Pakistani girl top scorer in o levels

A girl student of Balochistan got five A*s (90 per cent or more) and three As (between 80pc and 89.9pc) in this year’s O Level examinations given by the University of Cambridge, it was learnt on Sunday.

Rafia Durrani, a student of the Iqra Army Public School, Quetta, may be the region’s top-scorer for the examinations.

According to the information released by the British university, Rafia secured A*s in English language, mathematics, physics, chemistry and Urdu. She secured As in biology, Islamiyat and Pakistan studies.

Pakistan: Happy independence day

OUR MOTHERLAND we love you and sorry for all the abuse and bruise we gave, and yet you stand and protect us

Naughty Pakistani president

My last meesage to naughty and idiot pakistanis, from the lovely president

Naughty pakistanis are sending me home today.

I am the one who saved you from Pakistanis themselves.

I will miss you and i am sure i will be missed by bacha bacha of pakistan

Pakistan KHAPPAY, KHAP KHAP K KHAPPAY

ZORDARI

and yes, i will be back

S. Arabia will send imams to Pakistan

Saudi Arabia would send imams, one each from Masjidul Haram in Makkah and Masjid-i-Nabawi in Madina, to Pakistan every year.

Talking to visiting Pakistan’s Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Sardar Mohammed Yousaf, President of the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudais made the announcement.

He said this was being done to promote ties between the two countries. He said that King Abdullah attached great importance to Pakistan and its people.

Relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are based on deep love and reverence, Sheikh Al-Sudais told the Pakistani minister and the accompanying delegation. He also prayed for the Muslim Ummah and progress and prosperity of Pakistan.

The Pakistani minister told Sheikh Al-Sudais that Pakistan was making a concerted effort to promote interfaith dialogue in line with the initiative of King Abdullah. He also extended an invitation to Sheikh Al-Sudais to visit Pakistan.

Sheikh Al-Sudais visited Pakistan while the Lal Masjid episode was dominating headlines, apparently to convince Maulana Abdul Aziz and late Abdul Rasheed Ghazi to surrender before authorities.

However, clerics of Lal Masjid did not pay heed to his advice.

Wasim bowled

Legendary Pakistan paceman Wasim Akram said Monday he will marry his Australian girlfriend, who has converted to Islam and will settle in his home country.

Australian media reported that Wasim proposed on bended knee to Shaniera Thompson in her living room.

“Yes, I will marry next year and I’ve known Shaniera for the last one-and-a-half years and she has converted to Islam,” Wasim told AFP by telephone from England.

“I feel lucky that I have got a second chance in life.”

The 47-year-old’s first wife Huma died in 2009.

Wasim said Thompson, a former public relations consultant, will settle in Pakistan.

“She is close to my kids who are also excited and my in-laws (Huma’s parents) also endorsed the decision after meeting her,” said Wasim, who has two sons from his previous marriage.

“It will be a new life, a new beginning and I hope that we will settle down well with the best wishes of family and fans,” he said.

Wasim played 104 Tests and 356 one-day internationals for Pakistan in a career lasting from 1984 to 2003.

He was regarded as one of the best left-arm fast bowlers to have played the game and remains a major celebrity in Pakistan.

Wasim was player of the tournament in the country’s only triumph in the World Cup, in Australia in 1992. He captained Pakistan to a runners-up finish in the 1999 World Cup in England.

Eye to eye: Finally decoded

Taher Shah has become an internet phenomenon. The once completely unknown singer who released a song and video ‘Eye to Eye’ two months ago, recently found himself becoming an overnight sensation.

A number of theories have been doing the rounds about Shah’s sudden fame. But it is the lyrics of his soft, romantic ditty that have been (and still are) the central focus of curiosity among millions of listeners and viewers who continue to watch the video and listen to the song over and over again.

Taher remains to be a mystery. He’s in his late 40s and by the looks of it seems to be an accomplished singer and songwriter. But the question is where Shah was when Pakistan’s pop music scene was booming in the 1990s?

The Shah phenomenon suggest that Shah is a trained composer, songwriter and vocalist who somehow missed the boom that Pakistan’s pop scene witnessed in the 1990s when Shah was in his 20s.

When, after a long wait, we did manage to get through to Shah (on the phone), Shah claimed: ‘Now’s the times of love ripe patience beholds precious time.’

As is apparent, his response is as enigmatic as the much debated lyrics of his mega hit song, ‘Eye to Eye.’

