Raheem

Innovative generation of power in Pakistan

 Energy  1 Response »
Oct 032010
 

By Humair Ishtiaq

The national energy crisis getting worse by the day is causing serious heartburn at the domestic level and adding to the financial woes of industrial and trading classes. The worse part is that people across the board are beginning to lose hope on that count.

The highest offices in the land have been handing out assurances on a routine basis for the past ten years or so and there have been a lot of talk about diversifying the country’s energy mix and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels but with little change in the ground reality.

The frustration is mounting and is not without a reason. According to Economic Survey of Pakistan, energy shortages caused a loss of more than two per cent of the GDP to the national economy during the last fiscal year. The supply of petroleum products to the energy sector increased by a couple of million tons during this period, which, said the Survey, was “mainly because of a lack of adequate power supply” that forced the industry to use “more generators because of the prolonged loadshedding.” Continue reading »

 Posted by at 7:41 pm

Musharraf comeback looks remote

 Pakistan Politics  No Responses »
Oct 032010
 

 

* Musharraf plans to contest elections by 2013
* No support for Musharraf by any politician, leader

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf has spent two years building a Facebook following and cultivating the media, but few believe his audacious plan to recapture power has any chance of success.

Aside from the small matter of possible death or arrest if he steps foot on home soil, there is little sign he can win over the politicians he alienated, the judges he sacked, his former underlings at the military or the Americans.
Continue reading »

 Posted by at 1:19 pm

Musharraf seeks apology from Pakistani nation

 Pakistan Politics  No Responses »
Oct 012010
 

LONDON: Former president Gen. (Retd.) Pervez Musharraf Friday admitted that political mistakes were committed in the twilight years of his regime and sought apology from Pakistani nation for the same.

“These mistakes caused damage to the country,” he said while addressing a program held here to formally announce launching of his party – All Pakistan Muslim League (APML). Continue reading »

 Posted by at 7:29 pm

Stuxnet — a cyber “cold start”?

 News & Articles  No Responses »
Sep 302010
 

Ikram Sehgal

 Very recently a security firm in Belarus discovered a “malware” which they called Stuxnet, a worm that spies on and reprograms industrial systems, the very first to successfully target critical industrial infrastructure. Specifically meant to attack “Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition” (SCADA) systems used to control and monitor industrial processes, Stuxnet specifically targets Siemens computers in the network by using infected USB flash drives. A major computer virus attack was made on the Windows computers at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, however it does not seem to have damaged the major systems at the plant. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 11:24 am

What do Pakistani generals want?

 Pakistan Politics  No Responses »
Sep 302010
 

By Farrukh Saleem

 ISLAMABAD: It’s the economy, plain and simple. Pakistani generals want Pakistani economy to grow and to grow at the fastest pace possible. Here’s why.
The total length of Pakistan’s boundaries is 6,774 km — India 2,912 km, Afghanistan 2,430 km, China 523 km and Iran 909 km. And, Pak Army gets around $5 billion a year to keep Pakistan’s geographical integrity intact-roughly 3 percent of our $166 billion annual GDP.
Military strategists around the world look at the capacity of their adversaries, not their intentions. In 2009, India jacked up its defence budget by a hefty 24 percent. The same year, an interim defence hike was announced showing an accumulated increase of 55 percent. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 9:36 am

Zardari admits he was trapped, vows to fight on

 Pakistan Politics  No Responses »
Sep 302010
 

By Rauf Klasra

 ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari reportedly dropped a bombshell in the PPP parliamentary party meeting the other night when he made the shocking confession that he was betrayed and trapped by top players of the game in the NRO case.
He told the shocked members that he was given certain assurances in exchange for not defending it before the Supreme Court. A top source said the betrayed president had believed in what he was offered.
Continue reading »

 Posted by at 9:33 am

ISLAMABAD: Agricultural scientists working on ‘sugar alternative’

 Pak Economy  5 Responses »
Sep 292010
 

By Ijaz Kakakhel
Researchers and agricultural scientists are experimenting on commercial production of a plant (Stevia) as alternate to sugar at National Agriculture Research Council (NARC), which will enable the country to get rid of sugar crises permanently.

The plant was imported from Canada on experimental basis, which is 300 fold sweeter than sugar, said Dr Shahid Masood Chief Scientific Officer NARC while talking to Daily Times.

It is especially for sugar patients because it has zero calories. At present “Stevia” is planted on about 2 acres area and has about 2000 plants. He said the plant has different species having different types of sweetness. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 8:59 am

Islamabad: Electricity production from Thar coal within two years

 Energy  No Responses »
Sep 282010
 

Work is initiated on exploiting energy potential of coal reserves of Thar which will start producing electricity within two years, enough for next 40 Years, without any single Second of Load Shedding. These reserves of coal worth US $ 25 trillion can not only cater the electricity requirements of the country for next 100 years but also save almost four billion dollars in staggering oil import bill. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 12:39 pm

