Need for Broadcasting Content Complaints Council of Pakistan

As I watch some foreign tv channel, often i see a slide which says that"if you have any complain regarding the content of this program, you may report to Indian Broadcast foundation or Broadcast content complain council of India"

As per the current scenario of Pakistan, this was interesting as often people have complains about tv programs.
I visited the website of Indian broadcasting foundation (http://ibfindia.com) and feel that pakistan media can copy a similar model where a Broadcasting Content Complaint Council can be created with the retired supreme court judge as its head and other members of the council may comprise eminent persons, heads of tv channels and others from national assembly committees for children, women, minorities, religion, provinces and so on.

This can be sub divided for entertainment channels, news channels, advertisement and children.

Anyone having any objection on the content of the program may launch a complain and the complaint council will address it.
Indian Broadcasting content complaint council can be good role model for Pakistan's media, where the load of supreme court will also be cut down where they can refer such complaints against channels to their respective council and people will be able to put their timely input about the program and can improve the quality of the electronic media in Pakistan.

Working procedure of civic agencies in karachi -cdgk / kmc

Ever since my childhood, I have seen a set pattern of performance of our metropolitan corporation and more actively around rainy season.

 

1. A road or street or bi-lane will remain dug up or broken for ages. So much so that the area people would have given up hope that it would ever by carpeted again.

 

2. Then finally one day out of no where, and more specifically around monsoon season, kmc people would show up and start carpeting the road. The area people rejoice that finally their road is being carpeted.

 

3. Just after a few weeks of the carpeting of the road, some utility company like ptcl, kesc, kwsb or others will show up at the site and will dig up the road again to do their bit.

 

4. And then we are taken back to step one.

 

5. Even if the utility company do not dig up the road, the road would falter again during the monsoon rain.

 

 

If our utility and metropolitan companies would have co-ordinated in an effecient manner, I am sure many such expenses could have been avoided.

 

As for me I am still waiting to see a road which has been carpeted and is not dug up again with in one year of its being carpeted.

 

Performance of Pakistan in London Olympics 2012

We are nation where street crime, mugging, target killing is rampant and still we failed to produce shooters who can represent pakistan in the Olympics 2012.

 

Our streets majorly witness protests with burning effigies and pelting stones 'pathrao' at people and property and still we were unable to produce discus throwers who can make it to represent Pakistan in the Olympics.

 

We are a nation who is always ready to put a fight for the pettiest of issues and yet we were not able to find quality wrestlers and karate players for the event.

 

More so, everyday we commute from home to work in public transport, hanging and clutching to every minimum space that is made available in the shabby public transport, at time sprinting behind the bus to catch it, and yet we weren't able to send enough athletes to the event.

 

Pakistan's Olympic contingent is one of the smallest in the event. Countries like Kenya and Iran had more representation in the game and have been able to win medals. Even country like Tunisia which was recently stuck by rebel was able to send more athletes.

 

With so much talent available on the streets of Pakistan, it would have been wiser if that talent is used in more productive activities.

Karachi factory fire

Every time an act of terrorism happens, government responds quickly by banning pillion riding.
Similarly, when a major accident happens like the current karachi factory fire, the agencies quickly try to put the name of the owner of the business on exit control list.

All politicians and people demand inquiry and punishment of officials and owners. However this is not a long term solution, as we all know the level of corruption in our government departments and how busineseses try to avoid legalities and refrain frok complying many industry related laws.

We have witnessed eathquakes and flooding and everytime we hear of talks of updating our system but it never happens.

Rather than putting the name of owner on elc or claiming to punish officials  involved we really need to address the issue, educate people, employers and employees about civil defence and fire fightinging trainings.

Send Gifts to Pakistan. Pakistan online florist and gift sites.

