My Dear Arfa!

I wish I would have met you at least once so I could gather just that bit of inspiration from you that made you so connected with your homeland, Pakistan. Nevertheless, you left us at such a time when the nation needed to learn from you. Needed to learn the sincerity, passion, aspiration and the aim to dream high and striving to put it together. When you talk to GOD, let him know that you wanted to do so much for all your friends here but you didn’t get enough time. Don’t be harsh to HIM my dear because you know what? HE knows that your friends are going to make all your dreams come true. Arfa! you have made all the daughters realize that they can make their parents feel proud in front of everyone. You have made all brothers realize that sisters are the best friends they can have around who will always be there to help their bros out. You are special and special people have lots of things to achieve in this world and hereafter. May be you have a better task to do and that’s the reason why you left us. I am just saying this to hold my tears honey! I’ll rise up everyday thinking about your bright smile that you gave in all your interviews, all your pictures. And those shining eyes that had held enormous dreams in them, waiting to come true in a blink. Oh dear! the way you sang Anokha Ladla in one of your interviews, it just made me so proud of knowing you. I miss you!

Keep shining in the heavens! And yeah, spread all the love there now!

Love,

An Admirer.

PT Report Islamabad - The fifteen year old genius who took the world by surprise becoming the youngest Microsoft Certified IT expert lost the race for life today a t a hospital in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province. She was under intensive care for almost two weeks. Millions of people held prayers for her [...]

All we have to say is this “You Left Unfinished and Yet We Are Proud.”  Arifa Karim Randhawa (late) —  The Youngest Legend Filed under: 100 Words – My Waste Basket of Writing!, Baithak, Desi, Drawing Room, Pakistan, Revolution, Social … Continue reading →

LAHORE: In what could simply be described as an enormous loss for Pakistan, Arfa Karim, the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), lost the battle of life after remaining admitted here at Combined Military Hospital on Saturday night,

Arfa Karim was only sixteen years old.

Her funeral prayers will be offered on Sunday at 10 AM in Cantt area.

Arifa Karim remained in intensive care at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) after suffering an epileptic seizure and cardiac arrest a few weeks ago. After battling for life for 26 days, one of Pakistan’s brightest brains left this world for good.

Born in 1995, Arfa Karim got the honor of World’s Youngest Microsoft Certified Professional when she was only 9 years old in 2004. Bill Gates, the Chairman of Microsoft, invited Arfa to visit the Microsoft Headquarters in the USA in the age of 10 only.

Later, in August 2005, Arfa was also honored by the Pakistan Government for the Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology which she received from then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. She was also honored with Salaam Pakistan Youth Award in 2005 which has been set up by Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate Dr Abdul Salam. Moreover, Arfa has won the Presidential Award for Pride of Performance.

Arfa represented her country Pakistan on a variety of international fora. She was also included as the honorable guest by IT Professionals of Dubai for two weeks stay in Dubai. During that trip, Arfa was awarded by a number of medals and awards from various tech societies and computer companies working in Dubai.

Amazingly, she was certified for flying a plane at a flying club in Dubai at the age of 10.

Arfa also participated in Microsoft keynote session in the Tech-Ed Developers Conference held in Barcelona, in 2006. The theme of the conference was “Get ahead of the game” and Arfa was in fact a great example of being ahead of the game.
Source :

If you do not know that who is Arfa Karim,  she became youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at the age of 9 when she cleared certification exams back in 2004. Recently Arfa Karim at 16 is suffering from a serious medical condition after a heart attack on December 28, 2011. Since past two and three months family of Arfa Karim is seeking the help from Government of Pakistan. But  Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, has reportedly approached parents of Arfa Karim to offer her treatment in United States at billionaire’s expense.

We appreciate Bill Gates to show the sympathy and do some action for very talented girl of Pakistan, but on other end we ask our authorities that why they did not help Arfa Karim? Does treatment of Arfa Karim is very expensive? Does Pakistan not have any sufficient resources for the treatment of such a talented girl? These kind of questions are now raising fingers towards the relevant authorities and seek the answers.

We all know the situation of our Government, but other agencies such as IT ministry, NGOs, Social workers and Celebrities also did not respond to the request of the father of Arfa Karim. Our leaders flies to foreign hospitals for routine medical checkups, but no funds for Arfa? Let us clear that if we do not respect or care our assets then they will not be ours!  We have seen a huge rallies and protests in Pakistan for Aafia from different group of authorities, but where they are all for Arfa? Isn’t it clearly describes the purpose of all those protests in past? We simply say that if we do not consider Arfa as Pakistan’s asset then we should not expect her to stay in Pakistan and make this nation better!

Lets be positive and share your concerns, feedback, suggestion in comment section. You can also connect us through RSS, Facebook & Twitter.

Aarifa Kareem, world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), suffered an epileptic attack two weeks back and is now is coma.

A US doctor’s team has been recently engaged by Microsoft to overview her condition.

Details as quoted from Express Tribune report:

Randhawa denied media reports of Microsoft owner Bill Gates contacting him personally, although he confirmed that the US doctors have contacted local doctors to speak on the matter.

