"Sachoom"; An inspiring way of Dancing

Being a part of Korean Tourism Organization (KTO) is a lucky charm for every foreigner, it provides you an excellent opportunity to interact with different Korean cultures. SaChoom performance is also one of them, it is an award winning Korean Dance performance where the basic idea is “If you Love; Dance”.

"SaChoom" first appeared in October 2004 alongside other more familiar musicals but was unusual in that it was not a translation of a western musical. It include non-verbal dance with music packed high energy and involve audience through its hip-hop, Jazz, lyrical, break dance and other body movements. This non-verbal performance always got priority in order to involve multicultural audience with physical gestures.

To acquire a live flavor to Sachoom, 17^th April, I went to Cine Core Building in the Jongno District, Seoul. This show was organized by KTO and was divided into different parts explaining various age of human life staring from childhood to a mature stage. Every scene depicted a different stage of life: birth, childhood, falling in love, teenage, fluttering, seduction, dreams etc. All this was expressed through beautiful dance performances. Artists dance and acting skills were extraordinary, the way they perform on stage and interact with audience impressed me a lot. In the end ultimate message was if you dream big enough everything can come true.

I will definitely recommend all my fellow friends to experience “SoChoom” in Korea to get a real essence of Dancing. 

Arslan

23-04-2015

Propogating Digital Data with Light

Sending information on light beams, instead of electrical signals, allows data to be transmitted thousands of times more quickly. But controlling the light beams without losing their energy has been the challenge. 
Group at the University of Texas at El Paso now designed Spatially variant photonic crystals (SVPCs) to transmit data rapidly on electronic circuit boards by using light. 
Kuebler and his students used direct laser writing, a kind of nanoscale 3D printing, to create the miniature lattices. 

The researchers then directed 2.94-μm light beams through the lattices, which they found could direct the light around a 90° turn without loss. Additionally, the researchers found that the SVPCs bent vertically polarized light 25 times more effectively than horizontally polarized light.
The finding is significant because with the demand for ever-smaller and faster computers and hand-held devices, engineers need ways to pack ultra-fast data-transmission devices into smaller spaces.

End of the Universe

Term "cosmological collapse" is the one that predicts that the universe will soon stop expanding and collapse in on itself, obliterating all matter.
Physicists Nemanja Kaloper has proposed the cosmological collapse mechanism and analyzed its implications, which include an explanation of dark energy. According to the new mechanism, the universe originated under a set of specific initial conditions so that it naturally evolved to its present state of acceleration and will continue on a path toward collapse. In this scenario, once the collapse trigger begins to dominate, it does so in a period of "slow roll" that brings about the accelerated expansion we see today. Eventually the universe will stop expanding and reach a turnaround point at which it begins to shrink employing a scalar field whose potential is linear and becomes negative, providing the negative energy density required to end the expansion. The slope of the potential is chosen to allow for the expansion to last until the current Hubble time, about 1010 years, to accommodate our Universe. Crucially, this choice is technically natural due to a shift symmetry. Moreover, vacuum energy sequestering selects radiatively stable initial conditions for the collapse, which guarantee that immediately before the turnaround the Universe is dominated by the linear potential which drives an epoch of accelerated expansion for at least an e fold

Arslan

SEWOL INCIDENT -South Korea

And the Malaysian prime minister said that his government will release a report on MH 370’s disappearance. After reading this I just thought this is the end? A report can solve the mystery! but after several minutes of philosophy; I conclude that may be this is human nature they want to forget all after a short span by giving satisfaction to its own. According to latest research “Humans need a change after every 12 minutes” and they try to forget or change the issue after short intervals.

It was just a month past after plane’s mystery that Sewol Ferry sinked in the route to Jeju from Incheon on 16^th of april 2014 (One year Back). Obviously like before people start thinking about the cause of this accident. Lot of people think this disaster was due to the sudden turn (ship took a sharp turn at ~8:30AM). Some of the officials said why captain did not give the orders to evacuate the ship even after the call from VTS. But after all; captain was right he got the responsibility of more than 400 passengers then how can he give the orders to evacuate the ship and jump in the water with no one was there to rescue them. There was only a single helicopter with a few boats came after half an hour of happening.

Just like Malaysian plane mystery, most of the media named this as senseless tragedy. Lot of question raised; Is that a single person’s fault, why sharp turn lead to this tragic happening? Until now death troll reached to 181 with 121 still missing.

Being human kind everybody should not forget this accident and should not wait for the report. Although there are no satisfactory answers to all the questions but being one nation; stick to pray for the departed souls and think how can we stop these so called mysteries? Tomorrow is yearly anniversary for SEWOL incident which force us to think about the lost ones.

