Madspeak

It is strange to learn about how employees are treated. Close circuit cameras are not meant for security purposes, they are used to monitor employees. A worker is required to 12 hours or more standing - with not a minute to rest. If any employee is seen sitting down, or leaning against the wall to take a breather is immediately fired without a moments notice. It is as if people are machines are expected to perform as such. They are also underpaid. What also has gone is the concept of the monthly salary and pensions are out of the question - people are fired prior to the time they reach retirement age. A person is useful only as long he continues to work at his peak level, his prior performance is of no consequence. In such inhuman environment there can be no respect and loyalty towards the employer. Why should anyone work with absolute dedication when he (or she) knows that he could be fired at a moment's notice? An employees previous performance is treated as history a loyal worke

The entire Internet service had collapsed recently. The problem is said to be the damage to the undersea cable. But it could very well be entirely different reason. For several years the Internet was easy to access and the government did not resort blocking websites. The collapse of the Internet could most likely be because of the result widespread blocking of websites by government. Internet experts had warned that the Internet access would be slowed down to a crawl because many websites were being blocked. The slowdown of the Internet coulc eventually have resulted in its eventual collapse. The Internet's collapse was not due to a cable fault but when data flow is hindered intensely filtered. It would have been best if the Internet's operation had been left alone and this dabbling in interfering in data flow is dangerous. It is impossible to tell which every website contains, so the government resorted to massive blocking of the Internet. If the government continues to b

The price of petrol has been increased 7 times and the country's Finance Adviser says it will not affect the economy. I do not know about the economy but I am paying more and more for petrol and my salary has not increased, it is not enough one day petrol will eventually become as expensive as gold or more. Its people like Dr. Salman Shah who do not announce anything during the budget announcement, later start telling the people that everything is going to be more expensive later at the same time say it will not make any difference to the economy. Dr. Salman Shah says this because he does not have to pay for the petrol of his limousine - it is free for him Why should he not drive around in his limousine and pay for petrol from his own pocket instead on relying on the government. The day he starts doing that he will realise what he has done, he will scream. The price of petrol is high because it has 300 per cent taxes on it. If those taxes are removed the petrol would be m

For anyone who needs to have a new passport, there is office is located in a place called ‘Awami Markaz’ in the city. It is not really The Passport Office, it is the office where the documents for making passport are prepared. It is just another way for the government forget the military regime to make the life of the people as miserable as possible Instead making the acquiring of passports a simple one there is a terrible, unnecessary long and tedious procedure which have to be followed. Tax payers have every right to demand that the government should issue passports free of charge instead of being asked to pay for them as passports are a fundamental right of every citizen in the country. The passport office at ‘Awami Markaz’ is a hellish place, because countless people are standing in line for hours on end. When the procedure of the documents is completed the passports are issued at another office which was originally was the place where passport office and is located wh

General Muharraf made lawyers who were keen on staying as judges or becoming take the oath Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) the acronym PCO. He introduced this immediately after overthrowing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. PCO essentially to protect Musharraf and the members of regime from being tried for any crimes they commit. Essentially Musharraf has made himself above the law in every respect. As if the day he is overthrown PCO will not be removed and he and all the members of regime not be executed or jailed. Musharraf does not care about the consequences of his actions, he does not care about the immense resentment he has created amongst the people. When General Ayub Khan came to power he made his own constitution, which no bothered about once he was removed, because General Yahya Khan trashed that constitution. When ZA Bhutto became prime minister he made a constitution which General Zia-ul-Haq trashed. Now General Musharraf introduced PCO, the Legal Framework Order whic

Who or what is Chaudhry Shujaat? He was the prime minister after Jamali . No one knows what kind of influence he has on the existing military regime. It is said that Chaudhry family is responsible for being the real power behind the throne. No general can stay in power if they end up offending the Chaudhry's. They can can make and break politicians. Some even say they played a pivotal role in the creation of Bangladesh. If East Pakistan had remained, then Bengalis would be in all key positions of the government and the miltiary. The result would be the influence of the Chaudhry's would have been reduced considerable. The miltiary and Chaudhry's are mutually dependent. One cannot do without the other. These are parasites. They will even destroy the country if it suits them. No one knows what Chaudhry Shujaat's game is. What he wants. All he wants is that nothing should change. No should threaten the interests of the feudal lords, the tribal chiefs and the mullahs. The

