Khan Academy is a name which is synonymous to education and transformation of its accessibility in the 22nd century. With over 3,000 interactive video training content available, the Khan Academy has transformed and is trying

to make education that is available for everyone. And in this era of digital devices, the the organization is launching its iPad app according to Fast Company and

an official post on the Khan Academy Facebook page.   “Very often, students who thought Continue Reading

Exciting news from Adil Najam, Vice Chancellor of LUMS – for those who don’t know him, Dr. Adil Najam was the Frederick S. Pardee Professor of Global Public Policy at Boston University and served as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), work for which the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore. He left BU (where his office had the most gorgeous view overlooking the Charles River) to head the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Adil Najam
Date: Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 4:07 PM
Subject: A request… Help realize a dream!

Dear Friends

Having now been back in Pakistan more than half a year I write to you today with a special request.

I had planned to add an update but these last months have been so amazingly full as well as absolutely fulfilling that I cannot do justice to them in an email. I will await our next meeting to do so in full detail! At the personal front, the family is well and enjoying Lahore in all its glory. Professionally, the intellectual vibrance and excitement of LUMS keeps me constantly engaged and enthused. To give you just a glimpse of the what keeps me excited:

- The University’s social engagement and purpose is infectious; 40% of our students are on financial aid from LUMS (more than Rs. 250M this year only), and our students continue to break national and international barriers;
- Late last year we started a new undergraduate major in history;
- We followed this up by introducing a new Weekend EMBA option;
- Our new School of Science and Engineering is ready to graduate its first full class and our students are already amassing achievements;
- We just announced our 2012 Commencement Speaker – Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Pakistan’s first Oscar winner!

But today I write to request your help and support for a very specific initiative.

I am proud to announce that The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) has formally launched a campaign to create an Abdus Salam Chair at LUMS to honour one of Pakistan’s first Nobel Award winner, and one of our greatest scholar. Once funded, the Abdus Salam Chair will be a University-wide honor to be held by a Professor of international repute and distinction in any academic discipline who has already made major international contributions to his or her field of study. In establishing this Chair my hope is that we will be able to attract other Abdus Salams back to Pakistan and it will help create a new generations of Abdus Salams right here at LUMS.

Dr. Abdus Salam was the first Pakistani to receive the Nobel Award (in Physics) and he is widely considered to be not only one of the great physicists of the last century but also a builder of research institutions – including the establishment of the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, and also the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1979, for his theoretical unification of the two fundamental forces of nature. A year before his Nobel Prize, he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London.

I am happy to say that we have already been receiving general and wide-spread support and have been able to raise about half the Rs. 85,000,000 goal for the Abdus Salam Chair. I would be delighted if we could announce having reached the full goal by June when we have our 24th Annual Convocation Ceremony. Details of the Abdus Salam Chair fundraising campaign here.

I am writing to you in the hope that you will be able to assist me and LUMS in this cause. You can do so in at least two ways:

1. For those of you who are in a position to do so, please contribute to the Abdus Salam Chair in whatever amount you can. It is as important to get a large number of individuals donating as it is to reach the required amount. Details on how to donate are available here (including how to give online via credit card, or give in USA and Canada with tax benefits).

2. Please spread the word to others in your circles of influence about this initiative and encourage them to contribute if they can. We want to not only reach our goal but to have as many people contribute to reaching that goal as possible.

I do hope that you will be able to join me in this good cause and contribute in whatever way you can. I am convinced that this will make a real difference in many deep and lasting ways.

Regards,

Adil Najam
Vice Chancellor, LUMS

When it came down to choosing between the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo, I chose the latter. I can probably list numerous reasons for my decision but the most important one was the co-op program that Waterloo offers. Waterloo is renowned for its co-op program, not only in Canada, but all over the world. At the University of Waterloo, co-op is an essential part of the engineering degree. Within the co-op program, students are given the option of entering either a four month stream or an eight month stream. In a four month stream a student has to go on to a work-term after the completion of four months of study. In the 8-month stream the student is required to go on a work-term after 8 months of study.

