Pakistani government acquires .pk domain
The transition of county code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) of Pakistan “.pk” has been successfully completed marking it as the most significant and noteworthy landmark in the internet history of the country. In this regard, Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen today visited the Lahore office of PKNIC. PKNIC is the present ccTLD operator for “.pk” domain. The purpose of his visit was to appraise the newly upgraded “.pk” infrastructure, data center and customer services department in Pakistan.
During the visit Chairman PTA noted that the root server mirroring for “.pk” domain in Pakistan was fully operational. PKNIC has successfully implemented the root server mirroring for “.pk” and tested it with all global root servers from A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET to M.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. The new authoritative mirror M-2.PKNIC.NET.pk (203.128.7.123) would enable local resolution of “.pk” websites. PKNIC representatives briefed the Chairman regarding mirroring techniques and provided some testing on new Domain Name Service (DNS) resolution mechanism of .pk ccTLD. Formal inauguration of new PKNIC office shall be organized in August.
It may be mentioned that Chairman PTA had a long association with “.pk” transition project and has been working vigorously for the successful transition of “.pk” domain to Pakistan. There had been numerous attempts since a decade to bring .pk operations to Pakistan; however during his efforts for “.pk” transition, Chairman PTA strongly perused and coordinated the whole process resulting in execution of “.pk” local mirroring.
On this occasion Chairman PTA said that “.pk” domain is a national asset for the country and improvement in its services would boost the local content development; subsequently encouraging enterprises to host their web content under “.pk” and ensuring smooth operations of an important internet resource. A dedicated team at ICT Directorate, PTA under the supervision of Chairman had been working on this significant project for the improvement of local internet industry.
Chairman PTA appreciated the efforts of PKNIC management especially of Mr. Ashar Nisar and Mr. Imran Anwar for this important accomplishment. He also praised the efforts of PTA ICT Directorate towards the project and commended their role during the transition project. PKNIC management highly valued the necessary endorsement of Chairman PTA in this regard.
Mr. Zardari, Enough With Your Shenanigans!
Written by: Adnan Gill
Since he reluctantly [pun intended] but surely became co-chairperson of PPP, following are some of his most prominent escapades.
Promises the nation and signs umpteen agreements, only to dishonor or break all of them. For example, his so-called promise to reverse 17th amendment and the Muree declaration. How anyone can still trust what he says or does is a million dollar question!
He made Pakistan the laughing stock when — during a Presidential visit to the US — he told Sarah Palin, “You are even more gorgeous than you are on the [inaudible].” It’s like he wasn’t finished with thoroughly embarrassing himself, so he shoots from the hip again, “If he’s insisting, I might hug.” Watch out America a president is on the prowl!
His apologists declared Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry retired, politicized and irrelevant. Only to reinstate CJ after getting a bloody nose!
With a nod and a wink tells the Punjab governor to enact the Governor’s rule. Only to eat his words, later on!
Hobnobs and proudly poses for photos with habitual Pakistan bashers like Indian PM Singh and the Afghan President Karzai. Assures Indians of the aesthetical value of the Pakistani nukes. Terms deliberate IAF violations of the Pakistani airspace, accidents. Assures Pakistanis, they were never threatened nor should fear India. However, his man Rehman Malik claims otherwise. I guess dismemberment of East Pakistan in 1971 is a pigment of our imagination!
I could bite my tongue over everything he said, did or blessed, but the latest absurdity of dividing Punjab tops them all. I cannot bite my tongue anymore over his quest to divide Punjab. Some may question, how could I be so sure that he has anything to do with this absurdity?
To answer, we wouldn’t have to go too far back in time. Remember, on September 4, 2008; in a Washington Post Op-Ed Mr. Zardari said, “Pakistani politics has always been a struggle between democratic forces around the country and an elite oligarchy, located exclusively in a region stretching between Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad.” Obviously, he had been grinding the axe for a while.
Mr. Zardari could you kindly enlighten us how many of the following elite oligarchs were from the exclusive region stretching between Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad: Liaquat Ali Khan, Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq, Muhammad Khan Junejo, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Pervez Musharraf, Rafiq Tarar, Zafarullah Khan Jamali, Shaukat Aziz, Yousaf Raza Gillani, or yourself: Asif Ali Zardari? Out of the fifteen, Nawaz Sharif is the only oligarch who belongs to the region you castigated. On the other hand, I can count three oligarchs from your family alone. Does that mean we should divide Sindh too? I am sure your ally MQM wouldn’t mind a province for Urdu speaking Pakistanis.
