Enthralling musical concert at ACP

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Arts Council of Pakistan (ACP), Karachi, came alive with enthralling musical concert held at the open air theatre on the evening of July 18.

The event was organized by the ACP’s Special Projects Committee with the collaboration of the Funoon Cultural Forum. 

The live music performance by a battery of vocalists of varying talents was thoroughly enjoyed by the audience which remained glued to seats for about three hours as it was entertained with some of the popular numbers, both old and new. 

Ayub Khan, the chief organizer of the show, was thoroughly praised for having put together an exciting concert, fuelling the passion for music even without the presence of the star performers. 

Having earned the reputation of organizing successful musical concerts without engaging any superstar, he delivered once more with his acumen and presentation skills much to the delight of the big audience which enjoyed the proceedings despite the up and down sea breeze, which blew in patches.

There was a particular treat for the ghazal lovers and the last segment was a smashing success.

Vocalist Ishtiaq Bashir, hailing from the family of Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, mesmerized the audience who were asking for more when the show was finally brought to an end.

Akhlaq Ahmed, Ahmer Abbas, Aisha Khan, Uzma Noor, Laila Ali, Fouzia Noor and Ghazal Khan were the other singers to have showcased their talents in front of an appreciating crowd.

Sardar Nazakat Ali was the chief guest of the night while Abdul Khaliq and Noman Abid were the guests of honour. 

Syed Khalid Mahmood, Khalid Mumtaz Ansari, Abdul Hamid, Dr Barkatullah Memon and Nazir Mateen were among the VIP guests invited for the programme and all of them were delighted to have watched the full concert spanning more than three hours. 

Tazeem Jamal, one of the coordinators for the event, expressed satisfaction at the large turnout and she took pride at having entertained the audience with brilliant performance from the participating artists. 

“Obviously its teamwork and the credit for the successful programme need to be shared between the organizers and the performers. The guitarists, the vocalists, the violinists and the tabla-nawaz made it possible with their joint efforts on the stage,” she recognized. 

Herself an event manager by profession, she didn’t mince words in stating that such musical concerts provided lifeline to the inhabitants of a city as big as Karachi where the majority of the people spend bulk of their time in work-related pursuits with negligible avenues for entertainment. 

Khalid Mumtaz Ansari, a widely travelled scientist, reckoned that the three-hour programme remained lively for the major parts of it and the finishing was an icing on the cake. 

Abdul Hamid, an accountant and trainer, was also thrilled with the performance of the artists and he thanked them for enlivening the proceedings even though the weather was not particularly pleasant.

Shanta Zaibunnisa Bukhari remembered

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Glowing tributes were paid to late Comrade Shanta Zaibunnisa for her services for the downtrodden society and specially tilling women on the occasion of her death anniversary observed at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi. The speakers on the occasion included comrade leaders, intellectuals, law makers, members of teaching community and people from various walks of life.

They hailed Shanta Zaibunnisa Bukhari as first comrade leader of South Asia who struggled her whole of life in advocating the cause of women particularly the downtrodden. 

They pointed out that Shanta Bukhari launched her struggle for tilling women in her young age when there ‘satti’ tradition used to be followed in India. 

The speakers described her role for working and downtrodden women as most important, particularly in organizing and motivating them to get them a respectful place in the society and putting forward the concept of freedom for such women of the subcontinent. 

She struggled rest of her life in creating awareness and organizing the women working in factories, women working in bangles-making units, working in the field of garbage collection and sweeping, home maids and those working in the field of agriculture and domestic units. 

The speakers admitted the big role played by Shanta Zaibunnisa and her comrade husband, Jamaluddin Bukhari. They said that history will never forget the struggle waged by Shanta for the welfare of women and their rights.

Noted intellectual, Dr Jaffer Ahmed, recalled that Shanta was a women who created awareness among working women for carrying out struggle for their rights and stood fast against extortionist forces. 

He said this very awareness brought her close to Comrade Jamaluddin Bukhari and truned into Zaibunnisa from Shanta. 

He said that our today’s society strongly needed such volunteers. 

Noted social worker, Mehnaz Rehman, reckoned that Shanta enjoyed the status of a mother for communists and such personalities do born in centuries. 

She said it was because of personalities like Shanta who created an awareness among women to come forward to lead the society and where they still face a discriminatory treatment. 

Former Commissioner Karachi, Shafiqur Rehman Paracha, considered himself fortunate for having had the opportunity of meeting Comrade Jamaluddin Bukhari when he was serving as Assistant Commissioner Larkana and always followed Comrade’s advice in administrative matters during his different postings. 

