No Accommodation for FATA Students on Federal Seat in Punjab Universities

From the NewspaperPublished Nov 30, 2014 07:28am

Letter of Poor FATA Student 

I RECENTLY completed my graduation from Government College University Lahore in philosophy and applied to the Punjab University Lahore for M.Phil.

I was selected after a tough competition in the department of philosophy. Hailing from South Waziristan Agency (Federally Administrated Tribal Area) the Mahsud tribe, I had no accommodation in Lahore and applied for a room in the university hostel.

After a fortnight I was allotted a room in Sir Syed International Boys Hostel No 2.
When I visited the hostel, I was told that my documents were being processed and another two weeks passed. During this time I lived in a private hostel and found it difficult to concentrate on my academics as this place was far from the university and expensive as well.

After another two weeks when I asked the hostel superintendent about my room, I was told that I would not get a room because I belonged to South Waziristan Agency, Fata and the international students residing there may feel insecure because of my presence in the hostel. As an M.Phil student I am at a loss to understand the administration’s logic.

Campuses are supposed to be places where people from diverse backgrounds come and understand each other. In this way they develop a room for imbibing diversity in themselves and are in a better position to later serve in society.

Disallowing people from different backgrounds to come close to each other is promoting and reinforcing stereotypes about each other. This should not be the essence of any educational institution.

Unfortunately in our universities, the participatory culture is not applied so that students from diverse backgrounds can understand each other. This practise becomes all the more alarming when it becomes the policy of an institution of higher learning to segregate students which happened in my case. These practices reflect adversely on our society.

Rafi ud din Mahsud

South Waziristan Agency, Fata

Published in Dawn, November 30th , 2014
source; http://www.dawn.com/news/1147773

VIP culture - Army Generals can do it but Politicians cant

Policeman Handcuffed and Taken to Corps Commander Lahore Offices as Punishment and Police GD-19 Officer SP suspended for Doing the Right thing Shameful Vip Culture. 

LAHORE, Oct 16: Model Town division SP Syed Ahmed Mobin Zaidi was transferred and directed to report to the central police office (CPO) in the wake of an incident on Tuesday night when a police team stopped the car of a major-general’s family at a picket near Ghalib Market, Gulberg.

Model Town division ASP Muhammad Ali Nikokar has already been asked to report to the CPO. Besides, Ghalib Market SHO Shahid Chaddar has been suspended and Constable Nazir booked under Section 506.

The police had stopped the car on Tuesday night to remove its tinted glass, which was banned by the Punjab government for security reasons following the murder of MNA Maulana Azam Tariq.

The driver, who was reportedly in army uniform, introduced the family on board. But constable Nazir Ahmad refused to let them go because “no body was exempted from the ban”.

This led to an argument between the two which attracted other policemen present there who intervened in the matter and allowed the family to go with the tinted glass still intact.

Before leaving, the general’s driver reportedly threatened the policemen with dire consequences. His threat meterialized within minutes as the senior army command got into action and asked the police hierarchy to take strict action against the constable, Ghalib Market SHO and Model Town division SP and ASP.

The police command not only booked constable Nazir Ahmed but also allowed the army to take him to the corps headquarters handcuffed for “further interrogation”. He managed his release on Wednesday after getting bail from a local court.

Sources said SP Syed Ahmed Mobin Zaidi did try to use his connections in the army but failed to stop his transfer due to “enormous pressure” on the police hierarchy.

According to an army official, the action has been taken to “condemn the police conduct at pickets”.

Soon after the incident, vehicles of the army and the judiciary were exempted from the ban.

SOURCE: http://www.dawn.com/news/120505/sp-also-punished-for-stopping-general-s-car

A Millionaire Saves The Silenced Symphonies Of Pakistan

by PHILIP REEVES  April 26, 2014 8:07 AM ET

The city street where Sachal Studios is located looks like any other in Lahore, Pakistan. There are tea stalls and rickshaws and grimy car repair shops.
But it doesn't quite sound the same — or more precisely, there's a sound that Pakistanis have begun to forget.

Inside Sachal Studios, an orchestra is in rehearsal. The musicians are all men. Most are old enough to be grandfathers.

Their skills were going out of fashion in Pakistan. Now, they're winning applause worldwide.

