Javier Poncela-Professor from Malaga Spain who Taught us Selfless International Collaboration

Very sad. It was very sad to learn that Dr. Javier Poncela, a Professor at the University of Malaga, Spain had passed away. Dr Poncela was a well known personality in the electrical engineering departments of the universities of Sindh. He became a popular academician in Pakistani community and was routinely invited for the conferences in Pakistan and he too invited and hosted several professors and students in conferences in Spain. He supervised numerous PhD and MS Pakistani students in Pakistan and at Spain. He had played a pivotal role in many European Union Projects in Pakistan including Erasmus Mundus.

Only an Idiot does not take a U-Turn- Proud to be the Prime Minister of U-Turns

"I am proud to be the Prime Minister of U-Turns. Only an idiot does not take a U-Turn."
He has the audacity, impertinence and insensitivity to say this in Moharram when everyone takes inspiration from Hazrat Hussain who sacrificed his life and every thing but did not take the U-Turn offered by Yazid.

IK is the person who said "only an idiot does not take a U-Turn" during Moharram. By saying this he eulogozed Gen Niazi and slandered the sacrifices of Major Raja Aziz Bhatti, Maj Tufail, Rashid Minhas and other shaheeds who did not take a U-Turn and gave their lives. He slandered Hazrat Imam Husain's sacrifice too.

(Irfan Hyder Sep 16, 2019, 7:55 PM)

References:

• https://www.dawn.com/news/1446168
• https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/7/26/imran-khans-first-year-in-office-u-turns-and-oppression
• An Endless Debate: https://www.dawn.com/news/1448355
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFG_B--U3_E&t=48s
• https://www.globalvillagespace.com/pm-khan-under-fire-on-social-media-for-his-u-turn-statement/

Ghotki Rampage and Crowds Clamoring for the Head of 5000

Ghotki rampage occurs when government supporters encourage harassment and lawlessness. What do u expect from PTI juveniles who promote street killing of thousands on suspicion without trial, due process of law! During the run up to elections and till a few months ago. The pumped up juvenile brigade of the لونڈے، لپاڑے were vociferously promoting hanging and shooting of 5000 on mere suspicion of corruption without due process of law and without trial or charge or verdict from the courts. This has developed the mentality of rioting, vandalism, violence that we saw in the crowds on rampage in Ghotki. In this post I am talking about the mentality of street violence promoted by the likes of loud mouthed Faisal Vawda, Murad Saeed and others including our prime minister IK.

Supported by such frenzied and pumped up brigade, NAB went on a rampage incarcerating and imprisoning hundreds without trial, without charge, without due process of law, without considering constitutional rights of article 10A. They have shackled professors, not sparing even vice chancellors, some have even died in custody without trial.

The country is being ruled by CJPs since 1950s who have been godfathers of Doctrine of Necessity (DoN) another name of "might is right". Our current CJP and his "Conjoined twin" ex CJP Saqib Nisar as well as CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry and several others were DoN PCO godfathers. They legalized breaking of law and constitution by dictators at the altar of "might is right" DoN Doctrine which states "Necessity makes lawful that which is unlawful"! The most illustrious of CJP’s was Justice Munir who became the original DoN godfather in 1954-55 judgment.



Irfan Hyder updated his status.Sep 17, 2019, 5:10 AM

Work In Process

Examples of How Children Fail

In "How Children Fail", the acclaimed author John Holt describes how children stop using their mind, and fail. It is quite evident from the example pic below that the child was using his mind. Unfortunately, the teacher was grading "mindlessly" from the key that he had. This example is not an isolated case. There are scores of examples in the book and of various subjects where this occurs. With these kinds of wrong answers to wrongly phrased/formatted questions, the child learns that it is dangerous to use his mind. It is much better to be solving the problems "mindlessly" to get good grades, instead of "mindful application" which can often result in wrong answers. There are just too many students' papers to check by the teacher, and too many questions in each paper to give space to the teacher to drill down into the thinking of each child for each answer to see whether the logic in child's mind was correct or not. Too many failures like this and child stops thinking, and starts resorting to mindless application of formulae which also results in random grades. The child realizes that whether I use my mind or not, my grades are random. It is dangerous to use my mind, the child concludes. This is "How Children Fail" and we see so many people around us proudly proclaiming "I hate maths".

