THE twice elected prime minister and founder chairman of the PPP, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was born on Jan 5, 1928.

Educated abroad, he was noted for his progressive economic initiatives, industrialisation, education, and foreign policy, and his intellectualism.

He planned to become the leader of the Islamic world and launched a move to empower the country by manufacturing an atomic bomb, which later on was branded as Islamic bomb.

He held the Islamic Summit to get political and financial force and to make himself prominent in the Islamic world. In addition to national security issues, Bhutto promoted his policies on nationalisation, healthcare, and social reforms.

Under his premiership, parliament unanimously passed the 1973 Constitution, a supreme law that provides a parliamentary system to Pakistan. In July 1972, Bhutto successfully preceded the Shimla treaty, signed with Indira Gandhi, brought 93,000 PoWs back to Pakistan, and secured 13,000 km2 held by India.

Bhutto was a symbol of reform and reconstruction. He masterminded Pakistan`s first Steel Mill, a second port and commissioned Pakistan's first hydroelectric dam on the Indus at Tarbela. He made Pakistan self sufficient in fertilisers, sugar, and cement. He nationalised banks and life insurance companies; he also initiated our nuclear programme.

The 1972 Land Reforms slashed the individual holding to 150 acres of irrigated or 300 acres of unirrigated land. In 1977 the ceiling was further reduced to 100 acres of irrigated and 200 acres of unirrigated land.

The Islamic Summit was held in Lahore attended by all heads of Muslim state, thus making Pakistan a centre of Islamic unity.

To his credit are the Electrical Mechanical Complex at Wah, the Aeronautic Complex at Kamrah, and the Kahuta Project for Nuclear Bomb.

He made free education up to matriculation, provided books free to students, provided allowances to unemployed graduates and two increments to science graduates in their salaries, confirmed the services of thousands of government employees. He declared May 1 as a public holiday.

ZAB was a man of multidimensional qualities. He took the country out of chaos and effectively established an organised government machinery.

There is only one silver lining in the dark clouds for Pakistan today that the party, founded by ZAB and nurtured by the blood of his daughter Benazir Bhutto and several other selfless political workers and leaders, still remains the strongest political force in the country.

Recently, President Asif Ali Zardari has written a letter to the Chief Justice requesting him to expedite the hearing of presidential reference in the ZAB case. The CJ has constituted a bench to resume hearing of the reference. ZAB is dead but his spirit lives on.