A few decades back, Lahore had a booming film industry. Inevitably, it was known as Lollywood.

"This was like a magic age that fell apart," says Aqeel Anwar, a violinist in his 70s. He used to play in Lollywood soundtracks. "It was such an excellent time. I never thought it would end."

For many years, South Asian movies kept Lahore's session musicians pretty busy. And the Lollywood musicians were a class apart.

"In Punjab here in Pakistan, music is usually practiced by traditional musicians' families," says Mushtaq Soofi, a music producer. "They inherit it, they learn it from their parents and then transmit to the next generation."

Things started to change in the late '70s. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq seized power in a coup, ushering in a period of religious conservatism in Pakistan that lingers to this day.

Movie theaters began to shut down. Lollywood went into decline.

Ghulam Abbas played cello in the movies. When the work dried up, he packed away his instrument and broke with tradition by deciding not to teach his children how to play. He started up a garment stall, but struggled to get by.

"When I left this work, I was very sad," Abbas says. "I thought about how I'd worked hard and invested 25 to 30 years in my music."

Now, Abbas is sawing away at the cello again — though some of the music isn't exactly what he's used to. Bringing Back The Music

The reason Abbas is playing again is a music-mad millionaire. Izzat Majeed made his money overseas, in finance. But he was born in Lahore in 1950, remembers Lollywood's heyday and greatly admires its musicians.

"It was a brotherhood of great musicians," Majeed says. "I call them great because they are great and they lost it. They lost the avenue. They lost the money. They lost the creativity."

Majeed decided to rekindle that creativity by building a new studio complex in Lahore — and reuniting these men to form the Sachal Studios Orchestra.

He teamed up with the music producer Mushtaq Soofi, an old friend. Soofi says he remembers the first day the musicians played together.

"They were delighted and we were delighted, too," Soofi says. "Because we thought the music was dead, but when we met them, we realized it's not really dead."

Izzat Majeed says he's driven by a lifelong passion for music — especially traditional Pakistani music and jazz.

"Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Brubeck, Quincy [Jones]," he says. "I can go on and on."

When he was 8, Majeed was taken by his dad to see Dave Brubeck perform in Lahore. Brubeck's version of the classic "Take Five" seems to have made a big impression on the city.

"'Take Five' was a big hit in Lahore in the '60s," Majeed says. "Nobody knew what it was. It was just a melody and the whole thing. It was just a phenomenal, a fantastic piece of music."

Lahore was different back then.

"Even the tea boys and tea shacks put it on," he says. "First time I heard it [was] in the streets, coming out of a shop."

Majeed decided, a couple of years ago, that the orchestra should have a crack at "Take Five." Its version has a South Asian twist. Majeed posted it online, and it went viral. Brubeck, who was still alive at the time, even sent a note saying how much he loved it.

It's not easy running an orchestra in Pakistan. Some skills do seem to have vanished, Majeed says.

"I can't find a single piano player in Lahore, maybe in Pakistan, a real piano player," Majeed says. "People come and say, 'Oh, I can play,' but he can play atrociously — he doesn't know what the piano, the real piano, is. There's no brass left. Brass is dead."

When Sachal musicians go on tour abroad — to, say, London or New York — they hook up with outside musicians. That includes some big names, among them Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

The studio orchestra is now firmly on the map.

It recently released its second album, Jazz and All That. There's more Brubeck, among other Western classics by The Beatles, Jacques Brel, Antonio Carlos Jobim, R.E.M. — all with a South Asian flavor.

The weird thing is, Mushtaq Soofi says, while the old Lollywood session men are now winning plaudits abroad, no one back home knows or cares much about them.

"Music has to be recognized, and there is no patronage for music in Pakistan," Soofi says. "That is why people are upset, musicians are upset. If you sing, if you are a singer or a vocalist, you get kind of fame and name and money, but if you are a musician, a pure musician, people don't bother much about you."

The only people who do bother about you tend to be the religious extremists, like the Taliban.

"It is very difficult for musicians, because music is considered forbidden because it is un-Islamic," cellist Ghulam Abbas says. "Yet the same people think it is acceptable to kill people."

Be that as it may, Abbas says he isn't planning to hang up his cello again.

Source : http://www.npr.org/2014/04/26/306874889/a-millionaire-saves-the-silenced-symphonies-of-pakistan