Last Week, I Presented A Paper On Travel Behavior In Pakistan At 5th International Conference On Women's Issues In Transportation - Bridging The Gap, At CNTI-La Defense, Paris. The 5th WIiT Conference Was Aimed To Identify And Address Issues Specific To Women’s Use And Involvement In The Transportation System And To Ensure That Transportation Systems Meet Women’s Needs. The Conference Focused On Four Pillars:
A Full-Day Conference On Pakistan's Rapidly Growing Cities, And What Can Be Done To Address This Irreversible Phenomenon.
Pakistan's Galloping Urbanization November 06, 2013 // 9:00am — 4:00pm Here Is The Usual Trip Duration Of Pakistanis By Various Modes:
Walk = Less Than 20 Minutes Bicycle/ Motorcycle/Car= 30-40 Minutes While Pakistani population is building and sprinting for the car-oriented living, debate in the developed world is a 'Car-less society'. A masterpiece for improving our vision by Prof Kishore MahbubaniA list of 50+ private housing schemes in Islamabad Capital Territory showing its name, area, total plots and development status is given below:
The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program has collected, analyzed, and disseminated accurate and representative data on population, health, HIV, and nutrition in Paksitan. This print screen shot shows a listing of all dataset files available for the selected survey. If you are a registered user of DHS, please login here to gain access to these files.
If you are not a registered user, please go here to register. Perry/Castaneda Map Collection: Pakistan
This map collection at UT Austin collates a wide variety of geographic information on Pakistan. Updated list of Institutions/Universities offering courses in Architecture and Urban Planning - 20142/9/2014 Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) published the long waited lists of Accredited & Non Accredited Architecture & Town Planning Degree Programs. Click here to see the list of Non Accredited Programs on PCATP website. Earlier in 2013, PCATP published the list of accredited institutions and later in August 2013 (PCATP Parents & Students Alert Published in Daily The News 21-12-2012 and mentioned in PCATP Newsletter). Then i pointed out in written form that a number of universities were offering non accredited degree programs in the country. Finally PCATP broke the silence and stated that ".... It has been observed, with grave concern that the following Universities / Institutions have started programmes in Architecture and Town Planning without taking NOC from the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP)" ...... and further goes on "All the aspiring students and their parents are, therefore, cautioned in their own interest not to apply for admissions to institutions that are not accredited or have not obtained NOC from PCATP. PCATP will not be held responsible for any objection in the future as the students of non-accredited institutions are not eligible to apply for PCATP Registration." However, from my personal experience, if would suggest the perspective students and their families to keep in mind the goal of the student. If the student wants to work in government or for government institutions in the country after completion of degree, such as a recognized architect or urban planner , then you should only consider those schools which are accredited by PCATP. Or if the student would travel overseas for further education or work in urban planning/ architecture field i guess recognition by PCATP has a limited value. The overseas employer would prefer your skills and knowledge rather than your affiliation with PACATP as they are not bound to accept graduates form PCATP accredited institutions. For example, for RTPI, Royal Town Planning Institute of the UK, being accredited with PCATP or not being accredited with PCATP is the SAME.
Dr Martinez says the profile of the abandoned dog has changed too. Desperate owners now leave their pets at rescue centres. "A lot of people lost jobs, or their salaries are very low and they can't maintain their dogs," he says. "That is now the number one cause of abandonment." In the summer of 2010, five squads of anti-rabies canine units arrived. The men pulled out their dog-catching cables and, like the cowboys working on nearby ranches, lassoed the dogs. In one day, says Dr Juan Jose Martinez, director of Centro Antirabico, these urban cowboys captured 130 dogs from the streets of Riberas de Bravo. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - In better times - and there were better times in this city - even the mangiest, flea-ridden street dog could count on kindness for its survival. Unwashed and unkempt, the streets were his home, the neighbourhood his master. Scraps, the stray bone, a bowl of water - he got by.
Imagine, then, the upheaval that upended this imperfect but functioning system, when a manageable 20,000 street dogs swelled into a teeming population of 200,000 mutts - German shepherds, labradors, and the favoured dog of city dwellers for years - the poodle. The bond between man and his best friend was corrupted. One man nailed a dog to his fence. A gang of ten children lassoed a cat, hurling it up onto the street cables high above, leaving it to dangle there. In-depth coverage of Mexico's drug warsOn the surface, this breakdown in the relationship between man and beast could be attributed to the brutal violence that tore at the social fabric in Ciudad Juarez between 2008 and 2011. Often described in simplistic terms as a "drug war" among "drug cartels", the disaster that erupted in this city resulted in the deaths of an estimated 10,000 people, 100,000 abandoned houses and 2,000 businesses shuttered or destroyed in fires - within four years. But no single occurrence in this border city across from El Paso, Texas, explains the roughly 700 dogs found dead on city streets every month, victims of hunger, car tyres - or execution. When the number of homicides dropped significantly - from an estimated 2,086 in 2011 to 751 in 2012 - many declared an end to Juarez's designation as the "murder capital of the world" and spoke of a city on the mend. Economic decline and violence But to this day, the dogs still roam the streets. Their miserable bodies betray the lasting legacy of violence, their wretched lives warning that the human conditions - which ushered in the crisis and determined their sad fate - persist. Abandoned city Before long, nearly a quarter of the population - some 250,000 people - had fled. Houses emptied out seemingly overnight; entire blocks lay quiet. Meanwhile, every six months, the dogs produced a new brood, a new gang, and the dog population reached crisis levels. But it wasn't just the killings that led to this exodus. The US recession and competition from China dried up the demand for many goods, and with it went the factory jobs that had lured families north from Veracruz. With no work and no prospects, houses financed by the state would soon be lost. And with a situation so severe and ripe for political points, the governor of Veracruz launched a programme to rescue families from the collapsing border city. And so it was that New Juarez was left to the dogs. "People opted to abandon them, either inside the houses or opening the doors and setting them loose," says Carolina Montelongo Ponce, director of the veterinarian hospital at a local university. For months, rescuers arrived in Riberas and other neighbourhoods to find dogs locked inside homes, behind fences, left to defend meagre property. "They would leave someone in charge of going and giving the dog water and food," says Martinez. Eventually, the caregivers up and left. "We had many cases of dogs found inside houses, dead or really skinny, or one dog would die and the others would eat him. It was horrible." The entire world of dog maintenance began to collapse, pulled down by the destruction of the people in Ciudad Juarez. Pet adoptions dropped to zero. Sterilisation campaigns ended after mobile clinics came under attack. Dr Martinez remembers the time a group of men arrived at a mobile clinic, and shot their victim in front of other people and pets. Veterinarians across the city became targets of kidnappings and extortions. After one clinic refused to hand over a payment to a criminal group, says Montelongo Ponce, armed men began firing and drenched the building - still filled with people and animals - with gasoline. Fortunately, for some inexplicable reason, the building did not ignite. Gangs using dogs for practice It was in these years of upheaval, animal advocates say, that cases of abuse and mutilation began to appear. Dogs with legs severed clean suggested the work of criminal groups practicing dismemberment. There was no way to know for sure. In this city with a conviction rate of less than five percent, few investigations in human cases produced results, much fewer with animals. Outrage over both the abuse and the impunity exploited by the criminal and police class alike eventually coalesced around a scrappy dog named Canela ["Cinnamon"]. Like most pets in Juarez, Canela was not confined to a yard. She was prancing around the sidewalk outside her home on a summer day in 2011 when a group of policemen walked by. She began to bark insistently. In front of everyone, an officer drew his .45 handgun and fired it straight into the dog's back. Canela dragged herself under a pickup truck, without even a whimper, leaving a trail of blood. Local reporters called animal rescue but Canela had suffered significant internal damage; she died within hours. In a city where public officials routinely characterised victims as criminals, the dog, for sure, was innocent. People protested, holding signs that read: "We speak for those who suffer in silence." An investigation was launched and the policeman who fired the shot was temporarily suspended. It was as though Juarez had acknowledged that abuse of the weak had to end and that there was no better place to start than with the weakest among them. Around this time, Barbara Quintana, a college student, began rescuing dogs in her neighbourhood. She says she shooed off some youths who had stuffed a puppy in a sack and used him like a ball. The big labrador mix she found, apparently mutilated in a clandestine dogfight, was nursed back to health and named Rocky. With a death toll that began declining last year, officials now deliver speeches about Juarez' recovery. Businesspeople see a bright future for Mexico now that the cost of labour there is less than in China, according to a report by Bank of America released in April. Freedom of movement, etc. Karachi, Thursday, September 05, 2013