Besides its brilliant co-op program, Waterloo is also regarded as one of the world’s best Engineering and Math Universities. Furthermore, in addition to its academics, Waterloo has a diverse student population. If you take a walk around the campus you can see people from all parts of the world. Different student associations have been set up to organize different events throughout the term. One such association is the Pakistani Students Association (PSA). PSA organizes different events throughout the term to celebrate different Pakistani events and is a source of entertainment for all the Pakistani students at Waterloo. The Muslim students association is an active association for the Muslim student population on and off campus. Friday prayers are held on campus every week to facilitate students. Additionally, since Waterloo has a large Muslim population there are lot of Halal food options available for the students.

At first I was afraid that I would struggle to adjust to my new surroundings but that wasn’t the case. I came to Waterloo in the month of September and attended my frosh week, commonly called the orientation week. It was probably the best time of my life as I came across a lot of new people and learned a lot about Canadian culture.

September also marked the start of the Holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan was a blessing for me as I got to go to all the free aftaris at the Waterloo mosque! The Waterloo mosque is easily accessible via the GRT-bus route and is a 15 minute walk from the Student life Centre. The Watcard is a student ID card for all the waterloo students. It acts as a both a debit card and a GRT bus pass. The GRT bus goes as far as  Cambridge, a Canadian city, and also has routes to Kitchener.

Waterloo has a strict policy that forbids plagiarism and ensures that a high level of academic integrity is maintained. Engineering is probably the toughest degree out there. Engineers have 42 hours of lectures every week accompanied with weekly assignments. This means the course load is tremendous, but that is to be expected when pursuing an engineering degree.

I lived off-campus for my first term, but only a 5 minute walk from the university campus. I do admit that there are some draw backs to living off-campus the first term. Firstly, you miss out on a lot of the fun of living on-campus since a lot of events take place every week. Secondly, you have to cook your own food!  However, on the brighter side, you save money while living off-campus as the meal plans on-campus are quite expensive. Furthermore, living off campus allows you to focus a lot more on your studies.

Having completed my first year, I can safely say that choosing University of Waterloo for my undergraduate studies is the best decision I have ever made.  I hope my input is helpful to you all and I wish you the best of luck for your future!

Source: Faizan Rasool

In Economics there is simple demand and supply rule that applies in most situations. When there is a demand, there will be supply. Increased demand will increase cost and supply will rise up to meet it. When the supply increases more than demand, then demand will reduce which will drive the price down. The rule is quite simple to understand and can be applied to most real-life situations as well with some alteration.

But what if there is plenty of demand and supply but quality is missing? What if the one with the need have no idea of the quality, the one supplying also has no idea of quality and any other middleperson involved is also devoid of idea about quality? This is a situation regarding Law & Order in Pakistan. The nation is not lawless, the constitution is there and Pakistan Penal Code covers almost everything. Moreover, there seems to be an endless supply of lawyers in the country. One only has to login on Youtube and see Lawyers Movement videos that shook the country a few years back. There is a definite demand of lawyers in the country or else not so many would be there in the first place and more graduating every year.

Does that mean Law Education is not a viable career option?

If you try to answer this question from Economics point of view then yes, it may not be a viable career option. Too much supply of lawyers will bring down the price (earnings from legal fees) but at the same time, Pakistan being Pakistan, a lot can go wrong and demand for lawyers to get their clients out of tight spots will always be there. Sometimes it seems like the situation is lawless so that lawyers could survive and earn a living. But don’t try to answer this question from Economics or Business point of view. Infact, before answering it ask a different question from you yourself.

Can you be a good lawyer? If yes, then it is best for you to not choose law. Simple reason is that there are too many ‘good’ lawyers that have so far failed to do any good. When that happens, they turn to teaching and what good they will impart is anyone’s guess.