Though Shah continues to withhold the details of his background and life from the press, saying ‘it’s a private part of my life,’ we finally managed to get two of his close associates to reveal a few but vital aspects of Shah’s personality and life.

But they insisted that their names should not be published because Shah would then definitely fire them from his entourage of musicians, photographers, video cameramen and wardrobe designers.

‘He is a very private man,’ one of the two assistants that we talked to told us. ‘Even his closest friends rarely see him. He spends most of his time in his sprawling study doing research on love, spirituality and the human anatomy. Then he plays the saxophone deep into the night.’

According to his assistants, Shah was born in Mirpurkhas in the Sindh province of Pakistan sometime in the early 1960s. He comes from a family that struggled to make ends meet.

The assistants weren’t sure what kind of a childhood Shah had but added that he had to wait tables at roadside restaurants in Mirpurkhas to supplement his studies at school and college.

‘He would work at these restaurants from morning till afternoon, attend evening school and then college where he studied biology,’ one of the assistants informed us. ‘He would then read books on agriculture and botany at home and play the tuba deep into the night.’

There are also rumours about Shah being arrested in July 1977 when military General, Ziaul Haq, toppled Z A. Bhutto’s government.

Tahir in late 70s

‘We have heard that as well,’ the assistant said. ‘But Shah doesn’t talk much about that episode. He says at the time of Bhutto’s Saheb’s fall, he (Shah) was busy playing the flute deep into the night.’
‘It’s a very touchy subject for him’, the other assistant added.

Another rumour doing the rounds is that Shah played the saxophone on some songs recorded by Pakistan’s seminal pop vocalist Alamgir in the early 1980s.

‘All we know is that he moved to Karachi in the 1980s,’ said one of the assistants. ‘He used to wait tables at a restaurant in the Tariq Road area of the city to supplement his studies at the Karachi University where he had enrolled as a student of alternative psychology.’

The assistants, however, confirmed, that Shah did play the saxophone as a sessions musician on some songs recorded by famous Pakistani pop singer of the 1980s, Tehseen Javed.

‘Javed looked a lot like Alamgir,’ said one of the assistants. ‘Maybe that’s why some people think Shah Jee played with Alamgir. But it was on a few songs recorded by Javed that Shah Jee played the saxophone. He wanted to quit waiting tables and supplement his studies and research as a session musician.’

But we come back to the same question: ‘Where was Shah when bands like Vital Signs, Junoon and The Strings were kick-starting a major pop wave in Pakistan from the late 1980s and across the 1990s?

British Pakistani tailors ‘million dollar suit’

British Pakistani Master Tailor Arshad Mahmood has produced a suit that he claims to be one of the world’s most expensive tailor-made suits priced at $129,000 (HK$1, 000, 000).

Arshad Mahmood, who has offices in London and Hong Kong, originates from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, and learnt the art of tailoring originally in the city of Karachi in early 80s.

Mahmood recently showcased his talents at the launch of his ‘million dollar suit’ in Hong Kong. The suit is made of 22-carat gold stitching, a gold waistcoat and diamond-encrusted gold and diamond buttons. Mahmood especially flew to Hong Kong to sell it to a mystery buyer from China for HK$1, 000, 000.

The launch event was attended by a number of top celebrities including Formula One’s Adrian Sutil and singer & actress Maria Cordero.

Arshad Mahmood says that his suit is the only one of its kind in the world. Speaking to The News after returning from Hong Kong, Arshad Mahmood commented: “It took us 200 hours to tailor this suit, which took a great amount of care, dedication and planning. It is very special. It’s a great achievement for us as a team. The idea was to make a suit that is not only one of the most most expensive suits in the world but also exquisite, stylish and carries a clear ideology. This suit exactly does that and I am very happy. The craft that I learnt originally in Karachi has given me fame and money and I am indebted

He agreed that this suit will be worn only on special occasions and only a handful of people in the world could afford that kind of indulgence. “It’s not for everyday use. I am not sure if the owner of the suit will actually tell others that he is standing there wearing the most expensive attire in the world or not. It’s entirely up to him.”

The suit was sold within a few hours of the launch on the same day. Amongst the selected guests of 180, there were more than a dozen mulch-millionaires from India, Africa and China. The buyer of the suit requested that his name shall not be revealed, said Arshad.

