ISLAMABAD: A double suicide bombing at Islamabad’s International Islamic University on Tuesday killed up to seven people, including the two bombers, an administration official said.

‘Seven people, including two suicide bombers are dead, and 29 injured in the two attacks. Among the dead is one female,’ a senior administration official, Rana Akbar Hayat told AFP at the scene of the attack.

Police investigators confirmed that both were suicide attacks.

Speaking at the capital’s main hospital, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said there were six dead — two suicide bombers, two men and two women.

The police arrested a suspect from the site of the blast.

The university is located in Islamabad’s sector H-11.

Eyewitnesses told DawnNews that there were between three to four thousand students present at the time of the blasts and that one bomb exploded inside a classroom.

The blasts occurred within a span of one minute at two campuses of the university.

Earlier in the day two bombs were defused at a girls’ school in Peshawar.

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari, while emphasising the commitment of the PPP government towards the education sector, said on Friday that the education budget would be raised up to 7 per cent of the GDP in the next five years and the higher education budget would be increased by 20 per cent during this period.

He said the university budget would gradually increase up to three times in the next five years. “The government has approved higher salary structure for vice chancellors and faculty of universities in accordance with the market rates,” the president said during a meeting with vice chancellors/rectors of the universities across the country at the presidency here.

Vice chancellors, rectors and presidents of over 100 universities, both in the public and private sectors, attended the meeting, which became an interactive session of leading academicians and educationists with the president.

President Zardari said universities were the battleground for fighting the battle of minds and ideas.“Our graduates must be men and women of vision, knowledge, courage and integrity,” he said.

The president said that the vice chancellors as leaders of educational institutions had a great role to play in producing responsible and productive citizens.“As vice chancellors and heads of universities, you are like the thread that holds the beads together,” he remarked.

The president urged the heads of institutions to rise to the expectations of the nation in producing quality manpower.The president said the government was working on a package on Madaris reforms as a long-term measure to reform the extremist mindset. He was responding to the issues raised by the vice chancellor of the University of Balochistan.

The president said that education played an important role in national harmony and integration. He stressed the need for harmony and said that Balochistan needed special handling, adding that he had already asked parliament to consider giving amnesty to the politicians of Balochistan in exile.

He also said that the government was committed to integrating minorities into the national mainstream, so that they could also play their role as citizens of the country.On the suggestion of a vice chancellor, the president said that he would recommend to the government to consider setting up universities in the rural areas as well.

He also suggested that the public-private partnership model could be used effectively to promote higher education in the country.With a view to focus on the quality and calibre of the heads of universities, an institutional mechanism called the Vice Chancellor Search Committee is already in place to recommend a panel of names for the selection of vice chancellors.

Chairman Higher Education Commission Dr Javaid R Laghari thanked the president for meeting the heads of universities and institutions of higher learning and for his keen interest in the development of the education sector.

Karachi-The NED University of Engineering and Technology on Sunday conducted the entry test to select the eligible candidates for admissions for the academic year of 2009-10.

Any mishap was not reported during the test, despite the fact that as many as 6,154 candidates were appeared in the test that was started on the given time at 10am and ended at 12noon.

Registrar NED University Engineer Javed Aziz Khan said that NED, which considered as one of oldest institutions in Pakistan of engineering, offered undergraduate programmes in 19 engineering disciplines along with one each in Architecture and in Information Technology. For this purpose there are 1,833 seats available in the varsity, out of which 1,600 were specific for merit-based admissions, while 233 admissions will be given on self-finance basis, he said.

“The university used carbon copy in the test to enable candidates to have a copy of their performance.” He said the results would be issued after eight hours from the completion of test and can be viewed at the official website of the university.

Khan said that to face any health-related situation during the test, the administration had formed a medical team comprising on four doctors and 8 paramedical staff while two ambulances were also on alert.

“Juices have also been distributed among the candidates and invigilators to keep them calm and fresh. About two per cent marks will be given to those candidates who are Hafiz-e-Quran.

To facilitate the candidates, around 12 blocks had been constituted while each block was divided into 16 cells. About 30 candidates were seated in each cell,” he added.

OSLO: US President Barack Obama on Friday won the Nobel Peace Prize less than a year after he took office.

Obama was honoured “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland said.

The committee attached “special importance to Obama’s vision and work for a world without nuclear weapons” and said he had created “a new climate in international politics.”

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” it said.

Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari won the award in 2008.