Loud Thinking

Archive for July, 2014

LETTER TO EDITOR

July 24th, 2014

The Most Heinous Barbarianism

As if dousing a 10 year old child Tabassum twice with sizzling water was not enough to satiate the wrath of Gujrat land lord Ghulam Mustafa, he forced his both tender arms into the running belt of water drawing motor which chopped them off instantly from below his shoulders, rendering the young child invalid and incapacitated for his entire life. Could there be an act more barbarous than it? Whatever the legalities, in order to do justice it must be made a case of “Tooth for tooth and eye for eye”.

Ghulam Mustafa’s both arms must also be chopped off in the very similar manner by forcing them into a running motor belt and all his moveable and immovable property be bequeathed to young Tabassum.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
30 Westridge 1
Rawalpindi 46000
Pakistan
Tel: (051) 5158033
E.mail: jafri@rifiela.com

“The root of all health is in the brain. The trunk of it is in emotion. The branches and leaves are the body. The flower of health blooms when all parts work together.”

—Kurdish saying

“Your reality is yours. Stop wasting time looking at someone else’s reality while doing nothing about yours.”

— Steve Harvey

“Success can be measured not only in achievements, but in lessons learned, lives touched and moments shared along the way”

Motivate Team Members with Individual Recognition

In team settings, recognizing individual contributions can be challenging. But because recognition is a powerful motivator, you need to find ways to give it. Start by getting to know each team member personally: ask about backgrounds, life outside of work, and career aspirations. Because helping people grow is a form of recognition, assign challenging tasks, and act as a coach. Try sending written acknowledgment, like a thank-you email with senior management copied. In team discussions, recognize behaviors that people should continue. Hold sessions focused on positive feedback and have everyone share what they appreciate about each team member, whether specific contributions or general strengths. Finally, share credit publicly. Have team members participate in presentations to clients or senior management.

Adapted by HBR from the HBR Guide to Leading Teams by Mary Shapiro.

Just for the publicity sake Nandipur Power Plant was forced to produce electricity at Rs.42/Unit for 5 days..!

Nandipur plant was operational only for five days

By Khaleeq Kiani
Published about 4 hours ago

NTDC officials said the decision to bring the plant online was made by the government.— File photo

ISLAMABAD: The much-hyped Nandipur Power Plant–inaugurated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on May 31 this year– generated electricity at the record cost of Rs42 per unit and was shut down after only five days of operation.

This was revealed by representatives of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) at a public hearing conducted by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra). The hearing approved an eight paisa per unit reduction in average tariff for Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) distribution companies for a month.

Opposition to move court on Nandipur project ‘corruption’

The hearing, presided over by Vice Chairman Nepra Habibullah Khilji, was also informed that the Nandipur Power Project had not yet officially or legally achieved its commercial operation date (COD). The first units of the plants to come online was run on diesel fuel for five days after its inauguration, but closed down for being too expensive. In these five days, the plant produced electricity at an average cost of Rs42 per unit.

NTDC officials said the decision to bring the plant online was made by the government: NTDC and Pepco had neither requested the operations, nor did they approve the pre-mature generation.

This is symptomatic of many of the energy projects the current government has commissioned recently: they jump the gun and rush into ribbon-cutting ceremonies of development and energy projects for publicity, instead of ensuring that the technical criteria and legal requirements have been fulfilled, a Nepra official told Dawn.

The inauguration of the Guddu Thermal Power Station and Uch-II; the ground breaking of a 1320MW coal-fired plant at Port Qasim by a consortium of Qatari and Chinese companies, put together by former Ehtesab Bureau chief Saifur Rehman are other examples, he said.

Prime Minister Sharif inaugurated the first 95MW plant of the controversial Nandipur Power Project on May 31. The project had been stalled under the PPP government amid allegations of graft, declared an “unforgivable sin” by the prime minister as the plant and related machinery remained stranded at the Karachi port for more than five years.

The project cost more than doubled to Rs57 billion (instead of Rs23 billion) and the nation suffered a loss of Rs165 billion, according to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who spearheaded the project’s revival.

The project will be able to generate 425MW on furnace oil, which can be upgraded to 525MW if natural gas is used as fuel.

However, the plant will take another five months or so to achieve commercial operation status.

Tariff reduction

Meanwhile, Nepra approved an eight paisa per unit decrease in the fuel-based power tariff for all consumers of ex-Wapda companies, except lifeline consumers who use less than 50 units per month.

The reduction, granted at the request of the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) on behalf of all distribution companies, was made on account of automatic monthly fuel adjustment for actual consumption in June 2014. The reduced rates would be charged to consumers during upcoming billing month.

