Alexander’s Garrison in the Salt Range
Wednesday, 12 August 2026
This article appeared in Daily The Nation
The Salt Range derives its name from extensive deposits of rock salt. The Range stands as remnant of forts with bastions and temples. Exceptionally, this region maintains an almost continuous record of history that can define the evolution of society. Forts and temples surviving along the range are a reminder of how untouched many of the ancient remnants are. Alexander from Macedon came to this Range twice; one from Taxila and later when his forces refused to go any further from the banks of the River Beas. From here he marched towards the Arabian Sea on his way to Babylon. And, now an NGO is constructing a monument of Alexander near Jalalpur town in the foot of the Salt Range in district Jhelum.
The Salt Range derives its name from extensive deposits of rock salt. The Range stands as remnant of forts with bastions and temples. Exceptionally, this region maintains an almost continuous record of history that can define the evolution of society. Forts and temples surviving along the range are a reminder of how untouched many of the ancient remnants are. Alexander from Macedon came to this Range twice; one from Taxila and later when his forces refused to go any further from the banks of the River Beas. From here he marched towards the Arabian Sea on his way to Babylon. And, now an NGO is constructing a monument of Alexander near Jalalpur town in the foot of the Salt Range in district Jhelum.
For those who take their first chance to the area, the landscape all along the Salt Range is rock-strewn, lacking in softness and loveliness. In many parts, it becomes barren and uninviting. But, in truth, the range is dotted with historical wonders, romantic legends, archaeological remains, and varying geological formations. The surroundings are very quiet. Urial is also found in the Range though facing extinction. A journey along the range is exciting as well as informative.
Read more »Labels: In Print, Nation, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Wednesday, August 12, 2026,
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Throne of Origins
Thursday, 16 July 2026
This article appeared in Daily the Nation
The actual “Road to Swat” bifurcates from the great Grand Trunk Road near Nowshera. About a kilometre below the highest point on the Road to Swat, the commuters can see the Takht-e-Bahi Mountains in the middle distance from the road. The ruins of one of the grand monastery of the past are situated on the top of a 152-meter high hill, about 80 kilometres from Peshawar and 16 kilometres northwest of the city of Mardan. While Swat is famous for different reasons now (rise and fall of the Taliban), some interested people still visit Takht-e-Bahi - a Buddhist monastery developed between the 1st and 7th centuries AD.
Read more »Labels: In Print, Nation, Takht-e-Bahi, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Thursday, July 16, 2026,
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Reliving Memories
Tuesday, 27 May 2025
This article appeared in Daily The Nation
There are lessons in the first landscapes of every one's life. Mine is a vista of green paddy fields, smoking with Salt Range mist, against a setting of ribbon of River Jhelum which from distance looked like a shore of another land altogether. The rough, rugged hill range appears very inviting against a sky withering with the morning, interrupted by the dawns’ red and blue brush strokes. My first learning in life is also rooted in my village.
There are lessons in the first landscapes of every one's life. Mine is a vista of green paddy fields, smoking with Salt Range mist, against a setting of ribbon of River Jhelum which from distance looked like a shore of another land altogether. The rough, rugged hill range appears very inviting against a sky withering with the morning, interrupted by the dawns’ red and blue brush strokes. My first learning in life is also rooted in my village.
In rural areas, people still live without accessible roads or other civic amenities of this modern age that are taken for granted in the urban areas. No telephone or the Internet, (in our village) even electricity is a recent phenomenon; so many villages are still without it. You see one village and you have seen all. This was the setting where I spent the first twenty years of my life savoring the freedom of adulthood. It is where I decided what (and how) I wanted to do with life. It is where my mother, brothers, and friends live. It is where I return whenever my active life allows me to. It is where I want to settle and spend my future.
Read more »Labels: In Print, Nation, Traditional Culture
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Tuesday, May 27, 2025,
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Texting
Tuesday, 15 April 2025
We are living through texting times. It is time when the surgeon performs a life-saving surgery in Africa with instructions texted from a friend in London, the trucker crashes into a pool because he was texting while driving, the 15-year-old girl wins 50,000 for texting – in a championship, the Finnish author writes an entire book in text messages, the teenager girl falls in a manhole while texting, the Brit woman sets the record for world's fastest SMS texting, the man sets the world record for the most text messages sent in a month – over 180,000, the two men get a $26k bill trying to set a text messaging record, the girl sends 200 messages to help Haiti, the mobile company tries to set the record for world's fastest texting while skydiving and more, when Christian Lander, author of Stuff White People Like predicts that “there is a good chance that all great stories in the twenty-first century will be told via text message and when books like Texts From Last Night: no one remembers sending are creating waves.
