There are several indigenous sports in Pakistan (and India) which many of us have played in our past lives but they don’t get much coverage in written media. e.g. gilli danda, kanchay, lattu bazi, patang bazi, gali cricket, kabaddi etc. One such very popular game is called langRi paala.

Today I have taken a trip down the memory lane and tried to recall my golden days of being a langRi paala champion in school. I then tried to google the rules of langRi paala and not surprisingly nothing came up. This lit a bulb in me and this article is an attempt to produce a first-of-its-kind document to list official rules and regulations for the great game of langri paala.

Before we go any further here is a sketch of a langRi paala match. Since there is absolute dearth of printed and photo material on this sport, hence this hand drawn sketch by me. Therefore paas karo warna bardaasht karo.

The name of the game is langRi paala.

The word langRi means a disabled leg. Note again that it means only one disabled leg.

The word paala means the playing arena or playing court.

While the word langRi sounds like a word straight out of Ferozsons’ Feroz-ul-lughaat Urdu jadeed, I am not sure about the origins of paala. I went to a majority Gujrati speaking school where all kind of paala games were played e.g. seeRhi paala (played on stadium seats and stadium aisles), langRi paala, stage paala etc so I am just making a guess that it could be a Gujrati word. I’ll take our readers comments for citation here and make corrections, as necessary.

The Spirit of the Game:

There are two teams in a game.

Playing area is confined by an agreed upon rectangular area called paala.

A toss of a coin decides which team will ‘bat’ first and which team will ‘field’ first.

The terms ‘batting’ and ‘fielding’ are borrowed from the universal game of cricket which is understood even by non living things in South Asia, hence its effect on langRi paala terminologies should be understandable.

The fielding team sends in a player hopping on one leg.

The hopper guy’s job is to either tag the players of batting team or push them out of the paala (playing area) which renders them Out. Once all the ‘batting’ players have been declared Out the ‘fielding’ team comes in to bat and the process repeats.

The job of the ‘batting’ team is to dodge the hopper guy until he puts his second leg down on the ground (or both legs go in the air – which also happens sometimes.) When this happens the hopper guy is declared ‘Over and Out’ and the fielding team sends in a new hopper.

If the fielding team runs out of all hoppers then it is called a ‘Follow On’ (another term borrowed from cricket.) In such case all the batting players that were already ‘Out’ become alive again and batting team gets another ‘innings’ of dodging the hoppers. The fielding team which is pretty tired by now is a picture of Agha’s sher:

nasheeli nigaheN, qadam luRkhaRaaye

woh aaye woh aaye woh aaye woh aaye

Some Universal Rules:

*) There is no limit to the number of players in a team. It can be a one-on-one game or tens of people can be in a team.

*) There is no limit to the size and shape of ‘paala’ (playing area.) It is usually a rectangle drawn in sand by somebody’s foot and the area of a ‘paala’ depends on teams’ stamina and the number of players in a team.

*) As the number of players increase the size of paala also increases proportionally.

*) A ‘langRi paala’ tournament can also be held among three or more teams.

*) There is no time limit to this game. One can play it to their heart’s content or should I say as long as they can continue to hop on one leg.

The Finer Aspects of langRi paala:

*) This game is usally played in schools which are too strict on letting their students bring cricket bats, soccer balls, frisbees etc to school. In such cases the ‘empty handed’ students have no other choice but to recite following ‘sher’ and play langRi paala .

hum bhee tasleem ki khoo DaaleN ge

be-niazi teri aadat hee sahi

I also belonged to one such strict school therefore I excelled in langRi paala much before making to schools’ cricket team.

*) In one version of the game, which is played during school recess the team who gets to ‘bat’ all through the recess time usually shouts ‘muffat ki batting’ in the end and run to their classes.

Note: There is a fine difference between the correct pronunciation of ‘muft ki batting’ and the joyful taunt of ‘muffat ki batting’. The word ‘muffat’ means ‘muft(free)+joy’ and it is used when you get something for free and opposition doesn’t get it.

