Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Saturday expressed joy over appointment of Pakistan-origin economist Asim Ijaz Khawaja as faculty director of Harvard's Kennedy School in the US.
Khawaja, who was handpicked as member of Prime Minister Imran Khan's Economic Advisory Council (EAC), had resigned last year in protest after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) withdrew nomination of renowned economist Dr Atif Mian amid mounting pressure from religious-political parties against appointment of Dr Mian, who is an Ahmadi.
Fawad Chaudhry who had confirmed the development, saying the government has decided to withdraw the nomination of Dr Mian from EAC because it wants to avoid division. But the same minister took to Twitter on Saturday and congratulated Asim Khawaja for his appointment as faculty director of Harvard's Kennedy school.
At the same time, the minister regretted the economist's resignation from EAC in September last year, and said: "Khawaja would have been part of the country's economic advisory team had Pakistan not wasted two decades and muzzled extremism."
On April 5, Harvard Kennedy School named Khawaja as the faculty director of the school's Centre for International Development (CID). He is also the Sumitomo-Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development Professor of International Finance and Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, Co-Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPD), and co-founder of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP). He will continue to hold those positions and assume charge of as director CID on July 1, 2019.