Pakistan’a Dr Atta ur Rehman to be honoured by Yet another international recognition
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A major international journal “Molecules” published by a leading international publisher MDPI has decided to bring out a special issue to honor the contributions of Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman to the development of science and technology in many countries around the world.
Spokesman of the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi on Monday said that the International Society of Nucleosides, Nucleotides & Nucleic Acids (IS3NA), the Spanish Society of Medicinal Chemistry (SEQT) and the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry (ISHC) are affiliated with Molecules.
The spokesman said that as Coordinator General COMSTECH Prof. Rahman helped tens of thousands of young scientists in over 40 countries of the Islamic world. As the Federal Minister of Science and Technology of Pakistan, he laid the foundations of Information technology in the country by spreading the internet rapidly across cities, towns and villages, by bringing the prices of bandwidth down from a ridiculous $87,000 per month for an E-1 line to a few hundred dollars per month, by placing Pakistan’s first satellite PakSat 1 in space, he added.
He also transformed the mobile telephone industry by bringing in major reforms including the Calling Part Pays regime that allowed citizens to receive calls on Mobile Phones link without charges. These led to a huge boost in the number of mobile phones from only 300,000 phones in the year 2000, now to over 160 million phones.
As the Founding Chairman of the Higher Education Commission from 2002 to 2008, the reforms he introduced completely transformed the higher education sector. So huge was this impact, particularly in research, that Pakistan forged ahead of India in the number of international research publications per capita.
Prof. Atta-ur Rahman has been appointed as Chairman of Prime Minister’s Task Force on Science and Technology, Vice Chairman on Prime Minister’s Task Force on Technology-Driven Knowledge-Economy, and Co-Chair, Task Force on Information Technology.
Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Cambridge University (1968). He has 1232 publications in several fields of organic chemistry including 771 research publications, 45 international patents, 70 chapters in books and, 346 books published largely by major U.S. and European presses. He is the Editor-in-Chief of eight European Chemistry journals.
The professor has also been accoladed with various international prestigious awards like UNESCO Science Prize, FRS, Friendship Award of China, and many others.
Prof. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman is the most decorated scientist of Pakistan having won four civil awards by the government of Pakistan, including Tamgha-i-Imtiaz (1983), Sitara-i-Imtiaz (1991), Hilal-i-Imtiaz (1998), and the highest national civil award Nishan-i-Imtiaz (2002).
