Home >> Regional >> Islamabad >> Kapoor's statement on limited nuke war irresponsible: Gilani Prime Minister Syed Raza Gilani on Monday termed the statement of Indian Army chief about limited nuclear war as irresponsible and urged restoration of composite dialogue process to resolve the key Kashmir issue.
Do you know that former President of Pakistan Gen (Retd) Pervez Musharraf created a Facebook page just a month ago and he has collected 36,000 fans during this period?
This is no doubt, the most successful Facebook campaign by any politician in Pakistan, which is apparently backed by social media experts.
First of all page ad is very powerful and appealing, that is one reason of success of this campaign – but the most important thing is that Mr. Musharraf interacts directly with fans, makes videos especially for Facebook, answers questions himself and lot more.
This campaign can be taken as a case study and as an inspiration for not only the political parties but the businesses in Pakistan. This Facebook page by Pervez Musharraf reveals the potential that Facebook has for celebrities and corporations.
So if you have got a Facebook page, study this campaign closely – and try to follow what Musharraf has done. Not to forget, don’t expect this much, because he had been the president of Pakistan, while you are not. But you can better your results to some extent by following him.
By the way, in parallel, there are other politicians on Facebook too, but not with this amount of success. (Please let us know of more politicians on Facebook in comments)
Copyright © 2009 ProPakistani.PK
Ufone lost at least 300,000 call records for its post paid numbers, last month, resulting into a total damage of at least 1.7 million rupees, told us sources in the company.
Data was found missing for at least 11,000 post paid numbers, while system didn’t record their CDRs (Call Detailed Records), due to unknown error in Ufone’s billing system. It was learned that at least 300,000 CDRs were found missing including local and/or international calls.
It merits mentioning here that Ufone is using Huawei’s billing solutions – while we know that infrastructure manufacturers (in most cases) provide after-sale support to cellular companies.
When we asked about the incident, and whether Ufone, Huawei or the customer will bear the loss, Ufone’s spokesperson didn’t respond to our query, despite several reminders.
On other hands, Huawei’s Spokesperson didn’t confirm the situation nor denied.
Ufone’s billing solution is facing issues since Huawei deployed it. Customers, in the past, used to receive nominal bills one month – while double bills the next month, due to batch processing of records.
Copyright © 2009 ProPakistani.PKWhile India and Pakistan governments are finding out ways to resume dialogue, an incident of a Sikh being brutally beaten up and asked to convert to Islam has come to light.
M.P. Bhandara
(Editor’s Note: This is the second in our series of lessons to be learnt from the events of 1971. This particular piece was written by the late M.P. Bhandara, then member of the Pakistan parliament, for Dawn in 2005. The intensity of the sentiment on stranded Pakistanis remains equally valid today.)
There is a blot of shame on the fair name of Pakistan. And each one of us, who has the means and the power to do something about it but chooses to be silent, bears the burden of this guilt.
The story is familiar enough. On December 16, 1971, the Pakistan created by the Quaid-i-Azam, was lost. A sizable population who had migrated from Bihar to East Pakistan at the time of partition were declared non-citizens by the new Bangladesh government. Being culturally and linguistically different, they had not fully integrated with the people of East Pakistan.
During the civil war in East Pakistan between March and December 1971, they readily opted to defend a united Pakistan. The army used (and abused) them as human shields for the more dangerous operations.
For this crime, they have never been forgiven by the people of Bangladesh. After the war, they were herded into unsanitary ghettos on a virtually prison diet. They were branded as “traitors”, and this mark of infamy remains on their children and even their children’s children to this day.
These “traitors” are now considered as “pariahs” by Pakistan that has stopped owning them for the reason that, on migration here, they are likely to settle in Sindh and join the ethnic political ranks of New Sindhis. The estimate of those now eligible for repatriation is said to be between 100,000 and 150,000.
How cynical can we get as a nation? We can tolerate the presence of a million plus illegals from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma and Afghanistan in Karachi but we shut the door tight on our “own” citizens.
We don’t recognize them as ours on the specious plea that they had migrated to East Pakistan. The logical tailpiece of this reasoning is that our eastern province was never considered part of the nation.
We accepted four million Afghan refugees in the 1980s and beat our breast in the name of Islamic solidarity. The truth is there was little solidarity but a case of push come to shove on a porous border.
Pakistan’s selective Islamic solidarity extends to Palestinians and Kashmiris, but not to Kurds in Iraq (when they were gassed) or the Sudanese in Darfur (currently in the throes of a genocide) and above all, to our own stranded “citizens” who made the mistake of their lives by siding with the Pakistan army and not the Mukti Bahini during the 1971 civil war, which is now commonly referred to as war of the Bangladesh liberation.
We choose to look the other way. This ugly blip is longer on our political radar screen. Islamic solidarity has suddenly vanished. Our rejection of these people exposes a visible crack in the mirror of Pakistan.
It calls into question the two-nation theory. Let us be honest and say that this theory was a means to an end and not an end in itself. The theory apparently died long ago when Pakistan was transformed “from a homeland for the Indian Muslims” to a theocratic Islamic state.
In any case, mass migration in the subcontinent is no longer possible and in the context of over 125 million Muslims in India, the two-nation theory does not seem to be operative for the time being.
