One dozen provinces, please
Recently, the voices calling for the division of Punjab have been getting louder and louder. But do we really need to? What will the consequences be? What are the advantages? My personal view is that many people are demanding division for their petty agendas, but the step is not in the larger interest of Pakistan. Keeping personal interests aside and treating the matter without bias we have come to the conclusion that: Pakistan has certainly developed but not uniformly, many smaller cities have been overlooked (not only in Punjab but in all provinces) Facilities are not provided equally to people of all regions A ...
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Breaking down the KESC strike
The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) has been embroiled in a dispute with pockets of its unionised labour force for a while now. We have witnessed unbelievable scenes involving violent protests at the central office of the KESC, followed by accusations and counter-accusations from both sides. Now, the management of the electric supply company has stated that they were unable to procure additional supplies of furnace oil due to an ‘emergency’ situation, thus jeopardising the supply of electricity to the city. On the other hand, the roundabout near the Governor House has become a campsite, inconveniencing motorists on one of the ...
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Buffoon bankers
I have been working in a well reputed bank in Pakistan (whose name I will not mention) for the last five years. I have learnt a lot about banking, from credit modules to debt ratio analysis to greeting customers. What I have not as yet been able to understand is how our banking industry’s middle management is filled with buffoons wearing ill fitted suits with qualifications of no more than Bachelors in Commerce (BCom) and brains the size of a bird’s. Why is this so? The reason I feel the current state of the banking industry is depressing, is not only because ...
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Dear IBA, your policy-makers need a heart
I am a student of Institute of Business Administration (IBA). For four years I had been grateful towards the institute but now, when I needed it most, IBA bailed on me. During the last few days of my Bachelors of Business Administration (BBA) programme, my father fell extremely ill and passed away with an unfulfilled wish – to see me graduate. Coincidentally, my father’s illness and my second set of midterms clashed. I missed three exams because he lay unconscious in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). I needed to talk to the doctors; to do a crash course in medicine to understand my father’s ...
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Mistakes will not go unpunished now
After the crucial game against Australia, Pakistan enter the knock-out stages. They enter a territory where mistakes will not go unpunished. It will be naïve on part of the Pakistan players and team management to hope for their opponents to make mistakes so Pakistan can taste victory – a theme predominant in our World Cup campaign this time. Pakistan had Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya in their Group A to experiment with. However, it will not be unfair to suggest that the team management did little to make use of these opportunities. I say this because before a team heads into the ...
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World Cup 2011 quarter finals: Remaining calm is crucial for Pakistan
As the 1992 champions aim to get back to winning ways in the World Cup, the team management has the very important task of lifting the morale of a much maligned outfit after the heavy loss to New Zealand. A lot of criticism has come the way of Shahid Afridi and his men, which would have dampened the spirits of a side that had won three successive matches before facing New Zealand. Here I must emphasise that the situation that Pakistan find themselves in, is not as desperate as most experts have made it out to be. The team has now ...
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Pakistan vs Canada: Will cricket fans ever be satisfied?
“Drop Hafeez.” “Drop Ahmed Shehzad.” “Make Kamran Akmal open.” “No, replace Kamran Akmal and make Umar Akmal keep.” “Wahab Riaz should be in the team.” “Replace Rehman with Saeed Ajmal.” “Replace Umar Akmal with Asad Shafiq.” Is there any other request that Pakistani fans want fulfilled? It’s high time we stop acting like the selectors of the team and focus on celebrating its success stories. Seriously, have they not done enough to make us happy? Pakistan have played three matches this World Cup and have won all three! What more do we want? If we understand the game so well, we should also understand the age-old captaincy rule: never change ...
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10 ways to be a better manager
People do not usually quit their jobs because they are unhappy with an organisation, but because they are unable to give input to the degree which satisfies them. Satisfaction comes from performing tasks exceptionally well. This feeling can be created through the effective management of the human resource. Here lies the role of the manager who needs to know the power of his written and spoken words, his anger and smile, his attitude and behavior. Organisations generally do not fall because of bad strategies, but because they encounter bad managers. It is important to note that bad managers are not those who ...
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The day I got fired from Dunya News
According to a BBC Urdu report, nearly 300 journalists have lost their jobs in 2010. Yesterday, my husband and I became a part of this statistic. Our contracts were terminated without warning and without notice and the reason given to us was that the company was being “restructured” and according to the new model our posts had been dissolved. While the financial crisis has led to constant downsizing, money is not the only reason for heartlessly firing trusted old employees. In most cases, simple structural changes spell disasters for middle tier staff. Of course, no one expects something like this to happen. ...
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Notes from the flood zone
This flood is worse than the 2005 earthquake because it is going to cause prolonged misery. First of all, all this water is a cesspool in the making. People have no clean drinking water. Do you know what they are doing? Drinking flood water. This is causing gastrointestinal problems. Stagnant water and mosquitoes will ultimately result in malaria. I am not medically qualified, so I can’t paint an accurate picture of the problems, but this is the gist of it all. Apart from that, it’s monsoon season, and we all know all kinds of bugs and insects come out during the ...
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