Share your revealing, funny, substantial, and engaging text messages in the comment section here. I will publish them while concealing the identity of the sender and or receiver.Read more »
Labels: In Print, Nation, Technology, Texting
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Tuesday, April 15, 2025,
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Shared applications
Tuesday, 8 April 2025
This article appeared in Daily the Nation
The advent of shared applications is a new way to meet some or almost all aspects of information technology (IT) needs. Concept of application service provision has come a long way since it first came on the scene in the late 1990s. Hi-tech developments and changes at a fast rate are moving towards convergence of the software, information, technology carriers, and computer engineering. Result: IT structural designs are shifting from desktop and mainframe environments towards Internet based structures. Similarly, software applications are altering from made to order and separately owned solutions towards pre-packaged and Web based solutions. It is in this context that ASP business model is getting more interest as a hot trend.
IT business model that offers end users – small and large businesses, government organizations, non-profits, and membership organizations even individuals -- an access to applications and services over the Internet is known as application service provider (ASP - not to be mixed with Active Server Pages. It also is an abbreviation of as soon as possible). It is sometime called software-as-a-service, on-demand computing, apps-on-tap or utility computing.
Read more »Labels: Business, In Print, Information Technology, Nation, Technology
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Tuesday, April 08, 2025,
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Descent into Crime
Saturday, 1 February 2025
This article appeared in the Daily The Nation.
Violent crimes have been at historic up nationwide; they are rising sharply in all cities. The rise seems to have been set off by something more bewildering.
Imagine Lahore only ten years ago: It was a different city; socially cohesive, closely knit. Young children could go visit neighbors or to nearby shopping centers to get groceries and other things but not now. People then knew each other personally and had strong social bonds; hence courtesies for each other.
Things started changing with an exponential increase in urbanization. A large number of outsiders started moving to Lahore to live and or work. Now even the immediate neighbors do not know each other and people act like total strangers. Garish housing societies have come up on all the open spaces inside the city and Lahore has expanded much beyond what used to be municipal boundaries. The crime rate has grown at a much faster speed than the city.
Labels: Crimes, In Print, Nation
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Saturday, February 01, 2025,
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Why Social Media
Tuesday, 31 December 2024
This article appeared in Daily The Nation
The big deal is that personal information spreads fast on the Internet. Result: Email Inbox privacy is one of today's most sensitive and intricate issues affecting nearly everyone – individuals, businesses, and Internet systems alike. Clued-up users who are in the know of the matters want to protect their email inboxes though beginners or those who have lots of free time on hand usually do not care until later. The majority of the Websites first ask users to register and give some personally identifiable information including email addresses so that they can reach out to potential customers and people with particular interests. "Over 90 percent of Websites ask visitors to register," as per an estimate, for those 'great benefits' -- full use of the Website, membership to certain services or communities, subscription to newsletters and alerts, and more.
Read more »Labels: In Print, Information Technology, Nation, Social Media
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Tuesday, December 31, 2024,
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Say it with flowers
Friday, 27 December 2024
Flowers bring people together. Blossoms can fuel a flaming passion, calm a raging jealousy, comfort a living being and or earn a living. Presenting flowers or sticking a flower in someone's hair or on lapel is a romantic and cherished social folkway. Aside from romantic and poetic delights, there is commerce in flowers too. Now florists are seen in posh neighborhoods in most big cities. One can see single rose to bouquets on sale on every corner in urban areas. Rates of flowers vary from customer to customer and from time to time. Where the flowers come from?
Flowers come from agricultural farms. There are so many around the country. Patoki town is famous for flower growing and has one of the ‘biggest clusters of flower, fruit and decorative plant nurseries in the country. Growing flowers and tree plants and selling is a major business concern in the sleepy town situated in the suburbs of Lahore. Town famous for flowers all over the country is dusty with all problems of small towns: power outages, water shortages, lack of sanitation and management. Single bazaar in Patoki where one can buy most utility items is congested due to excessive encroachments of all sorts. Residential area in town is a mixed cluster of houses widely varying in size, style and quality. But, you cannot see many flowers grown in Patoki nurseries in the houses. Instead, people keep their cows, buffaloes and goats in the streets.
Read more »Labels: Nation, Patoki, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Friday, December 27, 2024,
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Pothohar Plateau
Thursday, 26 December 2024
This article appeared in Daily The Nation
The discovery of fossils, tools, coins, and remains of ancient archaeological sites gives enough historical evidence about Soan civilization and its continuity in the Pothohar (also spelled Pothwar, Potowar, or Potohar) Plateau. The people, colourful landscape, lakes, hill ranges, flora, and fauna are sufficient reasons to explore the land, which is largely off the beaten track, and one does not see many backpackers in the area.
