Abdul Hameed Nayyar

Last updated

Abdul Hameed Nayyar
Nayyar.jpg
Dr. A.H. Nayyar in 2011
BornJanuary 9, 1945
Citizenship Pakistan
Education Karachi University
Imperial College, London
Known for Nuclear arms control and Renewable energy
Awards2010 Joseph A. Burton Award
Scientific career
Fields Condensed Matter Physics
Institutions Lahore University of Management Sciences
Sustainable Development Policy Institute
Quaid-i-Azam University
International Centre for Theoretical Physics
Thesis Excitations and mode mixings in rare earth metals  (1973)

Abdul Hameed Nayyar (Born 1945), also known as A.H. Nayyar, is a Pakistani physicist, author, and a freelance consultant on the issues of education, nuclear safety, and energy. [1] His field of specialization is in the physics of condensed matter, and served in the faculties of the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad from 1973 till 2005 and the Lahore University of Management Sciences. [1] Nayyar is known for voicing for education reforms and military arms control, which he directed research programs at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad. [2] He is also one of the founding members of The Black Hole, an intellectual space in Islamabad, Pakistan. [3]

Contents

Biography

Nayyar was born in Hyderabad, British India, in 1945, to a Punjabi Muslim Khatri family. His family moved to Pakistan after Partition of India 1947. [4] He was educated in Karachi, and attended the Karachi University where he graduated with BSc in Physics in 1964, and MSc in Physics from Karachi University in 1966. [2] :269 [5]

Nayyar went to United Kingdom for his doctoral studies, attending the Imperial College in London where he obtained his PhD in condensed matter physics in 1973. [2] His thesis covered studies on magnetic properties of the excited electrons. [4] Upon returning to Pakistan, he joined the Institute of Theoretical Physics (now department of physics) of the Quaid-i-Azam University (QaU) and served on the faculty until 2005. [2]

After leaving QaU in 2005, Nayyar became involved with the public policy issues regarding the education, renewable and fuel cell energy at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in Islamabad. [6] Since 1998, Nayyar has been a visiting research scholar at the Princeton University in the United States, and has been on the faculty to instruct courses on physics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. [6]

Political advocacy

Education, peace, and energy

Dr. Nayyar co-edited the SDPI report "The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan", [7] [8] published in 2003, the report critically examined curriculum guidelines and textbook contents in the mainstream public school system of Pakistan. The report, which was intensely debated on public forums, eventually led to the government exercise to revise school curricula and textbooks (see: Pakistan Studies curriculum). [9] Also from SDPI, he co-authored a critical appraisal of the National Education Policy, published in 2006. He has also researched and written on Madrassa education. For over a year, he served as the Executive Director of Developments in Literacy, an organisation of Pakistani Americans for philanthropic intervention in education to disadvantaged communities in Pakistan. Also for a year in 2010, he served as the Director of the Ali Institute of Education, Lahore. He has since authored a number of articles further criticising the state of education in Pakistan. [10] [11]

Peace activism

Dr. Nayyar also takes an active interest in the national and international peace movements. Dr. Nayyar is a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000.

Anti-nuclear movement

Another area that interests him is nuclear disarmament. He holds a visiting position at the Program on Science and Global Security of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, US, where he spends summer months conducting technical studies on issues in nuclear disarmament. He is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Renewable energy

In the area of renewable energy, the energy group at SDPI that he helped establish, has studied the question of marketability of renewable energy technologies with a view to identifying policy measures that could promote their use in Pakistan.

Articles

Publications

Physics

Nuclear policy

Energy issues

Education

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abdul Qadeer Khan</span> Pakistani nuclear engineer (1936–2021)

Abdul Qadeer Khan,, known as A. Q. Khan, was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and metallurgical engineer who is colloquially known as the "father of Pakistan's atomic weapons program".

Claims of media bias in South Asia attract constant attention. The question of bias in South Asian media is also of great interest to people living outside of South Asia. Some accusations of media bias are motivated by a disinterested desire for truth, some are politically motivated. Media bias occurs in television, newspapers, school books and other media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pervez Hoodbhoy</span> Pakistani nuclear physicist and activist (born 1950)

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is a Pakistani nuclear physicist, author, media commentator, and social activist. He is generally considered one of the most vocal, progressive and liberal members of the Pakistani intelligentsia. Hoodbhoy is known for his opposition to nuclear weapons and vocal defence of secularism, freedom of speech, scientific temper and education in Pakistan. Some senior journalists, political and army figures have leveled accusations of treason and unbelief against him but he has rebutted them. Instead he regards himself as a global citizen. His physics-math course lectures, as well as on popular science topics, are widely watched and available online.

Bias in curricula refers to real or perceived bias in the educational textbooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission</span> Pakistani governmental agency

Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) is a federally funded independent governmental agency, concerned with research and development of nuclear power, promotion of nuclear science, energy conservation and the peaceful usage of nuclear technology.

