the distant markets.