The Gold Medalist

Pakistan generally known for all the wrong rea son finally has something to cheer about. After a disappointing run in the World Cup earlier this year in which they finished last and a 6th place in the Commonwealth Games held in India, it took a very concerted effort and a fair bit of luck to rise to the occasion and become the Asian Champions. This win also ensures Pakistan a place in the 2012 London Olympics.
It was 20 years ago in China when Pakistan lifted gold in Beijing. This time it was Guangzhou where Pakistan produced a spectacular stick show to win the gold medal with a final score of 2-0, defeating Malaysia. This is the eighth time Pakistan has been crowned Asian Champions. Also with this victory Pakistan ended a 16-year dry run in the major championships.
Pakistan entered the games with modest expectations, not really thinking of a cup victory. The majority of the fans back home were not even bothered to watch their team’s matches and even the media turned a blind eye towards them. The media declared it a lost cause when Pakistan suffered defeat at the hands of arch-rivals India. Luck was favoring Pakistan this time around though. The men in green won the next match to place a spot in the semi-finals. In the semi-finals played against South Korea, Pakistan surprised everybody with a win, all thanks to the unbelievable efforts of their goalkeeper, Salman Akbar who kept Pakistan’s hopes alive.
In the other semi-finals, their arch-rivals lost to the Malaysian side which was a huge upset even after a number of players on the Indian side shaved their heads, including Sikh player Baljit Singh as an offering to the gods for good luck. Even after their passage to the finals, critics were reluctant to call it in Pakistan’s favour saying that it might have to wait for another four years to taste victory.

Mother of all Crisis: Leadership crisis.

The increased frequency of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, particularly in Peshawar, has created an environment of fear and uncertainty within the country, thereby, achieving the primary objective of the extremists. Yet, on the flip side, there has been an upsurge of anti-Taliban sentiment.
These emotions have to be galvanised to further strengthen the peoples resolve to combat and eradicate militancy once and for all. The Pakistani people are seeking a leader to follow. At this moment, however, the ship is rudderless.
According to some estimates, in 2009 alone, over 1800 civilians and 800 security officials have been killed due to terrorist related incidents and the number of suicide attacks has crossed 60. After every incident, the ticker that runs at the bottom of the television screen on most news channels displays a message of condolence by the various leaders of the country, after which a certain fund is allocated and announced as compensation for the lost lives. The people need more.
Politicking on issues such as the NRO, a minus-one or two formula and the Kerry-Lugar Bill has taken precedence over providing the masses respite from their miseries. Even if the threat of terrorism, which has the potential of escalating into urban guerrilla warfare, cannot be eradicated in the near future there are numerous other issues that need urgent attention. 
Inflation is looming at an average of 22 percent despite government affirmations to the contrary. Cartels with strong lobbies within Parliament have manipulated the demand and supply graph of, amongst other things, staple foods, thereby, creating artificial shortages, and simultaneously, escalating prices. The stipulations behind the bailout IMF packages have resulted in soaring energy prices. Potential large-scale projects are being abandoned not because of security issue but because the prospective investors cannot afford the kickbacks being demanded by the authorities. According to Transparency International, Pakistan is now ranked as the 42nd most corrupt nation in the world. As a result, to add fuel to the fire, the job market is also constricting. 

Plane Crash in Karachi residential area.

 Pakistani officials say at least 12 people were killed when a Russian-made cargo plane crashed early Sunday in the country's southern city of Karachi.  

The Russian-made cargo plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Karachi airport.  Authorities say a technical fault may have caused the deadly accident.

A spokesman for Pakistan's Civil Aviation Authority, Pervaiz George, says the aircraft was transporting relief supplies to Sudan's capital, Khartoum.

"It took off from Karachi [airport] at 1:45 a.m. in the morning [local time] and as it took off with eight crew members it caught fire and immediately it crashed," he said.

The spokesman says that all eight Russian crew members died. Their mutilated bodies have been recovered from the plane's wreckage.    

The cargo aircraft crashed into a housing complex for naval officers.  Most of the buildings were under construction and believed to be unoccupied.  Authorities say there were several casualties on the ground and that the death toll was likely to increase.

Witnesses say they saw one of the engines on fire before the plane hit the ground. An investigation is underway but the spokesman, Pervaiz George, says the pilot did not communicate any problems to the control tower at Karachi airport.

"There was no conversation regarding this incident or regarding any problem in the aircraft, regarding any problem in the engine," he added.

This was the third plane accident in Pakistan in four months and the second aircraft to crash after taking off from Karachi in several weeks.

