Loud Thinking

Archive for June, 2014

“I just think it’s silly to be stingy with compliments. If you see someone and they strike you as beautiful in any way, why not let them know?”

—Jill Scott (born 1972);
Musician

Get the Boss’s Feedback on a New Strategy

Any strategy needs senior management’s support, but don’t go to your boss with a perfectly polished document that you want him or her to buy into. Instead, share the work you and your team have done and explain the thinking behind your recommendation. Then, be open to hearing what your boss has to say. You need her ideas, and if you’re focused on selling, you’re not listening. Just because you used a rigorous process doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. Rather than defending your work, encourage a genuine conversation. Company leaders often have a unique, enterprise-wide perspective, and chances are they have something valuable to contribute. Incorporating their feedback will improve the odds of the strategy succeeding.

Adapted by HBR from the Playing to Win Strategy Toolkit.

Self-aggrandisement = Self-applauding

Some fb honourable friends must have created a sort of a record of posting self pictures.
As they say a picture is worth more than a thousand words.
Lolzz..!

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad shared a link.

49 seconds ago near Faisal Town

NO SIR IT IS TIME TO STAND UP FOR PAKISTAN :

Is it time to give up on Pakistan?

The writer should and must have kept his opinion about Pakistan to himself.

Now, since he has opened up his mind and thoughts about our motherland, I would like to have answers of the following questions from the writer of the below mentioned article.

1. Do you abandon your mother (land) if she is suffering from a disease for quite sometime?

2. Do you abandon your home (land) if it is time and again attacked by the miscreants?

3. What did Abraham Lincoln do with his motherland when America during civil war was in much much more despondent situation than Pakistan of today?

4. What did the residents of the UK do when they were blown to the smithereens by the German bombings in the WWII ?

5. Did the Japanese desert their country after they were nuked by America?

6. Did the Sri Lankan’s surrender during their 30 years of ferocious civil war or when their airports were attacked from the air by the aerial suicide bombers?

7. Are the Kashmiris and the Palestinians insane people who are fighting for their right of self determination and a homeland for more than half a century?

8. Has any majority human population of an area suffered more than the Kashmiris, ever in the history of the mankind?

9. Isn’t it an insult to the Martyrs to say “It is time to give up on Pakistan”

NO SIR, IT IS THE BEST TIME TO STAND UP FOR PAKISTAN.

PAKISTAN PAINDABAD.

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

Sent from my iPad3 4G LTE

Is it time to give up on Pakistan?

By M Bilal Lakhani Published: June 11, 2014

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The writer is the recipient of the James A Wechsler Award for International Reporting and a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism

I still remember the day I wanted to become the prime minister of Pakistan. I was nine years old. My family had recently moved from Karachi to Riyadh so that my father could earn enough to repay our family’s debts. I was angry at my parents for forcing me to move away from my friends in Karachi. In my first year there, August 14 was a punishingly hot, airless day in Riyadh. I didn’t have any friends to go out and play with in the evenings. I began acting up with my parents and kept telling them that I wanted to move back to Pakistan — back to where my friends were.
Even at the age of nine, I understood that my parents wanted to give me a better future by moving to Saudi Arabia. We weren’t escaping a life of poverty but we were escaping a life that wasn’t comfortable. For example, I remember my parents recalling that they couldn’t afford to buy diapers for me. Relatives would accidentally ‘forget’ their children’s diapers at my house so that my mother wouldn’t be embarrassed by my antics when going out for family gatherings. Riyadh, in sharp contrast, was materially comfortable. I never understood why my father — who worked as long in Riyadh as he did in Karachi — couldn’t make ends meet in Karachi. I loved my father too much to blame him so I blamed Pakistan instead.
That evening, on August 14, I thought of all the fun I’d be having with my friends and cousins if I was in Karachi. I felt guilty about not being able to buy a Pakistani flag from Karachi’s Allah wali chowrangi that year. Somehow, all these mixed feelings naively translated into a promise I made to myself that night; I wanted to grow up to become the prime minister of Pakistan. I wanted to solve all the country’s problems so that I could live with all my friends in Pakistan, happily ever after. Fortunately, as I grew older, I distanced myself from the promise of the office of prime minister but not from the premise of being able to help solve Pakistan’s problems in one capacity or another. Unfortunately, that premise appears to be dying in the hours after the attack on Karachi’s airport.
I still can’t put my finger on why the attack on Karachi’s airport physically caused pain I’ve never experienced before. I didn’t feel the same pain at the news of the two dozen Shia pilgrims being bombed at the same time. I struggle to understand why. Is it because I’m not Shia and I can’t feel their pain? Or is it because I’m a ‘burger’ and the airport hit closer to home because I use it often? Does this make me a bad human being and a bad Muslim? Perhaps, it isn’t politically correct to say these things out loud but the attack made me stop wanting to correct my thoughts. Was this Pakistan’s 9/11? Pakistanis die all the time, why can’t I just vent on Facebook and move on with my life? What’s wrong with my country? What’s wrong with me?
There are two telltale signs that signal you’re stuck in an unhealthy emotional relationship. The first is numbness. An emotional relationship with Pakistan causes daily pain and heartache. As a defence mechanism, we become numb to bad news and make ourselves feel better by calling it resilience. This shields us from daily pain. At this point, we’re still committed to the relationship either because we value the relationship itself or the pain of breaking up is higher than the pain of staying in the relationship. This was my relationship with Pakistan before the Karachi attack.
And then suddenly this week, something snapped and I can’t put my finger on what happened. The attack on Karachi’s airport is nothing out of the ordinary for Pakistan but for some reason it’s turning into a breaking point in my relationship with Pakistan. Almost overnight, the numbness has given away to extra-sensitive, intense pain. In the past, whenever my mind used to argue against Pakistan, my heart used to rush to the country’s defence. Today, my heart no longer rushes to defend Pakistan. Instead, my heart wavers. Am I beginning to give up on Pakistan?