*) langRi paala is as much a ‘mind’ game as it is physical. One has to get into the skin of opposition by taunts to get them to make mistakes e.g. the batting team may taunt the hopper on one leg by shouting

“chup chup khaRay ho zaroor koi baat hai”

and the hopper may reply this before leaping for the final tagging glory:

“pehli mulaqaat hai ji pehli mulaqat hai”

and then shapaaaka!!! – which is usually the sound effect of a harsh tagging on the back of a batting guy.

The hand sketch to the right shows an illustration of a tagged out batsman.

*) As I mentioned earlier I played most of my langRi paala with Gujrati speaking friends so some taunts went in the form of ‘filmi’ dialogues e.g. the hopper would say in English/Gujrati

“I love you..pyar karo cho”

and the batting side would reply in same poetic wazan as

“ab ke pakaR ke bataa tu.”

*) I want to end this post on this Ibn-e-Insha sher which is Urdu-Punjabi mix and most likely was written for langRi paala. It goes like this:

Everyone needs traveling for leisure or pleasure. Travelling has become a lifestyle and above all wish to “be there and do that.” I have been travelling whenever I could. When it comes to vacation, every time I need best and new places to go. As more and more people are travelling, and getting what you want may become difficult sometime or you don’t know and miss so much. Which is why I keep looking for information? Given my interest, I was looking for Chicago nightclubs and cultural activities in different American cities when I came upon Party Registry – information and resource rich site where you can find local clubs, nightclubs, restaurants, lounges and other interesting places to keep you engaged when in the city. All those who are thinking of visiting United States must start at Party Registry. Better still, you download Party Registry Application and see what places are around you on the go. They have most of nightclubs including Las Vegas nightclub, restaurants and best places to go in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Miami or Boston all over the United States.

Have a look at Party Registry and you are up to date with the latest nightlife and nightclub news and gossip, club music news, and interviews on your favorite dance club DJs. It will help you decide what to see and what to avoid, plan ahead and utilize your time in the best ways that you like.

Site is neatly laid out and uncluttered. It is easy to find what you may be looking for. Imagery is good and gives you the feeler of the place you happen to be browsing. Also have a look at events (local DJ parties, parties at clubs or other events), What’s Happening Now and best of all Hotlist. What else, I should be planning to have good time at Boston night clubs there instead of writing this.

What is happening is Pakistan is very serious and every sane Pakistani is well serious; on going wave of terrorism, Osama bin Laden’s undetected stay in Pakistan, American operation and more than that trying to capitalize the situation to gain maximum from it. What surprised me most is the mocking attitude of some of the anchormen on some of the TV channels.

Worst was watching Capital Talk on Geo TV today, one could see Hamid Mir trying to unearth what has happened during in camera session of the parliament yesterday. I got the impression that he knew most of the questions and some of the answers and was visibly happy about it. And he was trying to spoon fee the gust in the talk show. Thanks that the guest showed some restrains.

The way Hamid Mir was using words ‘DG ISI has surrendered’ gave a clear impression that the Anchorman has no considerations for what is being discussed and what are the stakes. Let me hasten to add that I am not against independent media nor am I defending any person, agency or organization  here. Every one should be accountable for their own doings.

What I want to point out is that media people must show some maturity while discussing serious matters relating nation security and act responsibly. After all they too are Pakistanis. Or are a few of them promoting someone else’s interests?

Update: Thanks to Syed Ali Baqar for pointing out Zubeida Mustafa's Television and mental health - a useful read.

Canada is very rich travel destination, both geographically and figuratively. Travel attractions – historic, heritage, natural, adventurous, ecological — are richly distributed on this land from Alberta to Quebec and everywhere in between. Travelers, site seers, explorers, trekkers, and holiday makers have been coming here from all over since the time when there was no travel services to manage and no Internet to make advance reservations. Given the convenience and amount of information available, planning holiday trips online is on the rise in networked countries of the world. Over time, travel industry has grown as a function of prosperity, mostly, and travel services have made it easier to see more with lesser hassle. Internet also has brought seismic changes in the ways people travel.

