Author: admin
-
Family Tree Shajra of Sadat e Nehtaur: A Case Study of Compilation of Social History
Sadat e Nehtaur Shajra Compilation Effort Syed Mohammad Khurshid Alam Zaidi Khursheed Alam Zaidi in his keynote address at a get together of Sadat-e-Nehtaur on 7th May 2017 related the impressive history of compilation of “shajra” of Sadat-e-Nehtaur. The shajra documents their history in India from around 1175 AD when the ancestors moved from Tirmiz…
-
Importance of Literature in Law: A Case Study of the Panama Case Supreme Court Judgement
Importance of literature in law and legal judgments and arguments in the floor is an established tradition. This post collects together various quotations from masterpieces of literature in the Supreme Court judgement on the Panama Case Scandal on April 20, 2017. It also contains the references to Quranic definitions of Sadiq and Ameen. I think…
-
Mukhtar Masud’s Awaz-e-Dost and Love for Literature and History
A literary social autobiography that is poetry in prose; beauty in words and imagery; each sentence contains a world of meaning, ideas, conflicts illustrated through metaphors, and references to deep historical events, people, places, contrasts, arts, architecture, insights, classics, writers, leaders, historical figures…. A book that gives a personal view of Pakistan history through hopes,…
-
How do I lift thee from the mundane: Musings of a Dean
How Do I Lift Thee From the Mundane What a fleeting time is youth! that beckons the future that walks in beauty that gallops with force that exudes energy in every motion that dances with the daffodils that climbs every mountain that explores every valley that aspires for the stars Ah, the Youth, whose purpose…
-
5 Phone Behaviors of Employees who Need to be Fired
Based on my experience with dealing with people over the last so many years, I have identified the following phone behaviors that should raise a red flag about the ethical values and personal responsibility of an employee. A manager can use these phone behaviors to identify the employees who need to be fired or got…
-
5 Major Misconceptions of Muslim Parents regarding Parenting Challenges of the 21st Century
[Themes of this post were presented at Forward Institute for Educational Bridgework Seminar on Jan 27, 2016. ] Note: This post is specifically written for Muslim parents and presupposes reader’s belief in Quran and Sunnah. Over the last few years I have come across Muslim parents who are making extra effort in following Sunnah. However,…
-
Why Students Avoid and Stop Taking the Course of Some Teachers: 7 Top Reasons
Over the last 37 years in higher education as student (from 1980-94), and as faculty member and academic administrator (since 1995), I have come across scores of instances where students went out of the way to avoid certain teachers, dropped the course en-mass, ganged up to remove the teacher, walked out or simply dropped the…
-
Why Educational Experiments are “Doomed” to Succeed?
It is often said that all educational experiments are doomed to succeed [1]. Here is my different take on this from the perspective of an educational reformer and educational leader. There are tons of methodologies, experiments, strategies and their resources that are available to teachers. However, when a teacher designs a new educational experiment, it…
-
Struggles of a Conscientious Government Servant: Lessons Learned from Memoirs of Irtiqa Zaidi
I felt honored when I was asked to review the book of memoirs of Mr Irtiqa Zaidi that is about to go into publication. The book is exciting, enjoying, and often a thrilling account of his photographic memory of the events spanning the expanse from his childhood in Quetta to his rise as a senior…
-
At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions
Political discourse in Pakistan is punctuated with allegations and counter allegations without a formal study of the economic implications of the various decisions that have been rocking the country from as early as 1950s. The series of posts in this thread of “At What Cost” is attempt to build a framework for researchers to explore…
-
Top 10 Reasons Why Students Fail in Semester System- Survival Guide
About 5%-10% of students entering the university are unable to survive the semester system. The following list of top 10 reasons is based on my observations as a student from 1980-1994 at NED, IBA Karachi and at Univ of Texas at Austin. These are also based on my interactions with dropouts as faculty member from…
-
Dr Wahab and IBA of 1980s and 1990s
Dr Abdul Wahab went to meet his creator on Sep 6, 2016 morning, inna lillah we wa inna ilaihi rajioon. The news brought flashbacks of several memories from my association with IBA; first as an MBA student from 1985 to 1987, and then during my stint as a faculty member from 1995 to Dec 2000, the last…
-
Youth Leadership and Dave Ulrich-Orientation for University Students