Historical Metaphors and Our Personality

عصائے کلیمی، رسم شبیری، جادو سامری، رسم سلمان و اویس قرنی، در خیبر، کار خلیلی، بحر ظلمات میں گھوڑے، لیلی' بھی ہم نشیں، پیچ و تاب رازی، غزنوی کی تڑپ، زلف ایاز، طرابلس کے شہید، سوز و ساز رومی، لالہ صحرائی، عطار ہو رومی ہو رازی ہو غزالی ہو، مدار قوت حیدری، وہ غازی وہ تیرے پراسرار بندے، قتل حسین، مرگ یزید، بدر و حنین، آب رود گنگا، حور و قصور، آتش نمرود، ساقی کوثر، .........
Aah!
Can you feel the resonance of these metaphors in your heart?
Those who forget history, are forgotten by history!

Psychology of Sweeping Generalizations:

Sweeping generalizations are typically false. None, All, Never, Ever are words that indicate tendency for over simplification. Example, all politicians are crooks, all men are untrustworthy, all women are weak, all scots are miserly, etc. For most such assertions especially relating to people and social sciences, it is often easy to find an exception that will negate the assertion. This in psychology is also known as "global thinking" that is considered to be a major determinant of depressive behaviors. 

کیا سب چور ہیں

اگر آپ کو ہر انسان غلط لگ رہا ہے تو پھر یہ دیکھیں کہ کہیں آپ تو غلط نہیں

This is a basic principle. A person who is a habitual liar can not conceive of any one except being liar. 

جھوٹے کو سب جھوٹے لگتے ہیں، دھوکہ باز کو سب دھوکہ باز لگتے ہیں، وعدہ خلاف کو سب لوگ uTurn کرتے ہوئے نظر آتے ہیں, اور چور کو ساری عوام چور نظر آتی ہے

This is often the problem with sweeping generalizations. If someone claims that "everyone" is corrupt then:

1. "Everyone' also includes him, and the person making the claim must by definition also be corrupt, that is the person admits to him being corrupt. 
2. By the same token, we can also be sure that he knows well his father, mother, uncles, brothers, sisters, and other close relatives, and therefore this "everyone" also includes these close relatives and hence, we can be sure that he is calling all of them corrupt. 
3. Not only that but the sweeping generalization also indicates the person's psychological state where his mind is corrupted to an extent that he can't find even a single person in the whole country (200million+) who is not corrupt! The latter is a more problematic psychological state. 
4. I for one know for sure at least hundred people in my contacts who I can vouch for that they are not corrupt. I can actually present such people as a counter example and submit them to any type of scrutiny. 
5. I am also sure that there are some very authentic people in this group who have a much larger contact circle and they can present thousands about whom the corrupt title can not be ascribed. 

Case Study of Economic Hitmen of 2018 Pakistan

[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions]

DoN (Doctrine of Necessity) Godfather Saqib Nisar along with NAB and IMF led IK government as Economic Hitmen: Their witch hunt of greatly respected Dr Saeed Akhtar PKLIC, Dr Ismail Shah PTA, Dr Umar Saif PITB, Engr Imran Shaikh PSO and others represent very carefully selected targets to create a mass disillusionment of leading professionals in public and private sector with the objective of stultifying the fundamentals of infrastructure growth and maturity.

