HYDERABAD: Sindh University scientist and Project Director of High-Tech Resources Central Laboratories Prof Dr Muhammad Yar Khuhawar has disclosed that <b>groundwater of 80 per cent of Sindh province is saline and not suitable for human consumption and added that whatever packets of sweet water are available may be contaminated with arsenic, one of the toxic substances.</b>
The research scholar recommended that there is a need to recognize the problem and efforts may be made to provide cheap filters for the removal of arsenic before consumption. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, "long-term exposure to arsenic via drinking water causes cancer of the skin, lungs, urinary bladder and kidney, as well as other skin changes such as pigmentation changes and thickening (hyperkeratosis). Dr Khuhawar said the maximum permissible limit in water for human consumption by the WHO is 10 ppb.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>* MINFAL officials regret âunofficialâ ban on wheat movement</i>
ISLAMABAD : <b>The country will fall short of this yearâs wheat production target of 24 million tonnes by 2.2 million tonnes,</b> Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) officials told the Senate Standing Committee on Food, Agriculture, and Livestock on Monday.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Twirp has struggled to reach even 20 million tonnes of wheat output for so long now. Every year Twirp religiously gives a new higher target but always falls far short. Knowing the Twirp's predilection for inflating numbers, I doubt even their 19 mt or 20 mt harvest figures, forget the 24 mt projection.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has an effective command and control structure for its nuclear weapons and they are fully safe and secure, the country's new prime minister said on Thursday.
Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed Muslim nation and is a staunch ally of the United States in its campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban.
An unprecedented wave of suicide bombings by the Islamist militants in recent months, particularly after the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a gun and bomb attack on Dec. 27, raised concerns among its western allies about the safety of its nuclear weapons.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly rejected such concerns as unfounded.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a former Bhutto aide who was sworn in last month, said he was satisfied with the effectiveness of the command and control structure of nuclear programme during his first visit to the Strategic Plans Division, which oversees country's nuclear programme.
He said the nuclear command structures were "well conceived and elaborate" and had "matured".
"It has been ensured that while our nuclear assets are safe and secure, the (nuclear) force development as per needs of Pakistan's minimum deterrence is progressing well," a statement from the prime minister's office quoted Gilani as saying.
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is overseen by the military-led Strategic Plans Division, which works under a National Command Authority (NCA) headed by the president and with the prime minister as its vice chairman.
Key cabinet ministers and the heads of the army, navy and air force are also members of the NCA, which controls all aspects of the country's nuclear programme, including deployment and, if ever necessary, the use of the weapons.
Though U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf still heads the NCA, his role in national affairs has considerably weakened since his allies were defeated by Bhutto's party and other opposition groups in Feb. 18 elections.
However, officials have said that the new government has no plans to change the country's nuclear command structure.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Pakistan in February. After meeting Musharraf and officials overseeing the arsenal, he declared that Pakistan's nuclear weapons were well protected and he saw little chance of them falling into the hands of Islamist militants.
Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in May 1998 just weeks after similar tests by its rival, India.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We have all been on a tour of 8 Club Road, Lahore, humble office of the former chief minister Punjab and now venue for the impromptu press conference of Mr Khosa where he gave stunning details of the opulence and royal style of lounging that went into this surely misnamed "Secretariat." Hugh Hefner's mansion, replete with bunnies popping out of the woodwork, would rate a very poor second. The plush drawing rooms, the sweeping boardrooms dripping with fancy imported fittings, manicured gardens, air-conditioned atriums, a staff of over 800 grovelling slaves, bullet- proof stables of luxury limousines, the insides of which you and I have not even seen, leave alone owned, security cameras, bullet proof -- or should it be shame-proof -- glass windows all around, air-conditioning strung up like buntings and every conceivable luxury most of us can't even begin to dream about -- all that we all know this being the age of meddlesome, intrusive television. If they ever wish to understand what squandering of the public money of an impoverished country means, 8 Club Road has all the depressing answers written on every square inch of its imported Spanish tiles and swathes of foreign-made marble that the Pope would be happy to pray on. No, all that we know and it does not make us any the wiser for it.
The Chief Minister's Secretariat is a monument dedicated to vanity and a mindset that comes into play when those undeserving in every possible manner are catapulted into positions they do not deserve. But this national embarrassment -- the President's and Prime Minister's Houses will surely be no different, as would the grand Governors' Houses -- cannot be morphed into a national mistake.
