Its been for sometime that the Karachi Stock Exchange has been ‘frozen’ for official trading when on 28th August fearing a massive flight of capital the movers and shakers of KSE set a Floor-Price-Level at 9144.93 points which was the KSE index as of the last trading session on August 27th. The one month embargo was extended even further.

Its been widely reported that many of the stalwarts of our stock market are practically on their knees pleading the government for a bail out plan. As an outsider with little insights on the specifics of this lucrative industry I feel there are two sides to the argument. The investor with some stake in the stock market vehemently advocates the implementation of the bail out package arguing that its geared up confidence building measure trying to prevent the flight of the hefty foreign investor.
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This October 2008, 60 museums and art spaces around the world are showcasing Pedro Meyer’s Heresies Exhibition around the world. Karachi’s The Second Floor is the venue for Pakistan to be exhibiting this fabulous exhibition, a retrospective comprising of four decades of groundbreaking work by one of the world’s most innovative photographer.

” Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer is as renowned for his powerful and provocative photographs as he is for his pioneering work with digital imaging. Meyer’s photographs consistently test the limits of truth, fiction and reality. With the advent of digital photography in the early 1990s, Meyer evolved from a documentary photographer who created so-called “straight photographs” into a digital-documentarian who often combines photographic elements from disparate times and places to arrive at a different or higher truth.

 Meyer’s oft- expressed contention that all photographs — digitally manipulated or not — are equally “true” and “untrue” has been labeled “heretical” in the orthodox documentary photography community. Hence the title Heresies. ”

 

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With stock exchanges tumbling like domino’s the world over all of us have lost not just a pile of our hard earned savings but a lot of our trust as well.  We as citizens of the world normally believe that

a) The financial system has backup plans and checks built inside to aide the economy and stop a complete meltdown

b) There is a bottom

c) It cannot happen to me

All three of the above have been literally blown to smithereens in the last month or so in Karachi. First the stock exchange went leading to a massive flight of capital, then it did not stop falling in fact it did not stop at all until an artificial freeze had to be put in place to save almost half the brokers of our KSE from completely defaulting and then the coup de grace our rumor mill went into overdrive.

Consider this I just returned from a trip to Dubai and in the first day I have heard that 10 banks in Karachi are going belly up including huge foreign banks in this list of names. That the government is thinking about whether to seize foreign currency accounts or seal and freeze lockers or stop honoring government issued bonds or some other hair brained cockamamie conspiracy that people are dreaming up while counting the pile of gold coins they just converted their life’s worth too because “they just cannot trust anyone anymore” Well HELLOOOOOOO here is a clue doofus, if you keep your entire lives worth in your house or garden or wherever you have it hoarded, in the most insecure city in the world you are basically lying naked and ready for ravishment in a sailors bar.

I wonder what makes sane minded clear headed people scream PANIC PANIC and run to their bank to stand in a queue of their fellow looneys who are withdrawing every penny like its gonna be really worth something in the local currency when & if (god forbid) the country defaults hahahaha!!!

Some are even advising  against sending texts to each other as the “Government” is monitoring all info  to see who makes the most fun out of Zardari so they can pick them up in the middle of the night. I want to know why we need to make fun of him at all? Is he not doing that job pretty darn well all by his lonesome?

Oh and here is a thought while you are busy digging a hole in your floor to hide your jewelry in, when the time comes…all you will need is a flight out of here to save your life. Nothing else will work. So if the mood strikes you I suggest a queue outside the main terminal, I hear planes landing make for peacefull sleep. Also keep a sack handy for your goblin gold as they will readily change that at the disembarkation lounge in london or dubai into the local currency for ya, while you are at it you might want to book a vault in gringotts as well I hear they never go belly up!!!

This city has seen the most horrible times in its existence and I assure everyone that this too shall pass. It may not be as easily navigated as we think it is but in the end Karachi will remain. I would like to appeal for calm and to stop indulging in hoarding as it is driving morals down and the dollar up.