Over the years pakistani online market has seen the emergence of many online gift stores, allowing overseas pakistani to order online and have the gifts delivered to their loved ones back home in Pakistan.
These site are extensively used to send gifts to pakistan, flowers to pakistan, cakes to pakistan, toys and many other gifts to pakistan. These sites offer pakistan wide delivery, some of them even covering remote and village location.

Some of the sites to send gifts to pakistan are:

www.giftshift.com
www.pakistangifthouse.com
www.giftscenario.com
www.madinagifts.com
www.symbios.pk
www.beliscity.com
www.globalmart.com

May be doing a search on "send gifts to pakistan" or pakistan gift, gift pakistan would reveal several search results. Many of the site are pseudo, that is belonging to the same owner, using several names to allow greater search visibility.

Many new sites are coming up day by day, however with recession hitting the west and the competition in the pakistan online gift market, the market is pretty slow and not as it used to be in the early days.

However, the pakistan online e-commerce scenario in on the rise and more and more sites are emerging in the local online store on daily basis.

Clock Ticking

As the clock was ticking , the event date was coming near.

A few friends chipped in, and were really supportive of the idea and urged me not to back off now and the event should go on, no matter how much audience we may achieve but we should go on. Record or no record but this event should go on- Such was there willingness for the event that they even offered their monetary support on the promise that i would not tell any one that they have supported me in this event. While many people were looking to gain mileage and fame from this event, it was in a way strange to still find people who were willing to help in a positive manner without wanting their names to be made public.

Their influence and presence gave a boost to the campaign.

A friend offered to make creatives for the banner, poster and the stage back drop.
Another friend offered to print posters, and yet some other friend offered to print the stage backdrop.
A few chipped in with material support like wireless communication sets.

CBM college, circulated an email among their faculty,staff and students about our event.
This was a big favor by CBM college and proved to be in the greater interest of the event.

In the meanwhile. we also started to look for prospective sponsors for the event, as we now had the venue, the set target, and lesser security reasons.

"Karo Mumkin" seemed to be a better sponsor for this event as they have been promoting their brand image in that direction. On contacting them, it dawned on us that they require 8 weeks time to process any sponsorships and that the time was too short to sponsor the event.

Contacted a few more of the prospective clients and their outright reply was "NO" - without any reasons been given.

A few of the sponsors were of the view that if the record is not made, then it would be a bad name for the brand.

In a frenzy of last minute calls to a few advertising agencies on Thursday, 2 days before the event, some were really not in the mood to listen, some were on leave, and a few for appreciative of the idea but understandably the time was too short for any one to offer any type of sponsorship.

The event was picking up pace and more and more people were booking their tickets online, and we were getting in a better position to understand the number of people who would be coming to the event. Out facebook event wall was buzzing, people were excited and were restless to achieve the record, while still a few thought it was a waste of time while a few commented that holding national anthem event in the month of ramzan was a sin.

On 11th August, in the last moment contact thru a friend, an advertising agency agreed to offer a sponsor, enough to cover our event expenses. This is what we were really looking for. The agency agreed for a sponsor and gave an unofficial nod. The official confirmation was to come on the 12th August. We were releived that now we can have an event successfully whose expenses would be covered good enough.

WE were relieved.
We called a meeting of our volunteers and our official photographers "Frame Photography"
It emerged that people from "Frame Photography" were young budding photography students from SZABIST. They managed a team of around 20 photographers, boys and gals, who were to cover the entire event photography and video.

And now as we all know they did a superb job with both photography and video of the event.

Our volunteers had a good look at the venue and how they would manage the crowd. The scouts head, visited the venue and proposed us a parking and entry points and how he plan to manage parking. As we all knew Khadda market was a big nuisance when it comes to parking around the venue.

We were really worried about the parking scenario of our expected 10,000 participants.
To cover this we even took a round around the venue to see possible parking points, requested a few shopkeepers to close their shops early on the event date. Some agreed, some did not.
On the event date, the scouts seem to have managed the parking in a much efficient manner. We did not head any complains about parking spaces or any other mishap. This was a big achievement of the event itself, as the area around khadda market can get choked with traffic on a regular day let alone on a day where 10,000 people were to come at a stadium.

