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LUMUN
Lahore School of Economics won the coveted LUMUN Best Delegation trophy for the second consecutive year. LUMUN enjoys the distinction of being the largest Model United Nations Conferences in all of Asia. This ye, 2012, over 2000 individuals from over 100 institutions across the country gathered in LUMS to simulate various United Nation committees. Prominent amongst the universities were Lahore School, GIKI, NUST, LUMS, PU, FAST, BNU, IQRA, AIMC, Bharia University, Kinnaird College, Government College and UET.
The Lahore School of Economics team consisted of Abu Bakr Hayat, Affaan Sherwani, Umar Akram Sahi, Khawaja Talal Sadiq, Shahira Khan, Wasae Imran, Hamza Ghaznavi, Haziq Masood, Saad Sohail and Zain Hyder. The team won an unprecedented 8 out of 10 Best Delegate trophies and in addition two Honorable Mention Awards. Aitchison College stood second in the competition with a 6 out of 10 score.
Lahore School Convocation 2012
S A J Shirazi
The Lahore School’s faculty and student body are also engaged in undertaking important research. The Lahore School publishes a two academic journals viz. a leading economics journal – The Lahore Journal of Economics – and an important policy studies journal – The Lahore Journal of Policy Studies. It is engaged in a number of international research studies including with Colombia and Yale Universities. The Lahore School also has hosted since 2004 an “Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan Economy” with the 8th Annual Conference now scheduled for May 2012.
The Lahore School’s Annual Conferences on the Management of the Pakistan Economy are significant in that they provide the theoretical basis for policy making. As an example I would like to place on record that it was at the Annual Conference in April 2008 that the Lahore School recommended that an appropriate security blanket for the poor would be an old age pension scheme of Rs.1000 per month for widows. A number of influential policy makers were at the conference and we would like to believe that it contributed in a small manner to the development of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) introduced in 2008-9 and which is widely acclaimed the world over. Incidentally that conference also recommended a school feeding and health care program in the field of education and hospitalization insurance coverage for serious illnesses in the health sector to complete a social security blanket for the poor. We hope sir, that you will consider these remaining two policy proposals to benefit the ordinary people of Pakistan in the future.
The campus was very tastefully decorated and the Convocation was attended by a large number of parents.
Related: Lahore School of Economics Eighth Convocation, Lahore School Students at their best (Photos), Pround Parents at Lahore School Convocation 2012 (Photos)
Lahore School of Economics’ Ninth Annual Convocation was held at the main campus on Jan 14, 2012. Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, the Governor Punjab conferred degrees and awards to 809 graduating students of MPhil, MS Economics, MSc Economics (11), Masters in Business Administration (180), BSc Economics, Bachelors of Business Administration (600) and Master of Business Administration (Executive). Sardar Latif Khosa lauded the role of Lahore School of Economics in core specilization of Economics, Finance, Business Administration and related fields of studies including Social Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Environment, Media Studies and Art and Design. The Governor also notes the Lahore School of Economics Research Program that is focused on improving the economic well being of the people of Pakistan.
Earlier, Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, the Chairman and the Rector Lahore School of Economics presented annual report of the School and highlighted achievements during the academic year.
The Lahore School of Economics, Chartered in 1997, has the distinction of being the first private sector not-for-profit degree granting institution established by the Government of the Punjab. Since then we have matured to be an established institution of higher learning with a wide range of academic disciplines encompassing economics, business, finance, social sciences, media studies art and design, mathematics, statistics and environmental sciences at both the undergraduate and post graduate levels. The Lahore School has currently 3266 students in these disciplines with 66 doing their M.Phil and Ph.D, 457 doing their masters and 2643 completing a 4 years bachelors degree.
Earlier, Dr. Shahid Amjad Chaudhry, the Chairman and the Rector Lahore School of Economics presented annual report of the School and highlighted achievements during the academic year.
The Lahore School of Economics, Chartered in 1997, has the distinction of being the first private sector not-for-profit degree granting institution established by the Government of the Punjab. Since then we have matured to be an established institution of higher learning with a wide range of academic disciplines encompassing economics, business, finance, social sciences, media studies art and design, mathematics, statistics and environmental sciences at both the undergraduate and post graduate levels. The Lahore School has currently 3266 students in these disciplines with 66 doing their M.Phil and Ph.D, 457 doing their masters and 2643 completing a 4 years bachelors degree.
The Lahore School’s faculty and student body are also engaged in undertaking important research. The Lahore School publishes a two academic journals viz. a leading economics journal – The Lahore Journal of Economics – and an important policy studies journal – The Lahore Journal of Policy Studies. It is engaged in a number of international research studies including with Colombia and Yale Universities. The Lahore School also has hosted since 2004 an “Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan Economy” with the 8th Annual Conference now scheduled for May 2012.
