Karachi Photo Blog

Monday, June 30, 2008



Ahmed Rashid
Journalism is a tough field to be in. You can spend a big portion of your life placed in an obscured corner. Only a small portion of journalists makes very good money--most just wait for their time in the sun. Ahmed Rashid too has spent a very long time—20 years to be precise—waiting to be recognized. The recognition came violently, with 911. As the sky-kissing floors of the World Trade Center came crashing down, Ahmed Rashid's writing career shot up towards the heavens. The West was eager to learn about the Taliban, the benefactors of Osama Bin Laden. Ahmed Rashid had just published a book on the Taliban. The west embraced Ahmed Rashid and Rashid embraced stardom. It is not surprising that these days Ahmed Rashid is making the most of the limelight shining bright on him. He is churning out books as if there is no tomorrow. Earlier this month Ahmed Rashid made an appearance in the Bay Area. This correspondent went to listen to him. It was shocking to hear Rashid speak the language of the State Department: how the world cannot be a peaceful place till the Taliban are completely wiped off, etc. Obviously Ahmed Rashid is saying things that a lot of people in the Bush administration want to hear. How would his books sell if he would tell the world that the Taliban are as human as anybody else and that though it is getting tougher with the passing of every violent day, it is still possible to politically deal with the Taliban?

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Video showing highlights of OPEN Forum 2008

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Sunday, June 15, 2008



Evening keynote speaker Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, spoke on ‘Leadership and Empowerment.'

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OPEN Silicon Valley President Dilawar Syed gave the closing remarks

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They come in threes

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OPEN Forum 2008 participants

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Panel discussion on ‘Participating in Global Social Change’ was moderated by Lucy Bernholz, President, Blueprint Research. Panelists included Troy Stremler, Founder and CEO, Newdea; Mari Kuraishi, President, Global Giving; Charles Slaughter, CEO, Living Goods; Mark Ward, Sr. Administrator, USAID Asia Bureau.

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‘Bootstraping your Business from Zero to Millions' panelists.

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Arif Janjua, Partner, Boston Consulting Group moderated a panel discussion on ‘Bootstraping your Business from Zero to Millions.’ Panelists included Amir Wain, CEO, I2C Inc.; Kerim Baran, CEO, Yonja Media; Zulki Khan, Founder & CEO, NexLogic; Zain Jeewanjee, Founder, Insure1234.com; and Faraz Syed, CEO, DeviceAnywhere.

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Husain Haqqani

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Husain Haqqani

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Pakistan's new ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani spoke on ‘Investment Climate in Pakistan.’

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'New Opportunities & Rules for the Global Entrepreneur' panelists.

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A panel discussion on ‘New Opportunities & Rules for the Global Entrepreneur’ was moderated by Saad Khan. Panelists included Maurice Gunderson, Partner, CMEA Ventures; Tariq Samad, Chief Scientist, Honeywell; Dr Atul Kumar, VP SaaS Ops, Serena Software; and Rehan Jalil, President & CEO, WiChorus.

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Munawar Hidayatallah, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Allis-Chalmers Energy, spoke on ‘Global Opportunities in the Energy Sector’.

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Saturday, June 14, 2008



'The Next Billion-dollar Opportunity: where are the VC's Investing?' panelists.

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Waheed Qureshi, founder, Zenprise, was the moderator of a panel discussion on ‘The Next Billion-dollar Opportunity: where are the VC's Investing?’ Panelists included Ayaz Ul Haque, General Partner and Managing Director, ePlanet Ventures; Ryan Floyd, General Partner, Storm Ventures; Sujit Banerjee, Partner, BlueRun Ventures; and Saeed Amidi, Founder, Amidzad Ventures.

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Steve Westly, ex-Controller and Chief Fiscal Officer of the state of California, spoke on ‘CleanTech and Emerging markets'.

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Mahmood Panjwani introduced Steve Westly

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Left to right, Mike Kaskowitz; Jauher Zaidi, CEO, Palmchip; unidentified; Faizan Buzdar, CEO, Scrybe; and Faraz Hoodbhoy, Founder and CTO, Pixsense

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A panel discussion on ‘Opportunities in the Growing Pakistani Economy’ was moderated by Michael Kaskowitz, founder and president of Sunaira.

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'Entrepreneurial Idol' judges

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In a contest dubbed ‘Entrepreneurial Idol’ contestants described their entrepreneurial ideas to a panel of three judges.

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Describing the secrets of their success, from left to right, Raghib Hussain, CTO, Cavium Networks; Imran Shah, Managing Partner, IBB Consulting; Dr. Naveed Sherwani, CEO, Open-Silicon; and Omar Hamoui, CEO, AdMob.

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Dr. Safwan Shah, CEO of Infonox and co-founder of Chowk dot com, moderated a panel discussion on “The Secrets of My Success.”

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In response to a question about what should Pakistanis do to make it conducive for the venture capitalists to invest in Pakistan Moritz said the journey could be similar to India's wherein initially Silicon Valley’s Indian-Americans started opening backend offices in India and the wider venture capitalist community learned from their experiences and gradually felt itself comfortable in investing in India.

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If number of attendees and their active participation in a program is the litmus test of an event’s success then OPEN Forum 2008, Silicon Valley Chapter of Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America’s annual event, held today, was hugely successful.