The workers of Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) have been on strike for some time now. But the strike instead of benefitting them in anyway has resulted in exactly the opposite. The military has decided to take over PTCL and get rid of the employees who are on strike. The military is already running electricity and water supply operations - which are substandard. The reason given for the military takeover of PTCL is to ensure that the company can be sold to some prospective investor, the strike by the employees of the company has to do with the fact that they are afraid of losing their jobs. The 'privatisation' of PTCL endangers the livlihood of all the employees of PTCL If the answer of all the problems is a military takeover, one can only wonder who is manning our borders and who is actually involved in defending the country? The military's functions is to get involved in all kinds of scams, schemes and full fledged racketeering. The military is not

I am a regular visitor of Clifton Block 2 , Karachi - which is still in a stage of being developed. Although most of the area has been converted into a proper residential area, a piece of land was allotted for a park. When the development of the area would be completed the park would be completed as well. However the plot remained a barren piece of land because most of Clifton Block 2 has yet to be developed. Things such as roads being properly paved and above a water supply system. Making of the park was the last thing to do, however its boundry wall was recently built. Everyone who lives there knew that the land was meant for a public park. But on a regular basis attempts were being to turn it into land mosque. Mosques are money minting machines for those own them. Because outside the mosque small shops open up they are sublet by whosoever owns the mosque. Besides building a mosque is the best way steal land – because if a mosque demolished, even if it is an illegal construction is

Every year the 'government' announces what they called is the annual budget. Nothing ever changes. All the money goes to three - the incompetent military, the absolutely corrupt civil servants and the rest is used to pay back huge loans. As can be expected there is nothing for healthcare and education, the amount is so low it is not even worth mentioning. The budget announcement is really an announcement of new taxes on virtually everything or how much more taxes or how much more has been added to existing taxes. Since the country is run by the military and its slaves the civil servants and myriad advisors ( there can never be a democracy when the head of state is a military dictator) - all the allocations announced in the budget are to enrich the military regime nothing else. In the absence of democracy - rejection of the budget is not an option and can never be. When the time to announce the annual budget comes around everyone in the country is terrifiecd. They are alrea

For someone who has never ever done a job before and never been given any kind of career counselling by any who is genuinely a professional in this field, the hardest thing to know is what to demand in terms of salary and benefits and that is exactly what happened when I was hired by an advertisisng agency. Because I loved to write I became a copywriter, instead of being an account executive (as it was known in those days) to fawn in front of advertisers. But as time went by I discovered that the advertising agency which I had joined and the other advertising agencies I which I would eventually worked in, I learnt that the job of a copywriter was absolutely redundant, because the owner of the advertising agency considered himself as the world's greatest creative genius and knew exactly what kind of ads need to be made. So someone working as copywriter was really of no use. Becoming an account executive was not something I had any interest in doing, but since there were no other o

The FBI has been around here for some years now. Practically taking over much of the work of the local police. If law enforcement has been handed to the FBI, that is great, we can disband our own police force - which save a lot of the taxpayers money. Why stop at the FBI have the entire police force in the USA come and stay here - imagine them trying to control the traffic in Karachi. Jokes aside, the more obvious reasons for the FBI's presence is to prevent terrorism - but that does not mean terrorism in Pakistan it means terrorism in the USA. But from what I been hearing the FBI is doing a great deal more than that, things which the Pakistani police are better at doing. But under the prevailing circumstances, it has become obvious that the way our police handles is not to the satisfaction of the FBI. The FBI has become a sort of Big Brother type organisation, every Pakistani is guilty until proven innocent. Things have come to such a state that everything that Pakistanis do or s

There are endless articles appearing in a variety of newspapers that people should learn English. What the writers forget is that English is not exactly a perfectly spoken language - it is altered over a period of time. The type of English whch almost those columnists mention could very well be Latin. They have complete disdain for the type of English which people speak here. This English has its own pronounciations, its own spellings and a variety of phrases have competely different meanings. No one speaks what is sometimes called 'Queens English' or even 'Kings English', people speak as they understand or think it is right. The rules of grammar which seem to be carved in stone are shattered. As long as one person can understand the other, without having to be too academic about it. The columnist forget that the English they want is also changing in the countries where it is spoken, because it is the only language they know. In Pakistan people speak several

Imagine BBC telling its viewers who watch its programmes 'Click Online' - about the great porn websites it has found, but that of course would never happen. But this programme does tell its viewers about completely worthless websites. The websites which have been found are meant for kids. Grown ups have no use for them. Then there are websites about where news can be found, the BBC will never advertise an alternative news source. The claims of BBC being impartial and balanced absolute rubbish.

