Bloggers.Pakistan (www.bloggers.pk) is Pakistan’s first (and currently) only blog aggregator. The site was developed by Omer Alvie and myself (Dr. Awab Alvi) to address the desperate need for a consolidated website where all Pakistani blogs can be featured.

Pakistani bloggers (or bloggers of Pakistani origin) can register their blog on our site for syndication. Visitors can view brief excerpts of the most current posts from Pakistani blogs listed on this site and then proceed to the specific blogs to read the entire post. The idea is to share an audience and help direct more traffic to Pakistani blogs worldwide, in order to promote the Pakistani perspective on social, cultural, political and global issues.

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Congratulations! Blogspots have been unbanned again! Have confirmed it from a Multinet user, and its working on my office internet service as well. I’m seriously beginning to believe there is a person at the PTA who randomly bans and then lifts the ban every other day, just for thrills.

I don’t even know what to say about today’s strike. The buses are moving, everything is fine, yet no one showed up at my work. It’s Saturday. Who cares, eh?

The aromatic wonders of The Body Shop are ready to tingle your senses with the arrival of the first Body Shop store opening at The Forum in Karachi very soon. It would be nice to walk into Forum and get massive dose of pleasantly smelling perfumes out to impress us all, I sincerely hope with time they don’t start putting agarbatti as their signature perfume oil….

Credit for the picture goes to Adil Siddiqui

Like I do every morning, I switched on the PC and decided to check my e-mail. The page cannot be displayed. I thought to myself, maybe its the home cable net service that’s konked out. Dial up refuses to work either. Mild panic. Rush to the office.

The page cannot be displayed.

Once those words flashed on to the office PC and I got an SMS asking if my internet service was working, I felt like it was one of those dark days last year, where we were cut off from the internet for over a week. Turns out, there was an internet outage for one and a half hour. While my work didnt get affected that much, I wonder how much loss has been incurred by companies that rely solely on the internet to communicate and do business? I’m sure PTA will have a ‘good’ explanation for this.

I have been hearing it around for few days and some readers also pointed it out. Since the start of construction of flyover/underpass at National Stadium, traffic situation has been chaotic in that area. Delays of at least 45 minutes are being faced by commuters every day. So, what does one do? Plan ahead. That’s right. Leave 45 minutes early and beat the rush hour traffic. Don’t let circumstances effect you. It took 7 months to build Clifton underpass and all the commuters suffered the misery. Now same is the case at National Stadium. Only thing we can do is wait and adopt accordingly. Soon the construction will be done and traffic will be smooth again. No pains, no gains.

Sameer, Fahad and Mekaal

Originally uploaded by atrophying.

I went to see the Mekaal Hasan Band perform last night, which is always an amazing experience. What I really loved about the show was that the sponsors of the event – Dunhill in this case – went all out with the interior decor. It had a very classy and intimate feel, with subdued lighting, and the food and drinks were delicious. With Pakistan’s best live musical act on stage, it was the topping [and filling!] on a very delicous cake [excuse the metaphors =)].

According to this news report, Lyari Town has recently recieved Rs. 805 million as part of a special package that will help the development of the area.

The package also includes a 6MGD additional supply of water from the recently complete K-III system.

Lyari happens to be home to several of Pakistans boxers (which are now packing quite a punch on the international boxing scene) and footballers.

Lyari was in dire need of develelopment funds and it is hoped that these funds will be the first in the series of many that will help bring Lyari at par with the developments in other localities.

The Millenium Mall intersection (at Rashid Minhas Road) has ben reduced in size by about 10 feet in circumference, which will help in curatiling traffic jams at this intersection during peak hours.

Traffic jams at this intersection start at about half past 6 as traffic from Dalmia, Shahrah e faisal and Gulistan e Johar converges here. The jams continue till about 9 pm, sometimes stretching beyond 11 pm too.

Just to give you an idea, if you head out here from clifton at 6.30, you will succhessfully cross the Teen Talwar jams, the Hotel Mehran/Kashif Centre bottleneck, the Sindhi Muslim turn bottleneck and nursery jams well under 45 mins. The jam at Rashid Minhas alone will often add 30-40 mins to your travel time.

Whats more, the work on this intersection started late night on Wednesday, May 17 and its already under significant process. It is hoped that by next week, the interesection will be all smoothed up and have traffic signals too.

I guess thats all this billboard reminds me of…