So Ladies and gentlemen Brace your self for some serious rains in Karachi

ParkwayHealth, one of Asia’s leading private health-care group sent two of its top surgeons to held free consultations in Pakistan.

The visiting surgeons provided free consultancy to the Neuro and Gastro patients in free sessions held at a local hotel in Karachi.

The consultation was done by Senior Consultant Neurosurgeon Dr. Prem Pillay, who specializes in Computer-Aided/Image-Guided Surgery for Brain Tumors; and Consultant General Surgeon Dr. Melvin Look, specialist in Gastrointestinal Surgery and Minimally Invasive Surgery.

PakwayHealth has organized the consultancy sessions through its Pakistan based Patient Assistance Center where the patients can follow-up on their cases and if necessary can avail the newly launched attractive packages at any of the Parkway Health facility in Singapore.

The recently launched series of fixed price package covers various surgical procedures and includes all costs relating to inpatient care such as hospitalization, nursing care, facility charges and doctor’s fees.

The move is in response to the current economic condition and is aimed at helping patients better manage costs.

The event will enhance the already existing healthcare facilities extended to Pakistani citizens in all key medical areas such as cardiology, ENT Surgery, gastroenterology, general surgery, neurosurgery, obstetrics & gynecology, ophthalmology, orthopedic surgery and urology.

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About ParkwayHealth

ParkwayHealth is one of the leading private healthcare groups based in Singapore, operating 15 hospitals with more than 3,400 beds in Asia, as well as 43 patient assistance centres throughout the world. It has an extensive network across Asia, Europe, North America, and the Middle East with operations in nearly all Asian countries including Pakistan,

With a team of more than 1,300 accredited specialists covering over 40 different specialties, ParkwayHealth is committed to its vision to be a global leader in value-based integrated healthcare.

For more information, please visit the website at: www.parkwayhealth.com

Post credits: Hasan Zuberi

Call for artists who can help to beautify our city and giving it a voice. I guess they will be needing volunteers for other works too except design or paint so interested people should avail this opportunity to give back to the city.

Gilani says local govts illegal, unconstitutional

ISLAMABAD: Defending the provinces’ demand for wrapping up the local governments, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Friday that the decision to replace the 150-year-old magistracy system with the local bodies was ‘illegal and unconstitutional’. ‘Former president Pervez Musharraf’s decision to make local governments a federal subject under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution was illegal and undemocratic,’ he told reporters after attending a function at the ministry of science and technology…

…The five-year tenure of the local government will expire in October and there is a strong possibility that no more LG polls will be held and the old magistracy system will come back…

…The government, he said, was taking tough and unpopular decisions to save the country from difficult situation. ‘I would not say that the government is taking popular decisions. We have to put the country on right track. We are democratic people. We have faced imprisonment not for becoming the prime minister but for the rights of the people,’ he said.

read full news story here…

It seems like we are headed back to the old draconian system of having magisterial fiefdoms. Whereas the local government gives us the advantage of choosing representatives from our own area, the magistracy system is based on having somebody appointed over you who may not even be from your area. He will not be sincere to the region, will not know its problems well, and will have a tendency to rule with an upper hand like his personal jagir - which basically gives him power over anyone else - to use and abuse as he likes without question.

Which system do you prefer? I personally have a clear preference for the local governments system; primarily because its more democratic, more modern, ensures that the person running your government is answerable to you rather than being your boss, and because it gets results. The magistracy system leads nowhere. What do you have to say? Let your voices be heard - because YOU should make such key decisions in a real democracy.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

I had planning to cover the event live on a blog but due to unavailability of the internet access and some other technical issues live blogging turned out to be an almost imposable option to go ahead with and I decided to do it the old fashion way.

The event inaugurated by The Federal Minister for Communication, Dr. Arbab Alamgir Khan started with an address by the president Aga Khan University Mr. Firoz Rasul. In his address he revealed that in Pakistan approximately 7,000 people died in road accidents in 1999. His address was Followed by The Chief Executive Officer of Shell Pakistan, Zaiviji Ismail’s speach in which he said that Pakistan is one of the countries with the highest number of road accidents in the world.

It was also stated later during the conference that in road accidents 39% fatal injuries were revived by pedestrians, motorbike riders were at 37% while passengers and car drivers were at 14% and 4% respectively, putting the pedestrians on the top of the chart. Most pedestrians were hit by vehicles while crossing roads.

The second half the conference was a bit more exciting, with Faisal Qureshi there to moderate the panelists, including SSP Sindh police; Dr. Aftab Pathan, DIG national highway and motorway police and Mr Aziz Kabani, Director Sindh education foundation. During this whole session a number of smart questions were posed by the audience, and I do think time didn’t justified the session and the answers were cut short or veered off topic and a number of questions weren’t answered properly but only because the time was running short.

Despite all the session managed to raise a number of valid points, the first and the most important one of them was that our police is actually in a very tight place, if they demand a raise in their salaries or in the penalties for road violations the transporters and general public stands against it and they don’t have much support from the top as well so at the point they can pretty much do nothing. Secondly it is clear that our police is really not very well equipped or skilled, they need better tactical training, better equipment better support which is yet not there. A need to highlight these issues and the importance or driving ethics, road safety rules on a regular bases was emphasized upon. Bringing awareness among young children about road safety rules and their importance was also stressed upon.

The conference was a god initiative and such events should become more frequent so we can learn to follow road safety rules and make living and traveling experience for everyone in the country more safe and comfortable.

High on Cocaine! No wonder we're so happy about everything!

A comment published in today’s edition of The News byFarrukh Saleem says that the “Government is high on Cocaine”. Now THAT explains everything! An article that caught my attention after someone sent me the link, had this ‘fact’ published in it.. Hats off to the author for dwelving into some classic investigative journalism! Of course, what better way to spread the good word than to post it up here? And no, this has nothing to do with Karachi except for the fact that I read it in a newspaper delivered to me in town.

Please do see the screenshot of the article I snapped from the online version of The News daily - It is CLASSIC!  (btw - thenews SEO is TERRIBLE!! Can’t even locate articles from today through its own Site Search!? Are they still manually bagging and tagging news items?) -

(Thank you Xs for the ping!)

Burns Road, Karachi

A look at the underground youth scenes of Karachi.
Source : Current.com