[Presented at IoBM Orientation Session for Fall 2016 intake on Sep 3] Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on leadership at Karachi Marriott by Dave Ulrich, who is considered as the father of modern Human Resource Management. Ulrich is a professor at the University of Michigan and a consultant to top companies…
-
Why Engineering Students are Reluctant to become Entrepreneurs: Role of PEC and Universities
Presented at ICEE-2016, International Conference on Entrepreneurial Engineering: Commercialization of Engineering Projects and Research There are several reasons why Engineering students in Pakistan have been found to be reluctant to opt for entrepreneurship in their engineering fields as opposed to other disciplines such as Computer Science. These reasons can be classified in five major categories;…
-
Abuse of Presentation Slides in Classrooms: Ban Powerpoint Presentations
Problems with Powerpoint Presentations in Classroom A couple of weeks ago I came to deliver a presentation in a seminar after four speakers who were delivering a technical talk to the business owners using powerpoint and speaking in English, which is the second or third language of the speakers and the audience. I could see…
-
Who has Greater Will and Resolve in controlling Karachi Disturbances: Dictators vs Civilian Governments
To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions At What Cost? Costs of perceived strictness of military dictatorships vs the reality of civilian governments in Pakistan. This post studies the case of Karachi disturbances and rise of MQM from 1980 and the relationships of…
-
Traitor/Foreign Agent Production Factory of Pakistan
To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions At What Cost? Costs of Branding a Politician as a Traitor There is a traitor/foreign agent production factory in Pakistan that seems to be in full swing. It has targets that have been trained on most…
-
Field Marshals of Pakistan: Costs of Sycophancy and Political Expediency
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] At What Cost? Costs of Self Proclaimed Field Marshals in Third World Countries In Pakistan the award of Field Marshal rank has been a product of sycophancy and political expediency for personal gain and short term…
-
Costs of Justice Munir’s Doctrine of Necessity: 4 Martial Laws and 35 years of dictatorships
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] Doctrine of Necessity Decision by Justice Munir had been disastrous for Pakistan. Not only did this decision annulled the historic judgement of Sindh High Court that has disallowed the dissolution of assemblies by Gen Iskandar Mirza…
-
Costs of Military Dictatorships of Pakistan
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] Historic Failures of Strategic Doctrines by Dictator Generals in Pakistan What happens when generals (military men) arrogate to themselves “strategy making” when at best they have been trained for obtaining tactical advantage? Are Generals Qualified…
-
Costs of General Musharraf’s Dictatorship
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] This post analyzes the continuing accumulation of long term costs associated with General Musharraf’s dicatatorship 1999-2008 in the areas of ideological costs, economic costs, governance costs, foreign policy debacles and political engineering costs. [Bullets are being…
-
Costs of General Ayub's Dicatatorship
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] We typically look at General Ayub and the economic performance during his time, ignoring the long term economic and political impact of the decisions that he took and the processes that he set in motion. This…
-
Blaming the Founding Fathers for Our Mistakes: Case of Pakistan
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] In the cozy environment of our drawing rooms, we often see the self styled intellectuals belong to the ilk of Hasan Nisar trying their best to put the blame of shortcomings of our nation on to…
-
Why Pakistani Democracies are a Sham? Costs of Controlling a Democracy from Outside
Why we had only sham democracies in Pakistan? This post identifies eight fundamental tests on which our democracies fail to be called a real democracy. It identifies the forces and the compulsions that did not let them to mature into a real democracy. We will discuss the costs of sham democracies in a later post.…
-
Costs of General Zia’s Dictatorship in Pakistan
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] This post lists major cost elements of General Zia’s Dictatorial 11-year rule from 1977-1988. It identifies five major cost categories: costs related to ideology of Pakistan, economic costs, governance costs, foreign policy costs and costs of…
-
Costs of Sham Democracratic Governments in Pakistan
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions] Sham Democracy vs Real Democracy: Discusses the question of whether we ever had a real democracy in Pakistan, and why our democracies have been sham. In this post we look at the costs of having a…