Here you see Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm, being interviewed on video by Adam Lashinsky of Fortune magazine.

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Tuesday, June 10, 2008



The North American Islamic Shelter for Abused (NISA) held its annual fund-raiser on Saturday, June 7, at Santa Clara Marriott.

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Monday, June 02, 2008



California Professionals Helping Kashmiris build their homes

Heavenly valleys of Kashmir seem to be cursed. If ongoing violence in that region was not enough to dampen the spirit of the locals, the area was hit by a powerful earthquake in 2005. Although Kashmir sits on the edge of a tectonic plate being constantly pushed by another, no noticeable seismic activity was recorded for decades and no one was ready for a strong shake of houses and other buildings. The October 2005 earthquake killed more than 79,000 people, many were crushed under crumbling buildings. Global-villagers from all over the world rushed to help. Martin Hammer and Shannon Whitnack of California who last Saturday gave a talk on ‘Straw-bale homes’ also reached the devastated areas and helped locals in building homes. Since things were starting anew the two Californians saw an opportunity to introduce their favorite technology, of straw-bale construction.

It makes perfect sense to make houses using material readily available in the area. Why make a marble house in the woods? In agricultural societies building material should be looked for in crops, and hence the choice of a straw-bale home. Strictly speaking straw-bale house is a misnomer because straw-bales are only used in constructing walls: foundation, floor, and roof have to be made with other material.

It is hard to make walls of straw if you don’t have means to keep the straws together. And that is the reason straw-bale houses truly came into existence after technologies to compact straw in the form of bales were developed.

Speaking to a small audience Martin Hammer described his experiences in helping Kashmiris build straw-bale homes. Hammer and Whitnack had brought with them a straw-bale, a 1 ft by 1 ft by 2 ft “building block” of compacted straw weighing around 6 lbs. The straw used in that bale was that of rice. Though straw obtained from other crops can also be used Hammer and Whitnack appear to be most satisfied with the performance of rice straw. The reason could be that rice straw is of the right thickness and height. For, if stems of a crop are too thick they would not intertwine together for a good bond. And if the stems are too small in height it would be hard to hold them together in shape of a bale. A simple back of the envelope calculation—with the assumptions of 95% compaction, 3 ft high 1/8” dia stalks, plants grown 3 inches apart--indicates that an acre of paddy field can yield enough straw to make seven bales of the above dimensions.

One can imagine the shortcomings of straw-bale construction. That you can only make a single-story building, that you cannot build very high walls, that you must use plaster to protect straw–bales from excessive moisture. Contrary to intuition, straw-bales are reasonably fire-resistant. Once compacted the inside of straw-bale does not have sufficient oxygen to keep the oxidation process going.

Shannon Whitnack described to the audience the shock-absorbing capacity of straw-bale walls, the second strong reason for making straw-bale homes in regions of high seismic activity—the first being the low construction cost. Whitnack also emphasized the point that moisture easily passes through straw-bale walls without being absorbed by the straws.

Along with their Pakistani counterparts Martin Hammer, Shannon Whitnack and other building professionals from California have formed a group they call Pakistan Straw Bale and Appropriate Building. Readers interested in helping this group build low cost houses in Pakistan can make contact through group’s web site at http://paksbab.org/

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Tales of pre-globalization superheroes

In these times when the war on terror is raging high and western analysts are looking for bright spots in the Muslim world, to pin their hopes onto, Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s recently published English translation of Dastane-e-Amir Hamza (translated as Adventures of Amir Hamza) has been received with gusto. This translation has given western scholars a thick body of work to analyze and answer many questions.
“Are these people really evil? Were they always savages like they presently are? Are their folklores full of jihad lessons, misogynic themes, triumphant beheadings of infidels, and of older men getting married to underage girls?
Commentators such as William Dalrymple are exuberant that that is not the case. Reviewing Musharraf Farooqi’s translation, Dalrymple writes:
“At this perilous moment in history, the Hamza epic, with its mixed Hindu and Muslim idiom, its tales of love and seduction, its anti-clericalism (mullahs are a running joke throughout the book), its stories of powerful and resourceful women, and its mocking of male misogyny, is a reminder of an Islamic world the West seems to have forgotten: one that is imaginative and heterodox — and as far as can be from the puritanical Wahhabi Islam that the Saudis have succeeded in spreading throughout much of the modern Middle East.”
Dalrymple’s sigh of relief aside, Dastan-e-Amir Hamza has (or had at one time) the ultimate merit of entertaining early readers. Ten volumes of Amir Hamza were what children of my age read as their first collection of books. Amir Hamza was our first hero; to be like Amir Hamza was our dream –we wanted to go to distant places and conquer new lands, pretty much like how Amir Hamza did. Dastan-e-Amir Hamza gave us a chance to imagine a different, mesmerizing world, and it cemented in our value system the virtues of bravery, loyalty to friends, truthfulness, and steadfastness.
Toronto based Musharraf Ali Farooqi has been touring cities of North America, promoting ‘Adventures of Amir Hamza’. His recent talk at the Stanford University was arranged by the Center for South Asia and other sponsors.

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Musicians performed before Musharraf Ali Farooqi's talk at the Bechtel International Center of Stanford University.

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