It was reported that Nepra had set a reference fuel cost of Rs7.51 for the month of June, but the actual fuel cost came to Rs7.44, hence requiring a reduction of 8 paisas per unit.

The Nepra also sought a report on claims made by various government functionaries about increase in the electricity generation when the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) reported a 13 per cent increase.

Member Nepra Haroonur Rashid wondered why loadshedding had increased despite an increase in power generation.

Responding to a question, he conceded that Nepra had not been able to extend any reasonable relief, but said the people should appreciate that it had not “over-burdened consumers”.

Published in Dawn, July 24th , 2014

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For the first time Israel is having the taste of its own medicine..!

Hamas tactics exact high toll in Israeli ground thrust

By Reuters

Updated about 5 hours ago

A Palestinian youth bearing the banner in support of Hamas attends a pro-Hamas demonstration in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. -AFP Photo

GAZA: Using tunnels, mines, booby traps and snipers, Hamas fighters have inflicted record casualties on Israeli troops waging an offensive in the Gaza Strip, applying years of training in urban warfare with a new tactical acumen and suicidal resolve.

The Israelis say weapons and know-how supplied by Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah make Hamas a more formidable foe.

Four days after Israel launched a withering ground assault on the Palestinian militants in their stronghold of Shejaia following intensive air strikes, the army still does not have complete control of the area.

Smoke from shelled homes and the buzz of Israeli drones clog the sky above the wrecked district on Gaza’s eastern border.

The thud of a buried explosive aimed at a troop carrier is met with an hour-long rain of Israeli artillery fire that shakes the width of the coastal strip, sending the deafening sound bouncing off buildings as far as the shore.

Exploiting a vast network of secret tunnels to snipe at enemy troops and blast their vehicles even inside Israel, Hamas has killed 32 Israeli soldiers, almost three times as many as in the last major ground clashes in a 2008-9 conflict.

“The al-Qassam brigades continue to give repeated surprises, and every day the holy warriors arise from where the (Israeli) occupation could not foresee,” the group said last week.

“They fight… face to face with the enemy in retaliation for the blood of the martyrs that the occupier spills daily.” The action has lived up to the fierce rhetoric.

Hamas has far outstripped fellow militants in Islamic Jihad and other groups in sending drones, scuba commandos and tunnel raiders to take the fight into Israel.

In one such infiltration, Hamas fighters emerged wearing full Israeli uniform, but were let down by one key detail – they were carrying Kalashnikov rifles, not standard issue M16s or Tavor assault rifles.

In the most deadly incident for Israel yet, on the first day of its incursion to begin destroying the tunnels on Sunday, Hamas says its fighters watched as an enemy armoured personnel carrier lurched into a web of booby traps they had laid.

“Our holy warriors detonated the minefield with such force that (the carrier) was destroyed. They advanced on it, opened its doors and finished off all left inside,” the group said.

Israel offered a different account, saying the vehicle was part of a convoy and was hit my multiple anti-tank missiles.

Israel said six soldiers were killed, while another thought to have been in the vehicle is missing, believed dead. Hamas said it captured him but has not released his picture.

The Israeli military acknowledges Hamas’ increased skill.

“They have undergone extensive training, they are well supplied, well motivated and disciplined. We have met a more formidable enemy on the battlefield,” said Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner.

Israel says it has so far killed more than 200 Palestinian fighters.

“We are not surprised about it because we knew that they were preparing for this battle. They didn’t just invest in the tunnels for the last two or three years,” he added.

“Underground Gaza”
Speaking off the record, another army official said: “They have thrown everything at us. Missiles, ambushes, even (bomb-laden) donkeys and dogs. It’s proving a real challenge … We have to break their motivation, show them it is not worth it.

“We hope that if we break Shejaia, then that will show them our determination. That is a real command centre for them… What is remarkable is that in the past eight years they have basically built an underground Gaza. It’s astonishing,” he said.

Confined in the crowded sandy coast enclave of 1.8 million, where poverty and unemployment hover around 40 per cent, weary Gazans say they hope the battle will break the blockade that Israel and Egypt impose on them. They have very little to lose.

Hamas leaders hope to achieve that goal through the prowess of their men at the front, trained to inflict casualties and grab soldiers to gain political leverage.

Morale was high and Hamas fighters were preparing for a fight during a visit by Reuters in April to a training camp of its military wing on a vast sandy expanse in northern Gaza.

Kitted up in full Israeli battle gear, young cadets sat in classrooms taking notes on lessons in combat tactics.