Jamaluddin had told him that government officials should always keep their doors open to help the helpless, he recalled and said that during visiting hours who would always come out of his office and meet the needy visitors.

Comrade Roochi Lal, advocate, disclosed that late Z A Bhutto would seek guidance from Jamaluddin Bukhari to learn the philosophy of socialism. He said history will always remember the services of Comrade Jamaluddin and his wife Shanta Zaibunnisa for the rights of tillers and working women. 

Dr Tausif Ahmed described the struggle waged by Shanta Zaibunnisa for the release of her husband as an important chapter of history. Researcher Aslam Khawaja told the audience that he ddin’t find any instance with regard to the struggle except the one waged by Shanta for development of women of Sindh. 

He asserted that there is need to carry out more research with regard to Shanta’s services and struggle for women of Sindh. Dr Riaz Shaikh noted that at the time when there existed the tradition of ‘satti’ in India, the women lacked the concept of equality in their rights and such an awareness was created by Shanta Jamaluddin. 

Former Ambassador and retired DIG, Jamil Ahmed Kha, regarded late Shanta Zaibunnisa as a woman with great farsightedness and it was her vision that she raised voice for women at a time when they were only restricted within boundary walls of their homes. 

Syed Munawar Bukhari, son of late Shanta Jamaluddin, said that her mother had dedicated her entire life in championing the cause of social welfare and particularly welfare of down trodden women.

Dr Firdous visits KPC, vows to resolve APP pensioners’ issues

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News and Features Services)

The Federal Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, during her visit to the Karachi Press Club (KPC on July 22, listened to the problems being faced by the media industry and the journalists’ community of the country.

The Federal Minister held meetings with the delegations of the KPC, Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ) and All Pakistan Newspapers Employees Confederation (APNEC) besides Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) Employees Union. 

The office-bearers of the KPC, PFUJ, KUJ and APNEC presented the cases of media persons particularly in Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh including retired employees of APP Karachi. 

Two of the former Presidents of APP Employees Union Sindh, Ehsan Qureshi and Masood Sattar Khan, informed the Minister about non-payment of dues to retired employees since 2008, pension increase as announced by federal government, non-payment of medical bills and non-availability of medical facilities including hospitalization for retired and old employees whose outstanding services for this premier agency of Pakistan can be reckoned with.

She was communicated that while millions of rupees were paid to current regular employees, the retired employees of APP Karachi and interior of Sindh were being totally ignored notwithstanding the financial conditions they were passing through. 

The small delegation of the APP pensioners appealed to Dr.Firdous Ashiq Awan for justice for the golden old employees of the national news agency. 

The Information Minister showed her utter surprise over non-payment of long standing dues of retired journalists of the APP.

She told the media people that Prime Minister Imran Khan was most concerned about their well-being and desired to resolve all their problems. 

The media persons present on the occasion were shocked to learn that the Federal Information Minister was being kept in the dark regarding the issues concerning the APP by officials of their own Ministry. 

The APP, being the leading news agency of the country, has been the mouthpiece of the government all along and it’s one of the most important organs of the Federal Ministry of the Information and Broadcasting, now headed by Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan.

Railways stalwarts concerned about rising train accidents

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi 
(Pakistan News and Features Services) 

Former Railways bigwigs and stalwarts have taken exception to successive railway accidents claiming many precious human lives and described the same as utter professional mismanagement and overloading of railway system caused by launching of new trains with old rolling stock just for political reasons. 

“The recent spate of accidents on PR’s network reflects the breakdown of an intricate system put in place to ensure safety of train operations. These horrific accidents are reflective of utter mismanaged and a quickly deteriorating and overheated system, adversely affecting the safety of train operations,” the former senior railway professionals observed while offering their comments on railway accidents one after the other. 

The tragic accident occurred at Walhar station, near Sadiqabad, on July 11 in which about 24 precious lives were lost and more than 70 passengers injured, some of them critically. Akbar Bugti Express, on way to Quetta, had rammed into a stationery freight train, a nightmare for any operating system. 

An equally horrific had accident occurred a few days ago near Hyderabad when another passenger train rammed into a freight train. 

“These accident reflected the breakdown of the administrative, technical and operational framework put in place to ensure the safety of train operations,” one of the former Pakistan Railways high-ranking officials remarked, fearing that the nightmare may continue unabated unless adequate safety measures were put in place immediately. 

Another former Railways official, while commenting on safety aspects of train operations, pointed out that it’s a crucially important aspect of any railway system as the maintenance of the already weakened infrastructure had been completely neglected for the past year or two. The condition of the already dilapidated track has further deteriorated with the load of more passenger trains introduced by the current political leadership. 

