At Sportingo

I have been a Sportingo follower for the past 2 years at least. All that time i had been meaning to write and be published at that portal but could not find enough momentum to get the work done. There were ideas floating here and there but nothing concrete could set in. But things have changed and i have my first work appearing on the website. It is about the decline of hockey in Pakistan. My initial draft was around 1200 words and talked about the topic in some detail but it was sent back for review and trimming down. After trimming and a very dedicated review by the editors the article is now on the website. I must remark that the team at sportingo has been very helpful all through the process and their attitude has really motivated me to write more. I plan to do so soon. Mean while you can read my article here or alternatively browse to more sports section and read it from there.


Technorati Tags: Sportingo, Sports, Pakistan, Hockey

Charity gets Bill Gates!

Forbes has announced its list of the richest men in the world and Bill Gates has been dethroned. To take his place is America's most beloved investor, Warren Buffet at a net worth of $62 billion. Second in line is Mexican telphone industry tycoon Carlos Slim Helu at $60 billion dollars. His net worth has doubled over the past two years. Bill Gates now stands third at $52 billion dollars. He ruled the first place for 13 years in a row.
In the top ten richest people in the world are 4 of Indian descent. Lakshmi Mital is the 4th richest man in the world with his steel industry making him $45 billion dollars, Mukesh Ambani is worth $43 billion and Anil Ambani is 6th in the line at $42 billion. K.P Singh, the real estate guru, is 8th on the list with $30 billion.
The youngest is a Russian Oleg Deripaska.


Technorati Tags: Forbes, Bill gates, warren buffet, Lakshmi Mital, India

To talk is to TPS

The Pakistani Spectator is doing a good job at looking at things and then commenting on the affairs related to Pakistan. They are running a series of interviews within the blogosphere. I am lucky to have been counted in. I have also taken up writing on the same portal. I go by the same nick, MK.


Technorati Tags: TPS, The Pakistani Spectator, Interview, Blogosphere

Pakistani Soaps

I could never muster any courage nor get any time to watch soaps on Pakistani TV channels. Every now and then, though, I get to catch a glimpse of TV screen while transiting through the TV lounge to any other part of the house. All I see is a shot of a women, which is either zooming in or zooming out, and the women weeping, sorrowfully. I am told that at times whole episodes are dedicated to shots of a woman, either sitting or standing, in a lush lounge of a lavishly built house and weeping over one thing or the other. I am also told that it is safe to assume that almost 80% of the time screen shots involve a character who is in remorse over either something lost or something found. There is too much crying and wailing involved in the Pakistani soaps of the day. These soaps are too depressive for a general viewer.
Women find these emotionally charged soaps very interesting and close to their hearts. Generally because they think that they can relate to all the depression depicted in these dramas. There are others who watch such nonsense just because there is nothing else to watch. Yet,there are those who are made to watch these soaps.
I can never understand the importance of this in the feminine life. This is something that is beyond me and I am happy that it just is. I think we Pakistanis, as a community, have too much time at our hands. Better still, I think we do not have a good idea of how to use our time in the best possible way. There is a general lack of direction and sense of objectivity in our lives and that is driving us towards useless inertia. All of our community lacks motivation. It lacks effective triggers. While men are busy wasting their time in angry demonstration the women folk use their time watching fantasies they can never materialize. Our community is not educated enough to realize the importance of time.
Allah says, 'Do not belittle time, for I am time.'


Technorati Tags: Pakistan, Media, TV, Allah, God

ndKashif

Our fellow blogger and Doctor Kashif has been writing some really interesting and instructive posts on his personal blog at Neurotics-De-Kashif. He has been one of the few authors of this blog who still actively write and share their thoughts with us. I have always found his web presence very encouraging and similarly for Uzer at Uzer.org.
Both blogs are worth a read.