• Dr Saeed Akhtar was hit because of his leadership in health sector, his great respect in medical professionals and his deep links in the philanthropic expatriate resourceful community of doctors in USA and West. See Targeting of PKLI. His treatment resulted in scores of qualified doctors and surgeons who had come from  USA to return back. Contrast this destruction of Lahore institute with Sindh Government's Gambat Institute's success where hundreds of transplants are being done. 
• Dr Ismail Shah was selected as a target to cripple and stultify the technical bureaucracy and highly qualified professionals in private sector working in telecommunications sector. This was done in a coordinated planned manner as seen from the various cases initiated on a single day as reported in  August 2018 Dawn  report.
• Dr Umar Saif was selected as a target based on his excellent e-Government initiatives in public infrastructure for e-stamps, e-property registrations, e-monitoring of public education schools, teachers as well as public health and hospitals and e-tracking of medicines supply chain, dengue control dashboard connected with all government hospitals providing instantaneous figures, etc. Each such initiative was instrumental in providing efficiency in government and improving service delivery, and was being acquired and implemented in other provinces. He had to step down unceremoniously as his vision for increasing software exports and increasing government efficiency had to be stifled. 
• Engr Imran Shaikh was selected because of his great respect in engineering sector and his commendable achievements. His humiliation at the hands of DoN PCO Judge Saqib Nisar was a perfect hit to demoralize the energy sector professionals who tirelessly worked to overcome the severe energy shortages of 20 hours load shedding in 2013 to energy surplus in 2018

• Economic hit on CPEC
• Opening salvo against CPEC was made by Razak Dawood immediately after the assumption of IK's government which laid the foundation of slowing down the entire economy. 
• Despite his denials even in August 2020 CPEC has grinded down to a virtual standstill as per his unguarded comments as reported in FT. 
• CPEC is now mired in neocolonialism and Pakistan-US relations arm twisting . This may very well be the reason for "mujhe kiyon nikala".
• Economic hit on infrastructure of roads, motorways, Metropolitan mass transit......
• IK stated policy on infrastructure and roads was to invest on human development. He could not understand why investment on infrastructure is necessary. He inflicted the damage to economy by stopping or slowing all infrastructure projects. Too little too late, it is now belatedly in 2021 that IK had been finally convinced by Shaukat Tareen to restart Sukkur-Hyderabad motor way and three other motorways. 
• NAB's witch hunt of Multan Metro immediately after IK's government was installed eventually came to end dismally when China came down hard on Pakistan absolving the management of the project from any wrong doing. This was a huge embarrassment for the NAB effort. This witch hunt was instrumental in slowing down the CPEC project and creating a negative energy. 
• NAB witchhunt against the performing bureaucrats. Targeted the bureaucrats who were instrumental in completing development projects in record time. Threatening of FBR officers. Threatening of bureaucrats. Massive transfers of bureaucracy. 
• Economic hit on large scale manufacturing through the narrative of castigating and destroying the base of 80% revenues.....
• Economic hit on infrastructure of micro and small enterprises of shanty shops, hawkers, پتھارے,....
• Economic hit on infrastructure of philanthropic social service in the absence and abdication of government social services such as......
• Promise to commit suicide but not go to IMF. Asad Umar in deep neogotiations. Replaced. Development of a culture of urgency as if the world is falling down. Crescendo of voices and pressures to sign the deal. Imported from World Bank, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh who was the minister during Musharraf and finance minister in Zardari tenure. Import of Dr Raza Baqir from IMF who had devastated Egypt Economy measure by measure. Fired Younish Dhaga Finance Secretary who wanted to do hard negotiations with the IMF. Signing of the ignominous contract. Autonomy to SBP. Security of tenure of SBP governor.Immunity of SBP Governor from any future litigations. Petrol price to be equal to $rate. Massive devaluation. (Had never caused increase in exports, had always increased the costs of input, electricity, gas). Restriction on government to borrow from sbp. Only to borrow from the commercial banks. Reduction of development expenditure. 

*PTI Government Completes 200 Days*:

1- More than 400 development projects have been shut down.

2- Gas tariffs have increased 143%"...

3- Electrify tariffs for domestic users increased by 300%

4- Decrease of USD 1.75 billion in foreign reserves.

5- New taxes worth PKR 178.00 billion imposed in mini budget.

6- Internal and external debt volume increased by PKR 2,000.00 billion.

7- Inflation gone up to 8.2% -- almost more then double from last year.

