Positive vibes Pakistan

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Jugal Bandi Live - Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony - YouTube

 

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KARACHI: Board of Management of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) meeting Thursday at Karachi reviewed performance for year ended June 30, 2012, in which it achieved a major milestone by becoming Pakistan’s first company with revenues exceeding a trillion rupees.

For the year ended June 30, 2012, PSO’s revenue exceeded Rs1,199 billion as compared to Rs 975 billion in FY11, representing 23 per cent growth.

It announced after tax earnings of Rs9.06 billion in FY12 as compared to Rs14.78 billion in last year.

Profitability was severely impacted by rapid devaluation of Pak rupee along with reduction in inventory gains. These losses absorbed improvement in margins of Furnace Oil and HSD along with recovery of financial income from power sector.

Earnings in FY12 are lower as compared to FY11 due to a deferred tax adjustment made in previous year amounting to Rs2.29 billion which had resulted from reinstatement of rate of turnover tax by tax authorities.

Further, financial cost resulting from accumulation of highest ever receivables continue to constrain both profitability and liquidity of PSO.

In period under review, industry’s volumes for Black Oil reduced by 8 per cent, whereas, White Oil grew by 4 per cent reflecting increase in PMG consumption of 22 per cent while a decline of 1 per cent was recorded in HSD demand.

In spite of reduction in market size of HSD, PSO has been able to increase its market share from 54.9 per cent to 56 per cent. It also continued its overall domination of market with its share in Black Oil and White Oil segments standing at 78.1 per cent and 55.1 per cent respectively, thereby contributing to an overall market share of 65.4 per cent.

Based on this performance, the company’s Board declared a final cash dividend of Rs2.5 per share in addition to already paid interim dividend of Rs3 per share.

It was also decided that the company will issue 20 per cent bonus share for year ended June 30, 2012.

Over the past year, PSO introduced latest, technologically advanced and state-of-art anti-counterfeit solution with each retail size pack of lubricants called Secure Code.

An awareness campaign was also launched to raise mass understanding of this unique feature.

Board Members, while expressing confidence in PSO management showed increasing concern over rising balance of receivables which stand at Rs237 billion as on August 9, 2012.

This creates acute financial crunch on company as it struggles to meet its international and local obligations. It was noted this situation is not sustainable and presents a significant risk to PSO’s ability to ensure availability of product.

PSO management continues to constantly pursue IPPs and government of Pakistan for recovery of its outstanding receivables, says press release of company.
PSO becomes Pakistan’s first trillion rupee company | DAWN.COM

Khan Kalat's Son Calls For Collective Efforts to Stabilize Pakistan (14th August 2012) - YouTube

 

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Pakistani film “Lamha” bags two awards at New York Film Festival

KARACHI: Pakistani film “Lamha (Seedlings)” bagged two awards at the New York City International Film Festival (NYCIFF), which concluded early Friday.

“Lamha” won the Best Feature Film award and its leading lady Aamina Sheikh won the Best Actress in Leading Role award in a late-night ceremony at the Angelika Film Centre in New York, NY.
The film was nominated in five other categories, including Best Actor in Leading Role (Mohib Mirza), Best Actor in Supporting Role (Gohar Rasheed), Best Score, Best Original Screenplay (Summer Nicks) and Best Director (Mansoor Mujahid).

Lamha weaves through the life of a young couple Maliha (Sheikh) and Raza (Mirza) and those affected by their deep struggle to reconnect after the loss of their only child in a tragic accident.

The film’s premiere at the festival, on August 10, was a sold out affair at the Tribeca Cinema.

Pakistani film

 

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Pakistani skier honoured at British Columbia Hall of Fame

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani skier Mohammad Abbas has bagged a different distinction at the international level with the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame putting his handmade wooden skis on display.

Abbas, 26, is Pakistan’s first skier to represent the green flag in the Winter Olympic Games 2010 by competing in men’s giant slalom held in Vancouver, Canada where he finished 79th out of 103 skiers.

An official of the Ski Federation of Pakistan (SKP) told Dawn that it was a rare distinction for a Pakistani skier since his childhood gear has been put on display by the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame.