The spirit that prompted Mian Shahbaz Sharif to announce that this palace would be converted into an IT university is understandable, but it is not logical or rational and does no justice to Mian Sahib's otherwise clear-headed policies of getting the priorities sorted out and then ensuring the job is done right the first time, each time. It would be a colossal mistake to now "convert" this decadent eyesore, bang smack in the middle of GOR, into an IT university where busloads of students would descend trailed by the obsequious canteens, cycle-scooter stand wallahs, the chips-, ice candy- and cola-sellers in hot pursuit. Consider some of the following.
The swift decline of Lahore's civic life into chaos is largely due to unending and ever swifter violations of its zoning laws. Zoning laws are history. The line between what is a residence and what is a business no longer exists. Workshops rise like warts next to homes where generations lived in some tranquillity. Tree-lined avenues and footpaths have long been overrun by concrete horrors, and the felling of thousands of trees in the bargain. Shops sprout everywhere. Gutters overflow, garbage piles build up into mountains that would daunt the late Sir Edmund Hillary and standards of living, already eroded, decline further. The absence of zoning laws and a somnolent administration has led to wide-scale uprooting of all values right across Pakistan. There was the Timber Mafia, now there is the Developers' Mafia. Karachi even has a Tanker Mafia. This urban wasteland is what we are leaving as our legacy for generations yet to be born and if we refuse to care what we do today, we should not be surprised if obliteration is our ultimate destiny. Better nations than ours have fallen by the wayside. Why wouldn't we?
The tract of land between Lahore's Charing Cross -- I refuse to call it anything else -- and the Canal represents this city's most treasured heaven. The Mall -- I refuse to call it anything else -- with its great trees standing guard, is regarded as one of the world's most beautiful boulevards and the areas adjoining it need to be jealously preserved. We have done exactly the opposite, but that does not mean we go on mindlessly mauling and murdering whatever remains. You can raze the entire GOR down and divide it into five- marla plots and plant the most hideous eyesores on it -- that may make a lot of economic sense but you simply don't do everything because it makes economic sense. Lahore is suffering -- and in this it is in the same sorry bracket as the other cities, from choked roads, indiscriminate commercial activity, schools mushrooming in every corner and thousands of commuters trapped at least twice daily by traffic snarls that refuse to get cleared. For an oil-starved nation, I wonder if anyone has ever worked out how much fuel we burn daily on our streets simply idling. Must do wonders for the environment.
Mian Sahib's IT university will be another rusting nail into a termite-eaten coffin of this city's dwindling civic life. The three-storey palace houses the offices of the chief minister --â by the way, he has five : 7 and 8 Club Road, 90 The Mall (Freemason's Hall) and two offices at the Civil Secretariat and the Punjab Assembly. Why one man should need five offices, unless he had mastered the technique of time travel, is hard to understand, but that's the way our public servants serve us. It has offices for his staff, the chief secretary's office, a conference hall, a banquet hall, staff rooms, the great atrium and hissing lifts (bullet-proof?), though it is only two floors up. To accommodate 2,000-3,000 students here would mean a major redesigning and rebuilding exercise. An IT facility has an altogether different set of parameters of space and needs. Already, Rs900 million were spent on 8 Club Road's construction and another 25 million on the do-dads. There is no sense in spending more money to "convert" this whatever-you-want-to-call-it into an IT university.
It would be far better to make this into a public library. The Punjab Public Library is in a shambles, falling apart with no hope of getting revived. Best to hand that over to the Lahore Museum which is woefully short of space and give Lahore a grand library. One less plaza would lift the spirits. Let it be a library of great quality, a source of all knowledge. Call it the People's Library or Lahore Library. Call it anything, it does not matter. But other than that, there is little you can do with this monumental folly. It can hold seminars and conferences and be a showpiece for visitors.