8- Policy rate gone up to 10.25% from 5.75% last year.

9- Tax revenue growth worst in 20 years.

10- GDP growth in a fast decline with large scale manufacturing in negative, agriculture growth almost stagnant.

11- Fiscal deficit widens significantly compared to last year. Expenditure also significantly goes up.

12- Circular debt gone up from 1.1 tr to 1.6 tr --fastest increase in our history.

14- At the end of June, PTI govt will post the highest fiscal deficit (amount wise) in our history.

15- In spite of massive devaluation, exports increased only 2% in last 8 months. Compare that with 13% increase in last fiscal year.

16- Regarding debt increases, it’s the fastest accumulation in our history in the last 7 years

17- Unemployment is rising by the day and it is expected that by fiscal year end, 600,000 Pakistanis will have lost their jobs.

18- Stock Market considered as an the indicator of any economy has almost crashed n dead with no movement n no investment coming., comparing it to last 5 years when it was the Top Performing market of the world.

19- Most alarmingx news is that due to poor economy, MORE THAN 4 MILLION PAKISTANIS WILL GO BELOW POVERTY LINE.

Even as PTI supporters we feel embarrassed with these numbers. Gone completely out of its narrative regarding its commitment of 1 crore jobs and 50 lac housing units.....

May Allah Almighty have mercy on this nation.....!!!!

Myth of Science and Technology as Panacea for our Backwardness

The mythology that has been sold to the entire Muslim world and especially in Pakistan is that our backwardness is because of our backwardness in Science and Technology. Hence, S n T became the holy grail for progress and development. Everyone is willing to invest in Science and Technology, whether it has been Zia's government and Dr. Mahboob ul Haq's drive for S n T scholarships, or whether it is the political governments of the 90s or the Musharaff era (1999-2008) when Dr Ata ur Rahman was at the helm of S n T and HEC. Funds were lavished on S n T. The underlying assumption behind this myth was that the society would magically transform itself when we have x-thousand S n T PhDs; y-thousand professors with high impact factor; n-thousand Thompson Reuters IFJ publications and z-thousand state of the arts labs spread all over the country. After spending of hundreds of billions of tax payers money we find ourselves back to the starting point.

Covered Drains of Moenjodoro

Myth of Bigger Infrastructure Means Better Education: Quality vs Infrastructure

Myth: Bigger Infrastructure Means Better Education:

We were told that only high-quality universities should be allowed to come up. Primary criteria for high quality were the size of the campus, covered area and other brick and mortar facilities. HEC, SHEC, PHEC, CIEC and their institutional proformas are replete with questions about the size of the campus, and size of the offices for Deans, Faculty, and other officials. They ask about playgrounds, auditoriums, hostels etc. The conventional wisdom started suggesting that private sector universities starting in rented bungalows somehow will not be able to provide quality education. This argument was sold in spite of knowing about the history of many of our big universities now.

Traditions of Eid: Reflections of Past Eids and Future

This is a time to reflect on our traditions and culture of Eid. I am wondering how many of Pakistanis are still experiencing these. There are some disturbing posts on facebook and through some of my interactions that tell me that it is not only time to reflect but also to rekindle them through a sustained effort. Here I reflect on my life and learning over the last 55 years with many of these traditions

Rauf Mamoo, My war hero of 1965 War: Major (R) Shah M Ismail at Chawinda Tank Battle.

My hero of 1965 War: Major (R) Shah M Ismail at Chawinda Tank Battle.
Rauf Mamoo (as known in the family) related to us of his experience at Chawinda battlefield in the 1965 India-Pakistan war.