BLACK WATER IN ACTION

 Ali Sukhanver  1 Response »
Sep 272010
 

ALI SUKHANVER

The western forces have succeeded in depriving Taliban of public support in Pakistan; surely a difficult question to be answered. For the last many years the reality of the Taliban has been a matter of confusions and misunderstandings. Since its beginning, the Taliban movement was simply and purely an ideology-based exercise strongly tinged with the flavour of militancy, but with the passage of time, the ideology vanished and there remained nothing but militancy. More strange is the fact that this militancy proved more fatal and injurious to the Muslims than to the forces eager to crush the Taliban. If we cast a look at the damages caused by the Taliban, we would find a less number of the effected Americans but the list of the targeted Muslim would be unending. The situation gives birth to so many suspicions. Are they really the Taliban who are taking the lives of innocent Muslims including school going children and women shopping in markets and the old men offering their prayers in mosques? Are they really the Taliban who are slaughtering the soldiers and officers of the Pakistan army just to create panic and harassment? No they are not the Taliban because it is against the tradition of the Afghans and the Pathans to deceive and dodge their benefactors; and most of the original Taliban are of the same traditional origin. They could never betray those who had always been favoring and supporting them at the time of need, particularly when the Russian forces were the most determined in wiping them off the scenario. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 8:40 pm

Punjab’s 200 megawatts coal-based power project

 Energy  1 Response »
Sep 262010
 

ENGR HUSSAIN AHMAD SIDDIQUI

The planners have put in a spanner, as it appears, in the whole process of utilising Punjab’s indigenous large coal reserves for power generation that was launched last year on a fast-track basis. In a major policy shift, the government of Punjab has now announced to develop a 200-MW capacity power project based on “imported” coal.
Continue reading »

 Posted by at 7:57 pm

The Benefit of Doubt-By Qaisar Sultan

 Qaisar Sultan  No Responses »
Sep 252010
 

In a criminal case, the jury has to make the judgment of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That is what the defendant’s attorneys do; create doubts in criminal cases. In civil cases, the preponderance of evidence may suffice a judgment against the defendant; based on credible and compelling evidence and its probable truth and accuracy.  Asif Zardari’s murder and kidnapping cases required “beyond reasonable doubt” evidence, almost impossible in Pakistan; to put him away for life- His corruption charges do not demand an air tight proof to show his prowess for embezzlement. The bafflement is due to the number game, how many billions; go and wrangle about few millions here or there.  It is not about this man, Zardari, who represents the illiterate majority that elected him; it is about the conscious of a nation. As Asif Zardari said it so eloquently, “It is not Jinnah’s Pakistan, it is Bhutto’s Pakistan”, meaning that the nation has a new state of mind. God bless our great country! Ibn Khaldun in Muqaddimah suggested that it is the people who are responsible for the bad leadership. It is sad and facetious interpretation through Continue reading »

 Posted by at 5:07 pm

October –By Bushra Zulfiqar

 Bushra Zulfiqar  No Responses »
Sep 242010
 

The news that GHQ was under attack literally shocked everyone in and out of the country. As a child, I was a regular visitor of the venue because at that time it happened to be my father’s office. As someone with so many childhood memories associated with that place, I was completely shattered at the insanity of the violence that had and was still taking place. I remained glued to my television screen pretty much in dis-belief at the mercilessness of the perpetuators of terror. I was completely unable to reach at any understanding of why this was happening, the sole explanation that came from my heart and not head was that it was an early October morning, and heart is a strange organ. Continue reading »

 Posted by at 4:28 pm

Open Letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan

 Qaisar Sultan  1 Response »
Sep 222010
 

By Qaisar Sultan

There is a dilemma faced by the nation regarding the Supreme Court’s dubious inability to contain an irreparable damage done to the country by corrupt, evil, inept politicians who have become the legislators in Pakistan, an insult to the term and its concept. There seems to be stretched out long debates, intentional delaying tactics, cute excuses, confusions, rumors about some kind of payoff to some judges by the politicians and threadbare legal arguments and waste of money of the tax payer. During the Musharraf regime, there were genuine fears of all kinds. When general Musharraf ignored the Supreme Court, the question was asked: Who could make him to surrender to the decision of the Supreme Court; and what could happen if he refused to listen to the Supreme Court’s decisions? The question is: What the Supreme Court can do to force the democratic and supposedly a constitutional government to abide by the decisions of the highest court in the country? Continue reading »

 Posted by at 6:45 am

A NEW WAVE OF FRIGHT AND TERROR IN KASHMIR

 Ali Sukhanver  1 Response »
Sep 222010
 

ALI SUKHANVER

 Neither USA, the commander of the universal war against terror, nor the most challenging so-called Muslim extremists   could stop the notorious priest Terry Jones from burning the Holy Quran; it is something very strange; Terry Jones seems the most powerful  because he simply ignored all threats and admonitions by saying ‘ My foot’ to all. If Al-Qaeda and Taliban were really as powerful as portrayed by the western media, they would have till now slaughtered the notorious priest Terry Jones; the culprit behind the burning of the Holy Quran on 9/11 this year. The silence of these so-called Muslim extremist groups over the burning of the Holy Quran is not only surprising but also somewhat suspicious. Their silence questions their existence. In the story beginning from the insulting caricatures of the Holy Prophet and surely proceeding forward after this heinous episode of the burning of the Holy Quran , we find Continue reading »

 Posted by at 6:43 am

KARACHI: Pak Suzuki, Honda Atlas increase prices

 Automobiles  5 Responses »
Sep 192010
 

By Moonis Ahmed

Two local car manufacturers– Pak Suzuki Motors Co Ltd and Honda Atlas Car Pakistan Ltd – have increased per unit prices on their different models from Saturday, according to a letter of the companies sent to authorised dealers.

“The decision to increase prices on different models of Suzuki and Honda has been implemented from September 18”, said an authorised dealer. “Both the companies, however, gave appreciation of yen against rupee as a reason for this increase in prices.”
Continue reading »

 Posted by at 8:55 am
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