Mahmood has also made suits for former prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Shaukat Aziz. This is not the first time that the Pakistani tailor has made headlines with his craft. The tailor has stitched suits for members of the Royal family in the United Kingdom, Field Marshal Sir John Chapple, Lord Brammal and celebrities such as footballers Joe Cole, Carlton Cole & Scott Parker, James Caan, Duncan Bannatyne, Theo Paphitis, England Manager Roy Hodgson, West Ham’s Sam Allardyce & Fulham’s Martin Jol. He is also the official tailor for Premiership Football Clubs, West Ham United and Fulham FC, Saracens Rugby Club and Australia’s Sydney Roosters Rugby Club.

Dr. Razi: EINSTEIN’s student

Dr. Razi, was an eminent Pakistani theoretical physicist and a renowned mathematician who played an instrumental and an influential role in Pakistan’s education system and Pakistan’s integrated nuclear detterence development.An educationist and a scientist, Siddiqui had established numerous educational research institutes and universities in his country.

The reason i choose to write about Dr.Razi is that he was one of the beloved student of none other than the great EINSTEIN.

During 1940s in Europe, he had made important and advance contributions in mathematical physics as well as work on the theory of relativity, nuclear energy, and the Quantum gravity. Siddiqui was an eminent and prominent educationist of Pakistan who dedicated his life for physics and mathematics in his country. An avid supporter of Science in Pakistan, Siddiqui attended various conferences for physics, mathematics, and science in Pakistan and abroad.
He had been the Vice-Chancellor of four Pakistan universities and the first V.Chancellor of Quaid-e-Azam University and served as the Emeritus professor of Physics there until his death in 1998.

He had the rare privilege to study Mathematics and Quantum mechanics under Albert Einstein in Berlin and Heisenberg at Leipzig. He then received his M.Sc. in Mathematics and M.Phil. in Quantum Physics under the guidance and supervision of Albert Einstein. He completed his Ph.D in Theoretical Physics, writing a brief research thesis on the Theory of relativity and the Nuclear energy, under the supervision of the renowned Physicist and Nobel Laureate Dr. Werner Karl Heisenberg in 1930. During his early career, Siddiqui interacted and researched in important aspects of theoretical physics with Edward Teller, contributor of Teller-Ullam design, when he was the pioneering student of Heisenberg’s doctorate group. Later, he did his post doctoral work at the University of Paris, France.

After the Indo-Pakistani Winter War of 1971, Siddiqui joined the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) on the request of Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Siddiqui was the first full-time Technical Member of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and was responsible for the preparation of its charter.

During the 1970s, Siddiqui worked on problems in theoretical physics with notable Pakistan’s top theoretical physicists in the integrated atomic bomb project. Previously, he had a distinguished career in Europe, during which he had carried out a wide variety of nuclear research in British nuclear program, and as well as the French atomic program. At the PAEC, he became a mentor of country’s academic scientists and remained a vital research figure in the atomic bomb program. At PAEC, he was the director of the Mathematical Physics Group (MPG) and was tasked with performing mathematical calculations involved in fission and the supercomputing. As the director of classified research at the PAEC, Siddiqui and the MPG took initiatives to perform necessary research on theoretical physics, that brought international recognition of Pakistan in the physics world. While both MPG and Theoretical Physics Group (TPG) had reported directly to Abdus Salam, Siddiqui remained a bridge to coordinate each meeting with the scientists of TPG and mathematicians of the MPG.

One of his major initiatives and achievements, was the establishment of mathematical physics groups and a science directorate to lead and conduct research on the mathematical extension in nuclear and theoretical physic. Since theoretical physics plays a major role in identifying the parameters of nuclear physics, Siddiqui started the work on special relativity’s complex applications, the “Relativity of simultaneity”. His Mathematical Physics Group undertook the research and performed calculations on “Relativity of simultaneity” during the process of weapon detonation, where multiple explosive energy rays are bound to release in the same isolate and close medium at the same time interval. In fact, his association with PAEC continued and focused on producing prolific research on theoretical physics that led to the foundation of theoretical and mathematical physics divisions, facilities and the laboratories.

After his work at the PAEC, Raziuddin Siddiqui again joined Quaid-e-Azam University’s Physics Faculty. As professor of Physics, he continued his research at the Institute of Physics, He began to mobilized and established different physics groups as he had led annual conferences to promote science in Pakistan. Throughout late 1979, he contributed richly to the advancement of science in Pakistan. He then played an influential role in the development of higher education sector, and placed mainframe policies in the institution.