My own philosophy of travel is ‘to explore, to feel, to learn, to get away from humdrum of the fast lane life, and to meet people and experience their culture based on advance information. As holidays to Canada has always been on my wish list, I was looking for information about Hotels in Toronto when I came upon Canadian Sky – a leading travel company that offers personalized services and the best holiday experience in Canada and North America. The information and resource rich site is esthetically laid out and browsing through helps you make informed holiday plan.

Given my own interest in Cruising Holidays in Alberta, I explored Alaska cruise and was amazed to learn what all it offers and how. You can experience the rocky mountain, magnificent scenery and in the way you explore Vancouver and Seattle cities and then brand new Norwegian Pearl cruise to Alaska. The choices are simply too many and very enriching. 

Those who are interested in traveling to Canada must start their travel planning at Canadian Sky and lets them take care of most of things you need while you look forward to having good time in Canada.

When so much is happening around, people have already forgotten (or have they got used to living without electricity?) about continuous curse of load shedding. Thanks to Sabbir Nazir for drawing this. 

Blog are for of sharing thoughts and opinions and also for making some money on the sideline. Blogger has released a new gadget that allows your readers to directly contribute to your blog.

The gadget can be added to any part of your page, but they have formatted it to fit best in the sidebar. Setup is only five simple steps and should only take a few minutes of your time; just follow the steps to add a virtual tip jar to your blog. 

I have a sister living in California USA. She is a housewife and an American National. I simply asked her if she could use her credit card to open a PayPal account for me using her Local Bank. Fortunately she was more than happy to help me out and it took her less than a week to fill all the legal forms and create an Online PayPal account. This whole process cost her less than $20 Dollars. Just after five days I was able to log into my PayPal account using my own Username and Password.

Now whenever I have to withdraw some cash out of my account, I simply call my sis and she being the original owner of my account withdraws the amount using her Local Bank and credit card. Within 3 days I receive the amount at home through Western Union Cash Out.

This method works fine for me and is a simple practical way of using PayPal the other way Round. As simple as that! =)

What you say on this?  

No matter what your age, collecting model cars can become an exciting hobby, but also a good investment as many toy cars increase value over time as they are collectible items. This hobby has been around almost as long as the automobile, and yet, it is still a passion of many!

Scaled models are manufactured in a range of scales such as 1:12, 1:18, 1:24, 1:32, 1:43, 1:64 and others. Cars that are especially attractive are those with a real eye to detail. Doors, hoods, trunks and fuel caps that open, ashtrays that slide out and glove compartments that work are some of the realized features. Some models of cars even have hanging ignition keys and removable hood pins to open the hood. Most have working car steering and suspension with real materials used in the interiors.

The best quality I enjoy about myself is my Passion for Cars. I love every single part about these street machines. I love the sound, speed and especially the looks of these rolling masterpieces. The inspiration of cars will never escape out of my mind. This quality about me will never change or alter in any way. I dream them, I feel them and I think about them all the free time I have. You would find Cars Magazines, Cars Brochures on my Shelves and Cars Posters on walls of my room.

Diecast car collection is my childhood passion and so far I have over 4000 car in my collection'. As I have been engaged with cars since childhood, there are so many pleasant memories with me such as contribution of my great father and mother, especially I miss my lovely mother very much, said good-bye to me (forever) after 2 months of my marriage. She was very caring and always promoted and appreciated my passion. She also educated me how to care things that is why I have my 30 years old toy cars with me today.

I really appreciate my parents and their efforts to promote my passion. They never refused whenever I asked for a Toy Car!

My favorite car is 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, which appeared in the Hollywood TV Series “Knight Rider”. This car used as K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand) in the Series.

It is my dream to drive world’s fastest sports car Bugatti Veyron. German inspection officials recorded an average top speed of the original version of 408.47 km/h (253.81 mph) during test sessions on the Ehra-Lessien test track on 19 April 2005. This top speed was verified by James May on Top Gear.

I would like to clear one thing here that it was much difficult to collect a huge number of die cast cars in Pakistan because of their non-availability.