This dichotomy on what Pakistan is or is not is the root cause of our carefully developed hypocrisy, double standards and sectarian violence. We have moved from one concept to another but find ourselves in limbo.
No wonder, the better part of our educated youth is alienated. The Quaid’s concept of Pakistan was a liberal, humanizing, outward-reaching modern state, which was a homeland for those Muslims of the subcontinent who chose to migrate at the time of partition.
The Quaid gave us the right direction, but instead, we have entered a black hole of pseudo-religiosity and are struggling to get out of it. Our amnesia on the stranded Pakistani issue calls into question our singular devotion to the Kashmir cause.
How is a suffering Kashmiri any different from a ghettoed Pakistani in Bangladesh? Both are Muslim. Does this not smack of hypocrisy and double standards? The former is regarded as a mazloom, the latter a “pariah”.
It must be heartrending to hear these “pariahs” sing the Pakistani national anthem and see them hoist our flag in the ghettos of Bangladesh on our national days.
The Rabita Trust Fund founded in 1988 succeeded in repatriating a few hundred families. It was frozen in 2001 and the process has since stopped. It is a shame that we must invite outside money to bring home our own citizens.
Have we lost all honour? We seem to have plenty of funds for all types of grandiose projects under the sun but cannot allocate a couple of hundred million rupees each year to recommence the process.
The government should meet the costs of improving the living condition in camps in Bangladesh, open schools and vocational centers and take immediate steps to repatriate 200 to 300 families annually and settle them in the Punjab. Where integration is possible in Bangladesh this should be encouraged by fiscal and other means.
Our parliament has a Kashmir committee on which millions are spent on members romping the globe to highlight the Kashmir cause with marginal results; the National Assembly can spend time to discuss the shortage of Sui gas in some remote town, it can spend hours to discuss the infringement of minor privileges of members, but it has never found the time to discuss the issue of stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh.
Not being true to ourselves shames all of us.
Tajikistan News.Net Monday 30th November, 2009 London, Nov.30: While talking to some Kashmiris in London, Sardar Shaukat Kashmiri told us a story that on the day of Hashim Qureshi's wedding in Rawalpindi a famous writer and leader Dada Amir Haider was also present .
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has lowered the corporate credit rating and long-term senior unsecured debt rating on Pakistan Mobile Communications (Mobilink) to ‘CCC+’ from ‘B-’. The outlook on the corporate credit rating is negative.
The B- rating was described “Highly Speculative”, while the new CCC+ rating is classed as “Substantial risks”.
The rating on Mobilink reflects the weakened credit profile of parent Orascom Telecom Holdings on account of Orascom Telecom’s requirements for additional funding to execute its business plan and manage its very weak liquidity profile. “We believe Orascom’s weakened credit profile will significantly impair Mobilink’s financial flexibility. Mobilink could also face pressure to support the parent,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Yasmin Wirjawan.
S&P expects Mobilink to continue to have weak liquidity, with refinancing risk, over the next 12 months. They also expect the company’s covenants, for the period ended June 2010, to come under pressure given a lack of parental support due to Orascom Telecom’s extremely weak liquidity. Historically, Mobilink has received significant support from the parent to meet its financial covenants through equity infusion or the waiver of management fees.
Mobilink is a 100% privately owned company by Orascom Telecom. It is also Orascom Telecom’s second-largest operation, and accounted for 20.6% of the consolidated EBITDA for 2008. This highlights the important role that Mobilink could play in Orascom Telecom’s strategy for additional funding.
Mobilink’s operating performance has improved over the past two quarters, with stable market share and EBITDA margins. The improvement in operating performance along with a significant cut in capital expenditure has resulted in positive free operating cash flow for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2009.
The negative outlook reflects the liquidity pressure that S&P expects Mobilink might face because of parent Orascom Telecom’s extremely weak liquidity. The rating could be lowered if: (1) Mobilink’s liquidity deteriorates due to support to Orascom Telecom; (2) the company is unable to address the refinancing risk; or (3) there is heightened risk that the company might breach its covenants.
The outlook could be revised to stable if the liquidity position of Orascom Telecom improves materially, resulting in a revision of the outlook on the rating on Orascom Telecom to stable.
Via Cellular News
Copyright © 2009 ProPakistani.PK
We have seen time and again on Eid Holidays that ATMs of different banks get out of operation normally. State Bank has been telling them to co-operate with the customers but seems it all fall on deaf ears.
Wake up State Bank!!
But website being down is something new that we have came across. Since this morning i.e. third day of eid, we were unable to browse Askari Bank Website(www.Askaribank.Com.Pk). Site is giving error of temorary down.
We needed to do some fund transfer but whose listening. Pity on our poor souls… We want State Bank to do some action against this bank.
We did tried other leading banks too like MCB, ALLIED BANK, BANK ALFALAH, MEEZAN BANK and NATIONAL BANK but they were all working online. Time for some action.
Copyright © 2009 ProPakistani.PKHighlighting themes likely to be taken up by President Obama in his military policy speech on Tuesday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain has demanded that Afghanistan and Pakistan match plans for increased allied troop levels in Afghanistan by taking tough actions of their own, including, in Pakistan, a stepped-up effort to capture Osama bin ...
Lahore, Nov. 30 : Pakistan Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has that President Asif Ali Zardari to abolish the 17th Amendment of the Constitution and relinquish most of his powers.
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