The team has expressed its satisfaction on the treatment being done at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Lahore, he said.

Randhawa added that Aarifa’s condition is “the same” and she is still on the ventilator.

Aarifa, 16-year-old, suffered an epileptic attack on December 22 last year which affected her brain and her heart causing her to slip into a coma. She has been on a ventilator since then.

Samples from Aarifa, including scans of her brain were mailed to renowned medical experts in Australia and other countries earlier, while Professor Dr Azhar Hussain, a neurosurgeon at the King Edwards Medical University, Lahore had said that her case was “not hopeless” after reviewing her condition.

Aarifa, born in 1995, was given the title of a Microsoft professional at the age of nine in 2004 and she had visited the company’s headquarters in the US to meet Gates.

 

Arfa Karim Shows Signs of Life

Arfa Karim has Mashallah achieved so much at a very young age and brought fame and pride to Pakistan. This little girl now is on death bed and  I pray to Almighty Allah for her complete recovery and may she fight back and bring more glory and happiness in our lives.

ISLAMABAD — Arifa Karim, Pakistan’s pride who became world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) at 9 in 2004 continues to be in critical condition in death’s icy hands at CMH hospital in Lahore since she suffered cardiac arrest on December 22.

On Friday night, however, Arifa showed signs of life a day after doctors gave up all hope for her survival and suggested switching off her life support saying there was ‘no hope’.

“Arifa started showing some brain activity and twitched her fingers, her father Lt-Col. (Retd) Amjad Karim Randhawa,” told journalists.

The youngest-ever Microsoft certified professional, however, is still in critical condition, he said.

Doctors at the hospital said she was completely normal when she suddenly had an epileptic attack and was shifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Lahore. On December 28 she became unconscious and was put on ventilator. The family has been receiving calls from across the world for Arifa’s health and prayers for her recovery, her father said.

Born in 1995, Arifa became the youngest MCP in the world at the age of 9. The MCP involves building programmes into broader systems for business. Arifa was invited by Bill Gates to visit the Microsoft Headquarters in the USA when she was only 10-year-old. In August 2005, Arifa was also awarded the Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology by then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. She also received the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award again in 2005 set up by Pakistan’s only Nobel laureate Dr Abdul Salam. She is also the recipient of the Presidential Award for Pride of Performance.

Arifa represented Pakistan on various international fora. She was invited by the IT Professionals of Dubai for a stay of two weeks in Dubai. During that trip, Arifa was presented with various medals and awards.

She also flew a plane at a flying club in Dubai at the age of 10, and received the first flight certificate. In November 2006, Arifa was invited by Microsoft to be a part of the keynote session in the Tech-Ed Developers conference held in Barcelona. The theme of the conference was “Get ahead of the game” and Arifa was presented as a true specimen of being ahead of the game. She was the only Pakistani among over 5,000 developers in that conference. – Counrtesy Khaleej Times

Bill Gates Hires Doctors for Arfa Kareem

According to her father Col Karim Microsoft contacted him and offered help. Directed by Bill Gates, the firm has hired doctors who would co-ordinate with the Pakistani doctors through vidoe conference and they may come to Pakistan if needed. Read more.

Technorati Tags: arfa karim, arifa, Bill Gtes hires doctors for arifa, youngest Microsoft Certified Professional

This is gonna be real serious, I am telling you.
So, well..
Lately, I’ve started to believe that I really need a physiologist cause, little by little, I’m turning into a depressed soul. No, seriously. You know why? Because my new school system is trying its best to discourage me to develop my analytical capacities while my parents, probably not intentionally, want to snuff out my sense of curiousity. Both, in school and at home, I’m told to pay due attention to my studies ONLY and stay away from other resources (like tv, internet and even newspaper, GOSH!) cause they apparently waste my ‘precious’ time. On the other hand, the most torturous thing is that the classes at school involve super long and boring lectures with NO class participations. Literally. I’m told to understand and reflect less on what I study and to emphasize more on what I should learn for exams in order to score good marks. This is becoming a very banal thought pattern. Are marks really a depiction of one’s potential and intelligence? In my opinion, marks are nothing but numbers. Geniuses like Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Louis Pasture, Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein were all bad students in school/college yet they did what most of us can never do. This reminds me of the Bollywood movie ’3 Idiots’ which has very clearly conveyed the message that gaining knowledge and understanding is way more productive than ratta lagana methord/memorizing. These great believers of ‘rote learning’ are killing my urge to explore the wonders around me. Fml.

Fukushima Reactor — March 2011, BBC

With the arrival of December, it’s time to check the rear-view mirror to see where we have been in order to have some clue as to where we are going. In the energy realm, 2011 was the Year of the Three Fs: Fukushima, Fracking and Finance.

Japan is used to earthquakes, and the odd tsunami leaves the people there down but never out. When these events caused the back-up generators at the Fukushima nuclear power plant to fail, the result was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl – and by some measures, it was worse.

