Jango
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Came across the following excerpt on Reddit. It's a good read.
We already have a SUPARCO thread, but I thought this was a better read on it's own.
----------------------------
I spent 6 months in SUPARCO in 1987 before resigning and leaving for US. They were trying to design for several years a signal filter-chip that was available for a few hundred rupees in Saddar. We had nothing to do in Computer Department. The commute time was about 1.5hrs. Vans will come and pick us up early in the morning before 6. Pretty tired and sleepy till we reach the factory near Somniani at around 7am. Often the employees would spread the packing material and sleep in the corners behind computers. The enterprising among us would sit on Autocad and design fun machines. The higher management was busy in making indents for purchasing materials and equipment. Their interest may be in commission. The objective of the top management was not to allow people to work. So everyone was doing nothing but looking busy. Chairman was Dr Salim Mehmud who was at the helm of affairs for around a decade. I now think his mandate was to not do any thing or allow any one to do anything.
Once in early 1980s, some years before joining SUPARCO, while I was still a student of engineering and a regular member and visitor of American Center, Dr Salim Mehmud was invited as a guest speaker at American Center Science Club. After his presentation there, I asked him a question. The question was based on science articles by Mr Azeem Quidwai in Dawn that I used to read regularly. Around that time, Mr Azim Quidwai had published a few articles about the satellite slots allotted to Pakistan, which if not utilized, would be lost. The question that I asked was "given that there is only limited space available for geostationary satellites, why Pakistan had not occupied the 3 spaces allotted to it?". Pakistan had at that time already lost some allotted space or was about to lose some. He got angry at my question, and instead of replying effectively shut me down. At that time I was too young (around 21) to understand what was in the question that irritated him so much! It was much later that I realized the question was actually pointing out his key weakness. I recall we were left with only one last space in 1999. I remember Mr Salman Ansari who was Advisor to Dr Ata ur Rehman, finally managed to get a dying satellite moved to this space just to occupy the space.
That Q n A with Dr Salim Mehmud at American Center was several years before I appeared in the Ministry of Science and Technology Scholarship interview panel in Fall 1986 after passing the written test. Mr Salim Mehmud was heading the panel and included in the panel was his head of computer department. The question that I think he asked was how many Sijdas are there in Quran. Another panelist asked me to recite Dua e Qanoot. The head of computer department Mr Moiz asked me a really technical question that only a techy could have asked. I was explaining my Final Year project that involved assembly language programming of micro controller based on Z-80 microprocessor. I had spent the previous year working in the dungeon going exhaustively into every nook and corner of the processor. After a couple of easy questions such as how to load accumulator and what is indirect addressing, he asked me a real difficult one. He asked how can we save all the contents of the registers with a single command. I replied EXX command that would shift all the contents of all the registers to their shadow counterparts. This was a seldom used command that I had encountered in the monitor program (kernel/os) for the micro-controller that I was tweaking. It is used typically for switching the state before going into the interrupt (NMI) routine. I still can recall many of mnemonics of the oft used commands. For some even their Hexadecimal codes. [A testimony to thousands of hours that I must have spent with that project and microprocessor]
My written exam was excellent as I had prepared exhaustively for GRE a couple of years before for getting admission. I already had the admission at UT Austin. Initially I got the admission in 1985 that I extended to 1986 citing some personal reason. The actual reason was that I was expecting scholarship from UT Austin which they did not offer and I wanted to keep the admission as I was looking for alternate sources. In 1986, I again requested UT Austin for extension of admission to 1987. Fortunately, then 400 Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) scholarships were announced and I applied. My interview was excellent and I knew all the answers and had correctly replied to all the questions. Many of the students selected for S&T scholarship during the previous year did not have the admission in the foreign university and many could not even secure the admission till much later and the seats were lying vacant. Hence, Dr Salim Mehmud and the panel immediately offered me the scholarship and also a job at SUPARCO and promised that I would be given leave with pay for the duration of scholarship!
