Pakistan confers Nishan-i-Imtiaz on Manto

Mehmal Sarfraz, Hindustan Times
Lahore, August 15, 2012

Saadat Hasan Manto was recently awarded the Nishan-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s highest civilian award. Manto is celebrated widely both in India and Pakistan. His famous story, ‘Toba Tek Singh’, is one of the best available narratives that portray the pain of Partition.

It might have come as a surprise that Manto was finally being honoured at the state level for his contribution to literature. Renowned poet, columnist and writer, Munnoo Bhai, hailed the government's decision and termed Manto as the best story-writer in the Indian subcontinent.

“There’s nobody like Manto. He always rejected awards but by giving him an award, the government is honouring itself rather than honouring Manto.”

For columnist Raza Rumi, the government has “corrected a historical wrong”. By awarding Manto the highest civilian honour it has attempted to redeem the maltreatment of our artists, writers and intellectuals. Manto was shoddily treated during the early years of Pakistan and in his several writings he said how he had “no niche in the new country.”

Rumi is not the only one who feels this way. According to journalist Najam Sethi, “The highest civil award to Manto is not just a recognition of his towering status as a man of letters but also of his relevance to modern-day Pakistan. Manto wrote about ‘zar (gold), zan (women), zameen (land)’ in society in the aftermath of Partition and exposed the hypocrisy, exploitation and violence related to all three. Much the same is happening in Pakistan now.”

Sethi added, “It is doubly ironic that he should have been awarded the highest civilian award when six decades ago he was persecuted for obscenity and today the Supreme Court is hearing a petition to ban ‘obscenity’ on TV.”

Indian scholar Dr Gopi Chand Narang was also awarded a civil award by the government for his service to Urdu literature.

(Mehmal Sarfraz is a Lahore-based journalist)

Pakistani students win international debate competition in Mexico

Karachi: Three 15-year-old Pakistani students have won the final of The Karl Popper Debating Championship(KPDC), one of the largest high school tournaments in the world, in Mexico.

The Pakistani team beat the team of students from South Korea and also all three participants were listed in the top 10 speakers of tournament.

Zainab Hameed, the Karachi Grammar School student, was named the top speaker of the competition while Azeem Liaquat, student of the Salamat International Campus for Advanced Studies in Lahore, came second. Their teammate, Ahmed Shujaan from the Aitchison College, bagged the fifth position among more than 200 participants.

Teams from 45 countries participated in the tournament, which was a part of the 18th edition of the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) Youth Forum held in Mexico from July 2 to 15.

Pakistani team was defending the topic — “Guantanamo Bay prison should be closed down immediately” — in the KPDC finals while Korean team had to prove that the motion should not be adopted.

The teams participated in two competitions –the KPDC and the mixed team track. In the former, they represented Pakistan as a team while they were split up and paired with debaters from other countries in mixed team track.

Zainab Imran, a Pakistani Olympic torch bearer

Zainab Imran.

In May, I penned a rather cynical note on the security preparations for the Olympic Games. Britain is full of Games fever as the torch tours the country, held by pop stars and local celebrities; and greeted by cheering crowds. My Facebook is full of friends who have glimpsed the golden torch and managed a shaky photo of the moment. My own son now says he wants to see the flame when it touches down in Cambridge. But as the Olympics draws near, my cynicism about the over-spun, oppressively-sponsored event has been silenced by the arrival of a 16-year-old girl from Karachi.

The British Council, UK Sport and UNICEF have been running the International Inspirations programme for a number of years. Operating in 20 countries it fulfils a promise made by Britain when London was named Olympic host for 2012. The promise was to ‘reach young people all around the world and connect them to the inspirational power of the Games so they are inspired to choose sport – improving their lives as a result.’

When Pakistani school girl Zainab Imran arrived in Britain last week to take her turn in carrying the torch – the only Pakistani to do so – I immediately assumed she was a junior sports star. Here in the UK I have felt a little jaded about the over-use of the “inspire me” theme related to the games – but in other countries the UK government seems to have got it right. Although Zainab is a competitive soul who enjoys netball, badminton and even competed in the Dawn Spelling Bee, she is primarily here because of her charity and voluntary work. Only a youngster, yet she has already worked on health care initiatives, cleaned beaches and taken part in sports leaderships programmes. When I was in Karachi last year I learned about how young people in the city wanted to bring about social improvements – so I am very delighted that Zainab is here in Britain to embody this – being an inspiration and an example herself. And she is eloquent and charming with it.