Every new car model was very much important for me and it slept with me under my pillow till another one replaced it. Eid-ul-Fitr, the day full of excitement for me at each year because car models were presented to me as Eid gifts from my parents. Similarly, I always preferred to purchase car models from Eidy.

I have car models of yesteryears too, highlighting my collection as category of “Antique Cars”. I have also models of NASCAR, London Bus, London Taxi, American School Bus and Hollywood Movies Cars like (Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazard, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Italian Job, Fast & the Furious Series, Back to the Future, the animated movie CARS and various Cartoon Characters).

My father told me about the Matchbox dinky cars (Made in Great Britain) and Majorette dinky cars (Made in France) which were easily available at Super Stores in Lahore worth Rs.10/- in the year 1977-1978. The friction power Tin toy cars (Made in Japan) were also available in Pakistan in 70s and price was Rs.25/-. I have also few models of Tin toy cars.

This kind of treasure takes decades to build, hours and hours of care but if you have the passion then all that hard-work brings pleasure and always keeps a smile of satisfaction on your face.

I have also given my interviews on GEO, ARY, CITY42 and DUNYA, the famous TV channels of Pakistan.

Please visit my website http://www.mytoycars.weebly.com and have a look at my passion collection.

Have you ever thought of bringing wildlife to your own home? It may be wonderful adventures to attract more birds, fireflies and or butterflies and so many other creatures to your own garden in courtyard, backyard or rooftop?

All wild species have four basic requirements for existence: food, water, shelter, and places to breed. Look around and one notices that the home garden, how small it may be, may already be providing habitat for some of the wildlife. Plants in the garden provide food in the farm of seeds, fruits, nuts, and nectar and or a nesting and breeding places to the birds? Even dead or dying trees (some time placed for decoration) are haunts for some species. They are excavated and used by woodpeckers, squirrels, and a multitude of insects and cavity-nesting birds, such as owls, bluebirds, chickadees, and wrens.

Make sure to include at least one good clump of evergreen trees and shrubs to provide year-round protective cover from weather and predators while choosing plants for the garden. Deciduous shrubs offer effective summer cover for nesting and escape from predators.

Additional feeders can provide nectar for hummingbirds and a variety of seed for other birds throughout the year. But the additional feeders should only be used as a supplement to natural food provided by plants.

Like all living things, wildlife needs water, for drinking, bathing, and in some cases, breeding. Water can be supplied in a birdbath, a small pond, a re-circulating waterfall (do not include washing powder in the water falls) or a shallow dish. Those who have a natural pond, stream, pool, or other wetland on hand can include them in the scheme of the garden. A small pond set into the ground provides water for drinking and bathing, as well as cover and reproductive areas for small fish, insects, amphibians, and reptiles.

Butterflies are beautiful creatures that enhance the beauty of any garden. Still they are common in this part of the world. To attract the large number of butterflies and keep them in the garden is easy. All they need is plants that serve the needs of all life stages of the butterfly. They need a place to lay eggs, food plants for the larva (caterpillar), a place to form a chrysalis, and nectar sources for the adult. They require plants that serve as food sources for them during their larval (caterpillar) stage. Butterflies almost invariably lay their eggs on the host plant preferred by the caterpillar, so make sure to include some of the host plants in your garden.

Butterflies' "feet" possess a sense to taste. Feet making contact with sweet liquids such as nectar causes the proboscis to uncoil. Nectar-producing plants are best grown in open, sunny areas, as adults of most butterfly species rarely feed on plants in the shade. Bringing caterpillar foods into your garden can greatly increase your chances of attracting unusual and uncommon butterflies, while giving you yet another reason to plant an increasing variety of plants. And, butterfly caterpillars do not cause the leaf damage some people associate with some moth caterpillars such as bagworms, tent caterpillars, or gypsy moths.

Do not let the scarcity of the place be an excuse to start. One can start small to add some colors in life.