The British Columbia Hall of Fame was founded in 1966 by a group of sport minded individuals with an aim to honour British Columbia’s outstanding athletes, teams and builders of sport.

Through the display of Abbas’ gear, the official said the organisers tried to convey to visitors that his story, reflecting his humble origin, is amazing.

Abbas, representing Pakistan’s less privileged area of Naltar valley located in Gilgit-Baltistan, had a passion for skiing for which his father carved the first pair of his ski gear out of wood.

The SFP official said that the federation has received an official confirmation in connection with the display of Abbas’ handmade wooden skis.
Coach Farooq said reporters were stunned when he told them during the Winter Olympics that the skier started skiing on wooden skis made by his father.

“Abbas became top choice after the provincial authorities of British Columbia decided to form a British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame to commemorate the Winter Olympics 2010,” disclosed Farooq

http://dawn.com/2012/08/17/pakistani-skier-honoured-at-british-columbia-hall-of-fame/

 

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Khaghan Valley

A ravishing view of the Kaghan Valley, located in the Mansehra District of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan— Photo by Shameen Khan

 

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Nauroz Mubarak: In true Karachi Parsi style, new year heralded with charity mela

KARACHI:
Teens sporting chain-link bags, fashionable young moms and dapper old men mingled at a mela organised to celebrate Navroz (also spelled Nauroz) at the Beach Luxury Hotel on Saturday evening, exchanging ‘Navroz Mubaraks’ and loudly calling out to each other.

The sea breeze was thick with the sound of Gujarati, as the Zoroastrian community of Karachi celebrated the New Year. For Shireen, her day started with her son’s friends coming over for breakfast, a visit to the agiary or temple, and a lunch featuring a few “traditional and auspicious dishes, such as dhun-dar patia”. At the mela, the food reflected a mix of generations: homemade sandwiches in Tupperware containers, shawarmas and plates of chaat.

The older Parsi women – with their pearl strands, oversized bags and neon lipsticks – had efficiently managed a number of stalls at the event. The proceeds from the stalls – including a selection of clothing, donated knickknacks, food hampers and games – go to charity.

More than Rs35,000 was raised and will be donated to different educational charities along with the main HJ Behrana Parsi Fire Temple in Saddar, and the Parsi General Hospital.

Nauroz Mubarak: In true Karachi Parsi style, new year heralded with charity mela – The Express Tribune

 

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Seriously Telented

SAJID & ZEESHAN - Sanity - YouTube

 

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Khairpur student wins prize for using tea to clean wastewater

KHAIRPUR / KARACHI:
A hot sweet cup of tea will solve most problems. But it appears that more and more research is proving that tea can help clean water for human consumption.
For one, Shadab Rasool Buriro, a tenth grade student of the Pak-Turk International School in Khairpur, won silver at the GENIUS (Global Environmental Issues-US) Olympiad, for his project: The removal of harmful pollutants from industrial waste water by the use of tea waste. He defended it in front of seven impartial judges at the international competition that was jointly organised by the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego and the Terra Science and Education Foundation. Buriro collected used tea, washed it with boiled water till it had lost all its colour, and then dried it. He then made mixtures of substances commonly found in industrial waste, like cadmium, lead, nickel and phenol, and then mixed them with the dried tea. “After waiting for 60 minutes, I analysed different filtrates obtained by a spectrophotometer and recorded the concentration of each pollutant separately,” he told The Express Tribune. “The results proved that used tea waste can remove [pollutants].”
Buriro’s project was initially sent to the Pak-Turk School’s head office in Islamabad, from where it was forwarded to the US. “I read about the kinds of pollutants that affect our agriculture sector, and decided to work on this particular project,” he said. “I was not expecting to get any position as other students were so confident and well-prepared.”
The Turkish government has recognised Buriro’s achievement and sponsored him for a 15-day visit to Turkey, where he was officially introduced as the boy who competed against students from 50 countries.
His father, Ghulam Rasool Buriro, is a retired deputy district officer (education), while his mother, Kaneez Panjtan, was the district officer (education) elementary. “My parents encouraged me. They helped me wherever it was possible for them to,” he said.
MPA Nusrat Sehar Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional told Sindh Express at an event to honour Buriro that she would bring it up at the next session and recommend his achievement be acknowledged. Buriro is not the only person to have used this particular method to clean water. In the Journal of International Environmental Application & Science published a paper on how used tea waste helped remove phenol from industrial waste water in Kosovo. In 2010, a group of researchers in South Africa developed a high-tech tea bag filter filled with active carbon molecules that can be fitted on top of a bottle to purify water as it is poured on a cup. Closer to home, chemical engineers at the Mehran University of Engineering and technology, Jamshoro published a paper last year in the Sindh University Research Journal on how they used tea waste to remove arsenic from aqueous solutions. They referenced similar work done by four researchers who published their findings in the Iranian Journal of Environmental Health Science & Engineering in 2007.
A cursory search with the terms ‘adsorption of heavy metals with tea waste’ on Google Scholar revealed 10 hits per page.