It’s not often that an association between Pakistan and sport is such a positive one, and I confess part of the motivation behind writing this is to add to the sea of media commentary that focuses on all that is negative. Ask an English person their perception of Pakistani sport and they might say cricket match fixing. Some might say “Imran Khan” – and will remember his playboy and Jemima days not knowing his political side. Those who actually follow the game of cricket might utter the words “Boom Boom,” but that’s about it.

Ask Pakistanis about sports role models (and I did) and a different picture emerges. It’s not one without cricketers of course, but also features polo playing legend Podger El Effendi; the awesome Khan dynasty of squash players (Jansher was eight times world champion); and Shehbaz Ahmad, The Maradonna of Pakistan’s most popular sport – hockey. In Britain, Pakistanis are involved in football, motor-racing, and rugby to name but a few sports.

As Zainab takes up her torch duties I hope that she will be thinking about all that is great about Pakistani sport. The battle seems to be, not only in being a country able to host international games but in getting broader media coverage of positive sporting passion. As Shahid Azeem said in a speech that welcomed Zainab: “(She) represents all that is positive in our young people of Pakistan … a new, positive, and fresh face of Pakistan. A face that is very much there – but often hidden”.

It feels as if at last the Olympics are beginning to be about the people and the sport – not about the security concerns, the corporate ownership of the Olympic rings, or the cost to the tax payer. So I might just take my son to see the torch in Cambridge – but perhaps after a game of quick cricket in the park and a conversation about social change.


-Caroline Jaine

Inspiration leads friends to set up restaurant portal

LAHORE: Attracted by the technological gap in the market and the desire to utilise their full potential, two childhood friends bid farewell to their marketing profession and set up a software venture to create one of the leading food and restaurant websites – tossdown.com – in Pakistan.

The Express Tribune caught up with Omair Bangash, co-founder of Hooked Technologies which launched tossdown as its flagship project back in 2008.

“We felt under-utilised at our jobs,” said Bangash, while explaining the urge to start their own business in 2007. The then 24-year-old Bangash, along with friend Shahzeb Rizvi, thought of working on restaurants because they felt a technological gap in the market, which could reach to the people.

“Since our family owned a restaurant for the past 30 years, the food industry was the only natural choice for us to start the project,” he said.

Bangash and Rizvi launched tossdown.com in January 2008, though the next challenge for them was to hire a programmer for the website, for which they lacked finances. Taking lessons from YouTube, Bangash learnt how to make a website with Rizvi looking after the marketing aspect.

“Ironically, nobody invests in virtual products,” said Bangash, who heads the product vision and design area of his company. With lack of educated investors, he said, funding was a major issue for which they had to struggle for the first three years into their business.

Majority of the investors in Pakistan, he said, looked for investing in tangible products, which was a problem faced by many young entrepreneurs. Funds were then generated through projects which Hooked Technologies worked on. Once the funds started coming in, Bangash and Rizvi started approaching restaurants.

However, the going was not easy this time too. “The response (from restaurants) was horrible as they suspected us to be officers of the excise department,” Bangash said, adding at times they were not even allowed to enter restaurants.

The breakthrough came when restaurant Gun Smoke showed interest in their idea and slowly other restaurants in Lahore also started expressing interest, making it to the blogs in 2010.

Last year, the team at tossdown introduced discount cards and coupons to take advantage of the market attention they had gained introducing ‘Khaba’ – a privileged member card, which offers discounts at 30 food and dessert outlets in Lahore.

“In 2012, we managed to get tossdown where we had initially envisioned it to be,” Bangash said, adding several ‘food bloggers’ were now contributing to their website. He said the idea of the restaurant portal, which he claimed to be the first in Pakistan, was to bring all restaurants onto a single platform including ‘foodies’ – food lovers.

From 30 hits in a day in 2011 to now thousands of hits daily, he said food was big on the web in Pakistan. With more than 600 restaurants in Lahore listed on the website, besides more than 400 in Karachi and almost 200 in Islamabad, Bangash said the website also catered to food lovers in Faisalabad, Multan and Peshawar.

Now the founders of tossdown aim to export their idea, expanding it to tourist destinations such as Indonesia and the Middle East.

-Express Tribune

Intel ISEF 2012: Peshawar girl wins science accolade

PESHAWAR: Seventeen year old Shiza Gulab, who secured fourth place in the world’s largest pre-college science fair, arrived in her hometown in Swati Patik on Sunday.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2012 was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States. Three Pakistani teenagers Shiza Gulab, Mahnoor Hassan and Bushra Shahed attained fourth position for their project titled ‘Energy Square for Cattle.’