A small passenger plane carrying workers of an Italian oil company crashed in Karachi earlier this month shortly after taking off from the airport. All 21 people on board, including crew members, were killed in that accident.

In July, this year, a passenger plane coming from Karachi crashed in the mountains near the capital city of Islamabad, killing 152 people on board.

Both the incidents are under investigation.

Shilpa Shetty thrilled by wedding anniversary gift

she may be under the weather lately, but hubby Raj Kundra pulled out all the stops to make his first wedding anniversary with Shilpa Shetty an unforgettable one.

What gift could Shilpa have hoped for? Her expectations were bypassed by several notches when Raj reportedly gifted her an apartment in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world.

Apparently, Shilpa was bowled over by the awesomeness of Burj Khalifa when she visited Dubai a few months back. Hubby Raj kept that in mind and just a few days before the wedding anniversary he handed over to her the keys of a flat on the 90th floor of the 160 storey sky-scrapper. 

The Life is beautiful because of Uncertainty

Life is the gift of God, and it is more beautiful because of the uncertainty and unpredictable, It seems that we love the mysterious. It is the journey to the unending station and this thing keeps us moving. We worship God because of Uncertainty. If God would have been visible, and if destination would have been told then there wouldn't have been religion, we might not be thankful to God.

This fear and hope exists because of blind faith, We accept the supremacy of Divine, because we are not certain of our own calculations, we are not aware of the human calculated based consequences, we are defeated more often from the destiny, the script already written for our life.

This uncertainty drives us, teaches us and make us more rational human being, when our decisions are bad we learn from them, Lets assume about someone who is born and he knows everything about him already, what charm would be then here in this world ?

Unpredictability of life makes it more beautiful and it is due to the our behavior which has irregularities in its pattern, We lose even our best friend because of small fights, The experience becomes vital when there exists the element of uncertainty. We learn all the time, from our mistakes, decisions, friends, failed relationships and other failures.

“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.”

1973 Constitution and Pakistan

1973 constitution is (was) a sacred national document, which could only be amended by the parliament under a defined procedue! Any deviation from this was a huge mistake, which was to adversely affect the nation as was proved by the later events. The constitution is the very legitimacy of the state; otherwise, it becomes a mob which is only held together by the force - which is the least desired phase in the life of the nations - because it compromises the future of the country, and unnecesarily generates tensions within the nation - which may not lend to the resolution easily in the future.

All the challenges faced by nationafter 1973  were to be resolved through the mechanisms contained in the constittution; and, if some issues could not be addressed by the constittution, these were to be potponed, till the party in power had acheived necessary strength in the parliament to amend the constitution. There was no need to bulldoze the document, because that meant bulldozingthe nation - and all the ills that it entailed in the future!

If we go backto the start, we took all the time to produce the first genuine constitution in 1973, till then the country had already broken apart! We held first free and fair Eelections after 23 years, which led to the results, which broke the country! Before that many free and fair electiins could have been held in the country, which could have estabished stakes of Bengalis into the system, so that they did not have any reason to look out of Pakistan, later! But this route was not chosen by the then rulers, even they did not have the required national mandate not to do so!

 We continue to repeat the same mistakes by way of not establishing the stakes of the smaller provinces into the country, which could pre-empt any centrufugal tendecies in the smaler provinces, both today and tomorrwo. We fail to distrubute the power and resources satisfactorily and equitably among the provinces, creating unnecessary resentment, without addressing which, we can not lay down the poltical basis for sustained, high gowth of the economy! 18th amendment, instead of taking it as a God - send has been subjected to ruthless examination, which was not needed.

As a result of above, the fruits of development have not been distributed evenly across the country, without addressing which, neither can we addrss the challenges of the nation building, nor can we lay down the strutural basis of sustained high growth of the economy . Without addressing the issues and challenges mentioned above, we will not be able to overcome the enemies for which we won independence from the British and Hindus in the first place! Those enemies of Pakistan are: poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease and ignorance, who will continue to make the  mockery of the independence!

Sachin Tendulkar: The Little Master

Sachin Tendulkar was born on 24th April, 1973. He is great batsman ever born in the history of Cricket. He started cricket in streets and then he became the icon of cricket for the youngsters of India. He is been given the titles of 'Master Blaster', 'Little Champion' and 'The Bombay Bomber' by the commentators. I am impressed by the stamina, consistency and way he handles the pressures.

In these two decades, this man has been amazing cricketer, the non-stop performances for his country in the very big matches, He hold the record of making the highest centuries, highest runs and recently he made the world record of the first person to make the 200 runs in the ODI's. 

