For a Thalassaemia patient to have any chance of survival they need a blood transfusion every 15 days of their life. Currently the demand for blood for these patients is 15000 bottles of blood a month. The blood banks of this city cannnot and do not provide enough blood for these patients and this is why many of them die premature deaths, many times before reaching adulthood.

Kashif Iqbal Thalassaemia Care Centre (KITCC) is all set to launch a blood bank which will cater exclusively to the needs of these patients. A year ago MB from Karachi metroblogs did a post about this organization here.

All of us can give blood once every 3 months, I urge all of you reading this to please if possible provide blood to this organization. Your precious blood will save a persons life through them. I also urge all the bloggers of this forum to take up on Mb’s initiative and spread the message of awareness for this center and disease. It is very important for 2 thalasaemia minor patients not to marry and have children to add to the toll of this disease, for this people are advised to get blood tests done before marriage.

Please note (KITCC) provides blood “FREE OF COST”. i personally will not only be donating blood for this cause but will try to round up as many people as I can to do this. Please help, your help is needed now!!!!

Their contact info is

Kashif Iqbal Thalassaemia Care Center (KITCC) , Becham Road, Laiqabad, Landhi, Karachi – 75120
(+92-21)-8232414 , (+92-21)-4515600 , (+92-21)-5021188 (Fax)
kitcc@gem.net.pk

Although in the last few years many fly overs and amendments have been made to the road structure of the city one huge problem has been overlooked so far and that is parking.

Currently there is a move going on to make a huge 4 story parking plaza near bohri bazaar and another 3 story one at khadda market but this not going to be enough.

I suggest that the entire downtown area should be turned into a “no car zone” and only pedestrians walking should be allowed thus enabling office workers, businessmen and traders to go about their business in peace, rather then it taking 45 minutes to find parking and that too at the behest of the neighborhood sidewalk don who then has the leeway to throw your car whenever he wants, to be retrieved when you gingerly ask for it back, with fender benders and minor milage issues included.

Some “misunderstanding” between the press and the supporters of JI took place on the Ameers arrival which lead to the “manhandling” of several journalists who were present to cover Munawwar Hasan’s arrival.

This led to the meet the press event at the press club turning into a full blown protest by journalists against the “Jamaat E Islami” on which the guest refused to speak to these journalists due to their disrespectful attitude.

I wonder what actually took place at the airport or how suddenly the press is disrespectful towards “JI” or is it because the press is now voicing the peoples opinion which is totally contrary to Ji’s stance on what is going on in the countries north.

In either case I feel Ji is making a big mistake here as the concerns of the press should be addressed and the media engaged to explain the Ji’s real position as people are getting confused.

Full Story in The News

To all the Bloggers out there and the Bloggerettes and the Blaggers and the Blaggerrets, the 18th of April shall see us gather under the roof of Regent Plaza Hotel Karachi to unleash our collective might upon this land.

Hmm sounds skeery? Actually no its going to be a “National Bloggers Conference” where the IT ministry is doing the organizing (check the fancy digs people) and the bloggers of Pakistan will be meeting, discussing, gossiping(we are bloggers) informing and having some fun along the way.

Seating is limited so please sign up at the following link. Suggestions are welcome here and will be routed to the organizers.

By the looks of the speakers panel things will be pretty entertaining. The event shall start at 4pm on the 18th of April, please keep reading this space for further updates.

Hope to see you all there!!!!!

Last summer saw Karachiites burn criminals…this time bijliwallas?

Inside was a hotch potch of wires and suspicious looking duffel bags all of which contained cameras thank god, and a push of hot sweaty cameramen as they jostled for posiiton, funnily enough even in the middle of the press conference. i swear i think Pakistani media is the dumbest of them all as they cued, waved and screeched to each other all while arguing and pushing for place while the speaker was speaking. It was so bad tha tone of the ladies of the women’s action committee got quite pissed and told the people to please observe some sort of decorum. However the speeches were good, hard hitting and very passionate. I thought the speaker from the Pakistan medical board was pretty intense and got a due clapping at the end.

After the insane question and answer session that followed in which the media made bigger fools out of themselves by asking things like “madam kia aap samajhti hain ke ye saza sahi thi” ummm yea thats why we are all here doofus, seriously….we all trooped out to be greeted by a chorus of people shouting slogans in the favor of ummm bugti of all the people, apparently the protest had coincided with the balochistan cause as well.