Gulab, a first-year engineering student at the Institute of Computer and Management Sciences (ICMS), Peshawar, talks about her project and the inspiration behind it.

“We attended a workshop in Islamabad in which the organisers suggested that we work in the fields of biology, mathematics, physics and computer science.”

Gulab said she decided to select a topic from the field of biology on her mother’s advice. “I discussed the idea with my colleagues Mahnoor and Bushra and they also agreed with me and we started working on our project.”

“Our project attained first position at the national level competition in which 86 teams participated and the regional level in the Pak-Turkish School Peshawar. When we found out that our team had been selected for Intel ISEF, we felt a mixture of extreme happiness and confusion.”

Gulab’s father Gul Shah is understandably filled with pride. “I am very happy. She has not only made me proud, but also the province and our country.”

Shah said he has cows in his home which are not raised for a source of income or milk, but to nurture his children’s interest in animals. He added that his daughter was destined to work for the development of the country.

Gulab’s mother maintains that her daughter is a very intelligent student and gets first position in school every year.

Principal of ICMS college for girls, Ambareen Batol said it was a “pleasure that our students have been selected for the international fair.”

ICMS Director Malik Tajamul Hayat said the prize winning students are already on scholarship and will be facilitated in every possible way to excel in their studies. Giving details about the project, she said it was designed to provide livestock with adequate nutrition even in times of natural disasters. The formula, which is a dry mix of a variety of ingredients such as mulberry, wheat, maize, rice polish, urea and calcium, provides vitamins and protein to the animals. It also contributes in controlling diseases, increasing milk production and weight in cattle in just 28 days.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21st, 2012.

National Monuments of Pakistan

The Pakistan Monument in Islamabad, Pakistan, is a national monument representing the nation's four provinces and three territories. After a competition among many renowned architects, Arif Masood’s plan was selected for the final design.

The blooming flower shape of the monument represents Pakistan's progress as a rapidly developing country. The four main petals of the monument represent the four provinces (Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,Punjab, and Sindh), while the three smaller petals represent the three territories (Gilgit-Baltistan,Azad Kashmir and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas).

The Monument has been designed to reflect the culture and civilization of the country and depicts the story of the Pakistan Movement, dedicated to those who sacrificed themselves for future generations.

Lets discover some of the awesome monuments throughout Pakistan.

• Uch Sharif

Uch or Uch Sharif Urdu: اوچ شریف) (Greek: Alexandria En Indo Potamo) is located in 75 km from Bahawalpur in Bahawalpur District, South Punjab, Pakistan Uch is an important historical city, being founded by Alexander the Great. Formerly located at the confluence of the Indus and Chenab rivers, it is now removed to Mithankot, some 100 km from that confluence.

It was an important center in medieval India, as an early stronghold of the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th century during the Muslim conquest. Uch Sharif contains the tombs of Bibi Jawindi, Baha'al-Halim and Jalaluddin Bukhari, which are considered master pieces of Islamic architecture and are on the UNESCO World Heritage Site tentative list.

• Derawar Fort

Derawar Fort is a large square fortress in Pakistan near Bahawalpur. The forty bastions of Derawar are visible for many miles in Cholistan Desert. The walls have a circumference of 1500 metres and stand up to thirty metres high.

The first fort on the site was built by Hindu Rajput, Rai Jajja Bhati of Jaisalmer. It remained in the hands of the royal family of Jaisalmer until captured and completely rebuilt by the nawabs of Bahawalpur in 1733. In 1747, the fort slipped from the hands of the Abbasis owing to Bahawal Khan's preoccupations at Shikarpur. Nawab Mubarak Khan took the stronghold back in 1804.

The nearby mosque was modelled after that in the Red Fort of Delhi. There is also a royal necropolis of the Abbasi family, which still owns the stronghold. The area is rich in archaeological artifacts associated with Ganweriwala, a vast but as-yet-unexcavated city of the Indus Valley Civilization.

• Wazir Khan Mosque

The Wazir Khan Mosque (Punjabi/Urdu: مسجد وزیر خان Masjid Wazīr Khān) in Lahore,Pakistan, is famous for its extensive faience tile work. It has been described as 'a mole on the cheek of Lahore'. It was built in seven years, starting around 1634–1635 AD, during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan. It was built by Hakim Shaikh Ilm-ud-din Ansari, a native of Chiniot, who rose to be the court physician to Shah Jahan and a governor of Lahore. He was commonly known as Wazir Khan, a popular title bestowed upon him(the word Wazir means 'minister' in Urdu). The mosque is inside the Inner City and is easiest accessed from Delhi Gate.

