Islamabad weather got wet for a while
Posted by K. Shahzad in Pictures on July 5th, 2010
Following are the few pictures of recent good weather in Islamabad, rain is seriously rare now for the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, but hope to see much of good weather in upcoming rain season from about mid of July. Enjoy the pics!
Are 226 thousand Facebook fans enough to bring back Musharraf
Posted by K. Shahzad in Hot Topics on July 5th, 2010
General Pervez Musharraf who served army for long time, lately as chief of army staff, then lately he was also forced chief executive and forced president of Pakistan for period of about 8 years, he is now hopping to come back to Pakistani politics once again. Because of the way he came into government, took over the country and specially some of his decisions in his time in government he was very much unpopular in people.
Now after he was no more in government in accordance with the people’s and other politician’s wishes, he happened to create his personal fan page on Facebook. Which gradually became popular, soon he had more fans on Facebook than any other Pakistani person who is related to Pakistani politics. As most of Pakistani users on Facebook are youth so this way Pervez Musharraf became kinna popular in Pakistani youth.
Now after seeing his popularity on Facebook, which is more than any other Paki Politician, Pervez Musharraf is thinking of coming back to the politics, he want to take part in elections. He thinks that he will have enough support from people of Pakistan so he can get elected. It is not made clear that either he plans to be part of any existing political party or will plan to have his own.
Now the question is, does the 226 thousand Facebook fans are enough to get Musharraf elected, real question arises is does the millions of non-Facebookers who actually are the potential voters, will they vote for Musharraf. I don’t think that the realities here in the country match with the ones on Facebook. Also being a fan on Facebook does not mean that you support the person, there may be other reason like urge to keep yourself updated about a person, which may be beneficial for the journalists etc.
In my opinion the chances for Musharraf in Paki politics are not that great but after looking at mismanagement of other parties in power sometimes this comes to my mind the Musharraf may have some chance. After all things were much better when he was in power. People seen much less power shortages, nearly no shortages of food items like flour and sugar, economy was going much better than it currently is, Pakistani currency was much more powerful and remained consistent throughout the period of his government and finally law and order situation was kinna better than now.
Though there were few mistakes which hurt his reputation to an extent, but I hope if he gets elected this time, he can overcome that part and continue on the good work. Finally only time will tell about the chances of Musharraf being elected.
Feel free to post your thoughts as comments to this post.
Bloggers from Pakistan where is the bright side
Posted by K. Shahzad in Inside Story on July 5th, 2010
I have been an active Internet surfer from long time ago, so have been monitoring the bloggers from Pakistan from long time. In fact their role was very much good in pointing out the evils of society. Bloggers even came forward and presented the stories which were avoided by media in fear of losing their financial gains or liberty to operate.
I see lots of positive criticism on the Pakistani blogs, specially the one which is related to politics, I also see posts which point out the evils of society and I also see the pictures which depict something which is happening wrong somewhere. I know this all content on Pakistani blogs is intended for good, intended to correct the things and I am perfectly good with this.
But the problem kicks in when I notice that the goods of society are no more depicted or presented on blogs. Everyone tries to change the world by pointing out the evils but not one or less of people come up with a post which is showing a good part of society.When I am saying this all I am also including myself in this. The point is that I have to grab the attention of fellow bloggers to letting the world know about the good part of Pakistani society.
By good part I mean the care we people still have for each other, by good part I mean “when an accident happens on a highway, people think nothing but rush in to help”, by good part I mean “when on some highway or a city road a vehicle gets stuck, you will see a number of people who are available to help you out” and these were two very basic examples our society have lots much good to offer. Where is that content, show me that content, show me those pictures and videos.
A person living in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad or any other city or village of this country does not need any online content, photo or video to know these good things but the people who are outside of this country do need this stuff. Even the negatives are posted to take the things on correct path, but the international web user is always getting the negative content about this content, what would be his/her thoughts and feeling about people of Pakistan.
So my point is that to have the balance, we have to redesign ourselves to offer the content which is already based on positive stuff in the society with obviously not giving up on pointing out the evils.
Feel free to share your thoughts about this post or the issue raised as comments.
Luxury tax on imported vehicles lifted in Punjab
Posted by K. Shahzad in Automobile on June 24th, 2010
Government of Punjab just announced the waiver of luxury tax which was applicable to imported cars category of 2000 cc and above. For 2000 cc to 3000 cc vehicles this was two hundred thousand rupees and for more than 3000 cc vehicles this was three hundred thousand rupees.
This was the extra amount which had to be paid at the time of vehicle registration after the amounts spent on other taxes and custom duties etc. This tax was not there for long for the imported vehicles, this was made applicable just a year or so back and now suddenly waived.
Interestingly the year before the tax was made applicable 1250 vehicles were registered in luxury cars category but after the tax was applied only 13 vehicles were registered as luxury cars next year. However the tax amount which is 200 to 300 thousand rupees is nothing as compared to the price of these imported cars. Did people stopped imported these vehicles during this period, no it couldn’t be, there must be another inside story to this mysterious sudden fall in the number of vehicles registered during this period.
In last few months Punjab government was running the active campaigns in order to this tax from any defaulters owning this category luxury cars. A deadline for such a campaign was set as 30th June, but this sudden withdrawal before even 30th June is not understandable.
Another noticeable thing is that tax was just here for a year or so, so any one who purchased one such vehicle before or after that will not have to pay this one but a little minority seem to pay this. The question is when such policies are made and put up they must be there for a while otherwise this would be injustice to some. In this case the ones who had to pay this in that small period of time.
PTA fails to keep people informed about banned and unbanned websites
Posted by K. Shahzad in Inside Story on May 30th, 2010
PTA Updates Page Snapshot
It is 30th may today and the last update on PTA’s website about the blocked websites was on 2oth of may. They even didn’t even mentioned any other blocked websites other than the Facebook and Youtube on their website. Hundreds of URLs were blocked and some of websites like Facebook , wikipedia, youtube and many more had faced blanket ban but PTA never mentioned about these banned websites on their website.
Youtube is already unblocked few days ago but still no update about that on their website. Whats more important is Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) never published the details of blocked websites over the internet nor they have updated people about when certain websites are being banned or unbanned. It would have been much better if things would have been much more transparent.
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