Noise, distortion, disruption and poor reception was part of the package for PTCL landline customers, and it used to be worst during the rains but all that seems an issue of the past as Pakistan Tele-Communication Limited has finally decided to relive us from all the unwanted disruptions by replacing the old rotten Distribution Point Boxes (DP) with the new and better ones across Karachi.

But this was surely out of the necessity as their new three in one telephone landline connection providing both television channels and internet broadband over the same single pair wire couldn’t possibly have worked seamlessly without better contact joints.

I hope PTCL understand the necessity and importance of quality service and continue to provide their valued customers with the service they deserve.

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During a phase when the country is at target of some unfortunate incidents, Goethe-Institut Karachi with efforts of it’s Director recently celebrated Sufi Week which tried to create awareness and discourse about a softer and peaceful dimensions of Islam.

It started with an exhibition titled ‘Troubadours of Allah’. The pictures of this collection were shot by Horst A. Friedrichs in the Indus Valley, Sindh and displayed Sufi Musicians of the region. Images are a good mix of documentation of not only the sufi shrines and artists but also aesthetics, material culture and symbols.

Some of the images depict interesting moments including ‘a fakir wearing kajal in his eyes‘, and ‘an image with carvings focused while a person praying is in a shallow focus’. The placement of the photographs could have been more properly planned to illustrate an essay and some pictures with long exposure did remove details. There was also grain in some of the prints. Out of few long exposure shots, only one picture pleased my eye, that of ‘two static almost marrying sitars with movement of people behind’. The exhibition is opened till 20th November 2009 for public.

Next was the Sufi Concert where the audience got chance to hear the soulful voices of Abida Parveen from Pakistan and Fareeda Parveen from Bangladesh who sang awe-inspiring poetry of various Sufi Poets.

It was followed by a lecture session next day where Dr Jurgen Wasim Frembgen, Omar Kasmani, Dr. Durre Ahmed and Peter Panke shared their views about Sufism.

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Karachi police has done well till now to tackle the terrorist threat, though there is a huge potential of any incident anytime. This pic below i took an hour back reminds us of the situation we are facing. Apparently nothing extra-ordinary happening in it but i’ll tell you. These 4 jawanz on 2 bikes were constantly being a pain in my *** since neither they were leaving the fast lane nor allowing me to pass. What more, they were even not allowing anyone to come close. On two occasions the guy sitting back at right used hath ka ishara asking me to stop (sort of) to stay back on 2 turns. While seeing these vehicles was routine in KHI this never happened before, except for VIPz obviously. For a moment i felt myself being a terrorist. From their perspective i guess they were doing the right thing because we already know how the terrorists were attacking the officers these days. Recently we had 2 brigadiers being attacked, one got killed. And i think we should support them and bear inconvenience for a while.

But this is not the point i wanted to make here. My point was does the officer sitting in this vehicle understands how their decisions in one era create a huge impact for the future generations? Does he understand that this “TERRORIST” is their product from GHQ laboratories of 80z/90z. That he (and his org) is equally responsible for all the mess along with weak political setups. We cant allow them to simply incite religious emotions at one time for Jihad and then take a U-turn after 2 decades. The question , we , as citizens be asking these fellows is, now that they are feeling the heat, will they not repeat history and have they understood well the old quote : As you sow so shall you reap. We cant allow our ARMY to manufacture one WHOLE NEW GENERATION of JIHADIST and push the EXIT button on a call from Washington. As that creates million jobless Jehadist who cant be integrated into rest of the society.

We strongly need to tell them that please clean your own mess first before you EXIT.

Who can guarantee that our karta-dhartaz are not planning PROJECT-JIHAD v.2 once we are done with this “inteha-pasandi” mess. Are we learning from history or just passing a difficult phase?

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Delivery currently only availabe in the Karachi Metro area.

Wednesday, 07 October 2009 Deals

Deal 1 – Serves 4 people ………………. 530.00 PKR
1 Jumbo Biryani
4 Shami Kababs
1 Raita
1 Salad
1 Pepsi

Deal 2- Servers 1 Person ………………. 150.00 PKR
1 Single Biryani
1 Shami Kabab
1 Raita
1 Soft Drink 300Ml

Deal 3 – Serves 2 People ………………. 220.00 PKR
1 Double Biryani
1 Raita
1 Zarda
1 Soft Drink 300ml

Deal 4 – Servers 8 People ………………. 1.050.00 PKR
2 Jumbo Biryani
8 Shami Kababs
2 Raita
2 Salad
2 Soft Drink 1.5L NR

