9/11 & its Impact on Pakistan

An Islamist militant group hijacked four commercial airlines, crashed them on the World Trade Centre and changed the scenario of the world. The terrorist attacks resulted in the deaths of 2,996 people who were mostly civilians. 9/11 had instant and overwhelming effect on the US. Pakistan was given a clear warning that whether it is with the US or against it in the fight against terrorism. President Musharraf agreed to work with the US and offered Pakistan’s air space for American bombers to reach Afghanistan. As a result of this, Pakistan’s relation with the US was raised to a very high level.

After 9/11, Pakistan became the second largest recipient of the US aid, after Israel. The roller coaster relationship between Pakistan and the US reached new heights. But the impact of 9/11 on Pakistan was indeed very dreadful. Before 9/11, Pakistan had suffered only one suicide attack but today, ten years after 9/11, the suicide bombers have attacked Pakistan more than 300 times and more than 35,000 people have been killed. The 9/11 attacks sent shockwaves around the world from which Pakistan has not yet recovered. The attacks also raised concerns about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. After the attacks, Pakistan’s military began relocating nuclear weapons components to six new secret locations.

Despite Pakistan’s immense support for the US, the 9/11 Commission Report provided proof that the 9/11 terrorists attacks were rehearsed and financed in Pakistan. Pakistan’s importance in the international community increased greatly after 9/11 but its infrastructure shattered to a great extent and it lost many innocent lives and also faced financial crisis. The law and order situation in Pakistan has gotten so worse that no one feels save after stepping out of the house.

Billboards - promoting vulgarity?

Outdoor advertising is an integral part of our media industry. We see hundreds of billboards daily that leave a huge influence on our society. A billboard is one of the best and effective way of promoting a product or service. In Karachi, the ads on these billboards range from being highly creative and innovative to highly vulgar and seductive. Even before summers started, the entire city was bombarded with lawn billboards. You could see a lawn billboard literally on every single mile.

Most of these billboards showed only pretty faces, cleavages and indecent advertising. What I saw in these billboards was models lying on sofas or beds or sitting in an immoral posture. The main thing that was to be advertised i.e. lawn, was not even visible in majority of the billboards.  After looking at these billboards, I wonder whether they are selling lawn or women. Recently, I saw a billboard of Veet at Do Talwar, in which Katrina Kaif is sitting with a purple dress revealing her naked legs and arms. This vulgarity is ruining the minds of young children who pass by these billboards daily in the morning and afternoon when they are on their way and back from school.

There are a large number of such types of billboards that I find offensive and immoral such as the slice or lux billboard or the sanitary napkins billboards. Even the unknown and infamous model in Maaza Mango’s billboard has made a seductive pose which I find disgusting! What does seductiveness or obscenity has to do with a brand of juice? These billboards with obscene pictures of models not only distract the driver and pedestrians but are also a cause of majority of accidents happening in the city.  

Outdoor advertising should have some cultural, social and religious boundaries. Vulgar and obscene ads are only helping in polluting the minds and thought process of our children. There should be more creativity and less vulgarity in our billboards. An ad for a juice brand can be made without using a seductive or lustful pose. There should be a censor board for outdoor advertising, like there is for movies and all, so that only those ads are put up that are ethical and do not harm anybodys moral values. Billboards should be made keeping in mind the fact that we live in a society where cultural norms and values are given a high importance.

Amara Jewels

When one of our instructors, Umair Mohsin asked us to ‘like’ the page Amara Jewels on facebook, we had no idea that the owner of this jewelry business would be such a great role model and inspiration for many girls. Mrs Amara Umair’s history is as interesting and captivating as her present. When she entered the classroom today, none of us had any idea what she was going to talk about but when she started telling us about her work and business, I am sure all of us wanted her to keep going on and on.

 Mrs Amara continued her studies after her marriage and after completing her masters and giving birth to two beautiful girls; she decided to do something by which people would remember her. Her husband supported her decision but on one condition that she wouldn’t work in offices and do something by sitting at home. She started her business in 2010 by a very low investment of 5000 rupees only that she got as a pocket money from her husband and father in law. She explained to us that in order to start a new business, it is very important to take slow steps and go slowly and steadily by starting off at a low level. She said that many people put 2, 3 lakhs rupees in initial phase of their business but get nothing in return and their money along with their hopes is wasted and destroyed.