The Sindh High Court (SHC) directed the provincial government on Wednesday not to affect the citizens’ right of freedom of movement in the name of providing security to state dignitaries and foreign diplomats. The directive came at a hearing of a petition challenging the closure of Court Road and Kamal Ata Turk Road to the public. The petitioner, Amir Aziz, informed that the SHC had directed the authorities on March 9, 1992 to ensure that the road in front of the Sindh Assembly remained open to traffic even during sessions of the assembly. However, he said, the court order was not complied with in letter and spirit though the government had given the undertaking that the road would not be closed to traffic even during assembly sessions. The petitioner submitted that the closure of the two roads had caused inconvenience to the people, especially those approaching the high court. A division bench, headed by Chief Justice Mushir Alam, had directed SSP South Nasir Aftab at a previous hearing to submit a report describing how many streets and roads had been blocked in the city and under whose directions. In compliance with the court directive, the SSP filed a report on the closure of roads or the placement of barricades at different places of the city. According to the police officer, many consulates are located in residential areas as there is no separate place or a diplomatic enclave for the foreign missions. He said many consulates were under threat from various terrorist organisations, and bomb blasts and other terrorist activities had been carried out in the past. Giving details of the blockade and closure of roads near consulates and the president’s residence, known as the Bilawal House, he said the street adjacent to the British deputy high commission that led to Shahra-e-Iran had been blocked in consultation with residents of the areae. He claimed that the road closure did not affect the public. The report says the street leading to the Chinese and Kuwait consulates was blocked after consultation with residents of the area following bomb blasts. According to the report, the street on which the French consulate is located has been blocked but its closure does not affect the public. It says a 7-A Badar commercial street has been blocked as the residence of the incumbent president is located on it; however, it claims, alternate ways and routes have been provided to the public. The police officer further claimed that all measures had been taken to avoid any terrorist activity so that the life and property of the president, foreign diplomats and the public could be saved. The court observed that streets near the Badar commercial area had been blocked to the public and affected the lawful right of free movement from one place to another. It said it was mindful of the security hazards as well as of the responsibility of the government to provide safety to dignitaries, but the rights of the citizens, including the right of freedom of movement in terms of Article 15 of the constitution, could not be overlooked. The bench further observed that if at all any restriction was imposed it should be reasonable and imposed under the law and not through an administrative order. It said that according to the SSP’s comments it seemed that such measures had been taken in consultation with the administration, but not under laws guaranteed under the constitution. The bench observed that protection for the consulates or residences of government functionaries should be considered on a priority basis by building up concrete barriers on the premises of the residences, and that no street, by-lane or road should be encroached. The court also observed that higher public and constitutional office holders should show more responsibility and abide by the constitution. It said many people and local authorities had already complained in person but they were not prepared to give anything in writing for fear of retaliation and action. It said their concern could not be ignored in view of the present law and order situation and at a time when serious allegations were levelled against law enforcement agencies over their inappropriate conduct and actions. The court directed the SSP to bring those concerns to the notice of the local administration or the government. The court observed that it was expected that the local administration or the provincial government, in consideration of its constitutional duty in terms of Article 15, would take measures, while providing security to the dignitaries at the same time, to protect the right of freedom of movement of the citizens. It directed the advocate general to look into the matter and provide proper assistance not only to the local administration but also to the court in addressing the important and sensitive issue. The court also issued notices to the president and the secretary of the Sindh High Court Bar Association secretary as well as the Sindh Bar Council’s vice chairman to assist the court. Pakistan is a religiously diverse country. U.S. government figures estimate that 85-90 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim, with 10-15 percent belonging to the Shi’i Muslim community. The Sunni community is divided into Barelvi, Sufi, Deobandi, Whahabbi, and other sects. Approximately 4 percent comprise other minority religious communities, such as Christian, Hindus, and Sikhs. Ahmadis are estimated to comprise 3-4 million Pakistanis, and the community considers themselves part of the Muslim majority. Says, Annual Report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom April 2013 (Covering January 31, 2012 – January 31, 2013) The report can be visited here: http://www.uscirf.gov/images/PAKISTAN%202%20Pager%202013%20final.pdf The situation in Pakistan for religious freedom declined during the reporting period. Pakistan’s civilian government has been led by President Asif Ali Zardari since 2008, and is scheduled to complete its full term after the close of the reporting period, which will be a first in the history of Pakistan. President Zardari is the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007, reportedly by militants linked to al-Qaeda. The Bhutto and Zardari families are Shi’i Muslims from the province of Sindh and have assumed leadership roles in a country traditionally dominated by Sunnis from Punjab. Despite a civilian government, the Pakistani military and intelligence services continue to be influential and independent of civilian oversight and are believed to maintain close contacts with terrorist organizations and other militant groups. Discriminatory laws promulgated in previous decades and persistently enforced have fostered an atmosphere of religious intolerance and eroded the social and legal status of members of religious minorities, including Shi’a, Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus. While the constitution provides for religious freedom, the right is undercut by other provisions and basic laws. Government authorities do not adequately protect members of religious minority communities from societal violence, and rarely bring perpetrators of attacks on minorities to justice. This impunity is partly due to the fact that Pakistan’s democratic institutions, particularly the judiciary and the police, have been weakened by endemic corruption, ineffectiveness, and a general lack of accountability. Also important are the suspected links between Pakistan’s army and intelligence service with militants who target religious minorities. A 2 page summary is given below from http://www.uscirf.gov/images/2013%20USCIRF%20Annual%20Report%20(2).pdf We need more Malalas in Pakistan to eradicate illiteracy. Million of children in country cannot go to school not because of Taalibaans but due to their own families and poverty trap. While Malala symobizes a family's struggle and the girl's efforts to stand against terrorists who have a history of restricting female mobility and access to education in conservative areas like Swat and remote tribal belts, her role model needs expansion and greater symbolic representation. Why? because defying Taliban is not the only problem against illiteracy. We need role models in working children like the one in brick kilns, low caste 'labor' children who got education on their own, against all odds! some of them even go a distance further by educating others in their families and neighbourhoods. Definitely we need more Malalas and need to broaden our focus from terrorists to the problems of poor as well. Because being a Malala is a do or die game. either you will end up in a foreign country with high self esteem and appreciation or either you will survive in the streets of our settlements which are infiltrated by the terrorists regularly. and the chances of survival and success are rare in second case where the bullet for your head might be waiting for you. Malala was correct when she said in her UN speech, “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first.” There is no denying the power of a pen and paper and Malala’s words should resonate with all children and parents across the world. With many nations taking notice of Malala’s speech, it seems that awareness to place all children across the world in schools has finally set in."