Power Crisis II

The power crisis seems to have been overcome for the time being in Pakistan. Or the population has grown used to frequent power shutdowns. I think the second option is more probable. However the danger of plunging into darkness remains ever so imminent. While we are plunging into darkness the sun remains shining brighter and brighter above us in the never so blue sky. Our Govt. seems reluctant in harnessing the power of sun for wide scale use. To be very true almost all Govt. remain skeptical of the use of solar energy for meeting population demands. With oil prices driving everyone mad this trend might not last long enough. In the more developed parts of the world where populations hardly get to notice the vulnerability of natural resources the heat is turning on for more non-conventional methods of generating energy.
I have always been a big fan of solar cells and have had faith in all that they can do to change our world. The solar cells of the 90's however were not capable of generating net energy gain. That means they were inefficient enough to be dead before they generated enough energy to make up for the amount that went into their productions. But since then tremendous design changes and other aspects of development have made it possible for us to build solar panels that are net generators of energy. solar panels can payback their costs in 1 to 20 years depending upon their use and geographic location.
I was always relieved to see small solar panels that were used to power the emergency call stations all along the motorway. More recently Karachi Metblogs has reported that Karachi City Govt. is installing stand alone solar powered street lights. These are small steps towards effective use of solar energy but they are a beginning.
I think that installing stand alone devices is costlier and risk prone when done in Govt. sector. On the other hand stand alone units to power houses or private property can be beneficial. But similar benefits can not be expected in the stand alone setups such as street lights. The cost of individual batteries and the unit apart from the solar panel itself is high. Similarly stand alone units require individual installation and record keeping. They require maintanence that has to be done on a larger scale and in greater area. they are more susceptible to damage by environment. In a country like Pakistan these stand alone units are also more susceptible to theft and mischief. Therefore installing stand alone units is not a better idea of tackling with our growing energy needs.
On the other hand we need a small solar farm which can be connected to the city's power grid and will provide energy more ubiquitously. Such a farm will cost less on the framework and will be under direct protection and observation of the authorities. Also it will require less maintanence and produce be more energy efficient.
If all my zeros are intact my calculations tell me that we can meet all our electricity needs by building a solar cell farm of about 49 square miles. And with further development in the solar cell design this area can be drastically reduced in the next 10 or 20 years. the fourth generation solar cells promise more energy at less cost and they are something i am looking forward to.
But the best option would be to encourage home owners in Pakistan to try and meet their electricity needs through stand alone solar panels mounted on roof tops. We get enough sunlight all year long to accomplish this task through smaller panels and at reduced cost. Home owners can only be lured into this by giving them system setup rebates and by allowing them to connect their systems to the main grid and earn credits for the energy that they generate. One possibility could be that power companies buy any additional energy that a house is able to generate after having met all its energy needs. The benefit of such grid integrated systems is that the cost of generation of electricity is zero for the electricity company. There is no maintenance cost involved on the part of electricity company and the electricity produced is consumed locally on the same grid therefore drastically cutting on line losses. The home owner benefits in multiple ways too. For one the home owner feels comfortable and in charge of his/her own electricity consumption. For another it is a source of income for the middle class families. Populations are better able to control their electricity consumption if they are in charge of its production too.
Having said all this i think solar cells are jus part of the solution and not at all the complete solution. Sun's energy can be harvested in many other ways which are more efficient and easier to maintain. All we need is a committed leaders who look towards the future and not into the past.


Technorati Tags: Solar cells, Solar energy, Pakistan, Karachi, Electricty, Power, Energy

Surgeon General: One of our Kin

Lt. Gen. Mushtaq Ahmed Baig became a victim of suicide bombing in Rawalpindi. He was one of our kin, a medical doctor by profession. He was a healer; someone who everyone seeks when injured or dying. It is hard to believe that someone would consider him a villain in the larger scale of the politics. He was a doctor not a killer. True that he was a soldier but he was also a doctor. He was the surgeon general of Pakistan. I do not know him but his picture speaks of a gentleman who was pretty much innocuous and kind. Who would benefit from his death?
Local Taliban have reportedly postponed their strikes till the new govt. comes into shape. So they in all possibility are out of the suspect list. Any political party has no interest in destabilizing their new achieved political power. So they are out too. A personal/domestic disagreement leading to killing through suicide is a far fetched idea too.
On the other hand Al-Qaeda will want to destabilize the country so that they can get hold of it. But i think they will be foolish to do this through killing innocent people and thereby loosing support on street. You can't rule a big country without the consent of its people. We have seen that in these elections. So unless Al-Qaeda is really stupid they can be ruled out too.
Our hostile neighbours could be one possibility. Afghanistan would want to see a destabilized Pakistan. Maybe India wants to hang in there too. But the most probable suspect could be someone who wants to keep the need for a coalition against terror in the forefront of Pakistani future. Someone who wants to ensure our long lasting committment to the coalition in the war against terror. Here is an army general who is kind and unlike his fellow generals. Kill him Al-Qaeda style and let people think that they need the support of that special someone to get rid of the mennace that is known as muslim terrorism.
Now we have an ample number of bad apples in our ranks, the prime example of which is Musharraf himself, who want to join hands with that special someone. So this seems a job of a local cell harbored by our very own insiders gone wild at the behest of the special someone and with keen knowledge of our neighbours.


Technorati Tags: Pakistan, Terrorism, Pakistan Army, War Against Terror, Coalition, US, Afghanistan,