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12th, 2014.
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Another interesting letter published by the daily “The News”.

Power house

Wednesday, June 11, 2014
From Print Edition

New 0 0 0

This refers to the letter, ‘Power house?’ (June 3) by Imtiaz Akhter. The writer mentioned that electricity obtained through the Nandipur Power Plant will cost Rs24 per unit. It has also been reported in ‘The News’ on June 1 that three 9E turbines have been added at the Nandipur plant to add 300MW of electricity in the national grid.

Coming on to government statistics on energy rates published on Nov 25, 2013 one unit of electricity by gas cost Rs5.07, by furnace oil Rs15.88, by high speed diesel Rs22.15 and by coal Rs3.61 respectively. One turbine of 95MW has been commissioned on May 31 and the remaining two are likely to be commissioned by end of 2014. I request the CEO of the Nandipur Power Plant to explain the cost effectiveness of three 9E gas turbines.

Engr Raja Riaz Akbar

Wah

An eye opening letter published by the daily “Dawn”.

Power tariff
By From the Newspaper
Updated about 23 hours ago

THE following are the average electricity tariffs per KwH units in US cents: Pakistan (15), India (10), Bangladesh (12), China (9), and Malaysia (13).

Pakistan has the highest rate in the region except for Sri Lanka which is exceptionally high at 30 cents. Yet we are to be presented with another substantial hike as indicated in the recent budget announced.

Rafi Ahmed
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2014

Ireland ‘the most truly Muslim country in the world’

Israel more compliant with ideals of the Koran than any predominantly Muslim country according to study

The country in the world most faithful to the values of the Koran is Ireland according to an Iranian-born academic at George Washingon University in the US. Next are Denmark, Sweden and the UK.

In a BBC interview, Hossein Askari, Professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University said a study by himself and colleague Dr Scheherazde S Rehman, also rates Israel (27) as being more compliant with the ideals of the Koran than any predominantly Muslim country.

Not a single majority Muslim country made the top 25 and no Arab country is in the top 50.

He said that when their ‘Islamicity index’ was applied only Malaysia (33) and Kuwait (42) featured in its top 50 countries, compared to the US at 15, the Netherlands also at 15, while France is at 17.

Saudi Arabia rated 91st, with Qatar at 111st.

In carrying out the study, they applied the ideals of Islam in the areas of a society’s economic achievements, governance, human and political rights, and international relations, he said.

On that index “Muslim countries do very badly,” he said and accused them of using religion as an instrument of power.

Last November Prof Askari said that “we must emphasize that many countries that profess Islam and are called Islamic are unjust, corrupt, and underdeveloped and are in fact not ‘Islamic’ by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Looking at an index of Economic Islamicity, or how closely the policies and achievements of countries reflect Islamic economic teachings – Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore, Finland, Norway, and Belgium round up the first 10”.

In their ‘Overall Islamicity Index’, a measure that encompasses laws and governance, human and political rights, international relations, and economic factors, “the rankings are much the same: New Zealand, Luxembourg, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Netherlands; and again only Malaysia (38) and Kuwait (48) make it into the top 50 from Muslim countries,” he said.

“If a country, society, or community displays characteristics such as unelected, corrupt, oppressive, and unjust rulers, inequality before the law, unequal opportunities for human development, absence of freedom of choice (including that of religion), opulence alongside poverty, force, and aggression as the instruments of conflict resolution as opposed to dialogue and reconciliation, and, above all, the prevalence of injustice of any kind, it is prima facie evidence that it is not an Islamic community,” he said.

“ Islam is, and has been for centuries, the articulation of the universal love of Allah for his creation and for its unity, and all that this implies for all-encompassing human and economic development,” he concluded.

“We don’t forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive them because they need it… because we need it. We all need it.”

— Janis Joplin

“True humility is being able to accept criticisms as graciously as we accept compliments.”

—Sabrina Newby
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