Source: UNEP Workshop Presentation on National Sustainable Development Strategy of Pakistan http://www.rrcap.ait.asia/nsds/uploadedfiles/file/NSDS%20Pakistan%20[Compatibility%20Mode].pdf It includes geographical location of all government schools in every district, including:-
For direct access, click here:-
The famous Cheel of Karachi (eagle intersection) The bird’s metallic body weighs more than 100 kilogrammes and a crane placed it on top of the pillar. It’s difficult to say how much it cost but perhaps it was around Rs500,000. And this isn’t the only one. There are other ones in Lyari that were similarly decorated, like Kashti Chowk, Teen Talwar Chowk and Gabol Chowk.” Actually, its proper name is Ibrahim Chowk, named after Ibrahim Hussain Baloch, a prominent social worker of Nawa Lane, who died shortly after Partition. “Khan bhai (the slain Rehman alias Dakait) and my martyred brother Zahid Hussain Baloch decided on it as a decoration,” explained Ibrahim Hussain Baloch’s grandson Shahid. The left wing is damaged, not from the fighting last week, but from as far back as the Baloch-Mohajir clashes two decades ago. But despite the drooping feather, Cheel Chowk’s cheel or eagle still guards the entrance to the heart of Lyari. The people decided on an eagle after some discussion. “The Baloch are like the Arabs, who like the falcon and are fond of hunting,” Shahid said. “Then my cousin Abdul Sattar Baloch was killed alongside Shaheed Murtaza Bhutto in those days. And he was proud and beautiful like a falcon, so we were inspired by that.” The bird went up during the last tenure of the Pakistan Peoples Party. “After that people just started calling it Cheel Chowk.” He thinks people have been calling it a vulture but stresses that they take it as a falcon. The monument looks more like an eagle, however. Shahid Baloch is unhappy that the media has kept calling it Cheel Chowk instead of Ibrahim Chowk. “The media should first know the history,” he said. The chowk or intersection has a 20-foot pillar decorated half-way up by stones. It has fish at the base and used to have coloured lights and a fountain but neglect set in and repairs have not been ever undertaken. “The broken wing has been like that since the 1990s,” said Ishaq Baloch, a shopkeeper nearby. “The government sadly never paid attention.” Residents are now quick to grandly stress that they plan an even bigger and better replacement. “Even its colour has faded,” said Akhtar Baloch. “It was also hit by bullets. But now we’ll gather funds to resurrect it.” It is the place where a massive police operation took place in May 2012. Dozens of armoured cars with heavily armed policemen entered the area to capture gang leaders but were unsuccessful after eight days of intense fighting.
The politics of urbanisation
Almost every news report in the election season makes the point that the urban sentiment is quite different to the rural one — more politically conscious, more receptive to party programmes, less weighed down by clan loyalties, and less indebted to patrons for access to basic rights. It depends on the context. In relatively stable societies, economics shapes politics — these are places where one can meaningfully say “it’s the economy, stupid”. Even seemingly bizarre foreign policies can be related to economics as one might infer from the title of Lenin’s classic text Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In less stable societies, the economy is hostage to politics. Think of Pakistan’s quixotic foreign policy adventures that have no conceivable relationship to national considerations and have driven the economy into the ground. Politics, in turn, is orchestrated by narrow, parochial and privileged economic interests as those who can discern can readily make out. It is in this framework that the politics of urbanisation in Pakistan is more fascinating than its economics. As the country becomes more urbanised, the hold of dynastic quasi-feudal elites should decline — but this is where politics intervenes. Electoral outcomes depend heavily on how individual constituencies are delimited. In most secondary cities the urban vote is fragmented over many constituencies each of which has a rural majority. As a result the urban vote is under-represented, a standard practice in all conservative polities where entrenched privilege benefits from rural votes. It is also no surprise that the population census has not been carried out since 1998 although that is no more difficult a task than conducting an election. Given rapid migration and urbanisation a census update clearly has implications for the allocation of seats both across provinces and the urban-rural divide. It is here that one can glean a lot from the Latin American experience, a forerunner to Pakistan’s encounters with kleptocratic democracies and authoritarian dictatorships focused on shoring up entrenched privilege against the demands of marginalised majorities empowered with the right to vote. It was only after Latin American countries were almost fully urbanised that biased delimitation tactics became ineffective. Urban citizens were then able to struggle and organise over time to vote into power leaders like Lula, Chavez and Morales who represented better the demands of the majorities. Pakistan still awaits such representatives and must contend with several more rounds of rule by representatives of entrenched privilege, either populists like Peron or strongmen like Pinochet. The violence with which the Latin American transition was accompanied, and which still continues, clearly suggests that the violence in Pakistan is not exceptional. We can expect our cities to become even more violent as entrenched privilege defends its interests and attempts to break up the solidarity of the urban vote. Here Pakistan is more vulnerable than Latin America because of the ethnic and sectarian heterogeneity of its urban population that remains vulnerable to the politics of identity — witness the internecine wars in Karachi the origins of which can be traced back to political manipulations of one kind or another. The politics of urbanisation plays out within cities as well as a brief recap of its history would illustrate. At the time Europe was urbanising the footprint of the city was small. Without mass transportation rich and poor had to live in relative proximity. There were no privatised sources of clean air or water and no selective protection from diseases via immunisations. Outbreaks of pestilence affected all citizens with equal effect. It was this shared fate that became the basis for urban reform as elites fearful for their lives and businesses allocated resources to city-wide improvements in sanitation and sewerage. All this has changed in our times as advances in science and technology have ironically worked to the disadvantage of the poor. The affluent can now physically segregate themselves by moving to suburbs, protect themselves from disease through inoculations, and are no longer dependent on city-wide networks for access to amenities. As a result our cities have split into rich enclaves and poor slums and there is no powerful group of influential citizens to lobby for reforms that benefit the entire city. Urban funds are spent on better roads for cars while pedestrians and cyclists are left to fend for themselves. The emphasis on clean water and sewerage for the low-income areas is remarkable only for its absence. It is in this context that those who project cities as unambiguous engines of economic growth need to take pause. Because of their ethnic and sectarian heterogeneity and the polarisation of rich and poor, South Asian cities can just as easily be powder kegs ready to explode. And the fuse is quite likely to be deliberately lit by those who stand to gain from the fracturing of the urban vote. The gerrymandering of electoral constituencies does not mean however that the city can be ignored. We need to keep our eyes open and our ears to the ground as we move forward in time. The capacity of the state and market to deliver to urban citizens the essentials of everyday living like electricity and natural gas has eroded to a dangerous degree. Unless it is ameliorated, if not fully repaired, any random trigger can set off pent-up frustrations that have accumulated over the years. If that happens the politics of urbanisation would overwhelm not just the economy but the country itself. The writer is dean of the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. (By Anjum Altaf, Daily Dawn, 19/05/2013) Names are taken as descriptions of the qualities of an individual, it is not true for personal names because they are connected with identity. If you want proof of this, consider what happened in 1947. As the legend goes, one man asked another his name and when he told it to him, he was stabbed to death. The first man could either be a Hindu or a Muslim or a Sikh and the second, too, from one of these communities. The name was enough to reveal one’s religion and that brought death. But why not take recent cases: in August 2012, Shias were made to get down from a bus in the Northern Areas and killed if there were many Shia components in their names. The same thing happened near Mastung. And this, despite the fact that Shias and Sunnis share many components of their names like Ali, Hassan, Hussain, Fatima and Zahra. In short, names are so important that a human being can lose his or her life only because of the wrong name in the wrong place. And religion or sect is not the only significant feature in this matter. If you belong to the wrong family or the wrong tribe or group, it is your name which can betray you and lead to an untimely death — as was true of poor Romeo.
