While marking the International Mother’s Day, the Asia-Oceania Post-Doctoral Academia (AOPDA) and SAARC-ASEAN Postdoctoral Academia conjointly adopted a resolution on May 8, 2022 to posthumously proclaim two prestigious titles ‘Epitome of Motherhood’ and the ‘Mother of Humankind’ simultaneously, on Pakistan’s towering humanitarian Bilquis Bano Edhi to honour her paramount triumph against infanticide.
According to a press release, issued by the AOPDA Secretariat, it was the triumph of Bilquis Bano Edhi against infanticide that made her the mother of hundreds of thousands of unwanted children and the mother of the thrown-away, and took her to the status of the planetary mother. “Neither it’s ordinary nor simply the extraordinary that a single person makes clear divides in the course of history. But now, in the case of infanticide, the future historian and the history itself has to be divided and demarcated into the two: Pre-Bilquis Edhi era, and the Post-Bilquis Edhi era, and it’s a rare phenomenon – in fact very rare, even in the thick and thin of the centuries and millenniums… Now the whole battlefield has to build its cuts and marks on the very foundations that have been laid by Ms Bilquis Bano — the ‘protector mother’ of the unwanted babies,” reads the AOPDA resolution of the International Mother’s Day 2022.
The resolution was consented and duly ratified by post-doc academics under the patronage of Justice (R) Dr. S. S. Paru, the Chancellor Emeritus of AOPDA from Indonesia. It was moved and drafted by AOPDA P.I. Prof. Dr. Aurangzeb Hafi of Pakistan, who was the co-recipient of the Bidecadal Merit Award with Ms. Bilquis Edhi. Prof. Hafi is not only a co-recipient of the 1st of the 21st century’s Bidecadal Merit Award with Bilquis Edhi but he also holds the singular privilege of being considered as her third son by the great humanitarian, alongside her two biological sons – Faisal Edhi and Qutub Edhi.
Bilquis was awarded the Hilal-e-Imtiaz by Pakistan, the Lenin Peace Prize by Russia, the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice, as well as the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service.
The planetary mother Bilquis Edhi’s services were categorically recognised by the world in 2021, when she was declared the ‘Person of two Decades’, along with UN rapporteur on human rights Prof. Yanghee Lee, and the US ethicist Stephen Soldz, by an international organisation in the course of the 1st bidecadal round-up review of the 21sr century. As per the domino effect verdict, announced by the Britain-based Impact Hallmarks [IH] in January 2021, Bilquis Edhi was declared the most impactful person of the first two decades of the 21st century.
