How disasters should be dealt with
Modern techniques and equipment cannot avert either natural or man-made disasters but surely use of available resources, comprehensive planning, and effective training to agencies handling calamities can reduce the consequences. Apportioning responsibility for the Bhoja Air crash will be a lengthy process as it requires advanced technology and equipment to ascertain the causes of the incident. Likewise, Pakistan does not have a culture which requires the authorities to share information or findings of such disasters. Examples from history further reinforce this: East Pakistan debacle, Kargil adventure and the July 2010 Airblue crash in which 152 people lost their lives. Now, ...
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The disservice of forgetting
With school beginning in August, one plucky senior decided to send a farewell note to the new A-level final year class. He talked about how everything that would happen in the last year of school – petty rivalries, exams, and college applications both in and out of Pakistan – were completely pointless. There was no need to lose sleep over them. This much was standard high school speech protocol, except that he learnt all of this on the first day back to school, which was directly preceded by the AirBlue crash. It’s hard, he figured, to worry about those sorts of ...
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One year after the floods
A year has passed since the worst disaster in Pakistan’s history. Last year’s floods caused by monsoon rains, submerged close to a fifth of the country’s total area underwater, directly affected about 20 million people, destroyed livestock, crop, property and infrastructure with a death toll of nearly 2000. The total economic damage was estimated to be close to 43 Billion U.S dollars and the occurrence was termed by the UN Secretary-General as one of the worst disasters he had ever seen. Before Pakistan was called the world’s most ‘dangerous’ country by the western media (after the May 2nd incident), it ...
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Does Pakistan care about Japan (or anybody else)?
Japan has been hit by the world’s biggest natural disaster since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986. Panic has spread like wildfire as people take off to Taiwan and other international destinations. Japan’s nuclear crisis is skyrocketing to new heights, since radiation levels from a stricken power plant are traveling through Tokyo. When Pakistan was ravaged by the floods last year, the international community went all out to help us. But in Japan’s time of need, Pakistan is silent. Here, I must still congratulate Pakistan on its nerves of steel. Due to our onslaught of personal problems, we Pakistanis have strengthened ...
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Forgotten in Japan: Thousands of Pakistanis that no one is reporting about
The newscaster’s voice was audible even before I entered the house after attending my morning classes. “Earthquake in Japan” “Magnitude of 8.9 on the Richter scale” “Waves wash away the infrastructure of Sendai” “Tsunami warning issued to other nations in the Pacific basin” As I ran inside, the images and videos on TV showed one of the biggest calamities to hit the earth. However for me, unlike most Pakistanis, the news wasn’t easy to forget. It took a while to sink in. My father was there. “Is he safe?” I grabbed the remote and switched the channel over to BBC and saw footage of the destruction of one of ...
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Dots & Dashes: All hands on deck
This winter too shall pass and spring come, manifest in its verdure and blossom, but without the cheer for the human heart. Poverty’s ugly grin spreads wider every day on the nation’s face and does not sit well with the warm smile the season of renewal brings. In another month and a half when the yellow jasmine start blooming in Islamabad and herald the onset of spring, prices of essentials would have gone up another 10 to 15 per cent and gas and electricity supplies further depleted forcing the closures of small industrial units, expanding the area of national enclosure ...
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Can you imagine a world without Wikipedia?
“Wikipedia only works in practice. In theory, it’s a total disaster.” Wikipedia, supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, has accumulated over 17 million articles in 262 languages as well as inspired copycats in Google and Facebook (see Google Knol and Facebook Community Pages). It still, however, does not have money to keep the site running – nor does it want to charge money or display ads on its websites. If you’ve been to the Wikipedia website lately, you might have seen a banner at the top of the page that says “Please read: A personal appeal from Wikimedia Executive Director Sue ...
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Criminal negligence: Needless death at Bahria Town race track
On Sunday, five people died as a speeding car lost control and crashed into a group of spectators. What is extremely unfortunate is the fact that these deaths and injuries were completely avoidable. As details emerge, attention will focus on young reckless drivers. Our roads proliferate with underage drivers who, due to a combination of parental wealth, a grotesque sense of entitlement and teenage hormones, not only break the law, but are often involved in needless accidents. They drive around locally “suped up” cars, with little or no quality control. That however is one side of the coin. This tragedy took ...
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Floating disaster for the power sector
Disasters often bring opportunities and this adage is true for Pakistan. Federal Minister for Power Raja Pervez Ashraf, (also referred to as Raja Rental by fellow parliamentarians from the “friendly” opposition) inaugurated at Karachi what is said to be world’s largest ship-mounted rental power plant. The power plant is to produce around 225 MW of electricity at the escalating astronomical cost starting from 20 cents per unit. In his speech, Ashraf mentioned a few things which are worth sharing; he admitted that electricity provided through this power plant will be expensive though he generously enlightened the audience by mentioning that it is a gift ...
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Sexy people need to care about Pakistan
I must admit that the number of flood awareness related display pictures, events and links shared on Facebook have significantly decreased even though the problem, itself, has not. Display pictures have changed from victims submerged in water or looking up at helicopters for food or to be rescued to people joyfully posing at weddings and parties. My events page, once full of requests from charity organisers, is now dominated by clothes exhibitions. This gradual change left me with slight grief as I realised that we had hit a saturation point – done what we felt we could and now wanted to ...
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