Event Possibility

AS the date for the event was approaching, facebook attendees started to grow in numbers. We already made a couple of appearances in the morning show and an interview published in express tribune.

WE started online booking of tickets since mid June. The ticket itself was free, but it was required for entry so it would enable us to count the total number of attendees.

It was a simple process, where online buyers would enter the number of tickets they require, enter their email address and then they would instantly receive the ticket thru email as a pdf file attachment containing the barcode ticket.

The online event tickets were made possible thru www.eventbrite.com

We were to scan those bar code tickets and know the total number of attendance.

The online ticket gave us a head-start as people started booking tickets, and we were getting in a better position to know the number of people already bought tickets. The initial pace of ticket booking was slow, as the initial target was set to 1,10,000 people. That was a daunting task.

By mid July me and Abid had somehow made up our minds that it was not possible to hold the event now as we were standing no where. We did not have any thing to set our foot to. We were waiting for the right time to announce the cancellation to the people.

No permission means no security plan, which meant no sponsors.
Permission was the single most biggest hurdle.

In between all this we had a meeting with a couple of companies who were willing to help us in the event management, but then again we did not have any where to start from so they were also kept hanging in balance and some how lost their interest in the event.

A few companies offered us to cover the photography and video for the event, but this was bit too early to think about photos and videos of the video.

A boy scouts group offered us their service for security and parking.

Things were jotted down but it all seemed like a lost cause.

Eventually on Friday, July 28th 2011, we received an email from GWR stating that the record we would need to break would be 5248 of Philippines and not the initial record of 104637 of vande matram.

This was the starting point of our event !

Both me and Abid could not believe it that GWR finally accepted the claim, specially when GWR was hosting a program in India and also the Indian event was a highly marketed event. We were dancing with joy in our respective offices.

This was the starting point of the event for us but we only had 14 days to manage things.

Both me and Abid did not have any prior experience of organizing or managing sizeable event.
The next thing was to call the event management company once again and tell them of the new target as it would now be easier to manage people and we can now host it to a more private venue.

Focusing sponsors, thinking of prospective sponsors for the event and how to reach them. Event management company was to reach and pitch them the idea. It later emerged that nothing was done in that direction by them, or if it was we dont know.

Now a venue was needed, a more private one where we do not need to involve government agencies and which is big enough to host at least 6000 people.

For this we wrote to a few universities like CBM, SZABIST, IQRA asking them for their permission to hold our event. We were hopeful that since this would be a major event some university may offer us their campus. CBM offered their campus to us and were very accomodating and helpful in offering us their campus but cbm campus would be too off the way for the public.

We decided to stick with a venue in dha as it requires minimal government interaction and only permission from dha is required to hold events.

We then visit DHA Zamzama club to know the available date of 13th August 2011 for the event and made an interim booking. Zamzama club demanded Rs. 64,000 as the venue rent.

By this time TV ONE host, Faisal Qureshi joined the cause and used a few of his connection to help us. Hence he contacted DHA administrator and appraised him about the event. DHA administrator was very helpful in this regard and allowed us the venue free of cost.

First and the biggest hurdle gone !

No Permission

While we continued to market and get excited about our national anthem world record event - the biggest hurdle was getting the permission from the authorities.

We started contacting every tom, dick and harry who we thought could help us in getting the permission for the event. We were common man with no links in the high-ups and whatever links we had didnt respond on our time of need.

We wrote to various government organizations asking them for permission.
Our initial crowd was 1 lac 50 thousand, naturally no one was willing to take the risk of such a big crowd, specially when we were not politically associated.

If we were any political party or a power group, we could have easily got permission but since we were common man everyone was of the view to let go the idea - It was not possible.

Seeing all the political parties getting permission to hold their rallies and dharna was frustrating us more, as we were kept hanging and waiting and waiting.