He is real sportsman, he has been captain of Indian Cricket Team with wonderful track record, What surprises me all time about him is his fitness and consistency, He plays the pressure matches against some big teams so effortlessly and with unique style along with timing the ball perfectly. He is the symbol for cricket, When we talk about cricket, We'll talk about Sachin's classic batting. It took two decades for him break the Saeed Anwar's record of 194, the highest ever by batsman in ODI. He has the record of highest runs in ODI and test matches, He also holds the record of having the highest centuries in test and ODI.

Pakistan Match Fixing Scandal

As a sports fan, to see cricket dragged through the mud like this is an absolute disgrace. I would also put it out there and say that this seems to be a common theme on the subcontinent as well (with the IPL seeing allegations of spot-fixing as well).

Ever since the suncontinent became the most powerful bloc in the game of cricket, morals have steadily slipped to the point that this sort of stuff could occur. Of course, if India and Pakistan got over their issues to enable the Pakistanis to play in the IPL, maybe this sort of thing simply wouldn't happen.

This is simply not good enough and something has to give

So here it is, plain and simple

Pakistan for the good of the game must be thrown out of World Cricket for an undisclosed period of time. Sure this would be rubbish for the development of the game in that country but look at the facts

1. Teams can't travel to Pakistan anyway due to the security situation in that country
2. Everytime something like this has occured recently, it's always been Pakistan involved

As far as I can see, the game in Pakistan is corrupt and rotten from the top, down and frankly it is time for change. Anyone that is corrupt should be sacked or forced to resign in disgrace and any player found guilty of match-fixing should be banned for life.

It will more than likely set Pakistan back 20 years or whatever but that's the price they should have to pay for their stupidity

World cricket is fast losing credibility and the only way that credibility and respect can be regained is if the subcontinent way of doing business (threats, bloc voting and match fixing) comes to an end.

The IPL (Indian Premier League) is corrupt and the ICC (International Cricket Council) have their hands tied by the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and as for the PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board), they need to start again.

Whatever way you look at it, it's a sad day for cricket...

Terrorism and Mother tongue

Terrorrism is the biggest phenomenon of tthe contemperory Pakistan and has affected every facet of current life of the nation and is impacting advesely upon the future prospects of the nation. The question, which is relevent to ask, is why this thing has spread with such a force in the country, selectively in the length and breadth of it. One obvisious answer is the state sponsored introduction of a particular brand of terrorrism which was used to serve the  purpose of producing Talban for American use in Afghanistan in the 1980s, securing Zia's regime by way of hunting down libeal political forces in the country in those days, helping Saudia to have a sense of security at home by way of spreading their tentacles in the Muslim world, through the spread of a particular brand of Islam.

But why this phenomenon spread selectively in Pakistan in the sense that frormer NWFP fell completely under it's sway; next was Punjab with massive inroads in its South; and Sindh and Balochistan remained relatively unaffected, except Pakhtoon belt of the latter - though intellectual and ideological support of the phenomenon continued to come from urban centres of Pakistan including karachi. One reson for this is that in Sindh medium of education was Sindhi and Urdu, both mother tongues of the two major communities of the provoince, that's Sindhi speaking and Urdu speaking people.

From above it is easy to conclude that those people, who are taught in their mother tongue,  imbibe their cultural values with it,  which are  not easy to overwhem by the mechanations, which the state used in the times of Zia to spread this form of Islam. From the same it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that if the people of  Punjab and KP  had been taught in their mother tongues- the poetry and culture as enunciated by  Baba bulleh shah and Rehman baba and Khushal khan khattak -  it was not possible for these people to easily fall prey to the propaganda of a Moulvi!

But thses people were taught in Urdu,  which was equally foreign to them,  therefore the values of these peope broke down under the onslaught of a well orchestrated propaganda and they lent themselves to the business of Talbans to kill an to crush.

 If  the people in Sindh, which has emerged unscathed in this mushroom growth of sectarian form of religion, are deprived of virtues of tolerance, which are simply bubbling through each couplet of Shah latif, Sachal and Sami and scores of others, then they would also have fallen to this virulent propaganda in exchange of promise of paradize, which is not a bad bargain for an uneducated or semi educted person going through the drudgery of life on daily basis!

