Positive vibes Pakistan

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Pakistani game developer joins ranks of Atari

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani social game developer is poised to join global gaming giants Atari and Kabam after accreditation from 6waves – the largest Facebook game publisher in the world.

According to a news release issued here, Islamabad’s White Rabbit Studios is the only Facebook gaming studio from Pakistan – and in fact the entire South Asian region – to be featured in the list of key social game developers. As a result of this partnership, the company will gain access to more than 30 million users in 6waves’ gigantic Facebook user network, said the release.

White Rabbit’s Facebook partnership with 6waves will lend it an opportunity to become one of the leading content creation companies in South Asia; a rare feat in the services dominated IT sectors of Pakistan and India. “It is very exciting to see our company’s name mentioned along with the likes of Atari and Kabam,” said CEO of White Rabbit Studios Hassan Baig.

“We’re very confident in our ability to compete with the finest minds in centres of innovation across the world. We can do everything they can, and at more favourable economics. We may be considered underdogs at present, but the future, beyond any doubt, will belong to us,” he said.

Pakistani game developer joins ranks of Atari and Kabam – The Express Tribune

 

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Naseer & Shahab - Za Pukhtoon Yam

fresh and orignal. loved it from the word go

Naseer & Shahab - Za Pukhtoon Yam (Official Music Video) - YouTube

 

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Who dares ...

 

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Pakistani cadet wins prestigious ‘Sword of Honour’ at Sandhurst


CAMBERLEY: A young Pakistani cadet won the prestigious “Sword of Honour” for overseas cadets at the annual Sovereign’s Parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst here.Officer Cadet Muhammad Talha Zahid from Pakistan Army attended the academy during 2011/12 along with cadets from well over 30 countries.

“I am the 5th Pakistani cadet to have achieved this honour since Pakistan Military Academy started sending its graduates here. I am thankful to my trainers and my family for all the encouragement they have provided. I am honoured that I was able to win this for Pakistan,” he told Geo News in an interview.

Not only this, Talha Zahid also became the first ever cadet here for a single year to have also won awards in the categories of The Best Student (Best in Over all Academics), the Best in Defence Studies and the Best in International Affairs Studies.

Waleed Bashir’s parents travelled from Bagh Azad Kashmir especially for this occasion. “We are overjoyed that Pakistan has won the Sword of Honour this year,” they said.

Pakistani cadet wins prestigious

 

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Wood art exhibition opens at RAC

ISLAMABAD: A unique wood art exhibition by internationally famous artisan Muhammad Saleem Mughal opened at the Rawalpindi Arts Council (RAC) on Tuesday.
The 51-year-old artisan from Wazirabad spent 38 years in promoting this unique art.

Muhammad Saleem Mughal is a master craftsman in wood art and used to live in the neighbourhood of intellectuals Attaul Haq Qasmi and Muno Bhai.

He has God-gifted wood art skills which are totally different from his ancestors. He started to learn brass work, but later shifted to wood art in 1973 and made first model of a house in 1974 and sold it for Rs 25, which he used to get admission in 6th class.

He often uses teak wood for crafting intricately carved items. Mughal uses walnut wood, cedar and shisham to create exquisite models and decorative items. A single item takes two months to two years to complete. He has prepared lots of masterpieces, including holy mosques in Makkah and Medina.

He has also made statues of famous personalities of the world, including Benazir Bhutto. He is in fact a self-made engineer who has sent his art pieces to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Spain, Norway, America, India, France, Canada, Greek, Japan, China and Korea. He is satisfied with his profession and desires to teach his skills to his next generation. He is imparting training to several students, thus ensuring continuity of his art.

In this regard, Mughal runs an Art Centre in Gujranwala and has trained more than 200 students all over Pakistan and has a museum housing 100 unique wood art pieces. The special is that he is scribing holy Quran with cedar wood, which is the first ever attempt in the world.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

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Leepa Valley

 

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A tribute to Dr Adeeb Ul Hasan Rizvi

Tribute to Dr. Rizvi - YouTube

 

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Pakistan’s marathon man eyeing history

LAHORE: Ziyad Tariq Rahim, an adventure-lover, is on the brink of creating history by becoming the first Pakistani to set foot in marathons in all seven continents of the world.