The Lahore School’s Annual Conferences on the Management of the Pakistan Economy are significant in that they provide the theoretical basis for policy making. As an example I would like to place on record that it was at the Annual Conference in April 2008 that the Lahore School recommended that an appropriate security blanket for the poor would be an old age pension scheme of Rs.1000 per month for widows. A number of influential policy makers were at the conference and we would like to believe that it contributed in a small manner to the development of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) introduced in 2008-9 and which is widely acclaimed the world over. Incidentally that conference also recommended a school feeding and health care program in the field of education and hospitalization insurance coverage for serious illnesses in the health sector to complete a social security blanket for the poor. We hope sir, that you will consider these remaining two policy proposals to benefit the ordinary people of Pakistan in the future.
The Chairman thanked the Lahore School Board of Governors for their guidance and support. Dr Shahid Amjad Chaudhry also placed on record the services of Mr. M.A.K Chaudhry, who served as the Chairman, Board of Governors for 16 years and who recently passed away. His contributions to the development of this institution were immense.
The campus was very tastefully decorated and the Convocation was attended by a large number of parents.
‘Blogocracy’: Tri-city UnConference Lahore Camp
Pakistan blogosphere is growing fast. Thanks to the Second the Annual Pakistan Blog Awards and the series of tri-city UnConferences aimed to bring leadership to Pakistan’s New Media voices that the awareness is also growing. Pakistani bloggers now have a very loud voice in this din. Latest, presentation of awards and UnConference session (last of the series ths year) held in Lahore on Jan 4, 2012 in FAST is a testimony to how blogs have become mainstream. In the UnConference, the group of able panelists, who seemed to be in know if the new opportunities being presented by social media - highlighted the role of blogs in all fields of human activities while most of the audience live streamed every thing discussed there. Here are my suggestions for effective and intelligent blogocracy (read democracy) in a very local context here.
Vote for S A J Shirazi
Lahore School of Economics blog has been nominated in second annual Pakistan Blog Award 2011. Voting is on! Readers of Lahore School Blog to please vote here. You can rate the blog (golden little stars for rating and voting are under the top line). Better still, please comment and show your support for the leading education blog in Pakistan that is also one of the oldest in the country. It started in 2004 when the word blog was less known. It is Colors of Pakistan : Celebrating The New Media Spaces continuously ever since and has been a source of motivation for many young scholars of the Lahore School to start their own blogs. The voting is open throughout till the December 5, 2011.Cleaning Products UK at Google +
As expected, today (November 8, 2011) Google introduced Google+ for Business - a collection of tools and products that help you grow your audience and create any sites identity on Google+. It is available in Pakistan and anyone can create a Google+ page, engage in conversations with visitors, direct readers back to your site for the latest updates, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Google+ Pages will help you build relationships with your users, encouraging them to spend more time engaging with your content.
Yes, I have created Google Plus Page for my business site Cleaning Products UK. Go visit and see how you too can get started. Better still, create a page for your site and or blog and have a feeler.
Sangni
Salman Rashid
Sangni, the fort, stands on a low knoll surrounded on three sides by a hill stream that is a torrent when it rains. Otherwise, it is a meandering dry ravine with a few ponds of blue water. The fort is picturesque, both because of its setting and its pristine condition: it seems as if the builders have just had time to collect their materials and equipment and leave the site.Yet Sangni is no less than one hundred and seventy or so years old.
If Mirpur in Kashmir boasts of everything being powered by British pounds, Beval does equally better. Humongous bungalows grow on the slopes around the village. They all rise through three or four storeys, colonnades and pediments make up the façades and vast terraces spread out between iron grills on the upper floors. None of these concrete monstrosities seem to have any less than three dozen rooms. Nor too does a single one seemed lived-in.
Shahid said that the men of Beval like those of Mirpur had all made their fortunes in menial jobs in Britain. They brought home their bags full of pounds sterling to flaunt in the shape of these fancy houses. But these architectural eyesores have no utility for the owners continue to live in Britain and only their ghosts will ever return to haunt these bare walls.
Past Beval we reached Taka and took the road north to Sangni. The fort, just outside the village, less than twenty-five kilometres off the Grand Trunk Road at Gujar Khan, looked prim and new. Save for a couple of them, the merlons on the battlement were all intact, the towers sat solidly and without any cracks, the lintels and doorways were complete. Only the dark lichen covering the masonry showed that the building was old.
the building gave up his work and came to speak to us. This, he said, was the tomb of someone called Abdul Hakim, a reputed saint. He told us the story of this man having come from Persia. This took me back to my unanswered question as to why all holy men must come from either Arabia, Persia or Central Asia. Why do we believe that a sub continental can never achieve nirvana?