Deal 5 – Servers 12 People ………………. 1.650.00 PKR
3 Jumbo Biryani
12 Shami Kababs
3 Raita
3 Salad
2 Zarda
3 Pepsi 1.5L

Deal 6 – Serves 1 Person (BBQ) ………………. 165.00 PKR
1 Chicken Tikka
1 Paratha
1 Soft Drink 300ml

For more : momskitchen

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In my recent blog here I wrote about my adventure of paying bill through Telenor’s new service easypaisa. After that post, I got a chance to discuss this with an official of Telenor, in our discussion he tried to tell me that it’s a new system and it was expected that it may take some time to get matured; he also assured me that they are working very diligently to gather the feedback from customers about the new service.

Yesterday when I came back home, the same SSGC bill was waiting for me. So once again the tough task was upon me, this time I went to the Telenor franchise. After waiting for around 5 minutes they called me, and my bill got paid with some glitches of course.

One of my other concerns was the Fee charged by Telenor to accept this bill. I would not use a service like this if I have to pay Rs. 10/= on a utility bill of Rs. 140/=. I personally think the rates should be lowered and brought to an acceptable and cheaper range. I would rather use options like internet banking or phone banking to pay my bills where the Fee is negligible to none, varies from bank to bank.

After all this, I come to this conclusion that we should adapt new technologies and appreciate companies who took such initiatives, but services like this should be cheaper and more people friendly.

After my bill payment I received this SMS on my Mobilink network from Telenor.
Trx ID 324**** Rs 140.00 paid by 0528**** to SSGC at 12:19:23 on 23/10/2009 Fee charged is Rs 10.00.

Updated on : 2:30 PM – 6 November 2009 [MEDIA CLARIFICATION]

Islamabad, November 05, 2009: Recently, media has reported that IESCO and LESCO have asked their customers to not deposit their bills at Tameer bank’s easypaisa retailers. IESCO and LESCO have taken the position that they do not have an agreement with Tameer bank for bill collection through this channel.
Read more

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With ever growing POWER crisis the news below comes as a fresh hope that our corporate players are not far behind in thinking initiatives to share their responsibility for the country.

Warid has recently commenced an outstanding project of implementing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution based on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. This initiative was taken as part of Microsoft’s early adoption Program for this cutting edge virtualization technology. Warid Telecom was amongst the pioneer customers in the MEA region in implementing VDI solution under this program.

Microsoft held a commercial launch of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 in Pakistan. The event was held in Sheraton Hotel Karachi on 22nd October 2009. It is the largest outreach to IT Decision Makers, IT Professionals and Developers in Microsoft’s history. . Read more

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Abdul Sattar Edhi makes the nation proud one more time by wining a prestigious United Nations prize for his services in promoting tolerance and non-violence. Edhi shares the $100,000 prize money with Franois Houtart of Belgium and will receive the award on November 16, the International Day for Tolerance. They won the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-Madanjeet Singh Prize on the unanimous recommendation of an international jury to UNESCO.

UNESCO has following tribute for Edhi’s services  :

” Abdul Sattar Edhi ((Pakistan) for his life-long efforts to ameliorate the conditions of the most disadvantaged groups in Pakistan and South Asia, and to promote the ideals of human dignity, human rights, mutual respect and tolerance. ” read more

[ image : shahidul ]

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Yesterday I decided to pay my bill using Telenor’s new service which (acc. to Telenor) allows customers to pay hassle free utility bill. I am a mobilink user so I called telenor’s UAN (111-345-100) to inquire about easypaisa shop location in my locality. The call center guy who was entertaining me was definitely from Lahore as he told me that there is no easypaisa shop in Gulshan-e-Iqbal . I didn’t believe him because Gulshan-e-Iqbal is big town so I asked him “dost may khod website pay daykh lon ga . . List of easypaisa shop aap ko shayed pata nahi hay”. When I reached home I was happy to know that there is one easypaisa shop in locality. I went to shop keeper for mentioned purpose but the guy there replied “Bhai I am out of credit so can’t pay your bill”. (Normally every mobile phone shop has few thousand rupees credit which is credited by mobile phone companies which shopkeeper use for services like easy load etc ).