When the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) won the majority vote in West Pakistan - the reasons were for what it stood for - it had nothing to do with the people who led it. The slogan 'Roti, kapra aur Makan' meaning 'Bread, clothes and housing for all' was powerful and elections proved it was also was very popular. Other political parties relied on nationalism and religion or some other values which did not benefit anyone. The PPP enforced all the International Labour Organisation's conventions. This brought about a major change in an otherwise extremely repressed society. The previleged and the rich could literally get away with murder - people were not employees - they were absolute slaves. There were no laws protecting them. Many businessmen who had become accustomed to the old ways of runing their businesses with absolute disregard for the people they had hired realised they were not going to get away with any kind of abusive behaviour and not forcing people be

There was this anecdote of a prostitute who was infected with multiple sexual trasnmitted diseases (STD) obviously as a result of unprotected sex with her customers. Eventually when one of her customers was suffering from AIDS, she knew nothing about the disease - anyway he paid for her services and left. The strangest thing was her body's immune system was so overactive protecting her from all the diseases she was suffering or could have ended up suffering from - but she showed no sign of illness, when AIDS entered her body - it was neutralised. This was found out by a survey team trying to find out about the prevalence of AIDS amongst prostitutes. This particular prostitute was unique her body's immune system did not fall apart due to AIDS. Only goes to show that unless the human body's immune has something to do, it will become weak. Intensely sanitised societies and with tremendous stress on hygiene all the time weakens the immune system, because there is nothing

Holding hands and touching - is in a spirit of friendship, closeness - it does not make anyone uncomfortable. Nothing is made it out of such things here. It is fairly common to touch and pat, or have ones arms over another's shoulder - the sentiment is simply a sort mutual respect for one another nothing else. However any form of touching is considered seriously unacceptable by whom are referred to as Westerners. For them touching is seriously offensive if not downright criminal and their reaction is exremely obnoxious. But they are baffled in the way people conduct themsleves in public here. They cannot understand why no one reacts with rage. A term I found out was a new development - 'privacy space' an invisible barrier beween one person and another. Which is downright inhuman. A violation of this space is reason enough for being rude and generally behave badly. Distancing oneself from all others. The idea of being aloof and absolutely indifferent is a dangerous dev

It is well known that many people cannot afford to pay doctors and hospitals - which automatically results in their death. The extremely poor die anyway - because they never get to eat the proper food and do not have access to clean drinking water. The do not have the right clothes and have no shelter, these people are going to die - these are the nameless, faceless lot whom no one cares to know about. So the question about caring for such people and really trying to save their lives - that will never happen. Euthanasia is a very controversial issue, just as capital punishment is. The right for the state to decide as to who should die and should live. What a clever way for someone to commit murder withouit ever getting caught - in the case of capital punishment an innocent person can be framed, lots of fake evidence and lots of people blatantly committing perjury and thus this person ends up being executed for a crime he did not commit. Later it is found out that he really was in

Yesterday nigh I saw a convoy of cars and vans, people were being asked to participate in 'million man march' against a propsed plan to privatise the examination board system - the organisation is sponsored by the Agha Khan. What is surprising though that no one has proposed a similar march against rising prices of virtually everything. People should be demonstrating en masse against the outrageous increase in prices of practically everything. It is surprising no political party has taken up this issue. Of course one can rule out religious polical parties - they have no agenda, no manifesto except how to promote religion. They do not take up issues such as rising prices, growing unemployment, crime and suicides. They also have no charitable function. As for the other political parties - it is surprising that the problems faced by ordinary people does not interest them - they may make lot of noises in the parliament - but do not have the courage to call for a mass protest a

How silly can people be - just because no one posts a reply to my blogs - does not mean they haven't been seen - where I had written my blog - has a system whereby it can block websites. What I wrote must have infuriated a lot of people - it only goes to show that what I am 'blogging' is being read and driving people crazy. Oh well there goes the freedom of expression!!

General Musharraf's junta has increased price of virtually everything. Milk, flour, petrol and gas have become terribly expensive. The cost of electricity, telecommunications and air fares are ridiculously high. This military dictatorship has become intolerable - the criminal increase in price of things should not go unpunished. It is obvious the military does not care what anyone thinks. It imagines public opinion is of no consequence. But when public opinion turns into a mass uprising it will be impossible to control and manage. The military officers will shed the uniforms and hide their ranks and pretend they have no association with the military. Military rule always has will always mean absolute corruption. Military dictators have absolute power and that means they are absolutely corrupt. They do not represent anyone except the members of their junta. The present democracy is a facade - Shaukat Aziz imported from abroad was finance mininster now he is prime minister. He has no