Seeing these connections, I decided to write an article on personal names and identity in Pakistan. The first thing I discovered was that this subject, onomastics, is not researched at all in the country. Richard Temple had written on Punjabi names but that was in 1883. And Anne Marie Schimmel had written to underline the fact that Pakistanis do not know Arabic and get the Islamic names all wrong (Nabi Baksh is theologically incorrect according to the stricter interpretations of Islam as she pointed out). However, as in all other fields, in the last few decades, there are hundreds of articles and even books on the names of the people of the whole world but nothing on Pakistan. This, I thought, was a gap I could fill. And I thought it would be easy. But it proved to be more difficult than I thought. First, names are not easy to find. NADRA guards names as if they were state secrets and the Election Commission of Pakistan does not have names in its Islamabad office. Even the gazette of matriculation is not easy to find since, I never received any document merely by requesting the authorities for it. In the time-honoured Pakistani tradition, I needed a sifarish(recommendation), patronage or favour by somebody who was well-connected. And, believe me, I also had to pay some people who had the data (they said it was fees for photocopying). Then I set out to find frequencies of the occurrence of Islamic components, caste components and so on. I found that the percentage of Islamic components of the names of the 1950s was less than it was in the names of the 1990s. This could be attributed to the Islamisation project of Ziaul Haq. But this percentage is not very high. Other names showing defiance of America are Saddam and Osama, which were not common before the Iraq War and 9/11. Class, region and modernisation are also linked with names. Caste names are found more in Sindh and Balochistan than in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which is one indicator of these ethnic identities. Also, the rural upper classes have high-sounding names (Sardar Meer Abdul Rab Khan Laghari) while the lower ones have simpler ones (Boota). In short, your name reveals your class, ethnicity and region. Region is also revealed in womens’ names. Bibi, Begam, Khatoon, Mai etc., are rural names, which do not change on marriage and this is where modernisation comes in. In the cities, because of modernisation, these rural, old-fashioned components are not used while mens’ names are used by women. Indeed, women often take the first names of their husbands rather than their family names. Indeed, we do not have family names in the Western sense of the term. We have group labels — Shinwari, Chauhan, Raja, Chang, Bhutto, etc. — which function as family names in certain circumstances and may become family names later. Names are also used to hide besieged identities. Pakistani Christians often use names shared by Muslims as do some (but not many) Hindus. This destigmatisation strategy is also used by workers in call centres and immigrants abroad, who use Western names (Tom, Julie, etc.) to fit in with the host group. But this is only scratching the surface — there is much more in names which research can reveal. Written in Bhalot, Punjab, Pakistan, May 1999, By Stephen Lyon, UKC
it explains:-
Caste is a complicated issue in Pakistan. Islamic ideology dictates that all men are equal and most people will happily tell you all castes are equal. Speaking to people of some 'low' castes like barbers and leather workers, however, one soon learns that they believe other Pakistanis are Muslim in name only and do not really believe in their equality. The landlord family of Bhalot are Gujar. The village is multi-caste. How these caste affiliations effected relations was something I wanted to explore after my first trip to the area. I have found, to my joy and frustration sometimes, that there caste affiliation is complex and serves different purposes in different contexts. The wider division between Pathan and Punjabi has been something I have paid attention to since the beginning of this trip. In this report I will discuss some of the elements of being a Gujar and of something I have encountered called 'Gujarism'. Gujar is simply a caste or quaum, and there are numerous things associated with being a Gujar. Gujarism is a more active variant of being a Gujar which involves seeking out other Gujars within associations and consolidating and maintaining ties to those people based strictly on caste affiliation. I am currently trying to get clear for myself what it means to be a Gujar and in what circumstances Gujars decide to become Gujarism 'activists'. I discovered that the Maliks of Bhalot were Gujars during my first pilot trip in January of 1998. My friend told me proudly that his family were Gujars. I asked what that meant and was told in a very tortuous half English half Urdu that Gujars were people who tended cows and goats. His family however do not tend livestock themselves. They own land. their occupation is to own land not to work on it directly. They supervise other people who work land. On occasion they drive tractors or operate threshers but for the most part their job is to sit on a charpai and be present while labour is being performed and make sure it is being performed correctly. They all own cows, buffalos, goats and sheep but, again, they do not tend to these animals themselves. Most of them will even admit that they are incapable of taking care of these animals themselves. They rely on trusted 'muj-walas' to feed, water and maintain the health of their animals. These men who look after their animals are not all Gujars. So during my first trip all I really learned about Gujars from my friend was that Gujars are Gujars and sometimes they look after animals-- the critical thing being that Gujars only marry other Gujars. During my second trip in April/May of 1998 I poked a bit more into what it meant to be a Gujar and was it really true that Gujars only married Gujars. I learnt that time round that Gujars mostly only marry other Gujars but they don't marry all Gujars. Not every Gujar is an acceptable candidate for the marriage of every other Gujar's child. Since returning for the third time in December 1998, I have tentatively found that in Bhalot there are three clearly distinct Gujar biraderis (patrilineages). The land owning Malik family are all Gujar and jealously ensure that their children marry exclusively within their own biraderi1 . There is a second long established Bhaloti biraderi which once owned land but are now almost entirely landless. It was a revelation to me to discover after several months that almost every Gujar I met who was not part of the land owning Malik family was somehow part of this second Gujar biraderi. They also seem fairly enthusiastic about maintaining only biraderi marriages but the incidence of some non-rishtidar (family) marriage seems superficially slightly higher. The third set of Gujars are more recently established in the village. They are the smallest group of Gujars and are the only ones who speak the Gujree language among themselves. They do not live in the village proper but in one of the many bourré (a type of housing dug into the side of a hill-- these are by far the most comfortable places to be in the heat-- they look and feel a bit like cave dwellings) scattered among the fields. These are the poorest Gujars in the village and the ones who seem closest to my friend's description of what Gujars are. They tend goats and sheep and livestock is probably as important to them as agriculture in terms of their