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

In light of the recent stock market debacle the government is attempting to prevent incidents like these from happening again. Today a news report appeared in Daily Times where the usage of SMS in spreading disinformation about the stock market are deemed as a Cyber Crime and ironically the FIA has been entrusted to ensure that it does not happen in the future.

Overtly it may seem to be an interesting way to solve the panic of any future stock market debacle, but I personally see it as an odd way to solve the underlying problem. One could argue that if a simple SMS message communication to my broker to “SELL SELL SELL” can be attributed to a punishable cyber crime. Then we should hold liable all phone calls made during the stock-market-rumor-mongering period as an equally important punishable crime.

• Fundamentally I believe you cannot condemn the usage of a specific medium (in this case SMS) for its probable repercussions, instead its imperative to develop safe guards to instead hold the traders on the trading floor directly responsible for their actions which may contribute to panic. Deny all you might we all some how knew that this over inflated stock market bubble was going to burst which was all the more evident considering the miserable economic indicators within Pakistan, suffice to say it was on the cards
• Secondly I shudder to see an even more powerful FIA entrusted with dispensing the Cyber Crime law at its own free will, considering the drafted of the Cyber Crime law was shady at best as it failed to provide safe guards for the innocent.

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Considering that Pasha kicked off the trend of Jobfairs a few years ago, the association has a knack for putting together the kind of event that clicks with their audience and today’s Career Expo was no exception! Read more

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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Google Maps has just recently opened up its map database for Pakistan hence allowing an open community of volunteers to help make navigational maps for Pakistan. If you have some spare time please insert a few landmarks so that it can contribute to benefit the community in general.

Edit Karachi Map Here

This will naturally be a work in progress and soon we might have a very good database of Karachi, but in the mean time I thought it may be interesting to hear from the community the present status of development of the local GPS maps in continuation to our numerous posts before (2005 Maps, Google Earth Karachi, 2006 Karachi Maps?, 2007 Map it with Naqsha & in 2008 ApnaKarachi).

My own fascination with GPS maps stems from my recent activities with the OffRoadPakistan group which often heads off into the uncharted wilderness of Baluchistan and Sindh almost 5-6 times a year literally breaking away from the hectic Karachi life for a few days of hardcore adventure. Despite having some expert navigators within the group, I pitched in to buy Garmin Nuvi 660 (it was more to satisfy my gadget-fanaticism, I have since then, uploaded it with the Mapsource WorldMap data but found it to be practically useless for street navigation in Pakistan. I’m just sharing a few pictures from our Goran Gatti trip in Jan 2008

In search of a better map I also came across the brilliant effort on Naqsha.net, Islamabad is decently well mapped but the Naqsha maps of Karachi leaves a lot to be desired for. Extending my hunt I also stumbled across a retailer who claimed to have Garmin maps for Karachi (!!) willing to sell it to me for Rs.6500. So the big question here…. Is there any decent maps on Karachi & Pakistan which can be used or do we have to wait up until progress is made on the Google Maps?

_{Credits: Adnan Siddiqi & Noman}

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.)

Yesterday this image caught my attention when rounding the Hotel Metropole. It seems that quite a few travel agents are very serious about sending a strong statement to AirBlue over their tussle regarding the way AirBlue ticket pricing

The News, 24th June 2008: Travel Agents Association of Pakistan (TAAP) on Monday vowed to maintain the embargo on the sale of Airblue tickets fearing that any relaxation will encourage other carriers to reduce their commissions as well. In a general body meeting held here, members of the association said the private airline since June 3, 2008, increased fuel surcharge but decreased travelling fare, which is used to calculate fixed margin of agents who in reprisal stopped selling its tickets. “An airline calculates its fare structure on basis of total expenditure including fuel surcharge and travel agents earn commission on that fare value,” said Tahir Sheikh, Regional Chairman TAAP. “And on this commission we pay withholding tax to government.” He said change in mechanism to calculate commission has not only reduced profitability of travel agents but decision will cost government taxes. TAAP claimed that its members paid Rs240 million to government in taxes on sale of Air Blue tickets.

On April 7, 2008 Siti Aisyah Hamid, a 42 year old woman from Perlis, Malaysia’s northernmost state, received an SMS giving her the good news that she had just just won an all expenses paid trip to Singapore. She is currently in the Karachi Jail since April 28th after the Customs officials found 950 grammes of heroin in the bottom compartment of a bag given to her by the an African man and woman who had picked her at the airport

The 42-year-old woman claimed she was the victim of a vicious syndicate that promised her a trip to Singapore but had in the end ferried her to Pakistan, locked her up for two weeks and made her a drug mule.

Jaafar Noor, her husband was blamed by his in-laws that he had sold his wife to a drug trafficking syndicate, an allegation he denies. Kijang Care, a welfare organization, started a fund to mobilize a team of lawyers to save Siti. According to them, there are currently 5 Malaysian women in Karachi Jail, all for drug-related offenses.

Source: Malay Mail

Karachi beat Lahore in ESWC qualifying match at Expo center. Karachi will represent Pakistan for the Electronic Sports World Cup finals set to take place in San Jose, California.
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Date: June 4, 2008 at 6pm (The exhibition will continue till 18th June)

All interested people are cordially invited.

Location: Goethe-Institut Pakistan, 2, Brunton Road, Civil Lines, Karachi. [Tel: (+92-21) 566 1633-6]

Goethe-Institut / Max Müller Bhavan Mumbai organized a photography workshop with a special focus to capture and present images of India through the lenses of well-known young photographers from the South Asian region.

The workshop was conducted by the Berlin-based photographer Andrea Kuenzig. This exhibition comprises images created by participants during this workshop. Two of these participants, Sohail Abdullah from Karachi and Clare Arni from Bangalore will be present to talk about their work.

The topic “Urban Changes” has a large canvas and as such the approaches of photographic aploration are manifold. In their endeavour to present their perception of “Urban Changes” the photographers got an opportunity to identify their individual forté in this field and develop his / her own stylistic approach in photography. They primarily focused on the development of urban and rural structures in the era of globalization, using photography as an art form and also a medium for juxtaposition.

For further information about this program, contact the Programme Coordinator Ms. Mona Mala or visit their website.