In the morning I went to Telenor franchise at Guslhan-e-Iqbal which is near my house to pay my bill but after 7-10 minutes waiting customer service woman after confirming from another woman told me our easypaisa system is not working and system will take around an hour to work. Finally I paid my bill in Citi bank branch in a typical desi way standing in queue.
So this was my Easypaisa adventure

Following are the service charges for utility bill payment service with easypaisa.
(Bill Amount) – Fee (PKR)

PKR 0-1000 10
PKR 1001-4000 15
PKR 4000+ 25

If you see your bill closely you will find that bank charges are already in utility bill which in my case was 8 Rs.

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Sindh Education department has announced to close all private and government schools in the province from 21st October till Sunday, 25th October, while universities are to be closed on 21st October only. While one can understand the security situation why our gov is spreading panic itself. And what different feeling people will have when they send children to institutes again on 26th. As if the terrorist have pre-informed the gov that they will struck during these days.

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Aga Khan University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan invites you to a lecture and musical demonstration on Sounds of the Subcontinent: Theory vs. Oral Tradition on October 21, 2009.

Time and Venue
4:00 – 6:00 pm
AKU Auditorium, Karachi, Pakistan

Programme

Lecture on Ethnomusicology in South Asia – Theory vs. Oral Tradition by Dr Regula Burckhardt Qureshi University of Alberta, Canada

Performance and Demonstration by Ms Saffia Saleem Beyg, Director, Sampurna
Artists: Gul Muhammad (on Sarangi), Hasan (on Tabla) and Turab Ali (on Sitar)

Admission is free and on first come first serve basis

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On 13th November 2009 at Karachi Marriott Hotel (crystal ball room), the Network of Organizations Working for People with Disabilities, Pakistan (NOWPDP) will be hosting an evening of entertainment, featuring a new Grips play by Imran Aslam, followed by dinner.

Tables of 10 seats will be available to guests, for which an appropriate voluntary donation will be appreciated. All proceeds from the night will go towards funding the activities of NOWPDP in improving the lives of people with disabilities in Pakistan. If you are interested in attending the event, please contact the NOWPDP office on +92-21-3586 5501, (Ext. 237) . Read more

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Its been a long time coming but independent efforts by a group of volunteers have finally paid off to present a fully routable GPS map for Karachi available FREE to the general public. Ali Ahmed and his team of GPS enthusiasts at PKMaps has been doing a remarkable job updating and mapping the entire city of Karachi (& Pakistan) in full detail. Their latest release Karachi Map 0.85 has yet again built upon their great effort. Boasting n impressive stats of 9,500 POI, 36,000 roads (10,500 km), 2,500 addresses, 40 POI with contact numbers

The zip files available for download on the site are custom made for Garmin GPS units. To install this map on your Garmin device you can either download the Mapsource version or copy the gmapsupp.img directly on your supplemental map file. If you have a non-Garmin device there are a few help files on the forums to help install the same Karachi map on alternate devices.

Generally all Pakistan wide maps are available for free but a more detailed Pro version can be accessed for free if you join the team of contributors helping them to either map or even correct and fix the existing map. The Pro version generally has quite a detailed index of house numbers and an elaborate POI index [Points of Interest]

Attached are a few screen shots of this amazing routable map navigating through the streets of Karachi

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Google Earth Karachi had no (significant) update for a long period (3/4 years?) though CDGK had given the city a relatively different look. GOOD news is, they are now updating KARACHI and recently one can see all major updates (starting with an over-due Nursery flyover map/patch) and almost all changes in last 4 years now incorporated. Keep in mind, the visibility might be a question but GOOGLE has this layered approach when updating maps so places will get more visible and clear with time. Thank you so much Team GOOGLE (Earth).Here are some screen-shots. See if you figure out the places correctly.

[ If you mouse-over the image it will give you the answer ]

Read more

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A few days back in the evening, I was driving towards bath island from the Lily Bridge, after turning right from the traffic signal on the main road, I was going straight on the main road at a very slow speed with the bumper to bumper traffic when i heard and felt  something slamming  into my car. Immediately pressing the breaks and  looked into the rear view mirror and spotted a black car (the one in the picture), which was attached to the back door of my car and was now slowly backing up. I parked my car on the side of the road and by the time I emerged out of my car the female driver of the other car, was already out on the road. seeing me step out, she almost immediately started shouting at me, “Didn’t you see me coming from the side, You should have stopped !” – I told her in a calm voice that it was my right of the way, as she was entering the main road from a side lane she should have stopped stop and waited for teh traffic to stop, also I told he that she slammed into me after I had almost passed her. At this she started stepping away towards her car while shouting out loud ” you have ruined my car, you could have stopped “. Read more

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