I am introducing this for news and views of our comrades, who chose to live in distant lands, yet  they are very close to our hearts. Perhaps the first one was Jamil (Bravo) who left for Canada and enjoyed the cold and the Niagras (and perhaps Viagras). Then a few other followed the suit and now we have Vincent Samuel, Shahid Awan, Tahir Khan and Naveed Akbar Khalid in Canada. Similarly, in USA we have Gilani, Haroon and Iltaf. All are well settled, by the grace of Allah, and are doing fine. Here are some glimpses of what they of when together:

May 13, 2011 is the 150th anniversary of railways in Pakistan as the first track that became functional in areas which now comprise Pakistan was inaugurated on May 13, 1861 (this seems to be the season for 150th anniversaries!).

The photo above shows railway tunneling in Bolan Pass. The photo is credited to Agha Waseem.

The section that was inaugurated on this day 150 years ago was the 173 km long track between Karachi City and Kotri. At ATP we’ve already covered the inaugural event with a dedicated post therefore I will not go in too much detail. I’ll rather delve into what Pakistan Railways could’ve been and what it could still be.

Following is an advertisement of Pakistan Railway which was published on the 1953-54 year book of PR by the Railway Division, Government of Pakistan.

Blogger will be in read-only mode while we resolve some maintenance issues. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Google's Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for more than 20 hours, with Blogger hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 a.m. PDT on May 11, 2011 were removed. This was one of the longest outage since I have started using blogger.com.

Eddie Kessler, Tech Lead/Manager, Blogger wrote, “Here’s what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts. Yesterday we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that’s why you haven’t been able to publish. We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring.”

In addition to being very frustrating to say the least, blogger’s current outage shows the impact it can have on writers as well as readers of the service.

For the past several years, blog marketing and paid blogging have been restructuring, consolidating and marketers as well as bloggers both have been winning. In 2010, blogshpere seems to have saturated and trend to generate buzz for products and services by getting them reviewed on blogs and getting quality back links seems to be slowing down. Of those most affected are bloggers who were making money online by paid blogging; full time.

"There are too many blogs now and everyone wants to make a quick buck. Marketing leads are decreasing every day. Famous paid blogging platforms are not getting any new campaigns which they can give to their registered bloggers. No new blogs are being registered. and those who register take ages to approve them for their marketplaces. Platforms like Reviewme and Loudlaunch that were my highest paying revenue streams, once upon a time, have totally dried up,” reads an email by one of my blog friend who is deeply in making money online.

What are the alternate options? Besides passive income stream of AdSense, may be writing for print publications is one of the best options for bloggers to consider. Getting into any publication seems difficult at first but once one is ‘in’ things are easy. Almost all English (and some of the Urdu) publications compensate their writers. Average rates for a new writer is anything from rupees 2,000 to 6,000 depending upon the publication. Good thing is that in this age of media, many new publications are coming in the market. Or say goodby to ego intensive process called blogging.

The future lies in mud architecture. Though this sweeping statement may sound prehistoric, but it is very relevant to modern times. Building living spaces with mud is a tradition dating as back as the start of civilization. Some excellent examples from the Great Mosque - the world’s largest mud building and UNESCO’s World Heritage site – to the oldest surviving mud specimens found in the Harappa, Pakistan, show the continuous use of mud buildings.

Having grown up in mud house myself (before I moved to urban center), mud buildings have a special place rooted deep in to my cultural consciousness and this personal bond encourages a more intimate relationship between me and the mud as the material transformed from formlessness to form. Hence my interest in mud architecture and how I see its future in Pakistan.

Why use Mud? Mud – a mixture of earth and water - is economical, practical, functional and attractive. It is easy to work with, and it takes decoration well. Mud is especially useful in humid and hot climates like we have in Pakistan. Mud is a natural material that is found in abundance, especially where other building materials such as bricks, stone or wood are scarce due to affordability and or availability. In Pakistan, use of mud has evolved from local necessity. Which is why the use of extremely sticky mud deposited found along river banks or elsewhere in Pakistan combined with appropriate technology makes an excellent material to build functional and climate friendly buildings.

Work has already started and many experts are critically analyzing the more purposeful use of mud as a building material. Dr. Gus Van Beek of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History is working on a book in which he is examining methods of construction and varieties of designs in contemporary as well as ancient structures found at many places. Dr. Gus Van Beek’s research started when he uncovered arch and vault construction at Tel Jemmeh, Israel. Dr. Gus Van Beek is covering major types of construction in Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran, India and Pakistan.