Some of the world history has started from this region. The first residents of the land we now call home were Stone Age people in the Potwar Plateau. They were followed by the more urbane Indus Valley (or Harappan) civilisation which flourished between the twenty-third to eighteenth centuries BC. Some of the earliest relics of Stone Age in the world have been found in the Potohar region, with a probable antiquity of about 500,000 years. The crude stone implements recovered from the terraces of the Soan carry the account of human grind and endeavours in this part of the world to the inter-glacial period. The Stone Age men produced their equipment in a sufficiently homogenous way to justify their grouping in terms of a culture called the Soan Culture. Around 3000 BC, small village communities developed in the Potohar area and began to take the first hesitant steps towards the formation of society.
Read more »Labels: In Print, Nation, Plateau, Pothohar, Pothwar, Potohar, Potowar, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Thursday, December 26, 2024,
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What is Gujrat famous for?
Saturday, 21 December 2024
This article appeared in daily The Nation
While cities are dynamic centers of creativity, commerce and culture, these benefits are often undercut by environmental problems, lack of civic amenities, inefficient governance, and administration. Centuries old historic city Gujrat is a classic example where one can see all the hazards of urbanization’.
Commuter who prefer to drive on familiar and congested Grand Trunk Road rather than going on isolated Islamabad-Lahore Motorway pass through Gujrat city that has stretched from bridge on the River Chenab to the bridge on Bhimbar Flood Stream.
Read more »Labels: Gujrat, In Print, Nation, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Saturday, December 21, 2024,
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Gogera Insight
Thursday, 12 December 2024
This article appeared in daily the Nation
Situated on the bank of river Ravi on Okara Faisalabad Road, Gogera Sadar was once an important and dignified town in the plans of Central Punjab. The town is reduced to a shabby and sleepy suburb of Okara today. Gogera still boasts its importance when it was British power centre and district headquarters from 1852 to 1865 and the part played by the resilient people of the area during War of Independence in 1857. The stories of the war that was fought around Gogera echo in the pages of history books. While traveling, off the beaten tracks, not only do you travel in soot-free and serene environment but you also see what normally remains hidden. I have had a chance to explore Gogera along with Dr. Norbert Pintch - a German architect by profession and a volunteer by choice – who is working on an idea to convert the ruins of the British Court building into a monument. “Remain of British Court are important signs of built heritage of Pakistan and should be preserved for next generation,” Dr. Norbert says.
Read more »Labels: In Print, Nation, Travel
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Thursday, December 12, 2024,
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Plagiarism, Prove it!
Wednesday, 11 December 2024
This article appeared in Daily The Nation
"If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism - if you steal from two, it's research," writes.
American screenwriter Wilson Mizner
Broadly speaking, plagiarism, as per the popular literature on the subject, refers to using another person's work without giving credit. This dangerous trend is not new, but the advent of the Internet has facilitated the speed and methods used.
It is a chronic problem greatly facilitated by the resources rich Internet. Students (mostly those who are not Internet savvy), who plagiarize, do it the old-fashioned way here -- finding some relevant article printed somewhere and getting it typed. In case one article does not cover all dimensions of the topic, a wary student may get some old book on the subject (perceiving that the teacher might not have read it), mark apparently relevant paragraphs and give it to the typist to prepare the assignment. The source material is commonly known among students' fraternity as chappa or nuskha. Some may proof read the typed paper, correct mistakes and clear irrelevant references in the text while some other may not take the trouble of reading "their work".
Labels: Education, In Print, Information Technology, Nation, Plagiarism, Students
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Wednesday, December 11, 2024,
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Footpath Culture
Saturday, 7 December 2024
This article first appeared in the daily Nation
Footpaths (also called sidewalks or pavements) are paths designed for pedestrian traffic and often run alongside roads. Footpaths are more common in modern urban areas and are sometimes separated from the roads by tree lanes or flower beds (depending on available spaces and prior urban planning).
Read more »
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Saturday, December 07, 2024,
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Straw Engineering
Thursday, 5 December 2024
This article appeared in Daily The Nation
We are very familiar with straw. Explore the countryside and you will see dried stalks of threshed grains, especially wheat and rice everywhere. Straw is used as fodder, for covering floors, and thatching roofs, and in weaving mats, screens, baskets, ornaments, hats, fans and more.
We are very familiar with straw. Explore the countryside and you will see dried stalks of threshed grains, especially wheat and rice everywhere. Straw is used as fodder, for covering floors, and thatching roofs, and in weaving mats, screens, baskets, ornaments, hats, fans and more.
Building homes and other living structures with straw is also tradition dating as back as to the start of civilization. Since prehistory, human beings are using straw as a construction material. The incorporation of machine compressed bales seems to have started in early last century though. Compressed straw bales are being used like bricks in the buildings.
Read more »Labels: In Print, Nation, Straw Architecture
posted by S A J Shirazi @ Thursday, December 05, 2024,
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