I was overjoyed to find out via various news channels like Geo and Express today that at last the local government is taking notice of the problems of Karachi Zoo.

Mustufa Kamal came on tv to ensure the families of Karachi and the zoo visitors that the city government is in the process of acquiring an elephant to give rides to the children for which tenders have been opened and is allocating a proper budget for the zoo as well.

The city government has ensured the uplift and reopening of some parks around the city and by doing so have added to options for people going out with their families here. If they can do the same for the zoo in Karachi it would indeed be marvelous.

Off course the news channels mentioned were quick to point out that this happened after “they” ran a news story on this but who cares? As long as the end result is good the process does not really matter eh???

So here is a small thank you from this concerned parent to the authorities for taking notice, well done sir!

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Today when I went to watch cricket match between India and Srilanka I amazed to know that I can not take my camera with me in National Stadium but as every Karachite know how to deal this kind of situation I tried other gate and with confidence I said “Press” (I do not belong to any press or media) and police wala allowed me. Do you people have any clue why we are not allowed to take our camera with us in stadium?

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While browsing through the internet a few days back I came across a picture of a 36 year old poor women with 9 children, another 25 year old had 5, population is on the rise, so is inflation and the crime rate too.

 Yesterday we experienced three episodes of load shedding, the power was out for a total of six hours for today the episodes were five and the total hours of load shedding was nine. We are out of power, food supplies, water, health care facilities and education.         

Every week hundreds of new cars come out on our streets, running us out of fresh air and adding to the city’s rising pollution, trees are being chopped off and new ones are not coming at the required rate, and the only green our newspaper boasts of is growing on the filthy sewage sludge gathered in a nullah with a warning that flood threats persists if the clogged drains are not cleared before the monsoon spell unleashes upon us. 

And what do I do about it ? Nothing besides punching a few keys, scribbling a few notes and bracing my self for this and the worst that may come.

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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.

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The stuff that’s roaming around in sewerage pipes cannot possibly be fun stuff. This isn’t the first time I have seen this - In fact, if you notice the sludge that these “cleaners” threw out to the left side of the photograph, that’s actually a construction site that has a pipe running into the sewerage pipe that’s been dumping the waste into the pipes.. The construction site has not only managed to cause this filth to be thrown out into the street, but has blocked the entire street so they can be a bit more comfortable in their building their project. Read more

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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}

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a while ago, fire broke out on the first floor of Business and Finance Center on chundrigar road, opposite State Bank.

the building has been evacuated and and edhi ambulance is on standby. no fire trucks have reached the scene yet.

i work in the building behind the affected one, and many of our departments reside in the said. the fire seems to have erupted due to a generator failure.

more as it comes……

update:

(just got our network back)
the fire seems to be under control now. on the last count, there were 7 ambulances and 3 fire engines, one of which was used in controlling the fire.

chundrigar road is closed for traffic and the building has not yet opened for staff / parking.

some pics from my phone camera:

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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.)

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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.

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This story that i received in numerous emails came in THE NEWS two weeks back & its a must read for you. I share it here with our readers. [Credits: Mustafa Jamal]

“ At 5.15 p.m. June 4, I stopped at Plaza, in front of the Polani Motors on Karachi’s busiest thoroughfare, the M.A. Jinnah Road, to have my car’s electric window repaired. Soon, I was mobbed by some seven to eight people, who insisted that I get some door rubbers installed. I refused but they started the work nevertheless.

Quickly, I found myself trapped, with these people doing all sorts of work on the car, not listening to my command, directions and pleadings. These people had me so placed that I could not run, scream or phone anybody, even though I was on the busiest road of Karachi. By all means, I was held hostage by them.

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If your office is located near I I Chundrigar Road (or Zia-uddin Ahmed road for that matter)and you are meeting friends for lunch on a working day, then choosing a place which offers quality food at a reasonable price, yet has a cosy ambiance where one can catch up on gossip, yet get back to office on time, can be a quite tricky.

An eatery like Elbow Room does the make the task easy. It is a small café tucked away on the lane adjacent to Faysal Bank on I I Chundrigar Road and is easy to miss if you take the wrong turn. Replete with flower beds under the windows on the brick wall and Victorian-style street lights, it also offers valet parking and WiFi. Stepping inside, the décor and ambiance were a pleasant change from the hum and drum of the nearby fast food joints. The café offers continental and Pakistani food items on the menu which can be viewed here.

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