At local level, Society for the Promotion of Art and Culture (SPARC), registered in Lahore since 1994, is undertaking the task of revival of much needed mud architecture in Pakistan. SPARC planning to hold workshops at different art and architecture institutions in order to restart the traditional building with mud in rural as well as urban areas of Pakistan. These workshop will not only create awareness and initiate a thought process at gross roots level but will also train SPARC employees in mud architecture. Dr. Norbert Pintsch from Senior Expert Service (Bonn, Germany) is planning to present new techniques of mud building to adapt the construction technique mixed with appropriate technology in Pakistan.

Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch is an experienced architect by profession and mud enthusiast by choice. Since completing first building project as an architect at the age of 18, Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch has been in various activities as an architect and civil engineer all his life. One of the best starting point for Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch may be a mud building that stands in Peerzada Festival Area, Green Acre, Lahore. Renowned Pakistani architect like Ghayyoor Obaid are also keen on mud architecture there. Any other example that I know of is remains of Sher Shah Suri built mud fort in historic village Sher Ghar near Okara.

The mud architecture is a great resource that focuses on architecture constructed of mud brick, rammed earth, compressed earth block and other methods of earthen construction. The proliferation of concept to use mud and improved techniques in order to raise the level of living in the population is a very welcome idea and we in Pakistan need that. This can go a long way not only in the form of changing the look of population centers, rural as well as urban, but also in solving environmental problems and problems related to use of energy and other finite resources.

The Lahore School of Economics Seventh Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan Economy [May 4th, May 5th, and May 6th] concluded at the Burki campus today. The theme of this year’s conference was “Financial Sector Development and Management’. The conference brought together a group of distinguished researchers and policy makers from across Pakistan and abroad. The underlying objective of the Lahore School annual conference is to promote discussion on key policy issues in financial sector development and in macroeconomic management. The conference was opened by Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, Rector Lahore School of Economics. Researchers from PIDE, Quaid-e-Azam University, NUST, IBA Karachi, IBM Karachi, LUMS, Lahore School of Economics and media as well as a number of international universities participated in the conference.

The first session covered matters concerning macroeconomic management and the role and effectiveness of instruments of fiscal and monetary policies in controlling inflation while ensuring growth. The second session included papers that evaluated the impact of financial sector reforms on the efficiency and effectiveness of financial inter-mediation and in reducing financial repression. The issues of the linkages between financial sector performance and monetary policy were the focus of the third session, while capital markets, their governance and performance were discussed in the fourth session. The last session brought together a group of international academics to discuss development experiences in other growing countries and their relevance for Pakistan.

The papers presented at the conference and the discussions held shed light on the policies and practical measures that can help the country to develop an effective monetary management system and an efficient and inclusive financial sector, for supporting sustainable growth in the future.

Related: In depth coverage of Lahore School Seventh Annual Conference 

I have lived in Abbatoabad for two years. I have some of the fondest memories  of the area specially road going to Barian (on which Thadna Choa now Bilal Colony is situated). Barian road used to be  our daily jogging rote. I never thought  that the quiet town will become subject of  international news as it has become. These days when everyone is writing about Abbotabbad, Osama Bin Ladin  or Obama, Cameron Abidi writes Osama couldn't have picked a more unlikely place to  live. Read his account of the beautiful little town.

Even in its name, Abbottabad sheds any pretense of local origins: it bears the name of the town's founder, James Abbott, a British army officer who was assigned in 1849 the task of pacifying and governing the Hazare region of the Punjab province that had been annexed by the British Empire after the First Anglo-Sikh War. Abbotabad is today a medium-sized city of nearly one million people, but no urban enclave existed there at all until Abbott decided that it would be a strategic location for an administrative capital.

