”When Dr Shershah Syed is not in his doctor’s gown or sitting with friends or off on a marathon or cycling, or even writing short stories, he’s busy taking the government to task and speaking his mind on the high level of maternal mortality, writes Zofeen T. Ebrahim ” The Review - Dawn.

Dr Shershah Syed is a savior, a man who has dedicated his life to helping the underprivileged and oppressed women of the society, providing them health care and educating them to lead a healthy life and raise children in a healthy environment. But his work simply doesn’t end here his concerns include human rights, women’s health and social issues, child development and health issues and children’s rights and the rights of the animal as well. Read more

A few days ago all the shopkeepers of Lyari a downtrodden area of this metropolis were handed chits. Each chit contained an amount which was to be collected later by the members of two gangs that operate there. Upon much hue and cry by these poor shop owners the government has finally taken action.

The whole area of Lyari is divided amongst the Ghaffar Zikri and Rehman Dakait gangs, they collect bhatta, run diesel from Gwader and engage in the drugs trade openly and without fear of punishment. They also provide a safe haven for most ransomists who kidnap people and keep them in Lyari till the ransom is received.

2 days ago, the rangers entered the narrow lanes of this area and set up pickets and are now carrying out a siege and search mission to recover kidnapped persons, arms and drugs as well as drug traffikers. Finally someone is doing something for the residents of Lyari, I hope after this the authorities will shift their focus on a city wide scale as well to counter the spurt of increasing robberies and crime.

The criminals of this city need to be taught that crime does not pay so that new entries into such gangs can be eliminated.

One person was killed and dozens others injured in a series of five blasts that ripped through different areas of the busiest city of country on Monday.

Two explosions occurred here in Banaras area. One of the blasts happened in a pile of garbage while the other one at a footpath near Banaras chowk, injuring 16 people. They were shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, sources said.
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I was overjoyed to find out via various news channels like Geo and Express today that at last the local government is taking notice of the problems of Karachi Zoo.

Mustufa Kamal came on tv to ensure the families of Karachi and the zoo visitors that the city government is in the process of acquiring an elephant to give rides to the children for which tenders have been opened and is allocating a proper budget for the zoo as well.

The city government has ensured the uplift and reopening of some parks around the city and by doing so have added to options for people going out with their families here. If they can do the same for the zoo in Karachi it would indeed be marvelous.

Off course the news channels mentioned were quick to point out that this happened after “they” ran a news story on this but who cares? As long as the end result is good the process does not really matter eh???

So here is a small thank you from this concerned parent to the authorities for taking notice, well done sir!

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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Mohammed Hanif, by now known to many as the author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes, writes in the Guardian about the reasons for his impending move back to Karachi from London after 12 years away.

When novelist Mohammed Hanif told friends he was returning to Pakistan after 12 years in Britain, they were aghast. Why would he and his young family swap London for a city with daily power cuts and rampant gun crime? The answer proved surprisingly simple … (Guardian.)

The Karachi Zoo, once quite popular among the children of this city for its various species of animals is in a horrible state!! Growing up in this city my childhood memories consist of frequent visits to it to feed the ducks at the pond or take rides on the elephant present there.

I recently tried to impart the same joy on my child but was shocked to see the conditions at the zoo. Most of the cages are empty, the animals having died or are in the process of dying, the shetland ponies present earlier which would give rides to children are also gone. Upon my inquiries i found that the male had passed away upon separation from the female and the female was also sick and being treated.

Worst of all even the cages with animals in them are so dirty that it amounts to cruelty to keep animals in this way. If the Zoo has no resources to import animals why cannot local varieties be introduced? Why can’t the services of sweepers and cleaners be acquired to at least spruce up the place a little?

I appeal to our local government to please see that the Zoo is restored back to its original state. The citizens of Karachi have little in the means of family activities options as it is, please do not take this away from them as well!!!

Pigeon-holed Billboard on Shahrah-e-Qaideen Bridge

The first time I saw this pattern being made on a billboard near Marriott (on the Emirates-wala Billboard) I wondered what new marketing campaign was being planned for Karachi, but it wasn’t long when we started seeing the same pattern being cut away on a large number of billboards across the city. It must be an attempt to make these billboards lighter, while at the same time be better designed to withstand the gale force winds that Karachi saw a year back. Good move, though I would still have preferred a billboard-free Karachi

The Jam Sadiq Ali Bridge was closed to traffic for an indefinite period when cracks developed Wednesday evening on a portion of the bridge.
Traffic between the Koranagi Industrial Area and Qayumabad had been diverted to the Korangi River Road.
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Hamara Karachi festival starts off tomorrow (June 7, 2008) at 7:30-8:00pm, Beach View Park. This festival has been organized by Hamara Karachi Foundation. Musical concert & Fireworks would be the main attraction this time. Different events have been organized in this regard. Eventions’s (the event management company for this festival) CEO Aslam Khan briefed about different preparations being done to make the event successful & expects a 25k+ audience in an event that was long overdue for a city that is mainly known to outside world for security reasons rather than any entertainment related event. KMB would love to spread the word and would encourage people to go to this event with their families. Following pics taken today show organizers putting their act together for a grand show. Let’s hope the end result come out good for Karachi’s image.

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