livelihood. Their numbers in this village are too small to really make generalisations but this group seem far more open to non-Gujar marriages than the other two groups of Gujars. I have seen examples of marriages to Pathans and heard examples from their relatives in other parts that they are not so concerned to marry only Gujars. What matters is the quality of the family and boy or girl that they are marrying their child to. Though even this group professed a preference for a Gujar marriage-- preferably within the biraderi-- cousin marriage being the highest stated preference. In the months I have been here I have found that the importance of cast/quaum on spouse selection that I read about in England does not seem to have been exaggerated. I still was not very much closer to understanding why my friend brought up his family's quaum to me that day in January 1998 with such pride. Although I have jokingly been adopted by the Malik Gujars (Steve Gujar) everyone knows I am not a Gujar and would not be allowed to marry into their family (though the offer of wives from other quaums have not been infrequent). So what was he telling me when he said he was a Gujar? He was not telling me that he looked after animals himself because even in the few days I'd been there at that time I knew that was patently untrue. He was not telling me that he would marry his son or daughter to any other Gujar. He was telling me something about how he identified himself but it eluded me. To some extent I must admit that it still eludes me. What it means to be a Gujar apart from a label is perplexing. There are, by common accounting, 30 million Gujars in Pakistan. Gujars claim common quaum status with Checheniyans (the break away former Soviet republic). They argue that Georgia was traditionally called Gujaristan, and all Georgians are really Gujars. They insist that Gujars went as far as Germany and many Germans are really Gujars. Some of the claims for pan-Gujarism can get downright absurd but they are always entertaining. I have heard it argued that Gujars were the original inhabitants of most of South Asia-- dispersed under the Moghul Emperor because Gujars are fierce warriors who refused to bow to this foreign Central Asian invader. There are Gujars throughout India. Many Sikhs come from the Gujar caste. Gujars may be Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and presumably Buddhist since I have been told that when Alexander came and resided in Taxila over two millennia ago he encountered the original Gujar inhabitants. All historical claims aside however, Gujars today are a significant caste in Pakistan. In Kashmir and the northern areas they are a large presence, mostly living by transhumant pastoralism. In the Punjab they are well represented at all levels of government. Every time a Gujar politician appears on television I am proudly told that he is a Gujar. In recent months I have been introduced to several members of the Gujar Youth Forum. A 'Gujarism' association whose goals seem slightly unclear apart from generally promoting Gujar unity. If Gujar unity is truly their goal then they have an uphill battle-- 30 million people with disparate economic lifestyles, education, languages and religious sects do not easily fall behind a single banner for long. One unavoidable aspect of Punjabi society is that people depend on other people's resources and contacts to carry out the ordinary things of life: getting jobs, finding places to live, buying cars, getting married, resolving disputes with neighbours. The Gujar association, and in general caste, often serve as one of the factors in making up a list of potential 'helpers'. The Gujar association that I have been privileged to see up close seems, in part, to be simply a way of making contact between people that cuts across class lines. Poor Gujars and wealthy Gujars alike are involved in the Gujar association. The wealthy Gujars may be attracted to the potential client pool such an organisation offers. The poor Gujars may similarly be attracted to the potential new patrons they can make use of. Although the association literature and the rhetoric of its members suggest something far more sentimental and altruistic, in practice what I have seen is resource networking. That is to say that when I have seen these Gujars get together they spend an inordinate amount of time finding out what the others are doing and sharing information about other Gujars. They seem to be gathering information which may become useful some day in the future when they need the help of a particularly placed Gujar. I refrain from saying well placed because in Pakistan the most efficient contact may end up being the lowest clerk or servant in an organisation. Not every Gujar approves or participates in these Gujar associations however. I have been told privately that Gujarism is a silly thing that serves no purpose. From what little I have been able to observe I would have to disagree with that. It may be silly but it serves a purpose. Gujarism puts people in contact in a way that favours may be asked. It is a non-kin based network in which all 'quaumis' may theoretically make requests of each other. The request, as seems to be usual in Pakistan, may not be made directly but rather to one of the people who are active within the Gujar association. He then filters through all of the information he has gathered about the various Gujars known to him and tries to find someone who may be able to satisfy the request. The Gujar association exists, therefore, not only to serve the needs of its active members but to act as a kind of hub for resource pooling. One need not be directly active in the association to ask for help-- one need merely have contact with someone who is active (even indirect contact may work). Gujarism seems to conform to a more general pattern in the area of knowledge-resource sharing networks. As with kin groups, the most solid of these kinds of networks, Gujarism and Gujar associations give individuals access to a wider base of knowledge of who is out there who my be able to help. Individuals within kin groups are hard pressed to refuse a request coming from the right family member (regardless of who the request is really for). For example, it may be irrelevant that I despise my cousin if my cousin goes to my mother or my grandmother and asks them to ask me. If my mother or grandmother decide to make the request and urge me to comply then I must be very careful how I refuse (given examples I have seen refusal will not happen but the service/favour may get postponed an awfully long time, and ultimately may bear little resemblance to the original request). Within the context of this caste based association, the pressure to comply to requests is decidedly less. A fellow Gujar does not have the kind of clout that close blood relatives possess. However what they have is the promise of future help of an unknown nature. With kin, individuals know more or less who is what and where they are. They have an idea of what sort of contacts they have within the family and what sorts of favours may be asked. Caste associations are less distinct. A small favour from a member of the association may be well advisable to grant. There will certainly come a time when every individual needs help with something and it may come at a time when relations are strained within the family. Although requests may still be made even in periods of strained relations, individuals try to avoid it if possible. Thinking this through helped me to understand why certain people in the village were more active in the Gujar association and others considered it a foolish and pointless thing to do. Those Bhaloti Gujars who are very active, coincidentally seem to be in the middle of most of the disputes within the family. Since I have been coming to this village (starting in January 1998) there is one 'nuclear' family2 who seem to be involved in almost every family dispute. Every family is involved in some disputes-- there is not one member of this family over the age of 30 who seems to have escaped becoming embroiled in some ongoing serious dispute-- however relations between some 'nuclear' families are very close and seem more resistant to fracture. For most families, even while they are arguing and disagreeing with one member of a faction they may maintain good relations with individuals close to their current 'disputant'. The problem is that if one has half a dozen serious arguments every year, one finds that the number of people that turn into direct 'disputants' becomes very high-- thus restricting the number of potential favour doers within the kin group. Further compounding the