The only reply we received was from the city government that they have received our application and have forwarded to the concerned department and they will contact us soon. But they never contacted us.

My only ray of hope and thought was if GWR reduces the target and disqualifies vande matram as vande matram was not the national anthem of india but was listed as the national anthem.
For this I started faxing GWR every 10 days, waiting for even a little confirmation or any response from them or acknowledgement or reply or whatever that can satisfy me either way.
GWR wasnt replying either.

I also sent them email thru their online form, still no reply.

The target remained 150,000
No permission was insight.

I used a few contact to get permission from the governor house and involve the governor sindh in this, however mqm resigned just a few days later and governor also resigned. The plan was hanging in balance.

We continued promoting the event and it started getting some attention among facebook users and among some media houses and we got our first interview published on the express tribune blog.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/195168/karachi-youth-hope-to-sing-their-way-into-the-record-books-and-beat-india-while-theyre-at-it/

Various tv channels and media houses approached us for promoting our event but no one was willing to be associated with such a big event which involved to much security risk and which needed so much work to be done as without the permission for the venue the event was standing at zero point only.

Our second break-thru was when DAWN NEWS TV channel approached us and offered us to be our exclusive media partner. The idea seemed good , but I was of the view that we should not make any EXCLUSIVE media partner as this is a national event and all the tv channels should be allowed to cover this event and not just one, as making exclusive media partner reduces the interest of other tv channels.

Dawn did not stop us from inviting other channels to the event, however when we contacted other tv channels and told them of our association with dawn they were reluctant to offer any publicity or support to the event as seemingly they were of the view since we have already signed an exclusive media partner other tv channels will not and cannot cover this event.

This was a set back to us as we were unable to get due coverage in the media - the event continued to remain the facebook event, while we made a few appearances on some morning programs.

Time was getting shorter and the event date was coming closer.

Will the Guinness Record for National Anthem come to Pakistan ?

Finally the month of ramzan is over. Its been a busy ramzan mainly due to the national anthem world record event.

Initially when the idea first came to my mind, i did a little research to see if any such event has taken place any where else in the world. Googling it a bit, made me land on the Guinness World Record website, and where i found that the record for "most people singing a national anthem" was with India, where 104637 sung "vande matram"

My initial thought was that if we do this event on the night of 13th August 2011, just on the night of our independence day, we can find enough people on the streets to break this record.

At that time I was unaware about the counting methods we would required to count and other such requirements that we would need to fulfill for GWR (Guinness World Record)

However, I was confident that we can do it with the help of friends and people as we are nation of 18 carore and only karachi has a population of 2 carore and it was only 1% of karachi population.

I contacted my friend abid beli and put forward this idea to him. He bought the idea instantly and started working towards this project.

Our initial start took from facebook , where we created an event page and started inviting our friends and family to the event page.

At first i was of the opinion that may be not many people would be encouraging of the idea as this was a huge task , gathering more than one lac ten thousand people.

However, with in a couple of days of launching this idea our facebook page had an attending of around 2000 people, average 500 people per day.

People were appreciative of the idea and were praises for the idea.
This realy built up my confidence that this can be done.

A few people were worried about security - understandably , because of the conditions we were going thru. Osama bin laden recently caught from abbotabad and pakistan naval head quareter came under attack.

However, more people started to appear of the facebook event page and it gave us a ray of hope that this can be done.

Pakistan is hopeful of National Anthem Record

Being one of the organizer of Pakistani National Anthem Record, makes me very hopeful that Guinness will approve our evidences and will award us the certificate.

It has been hard word for 3 months and finally it is quiet a relieve that it paid off.
We are now preparing evidences for GWR which we will send shortly - hopefully by Monday 22nd August 2011.

Soon, Inshallah, I will be writing a detailed account into the GWR attempt, the idea, the build up and the final achievement.

For now, been a bit busy in pending work and compiling evidences for GWR.