 Mrs Amara told us that when she started her business, there was a major concern of safety because it is very difficult for a girl to roam around in bazaars alone and she doesn’t give her telephone no also because we belong to a society where men rule the world, they dominate us and to live in a man’s world is a tough task. She also said that one of the reasons of her success is that she deals with her clients very nicely and humbly and doesn’t show attitude or doesn’t neglect any of her client. She personally chats with her clients because of which her sleep also gets disturbed because the clients living abroad come online at night mostly whereas the clients living in Pakistan come online in the day time.

            Facebook and WOM has helped Amara Jewels to grow and succeed over the years. Mrs Amara said that social media is an excellent way to help your business grow; it also provides competition because many other brands have their pages on facebook and it becomes tough for the consumer to choose their desired brand. Amara Jewels has had many exhibitions in the USA, Mauritius and Peshawar and all of the exhibitions were successful. She emphasized on the fact that we girls should make ourselves useful and do something that we are good at, instead of sitting at home idly and wasting our lives on useless and pointless things.

Dialect of Enlightenment - review

The book 'Dialect of Enlightenment' talks about how media and the world of cinema has made us all lose our point of views, thoughts and creativity forcing us to adapt ways and thoughts of what it decides to guide us. We as humans have all started following the same road as one another where no one is different or left unique. The trend of following one another is increasing day by day and all this is because of the media.

As the essay mentions, Kant believed that the state of enlightenment would grant us answers to all the questions we long and longed to ask, whose answers lay with our ancestors and the other masterminds. However the writers argue that this enlightenment is what we are not learning ourselves but is what we are being taught by the growing culture of media and film. Cinema shows us all the films where there are the same list of characters and roles that every other film has. It is as though the pattern has been set and we humans have to follow that pattern as our own thinking has shut down. 

The culture of media around us has taken us over completely leaving us with no room in terms of creativity and reasoning. We now follow the ideals left to us by media refusing to actually think what we are doing and why. It is as though this is the right thing to do since we feel that this is enlightenment. 

The society that we live in and the facts that we see that exist in them are all what we accept, also we see every other person doing the same thing in the society thus making it the right thing for us to do. The influence of media has clutched us all tightly in its claws where everyone is tied up together leaving no room for becoming different and making a change. It feels like every person has lost his individuality and identity and everyone is following the same track and moving to the same direction without thinking or realizing the fact that each and every human being is different from each other and should hav different ideas, approaches and point of views.

Data Visualization

The traditional methods of data representation, such as pie-charts, histograms, graphs, bar graphs, tables etc, have not only become boring and old fashioned but are also very unpleasant and unattractive to the eye. People usually lose their focus and interest while studying such forms of data representation. In order to keep the concentration intact and the focus maintained, these conventional methods have now been replaced by visual enhancements. The complex, multidimensional, intricate and static world of information cannot be portrayed exceptionally on the usual graphs and charts. Data visualization is a modern approach to store data in a beautiful, sophisticated, elegant and well-designed form. There are so many interesting and profound ways to visualize data that fascinates not only the eye but also the mind and helps in better understanding of the data. The main purpose of data visualization is to converse information evidently and effectively through graphical means. Data visualization has become increasingly interactive today.

The most important things that data visualization should possess are effectiveness, accuracy i.e. it should be sufficient for correct quantitative evaluation, efficiency and it should be aesthetically pleasing. A good graphical display of data helps in communicating the ideas with clarity, precision and effectiveness. The simplest data chart can be made very interesting if it is executed properly. Data visualization is about the combination of visual as well as statistical thinking. 

Graphic or visual representation of any information allows a person to understand and process enormous amount of information quickly because it is much easier to absorb any information that is in pictorial form. Perhaps this is the reason why we remember most of the billboards we see on the streets very easily but if the same thing is in written form it will be difficult for us to remember it for a longer period of time. The graphic representations are used where complex information needs to be explained quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. They are also used extensively as tools by computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians to ease the process of developing and communicating conceptual information.

Data visualization should not only be a beautiful graphic representation of information but it should also contain information which is valid and has some function. The balance between design and function should be fulfilled in a data visualization chart. To create any set of data charts, the most important thing to keep in mind is not only the accuracy but also the validity of the data. Any simplest chart can be misleading in keeping this balance and if the chart is visually very pleasant and appealing, the chances of this balance being lost is the highest.

Frida Kahlo - a brief autobiography

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist born three years before the Mexican revolution. She wanted to be associated with the Mexican revolution that is why she claimed to be born in 1910 - the year of the revolution. Frida’s sufferings started from the age of six when she contracted polio which left her right leg thinner than the left. Frida actually wanted to become a doctor but a terrible accident gave her a new direction in life. At first, Frida had no style of her own and she was greatly inspired by other artists. Her paintings reflected the styles and designs of the artists she admired.