Major Shah M Ismail

Chairman Salim Mehmud and my Brush with SUPARCO during the 1980s

I spent 6 months in SUPARCO in 1987 before resigning and leaving for US for PhD. They were trying to design for several years a signal-filter chip that was available for a few hundred rupees in Saddar. We had nothing to do in the Computer Department where I was working. The commute time from City to Factory in Somiani was about 1.5hrs. Vans will come and pick us up early in the morning before 6. We were pretty tired and sleepy as we reach the factory at around 7am. Often the department employees would spread the packing material and sleep in the corners behind computers in the chilled computer center. The enterprising among us would sit on Autocad and design fun machine diagrams such as Space Shuttle (only its drawing, not the technical construction). The higher management was busy in making indents for purchasing materials and equipment. Their interest appeared more to be in commissions than in the usage of equipment. One could see expensive equipment lying around rotting.  Ran typically as a bureaucratic organization, the objective of the top management was not to allow people to work. So everyone was doing nothing but looking busy. Chairman was Dr Salim Mehmud, who was at the helm of affairs for around a decade. I think his mandate was neither to do any thing nor allow any one to do anything. Once in early 1980s, much before joining SUPARCO, while I was still a student of engineering and was a regular member and visitor of American Center, Dr Salim Mehmud was invited as a guest speaker at American Center Science Club. After his presentation there, I asked him a question. The question was based on science articles by Mr Azeem Quidwai in Dawn that I used to read regularly. Around that time, I had read some articles about the satellite slots allotted to Pakistan, which if not utilized, would be lost. The question that I asked was given that there is only limited space available for geostationary satellites,  why Pakistan had not occupied the 3 spaces allotted to it. Pakistan had at that time already lost some allotted space or was about to lose some. He got angry at my question, and instead of replying effectively shut me down. At that time I was too young (around 21) to understand what was in the question that irritated him so much! It was much later that I realized the question was actually pointing out his key weakness. I recall we were left with only one last space in 1999-2000. I remember Mr  Salman Ansari, Advisor to Dr Ata Ur Rahman, managed to get a dying satellite moved to this space just to fill and occupy the space up till such time a worthy satellite could be acquired and moved into that slot.

Dr Salim Mehmud

DoN Quixote PCO CJP Saqib Nisar who godfathered Sancho Panza Imran Khan

DoN Quixote and his Sancho Panzas tilting at the windmills.
1: DoN Quixote tilting at the windmills, through the Sancho Panza 2018-2023. Fighting the enemy of states: poor street vendors, irregular shops, all sectors of economy, auto sector, energy sector, real state sector, and the tax chor 99% of Pakistan population, lower class, middle class, rich class, politicians... .

What Should New Students of a University Must Consider: Essentials of a University Education

Why Education and Why Higher Education

• What is the Purpose of Education
• What does it mean to be well educated and what is our mission
• What is Higher Education
• What is Impact can you create
• What Impact on Society
• What Impact on Industry and Economy
• What should be your personal Impact 

5 Challenges for Designing your Professional Lives

Faculty, Parents and my dear students:

As I look at your beaming faces full of hope and aspirations and great expectations of your future after four years of university life, I first invite you to try to soak in this environment of this marvelous infrastructure at IoBM. You are sitting in the building which is name after the founder president of this institute Mr Shahjehan S Karim who left for the hereafter two years ago. This campus, which is spread over 10 acres and consists of several buildings like this one, is a concrete realization of the dream of Mr Shahjehan S Karim, who envisioned IoBM to be one of the the leading institutions, nationally and internationally, renowned for its contribution to education and society. Please note that he envisioned this around 25 years ago in 1994, after he had retired from a long illustrious service with the government! Mind you, the age of 60 is the time when most think of retiring and folding up their lives with reading or writing. SSK starting a new professional endeavor and working vigorously into his 80s should be an inspiration for all of us. If he can envision such a grand project at 60 and bring it to realization over the next 20+ years, you can also dream big and work for its realization. You have much more time and energy, you are in your youthful late teens and early 20s. You are about to embark on your professional life. You too can create a similar vision and work for its realization over the rest of your life. As I say this, I am reminded of my start, some 40 years ago at NED in early 1980. For me those last 40 years have passed within a blink of an eye. I wish my professional education would have started with a concrete inspiration like this vision. But, as Mr Shehjehan S Karim's life tells us, it is never too late. [Sep 7, 2019 Orientation for Fall 2019 Intake at IoBM]