Moreover, mandatory inspections of stations, track and rolling stock, maintenance facilities, essentially required to ensure safety of train operations, has lost its priority with the PR management. Their focus, unfortunately, has been diverted to arranging frequent inaugural functions for the political leadership. 

Complete track renewals, which were considered routine on the main line, are a thing of the past and short term track rehabilitation projects take ages to complete due financial suffocation and lack of proper supervision. 

Another senior railway official of the past was of the view that routine maintenance of rolling stock has also been criminally ignored as the attention of the mechanical staff, especially at MGPR workshops, washing lines and sick lines has been diverted towards rolling out refurbished passenger coaches for facilitating introduction of new trains being announced on a monthly basis, in compliance with policy directives of the Minister for Railways. 

Most of the newly introduced trains are financial disasters and do not even meet the fuel costs, he claimed Though fully convinced of the adverse financial, operational and safety effects of the newly inducted trains, the railway management has somehow failed to convince the Federal Minister for Railways. 

Yet another very senior ex-railway man opened that regular training of human resource, particularly operating staff like drivers, firemen, station staff, guards, signal staff and track maintenance staff is vital for the safety of train operations. This aspect of capacity building of operating employees has been ignored and is not a priority with the railway management. 

The rail experts unanimously reckoned that train operation is an intricate business where each department has to contribute to the system with commitment. This dedication, coordination and commitment is completely lacking, somehow. 

According to them the employees and supervisory staff have lost faith in the officers at the operational levels; and the junior officers have lost faith in the senior officers; worst of all the senior officers have no love lost for the political leadership of PR. 

The staff is disgruntled at the lack of strategic leadership. In the process, the organization is suffering as mandatory operating rules are ignored, resulting in derailments, train parting, fire in trains and head-on collisions. They noted that preliminary inquiries into the recent accidents at Walhar and Hyderabad point to not only technical failures but also to human failure in the form extremely indifferent attitude of the operating staff like, drivers, assistant drivers, station staff, signal staff, etc. 

The PR’s system is almost fool proof and all failures, whether human, electrical and mechanical or track related have to be in place in order to avoid accident. These accidents indicate some kind of tempering with the system. 

For an accident to happen, a combination of human and technical failure in track, rolling stock or signalling is required. The current overload of the already compromised track and rolling stock, by introducing nonproductive and financially nonviable trains has added to the chaos. 

They asserted that focused attention, through inspections and field visits, on day to day basis, of infrastructure and rolling stock facilities, punctuality of trains, safety of train operations, and crash refresher courses for operating staff will definitely reduce the current trend of accidents.

As accidents are a reflection of a failed system. The farce of introduction of new passenger trains on rickety tracks need to be stopped immediately. Running of more passenger trains, and that too loss making is a disservice to PR and causing over heating of an already compromised and weak system. 

They alleged that PR has been an unfortunate story of neglect in the form of deferred maintenance of its three main assets, namely, infrastructure, rolling stock and its human resource. Way forward is to concentrate on immediate implementation of upgradation of ML-1 project’ under CPEC; a once in a life time opportunity but slowly fading away due to mishandling at the political leadership level?

One word of caution though, PR and the government needs to concentrate on proper maintenance of the existing track till the time the ML-1 project is completed in five to six years. 

They advised that infrastructure engineers need to remain on line rather than in the comfort of their offices, especially during the upcoming monsoon season, so as to cater to minor track defects and to protect the track from flash floods. 

Going back to the elaborate framework of operating and safety code, rules and procedure would definitely reduce the frequency of accidents. The frequency of meetings on issues not related to train operations , especially at the highest levels, needs to be drastically curtailed enabling the officers to focus on basic things like punctuality, safety of operations, track and rolling stock maintenance and revenue generation. This is not a tall order. 

Referring to an important aspect of the up gradation project, under CPEC, is human resource development, senior former professional said adding that the Chinese can be of help in immediate upgrade of the training facilities at Walton so as to facilitate immediate training of operating and signalling staff, to avoid critical over load of the system and to reduce expenditures, stop running of new loss making passenger trains.”

Sir Syed Express inaugurated in Karachi

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi 
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

The Divisional Superintendent, Pakistan Railways, Karachi Division, Syed Mazhar Ali Shah, got the much talked about the newly introduced Karachi-Rawalpindi Sir Syed Express inaugurated on July 4 through Muhammad Suleman, the first passenger to have booked the ticket from Karachi. 

Talking to media on the occasion, he informed that the train having a total capacity of 646 seats, offers three classes of AC Sleeper, AC Business and Economy. It had 100% booking for the opening day. The train, branded as luxurious, had the facilities of dining car and wi-fi.

