LAHORE - Like other countries of the world, International Literacy Day will also be observed in Pakistan on Tuesday (today) with a pledge to make over 780million adults of the world literate. The day, first time observed on September 8, 1965, is being celebrated in the midst of UN Literacy Decade. Literacy is just the ability to read, write, listen, comprehend and speak a language, yet millions in the world including 55 per cent of Pakistanis are deprived of this fundamental right. The pathetic aspect of the matter is about two-thirds of the illiterate are women in the world and remaining four billion people of the world have a challenge to bring them into its folds. Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world and according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), it is 55 per cent and Pakistan stands at 160th in total countries of the world. This indeed is a very alarming situation and a challenge which must be met with resolve, determination, and action by all those who can help, said Amanat Foundation Chairman Nisar A Memon in a massage. He says illiteracy is a matter too serious to be left to the government alone, and each and every citizen must rise to the occasion to contribute his or her part to bring right of literacy to about 50million Pakistanis. The 'Power of Literacy is the theme of 2009 Literacy Poster as literacy empowers the people to be enlightened and self respecting citizen. Our hard earned freedom shall be severely impacted and socio-economic emancipation will remain a dream without literacy, which is recognised as a lever of change and remedy for social transformation. The talk of democracy, which is fundamental to development of individuals, communities and nations, would not translate into action without improving the literacy rate. We need to spread significance of literacy and action to promote it in every nook and corner of the country, says Memon underling the importance of making the adults, especially women, literate. He said Pakistan was bestowed with natural resources and to make their best use, human development by way of literacy, was needed. Benefits of literacy are life long and generations wise while the cost of illiteracy is subjugation, exploitation of many be a few. Memon has called upon the political parties to unite on the agenda of making the whole nation literate, as it has to best serve the cause of democracy, economy and socio-economic progress in the country.