 

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Eye Opener: An Indian-American Visits Pakistan

Many of us travel for business or leisure. But few ever take a trip that dramatically shatters their entire worldview of a country and a people in one fell swoop. I was lucky enough to have returned from just such a trip: a week-long sojourn in Pakistan.

It was a true eye-opener, and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that. Many of the assumptions and feelings I had held toward the country for nearly 30 years were challenged and exposed as wrong and even ignorant outright.

Yes, I was aware of all the reasons not to go, safety foremost among them. As an American, an Indian, and a Hindu there seemed to be multiple reasons for someone of my background to have concerns about security. Relatives and friends couldn’t hide their dismay and genuine fear; a frequent question was “why would you want to go?” The subtext is that there’s nothing to see there that’s worth the risk.

The Western and Indian media feed us a steady diet of stories about bomb blasts, gunfights, kidnappings, torture, subjugation of women, dysfunctional government, and scary madrassa schools that are training the next generation of jihadist terrorists. And yes, to many Westerners and especially Indians, Pakistan is the enemy, embodying all that is wrong in the world. Incidents such as the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, 26/11 and the Osama Bin Laden raid in Abottobad have not helped the cause either. Numerous international relations analysts proclaim that Pakistan is “the most dangerous place in the world” and the border with India is “the most dangerous border in the world.”



I’m not naive enough to argue that these proclamations don’t have some elements of truth; through extensive academic work on Pakistan’s governance, its history, and its nuclear weapons arsenal I know that some problems are real. Rather, I am here to tell you that these aspects are overblown; that this country is about so much more, a whole other and much larger, beautiful, glorious, and uplifting side not given equal time by the media. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. And it’s time that Indians and Americans acknowledge Pakistan for what it really is as a whole- and our ignorance for what that is.

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For complete article and detailed coverage of his trip visit

Eye Opener: An Indian-American Visits Pakistan « United States – India Monitor

 

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Blogger sets out to change image of Pakistanis

LAHORE:
A blogger for the last two years on topics ranging from international relations to social issues, Mehreen Kasana got sick of comments posted on her blog asking whether all Pakistanis were extremists.

“When it comes to international media and reporting, a stereotype has been established of Pakistanis as people full of hate,” said the 23-year-old student of FC College, where she studies media and political science. “People would post on my blog asking whether Pakistanis were really how they were shown in the media.”

So on August 8, Kasana set out to make a statement against this stereotyping. She advertised heavily on social media, inviting people to contribute to her project by taking a picture of themselves holding a piece of paper with the Pakistan flag on it and a message declaring: “I am a Pakistani and I refuse to be stereotyped.”

“The idea was to encourage Pakistanis to speak out and tell the world that we are a lot more than what people see on the television,” Kasana said.

Within an hour her appeal for entries, Kasana’s project ‘Pakistanis against Stereotyping‘ received close to a hundred photographs. And much to her amazement, she received contributions not just from Pakistanis across the world, but people of other nationalities too.

“I got mails from people saying even though we are not Pakistanis, we want to send in a picture speaking out against the stereotyping of Pakistanis,” she said. Pictures were sent by Britons, Americans, Canadians, Afghans, Palestinians and Indians. “An Indian sent in a picture saying I am an Indian and I am against the stereotyping of Pakistanis,” she said.

In all, she received over 200 pictures, many carrying serious or sometimes humorous statements condemning stereotyping.