So we all gathered togather and then the banners were raised and the “nara bazi” started.  The numbers seemed quite decent with a lot of women from different walks of life participating as well as a lot of journalists and some tv personna’s like “George” as well. I spotted 3 blaggers aside from myself in Sabeen, Awab and Tazeen, if there were more I certainly didnt know them. After about 20 minutes of rip roaring narays by the civil society and mazdoor jihad lo and behold a truck laden with “Sunni tehreek” activists complete with giant loudspeakers and mikes appeared to stand in front fo us and sing naats on top of their voices “Sarkar ki amad” kind of stuff. They kept insisting they were with us but still managed to try to drown our voices out quite frequently, however it was heartning to see the people standing firm in front of them and raising their own protest.

All in all we might not have had the numbers seen in Islamabad today, but we still managed to register a due protest against the barbarity on display yesterday. Whether that video was 1 or 2 or 5 months old, the civil society made their displeaure felt quite vividly today sending a clear message to the government and the barbarian hordes up north that these kind of actions are not only intolerable but will deem an equal response.

Next to come is a huge protest rally organized by MQM’s womens wing for the same purpose tommorow, we must all participate and raise our voice in as many forums as we can against the march of evil into our cities, I commend all the parties involved in making these and the protests to come possible in all the cities of Pakistan, long live sanity and long live Pakistan.

The current Minister of excise and taxation has started to address this problem by raiding several spots in this city where such liquor is openly bought and sold.

The sad part is that these raids are only being conducted for the benefit of the many “red and blue” colored government license shops operating across the city selling official liquor. The question thus is of taxes unpaid on the sale of homegrown liquor and not that this ill is spreading in our society without check.

Even putting aside the religious castration that drinking alcohol is attributed to, drinking home grown liquor can lead to blindness, fits as well as other side effects because the manufactiring is more of a bhatti kind then proper processing. As a city we need to recognize the wide sale of both imported and home grown liquor here and regularize the process rather than letting it operate on a bootleg basis. I regularly see kids and women lining up at a liquor shop near my workplace on the way back, and it chills my heart that people are being sold alcohol without check of age or any other verification.

The sooner we realize that this problem now exists in our society on a wide scale basis the faster we can engage it and try to address it. I appeal to our newly appointed Chief Justice to after coming into office take suo motto action on the unchecked sale of alcohol in Karachi and bring it out in the open.

Full Story

taken at 8am, what power crises?

As the prophets (pbuh) birthday gets closer, Karachi is lit up in an array of overpowering green and white. The colors of choice for the various religious organizations making plans which last upto 12 days during this holy month.

Chief among them is the “DI” or Dawate Islami which seems to have decided on its own that there is no power crises in this country and that people want to hear naats and cries of “Sarkar ki amad, marhaba” at all hours of the night.

Noise pollution aside, even though they claim to pay for all the lighting they use, i think it is quite safe to say that their over zealous celebrations are turning from a pageant to a nuisance every year.

Perhaps it is their war with the shiates who paint the city black with equal fervor to their green that has gained precendence over true spirit and effort? The emphasis is now more towards outdoing each other then on bettering oneself. In either case its been a total of 72 hours and the naats are not stopping, the lights are not turned off during the day even upto 10am sometimes and it feels like I am being kept in some of sort of concentration camp. Naats and duas are beautiful to listen to when one has the choice to listen to them when they want not whether they want to or not!!!

Their influence in our city has been increasing over the passage of time as well and a stark example of it was the “attack” of 40-50 armed mullahs on a concert being held on valentines day in nisar shaheed park in defence. Although people may claim that the concert was creating problems for namazis at the adjacent mosque it was organized with proper permission from D.H.A authorities and the mullahs had no right to take the law into their own hands.

Police has to intervene and the concert had to be abandoned, these mullahs have now realized that it is in their power to disrupt anything they want on the name of Islam. I am not condoling valentines or the loud music interfering with someones namaz, but if I hear noise during Isha prayers does it give me the right to go over and threaten the noisemaker with a beating?

The civic agencies responsible for maintaining law and order have no idea how to deal with these mullahs and I am afraid the time is not far off when all of us will have to make a choice. Who will pay back the organizers or the people who bought tickets at this event? Who is going to hold these people back from taking over Karachi like they did in Swat?

In the end it will be between us and them.