Sunday, March 30, 2014

PTA's Drone Attack on IT Industry



Over the past decade, Pakistan has been in its worst economic crisis ever because of various reasons, including, but not limited to, terrorism, the energy crisis and corrupt government. The country’s reputation in the world is on a steep decline. Pakistan used to be renowned for the production and exportation of textile products. Now, most of the textile units have been moved to Malaysia and Bangladesh. The main reasons are electricity issues, bribes from various authorities and unnecessary taxes.
The only industry that was doing well, despite Pakistan’s international reputation, was the IT industry.  With the highly skilled and comparatively cheaper manpower, Pakistan has distinguished itself as an outsourcing destination.  A senior programmer is earning 11% of what an American developer of the same skill set earns. Pakistan has an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 IT professionals who are employed in the outsourcing and software export activities. This industry has a lot of potential and capacity to grow, and it has been growing 25% per year in terms of direct export revenue generation. Currently 1500+ registered companies are operating in Pakistan.
A drone was dropped on this progress by the PTA last week, when they blocked hundreds and thousands of IPs. Companies that were outsourcing their developers and were connected to their clients via VPN are now idle because PTA has blocked all the VPN accesses. Hundreds of companies and thousands of IT professionals are about to lose business and jobs respectively. PTA has taken this step to encounter the “grey traffic” and VOIP issue. By not having trained IT Professionals, equipment and adequate training to use this filtering equipment, it has turned out to be a nightmare for the IT business in this county.
The role of PSEB (Pakistan Software Export Board) is questionable in this situation and has exposed the integration and communication loopholes between these very important institutions of this country. It’s a basic administration rule that whenever any policy is implemented as rule of thumb, all those areas that could be affected by it are identified. PTA should have coordinated with PSEB and asked for the list of IPs used by all the PSEB registered companies to avoid the damage that has occurred now.
When PTA representatives were asked to resolve this issue, they sent a form and a long procedure was started. A lot of companies have lost their valuable clients over this policy developed by the government of Pakistan.
In order to avoid this situation and minimize further damage, PTA should take two steps immediately.
  1. Speed up the process of unblocking the designated IPs mentioned in the lists sent by PSEB registered software houses.
  2.  Collect the list of IPs from the PSEB registered software houses/call centers and allocate the most optimized Internet routes to them.
This matter requires the special attention of the Ministry of IT (Pakistan), PSEB and the higher management of PTA. Any delay to resolve this issue will cause unresolvable damage, which this country can’t bear in the worst economic circumstances.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Pakistan: 23rd of March

We can see lot of emotional content on social media, national songs on TV channels and Happy Pakistan Day" SMS because history of this day is linked with 22-24 March's Lahore resolution. Which is historically wrong. Before 1957, 23rd of March was neither a "Pakistan Day" nor it was a "public holiday". Here is a brief history of 23rd of March.
First constitution was enforced on... 23rd of March and Pakistan was declared as "Islamic Republic of Pakistan" in 1956.
In 1957, 23rd of March was declared as "Republic/Constitution Day" and a public holiday was declared.
Same procedure was repeated on 23rd of March, 1958.
However, Ayub Khan declared Martial Law on midnight of 7 and 8 October 1958 and abrogated the 1956 constitution. Then it came 23rd of March, 1959, Constitution was abrogated and there was no democracy in the country and hence there was no point of having a "Republic/Constitution Day".
So, since 1959, 23rd of March has been known as "Pakistan Day" and it is linked with Lahore's gathering, 1940.
Where the point is, nothing happened exactly on the day 23rd of March, 1940. Resolution was presented by A.K Fazul ul Haq on 22nd of March and unanimously accepted on 24th of March, 1940.
We can live with the face of history shown to us but we should know THE FACT too.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