She put up a collage of the entries on her Tumblr blog on August 14. “A collage is just a fun way to engage with people and make their contributions visible,” she said.

Not all the response to the project was positive. Several posters criticised it as a waste of time. She shrugs off the criticism. “You should expect to be criticised for everything,” she said.

The aim of the project, she said, was to open a dialogue to help better understand Pakistanis and their diversity. She said that “constant negativity” results in people believing in lies about themselves and their country. “We are such a diverse group of people with a rich culture and heritage. How can we be reduced to being just extremists and not raise our voice against it?”

Blogger sets out to change image of Pakistanis – The Express Tribune

 

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Suhaila Muhammadi - An Inspiration for All

A young girl from a highly conservative society, Suhaila Muhammadi, has defied all odds by going her own way, realizing her dream, and proving everyone wrong. At 17, Suhaila is a martial arts champ, with 35 gold medals under her (black) belt. Her message: “there is no field in which a man can venture and a woman can’t”. Here’s her inspiring story.


Suhaila - an inspiration for all girls - YouTube

Salute to this girl!

 

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12-year-old to participate in Istanbul Chess Olympiad


LAHORE: Mehak Gul, 12, will leave for Istanbul this Monday as part of the 10-member team which will represent Pakistan in the World Chess Olympiad.

Gul will be the youngest participant to represent Pakistan in the tournament.

Gul- who has been playing chess since the age of six- recently came in the limelight after securing positions in chess championships at provincial and national levels. A student of the Lahore Garrison School in Township, Gul won school chess championship back in 2010 after which she participated in the Punjab Chess Championship in June this year. She came third in the competition.

Her father and her coach, Mohammad Zahid said he was proud of her daughter’s talent.

“Her performance in all the tournaments has been beyond my expectations,” he said while talking to The Express Tribune.

12-year-old to participate in Istanbul Chess Olympiad – The Express Tribune

 

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Islamabad cityscape at night

 

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Fancy a dip in Mahodand Lake?

SWAT:
Scores of nature enthusiasts are thronging the Mahodand Lake from across the country this season. Known for it’s emerald green water and abundance of fish, the spot remains an attraction for most tourists owing to it’s beauty and serenity.

Located some 40 kilometres from Kalam valley, the lake is surrounded by lush landscape. One has to travel a dirt track passing through roaring waterfalls, vast green meadows and flickering small lakes to reach it.

“Words really can’t describe the scene. There are many waterfalls, tall cedar trees and exotic scent of wild flowers, the combination of which leaves imprints on the mind and the heart,” Mrs Rehman, a tourist from Lahore said while talking to The Express Tribune.

Before the summer, the lake was not accessible for common vehicles and only jeeps with four-wheel drive could get through the stony-slopes, due to which very tourists managed to get past.

“Last time, we had to hire a jeep to get here. The road was not only difficult but also dangerous in some parts. I hope the government would work on it’s uplift,” Mohammad Iqbal, a tourist from Mingora told The Express Tribune.

“Though the road is not paved, but it’s good enough for adventure lovers like us. The view and the atmosphere are really amazing,” said Anwaar Ahmad who had come with his family from Peshawar.

A complete tent city was set up to facilitate the tourists. Many small groups and families were busy enjoying the lush green valley. Some were sitting, some lying, some were busy cooking and others eating. Some were riding horses while others enjoyed boat rides in the lake.

Shazia, another tourist from Peshawar, who was enjoying the emerald green field along the lake said, “Each view is unique and beautiful. I would love to visit here over and over. But there is certainly need of development and advertisement so that more people could come here since many don’t even know about it.” While commenting on the calm aura of the valley, she said, “Initially, I was skeptical of coming here but I’m glad that I did.”

The children seemed to be engrossed in a world of their own as they splashed water on each other “I love mountains and rain. We have come here especially to eat fish. I will ask my friends to come here and enjoy the beautiful weather,” Faiqa Malik, a third grader said with a smile.

Fancy a dip in Mahodand Lake? – The Express Tribune

View more pictures of Mahodand Lake here.
Serenity at Mahodand Lake – The Express Tribune

 

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Awesome! Lovely!