The disaster has returned to the energy debate a very important fact: nuclear accidents are extremely rare, but they are also extremely costly when they do occur. Reuters has cited a Nikkei report putting the cost at around $257 billion. This is almost certainly not the right number as it is still quite early days, but the order of magnitude is probably on target. By way of comparison, it’s in the same ballpark as the amount in the European Financial Stabilization Facility, three times what China spends on the People’s Liberation Army every year, or the entire debt servicing costs of the US national debt for 2010.

Some countries have decided to give up on nuclear power, notably Germany. Others have put their plans into mothballs until the political situation cools off, e.g., China. There is no getting away from nuclear power, though. There are over 400 operating plants in the world right now, and we are not about to turn them all off. A great many are coming to the end of their planned lifetime – America’s were built to last about 40 years. The Nuclear Energy Institute observes that America’s newest plant, Watts Bar 1 in Tennessee, was built in 1996, and the oldest is in Oyster Creek, New Jersey, with an operating license dating from 1969. It takes years to build a new plant, and most countries that use nuclear power need to start planning new plants or replacement technologies – indeed for some, this work should have happened years ago.

New designs will make nuclear power safer. The new AP-1000 is one of a new generation of reactors with passive safety features that keep working even when the power goes out. Bill Gates and the Chinese state nuclear authority are cooperating on a “traveling wave reactor,” which could run for decades on depleted uranium and produce significantly smaller amounts of nuclear waste than conventional reactors.

But we have to remember that uranium-235 is not easy to clean up, has proliferation issues, and despite what an entire generation thought it knew, is not green. Plutonium reactors have the same problems to an ever greater degree. In the end, just how much risk are we willing to run? That’s a question that has yet to be answered.

And that brings us to the second F, fracking. Short for “hydraulic fracturing,” fracking is a method of unlocking natural gas trapped in rock formations. By pumping water and chemicals into the ground, engineers have discovered a way to breakup the rocks and release the molecules of gas trapped inside – much like you squeeze the water out of a sponge. Natural gas burns cleaner than oil or coal, America has more natgas than it knows what to do with, and it is cheaper than conventional alternatives.

Fracking, however, is suspected of causing damage to the local water supplies. A recent documentary by Josh Fox called Gasland investigated this, and while the industry claims it to be mere propaganda, the scene of a man lighting his tap water on fire does stick in the mind.

Fracking is also has been blamed for minor earthquakes. This has brought the development of natural gas in many countries to a slowdown if not a halt. Lancashire, England, is not noted for earthquakes, but Cuadrilla Resources admitted that its fracking activities have caused quakes – below 3.0 on the Richter scale. These aren’t enough to get a Californian out of bed, but they are noticeable and can effect building foundations even if fracking isn’t hurting the local water supply.

France became the first nation to ban fracking this summer (note that about 80% of its electricity is nuclear in origin), and Australia is in the midst of a debate on it. China is simply moving ahead with fracking. This issue is going to increase in prominence in 2012, and beyond. Again, the question is how muck risk are we willing to take.

The third and final F is finance, and what we have seen in the last while is the use of energy commodities as speculative vehicles, driving up the costs of all forms of energy and distorting the market. Simply put, investors have been buying oil and other energy sources and holding them as a speculative play the same way they traditionally bought stocks and bonds. Demand has been up as a result, and Goldman Sachs put out a research note in March that said for every million barrels of oil speculators (not users of oil like refiners or auto owners) there was an 8-10 cent increase in the price of a barrel. “Using Goldman’s 8- to 10-cent estimates and data on speculators’ positions from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Reuters calculated that as of last Tuesday [7 April 2011], the total speculative premium in U.S. crude oil was between $21.40 and $26.75 a barrel, or about a fifth of last Tuesday’s price.” In other words, since they didn’t like the stock market, and didn’t trust the bond market, speculators tacked a 20% tax onto oil.

Of course, this can be stopped by banning all speculation in oil and other energy products, but that is hardly plausible nor really desirable. Speculators do provide liquidity to markets under certain conditions and are useful to an extent because of that. The heightening of demand by speculators can make marginal sources of energy more economically viable, encouraging long-term alternatives. Nothing would bring solar power, wind, tidal and geothermal on line faster than West Texas Intermediate crude hitting $250 a barrel.

This is an issue that isn’t going away in 2012 – not with the eurozone’s issues still not resolved, not with America’s budget impasse in Washington, not with tens of millions of Chinese, Indians and others wanted to enter their countries’ middle class. Short-term price distortions are likely in a variety of energy subsectors as hedge fund money flows around the world.

In 2012, we are likely to see more of the same. The clash between energy needs and environmental protections will continue; the drive to development in the BRICs and other rising powers will increase demand for energy; the ability of petro-dictatorships to stifle freedom will likely track the price of oil; and the problem of proliferation will follow nuclear energy wherever it goes.

Yet, I don’t think it appropriate to end on a negative note. There is enough energy for all 7 billion of us to live well – if we are smart enough, careful enough, and visionary enough.