NAPA Performing Arts Festival 2012

The National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA) is organizing a 10-day performing arts festival on its premises from March 1. This was announced by the academy`s manager special projects Zain Ahmed at the Hindu Gymkhana on Friday.

Talking to the media he said that a total of five plays and four musical performances will be presented during the festival, all of which have been prepared by Napa graduates and alumni.

Ticket prices are Rs. 300 and Rs. 150 for students of any institution in Pakistan. Click on the image to enlarge.

Read More

Pakistan. Now Oscar Winner

Finally, Pakistan won its first Golden Boy for her 52-minute documentary Saving Face. The documentary traces the lives of of acid attack victims and a doctor who comes to Pakistan to treat them.

Chinoy was born and raised in Karachi, received a bachelors degree from Smith College and completed two masters degree from Stanford University. In 2012, she won an Emmy for her documentary Pakistan: Children of the Taliban. She has made 13 documentaries on conflict situations.

Previously her journalistic work has won her Broadcast Journalist of the Year award in the UK for The New Apartheid, a series of documentary films about xenophobia in South Africa. She has also won The Overseas Press Club Award, The American Women in Radio and Television Award, The Cine Golden Eagle award and the Banff Rockie Award.

Read More

KESC Injustice

Several areas in the city of Karachi are facing brunch of loadshedding of more than 3 hours daily but some areas have been sparred from loadshedding menace. These include areas like Nazimabad and certain Gulshan blocks, military cantonments and several other places.

Kesc in one of their previous statements said that areas where they occur huge line losses face excessive loadshedding compared to areas where their line losses are less face few hours of loadshedding time. But it is the real unjustice for the citizens of the city where KESC Star consumers face excessive load shedding contrary to kesc explanation.

Many complain that this loadshedding in the city is pre planned as kesc has entered into a power lobby with leading generator, oil and power generation product companies.

Federal government in Islamabad is weaker and cannot reinforce its decisions on kesc through nepra. Just recently kesc was found involved in many mal-practices that include charging public for a service that doesnt produce a single MW of electricity and charging consumers extra by adding arrears in error in utility bills.

Until more power companies in the city are allowed, the city would continue to face brunch of loadshedding and companies like kesc will benefit from such perks.

Read More

Karachi new business school has big ambitions

Karachi School for Business and Leadership is the upcoming business school that aims to foster leadership and equip their alumni with the knowledge and skills required to lead in both Pakistan and the world.

"The KSBL MBA journey will be a transformative academic experience, expanding your intellect and ability beyond your expectations. You will learn from some of the world’s most accomplished faculty members as they deliver a leading edge curriculum, challenging you in the classroom and tasking you to apply and deliver real-time solutions in the real world" their website says.

Mr. F. Robert Wheeler III is the Dean of the Karachi School for Business & Leadership who also served as the Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Karachi Education Initiative and assistant dean at the University of Texas at Austin, one of the most prestigious public institutions in the US, George Washington University and others.

He believes that the establishment of KSBL will transform Pakistan that will be evidence of the seriousness with which Pakistan looks to its future as a major economic force in the region and the world.

UK has established it self as the Education Capital for South Asia and that's the reason KSBL has entered into a Strategic Collaboration Agreement with the University of Cambridge Judge Business School in the spring of 2009. Under the agreement, Cambridge is providing faculty to teach Executive Education programmes for KSBL in Karachi. A University of Cambridge certificate will be awarded to those participants who successfully complete the programmes. Cambridge is also working with KSBL in formulating the curriculum for its graduate and executive education programs.

KSBL plans to establish two campuses in the city of Karachi, one will be called City Campus which will be located on Stadium Road opposite to Liaqat National Hospital which will comprise of 112,000 square feet of constructed area including a basement car park for up to 325 students, a horse-shoe style lecture theatres to facilitate the case study teaching method, seminar rooms, breakout rooms, meeting rooms, cafeteria, a library and a fully equipped auditorium, while the other campus will be the Main Campus that will be located on outskirts of Karachi at Education City. To learn more visit http://www.ksbl.org/

Read More

Karachi Literature Festival 2012

Karachi Literature Festival 2012 will be held on February 11 and 12 at the Carlton Hotel, announced by the founder of the festival, Ameena Saiyid at a press conference with Asif Farrukhi and the British Council’s Martin Fryer and Shreela Ghosh.

She added that this time. the festival would be more bigger as people will not only get to hear and meet writers, but will also be able to see films at the 3rd Karachi Literature Festival.

Ms Saiyid said the 2012 edition of the festival would be more exciting and diverse as some new things were added to the list of programmes. She said there was a big lineup of writers. In one-on-one sessions, they would talk about their books and other subjects. Alongside the book-related events and sessions arranged for children, films would be screened, including two from Bangladesh (Meherjaan and A Certain Liberation) and one from India (Harun Arun). Clips from the Oscar-nominated documentary, Saving Face, made by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, too, would be shown.

Read More