Original & Full Image, Credits Farhan

I slightly agree with the views in comment. Who gave this locality the right to put this notice and create a blockade & under which law?. What about emergency situations especially if Ambulance or fire brigade need a safe passage. This is important especially its night time as we know how “well lit” our roads are at night. It also reminds me of an interesting documentary “UNITED GATES OF AMERICA“.

At the other side this seems to be the only community based effort available to secure a small area. Other being posting private guards at every gate/door. So what you call this attitude ? lawlessness, selfishness or a community effort to secure locality? Probably this picture is nothing compare to the jis ki lathi us ki bhains that is prevailed all over country but a violation of law is anyhow a violation.

i know the rest of the team has been going on about tree cutting and the need for a greener karachi, but i think we need to see the other side too. we do conserve trees here in the city by the sea. we do it by avoiding paper. and messing up other people’s walls to make up for it.

the graffiti in the city is getting ridiculous. one message runs into another which runs into another which runs into another ad nauseum. this is just a case in point.

it took me a while to figure out that this was not one, but two pieces of worthless information.

For the past two weeks, both Shahrah-e-Faisal and Karsaaz Road have seen their trees being chopped down by the city administration to ‘help them during rain and windstorms’. The change is particularly very obvious on the segment of SF which used to had the now-razed Sabzazar and Mela and the entire belt of Karsaaz opposite to the Naval establishment there. Without the trees, the two roads are looking khali khali.
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I’ve often believed that the only reason Pakistan continues to survive as a nation, despite the rampant corruption, the thievery and the ego, is due to the efforts of a few good men. Today, while reading the wire feeds, i came across exactly such a persons’ story. Superintendent Nusrat Hussain Mangan of Central Jail, Karachi sees capital punishment as barbaric and stronly opposes it. Infact, he regularly makes an effort to do something about it instead of just paying lip service to the media.

“Nothing comes out of killing another person,” Mangan says, adding, “There are other punishments that can serve the purpose.”

He gets resistance on a regular basis. Afterall, its justice right? the courts have handed down their verdict. the criminal killed another person right?

Mangan looks at the situation from a very different perspective. “It’s not a rotten part of the fruit that you just cut out and throw away, it’s human life we are talking of. Even if he’s a criminal, he’s a human being first. So I tell them, he deserves another chance and we can help save his life by contributing that paltry amount collectively.” Not many are convinced though and thus the delay.

The story of a true Pakistani human rights champions, one of the many unsung hero’s who do their good to society and slowly wither away. To date, he’s managed to give the lives back of three inmates involved in roadside accidents which took the lives of three people, by arranging the ‘diyat’ or bloodmoney paid to the families of the victims. “Not one was a ‘criminal’ as is usually pointed out. They were poor so their families could not arrange for the money and their employers refused to bail them out. But the amount was manageable and we could find people to donate.”
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In the recent few days I have been preoccupied with watching the day-to-day competition at the Tour de France and with time have slowly understood the cycling terminologies, today morning when going to work I saw this lone cyclist Drafting / Slip Streaming behind this water tanker staying in this protected position for a gentle ride uptown. On one occasion I even got to see the cyclist latch his hand onto the tail bumper and take a gentle tug for a few hundred meters. I suspect he had a long journey and remained at the mercy of this gentle giant to conserve his energy

We were wrong when we thought that those road side encroachers are using free electricity. We were wrong again when we thought that all Kundas are illegal. Today a casual visit to a fruit thaila near my house revealed a surprising truth, the Thaila Wala had an electricity bill in his money box and when I examined this bill closely it turned out to be a hand written Kunda Bill. The Kunda provided to this particular encroacher is a direct pair of AC sockets fastened to nearby electricity pole with a nylon tape.
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There are some things that ordinary people look at differently from a person with a camera. We take things for granted but photographers view them from an extraordinary perspective.

I stumbled upon this picture on the web and thought of sharing it. Enjoy.

Picture Credit

I was in Islamabad for about 24 hours earlier this week, and the only thing that striked me like a bullet was the greenery. I didn’t find Isloo more developed, or modern, but just the fact that it was green made it far more appealing, and soothing to the eyes. I didn’t see a single patch that didn’t have trees or grass.

This got me thinking that will Karachi ever get close to being as green as the Capital. Sure, we see efforts every now and then and campaigns from NGOs, during which plants and trees are planted around the city, but soon after that they die due to lack of maintenance. Unless we get involved at a personal level, we can never achieve this task.

So what shall we do? First things first, make your home green. Bring indoor plants and place them around your home. If you live in a house, may I suggest planting a tree? Once you can prove to take care of a plant (means it is still alive after 6 months), you can move on and grow more trees in your area.

Next time you go for an interview, don’t be amazed if you are asked about the political party you belong to.Thankfully the policy is only for Government jobs.

According to Daily Times, the old rural of assigning jobs according to rural/urban quota will be taken over by the party basis assignment. The decission was taken two months back but is extremely unpopular with ministers and other government employees who plan to protest against it.

The former policy of 60-40 jobs for rural and urban population respectively has been modified with the new 50% for MQM, 30% for PML Q and 20% for other ruling parties. The recruitment cell has been set up at CM house, Karachi.

More news.

Taking a flight out of Karachi one early morning I was surprised to see that Costa Coffee had opened a kiosk at the departure lounge of Jinnah international Airport. I have been told that similar kiosk has also been opened up in the International louge to cater to the passengers embarking opn the long haul flights out of Karachi.

The smell of coffee is quite refresing and lends the entire area a pleasant smell it most importantly serves as a good source of refreshment for the tired and weary passengers (lets also not forget coffee addicts like myself) who would love the opportunity to have a good cup of coffee just before embarking on their flight out of Karachi. Its a good development.

On a side note, the other interesting thing I saw was a mobile charging kiosk setup by Mobile Zone at a convenient place in the terminal, which had chargers available for practically every mobile phone allowing passengers to quickly top up battery packs just before departure