Cuba and Pakistan

Fidel Castro has officially stepped aside from the seat of power that he so diligently clung onto for the past half century. His name has been so maligned by the western media that any mention of Cuba provokes an unwelcome image of Fidel with it in everyone's mind. We forget to see a country but instead are forced to see a man - who we are made to believe is - a dictator.
But finally Fidel Castro is a thing of the past. He is behind the curtain and Cuba has something new to celebrate for - a new leader. Raul can not be termed a new face as he has been hanging around his brother, lurking in the power corridors, since the revolution in 1959. He personally saw to the execution of anti revolution people in the years ensuing the revolution. But for that matter change is welcome as that is the only permanent thing to go around uninterrupted in this world and in this cosmos.
My concern is the change in the relationship between Pakistan and Cuba. Cuba was one of the first countries to send relief and disaster management teams to the earthquake victims of 2005. Their teams were the most professional and the most dedicated. Unlike other western people they spent little time looking around and gathering information and more time on actual work.
Pakistan also has just recently started a student training programme with Cuba. In this programme Cuba accepts 1000 students from Pakistan and trains them in medicine over a course of 6 or 7 years. All this is free of charge to the students. I think this collaboration is a very welcome one from a student's point of view. In my mind the benefit is many fold. It is becoming almost impossible for our medical doctors to come to US to train and gain valuable knowledge. The process is lengthy and very unduly expensive. It costs us a minimum of 1.1 million Rupees (18,334 US Dollars) to get into the system. Similarly the doors to UK have been effectively blocked by the health sector reform the UK govt. has taken over the past may years. The only avenues left for a better training are either Australia or the rest of Europe. the demand of health care professionals is very high in the European countries and they evidently can't fill it all up with their own people. For Pakistani medical doctors the only impediment to getting jobs in the non English speaking European countries is language barrier. The Cuba programme includes a year's worth in Spanish training. This is a very beneficial adjunct to medical training. It will help these students to step on the international pedestal effectively opening doors to Europe and more so to Southern America.
So my concern is the continuing relationship between Cuba and Pakistan in the field of medicine.


Technorati Tags: Cuba, Fidel Castro, Castro, Raul Castro, Raul, Pakistan, Medicine, Revolution, Students, Earthquake '05

Look Ahead: Economy

The elections are done and dusted with. The past is over and the future lies ahead of us. Foe a common Pakistani or for any common citizen of the world all the most important thing is the stability in the budget in his/her life. In the end that matters to most Pakistanis - and what lead to the fall of the previous administration - is infact, the cost of living and inflation in day to day use commodities.
I was going through the Economist's Intelligence Unit's forecast for Pakistan. Things are not very encouraging. For the year 2008-09 the economist predicts,

The continuing instability may begin to have a strongly negative effect on foreign investment inflows. The economy is also likely to suffer from a lack of effective policymaking caused by political strife.
The GDP growth is expected to slow down to 5.4% for the present year and the next year.
Inflation will exceed the 6.5 - 7.5% target range and is expected to average 7.9%.
When we look at the outlook of the key economic indicators for the next five years, the situation is especially worse for the years 2008 and 2009. There will be a gradual worsening trend till the next 2 years and then the recovery phase will start.
All these factors are valid if, in my mind, the democratic process is not disrupted for the next twenty years. The past 8 years have been a virtual death sentence for the economy as no major concrete development has taken place. No infrastructure development has taken place. It is another thing that the dictator would have us believe that selling more mobile phones and cars - all of which have been manufactured abroad - is a true and very positive indicator of all the progress that has taken place in these past years. The fact is such that the damage that has been struck by Shaukat Aziz and his world bank friends will remain as a scar on the face of our economy for the next 50 years.
Where real GDP growth rate has moved from 4.8% to 6.4% the inflation has increased from mere 2.9% to 6.7% in the past five years.
Current account balance in 2003 was 3,573.0 million US Dollars, whereas for the year 2007 it has remained -6,374.4 million US Dollars. Total external debts have increased from 35.7 billion US Dollars to 40.0 billion US Dollars in the same time period.
This is just a summary picture of the deterioration that has been made the fate of the Pakistani economy by Shaukat Aziz and Salman Shah. In my mind, therefore, both of these people should be dealt with iron fist and made to repay every penny that they have plundered or have caused to be plundered in this land.


Technorati Tags: Economy, Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, Salman Shah, Policy, Budget

You Tube Pakistan

YouTube is not available for browsing in Pakistan for the past one day. I say, 'not available for browsing', instead of 'banned' or 'blocked' because i have no concrete information as to the cause of the outage. The rumors are ripe that the outage is because of a ban on the domain enforced by PTA through PIE. This ban has been placed for the reason of blocking user access to amateur video of poll rigging in some parts of the country. Other rumors suggest that the ban has been placed by PTA to block access to soft pornography and other morally objectionable material available on the domain.
In my opinion if this outage is a result of a ban on the part of PTA then it is most probably orchestrated by political factions that are most hurt by video footage showing their supporters rigging the elections like there is no tomorrow. But equally possible could be the problem at YouTube end.
For the past one week or so most of what seemed credible information presented by our Pakistani media and websites now has lost its lusture merely because most of the predictions about the elections being rigged have gone sour. The media pundits have failed in providing the insiders information correctly and seemed to have been swayed away in the tide. But it can be succeesfully argued that it is this very skepticism on their part that allowed for the elections to be relatively free. In my opinion however the incidents of rigging have taken place albeit to the level comfortably desired by Musharraf, Army and the international players. PML-Q has good number of seats so does MQM. Both have sufficient numbers to keep the govt. unsettled both in the center and in the provinces. It is very difficult for me to understand that inspite of a very low turn out in these elections most of the MQM men won by a margin of atleast 100 thousand votes or more or atleast by a very very huge margin. In all possibility they took the rigging process to a new level in Karachi. PPP is no saint either when it comes to elections in Karachi but much less of an evil as compared to MQM.


Technorati Tags: YouTube, Pakistan, PPP, MQM, Elections 08, Censorship, Internet