If your answer is no then ask yourself another question. Can you be an excellent lawyer? If your answer is yes, you might be on to something. Unlike Business studies, Law Education is a professional education. Lawyers are doctors of society and it is their responsibility to keep society clean, healthy and devoid of any cancerous growth. You need to be absolutely sure about your love for Law before choosing to become a lawyer as it is a demanding field and in a relatively lawless society like Pakistan, survival is an added risk.

If you decide to study law, it is not always the book you need to memorize or case to argue. It is also about foresight, gut instincts and common sense. When you read judgments given by highly competent judges on both sensitive as well as routine cases, you will come across incredible wisdom that may even surprise the smartest of people. Pakistan has produced a good crop of judges and lawyers in the past and their cases are used as references and study guides in Law Schools in UK. Our own schools, on the other hand, ignore their great services and try to force memorize books to students instead. What they fail to teach is that law is not just law but a whole philosophy. Each case sets a precedence that is used as a guide to solve future cases of similar nature. Moreover these cases are not just referred in your own country but by legal institutions in other countries as well. Each case has the potential for great impact on individual’s life as well as society’s future.

What we need are quality lawyers that understand what law truly is and how much impact they can make on the society. Most of our lawyers are still unable to explain how a country like UK can function without a constitution while Pakistan even with a constitution is without proper justice system. Our lawyers are still unable to decide what is supreme, the constitution or the parliament? Some are even not sure if reopening of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s murder trial case was a good idea. More than that, so many of the lawyers also support lawlessness. You only need to see Salman Taseer’s murderer’s pictures where lawyers are jubilantly throwing rose petals at him. It clearly shows something is not right in the system and mediocrity has brought it to standstill.

In such scenario there is a high demand for quality to not just bring awareness to both professionals and masses but also create a positive impact on the system. The more qualified lawyers will join the ranks, the better will be law and order situation of the country and the less confusing will be our lawyers in both understanding the law themselves and explaining it to others.

It is high time for students to get educated in law, not just from any place but from institutions that can impart real education, through well qualified faculty and bring order to the confusing state of affairs in this country.

Filed under: Education Tagged: Law Education in Pakistan, Pakistani Education

Amid resistance, questions on transparency, confusions and other views; PTA’s Chairman Dr. Yaseen in his recent interview have yet again expressed that 3G Spectrum Auction in Pakistan will take place next month.

The brief of Dr. Yaseen’s interview as reported by Mobile Business Briefing can be read below. Some key points have been underlined.

Pakistan is to hold 3G auctions next month and is aiming to attract 15 million mobile broadband users within the first year, the country’s regulator has told Mobile World Daily in an exclusive interview.

Dr Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), said that three blocks of spectrum in the 1900/2100MHz band and another at 800MHz are to be sold off, with licences expected to be awarded to at least three operators. Both new and existing market players are invited to bid and Yaseen said the country’s regulatory framework was geared up to facilitate foreign investment.

Bids will start at US$210 million for the 1900/2100MHz spectrum and US$155 million for the 800MHz licence. In the first rollout phase, existing operators will need to launch services in four Provincial Capitals and the Federal Capital within six months after being allocated, while new players will be given a year.

Pakistan is the world’s tenth largest mobile market with around 113 mobile subscribers at year-end 2011 – but has a market penetration of just 66.5 percent.

“Keeping in view the situation for fixed line broadband in the country [under 1 percent], we expect that during first year of its introduction 3G mobile broadband services will attract approximately 15 million subscribers with a steady growth afterwards,” said Dr Yaseen. He added that the Pakistan government was looking at the mobile sector as a “major contributor” to the country’s economy. “The telecom sector contributes about 1.5 percent in the national GDP on annual basis [and] is providing direct and indirect employment opportunities to more than 1.5 million individuals. [The] government is putting all emphasis on cellular broadband proliferation for further economic growth.”