problem for ambitious men, it reduces the number of potential favour seekers within the kin group. People who are actively disputing do not seek help from each other (though I suspect they would give help if the other person requested it for a number of reasons which anthropologists should be able to guess). The Maliks that are most embroiled in contention and dispute are potentially at a disadvantage should they need some action they cannot perform themselves. For those who rely almost exclusively on the kin group for support this places more pressure on them to resolve disputes quickly and to avoid allowing them to become serious. The family in question, the Gujarism 'activists', have more latitude. To some extent they can weather nastier and more frequent disputes within their kin group without suffering significantly increased vulnerability in relation to the outside world. I do not pretend to have come up with any world shaking revelations, merely some interesting observations. It puzzled me why my friend felt it important to tell me he was Gujar when he had no clear definition for me of what a Gujar was and being a Gujar did not seem to imply anything concrete by itself. Following the trail of Gujarism showed me that for some people there were concrete and clear motivations for accentuating this affiliation. At this point I am a little closer to understanding part of the phenomenon of Gujarism and it has helped me to understand other caste associations I have come in contact with. My thesis revolves around a single village but it has become unavoidably clear to me that in order to understand this single village I must understand all the strands leading in and out of it. Kinship and caste are two important strands that build links to wider areas. In future I intend to pursue other 'link-builders' such as school friendships, development workers and government representatives, occupational acquaintances and others that come up. As always I welcome comments on how I may be missing things or over emphasising or misunderstanding things. After the budget speech on 12 June 2013, by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, its housing related points remain less discussed in mainstream media yesterday. In a nut shell, the government intends to provide low income subsidised housing and lower mark up credits for house building and aims to collect a new 'construction' tax from the land developers and builders for the next year in Pakistan. Here are the highlights of the country's broad housing policy for the next year.
It means on one side, government will launch low income housing programs but on the other side, the price of housing in private estates like housing societies will increase due to new tax. I paste below the excerpts from the tax-speech related to Housing. The points were copied by searching words 'housing' and 'land' in the speech text. Housing 33. A ‘roof over the head’ is the right of every Pakistani. Unfortunately, the housing gap is rising ever so fast in the country. While the private sector land developers have catered for the needs of the middle and upper-middle classes, nothing has been done to provide decent housing for the low and lower-middle classes. With no prospect of profitmaking, it is quite understandable that the private sector remained oblivious to the needs of these otherwise very important societal groups. During our last tenure, we introduced housing schemes for the poorest of poor throughout the country, especially in the rural and semi-urban areas. Under these schemes, land was provided free of cost. Although Ministry of Housing and Works is developing the detailed plan, I would like to share the main features of the policy on provision of housing to the poor: (1) Wherever feasible, 3-Marla housing schemes will developed on government land for the homeless, to whom plots will be given free of cost (2) At least 1,000 clusters of 500 houses each will be developed for low-income families through public private partnerships
(3) To ensure cost-effective access to credit for housing, government will be picking up a portion of the financing cost on behalf of the borrower. A provision of Rs.3.5 billion is kept in the budget for this purpose; (4) Schemes on the model of Ashiyana Housing Scheme will also be developed in which the government will provide opportunities to low income families to own their house on payment of easy installments. PART-III New Programs for Youth (7) Prime Minister’s Housing Finance Scheme: Under this scheme, a mortgage facility of Rs. 1.5 million to Rs. 5.0 million will be offered at a mark-up rate of 8%. Fifty thousand people will benefit from this scheme. Tax: (4) The construction sector contributes Rs.1 billion to the national exchequer, which is not proportionate to its potential. Its taxation is normally spread over multiple years depending upon the period of construction. In order to simplify taxation of construction sector minimum tax on builders and developers is proposed. The tax shall be paid at a the rate of Rs.50 per sq. ft. of the constructed area; or Rs.100 per square yard of the developed land, as the case may be. Access the complete 2013-14 Budget Speech at http://www.finance.gov.pk/budget/FinalBudgetSpeech_13_14_english.pdf and http://www.finance.gov.pk/budget/FinalBudgetSpeech_13_14_urdu.pdf Here is an updated list of the universities and their departments in country offering degree (Bsc) programs in Urban Planning/City and Regional Planning. In order to be recognized as a professional urban planner in Pakistan, the department / program must be an accredited with Pakistan council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP). Currently there is only one accredited institute of BSc in urban planning in the country, the winner and the only crown holder of present since three decades “Department of City & Regional Planning, University Of Engineering & Technology, Lahore”. Whistles, claps and round of applause for their achievement and insignia of educational excellence in the country. Its graduates are eligible to apply for urban planning posts in various government employers like Development Authorities, Town Municipal Authorities and other federal and provincial departments (for example, housing, physical planning etc). The other previously recognized institute, “Department of City & Regional Planning, Mehran University Of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro”, lost its accreditation with the Council since 2008. It has not got it back since then, unfortunately. Hence its students may face issues in getting urban planning jobs in government departments of the country. Although this is a setback for the graduates if they really want to work as urban planner in country’s enlarging job market. However, this is not the end. They might be considered "planners" for further education or employment in many places within and outside country as many organisations may not need PCATP accreditation from the graduates. However, in order to apply for government jobs related to urban planning the graduates need to be registered with PCATP as urban planner (as far as i am sure). And they cannot do it until and unless their educational institute is accredited with PCATP. Who knows what happens next? but for the current time, the list of accredited and non-accredited programs is given below. I have compiled the list with the help of students from the CRP department UET Lahore through online discussions and internet search. I am thankful to the persons contributed to this list. If the degree in urban planning is not accredited by PCATP, its graduate may feel certain issues in employment. "Students and sponsors should know the probable implications of the degree status before enrolling " PCATP website provides the names of only first two departments, that means only about the institutions ever accredited with the programs and seems not to discuss other institutes providing undergraduate courses in urban planning in the country. While this is an acceptable gesture from PCATP that tries to be neutral for this process, however, I find it important to disseminate the ‘Other side’ of the educational developments in urban planning for the welfare of students, their families and their future. So that the students and sponsors should know the probable implications of the degree status before enrolling. Once the program is started, it is difficult to leave it for reasons of accreditation due to significant investment of time effort and money in studies. At that stage, students look for alternative ways of lowering or removing the disadvantage created by non-accreditation of the degree.
