Hear ye Hear ye good denizens of the marvelous place known as Karachi.  The government in its utmost genorosity has deemed that we have to pay Rs 10 less per litre for petrol from 12am Nov 16th. The new prices of petrol and diesel have fallen now to 66.66 from 76.66 and Diesel 61.14 from 64.14 respectively.

This is great news not only for the people who were overburdened by the rising petrol cost but specially for the lower income classes of the city which will now have their bus fares slashed down due to the falling diesel price.

Although Ogra (i think Ogre is more appropriate) have managed this great feat today, its been a long time coming as the price of crude oil has been down to 53USD a barrel from 140USD for some time now. Still “der aye par durust aye”

I sincerely hope that the roads of this city of lights will be full of cars at night again as it has been looking like a ghost town after 10pm for too long :)

Now if we could get 5500MW from somewhere we seriously have a shot of turning this back into the awesome place it was some years ago.

One hears so much hoopla these days whenever something controversial happens. Financial situation has gotten worse, many banks are rumoured to be closing down and cutting down operations, while commodity prices are reaching new highs. A lot of budget cuts are happening in case of brands, cancellation of campaigns, concerts and what not.

It was a high time that an event happened to shake this town a bit. Seventh Lux Style Awards did just that. Shook up some people and created lots of controversies.

LSA was postponed in August to be held in Karachi at the DHA Golf Club on 29th Oct, 08, with much razzmatazz and security precautions. Whatever and however the event was organized, one has to give credit to the brand for going ahead with the event even when every head in the industry was going this way and that.

I’ll steer away from the controversy wagon about who wore what and said what. That’s just an industry thing and happens all the time (e.g. Gia going bald). What I will review on however is: how I was blown away by the performance of Reshma,–a very well known Punjabi folk singer–Atif Aslam and Shehzad Roy. Their fusion performance received a resounding round of applause. Reshma also received the Lifetime Achievement Award and candidly accepted the fact that she could not speak English and would prefer commenting in Punjabi.

Yes, there were lulling minutes, when the power went down; heck, it’s Karachi after all! At least the audience didn’t have to wait for the ceremony to start for hours. Shaan and Ali Azmat did fitting anchoring of the show along their female cohorts. And for the first time, students from NAPA and NCA were recognized and four outstanding students (two each from NAPA and NCA) were awarded Unilever Scholarships.

Continue for a complete list of winners: Read more

The Jamshed Town administration has installed closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras at different points on Tariq Road, in an attempt to curb the increasing criminal activity.

Burning of garbage along the Korangi Expressway continues despite repeated complaints by the residents of Qayyumabad and Akhtar Colony.

The citizens complained that Jamshed town officials burn solid waste and garbage at an open space adjacent to the Korangi Expressway, instead of shifting it to proper dumping sites.

“We face problems because of dense clouds of smoke and harmful gases emitting from the burning litter in front of our homes,” the citizens complained. Motorists and commuters traveling on Korangi Expressway also face difficulties, as a large portion of the road remains engulfed in thick smoke.
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AVARI TOWERS
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 799 + Tax (Poolside)
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 950 + Tax (Sky Grill)
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 899 + Tax (Asia Live)
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 699 + Tax (Khorshed Mahal for Corporate Groups)

Avari Towers will donate 100 Rupees from each Iftar sold to several nominated Charities.

MARRIOTT HOTEL
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 950 + Tax (Poolside)
SEHRI: Rs. 500 + Tax (Nadia Café)

PEARL CONTINENTAL HOTEL
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 850 + Tax (Poolside)
SEHRI: Rs. 550 + Tax (Marco Polo)

SHERATON HOTEL
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 825 + Tax (Special Set-up in the Parking Area)
SEHRI: Rs. 550 + Tax (Cozmo until the 10th of Ramadan; Fanoos after the 10th)

CHINA TOWN
IFTAR BUFFET: Rs. 499 + Tax
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Midnight tonight marks the start of the celebrations for the 61st Independence Day for Pakistan. As customary to our celebrations the city resonates with fireworks, erratic gunfire, silencer-less bikes, screeching tires and blaring music quite literally people need an excuse to have a good time. With the gloomy political situation, an economic disaster and crushing security issues people still continue to find an opportunity to let themselves loose, as they say life must go on similarly in Karachi life does go on.

When on a casual drive around town tonight, everything else was exactly the same EXCEPT for one minor change. There were literally NO MQM flags dominating the scene, in contrast to yesteryears where it was customary to see the Pakistani flag being dwarfed in size & number replaced with the high flying MQM - Red, Green and White it was for tonight, not the case and we were [I was for sure] replaced with the pride of seeing one nation standing united under one flag.

Evoking patriotism is not difficult but it takes time for the patriotic spirit to sink into the hearts of the people, and if more such patriotic activities are conducted on a regular basis we will most definitely rise and stand proud. It requires the leadership to Think & Preach Pakistan and the people will definitely follow suit.

