KMB made a post almost a month back about the recently released Google mapping system for general utilization in Pakistan, since then I have been addicted to this tool and have seen the Karachi area being extensively mapped.

I share a screencapture of the mapping done in the regions of Shahrah-e-Faisal and one is definitely impressed at how much work a collaborative team can pull together in a short span of 30 days, this areas was barren a month back and is now peppered with accurate roads maps across the city and it continues to grow

We definitely need YOUR input as well, take a look at an area you know well and contribute in some way by adding one or two (or more) points of interests [road, name of mosque, school, shop or anything]. In all honestly it just takes a little getting used to but once you are in swing then its quite addicting. Do keep in mind that these images are a few years old (3-4) [taken before the development of Shahrah-e-Qaideen flyover] but even then, most of the city can be accurately mapped.

Join the Karachi Mapping effort here on Google Map Maker

It has been some time that I posted here so as soon as I saw this, I decided to post ASAP, meaning this happened one and a half hours ago. Just a bit after PAF chapter at the Baloch Colony road opposite Defense View, a Honda Civic rolled up the slope and then over.

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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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Three people killed in a traffic accident that took place a few moments ago at the Punjab Chowrangi in Karachi. Ambulances have been making their way over for the past few minutes. If anyone has updates, please post them here.

I wasn’t going to post this up until later, but then I saw Afreen’s post on “Wake up and Smell the Rubble”… These were photographs I snapped when I was so frustrated trying to drive through the inner roads of Defence (the Green and Clean), where every major road was dug up.

You may want to argue that we live in a post-military dictatorship or in a crazy democratic state of mayhem, but the sad state of affairs is this - we’ve got more holes in the ground than the surface of the moon, and we seem to be okay with it. There are rallies and walks and protests to release the judges and make god knows what else right, but not one little picket when it comes to the stink and filth that is created around us. Not one worker, not one working bulldozer, and certainly not one protester screaming his frustration with what our streets have become. Read more

[Image/ Post Credit: Bilal Ahmed]

” A typical Afghan refugee in Karachi will be seen doing all the inhumane labor, from picking up garbage to doing construction work for a dirt cheap price. Here, you can see a kid with a load of garbage on his back, crossing a sewerage on a gas pipe. Before i could shoot, there were a whole dozen of them crossing it, mostly trying to push each other off, a childish behavior indeed but they are children alright, i mean, deep down inside, underneath the coat of dirt, hardships and irony, they are still … children”

continuing my previous post about insane drivers with attitude, let me share an experience with you……

the occurred with an acquaintance a couple of weeks back, and shows the true form of “jis ki lathi, uss ki bhens!”

here’s how he puts the entire event in his own words:

“i ws driving bak home wen a car came 2 a sudden halt in front of me near the commercial area
the guy stood there 4about a minute not being able 2decide where 2go
i simply honked at him couple of times….guess dats what annoyed him
he followed me and while i was entering my home he came n slightly bumped my car from behind which sent me in a
fit of rage
i followed him n blocked his car a few 100 yards from my house and got out of the car to bash him up or give him a few slaps
the next thing i know he fired 3shots at me 1 of which pierced my knee n put me through an agonising ordeal to recover from”

guess nowadays, you can’t even correct anyone…..

i’m sure all of us have come across situations where despite being on the right, have been ridiculed by people who believe they own the roads. maybe some of us are part of that crazy bunch!

2 events in succession have prompted me to write this post…..what hurts me is that instead of feeling ashamed of what they’re doing, they have the guts to actually ridicule the one on the right track!

just this morning, while coming to work, a guy came wrong way infront of Allah wala roundabout and blocked me at the signal, and started shouting at me to move my car. its best that i don’t express my emotions here……

please share your experiences and reactions (if any)….

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On the night of March 15th last month, an 18 year old woman who was visiting our beloved Qaids Mazaar from a rural area with her family was abducted from the grounds of the Mazaar.

She was then subjected to gang rape by unknown assailants and was left in an awful state at the gate of Qaid’s Mazaar in the wee hours of the morning on 17th March.

At first her husband and family ran from pillar to post to get an FIR registered which the police was not willing to grant on this heinous crime. However when the media caught hold of this story and it ran on many news channels the police registered an F.I.R and arrested the assistant head of security of Qaid’s Mazaar on March 20th. His D.N.A proved he was one of the rapists, on his interrogation two more men from the security force were arrested and proven guilty by their D.N.A. There are however still two suspects at large and the senate commitee on housing works has recommended that the entire workforce of the Mazaar should be D.N.A tested to find them.

It chills me to the bone as to how many security officers were actually involved in this crime. 3 being already identified and two left makes 5. What have we succumbed to? when the guardians of our beloved Qaid’s tomb resort to such disgusting behavior to satisfy their inner demons.