Dr Yaseen said that 3G will enable value-added services such as health, education, money and entertainment. “The majority of the population consists youth who are eager and excited to enjoy mobile entertainment and Internet service on the move,” he said.

It is worthy to note here PTA has recently sought for EOIs from consultancy firm of international repute to offer services for the auction of 3G license which is due for submission on March 26, that is three-days before the Spectrum Auction date. Also some recommendations of the Standing Comittee on IT are yet to be considered.

via MBB

Every Pakistani student wanted to know about the ranking of their university, but there were not any authentic list given by any authorize authority like HEC (Old University Grant Commission) in past. But today first time in the history HEC has revealed the list of Top 10 Universities of Pakistan. This ranking has been given [...]

Related posts:

1. List of Universities in Pakistan
2. HEC Recognized Universities and Degree Awarding Institutions
3. HEC University Rankings
4. NUST & UET Lahore is now in World Top 300 Universities
5. Violence in Universities of Pakistan

Since the Internet experienced an explosion of growth near the turn of the century, it’s had a revolutionized the way that we do a number of things. No single area of our lives may have been as impacted by the Internet as education. Even with the Internet still in its relative infancy, it’s already changed [...]

Related posts:

1. Declining education – A matter of demolishing bridges
2. Education: Not a priority for the Pakistan government?
3. Pakistani College Students Maintaining Their Culture in the United States
4. HTC Flyer, Dell Streak & Samsung Galaxy Tab Now with wi-tribe Internet Packages
5. Broadband Internet must for Professional Journalists

By: Shaukat Masood Zafar Food is a basic human need and it’s the government who has to ensure a dependable food security system for the nation. For a country like Pakistan, this is crucial, since now a large part of the income of the population has to be spent to procure food. High grain prices [...]

Related posts:

1. Wastelands development – A best way to overcome food crisis
2. Defending Food Security requires instant reinventing of ZTBL
3. Pakistan Budget 2011-12: An Overview
4. Connivance of Plutocrats of PPP & PML(N) is increasing Wheat Prices in Pakistan
5. Afghanistan a threat to Pakistan’s Security

Here comes the real part of the TCF Rahbar Program Hero Speaker Session. For details till here, check out my previous post http://kulsoom.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/tcf-rahbar-program/

So The kids of all sorts started coming in to listen to the HERO speaker of the day. Having no idea who they would get to talk to, who they would hear from, what would they learn and how is it going to benefit them, they blindly trusted their mentors and stepped in the hall which was neatly set up for the special HERO speaker’s session.

There were about 80 kids and 20 mentors in the room. The session began with Salman’s briefing to the kids. This entire time I was just doing my breathing exercise, calming down my nerves and roaming here and there to just bring back all the memories that I had to share with these kids. As soon as I was asked to come forward and begin talking, my pounding heart just made me feel the adrenaline rush inside me and boom I started off with full on energy. All eyes on me. All ears waiting to listen to the HEROIC story of my life.

Began with sharing how old I am. Took myself back to my childhood when I was perhaps a nobody to this entire world. Neither my family, nor my extended family. Told them how much i cried when i saw my father in so much stress and ultimately leaving the family forever when I was just 8. My heart just couldn’t control and just thinking about him made my eyes all teary and my voice shaky. My journey from being a shy,low-confident, studious chishmish kid to the modern, liberal, confident, literate person in few years time was supposed to be covered in 20 minutes or so. I shared with them the times when saving 100 rupees a month meant so much for me. I shared how I started travelling in buses since I was 10 years old and I led a life just like majority of our population does. I shared how difficult was it for me to finance my own studies when GOD helped me in the scholarship way and He covered it all up for me, lessening the biggest burden from my head. I shared how I always took challenges positively, took responsibility of family and friends to never let them down and that gesture n attitude took me to the place where I stand today. I shared how much a smile can create a difference in someone’s life and you being a reason for it would make people fall in love with you at first sight. I shared my life with them which I never did before in a public speaking session.