They showed off manoeuvres where they simulated raining down mortars on mock-up tanks, on which two groups of fighters then pounced from nearby tunnels, with one combatant hoisting over his shoulder a limp volunteer posing as an Israeli soldier.

Not a huge loss
In addition to increasing the range and payload of more than 1,000 mostly homemade rockets it has hurled at Israel in two weeks, Hamas has stepped up its weapons procurement.

“Hamas leaders have tried to say through their statements that everything Israel’s been hit with so far was completely and purely Gaza-made. (But) Hamas did not deny benefiting from foreign imports,” said Gaza analyst Adnan Abu Amer.

The Islamist movement is unlikely to be deterred by the losses its has suffered at the hands of a stronger enemy.

“There are conflicting reports about Hamas’s losses in terms of fighters. Since Israel has claimed Hamas’s armed wing numbers 20,000 men, the martyrdom of 60 or 70 can not be described as a huge loss,” Abu Amer said.

Videos distributed by al-Qassam’s media arm appear to show the strength of the group’s arsenal.

“The demonstrated use of anti-tank guided missiles against small IDF units on foot, rather than against armoured vehicles, shows a clear intent to simply inflict casualties and a recognition of the (Israeli army’s) superior armour defence,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Center in Doha told Reuters.

A senior Israeli intelligence official briefing foreign reporters on Wednesday said “radical axis” countries – Iran, Syria or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon – had provided Hamas with a new generation of ground weapons.

He cited the Russian-made cornet and the shoulder-fired RPG-29 which is “more of a rocket than a missile. You can use it in an urban area when you have to fight against very close forces. This is something you don’t make by yourself.”

Ceasefire?
In 22-days of fighting during a 2008-9 conflict, Hamas and other militant groups largely melted away, allowing Israeli tanks to approach the outskirts of Gaza City.

The militants killed just six soldiers then, and two more in an eight-day round of battle in 2012, which did not escalate into an Israeli ground incursion.

Israel’s Lerner cited outside aid for their new strength.

“(They were trained) by Iran. Mostly Iran. It is the school of Iran. It is the thought process of Iran. It is Iran with Hezbollah. It is the same type of tactics that we have seen.”

Israel’s loss of 12 soldiers on Sunday was the largest single-day toll since its forces pushed into South Lebanon in an attempt to dislodge Hezbollah militants there in 2006.

The Israeli intelligence officer said Syria, Iran and Hezbollah could have taught Hamas new tactics over the Internet.

Nobody from the Israeli side expected an easy push into Gaza, Israeli military affairs analyst Ehud Yaari told Reuters, but its stated aim of destroying the tunnels remains difficult.

“It’s very painful, but I don’t think anybody assumed that it could be a ‘no casualties’ operation … It seems they’ve been able to systematically uncover more and more tunnels, with the caveat that I’m not sure the Israelis are prepared to sustain the damage to uncover many more,” he said.

Subterranean warfare may be Hamas’s most potent innovation. After spending years and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars on building the network, Hamas may be keen to preserve some of its tunnels by stopping the fighting soon.

“They’re popping up more and more from underground to try and hit something in hopes that a ceasefire will be established as soon as possible,” Yaari said.

Abu Amer, the Gaza analyst, believes both sides are smarting and the military gains may encourage Hamas toward a ceasefire.

“Hamas realises that the time factor is painful for both sides. Hamas has made achievements and my guess that neither Hamas nor Israel are willing today to prolong the confrontation,” he said.

ARY News reports that a PIA 777 Boeing will travel EMPTY, from Karachi – Jaddah on 29th July, to bring the PM and his 35 members entourage to Lahore, after they have performed Umra (at personal expense), for which the nation must appreciate and thank the PM, for saving national wealth on his personal religious sojourn.

“Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open.”

—B.K.S. Iyengar (born 1918);
Founder Of Iyengar Yoga

Reclaim Your Time with a Time-Box System

Time boxing is a planning tool that’s a cross between a calendar and a to-do list. It lets you divide your schedule into increments (half-hour or hour-long chunks) that you can slot tasks into and monitor. To set it up:
Review your week. Take one day to plan for the week ahead. Inventory your deadlines, commitments, meetings, and so on.
Prioritize what’s on the list. Put deadline-sensitive tasks first, goal-oriented tasks second, and then schedule these around any recurring obligations.
Estimate time for tasks. Err on the side of caution when calculating how long each will take.
Enter series of time boxes into your calendar. Designate a task for each time slot (“8 AM to 9 AM: Return phone calls and emails”), and keep a log of how long it actually took you. Later, review whether you allocated enough time by seeing what you were and weren’t able to finish.

Adapted by HBR from Managing Time (20-Minute Manager).