Same holds true for the Urdu speaking part of Sindhis where the followers of Ghalib and Mir did not succumb to the religious propaganda and did not lend themselves to the process of sucide jackets and bomb blasts. Thanks to it's culture and values, as imbibed by people of Sindh through their mother tongue, predomonnantly sindhi, sufi sindh stood for tolerance, side ny side with the whole world - some times even ahead of every body, where the sanctity of human life and it's inviolable status was steadfastly heldonto by the people of Sindh -  as if they were ahead of the vrirulence around them, despite their personal lives, which the state had failed to improve!

NRO- Justice for All or what ??

Supreme Court of Pakistan gave detailed judgement, unanimously signed by 17 judges, largest bench ever in the history of Pakistan's judiciary. It would affect the political scenerio in the form of more pressure on President Zardari, there are more than 7000 criminal and political cases on all the important figures of all the political parties including PML-N and MQM. Why the reference of Swiss accounts is given? Supreme court has never been independent in real sense, This democratic government restored the judiciary in real sense, despite of open reservations of President, The one who thinks they have restored judiciary, they were the one who abuse SC in past, in the form of attack on Justice Sajjad Ali shah's judiciary.
Supreme court should redefine the justice for the layman like me, first of all why justice now ?? After all that, why not justice against the corrupt judiciary of Dogar which supported all the acts of dictator, uncontitutional acts. Why justice against the President, who came with highest seats in NA and in the era of strongest Prime Minister, in the rule of people of Pakistan.
President is being victimised by press and Judiciary, despite of following the rule of reconciliation and national Politics, one could not imagine the aliance of PPP and PML-N and MQM and PPP in Sindh, this was un-natural sort of aliance, before charter of democracy signed by Benazeer and Nawaz Sharif.
We have seen sacrifice of benazir, her assasination was a catalyst to democracy, now they talk about Justice? I have feeling that judiciary is part of those invisible hands like establishment, which is supporting anti-demoractiic forces.
While making a report on Jail System in Central Jail of Karachi, One of the beurocrate, who claim to be innocent, whose appeal didnt came in consideration , and after 5 years he was given death sentence, just because son of latif khoso was his lawyer, Justice Iftikhar is baised and believes in selective justice against anti-forces, based on his personel jusgement.
Where was SC, when Asif Ali Zardari was in jail for more than 8 years and no one could prove anything against him, They talk about Swiss Accounts, Why they dont talk about trial against Musharraf and his devilish acts, why dont they talk about Shaukat Aziz' Corruption. Why dont they talk about Balochistan, when they talk about Justice.NRO was step towards a democratic setup order to get rid dictator, there;s no doubt PPP is party of federation and People from sindh has complete right to say NO to Pakistan, like balochistan.
Aitzaz Ahsan, soon after restoration of SC, stated in the press conference: " CJP in my opinion, will not take NRO case", The CJP not only leading the bench but also written by Ifthakar choudhry...We are in serious trap of Judicial dictator, in the complexities of constitutional crises, We will lose democracy again, The conditions are worse, Pakistan is at war, we must change this attitude of pushing eachother's legs.
Ifhtikar Chowdhry is addicted to the power and trying to do heroic things by spoiling democractic system, what will be result of such revolutionary desicions, the poor man will not be affected by case against any politician and what is the assurance that they will be guilty,will politicians accept their crimes ??

Corruption exists in our veins, at some extend it is socially accepted in Pakistan, Politician means corrupt, Judiciary has gain higher respect, by doing these things, it will lose its credibility, judiciary should look at te lower level, common people and it should provide justice to the people of Pakistan.
All the major politicans have acquired the current status by doing bad things, but they are accepted by people, and they are successfully elected in the provincial and National assemblies. Intervention of judiciary will bring disaster in the democratic 

Million years logic.