In a broader geographic and historic context, Abbottabad is a particularly unlikely epicenter of the type of future caliphate bin Laden dreamed of founding. Lying as it does on the old Silk Road, the area has always cultivated contact with diverse outsiders -- especially with those from points farther east. (Today, it sits along the Karakoram Highway, which links Pakistan with China through the Himalayas.) In some ways, its historic and religious ties with the Middle East are more tenuous than its historic commercial ties with East Asia and the Indian subcontinent. As an Arab, Bin Laden would have been a member of a vanishingly small minority in Abbottabad: Hindkowans, an ethnic group marked by its late conversion to Islam from Hinduism, comprise the majority of the area's population.

Today, the characteristics that Pakistanis associate with Abbottabad underscore its unlikeliness as a place for an international fugitive to make his home. First, it is something of a tourist spot, attracting Pakistanis from around the country to enjoy its verdant and hilly surrounds, temperate climate, and nearby national parks. James Abbott himself developed a deep attachment to the area in his years of service there, composing a poem "Abbottabad" after returning to Britain, in which he paid tribute to its beauty. A selection:

Abbottabad is also a garrison city for the Pakistani military, home to its most noted Pakistan Military Academy. And it's also a favored location for retired generals and army officers, many of whom have houses there. It is an unmistakable company town: Much of the area has been parceled and divided, to great profit, by the Pakistani Army -- a force that was ostensibly hard at work in search of Bin Laden in partnership with the United States, from whom it derives much of its funding (at least $1 billion every year since 2005). Washington will have many questions about how Bin Laden could have hidden undetected for so long in the midst of the Pakistani military's administrative apparatus, less than 100 miles away from the seat of government in Islamabad.

That Bin Laden ultimately was killed in Abbottabad is perhaps a testimony to his myriad weaknesses in his latter days. The head of al Qaeda was more than a terrorist -- he was a political figure who derived much of his power from religious symbolism. But his final home was not in an area with any particular pedigree as a launching point for global jihad. Abbottabad doesn't share a border with Afghanistan, where Taliban forces are struggling to re-establish a theocracy; and it is utterly alien to whatever grievances the Muslim world harbors about Palestine. In the end, then, Osama bin Laden died not as an historic emir, but as a hidden fugitive, surrounded by Western influence and allies of the U.S. military -- a man utterly reliant on luck, until it finally ran out.

Valima celebration of Hashim’s son was held at Jade Hall of the Arena, Karachi. All members from of Karachi Chapter of 55 PMA Long Course (less Tariq Zaidi and Zahir Khan) attended. What is more, Akhter Nawaz Janjua was also there. And that made Walima asa mini get together for 55 PMA.

Pakistan, perhaps the world’s greatest victim of terrorism, joins the other targets of al-Qaeda — the people of the United States, Britain, Spain, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Algeria — in our satisfaction that the source of the greatest evil of the new millennium has been silenced, and his victims given justice. He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone.

Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world. And we in Pakistan take some satisfaction that our early assistance in identifying an al-Qaeda courier ultimately led to this day.

Let us be frank. Pakistan has paid an enormous price for its stand against terrorism. More of our soldiers have died than all of NATO’s casualties combined. Two thousand police officers, as many as 30,000 innocent civilians and a generation of social progress for our people have been lost. And for me, justice against bin Laden was not just political; it was also personal, as the terrorists murdered our greatest leader, the mother of my children. Twice he tried to assassinate my wife. In 1989 he poured $50 million into a no-confidence vote to topple her first government. She said that she was bin Laden’s worst nightmare — a democratically elected, progressive, moderate, pluralistic female leader. She was right, and she paid for it with her life.

Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact. Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as as it is America’s. And though it may have started with bin Laden, the forces of modernity and moderation remain under serious threat.

My government endorses the words of President Obama and appreciates the credit he gave us Sunday night for the successful operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. We also applaud and endorse the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that we must “press forward, bolstering our partnerships, strengthening our networks, investing in a positive vision of peace and progress, and relentlessly pursuing the murderers who target innocent people.” We have not yet won this war, but we now clearly can see the beginning of the end, and the kind of South and Central Asia that lies in our future.

Only hours after bin Laden’s death, the Taliban reacted by blaming the government of Pakistan and calling for retribution against its leaders, and specifically against me as the nation’s president. We will not be intimidated. Pakistan has never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media.