This was how I entered SUPARCO, in the computer department being headed by Mr Moiz. We were first made to attend a three month training. After which I started going to the department at the factory in Somiani and the situation as described above was of that period. However, around three months before my scheduled departure for Fall 1987 joining of UT Austin, I learned that Dr Salim Mehmud had reversed the scheme of with-pay leave for the duration of scholarship. This was a severe setback. Fortunately, MoST has arranged for a 15 days training in basic computer awareness in what is now the HEC office in H9 Islamabad during the Summers. It used to be some Atomic Energy Institute. The affectees of the removal of incentive included several other SUPARACO employees who had also gotten the scholarship. This also included Mr Altaf Mukati who was also going to Boston University for his PhD. Armed with a long petition quoting the statements of Chairman SUPARCO, statements of Dr Mahboob ul Haq, and President Zia ul Haq regarding promotion of SnT (I have it somewhere), Mr Mukati and I utilized the training time in Islamabad for going from office to office. We went with our petition to Chairman PEC Mr Ilahi Baksh Soomro, to Finance Secretary, to Federal Ombudsman, to Secretary Science and Technology and others. We would try to meet each of them and give our petition. We also attended some sessions of the computer training which was too elementary for us, and hence we managed to get official leave from the instructors for these expeditions.
When I saw nothing happening to my petition, I decided to resign some weeks before my departure date. Why should I take on a bond of SUPARCO which was thought to be too tough at the time, when I would not be getting any with-pay-leave incentive. I think by that time SUPARCO had traced the people who were sending these petitions. My resignation was readily accepted as I was on probation for the new joining. I vaguely remember meeting Dr Salim Mehmud at his house in North Nazimabad regarding my resignation. However, Mr Altaf Mukati (later Dr) was a permanent employee and the reprisal from the vindictive Dr Salim Mahmud is another story that he should relate himself. Eventually a year later when I was in USA my department mate Mr Sohail Zaki Farooqui (later Dr) who was also a SUPARCO employee and one of the affectees told me that SUPARCO have revived the policy of with-pay leave. I was later glad that I did not take the offer. Five years at SUPARCO would have definitely made me a fossilized relic the way I saw many others becoming there.
Having seen Chairman SUPARCO Dr Salim Mehmud, Chairman Gen Javed Husain of POF Wah and Pakistan Steel, and Air Chief Marshal Tanveer of PAF, I can safely say that easiest way to stultify the research organizations is for the superpowers to maneuver only people like these to the top positions. Spending hundred of millions of dollars on espionage is useless. The only thing the powers need to do is to ensure the continuation of mediocrity and incompetence in these organizations. Incentivizing and facilitating the promotion of a few nincompoops to the top is enough. The incompetent don't even need to know who jacked them up. Nepotism and such pulls are already kosher in Pakistan. Let them revel in celebrating their incompetence and let them believe that their type of performance (lack of) is ticket to the success. This will encourage them to promote more like them, reducing the need for external incentivizing.
----------------------
Also read the comments in the thread, the current situation in the same.
@SQ8 might be able to relate here.
I also applied to a PO Box organization once, gave the test and everything, but in the end they wanted a bond. At least 3 of my batch mates, very bright students, also applied and got in, but didn't go because of a bond, and are now working in the US after Master's. Many other bright students in fields which would get you a call from the FBI are working in the US too. All our talent goes abroad.
Another personal anecdote. I applied for a position at OGDCL (yeah, I changed careers). Gave the test, someone told me I was in the top 5 of the NTS but who knows. Went for the interview at the OGDCL building in Blue Area. There were about 150 other people for the interview. Inside, there were about 10-12 people there, the usual quota uncles. A few asked me technical questions, I answered. Then they asked kdhr say ho aap. Then asked what I did for my undergrad (This was in my application from the very beginning). And then they said sorry you haven't done Mechanical engineering and you have service company experience, so you are rejected (they had a condition of either being an ME or having 2 years O&G experience, which I did. No mention of service company or operator, and the job I applied to was what I had been doing for 2 years). I later met someone in the same department at a job, and he told me they always do this because they have to fulfill a quota for other domiciles.