Ziyad, a banker based in Qatar, has participated in some of the toughest races in the world namely the namely Marathon Des Sables (MdS) and Antarctica Marathon earlier this year and is eyeing the marathon in New Zealand which will be held in December this year.

“After competing there, I will be the first Pakistani who will have run in marathons in all seven continents,” he told Dawn in an interview.

The 38-year-old from Lahore is the son of well-known cricket commentator Tariq Rahim and when he took part in the Antarctica Marathon in March this year before participating in the MdS the next month, Ziyad became the first person to take part in two extreme marathons in the space of a month.

“MdS is a gruelling marathon and is considered to be the toughest foot race on Earth,” Ziyad said, referring to the race which is run in the Sahara desert in Morocco.
“Participants cover 250km of the Moroccan Sahara over six stages, in temperatures averaging 50oC throughout the day.

To compound the physical challenge, the wilderness and the varied terrain of rocky mountains, mile-high sand dunes and salt flats means that the competitors have to carry everything they need to survive in the event, including all personal belongings like sleeping bag, stove, food, distress flare and an anti-venom kit for potential snake bites.

“The race tested me to my limits; both physically and mentally as we had to survive the heat in the morning and bone-chilling nights and I saw few competitors drop out through injury, exhaustion and one from cardiac arrest.

“It was by far the most intricate race I have ever participated in.”
Ziyad told that he had prepared extensively for the two races by successfully completing marathons in Amman and Red Sea (Jordan), Beirut (Lebanon), Colombo, Reggio Emilia and Pisa (Italy) and Dubai between October 2011 and January 2012.

Pakistan

 

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Pakistan successfully test fires Hatf IV ballistic missile

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday successfully test-fired the Hatf IV (Shaheen 1A) missile which is a nuclear-capable intermediate-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, DawnNews reported.

“Pakistan today successfully conducted the launch of the intermediate range ballistic missile Hatf IV Shaheen-1A weapon system,” ISPR said in a statement.

According to a statement issued by the ISPR, the ‘Shaheen 1A’ missile is an upgraded version of the ‘Shaheen 1’ with a longer range.

Shaheen 1 is estimated to have a payload capacity of 1,000 kilograms and a range of 750 kilometres. The exact range of the missile was not revealed, but retired General Talat Masood, a defence analyst, told AFP intermediate range ballistic missiles could reach targets up to 2,500 to 3,000 kilometres away, which would put almost all of India within reach.

The test missile’s impact point was in the Indian Ocean.

The ISPR statement further added that Director General Strategic Plans Division Lieutenant General Khalid Ahmed Kidwai was also present at the test site.

Lieutenant General Kidwai congratulated scientists and engineers on the successful launch, and the accuracy of the missile in reaching the target and said that the improved version of Shaheen 1A would further consolidate and strengthen Pakistan’s deterrence abilities.

Pakistan’s arsenal includes short, medium and long range missiles named after Muslim conquerors.

Pakistan’s most recent missile test came last month with the launch of the short-range nuclear-capable Abdali, while in April 2008 it tested the Shaheen II, or Hatf VI, missile with a range of 2,000 kilometres.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani congratulated the scientists working on the program over the success of the missile test.


Pakistan successfully test fires Hatf IV ballistic missile | DAWN.COM

 

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Lake View Park Islamabad

 

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Virtual University wins global award

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Islamabad: The Awards Committee of the Open Course Ware Consortium has selected the Virtual University of Pakistan’s Open Course Ware site for the ‘2012 Outstanding New Site Award for Open Course Ware Excellence’, says a press release.

The Open Course Ware Consortium is a US-based collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organisations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.

The Outstanding New Site Award is conferred annually by the Committee and recognises an outstanding institutional or affiliate sites launched during the previous calendar year. The award was previously given to the University of Sumatera Utara Open Course Ware.

A representative of the Virtual University will attend the upcoming OCW Consortium meeting in Cambridge, UK, to receive the award at a reception to be held on April 16, 2012.

Virtual University wins global award - thenews.com.pk

 

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Whiz kid: 14-year-old to present first research paper

After breaking four world records, 14-year-old whiz kid from Dera Ismail Khan, Babar Iqbal is now set to present his first research paper at the 8th IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Information Technology.