Siddiqui remained in Islamabad, and had associated himself with Quaid-e-Azam University. In 1990, he was made Professor Emeritus of Physics and Mathematics there. He had a passion for both Physics and Mathematics which remained with him until his death. He peacefully died on January 8, 1998, at the age of 90. A reputed scientist, Siddiqui’s autobiography was written by the renowned scienstists who had opportunity to with work him. In Pakistan, he was well known for his efforts to introduce the complex applications of theoretical physics in the different universities of Pakistan. He played an important and key role in establishing of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Laboratories at the PAEC. In 1960, due to his efforts to expand education, he was awarded the third-highest civilian award of Pakistan, Sitara-i-Imtiaz, from the then-President of Pakistan, Field Marshal Ayub Khan.

In 1981, he was awarded the second highest civilian award, Hilal-i-Imtiaz, from President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq due to his significant efforts in Pakistan’s atomic program, and popularizing science in Pakistan. Siddqui remained as one of the few Pakistani scientists who personally knew Premier, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the only Pakistani Nobel laureate, Dr. Abdus Salam (late). In May 1998, the Government of Pakistan belatedly recognized Siddiqui’s vital services by awarding the highest civilian award, Nishan-i-Imtiaz posthumously by the prime minister Nawaz Sharif when Pakistan conducted its first successful nuclear tests.

Pakistan’s first combat fighter

MUSHAF AIR BASE, Pakistan: With an olive green head scarf poking out from her helmet, Ayesha Farooq flashes a cheeky grin when asked if it is lonely being the only war-ready female fighter pilot in the Islamic republic of Pakistan.

Farooq, from Punjab province’s historic city of Bahawalpur, is one of 19 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade — there are five other female fighter pilots, but they have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat.

“I don’t feel any different. We do the same activities, the same precision bombing,” the soft-spoken 26-year-old said of her male colleagues at Mushaf base in north Pakistan, where neatly piled warheads sit in sweltering 50 degree Celsius heat (122 F).

A growing number of women have joined Pakistan’s defence forces in recent years as attitudes towards women change.

“Because of terrorism and our geographical location it’s very important that we stay on our toes,” said Farooq, referring to Taliban militancy and a sharp rise in sectarian violence.

Deteriorating security in neighbouring Afghanistan, where US-led troops are preparing to leave by the end of next year, and an uneasy relationship with arch rival India to the east add to the mix.

Farooq, whose slim frame offers a study in contrast with her burly male colleagues, was at loggerheads with her widowed and uneducated mother seven years ago when she said she wanted to join the air force.

“In our society most girls don’t even think about doing such things as flying an aircraft,” she said.

Family pressure against the traditionally male domain of the armed forces dissuaded other women from taking the next step to become combat ready, air force officials said. They fly slower aircraft instead, ferrying troops and equipment around the nuclear-armed country of 180 million.

Less of a Taboo

Centuries-old rule in the tribal belt area along the border with Afghanistan, where rape, mutilation and the killing of women are ordered to mete out justice, underlines conservative Pakistan’s failures in protecting women’s rights.

But women are becoming more aware of those rights and signing up with the air force is about as empowering as it gets.

“More and more ladies are joining now,” said Nasim Abbas, Wing Commander of Squadron 20, made up of 25 pilots, including Farooq, who fly Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jets.

“It’s seen as less of a taboo. There’s been a shift in the nation’s, the society’s, way of thinking,” Abbas told Reuters on the base in Punjab’s Sargodha district, about 280 km (175 miles) east of the capital Islamabad, home base to many jets in the 1965 and 1971 wars with India.

There are now about 4,000 women in Pakistan’s armed forces, largely confined to desk jobs and medical work.

But over the last decade, women have became sky marshals, defending Pakistan’s commercial liners against insurgent attacks, and a select few are serving in the elite anti-terrorist force. Like most female soldiers in the world, Pakistani women are still banned from ground combat.

Pakistan now has 316 women in the air force compared to around 100 five years ago, Abbas said.

“In Pakistan, it’s very important to defend our front lines because of terrorism and it’s very important for everyone to be part of it,” said avionics engineer Anam Hassan, 24, as she set out for work on an F-16 fighter aircraft, her thick black hair tucked under a baseball cap.

“It just took a while for the air force to accept this.”

Capt. Hercharn Singh

First Sikh Commissioned Officer in Pakistan Army!!!