When King Edwards Medical College's name was proposed to be changed to Allama Iqbal Medical College about 35 years ago, it was resisted by the British government. A grant of about Rs 700m was offered for keeping this name and opening a new hospital in the name of Allama Iqbal somewhere else. Names of the institutions are important because they tell us about their history and their founders. Institutions like Ganga Ram Hospital and Dyal Sing College & Library are good examples of great institutions bearing names of their founders. We should not wipe the slate of history clean and take credit for doing nothing. Instead, we should establish new institutions like Z.A Bhutto Institute, Jinnah Airport etc, etc. By changing popular names of the places like The Mall, Murree Road or RGH, we are actually erasing the historical memory of these places. We usually gain nothing from renaming them because very often, the old names continue to remain popular and the new names are simply ignored by the public. Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto should be remembered by some new motorway, university, dam or power plant rather than by the crude attempts of her partymen to name old assets and institutions of this country after her. -DR M. TARIQ MIRZA, Jhelum, September 7.