Iqbal will present a paper on digital forensic science, the field that covers the recovery and investigation of data from digital devices and is often used to aid computer crime investigations.

This is not the first time Iqbal has been in the spotlight, he was the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) and the youngest Certified Internet Web Professional (CIWA) at the age of nine.

He then went on to become the youngest Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA), youngest Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) and youngest Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in .NET 3.5 at the age of 10, 11 and 12 respectively.

Whiz kid: After 4 world records, 14-year-old to present first research paper – The Express Tribune

 

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Lyceum School in Top 10 delegations at Model UN

Adapted from Ehab Ansari’s ”The Journey from Pakistan to Harvard MUN 2012″ (Best Delegate | Model UN Conferences, Strategy, & Resources)

In a ranking issued on the best international high school teams that participated at North American MUN conferences, The Lyceum School has featured in the Top 10 ranking, being the only team from Pakistan to do so. The team participated at Harvard’s MUN conference in Boston in January and won 9 awards out of 16 students. The ranking was diverse, taking in teams from as far apart places as Venezuela and the United Kingdom.

How many knew that LUMS, a university in Lahore, has won the Best Small Delegation award for 5 consecutive years at Harvard WorldMUN (last year, they narrowly lost to Yale)? Or that out of the 40 university students from Pakistan that participated at WorldMUN last year, eleven bagged the Outstanding Diplomacy award? In a similar vein, high school students have also done remarkably at Model UN, against all odds. Thus begins the story of a Pakistani high school delegation and its journey to HarvardMUN 2012.

At HarvardMUN 2012, The Lyceum School represented France in twelve committees: DISEC, ECOFIN, SOCHUM, SPECPOL and Legal; alongside the European Union, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, Futuristic General Assembly, the Historical League of Nations, the United Nations Special Summit on Peacekeeping, and the United Nations Security Council.

The Best High School Model UN Teams 2011-2012: Best International Delegations
The Journey from Pakistan to Harvard MUN 2012

 

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Pakistani cotton scientist declared the world’s best in 2012

A Pakistan-based scientist has been honoured by the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), the body said in a statement released this week.

Dr Yusuf Zafar, who is the director general agriculture and biotechnology at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was declared ‘Scientist of the Year-2012’ for his pioneering work in the cotton biotechnology sector.

Zafar has over 110 scientific papers (published in national and international journals) to his name. According to ICAC, “in cotton virology his group covers nearly 90 per cent of the global published literature.”

The Faisalabad-based scientist played a key role in bringing together the world’s major cotton groups, including Australia, China, UK and USA, for the purpose of conducting joint research.

Heading the National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in Faisalabad, Zafar and his team have contributed helped produce nearly 100 M. Phil and 30 Ph. D Pakistan-based students, focussing on various aspects of research and development in cotton. He has, meanwhile, remained in the front line to establish Biosafety Protocols, Plant Breeder Rights, Intellectual Property Rights/Patents and ISO certification in Pakistan.
In 2001, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission awarded him Best Scientist of the Year Award. The President of Pakistan awarded him ‘Tamgha-e-Imtiaz (Medal of Distinction) in 2004, the highest recognition for a researcher.

In other honours, Zafar has also won the Rockefeller Foundation and UNESCO Research Awards on Agri-Biotechnology, and is member of the USDA Cochran Fellow on Agriculture Biotechnology.

Apart from leading the Faisalabad institute, he is on the Board of Governors of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology-ICGEB (Italy), FAO country focal person on agriculture biotechnology and member of the Cotton Policy Committee of the government.

The ‘Scientist of the year -2012’ award was announced by ICAC late Wednesday. ICAC is an intergovernmental body with 54 members and provides services to Common Funds for Commodity (CFC), an organisation of UNCTAD-UN family.

Pakistani cotton scientist declared the world

 

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EMAC-Extreme Maneuvers Adventure Club

From Jet skiing to rock climbing and from paragliding to scuba diving, this place has got all experiences right here in Pakistan

Extreme Maneuvers Adventure Club Pakistan | Adventure | Paragliding | Camping | Cliff Diving | Rock Climbing | Caving | Jet Skiing