• Badshahi Mosque

The Badshahi Mosque (Punjabi, Urdu: بادشاہی مسجد) or the 'Royal Mosque' in Lahore, commissioned by the sixth Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1671 and completed in 1673, is the second largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and the fifth largest mosque in the world. Epitomising the beauty, passion and grandeur of the Mughal era, it is Lahore's most famous landmark and a major tourist attraction.

Capable of accommodating 5,000 worshippers in its main prayer hall and a further 95,000 in its courtyard and porticoes, it remained the largest mosque in the world from 1673 to 1986 (a period of 313 years), when overtaken in size by the completion of the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad. Today, it remains the second largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and the fifth largest mosque in the world after the Masjid al-Haram(Grand Mosque) of Mecca, the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (Prophet's Mosque) in Medina, the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca and the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.

To appreciate its large size, the four minarets of the Badshahi Mosque are 13.9 ft (4.2 m) taller than those of the Taj Mahal and the main platform of the Taj Mahal can fit inside the 278,784 sq ft (25,899.9 m2) courtyard of the Badshahi Mosque, which is the largest mosque courtyard in the world.

In 1993, the Government of Pakistan recommended the inclusion of the Badshahi Mosque as a World Heritage Site in UNESCO's World Heritage List, where it has been included in Pakistan's Tentative List for possible nomination to the World Heritage List by UNESCO.

• Hiran Minar

Hiran Minar; Urdu: ہرن مینار (Minaret of Antelope) is set in peaceful environs near Lahore in Sheikhupura, Pakistan. It was constructed by Emperor Jahangir as a monument to Mansraj, one of his pet deer.

The structure consists of a large, almost-square water tank with an octagonal pavilion in its center, built during the reign of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan; a causeway with its own gateway connects the pavilion with the mainland and a 100-foot (30 m)-high minar, or minaret.

At the center of each side of the tank, a brick ramp slopes down to the water, providing access for royal animals and wild game. The minar itself was built by Emperor Jahangir in 1606 to honor the memory of a pet hunting antelope named Mansraj.

Unique features of this particular complex are the antelope's grave and the distinctive water collection system. At each corner of the tank (approximately 750 by 895 feet (273 m) in size), is a small, square building and a subsurface water collection system which supplied the tank; only one of these water systems is extensively exposed today.

Another special feature of Hiran Minar is its location and environment: the top of the minar is perhaps the best place in the province of Punjab to get a feel for the broader landscape and its relationship to a Mughal site.

Looking north from the top of the minar, one can see a patch of forest which is similar to the scrub forest vegetation of Mughal times, while to the west are extensively-irrigated fields, a product of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but similar in size and appearance to the well-irrigated fields of the Mughal period.

• Makli Hills

One of the largest necropolises in the world, with a diameter of approximately 8km. Makli Hill is supposed to be the burial place of some 125,000 local rulers, Sufi saints and others. It is located on the outskirts of Thatta, the capital of lower Sind until the seventeenth century, in what is the southeastern province of present-day Pakistan. It was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981 under the name, Historical Monuments of Thatta.

Thanks to Wikipedia and Flickr.

'Pakistan's sweetheart': Nazia Hassan's 47th birthday

Nazia forever changed the Pakistani pop music industry.

On April 3, 1965, the ‘Sweetheart of Pakistan’ Nazia Hassan was born – a soon to be iconic figure of the Pakistani pop industry. If alive today, April 3, 2012 she would be celebrating her 47thbirthday.

Nazia’s first hit was a pop song “Aap Jaisa Koi” which she sang for an Indian film titled Qurbani at the age of 15. She won a Filmfare award for this song and paved the way for her debut album, Disco Deewane.

The pop icon of the 70s soon became the striking beauty of the 80s and along with her brother produced audio and video hits, forever changing the Pakistani pop music industry.

Even during the conservative era of General Ziaul Haq, Nazia persevered, not faltering in her passion for music and became a celebrity. Among her biggest hits were “Ankhen Milane Wale” and “Dum Dum Dede”.

In 1995 she got married and had her son Arez in 1997.

Sadly, Nazia passed away in 2000 after losing a battle with cancer. She however remains a celebrity in the hearts of the 80s’ generation and lives on through her fans and all those who showered her with their love.

-Express Tribune