Mr. Zardari, I hail from Southern Punjab; district Bhawalpur to be specific, and I vehemently reject any idea of dividing Punjab. Let me be absolutely clear, British strategy of ‘divide and conquer’ is not going to work anymore! It’s also going to backfire on you like your other gimmicks. The sooner you realize it, the better off all of us will be. The last thing this nation needs is another crisis deepening the divisions even further.
Whether you have anything to do with this shenanigan or not, as a president, please tell the nation, this is not the time to raise issues that could only harm the unity of our nation. Unity is already a scarce commodity these days like food, security, electricity, jobs, faith, and discipline.
Please leave Quaid’s Pakistan as be. Just because you have replaced Jinnah’s picture with Billawal’s in the presidency doesn’t mean rest of the nation has forgotten him too.
Mr. Adnan Gill, resides in the United States. He received degrees in Political Science and Computer Information Systems. His Political Science studies focused on Internal Relations and Strategic Studies.
He frequently writes articles in national and international news media. His articles had been published in various international news and research publications including Defence Journal, Nuclear Policy Research Institute, and Nuclear Control Institute.
Another terrorist attack in Lahore. Who’s to be blamed?
More than 20 people killed and over 200 injured when gunmen detonated a powerful car bomb in Lahore. It’s not something new as we are witnessing such incidents in Pakistan since 2007 but there is something different and new this time. The city of Lahore is under direct control of two brothers, who are too “good” to have never committed any mistake in their lifetime. According to them, whenever they were in power, Pakistan “prospered” like never before. It was “evil dictator” Musharraf that put a full stop on Pakistan’s progress by ousting their government and forcefully “expelled” them from Pakistan. Ironic is that he even forced the two brothers to smile and wave happily to their dear ones at gun-point when they were leaving.
Since these two brothers are “like angels”, they love to criticize everyone around them they don’t like personally. First it was Musharraf, then Zardari and Taseer. Their approach is to make their personal issue a national issue and move people to streets (Thanks to a particular section of media that backs them). Without going into details, let’s come to today’s tragic event. Before that, let’s have a peek into a news that was carried by all newspapers on March 4, 2009:
LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly on Tuesday strongly condemned the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team and held Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer responsible for it.
It demanded of the governor to immediately resign from his office after taking responsibility of the incident. The Punjab Assembly in its session passed a resolution in which they condemned the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.
Dr Ashraf Chohan moved the resolution in which he demanded of the federal government to sack the governor so that an FIR of the incident could be registered against him. He alleged that the police, under the instructions of the governor, were busy in wooing the PPP MPAs instead of ensuring the security of the visiting cricket team.
When we relate this news item with today’s incident, double face of PML(N) is exposed. If PML(N) is really a sincere and truthful party (as it claims), then it should pass a resolution in the assembly condemning the incident and asking Shahbaz Sharif’s government to resign. After all, now there is no “dictator” Musharraf, Salman Taseer’s governor rule or lack of “independent judiciary” on which blame can be put on.
BBC to launch the BBC Urdu TV Channel
After successful launch of BBC Arabic and BBC Persian recently, there are reports that BBC is planning a round-the-clock TV channel in Urdu language, BBC Urdu. According to BroadcastNow, BBC Urdu will target audiences in India and Pakistan, and sit alongside the corporation’s well-established online and radio offerings in the same language.
The BBC has yet to secure funding or permission for the Urdu service but it is expected the channel would be paid for by UK taxpayers through a Foreign Office grant-in-aid. Both BBC Arabic and BBC Persian are funded by taxpayers, to the tune of £25m and £15m a year respectively.
Let’s hope that this plan materializes. Previously, Aljazeera announced to launch Aljazeera Urdu a few years back but it seems that they have shelved the plans as no updates were heard after that.
The recently launched BBC Arabic and BBC Persian tends to follow the same standards in news reporting, analysis and presentation as their parent channel (BBC World) do. Please see the following videos showing countdown and start of news bulletins of BBC Arabic and BBC Persian respectively. The music and presentation is cool!
BBC Arabic
BBC Persian
You can help Gaza!