If the degree in urban planning is not accredited by PCATP, its graduate may feel certain issues in employment. The students can still study and work however they may not be considered ‘professional urban planner’ in certain areas of Pakistan for example other provinces who may not require PCATP accreditation at all ( I am not sure if this is ging on at present). While they will be bale to earn a living and doing urban planning tasks, the graduates will face certain disadvantages in their professional career in the country due to non-accreditation of their degree by PCATP. I am not saying that PCATP is responsible for this disadvantage to the graduates; it has its own standards and requirements in order to recognize the degree. Main standards include availability of faculty, course contents and educational facilities in the department etc. However, the history shows that it has been a daunting task to get accreditation from governing organizations like PCATP. I have experienced how hard it is for universities and head of institutes to get accreditation when my employer department IGIS (SCEE) NUST was working for getting accreditation for BE Geoinformatics from Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC). Eventually they got the accreditation after months of working and scores of meetings before their first badge passed out in four years. However it is not the case always. Many institutes end up in a state of denial or critical demands from the governing bodies for accreditation. Who knows in future, as our politicians do, PCATP passes some ‘Ordinance’ to declare these programs ‘accredited’. Just remembered some dialogues from Hindi movie ‘Nayak’, where a Chief Minister “Amresh Puri” discusses to pass an ordinance against the suspension and imprisonment of politicians by 1-day Chief Minster “Anil Kapoor”. Web Address from where the information given in above table was obtained are pasted below:- University of Management and Technology (UMT), Lahore http://sst.umt.edu.pk/programs/bs-City&Planning.html National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Islamabad http://nust.edu.pk/INSTITUTIONS/Schools/SCEE/Institutes/NIT/Departments/UrbanRegionalPlanning/Pages/default.aspx The Institute of Geography, Urban and Regional Department http://www.upesh.edu.pk//academics/faculties/departments/?q=21&sid=29&cid=77 Lahore Women College University(LCWU) sets up CRP Dept.The Department of City and Regional Planning (CRP) Information Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-5-127886-LCWU-sets-up-CRP-dept https://www.facebook.com/pages/City-Regional-Planning-Department-LCWU/468012979875793 Superior University http://www.superior.edu.pk/presentation/user/AllFaculty.aspx Published: May 2013 Highlights: Pakistan remained top country for terrorist attacks, Country Report on Terrorism 2012 pointed out. Consistent with global patterns, the most common type of target in Pakistan was private citizens and property, which represented 23 percent of attacks. Overview:
In 2012, Pakistan remained an important partner in counterterrorism efforts against al-Qa’ida (AQ). Pakistan also undertook operations against terrorist groups that carried out attacks within Pakistan, such as the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP or Pakistani Taliban). Pakistan did not take significant action against some other violent extremist groups, including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), which continued to operate and raise funds openly in Pakistan through its political and charitable wing, Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD). The Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network (HQN) continued to conduct operations against U.S. and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan from Pakistan. Pakistan took steps to support an Afghan peace process and publicly called on the Taliban to enter into talks with the Afghan government. Hundreds of terrorist attacks occurred nationwide against all sectors of society, including Pakistani military and security personnel. Pakistani officials continued to make public statements against terrorism and violent extremism. The widely publicized shooting of a 14-year-old girl, Malala Yousufzai, by the TTP led to public calls for the government to do more against terrorist groups. In March, Pakistan’s parliament affirmed its commitment to eliminating terrorism and countering violent extremism. The Government of Pakistan also moved forward several pieces of counterterrorism legislation. Some banned organizations openly participated in political rallies and forged alliances with religious political parties. In September and October, militant groups and religious parties joined forces to protest and conduct public demonstrations nationwide over the video The Innocence of Muslims. Violence occurred during the early days of the protests. The government and security agencies undertook enhanced security measures during the protests and sought to convince the militant groups to participate peacefully. Pakistan’s Shia minority continued to be targeted in large-scale sectarian attacks, including in Karachi, Balochistan, and northwest Pakistan. Targeted killings of both Shia and Sunni activists occurred in Karachi. The TTP claimed credit for some sectarian attacks during the Shia holiday of Moharram, although increased levels of security prevented many TTP-planned suicide attacks on Shia processions and mosques, according to law enforcement reports. Despite the government’s stringent security measures, including a ban on both cell phone usage and motorbikes, a series of four major bombings in Karachi, Dera Ismail Khan, and Rawalpindi marred the Moharram religious week. 2012 Terrorist Incidents: Over 2,000 Pakistani civilians and 680 security forces personnel were killed in terrorist-related incidents in 2012. Terrorist incidents occurred in every province. Terrorists attacked Pakistani military units, police stations, and border checkpoints, and conducted coordinated attacks against two major military installations. Terrorists displayed videos on the internet of the murders and beheadings of security forces. Terrorist groups also targeted police and security officials with suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Terrorist groups targeted and assassinated tribal elders, members of peace committees, and anti-Taliban government officials. The TTP often claimed responsibility for attacks targeting civilians and security personnel in Pakistan. Representative incidents included: • On February 17, a suicide bomber killed 41 people in a bazaar near a Shia mosque in Parachinar, Kurram Agency. A splinter group of the TTP claimed responsibility for the blast. • On February 23, a remote-controlled bomb inside a parked car exploded outside a bus station in Peshawar. The blast killed 13 people and injured 38. • On April 24, a five-kilogram bomb in a bag exploded at the Lahore Railway Station. The blast killed three people and injured 58. • On July 12, the TTP stormed a police training facility in Lahore and executed nine police cadets. • On August 16, the TTP launched a coordinated assault with armed commandos and suicide bombers on the Kamra Air Force Base in Attock, Punjab. One security official was killed in the attack. • On August 29, terrorists attacked a Pakistani military post near the Afghan border in South Waziristan and killed 12 soldiers. TTP uploaded video to the internet of some of the soldiers being beheaded. • On September 3, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive-laden vehicle next to a Consulate General Peshawar motorcade near the entrance to the Consulate’s University town housing area. The blast killed one