All applauded me for I don’t know what I said. I was their HERO for that day. Their role model. Someone who they could look up to when they wanted to get inspiration. Someone to think about during the times when life just offers failures and nothing else. I was that motivation for them and I hope i did justice to that

I have no words to describe the feeling of connecting myself with those kids from Saiful goth who have a long way to go in their lives. I just pray the best for them and I shall keep enlightening kids like them all around to have a better approach towards life.

Spread the love! The world needs it.

Our Sindhi nationalists are simply not aware of the world trends. They have not idea how powerful and strong the social media has become in today’s world!

In contrast, the Baloch political activists are now quite alert and actively use it to propagate their message to the world through the use of the social media — blogs, social networks, microblogs, etc.

The proof that the world hears them speak is that BBC has now covered the political activists’efforts on Twitter and blogs. According to the reports, in the backdrop of the biased and selective (under-)reporting of the mainstream Pakistani media, it’s the blogs and micro-blogs (Twitter) which have been the source of information for the world on the brutality of the Pakistani state in Balochistan, that is, their kill-and-dump policy against the Baloch nationalists and freedom fighters.

بلوچستان کی حقیقت کون بتائے گا

امریکہ میں بلوچستان پر بحث، پاکستان کو تشویش

Twitter is quite a powerful tool in online activism right now- (who can forget the Arab Spring?) Thanks to Twitter that it’s now possible to ping United Nations (@UN), Barack Obama (@BarackObama), The White House (@whitehouse), Amnesty International (@amnesty), Human Rights Watch (@hrw) — you name it! They are the ones influencing the world affairs.. and they should be contacted frequently.

Or you can also ping Pentagon Press Secretary at @PentagonPresSec. You can even directly pass your comments to Congressman Brad Sherman (@BradSherman), who recently spoke in favor of the US speaking to the Sindhi and Baloch nations (Watch the video).

Although there are some Sindhi nationalists’accounts on Twitter (Like @jssfjsmm, @jssfmediacell, @JssfJsqm, Raja Dahir, Sindhi Xafar but their presence is not quite frequent; whereas, Twitter means continuous pinging the world about your and your issues.

Our Baloch activists have continuously been asking the Sindhi nationalists to be awake and alert on Twitter like them. And I receive tweets like the following frequently:

@AamirRaz Be known, we support you.

—
TheBaloch (@BalaachMarri) January 15, 2012

Amid military operations and sufferings, Baloch pay rich tribute to Saeen GM Syed, icon of Sindhudesh's independence identity.

—
TheBaloch (@BalaachMarri) January 16, 2012

@AamirRaz Bro our sindhi Brothers must be active like their Baloch brothers in their struggle for freedom in Balochistan, love&success 4us

—
Archen Baloch (@ArchenBaloch) February 10, 2012

@BradSherman is aiming 2 promote both d causes of Sindh, Balochistan. @AamirRaz wud b happy 2 hear that. There's a bipartisan support 2 B&S

—
Ratan (@Rattan888) February 08, 2012

@AamirRaz Adda Sindhi dostan kay twitter join karan laye motivate karo. @RajaDahir

—
فیض بلوچ (@FaizBaluch) January 10, 2012

@AamirRaz Ji koshish karo.Twitter asan laye naimat ka'n wadeek aye. @RajaDahir

—
فیض بلوچ (@FaizBaluch) January 10, 2012

However, this blog is not about teaching you how to use Twitter.. rather, it’s more for forcing you to start using it for your sociopolitical activism. It’s just to motivate the Sindhi nationalists to start using the power of the social media as an effective tool for lobbying in this age and time.

Keep tweeting — the world is listening!

[You can follow me on Twitter at @AamirRaz.]

Tagged: Arab Spring, Facebook, Nationalism, Social Activism, Twitter