An IT university is an emotional reaction, not a well-considered decision. Get together Lahore's remaining intellectuals and public figures and ask them -- or simply do it yourself because that would be the right thing to do. Educational institutions must be located outside the city, not right in its heart. "Democracy is the best form of revenge," we all heard. "Sensible use of public assets is the best service to the people," should be the guiding principle here. If a library does not mean much to the new leadership, then examine the idea of making this into a high-class hotel, though the Governor's House eminently qualifies to be that. Incidentally, Islamabad the Beautiful as Mickey puts it, has no public library, but it has a four-province "flower" atop a hill -- envisioned by the President, no less. This uninspiring piece of work, created by some unknown architect out of Saudi Arabia, is another national folly. This useless blot put us back by 700 million rupees, or thereabouts. But a library? Banish the thought. It doesn't have flair, and what good do books do anyway?
Mian Shahbaz Sharif has arrived to start where he left off. Let him announce a change of plan on 8 Club Road. It's not late at all and it will endear him to a public that is starved of news that means something good for them.
<i>The writer is a Lahore-based columnist. Email: masoodhasan0@gmail.com</i>
<b>My Comments :</b> Massood Hassan is unaware that in Pakistan <b>I T</b> stands for <b>Islamic Terrorism!</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->KARACHI - With the rising oil prices and surge in the food items imports, <b>the trade deficit of the country is expected to exceed 20 billion dollars in the current financial year,</b> The Nation learnt on Friday.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>NO one less than Pakistan's Commissioner on the Indus Waters Commission has revealed that India plans to put up no less than 40 projects, big and small, on the River Chenab, for the generation of 2100 MW of electricity. With no less than three dam sites in Doda district, India is exploiting the provision in the Indus Waters Treaty for the building of power projects, so long as they are just run-of-the-river. However, these projects will be converted into diversions of water, and Pakistan will be left to invoke the largely toothless mechanism provided in the Treaty, just as it has done over the Baghliar project, though it has not invoked it over Wullar, both of which are barrage projects.</b>
Jamaat Ali Shah, who is an irrigation expert in his own right, made these remarks to the Nazria-e-Pakistan Foundation, which he addressed. As he made painfully clear, Indian claims were strengthened by the Pakistani failure to build major projects on the rivers it had got under the Treaty. Though apparently Mr Shah did not mention it, the most obvious project not to be built, though all the feasibility reports favour it, is the Kalabagh Dam on the Indus.
Mr Shah told of the Indian plan to earn Rs 10.05 billion for the Indian government, while Held Kashmir would get a royalty of only 12.51 percent. Obviously, the Indian government has no compunctions about exploiting Kashmir's natural resources even though there is a UN dispute on the territory. This should also serve as an object lesson to the people of Pakistan to buckle down and get ready to use those resources they have been left with. The refusal to execute projects even though they are ready does not favour any province, though the unity of the federation is commonly made the excuse. It is India that is favoured by this approach, not any Pakistani province. India has always been exploitative in its approach to almost any problem, and this is yet another example. It is time that Pakistan stopped India from going any further on this issue. <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Never mind, who cares whether they have water or wheat, they will eat grass and nuclear waste and fly by missiles. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>In Norway, 'Taj Mahal, Agra' have Paki owners</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Link
21 Apr 2008
OSLO
Everything from cuisines to decor at a restaurant owned by a Pakistani-origin businessman here reminds of the flavours of the sub-continent.
The aroma of 'Dal Makhani', 'Shahi Paneer' and 'Chicken Tikka' with soothing instrumentals of legendary Indian composer S D Burman playing in the background set the right mood for a perfect dinner.
Metallic idols of 'Radha-Krishan' and 'Nataraj' placed near the dining table add the Indian touch. "Many businessmen who are of Pakistani and Lankan-origin own 'Indian' restaurants here. They have even grabbed so many popular Indian names for them," says one of the Indian restaurateurs Baljit Singh of 'Bombay Darbar' restaurant at Carl Johan Gate here.
<b>"They know it is the 'Brand India' which sells here. Not many people would be interested if they were to use names of people and places in their own country</b>," he says, adding, "Taj Mahal, Agra, Gate of India, Little India, Anarkali, and Shalimar are some of the prominent restaurants owned by our regional cousins."
At one point, an eating joint named 'Gandhi' was owned by a Pakistani-origin businessman Ali Hashmi. In 2005, a Punjabi restaurateur bought it from him.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
if you see Restra named on Indian place or Taj and says "Indian and Pakistani cusine", that means owned by Pakistan. It is no man land for lot of sensible, aware, intelligent Indians abroad. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Pakis identity abroad are terrorist or fundoos.