bystander and injured at least 20 others. Two U.S. diplomatic personnel were injured along with three local staff members and two Pakistani Police officers. • On November 21, a suicide bomber detonated his jacket near a Moharram religious procession in Rawalpindi. The blast killed 23 people and injured 62. • On December 15, terrorists attacked Peshawar Airport, killing nine people and injuring 42. • On December 22, at least nine people, including a provincial Minister, were killed and over 18 others were injured when a suicide bomber attacked a political gathering in Peshawar. • On December 29, 22 Pakistani soldiers were killed by TTP elements outside Peshawar. Legislation, Law Enforcement, and Border Security: In November, the Cabinet approved the National Counter Terrorism Authority Act of 2012, which was designed to strengthen counterterrorism coordination and information-sharing between security agencies and provincial police and provide a vehicle for national counterterrorism policy and strategy formulation. In December, Pakistan’s National Assembly approved the Fair Trial Act, which was designed to provide the necessary legal tools to intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and prosecutors to detect, disrupt, and dismantle terrorist activities and organizations. The law authorizes trial courts to use evidence obtained by electronic interception and surveillance. Pakistani security forces conducted counterterrorism operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and throughout the Federally Administered Tribal Areas that resulted in the detention or arrest of thousands of militants. Security forces intercepted large stockpiles of weapons and explosives, and discovered bomb-making facilities. Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Courts have a high acquittal rate. Witnesses routinely recant their statements or fail to appear because of threats against them and their families. In June, an Anti-Terrorism Court acquitted four men accused of assisting Faisal Shahzad, the TTP-trained militant who attempted to explode a car bomb in New York City’s Times Square in 2010, claiming a lack of evidence. The court would not accept evidence collected by electronic surveillance. The Fair Trial Act, approved by parliament in December, will allow evidence obtained by electronic interception and surveillance to be admitted as evidence in the courts system. Pakistan did not conclude the trials of seven alleged perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, although it continued to maintain a dialogue with India on steps both sides need to take to enable the prosecutions to move forward. Information sharing and counterterrorism activities with Pakistan’s security establishment continued. Pakistani law enforcement reinforced security at U.S. facilities in Pakistan during the protests over the Innocence of Muslims video in September 2012, and took steps to ensure the security of U.S. personnel. Long delays in visa processing for U.S. personnel impeded counterterrorism-related assistance and training for security forces and prosecutors. Pakistan remained a partner nation in the Department of State’s Antiterrorism Assistance program, which provided tactical and investigative training at the federal and provincial levels. Countering Terrorist Finance: Pakistan is a member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, a Financial Action Task Force (FATF)-style regional body. The FATF named Pakistan on its public statement in February due to Pakistan’s failure to address strategic deficiencies in its anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime. The FATF recommended Pakistan enact legislation to strengthen authorities to prosecute terrorist financing as well as to identify, freeze, and confiscate terrorist assets. The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act of 2012 introduced in Parliament in December includes several of the recommended changes but still failed to bring Pakistan into compliance with international AML/CFT standards. In April, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Pakistan’s customs and tax authority, established Currency Detection Units in Pakistan’s 12 international airports to counter bulk cash smuggling. The FBR also instituted improved information-sharing protocols on counterterrorism-related arrests and seizures. UN-designated terrorist organizations continued to avoid sanctions by reconstituting themselves under different names, often with little effort to hide their connections to previously banned groups. Although Pakistan added some named groups to its proscribed organizations list, Pakistan needs to take additional steps to implement and enforce UNSCRs 1267/1989, 1988, and 1373. For further information on money laundering and financial crimes, we refer you to the 2013 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Volume 2, Money Laundering and Financial Crimes:http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/index.htm. Regional and International Cooperation: Pakistan actively participated in regional and international counterterrorism efforts, including the Global Counterterrorism Forum and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. Pakistan commanded Combined Task Force 151, an international naval task force set up to conduct counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Pakistan was a partner in the UK’s Counterterrorism Prosecution Reform Initiative and the UN Development Program, which worked with provincial governments on rule of law programs in Punjab and Malakand. Pakistan participated in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meetings on counterterrorism and participated in multilateral groups where counterterrorism cooperation was discussed, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (as an observer) and the D-8, a group of developing nations with large Muslim populations. In October, Pakistan’s Interior Minister participated in a Law Enforcement and Counterterrorism working group in Washington, DC. Countering Radicalization and Violent Extremism: Pakistan’s military worked with civil society leaders to operate the Sabaoon Rehabilitation Center, a de-radicalization program in Mingora, Swat where radicalized youth are rehabilitated through education and counseling. Further readings: http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2012/209983.htm http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2012/ http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/crt/2012/210017.htm UPT data box has received the following two new dataset today:-
1. List of Health Facilities in Pakistan with Geographic Coordinates as of 2012 added on 01 June 2013 2. List of schools in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and FATA Provinces as of September 2011 added on 01 June 2013 direct links : HEALTH FACILITIES SCHOOL FACILITIES have a visit at the data box link given on the right as well. Bellow is the image showing details of the data, hope they are useful for your work... |
AboutDiscussions on social, transportation and urban planning issues with a focus on Pakistan. Archives
April 2016
Whats New
List of Health Facilities in Pakistan with Geographic Coordinates as of 2012 added on 01 June 2013
- - - - List of schools in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and FATA Provinces as of September 2011 added on 01 June 2013 - - - - Pakistan Time Use Survey Dataset added. - - - - Pakistan's spatial datasets uploaded on April 20, 2013 - - - - Share your data with others on the link below; it will be owned by you and you can invite other collaborators to use it. visitor's mapCategories
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