حکیم صاحب کا مطب اور اُلو‏

کسی جگہ 2 آدمی رھتے تھے وہ دونوں بیمار ھو گے۔ کسی آدمی نے ُان کو 1 حکیم صاحب کا پتہ بتایا۔ وہ حکیم صاحب کے پاس گے۔حکیم صاحب نے کھا تم دونوں کی جان 1 اُلو میں ھے۔ وہ دونوں اُ لو ڈھونڈنے جنگل چلے گیے۔ دیکھا تو اُلو بیمار تھا۔وہ اُلو کو حکیم کے پاس لے آے۔ حکیم نے اُلو کو ٹھیک کر دیا۔ اب وہ دونوں لڑنے لگے۔ 1 بولا اُلو میرا ھے دوسرا کھتا ھے اُلو میرا ھے۔حکیم بولا "پاگلو لڑو نہ اُلو کی صحت میں تم دونوں کا فاہدہ ھے اسکی حفاظت کرو"۔ اُنہوں نے حکیم کی بات مان لی۔ آپ نے کراچیی کے جلسے میں بھی دیکھا ھو گا۔ اُلو اُن دونوں کے درمیان بیھٹا تھا۔ حکیم صاحب راولپنڈی میں 1 محفوظ مقام پہ بٹھے "صحتمند اُلو" اور اُس کی حفاظت کرنے والوں کو دیکھ رھے تھے۔اور خوش ھو رھے تھے۔حکیم صاحب کے مطب کا پتہ بتانے والے کا کالم تو آپ روز ملک کے معروف اخبار میں پڑتھے ھی ھیں۔ کہانی ختم

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Hajj Scandal 2010

Those who want change in political setup are indicating that clashes between govt. And judiciary are going to reach at its top in coming days. Secretry establishment stated that prime minister's order of appointing Rao Shakeel is equivent to charge sheet against him and there may be somthing happened against him. Indication are that NRO issue can be started again in January. On the other hand govt. Sources say that those who are making hajj scandal as consparicy will not succeeded and prime minister can ask for the resign from hajj minister. Minister of hajj not giving resign. He said that he would publish the names of all the persons who were involved in this scandal. He did not deny corruption during hajj however he claimed that he was not involved in it. Who knows :-(

Friday, October 29, 2010

Pakistan - Not everything is wrong

Western media and news papers consider Pakistan as dangerous area but despite the fact that corruption and terrorism increased in Pakistan still Pakistan's Per capita income and reserves increased. If govt. Of Pakistan overcome corruption Pakistan can go on the way of prosperity with great speed. Pakistan is full with natural resources and worlds most famous people are scattered in this country. Pakistan's nation is the only nation that defeated 4 army dictators during 63 year. An army dictator dismissed one the Chief Justices twice but the struggle of Pakistan's civil society and media restored his position. Pakistan is at #5th in terms of copper and gold reserves. Pakistan has 339 million oil reserves, coil reserves are of 17500 tons and natural gas reserves are of 29.790 million cubic. Pakistan has 220 million tons of salt reserves. If Pakistan's govt. improve its policies they can overcome energy crisis. Abdul Sattar Edhi is running world's largest ambulance service. Dr. Abdus-Salam got Nobel prize in physics. Dr. Samar Mubarak Mand is working on a project to solve the energy crisis in the country. Pakistan's student Ali Moeen Nawazish set world record by obtaining 23 A grades in senior Cambridge. 10 years old Baber Iqbal is world's youngest software engineer. Pakistan's army is world's 7th largest army in the world. Recently Pakistan's army Pakistan Army has won the coveted Gold Award at the prestigious Cambrian Patrol Exercise. 2.5 million Pakistani are using internet. 10 million Pakistani are using mobile in other words Pakistan is among the countries where every 2nd person has access to mobile. Pakistan has Largest number of women in Parliment in Asia. In 1999 Pakistan's GDP was of 750USD which is reached at 1850 million USD in 10 years. Per capita income increased from 450USD to 1250USD during the last ten years. Foreign reserves were 200Million USD in 1999 now these foreign reserves are at 1400USD. Foreign investment increased from 100Million USD to 500Million USD.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Water issues in Pakistan

Coordinator of World Water assembly and chairman Sindh Taas agreement used to inform Pakistani nation about his concerns of India's voilation of that agreement. According to Sindh Taas agreement India can take only 2.85 million acre feet water for its 1.34 million acre area. How ever india is getting more then 45 million acre feet water. Pakistan's rivers are becoming barren and quickly converting into streams. Hundreds miles long defense line is dying because of this water stealing from indian side. Pakistan's ministry of water and electricity and ministry of food and agriculture is not telling true facts and figure to the media and nation thats why India is doing worst voilation of human rights and international agreements.