Achievement all the way

I was reading through the story titled Corporate titan: After 27 years at Engro, Asad Umar calls it a day and whilst what he will do next has already been revealed, his achievements as the CEO of Engro certainly demand respect.

His wealth mentioned in the article puts him in no need of any further financial rewards (at least literally). His reputation is amongst the cleanest of CEOs in the industry and the success he achieved in Engro is exceptional by all means. What then is the motivation behind the move from such an illustrious career towards a political one? It is probably the fact that he "felt" it was time to move ... to make a greater impact in Pakistan than he already had.

I came across a funny comment once regarding PTI that "if someone has joined PTI, then he must have had belonged to some other party earlier". The perception of PTI is "old school, fool again" amongst some of the literates of our populace. What they fail to see is that without peoples' support PTI, or for that matter, any party is nothing but dust.

Asad Umar's move to PTI is another signal for the people in power that there is a group of people who are slowly growing in strength and rising. No, they may not win the next elections and may not make an impact for the next five years but it will continue to play a role in Pakistani politics. In my opinion and that too a neutral one, we are definitely in for some interesting politics in the coming months as Imran Khan rejuvenates his strategy and inducts key individuals to his party. Because, PTI is slowly turning out to be "Party of Talented Individuals".

A people of blood

As bizarre accounts of man's brutality come pouring in, so does it bring the grief with it that one feels for the loss of innocent lives. On paper Gilgit is embossed in curfew but few know that extremist factions of Islam...paganism...have begun the free massacre of Shia Muslims at their own will and desire despite army curfews.

Having read through what one eye witness had to say, I could not imagine what had gotten into/out the minds of the killers who have by now tried a number of brutal ways to exterminate whom they have so proudly pronounced as 'kaafirs (infidels)'. Declaring themselves as champions of Islam, they are doing in the 21st century what is definitely against both the teachings of Islam and human dignity. To kill a human without justified cause is a grave sin in Islam and that too on a religious belief or ideology is sheer idiocy and hypocrisy.

Though the account could not be verified independently, upon researching through contacts, I came to know of atrocities so brutal being committed by non-state actors that I am tearful at the moment and do not wish to elaborate them here (like our media fondly loves to).

Nothing can be as painful and grieving as what Imam Hussain (A.S.) and His companions suffered on 10th Muharram 61 AH and afterwards and throughout history, various dynasties have done their best to kill the followers of the Prophet's (S.A.W.W.) own kin. But what is happening in Gilgit and Skardu is a big slap on a nation that claims to be fighting against terror.

I request each one of you who reads this to continue spreading it because the media has turned a cold shoulder to this minority of Pakistan that has suffered at the hands of various rulers throughout the last 1400 years.  Sitting on our cozy sofas on speedy machines thousands of miles away from the scene of gross injustice does not relieve us of our responsibility to do whatever we can to condemn the grave injustice. Because if it this does not wrench our hearts, then God knows what will.

The Purfect Guy

Well done Amal, your Sunday piece "The Perfect Guy" was nicely written! And it was one of the few ones coming from the female gender. There are a few things, however, that I would like to add:

1. Girls seem to be pretty quick when it comes to getting judgmental. Allow some time before anything can be said about the personality of a guy.

2. The Perfect Guy is a myth. Men are from Mars, Women from Saturn :)
Both men and women have imperfections but what improves a relationship is the ability to move on with mutual respect without repeating past mistakes.  

the new stalker - Facebook!

Yup, your biggest stalker is not on Facebook, but its Facebook itself! And that's not according to a new research but an observation screenshotted above. Status updates, photos, videos have always been the crux of Facebookers. The introduction of the "Place" subsequently replaced by location tracking added the geographical aspect to social updates on FB. The introduction of the "Timeline" feature signaled that FB was using a detail-oriented approach with respect to the lives of its consumers. The latest straw in the hat is now the "life event" option that appears in the status update tab list. It seems that the existing updates and data uploaded by FB users needs categorization so that some sense can be extracted from it.

As is visible in the above screenshot, a number of life events can be entered in. Even existing posts/data can be linked to an "event". The purpose is to arrange everything in a linear time axis (because that's the best way to learn about someone). Sounds like there's a new stalker in town and he's going to make you arrange all your information neatly!

An Offer You Can't Refuse

The following article should appear in management books by the end of this year: http://www.fastcompany.com/1826672/an-offer-you-cant-refuse-leadership-lessons-from-the-godfather

Firefox Aurora

Firefox Aurora seems to be the latest thing in the browsers' tinsel town. Sleek, still in its beta version and extremely fast, this browser combines the sleekness and speed of Chrome and allows Firefoxers to experience the best of Google and Mozilla's innovations. 

One of the advantages of this browser is that it does not overwrite an existing Firefox installation and in its own is a separate browser that borrows heavily from Mozilla. It imports all bookmarks and history just like any other browser. The experience of using this one is however very good and deserves a +10 any day. The UI is similar to that of Chrome but at the same time it combines the extendability of Firefox which allows already used gadgets and add-ons to be automatically imported to Aurora. This is one hell of a browser for any tech-savvy person.

Religious Fanaticism

This article highlights the plight of minorities in Pakistan: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/03/05/city/karachi/rinkle-chose-or-forced-to-be-faryal/

Economic, political, ethnic or social - a minority is a minority and vulnerable to the injustices that human extremes can think of. The case of Rinkle is very humiliating to the flag of Islam. There is no law, decree, stipulation, ayat (verse) in the Holy Quran that calls for the action that the influential baba ordered his disciples to undertake. Pretty sad that these people on the outside are associated with Islam because in reality they have nothing to do with Islam and Islam has got nothing to do with them. Though the report, the original story and the circumstances are all debatable, the incident in itself is not surprising. Rural villages in Sindh and Punjab and for that matter anywhere in the world have instances where people tend to engage in fanaticism when it comes to petty issues. Such cases often do not see the light of the day and in some cases, the media is only exploiting the victims to get themselves a story. Not passing judgments here but just have a feeling that as long as there is illiteracy on the outskirts of our population, such incidents will continue to give a negative to Pakistan and Islam.