KARACHI: Instead of candidates’ manifestos and plans of action, voters these days tend to focus more on their image and rhetoric, which as a result brings forward people who are unworthy of the positions they are elected for.

These views were expressed by one of the four professors of the University of Essex, United Kingdom who delivered guest lectures at the Hamdard University’s (HU) main campus on Wednesday morning.

According to a press release, Prof Laura Sudulich pointed out that as opposed to the past practice of discussing policies and plans during election campaigns, candidates as well as their voters are more fixated nowadays on factors that were once deemed less important.

“Things like the image of a candidate and his/her rhetoric matter a lot nowadays, instead of manifestos and plans of action. However, as voters, we should never take anything on face value as we are supposed to ascertain carefully which of the candidates is worthy of our votes,” she said.

Turning to the US presidential election, Prof Sudulich pointed out that in 2016, Donald Trump had to work hard to earn the right to become the Republican candidate as several well-known politicians were competing against him in the primaries. “But this year, there was not much competition and he became his party’s candidate rather easily. There was not a lot of public interest in the primaries, as a result,” she added.

Prof Simon Weidenholzer spoke at length about ways in which coordination problems may be solved by using game theory.

He said making sense of measurements in a country where metric system is used as well as the imperial system, or making sense of railway schedules in a country where there are several time zones, becomes extremely difficult at times. He, however, explained at length how game theory could be applied to solve all such problems.

In his presentation on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Prof Antonio da Silva explained how the evolving technology can be utilised to enhance teaching and learning in educational institutions. He agreed with the contention that under some situations AI could render certain jobs obsolete.

Prof Joe Bailey of the Essex University’s School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science also delivered a lecture.

Senior HU staff who welcomed the guests were Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences Prof Dr Abdul Aziz and Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities Prof Dr Asadullah Larik.

Later, HU’s Chancellor Sadia Rashid, Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Syed Shabib-ul-Hasan and Registrar Kaleem A. Ghias discussed with the guest professors the possibility of further enhancing the cooperation between the two universities, particularly in the area of student exchanges.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2024