That was when I thought forget about it, let's get out.
We already have a SUPARCO thread, but I thought this was a better read on it's own.
----------------------------
I spent 6 months in SUPARCO in 1987 before resigning and leaving for US. They were trying to design for several years a signal filter-chip that was available for a few hundred rupees in Saddar. We had nothing to do in Computer Department. The commute time was about 1.5hrs. Vans will come and pick us up early in the morning before 6. Pretty tired and sleepy till we reach the factory near Somniani at around 7am. Often the employees would spread the packing material and sleep in the corners behind computers. The enterprising among us would sit on Autocad and design fun machines. The higher management was busy in making indents for purchasing materials and equipment. Their interest may be in commission. The objective of the top management was not to allow people to work. So everyone was doing nothing but looking busy. Chairman was Dr Salim Mehmud who was at the helm of affairs for around a decade. I now think his mandate was to not do any thing or allow any one to do anything.
Once in early 1980s, some years before joining SUPARCO, while I was still a student of engineering and a regular member and visitor of American Center, Dr Salim Mehmud was invited as a guest speaker at American Center Science Club. After his presentation there, I asked him a question. The question was based on science articles by Mr Azeem Quidwai in Dawn that I used to read regularly. Around that time, Mr Azim Quidwai had published a few articles about the satellite slots allotted to Pakistan, which if not utilized, would be lost. The question that I asked was "given that there is only limited space available for geostationary satellites, why Pakistan had not occupied the 3 spaces allotted to it?". Pakistan had at that time already lost some allotted space or was about to lose some. He got angry at my question, and instead of replying effectively shut me down. At that time I was too young (around 21) to understand what was in the question that irritated him so much! It was much later that I realized the question was actually pointing out his key weakness. I recall we were left with only one last space in 1999. I remember Mr Salman Ansari who was Advisor to Dr Ata ur Rehman, finally managed to get a dying satellite moved to this space just to occupy the space.
That Q n A with Dr Salim Mehmud at American Center was several years before I appeared in the Ministry of Science and Technology Scholarship interview panel in Fall 1986 after passing the written test. Mr Salim Mehmud was heading the panel and included in the panel was his head of computer department. The question that I think he asked was how many Sijdas are there in Quran. Another panelist asked me to recite Dua e Qanoot. The head of computer department Mr Moiz asked me a really technical question that only a techy could have asked. I was explaining my Final Year project that involved assembly language programming of micro controller based on Z-80 microprocessor. I had spent the previous year working in the dungeon going exhaustively into every nook and corner of the processor. After a couple of easy questions such as how to load accumulator and what is indirect addressing, he asked me a real difficult one. He asked how can we save all the contents of the registers with a single command. I replied EXX command that would shift all the contents of all the registers to their shadow counterparts. This was a seldom used command that I had encountered in the monitor program (kernel/os) for the micro-controller that I was tweaking. It is used typically for switching the state before going into the interrupt (NMI) routine. I still can recall many of mnemonics of the oft used commands. For some even their Hexadecimal codes. [A testimony to thousands of hours that I must have spent with that project and microprocessor]
My written exam was excellent as I had prepared exhaustively for GRE a couple of years before for getting admission. I already had the admission at UT Austin. Initially I got the admission in 1985 that I extended to 1986 citing some personal reason. The actual reason was that I was expecting scholarship from UT Austin which they did not offer and I wanted to keep the admission as I was looking for alternate sources. In 1986, I again requested UT Austin for extension of admission to 1987. Fortunately, then 400 Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) scholarships were announced and I applied. My interview was excellent and I knew all the answers and had correctly replied to all the questions. Many of the students selected for S&T scholarship during the previous year did not have the admission in the foreign university and many could not even secure the admission till much later and the seats were lying vacant. Hence, Dr Salim Mehmud and the panel immediately offered me the scholarship and also a job at SUPARCO and promised that I would be given leave with pay for the duration of scholarship!