If you are saddened by the massacre in Gaza strip by the terrorist military forces of Israel since 27th December 2008, you surely have thought of helping the people of Palestine or reacting against brutalities committed by Israel. I have listed a number of activities that you can do to have your share in voicing against this conflict and show your support:
1. Donate to Islamic Relief
Islamic Relief has worked in Palestine since 1994, and opened its Gaza City office in 1998. Since then, Islamic Relief has been working to help the Palestinians with food aid, medical relief, small business loans, and orphan sponsorships. Islamic Relief has established offices and staff in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Islamic Relief has also established educational enhancement centers, care programs for psychologically traumatized children, and a school for the deaf. Give your donations here or here.
2. Donate to Oxfam
Oxfam, a UK based NGO, is seeking donations to help Gaza victims. The donations can be sent through this page.
3. Donate through Palestinian Embassy:
You can help the people of Gaza by donating to Palestinian embassy in your country. It can help them to help the thousands of people affected by Israeli attacks and give them shelters, food and medical facilities.
In Pakistan, the donations can be sent to the embassy by:
Account Number 22497900126003
Habib Bank Ltd.
Embassy of the State of Palestine,
House No. 486-B, Street No. 9, F-10/2, Islamabad.
For other countries, please see this page.
4. Support Israeli peace movements:
You can support the Israeli peace movement in the following ways:
a. Support the Free Gaza movement.
Also, Gush-Shalom suggests that you send English-language ‘letters to the editor’ to:
iht@haaretz.co.il
editors@jpost.com
letters@haaretz.co.il
musaf@haaretz.co.il
feedback@haaretz.co.il
jrep@jreport.co.il
editors@jpost.co.il
weekend@haaretz.co.il
editor@maariv.co.il
tgoovot@yedioth.co.il
They suggest you send messages one by one, as “editors don’t like each others’ company in the to-line,” and that “letters should be short, concentrating on one issue, to the point and without ’strong wording’; if it is a reaction to something published — in a specific paper — then send it only there and you have quite a good chance that it will be published.
5. Send emails
Send emails to to government officials of Israel and USA and express your anger over the brutalities done by Israel. It will be great if you attach pictures (like this, this or this) of innocent victims affected by the attacks. This blog has shared some email addresses and phone numbers of top Israeli military and government officials and I reproduce it here. You can visit the official site of Israeli government to get the latest contact information of the government leaders. You can also contact the parliamentarians of Israel.
6. Spy for Israel
The Israeli army has spread flyers in the air in Gaza that gave a number for Palestinians to call to report on Hamas activities. The number is +972-2-5839749 and email address is helpgaza2008@gmail.com. Everyone is invited to call it to protest the war on Gaza instead.
You can also email them and tell them you know where the terrorists are hiding and send them a map of Tel Aviv.
7. Boycott Israeli Products
There are various emails circulating that labels every brand name, that is headed/founded by a Jew, as “Israeli Product” and asks for boycotting it. Some of them are Disney and CNN. Let us be clear that every Jew is not a Zionist. There are many Jews who favour Palestinian cause and speak against the illegal occupation of Israel. So, should condemn and discourage Zionists, not the Jews.
Please boycott the food, alcohol, apparel and high tech products manufactured by Israel and used worldwide. One this worth mentioning is that the TV channel for infants Baby TV has its base in Israel. If possible, protest to your TV service providers (cable TV operator, DTH provider, IPTV provider etc) to immediately stop broadcasting it.
8. Show your support in Facebook
If you are a Facebook user, you can:
a) Become a fan of “We are with Gaza”.
b) Sign the petition “Urge a Gaza ceasefire now” sponsored by Oxfam USA.
c) Join the group “Let’s collect 500000 signatures to support the Palestinians in Gaza“.
d) Join the cause “Stop Gaza Slaughter“.
e) Set your Facebook status automatically with number of Palestinians killed and wounded with this application.
9. Sign online petitions
It takes just a couple of minutes to sign petitions against Israel’s attack on Gaza:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Israel-Sanctions/ (only for British citizens)
http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/
http://withdrawfromisrael.org/
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Suspend-EU-Israel-Trade-Agreement
http://action.gazajustice.org/t/4436/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=905
http://www.iacenter.org/gazapetition/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1262
10. Pray for Palestinians!
Prayer is the strongest support you can give to innocent people of Palestine.
Spread this link http://www.arsalanonline.com/2009/01/you-can-help-gaza/ through emails, forums and word-by-mouth so that more people are involved in our struggle against terrorism by Israel.