Radical religious parties have never received more than 11 percent of the vote. Recent polls showed that 85 percent of our people are strongly opposed to al-Qaeda. In 2009, when the Taliban briefly took over the Swat Valley, it demonstrated to the people of Pakistan what our future would look like under its rule — repressive politics, religious fanaticism, bigotry and discrimination against girls and women, closing of schools and burning of books. Those few months did more to unite the people of Pakistan around our moderate vision of the future than anything else possibly could.

A freely elected democratic government, with the support and mandate of the people, working with democracies all over the world, is determined to build a viable, economic prosperous Pakistan that is a model to the entire Islamic world on what can be accomplished in giving hope to our people and opportunity to our children. We can become everything that al-Qaeda and the Taliban most fear — a vision of a modern Islamic future. Our people, our government, our military, our intelligence agencies are very much united. Some abroad insist that this is not the case, but they are wrong. Pakistanis are united.

Together, our nations have suffered and sacrificed. We have fought bravely and with passion and commitment. Ultimately we will prevail. For, in the words of my martyred wife Benazir Bhutto, “truth, justice and the forces of history are on our side.”

The writer is the president of Pakistan.

The opening ceremony of Institute for Experimental Construction (IEC) was held in the Beaconhouse National University, Raiwind Road, Lahore on April 29, 2011. 

The theme of the event was Mud Housing and Appropriate Technology. Other related topics like Natural Disasters and Slums and Upgrading of Housing Experiments also came under lime light. The demonstration and discussion also included not only the construction but also the technical infra-structure (electricity supply, toilets, water filtration) and more.

The small mud house stands rather intelligently and provocatively against the monumental brick construction at BNU Tarogil Campus of Beacon House National University and points to a new problem area: How are the students supposed to gather their experiences, because the next catastrophes will surely come. Are we in Pakistan supposed to always wait for foreign help. Students of architecture must gather practical experience. Knowledge is Power, but knowledge comes out of practical experiences! This was amply recognized by the audience, mostly students of BNU and the Punjab University in addition to faculty members and others interested in Appropriate Technology.

Exhibition served to point out the problems very loudly. Discussion partners were available for some possible solutions. They included people like the construction contractor Iqbal from Harappa to Omar Hassan, Professor at the Beaconhouse National University.

The German architect Arne Tönissen who is currently involved in the construction of a traditional building in Sheikhupura using mud as construction material was also present. Shakeel Amir arrived with Farooq Ahmad from district Okara in order to demonstrate his Kite project, which revolves around using wind energy for charging a battery for operating a desert cooler in the health station of the village Thatta Ghulamka Dhiroka.

After a visit and discussion at site, a workshop was conducted in the seminar hall of the BNU, in which the architect Arne Tönissen presented an introduction of his work and another presentation by the young researcher Shakeel Amir where he explained start of work by the Institute of Experimental Construction (IEC). Both the presentations were followed by question answers session. 

Taking advantage of the occasion, Environment Protection Award by Foundation for Promotion of Academic Collaboration was presented to Architect Ghayyoor Obaid to acknowledge his work. The president and secretary general as well as some founding members of the foundation were also present on the occasion.

The event was made possible through the cooperation and permission of the BNU for the experimental construction, which hopefully will allow the students of the PU, COMSAT, NCA, UET to carry out experiments not only for fun but also to gather valuable necessary experiences.

The network of organizers and support organizations (German Embassy Islamabad, Senior Expert Service Bonn, Society for the Promotion of Art and Culture, Lahore) for the event was woven by a wanderer between the worlds, who was nominated as Senior Research Fellow by the FPAC in recognition of his services. He is so to say the founding director of the Institute, which will be meaningfully active only after involvement of the local colleagues. Prof Dr Norbert Pintsch is also president of the Royal University Centre, Cameroon. He reported and discussed with students his experiences at MIT in Boston and at the University of Stuttgart, suggesting for example a transport of cartons and foils from the Tetrapak-Company, located nearby, providing interesting working material to the students for using in experimental construction.