The Karachi Nuclear Power Plant is a large commercial nuclear power plant located at the Paradise Point in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

Abdullah Sadiq, is a Pakistani physicist and ICTP laureate who received the ICTP Prize in the honour of Nikolay Bogolyubov, in the fields of mathematics and solid state physics in 1987 for his contributions to scientific knowledge in the field of mathematics and statistical physics. He is the professor of physics and current dean of the department of physics of the Air University of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muhammad Raziuddin Siddiqui</span> Pakistani physicist (1908–1998)

Muhammad Raziuddin Siddiqui was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and mathematician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pakistan studies</span> Academic discipline

Pakistan studies curriculum is the name of a curriculum of academic research and study that encompasses the culture, demographics, geography, history, International Relations and politics of Pakistan. The subject is widely researched in and outside the country, though outside Pakistan it is typically part of a broader South Asian studies or some other wider field. Several universities in Pakistan have departments and research centers dedicated to the subject, whereas many independent research institutes carry out multidisciplinary research on Pakistan Studies. There are also a number of international organizations that are engaged in collaborative teaching, research, and exchange activities on the subject.

Ahmad Salim or Muhammad Salim Khawaja was a Pakistani writer, archivist and co-founder of the South Asian Resource and Research Centre, a private archive established in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munir Ahmad Khan</span> Pakistani physicist (1926–1999)

Munir Ahmad Khan, NI, HI, FPAS, was a Pakistani nuclear reactor physicist who is credited, among others, with being the "father of the atomic bomb program" of Pakistan for their leading role in developing their nation's nuclear weapons during the successive years after the war with India in 1971.

Zia Mian is a Pakistani-American physicist, nuclear expert, nuclear policy maker and research scientist at Princeton University.

Noor Muhammad Butt ; b. 3 June 1936), SI, FPAS, also known as N. M. Butt, is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and professor of physics at the Preston University who is known for his research publications in understanding the gamma-rays burst, Mössbauer effect, diffraction, later the nanotechnology.

Fayyazuddin, also spelled as Fayyaz Uddin, is a Pakistani theoretical physicist, emeritus professor, specialising in theoretical physics and mathematical physics at Quaid-e-Azam University campus National Centre for Physics, Islamabad. He is a senior scientist at the National Center for Physics. Fayyaz is doing research in the fields of quantum mechanics, particle physics, and meson physics. He has published numerous physics papers accompanied by Riazuddin and has co-authored Quantum Mechanics by Fayyazuddin and Riazuddin published in 1990.

The Pakistani textbooks controversy refers to claimed inaccuracies and historical denialism. The inaccuracies and myths promote religious intolerance and Indophobia and lead to calls for curriculum reform. According to the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Pakistan's school textbooks have systematically inculcated anti-Indian discrimination through historical omissions and deliberate misinformation since the 1970s.

Naeem Ahmad Khan, FPAS, was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and a professor of physics who was known for his work in developing techniques using the solid-state nuclear track detector and solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance. Although he worked with the Government of Pakistan for most of his career, he also taught physics at a number of Pakistani universities and was the civilian scientist of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) until his death.

The International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), established in 2006, is a group of independent nuclear experts from 17 countries: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It aims to advance international initiatives to “secure and to sharply reduce all stocks of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium, the key materials in nuclear weapons, and to limit any further production”.

M. V. Ramana is professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia, and Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues, at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. A physicist by training, he previously worked at the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and the Program on Science and Global Security, both at Princeton University. Ramana is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, the Canadian Pugwash Group, the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, and the team that produces the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report.

This is a list of notable books and works in the English language written about Pakistan.

Ramamurti Rajaraman is an emeritus professor of theoretical physics at the School of Physical Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was also the co-Chairman of the International Panel on Fissile Materials and a member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board. He has taught and conducted research in physics at the Indian Institute of Science, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and as a visiting professor at Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and elsewhere. He received his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1963 from Cornell University. In addition to his physics publications, Rajaraman has written widely on topics including fissile material production in India and Pakistan and the radiological effects of nuclear weapon accidents.

References

  1. 1 2 "A.H. Nayyar | Eqbal Ahmad Centre for Public Education". www.eacpe.org. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "2018 Stanley Corrsin Award Recipient". www.aps.org. American Physical Society. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  3. "The Black Hole – Science – Art – Culture" . Retrieved 29 January 2024.
  4. 1 2 Physics, International Centre for Theoretical (1987). Directory of physicists from developing countries. International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  5. Khan, Mohammad Asghar (1985). Islam, politics, and the state: the Pakistan experience. Zed Books. ISBN   978-0-86232-471-1 . Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  6. 1 2 "Abdul H. Nayyar | Princeton Science & Global Security". sgs.princeton.edu. princeton university. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  7. http://www.sdpi.org SDPI
  8. 1 2 Nayyar, A.H. and Salim, A. (eds.)(2003). The subtle Subversion: A report on Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan. Report of the project A Civil Society Initiative in Curricula and Textbooks Reform. Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad.
  9. Ghauri, I. (2006). School curriculum ‘enlightened’; Two-Nation Theory explained . Daily Times. 7 December. Retrieved on 5 June 2008
  10. Nayyar, A. H. (4 March 2016). "Science education in schools". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
  11. Nayyar, A. H. (17 May 2015). "War to mould minds". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 14 April 2019.