Efforts by Pakistan Tehreek for Insaf

Few days back, an article was published by one of the intellectual anchors in Pakistani media community (Talat). Usually Talat Hussain doesn’t provide bias thoughts but unfortunately this piece force me to say that he wrote an unfair article which discuss the arguments being provoked by typical PLM-N workers. 

-          With reference to Zahid Ibrahim 10-points column nobody from PTI’s official put harsh remarks despite the fact that a formal rebuttal was written by Dr. Awab Alvi based on facts. As I quote “ECP should have stepped above and beyond to allay doubts of any election rigging” rather than claiming ~70% of the results were announced. This article was also published on insaf.pk

 http://www.insaf.pk/mediagallery/blogs/17797-rebuttal-to-zahid-ibrahim-s-10-myths-about-elections-by-awab-alvi

-          As he claims 70% of cases were given decisions by tribunals within legal time frame. 

Legal time was set as 120 days, within this time limit only 20% decisions were made and results showed massive rigging. Lame excuses such as ‘typo’ errors for voter percentage exceeding 100% in multiple polling stations e.g., pre-scanning report of NA-118 shows that there are 88,000 votes missing.

Under Article 218(3) of constitution, the Election Commission is charged with the duty of “organizing and conducting elections and making such arrangements as are necessary to ensure that the election is conducted honestly, justly and fairly”. 

Giving decisions can never justify these massive flaws. Election Commission also accept the challenge of conducting free and fair election as I quote from ECP Strategic plan 2014-2018: “Though the ECP has been managing huge election operations, it has always been aware of its limitations, potentials and prospects in delivering elections to the Pakistani nation”
A complete electoral reform need to build in order to streamline these limitations as mentioned above. 

-          Usman dar vs Khawaja Asif from NA-110 Sialkot

Usman Dar put the petition on 21st November 2013 where his main request was to do thumb verification for all votes from NADRA. Several hearing were done and rather than to announce order for thumb verification, tribunal delayed the hearing claiming to get complete his evidence. Dar recorded his statement and submitted all evidences. Tribunal dismissed him on illegal orders as he could not able to appear once. Dar went to Supreme Court in order to appeal against this decision but still it’s pending.

-      Whatever Tayyip Erdogan or Moddi has done in turkey and India, free and fair electoral system helped them to formulate their governments. In Turkey elections were also marred by allegations of electoral fraud but as they got independent Supreme Electoral Council which cancelled elections in some areas and scheduled a repeat on 1st June. 

Similarly, In India Biometric system was implemented by developing the world’s largest biometric database, which got the task to enroll around 600m people, scanning their eyes, fingerprints state etc. Employees who act as RO’s respond well when given tasks of great prestige and put under careful public scrutiny of bureaucrats in order to make them free from political meddling and corruption. Not like in our country, where policemen spend much of their time collecting bribes to pay to their superiors, election officials have neither big budgets to divert, nor much opportunity to extract bribes. These were the main reasons which helped Moodi and Taayip to become supreme representative of the country. 

-          Talking about the money which is not being used

Rather wasting money on previous system; KPK government implement 25 new bills including Finance, Explosives, Arms, Right to Information, Provincial Amendment, Local Government, Ehtesab Commission, Plants Breeder, Farm Services Centers, Endowment Fund, Energy Development organization, River protection, Journalist welfare endowment fund, Public private partnership, Surrender Illicit arms, Medical transparency regulatory authority, Tibb and homeopathic employees, Local government, Food safety authority, Housing authority, Tenancy, Hotel restriction (security) and Right to public service bill. This reformation process took more than around eight months to be applicable. These reforms became the main reason of not spending money.

In the same way, Reforms in the fields of corruption, transport, development and welfare, education, exploration of natural resources, local government and revenue collection were also implemented. 

I am not sure from where Talat get the figures as KPK implement same 8.5% Rs. 29.2b to health and it is the same amount given by the previous one


Although PTI has done enough in KPK but still if the electoral system, which is the basic building block for true democracy, cannot become transparent, nobody can argue to become the prime minister. Imran Khan's Azaadi March is a democratic protest against this flawed electoral system so that we can tune the base of our democratic country.

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty, truth and compassion against injustice, lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.” 
― William Faulkner

Azadi March: A progress towards Democratic Revolution

Most of the think tanks say “Pakistan is an Ideological state” which based on Two Nation Theory. In August 11 Jinnah, in his first presidential speech declared Pakistan as democratic Nation which means “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” 

This is the basic form where adults have their contribution in decision making of their lives. Nation gives their votes to the leader and leader are supposed to drive government for betterment of its own nationals. According to Jinnah “The responsibility of the leader is to fulfill the needs of people and work day and night for this Motherland”

In Islamic history, Government at the time of Khalifa’s was also selected. All of the four caliphates followed Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) were selected or elected through different forms i.e. Abu Baker (R.A) was elected by majority of Muslims right after death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

In democracy, national of a country are the base of the system. They should select people who are more capable and better among all. They can’t blame Government when they are the one who choose them! But in Pakistan the picture is opposite as electoral process is not free and fair.