Its unfortunate that in Karachi for the past 20 odd years MQM has been in search for creating a separate identity [it still is] but one oft has to question if that goal supersedes the integrity and existence of Pakistan [I hope not]. The latest initiative by the ever energetic Mustafa Kamal to evoke patriotism by launching I Own Karachi campaign must be seen as a positive step and I truly believe if more such Pakistan specific events are held on a regular basis then we are definitely in for a positive change.

Knock on Wood, Pakistan Zindabad

KESC, burn it! Break it! Kill them! OH MY GOD! 86 Rs/lit Petrol! Bus Fares to 15 Rupees till 1 stop! How the hell did they snatch a person’s cell phone, burn him alive! Kill them, shoot them, throw stones at them, blow it all up. Government sucks! New Government sucks, Oh the past Govt messed this this and this up! He’s bad, he’s worse, he’s stupid, what’s that, why is that………….

YEA YEA YEA!!!! SHUT UP!

It is valid to say that people of Karachi have lost and are continuously loosing their sanity over the depressing problems in their home town - and for this, it is not them to blame.

Keeping all the problems in mind and giving each, another viewpoint, I would say that apart from the prices of food, fuel and utilities etc, we have yet another problem. The problem we are having are the PEOPLE themselves. Everyone and everything has problems, but finding a solution to a problem requires something of a mind, heart and wisdom. Let this post not be taken against the people of Karachi, but I’m just not satisfied by the way people (we) are handling their (our) problems!

What is a problem? A problem is an outcome of acts in the past creating an unfavorable vision of the future or partially blocking it.

So, the question is NOT “who did wrong in the past”, the question is… WHO sees the FUTURE! Its people who see the future, if the people are not in a normal state of mind, heart and wisdom, they are unable to identify the future. If you are unable to identify the future, how would you be able to walk on a path that actually leads to a better future.

I always give this example, lets say “Mr. X” had an accident and X is lying on the road. X is thinking damn! What just happened, Oh It hurts so bad, it wasn’t my fault… The next second X get squished by a truck that says “Baloach Taiyyara”, and tomorrow headlines reads “noa-jawan halak, truck driver farar”.

If you don’t get up, don’t drag yourself to the corner, or don’t get yourself to the hospital you are actually ignoring the worst that is yet to come. You will have a life time to think about what ‘just’ happened, so its better to stand up and get yourself fixed so that you can have a life to live and deal with the memories later.

This is a typical scenario of our situation, we have just been hit by a car and we are lying on the road, thinking about what “just” happened. We are just crying about and thinking over and over about the things that are going wrong. My friends worry about the drunk truck driver with his Baloch Taiyara coming right at you.

To maintain mental stability is of the utmost importance in the time of crisis!

I’m not sure how many of you would actually consider the people as a problem to the problems of people. Lets hear it from you in comments and based on our comments I will be proposing actual solution of each and every problem.

 Several injured in a series of six low intensity blasts in different parts of karachi. Blasts occurred within an hour at Banaras chowk, orangi town, Hyderi, Pahar Gunj, Qasba colony, and  Manghopir.

The injured have been taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, DawnNews sources

Report that at least 40 injured have been brought to the hospital by now. While RMO Abbasi Shaheed Hospital Dr. Akbar says the count to be 30.

PM Gilani has strongly condemned the blasts in Karachi

Latest:

• Two more blasts at Pak Colony have just been reported. 
• 1 person is confirmed dead (Source Geo TV). 
• Reports of unrest and firing in Barda Board and Pak-colony (Source Geo and Saama Tv)

The section will be updated as latest news comes through.

Usually, in this series, we tend to pick up the topic discussed in other blogs that are relevant to Karachi and expand on them but the following description of the North Nazimabad Town by Owais Mughal in All Things Pakistan is worthy of being reproduced in full. Enjoy!

In April 2008, we had a post on Eight Bazaars of Faisalabad, and we presented it as one of the best examples of town planning in Pakistan. We would like to develop this topic into a whole new series about the best planned localities of Pakistan. Among many examples of fine town planning in Pakistan are North Nazimabad Karachi, Model Town Lahore, Faisalabad’s 8 bazaars, Federal-B-Area Karachi, Islamabad Master Plan, Wah Cantonment, and many more in other cities. In today’s post we will cover North Nazimabad, Karachi.

The satellite image below shows North Nazimabad’s 20 residential blocks bound in red polygon. East of NN is Federal-B-Area where as North of NN is North Karachi and Buffer Zone.

Whenever the aesthetics of Civil Engineering and Town Planning Projects is considered; it is an accpetable fact that curves and gradiants are considered more natural than squares or rectangles. Cities planned in rectangular grids, though easy to navigate, don’t have same aesthtics as brought out by circular roads and curves. If you look at North Nazimabad’s map above you can clearly see how aesthetically the curved roads and plots have been designed within mostly rectanguar grids. Atleast to me this is the town planning of highest aesthetic order.

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