            Later she developed a keen interest in painting and developed her own artistic style which was based mostly on the events taking place in her personal and social life and also the psychological changes she was going through. She emerged as a surrealist painter and her works were also driven by realism, symbolism and sexual references. She often stated that she wasn’t sure whether she is a surrealist or not but her paintings were the frankest expression of herself. The entire collection of Frida’s paintings is actually the biography of her life.

Frida married a well known Mexican artist, Diego Rivera, whom she referred to as the ‘architect of life.’ Both Frida and Diego had a radically different approach on life and were extremely proud of each other’s creations. Many of Frida’s paintings depict her unstable relationship with Diego. She painted her emotions and sorrows in her self-portraits and each of her self-portrait has a story to tell. Frida lived a life full of traumas, accidents, operations, miscarriages and immense sufferings. She died at the age of 47 in 1954 leaving behind more than 200 paintings, sketches and drawings.

Mad Men - the advertising world

Set in New York in the 1960s and created by Matthew Weiner, Mad Men is a story of a group of individuals focusing on their hopes, dreams, hardships and survival in the advertising world.  The political and social changes happening in that era are shown through the lives of the main characters and also through their work.  The themes depicted in Mad Men, such as adultery, smoking, drinking, racism, alienation, feminism, are a part of the American society and culture.

Don Draper, the creative director of the ad agency and the best ad man in town, is shown to be a womanizer, who cheats on his wife, Betty, and is mostly attracted by and sleeps with independent and bold women. His real name is Dick Whitman and he belongs to a poor family and an unhappy childhood but he takes the identity of Lieutenant Donald Draper, who is killed during the Korean War. He hides his real name and history from everyone around him including his wife but eventually Pete and then his wife Betty come to know about his true self.

Peggy Olsen, a confident, independent, ambitious, young woman joins Sterling Cooper as a secretary but is then promoted to the first female copywriter at the firm. She struggles to gain acceptance in the male dominated workplace and makes numerous attempts to attain equality in the office through her hard work and by giving opinions. Don values Peggy’s ideas and talent and also tells her that he sees himself in her.

Each and every character in the series has a very interesting past and present. I have been addicted to the series since the day we were asked to watch it for a course and have completed watching all four seasons and I am now following the fifth season diligently.

Mad Men is a show about how stories are constructed and how the viewer finds himself involved in the narrative. It all started with the simple life of Don and his wife Betty and their two children. But as the seasons passed by, it became more and more complex. The details of each characters life, especially Dons are so intricate that this fiction makes the viewer wait impatiently for the next episode to know what’s going to happen subsequently. This narrative doesn’t have a clear or predictable endpoint and this is the reason why everyone gets hooked up to the series.

Recycling - trash to treasure!

The idiom, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, probably best explains the meaning of trash or waste. The amount of waste produced by our society is rising day by day because of the rise in population in the urban areas. The consumption rate is getting higher and higher and products life span is shortening. This rise in the amount of waste is causing serious impact on the environment and it is also a cause for the rise in land and water pollution because people usually dump their solid waste in landfills or industrial waste is dumped in rivers. Waste is generally burnt or buried, neither one is good for the environment. Burning waste material releases harmful and dangerous gases that contribute to global warming. Waste management strategies include the three Rs, reduce, reuse and recycle. These 3Rs are referred to as the waste hierarchy. The main aim of waste hierarchy is to take out maximum practical benefits from products and to produce the minimum amount of waste.

The term recycling means re-using waste materials and making new products out of them.  Recycling has many definitions relating to the different processes that recycling can be involved with. Recycling is done by collecting recyclable materials that would otherwise be considered waste, sorting them out and processing them into raw materials such as fibers. These raw materials are then manufactured into new products. Materials that can be recycled include glass, plastic, aluminum, metal, electronics, car batteries, paper, cans etc.

Recycling has many social, financial and most importantly environmental benefits. Such as it reduces energy usage, saves on landfill space, helps sustain the environment for future generations, decreases emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, conserves natural resources and also prevents pollution. Almost everything we see around us can be recycled. Recycling industries are functioning in many countries across the world. Creative recycling can be done at home without any difficulty.

The waste produced in Pakistan can help in boosting the economy if properly taken care of. People in Pakistan are unaware of the importance of recycling or reusing waste materials. Awareness programs should be carried out in the country to make people understand the importance of recyclable waste materials. This would help in saving resources and will also provide jobs as a large number of people in Pakistan are unemployed.