Dr. I. E. Qureshi, Executive Director COMSATS, visited the Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC), Islamabad, on October 7, 2010, to hold a meeting with its Executive Director, Dr. Arshad Muhammad Khan. He was accompanied by Dr. Hasibullah, Advisor (I. A) COMSATS, Dr. Amir H. Malik, HEC Foreign Professor at CIIT, and Engr. Farhan Ansari, Assistant Director (Programmes) COMSATS. Also representing GCISC in the meeting were Dr. M. Mohsin Iqbal, Head of Agriculture Section, GCISC, and Mr. Ghazanfar Ali, Head of Water Section & Glaciology Group, GCISC.

The purpose of the meeting was to establish strong collaborative relations between COMSATS and GCISC, exchange information regarding the past and present activities of the two organizations, and discuss the possibility of launching a collaborative effort focused on improving the water resource management in Pakistan, in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria, and two of the Centres of Excellence of COMSATS, namely COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad, and the International Centre for Climate and Environment Sciences (ICCES).

During the meeting, Dr. Qureshi was informed that the climate and geographical modeling being performed at GCISC is of high standard and is, on request, being provided to the Newcastle University, UK, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, as well as the World Bank. In exchange, the Newcastle University and MIT have been providing support to GCISC in its capacity building. Dr. Khan also informed that GCISC has been providing technical training to the young scientists/engineers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Nepal in the field of mathematical modeling. While discussing the facilities available at the research centre, Dr. Qureshi extended the offer of nominating a few suitable employees of GCISC for participating in a workshop to be organized by ICCES in November 2010.

One of the key decisions of the meeting was that Dr. Amir H. Malik (CIIT) and Mr. Ghazanfar Ali (GCISC) will join hands to propose a suitable project for solving the issues related to the management of water resources in Pakistan.

COMSATS is determined to sensitize the organizations working in the area of water resource management in Pakistan to the gravity of the situation and the centrality of availability of water in the process of sustainable development.