<!--QuoteBegin-Harshvardan+Apr 21 2008, 09:59 PM-->QUOTE(Harshvardan @ Apr 21 2008, 09:59 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Can a list of such paki owned 'Indian' restaurants be made so that such jehadi funding places can be avoided by others?
Most people visiting such restaurants may not know that such places are owned by pakis.
[right][snapback]80802[/snapback][/right]
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Just don't go to restra or take out places where they write "Indian and Pakistan" together or Halal is available.
But there are some Indians who used to call themselves Paki even they had lived majority of life in India and victim of partition. I am not sure what they call themselves after 9/11, I hope Indian origin. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
There was no immediate comment from the government on the freeing of <b>Sufi Muhammad</b>, but the move appeared to be part of efforts to broker peace with Islamic militants in Pakistan's Swat Valley.
Muhammad, the father-in-law of the current militant leader in the region, was jailed in 2002. He was shifted to a hospital in the northwestern city of Peshawar five months ago because of poor health.
Ajmal Khan, the deputy superintendent of Peshawar's main jail, said the government "issued an order for the release of Sufi Mohammad, and I have conveyed this order to him."
Shortly after, Muhammad left the hospital under police escort, accompanied by followers wearing black turbans, said Zafar Khan, a paramedic at the hospital.
<b>Muhammad founded the Tehrik Nifaz-e-Sharia Mohammed â or Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law </b>â which sent thousands of volunteers to fight in Afghanistan against the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban regime in 2001.
<b>Supporters of his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah</b>, took control of much of the Swat Valley last year until Pakistan's army won it back in a bloody military operation
.................<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Harshvardan+Apr 21 2008, 09:59 PM-->QUOTE(Harshvardan @ Apr 21 2008, 09:59 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Can a list of such paki owned 'Indian' restaurants be made so that such jehadi funding places can be avoided by others?
Most people visiting such restaurants may not know that such places are owned by pakis.
[right][snapback]80802[/snapback][/right]
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<b>Harshvardan Ji :</b>
Please advise if you are situated in the UK or USA or elsewhere and I will send you a PM with "How to recognize a Bangladeshi" Restaurant!
Naresh i live in India. But my point is if an list detailing all the Paki and BD owned 'Indian' restaurants is made and circulated among the Indian community it would prevent them from falling prey to these fake indian restaurants. A lot of money could be saved from going into the pockets of these jehadi restaurant owners.
Filter no. 2: name reflecting the towns and places of the gazificated lands
Filter no. 3: These folks generally never have names that:
a) reflect Gods-Godesses (annapurna, gana-gaura, krishna, balaji, etc)
b) dharmic concepts (nirvana, namaskar, namaste, swaagat)
c) sanskrit words (bhavana, tripti, swaad, ananda)
d) indic towns/rivers (udupi, banaras, tirupati, madras, ganga, kaveri)
Filter no. 4: mention of halal
Filter no. 5 but to be used with caution: secular names (angeethi, tawa, sher-e-punjab, bollywood, etc)
Filter no. 6, and a certain one. A paki-bhikhari rstro will NEVER be a vegetarian retro. so just ask for a veg-restro in town and the end of your search for a NON-paki, Non-Bhikhari restro.
All the filters you have suggested is great for detecting paki owned restra but many Indians travel abroad and may not know these details.
Therefore if an detailed list of such restras is maintained and sent through email chains then it would be easy for people to avoid such restra during their stay there.
Harshvardan,
Those who comes from India should visit those places and get desecularlized. What we will say will be labeled as Hindutava etc. After having Paki and Bhukha Nanga desh restra experience one will stick to Indian owned restra. Sir, it experience that count. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> Ask me. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Last week, I gave my secular brother who came from Kenya where he rarely experience Paki or BDies a very nice experience in Los Angeles, at the end he told me they are "Chor", "Maha Chor", I hope that experience will stay with him forever and fun he had at Punjabi Dhaba style restra.
2>If you wanna go to a hindu non veg place, see if you can spot an image/photo of krishna/shiva/lakshmi/guru nanak somewhere near the counter. Big or small. Pakis will never have any image of anything hindu. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> So if no image, avoid.
This may exclude some hindu places that are too "secular" to keep any image, but if they are too "secular", but I would not shed any tears for these hindus being excluded unfairly, u wanna avoid patronizing these psecs anyway!
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> So if no image, avoid.