According to Churchill,                               

“Citizens are the most important component of Democracy. They need to strengthen themselves up if they want democracy to be strong. They should choose better people among themselves, who will then run the country for them.”

Unfortunately, this motherland from its inception could not get the best form of democracy and was derailed off and on. Three time’s military scratched this land when it was only 65 years old. Pakistan is the nation who declined from 106th to 110th according to Democratic Index in 2013 with score of 4.55. Similarly, according to Corruption Perception Index, it declined from 126th to 127th with a score of 28 in 2013. Clearly we see a connection between democracy and corruption. With lower corruption index a better democracy can put into action. 
Election is the basic building block to stable emerging democracies like Pakistan. They provide a means for invigorating the development of democratic politics; for forming governments; and for conferring legitimacy upon political order in order to have stability, democracy, peace and development. 

On May 11, 2013 general elections were held and turned out to be the most corrupt elections in the history of Pakistan.  The legacy of the elections has been marred by allegations, and proof of rigging along with tampering within the bureaucracy. The secretary of the Election commission resigned (ECP) and said that "historic rigging" was seen in these elections. ECP failed to perform its legal obligations that the whole electoral process especially in Punjab and Sindh being non-transparent, unjust and not in accordance with law.

According to Electoral Democracy theory, competitive elections are likely to reduce corruption as corrupt incumbents may be voted out of office. Corruption may for instance undermine the confidence of voters in the democratic system. According to “Norman D. Palmer” ‘the never ending political crisis in Pakistan is the product of electoral corruption’. There is a general lack of a sense of state accountability with political violence, high levels of terrorization and favoritism. 

Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf (PTI) who was the most popular team among young generation, took serious action against massive rigging and decided to take initiative in order to streamline the corrupt base of Democracy in Pakistan. PTI decided to do an historic protest named as Azadi March in order to raise voice against rigging in GE-2013. The main demands include investigation of rigging, punishment to the culprits, electoral reforms, electronic boots for elections, midterm elections and abolishing current government with care taker.

We cannot consider this march as only protest against rigging but this is the initiation of true revolution. This march may lead to give an independent election commission which may strengthen the democracy in true sense. Azadi March is an initiative towards real stability, peace, prosperity and development.

Arslan

Mosque - a Muslim Community Centre By Arslan Shehzad

In Islamic society, mosque with basic definition of "place to worship" got a hidden message of path for the development of Islamic society. Basic concept of mosque in Islam was "Community Development Center" where Muslim can learn social as well as religious ethics.

With reference to the function of mosque, Lets overview life of our prophet; The Prophet's Mosque in Medina was also used in the same manner as a social, political and religious center. There are hadiths which includes the functions of a shelter, an educational institution, a health care facility and a prison. The traditions record political pronouncements and diplomatic exchanges taking place at close proximity to the Ka'ba. The mosque was used as a gathering place for all the nobles of the Arab society. The Prophet had engaged in many debates, discussions and preaching at the Holy Mosque. The mosque was also a grim stage to pass judicial decisions and the implementation of punishment in the form of stoning. Let me quote some hadith here:

“One of the protents of the Day of Judgment is that you will vie with one another in building mosques”
“I was not commanded to build high mosques.”

From the said hadith we can understand that the idea of mosque does not approach that of a monumental building meant for a single ritual worship act. The mosque it seems was a place where the Muslims gather to interact and discharge many responsibilities for the benefit of Islam. All of these seem to indicate that the idea of sanctity in religious structures is not one in which only a particular ritual is intended. Of course, some historians might argue that the Arabs were not civilized enough to know the difference between a town hall and a religious building. The historian might even go as far as suggesting the Arabs were too poor to have separate edifices for the secular and religious functions. This manner of argument has the flaw of stereotyping every society into neat little packages of entities that must follow a universal religious and political law.

In Pakistan, we tried to implemend this idea in the form of madrissa's within the vacinity of mosque. But unfortunately, those madariss became the route for promoting extremism within the country. The basic reason behind was the isolation of these institutes. As i explained before the social factor; we always considered mosque a worship place apart from the previous fact that Islam guided us to take mosque not only a preaching center but an educational school. In order to evacuate from this situation, we must take initiatives to consider these mosques as institutes and social center where muslim community can interact. Every mosque should have school and health care centre. For a long term solution, Government should take initiatives to build some infrastructure within the mosques where basic role of Islam must be taught to community in shape of seminars, workshops and trainings.
Aside from prayers, every member of the society had many social obligations to fulfill. To accomplish those social factors we need create a conductive religious as well as social peaceful environment. These social centers may help us to finish the isolation between a madrissa and school.

Arslan