Imagine compressing the last million years of human history into just one year. Three thousand years would pass each day, or two years each minute. On this compressed timescale, our ancestors first used fire sometime in spring. Despite this early breakthrough, new ideas were slow to arrive on the scene. Until late October, our ancestors were still wielding the most basic stone tools; humans biologically like us, Homo sapiens, appeared around mid-November. About 19-December, the beginnings of civilizations were visible: cave paintings and burial sites. It wasn’t until 27 December that there was much evidence of sewing needles, spear-throwers, or the bow and arrow. We don’t know much about our economic prehistory, but we know that it was story with all the action packed into the final scene.
But economic growth didn’t simply different gear once we entered recorded history. Zoom in on those last few days and you’ll see that the rate of innovation and growth continued speed up. The world economy was ten times larger at the end of 30 December than twenty-four hours earlier, a time span bridged by the epic rule of the Egyptian pharaohs. Imperial China lasted for most of 31 December, during which time the Roman Empire rose and fell, and Europe then moved through the middle Ages. Meanwhile, the size of the world economy increased in size another ten times between the star of New Year’s Eve and 7.30 p.m. and 11.20 p.m., when the First World began.
That growth was astonishing by historical standards, but puny by the standards of the twentieth century, because in the last forty minutes- the rest of the twentieth century- the world economy expanded tenfold yet again. If current growth rates are sustained, the next tenfold increase will be completed by about twenty-five past midnight.
There might not seem to be any rational explanation as to why economics growth took off in such dramatic way. If you credit anything, I suspect you’d be inclined to a point to the people who embody scientific and technological genius: Galileo and Curie, New cowmen and Edison. But leaving it at that would make the take-off a matter of pure luck: luck that we live after such brilliant minds and not before them, and luck that their achievements fell upon a fertile culture was open to innovation.
I will argue that stellar economic growth across the globe. Whether you look at the individual innovators or step back and survey the broad sweep of economic growth all the way back to the Paleolithic era, you find a common thread: neither progress not stagnation is an accident. Both rapidly growing economies and stuttering ones are full of individuals rationally responding to the incentives they face.
This is detective story, and as it takes us further and further into the past, it will necessarily become speculative. I’ll begin by looking at the work of economist who tried to recreate old technologies in an effort to workout how much richer have really become- a surprisingly difficult question. Then I’ll uncover evidence to show that the moment of ‘take-off’, the Industrial revolution, wasn’t based on scientific genius at all, but rather on rational, carefully planned responses to simple economic incentives.
The search of economic incentives then leads us to ask why some countries were fertile ground for economic revolution. I argue that the answer lies in the age of European exploration and conquest – not, as is often believed, because the exploitation of Africa and the New World directly enriched Europe, but because the very strong interest in creating laws and institutions that provided incentives for economic growth. Speculative stuff, as I say, even if it is based on some ingenious work, still, I do not want to finish this book by proclaiming all the answers, but by showing that economists are asking the right questions.
Before we start our journey into the past, though, perhaps you’re thinking that it’s hard to estimate economic growth for all of human prehistory and much of human history. You’d be correct. So perhaps you’re also thinking that this tale of incredible growth acceleration sounds a bit wild-eyed. You’d be wrong.
In fact, my estimate of growth is conservative because it doesn’t take full account of the way that the quality of products is improving. When economists try to compare our material standard of living with that of our predecessors, they have to calculate the extent to which prices have changed. A dollar in 1900 brought more than a dollar today – how much more? Its an impossible comparison, because we don’t spend our money on the same things as we did in 1900.

Terror in Karachi

Karachi was rocked with a huge explosion at about 8.30pm when a truck full of explosives hit the Crime Investigation Department (CID) building. The terrifying sound that was heard at a radius of 15 kilometers was also heard at my home at boat basin when the windows of my home opened and closed making a terrifying sound due to the heavy wind pressure caused by the powerful blast. At that very instant, I knew it was a bomb blast. I rushed to watch updates on the television after getting SMS from a few friends with “Blast near PIDC” in it, the scenes of television were heart breaking. My beloved country was yet victim to another act of terrorism that has plagued its economy.

The blast was so intense that people in Nazimabad and Mazar-e-Quaid also heard it and the earthquake recording authorities claim to have recorded it at a magnitude of 1.3. Surely was huge as nearby building were damaged, about 12 houses succumbed to rubbles, the complete front portion of the head office of the CID building was flattened, 2 huge craters were made in the ground, several cars in the busy area were moved from their positions in the traffic jams to hit other cars on the side, 21 people killed and about 115 injured. The bomb disposal experts say around 1,000 kg explosives were used in the blast.

The blast was said to be a reaction to the arrest of 6 people of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi that were present at that time in the CID office for interrogation and after the blast, witnesses say that some terrorists may have escaped. Similar to the previous attacks such as the Marriot blast in Islamabad, this attack too involved heavy firing before the blast. However, this time the area of blast was a very crucial one. The Red zone is location to the Chief Ministers house, Governor’s House, Qasr-e-Naz, three luxury hotels, the US consulate and governments, etc. 

Blasts have become a common thing is Pakistan as the frequency of their occurrence has increased steadily over time. However, the losses of innocent lives is an irreparable loss and a pain their families have to live with for long. The frequency of such attacks has made lives of the common man highly insecure.Strict measures are needed to curb this menace of terrorism from society and value human lives as providing security to it's citizens is the duty of the state and the measures for this on part of the state yet needs serious attention.