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 Haseena is my cousin’s old maid. Yesterday, hours before Aftaar she is frying The Pakoras while I in the kitchen stand over the chopping board with a knife in my hand and a packs of imported carrot, olives, radish, cucumber, chilies, and other food items. i am chopping, dicing and preparing them for the salad, snacks and dip sauces (Chathnee and Raita) to be served to over a quarter hundred close relatives for an Aftaar and dinner.

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Growing media industry needs more and more competent writers, reporters and editors.

For those who want to write for the media or join the profession as reporters or editors, here is a workshop on how to become a good writer/ journalist/editor. It will be conducted by M. Khalid Rahman, former senior sub editor, Dawn.

“Good writing is difficult; writing good prose more so,” says Khalid Rahman. “It takes special writing skills to make your writing so interesting that a reader loves to read all of it. Writing for a newspaper or magazine is different from what you learn to write at school or college; it becomes all the more challenging when you are competing with several writers for media space.

Duration of the workshop: Three days (Fri-Sun Sept 19-21; 10:00 am to 2:00 pm). Six sessions of two hours each.

Entry Fee: 5,000 PKR (including course material and hands-on training) per participant.

Venue: Institute of Media Skills M-5, Office Floor, Avanti Terrace, Allama Iqbal Road, Block 2, PECHS, Karachi.

Contact: 021-4534719; 0321-9229331. Registrations have already started.

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Times are changing fast. The world is going through rapid change. There is a way, still, to master change: by mastering one’s Intent - as it is one’s own intent and attention that shape the world.

PERSONAL EXCELLENCE WORKSHOPS

Personal Excellence is a one-day program aimed at providing an examination of the key elements of personal excellence.
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A flurry of pompous and showy displays by leading student political groups marked early celebrations on the 13th of August, 2008 ahead of the 61st Independence Day here at the University of Karachi. Celebrations centered on at least three major points, one each for the three major political student groups at the university. Read more

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The second floor of progressive centre, located on main Shahrah-e-Faisal is ablaze, according to the eye witness Yehyah the fire broke out some 30 minutes back, there are several ambulances waiting on standby. The fire brigade had arrived but it was without water, so it went away probably to fetch some.

Several explosions heard from the building, The main road is smokey and completely jammed. Please avoid Shahrah-e- Faisal.
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KB- Thespian has brought to the stage Waiting for Godot” A tragic comedy in two acts by Samuel Beckett.

 The play which was written originally in French and had been given many different interpretations ever since. The play depicts how our society makes the same mistakes again and again, always forgets the it’s past and tends to move on ahead but it never really does. It keeps waiting for a miracle to happen, someone to take upon it’s self to correct it but that someone never comes. The society so easily gets inspired by power and those who are wise are always kept slaved and in chains by the ones who are in command. The wise are feared of and are never taken seriously.   

 

The play is particularly hard to act, the dialogues vague, the expressions need dynamics, the harmony between the actors need to be perfect and everything had to be in the true essence in which the play has been drafted. It requires incredible skills to pull this act together specially because the dialogues in the play seeming make no sense and in the end in is the whole play collectively which makes it complete.And I would say the young performers have done an absolutely commendable job pulling the act through.

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Every new advancement in technology opens new opportunities and new ideas immerge but some ideas are so fascinating that they make it to the history. One such amazing idea was experimented a few days back simultaneously at a Hotel in Delhi and at a local café ”The Second Floor” in Karachi

The café was relived of all its furniture for the event and a floor seating was arranged. Seated in the corner on a slightly elevated stage were the Farid Ayaz and Abu Mohammad Qavvaal Party faced with a web camera and another web cam was aimed towards the audience.

On the wall were a large plasma and a projector screen showing a live views of the place where audience has to be seated in Delhi and the stage where the legendary Shubha Mudgal with her husband Dr. Aneesh Pradhan and other musicians were to perform shortly. Read more

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