The train will reach its destination in 21 hours via Faisalabad. Upon completion of ML-1, the travel time of the train will reduce to 10 hours. 

Besides facilitating passengers it’s being expected to earn the much-needed revenue for the Pakistan Railways. 

The train, named after the legendary scholar and thinker, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, is an important addition to passengers’ service as it would serve three different segments of the passengers market with a focus on economy class service (72%).

The Divisional Superintendent remarked that the train aims at facilitating the passengers from Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Kashmir who travel to Karachi and other southern cities of the country. 

DS Syed Mazhar Shah told PNFS that at present some 60 trains operate Up and Down from Karachi Division out of which 40 were mail and express trains.

According to him, on 100 percent booking, the Sir Syed Express will generate an income of Rs two million on one side in a day. 

Mazhar Shah said that in Karachi Division alone some 1.2 million passengers were added to an existing roughly seven million passengers during the last financial year contributing to the railway's exchequer. 

Earlier the Sir Syed Express was formally inaugurated by Prime Minister, Imran Khan, during a high-profile ceremony in Rawalpindi.

Eminent engineers conferred IEP Lifetime Achievement awards

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

In accordance with its traditions, the Institution of Engineers Pakistan (IEP) celebrated the Engineers Day in a befitting manner and recognized some of the eminent engineers of the country. 

The IEP organized the Engineers Day 2019 ceremony at the NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, on June 29 and the auditorium was packed to capacity as 20 engineers, having distinguished themselves in different vocations were conferred Lifetime Achievement awards. 

The accomplishments of the award winners, picked by a jury headed by Engr Prof Dr Sarosh Hashmat Lodi, Vice Chancellor, NED University, were narrated loudly and clapped generously as they reached the podium to receive the shields. 

Those conferred IEP Lifetime Achievement awards on the occasion included Engr Syed Raza Akhlaq, Engr Amir Farooq, Engr Muhammad Saleem Raza, Engr Syed Salahuddin Ahmed, Engr Neelofar Hameed, Engr Asif Rizvi, Engr Salman Ansari, Engr Abdul Rauf Tabani, Chairman, Engr Taufiq Bilwani, Engr Muhammad Khan Minhas, Engr Syed Khalid Mahmood, Engr Muhammad Ali Shehaki and Engr Farhat Ishtiaq.

The presentation party on the stage included Engr Sohail Bashir, Chairman, IEP, Engr Prof Dr Sarosh Hashmat Lodi, Vice Chancellor, NED University, Engr Syed Jamshed Rizvi, Senior Vice Chairman, Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) and Engr Muhammad Shafique, Vice Chairman, PEC. 

In his welcome address, Engr Sohail Bashir, Chairman, IEP, recalled that the Institution was established on May 7, 1948 at Chittagong, the then East Pakistan with the blessings of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

“Every year we celebrate the founding day as Engineers Day throughout Pakistan. Presently our headquarters is located in Lahore. We have more then 50,000 members in 11 centres including one in Saudi Arabia. We also have a very active sub-center in Bahrain and a new sub-center at USA-Tri States comprising of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut,” he informed. 

“The IEP caters for all disciplines of engineering and it represents Pakistan in the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), Federation of Engineering Institutions of Islamic Countries (FEIIC), Federation of Engineering Institutions of South and Central Asia (FEISCA), Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC) and Commonwealth Engineering Council (CWC). We also have collaboration agreements with more then 40 engineering institutions around the world,” the IEP Chairman added. 

“Engineers are the catalyst of change and engineering does provide a noticeable physical change in the surroundings of the society through manifestation of improved industry and national assets which are developed and maintained to satisfactory working condition to the benefit of the society,” he remarked. 

“I take this opportunity to emphasis that self-reliance should be the corner stone in all scheme of works. The Institution is more than willing to advise the government on all relevant aspects for the optimal utilization of local human and material resources in the national projects,” Engr Sohail Bashir declared. 

Engr Prof Dr Sarosh Hashmat Lodi, Vice Chancellor, NED University, also delivered a thought-provoking speech on the occasion, in which he advised the policymakers to seek input from the engineers in particular for working out solution to the economic issues confronting the country. 

“The engineers have spearheaded the turnaround in many countries. They can do the same in our country if pressed into service. Time and again the engineers have delivered as they primarily happen to be trouble shooters,” he reckoned. 

Paying tribute to the galaxy of engineering luminaries, who were recognized at the night, the Vice Chancellor of the NED University looked forward to continue producing many more stalwarts from engineering institutions in future.