NAMES IN THE NEWS : Bhutto’s Baby Gets Lucky Name
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has named her week-old daughter Bakhtawar, which means “one who brings luck” in Persian, it was announced today.
The second child of Bhutto and her husband, Azif Zardari, was born Jan. 25 in the southern port city of Karachi. Bhutto was the first elected leader of a modern government to give birth while in office.
The 36-year-old prime minister’s first child, a son named Bilawal, was born Sept. 21, 1988, two months before the first free elections in 11 years that installed Bhutto as prime minister. Bhutto campaigned until the final days before Bilawal’s birth and was back on the hustings a week later.
Two days before her daughter’s birth, the prime minister traveled to a dusty rural village near Karachi to distribute thousands of acres of government land to peasants.
Opposition leaders were critical of the prime minister’s decision to have a second child, claiming that the country would be leaderless while she recovered.
Bhutto transferred authority to her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, a senior minister without portfolio, elected member of the National Assembly and co-chairperson of the populist Pakistan People’s Party.
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