This was how I entered SUPARCO, in the computer department being headed by Mr Moiz. We were first made to attend a three month training. After which I started going to the department at the factory in Somiani and the situation as described above was of that period. However, around three months before my scheduled departure for Fall 1987 joining of UT Austin, I learned that Dr Salim Mehmud had reversed the scheme of with-pay leave for the duration of scholarship. This was a severe setback. Fortunately, MoST has arranged for a 15 days training in basic computer awareness in what is now the HEC office in H9 Islamabad during the Summers. It used to be some Atomic Energy Institute. The affectees of the removal of incentive included several other SUPARACO employees who had also gotten the scholarship. This also included Mr Altaf Mukati who was also going to Boston University for his PhD. Armed with a long petition quoting the statements of Chairman SUPARCO, statements of Dr Mahboob ul Haq, and President Zia ul Haq regarding promotion of SnT (I have it somewhere), Mr Mukati and I utilized the training time in Islamabad for going from office to office. We went with our petition to Chairman PEC Mr Ilahi Baksh Soomro, to Finance Secretary, to Federal Ombudsman, to Secretary Science and Technology and others. We would try to meet each of them and give our petition. We also attended some sessions of the computer training which was too elementary for us, and hence we managed to get official leave from the instructors for these expeditions.
When I saw nothing happening to my petition, I decided to resign some weeks before my departure date. Why should I take on a bond of SUPARCO which was thought to be too tough at the time, when I would not be getting any with-pay-leave incentive. I think by that time SUPARCO had traced the people who were sending these petitions. My resignation was readily accepted as I was on probation for the new joining. I vaguely remember meeting Dr Salim Mehmud at his house in North Nazimabad regarding my resignation. However, Mr Altaf Mukati (later Dr) was a permanent employee and the reprisal from the vindictive Dr Salim Mahmud is another story that he should relate himself. Eventually a year later when I was in USA my department mate Mr Sohail Zaki Farooqui (later Dr) who was also a SUPARCO employee and one of the affectees told me that SUPARCO have revived the policy of with-pay leave. I was later glad that I did not take the offer. Five years at SUPARCO would have definitely made me a fossilized relic the way I saw many others becoming there.
Having seen Chairman SUPARCO Dr Salim Mehmud, Chairman Gen Javed Husain of POF Wah and Pakistan Steel, and Air Chief Marshal Tanveer of PAF, I can safely say that easiest way to stultify the research organizations is for the superpowers to maneuver only people like these to the top positions. Spending hundred of millions of dollars on espionage is useless. The only thing the powers need to do is to ensure the continuation of mediocrity and incompetence in these organizations. Incentivizing and facilitating the promotion of a few nincompoops to the top is enough. The incompetent don't even need to know who jacked them up. Nepotism and such pulls are already kosher in Pakistan. Let them revel in celebrating their incompetence and let them believe that their type of performance (lack of) is ticket to the success. This will encourage them to promote more like them, reducing the need for external incentivizing.
----------------------
Also read the comments in the thread, the current situation in the same.
@SQ8 might be able to relate here.
I also applied to a PO Box organization once, gave the test and everything, but in the end they wanted a bond. At least 3 of my batch mates, very bright students, also applied and got in, but didn't go because of a bond, and are now working in the US after Master's. Many other bright students in fields which would get you a call from the FBI are working in the US too. All our talent goes abroad.
Another personal anecdote. I applied for a position at OGDCL (yeah, I changed careers). Gave the test, someone told me I was in the top 5 of the NTS but who knows. Went for the interview at the OGDCL building in Blue Area. There were about 150 other people for the interview. Inside, there were about 10-12 people there, the usual quota uncles. A few asked me technical questions, I answered. Then they asked kdhr say ho aap. Then asked what I did for my undergrad (This was in my application from the very beginning). And then they said sorry you haven't done Mechanical engineering and you have service company experience, so you are rejected (they had a condition of either being an ME or having 2 years O&G experience, which I did. No mention of service company or operator, and the job I applied to was what I had been doing for 2 years). I later met someone in the same department at a job, and he told me they always do this because they have to fulfill a quota for other domiciles.
That was when I thought forget about it, let's get out.