Anyway, after some wandering about, the man came to live where Sangni fort now stands. Some years later, so the story proceeds, the Dogra rulers of Kashmir chose the same spot for their fort and threw the man out. As he was leaving, he is reported to have told the Dogras that it will be he who will remain eventually in the fort. Thereafter for as long as Abdul Hakim lived, he remained in Chakrali village not very far away. There he died and was buried sometime in the 1850s. Early in the 20th century he is reported to have started appearing in the dreams of the people of the neighbouring village of Sui Cheemian exhorting them to remove his remains from the Chakrali tomb to Sangni fort.
As all these pointless tales unfold, this one has a few meaningless twists as well. But to cut a tedious story short, the corpse was dug up and transferred to the fort and the domed mausoleum raised above it. The story goes that the casket (taboot, the narrator insisted it was a taboot) being dug up was opened to reveal the man as if in living splendour with beads of water on his face. This surely can be nothing but pure hogwash for Muslim burials are in shrouds, never in caskets!
Ever since the transference of the skeleton there are two festivals of the dead saint. The one at Chakrali where he was originally buried and the other at Sangni fort. Much money goes into the boxes placed at both sites. The one in the fort being the real winner for here the faithful gather every Thursday leaving behind a goodly booty for the current descendent. Enriched by these donations, he lives like a parasite off the superstitions of simpletons. Three generations before him have done the same and he carries the tradition forward.
So much for superstitious legend concerning the tomb. As for Sangni fort, it is quite evident that it could not have pre-dated the Sikh period. But the question was why would the Sikhs build a fort in the Potohar badlands? There are some interesting facts that might show why. First of all by the beginning of the 19th century Gujar Khan had evolved into a busy mart for the trade of wheat. The grain, grown in Gujar Khan or brought over from Chakwal to the southwest and Kallar to the north, was famous under the generic name of Gujar Khan wheat and transported off in all directions. This trade would have meant wealth in the area.
Not long after that the War of Independence (or the Mutiny, suit yourself) was fought in 1857. Shortly thereafter Rawalpindi district became part of the Raj. With the return of order and justice, Sangni was forgotten. Years later, sometime in the 1920s, finding it vacant, the keepers of the shrine of Abdul Hakim, an obscure saint, appropriated it for his tomb. What the real motive was behind this usurpation was perhaps known only to this early example of the now well known qabza group. They may perhaps have thought that the lofty edifice of Sangni would lend grandeur to their own unknown saint. If that was it, a visit on a Thursday will show that they did not do so badly.
Related The Fort Oblivion, Sangni
Sangni, the fort, stands on a low knoll surrounded on three sides by a hill stream that is a torrent when it rains. Otherwise, it is a meandering dry ravine with a few ponds of blue water. The fort is picturesque, both because of its setting and its pristine condition: it seems as if the builders have just had time to collect their materials and equipment and leave the site.Yet Sangni is no less than one hundred and seventy or so years old.
My civil servant friend Shahid Nadeem told me of it. Shahid regularly takes off into the wilds where few others venture. No surprise then that he has a great stock of travel stories. And so there we were with his friend Tariq Mumtaz meandering through the traffic of Gujar Kh an near Rawalpindi and on to the road to village Beval.
If Mirpur in Kashmir boasts of everything being powered by British pounds, Beval does equally better. Humongous bungalows grow on the slopes around the village. They all rise through three or four storeys, colonnades and pediments make up the façades and vast terraces spread out between iron grills on the upper floors. None of these concrete monstrosities seem to have any less than three dozen rooms. Nor too does a single one seemed lived-in.
Shahid said that the men of Beval like those of Mirpur had all made their fortunes in menial jobs in Britain. They brought home their bags full of pounds sterling to flaunt in the shape of these fancy houses. But these architectural eyesores have no utility for the owners continue to live in Britain and only their ghosts will ever return to haunt these bare walls.
Past Beval we reached Taka and took the road north to Sangni. The fort, just outside the village, less than twenty-five kilometres off the Grand Trunk Road at Gujar Khan, looked prim and new. Save for a couple of them, the merlons on the battlement were all intact, the towers sat solidly and without any cracks, the lintels and doorways were complete. Only the dark lichen covering the masonry showed that the building was old.
We entered the narrow enceinte of Sangni fort through a well kept doorway with traces of modern cement plastering conservation. Inside it was empty save for some rooms to one side and a well on the other. The far end was taken up by a newish domed building. An elderly man sweeping the veranda of
the building gave up his work and came to speak to us. This, he said, was the tomb of someone called Abdul Hakim, a reputed saint. He told us the story of this man having come from Persia. This took me back to my unanswered question as to why all holy men must come from either Arabia, Persia or Central Asia. Why do we believe that a sub continental can never achieve nirvana?
Anyway, after some wandering about, the man came to live where Sangni fort now stands. Some years later, so the story proceeds, the Dogra rulers of Kashmir chose the same spot for their fort and threw the man out. As he was leaving, he is reported to have told the Dogras that it will be he who will remain eventually in the fort. Thereafter for as long as Abdul Hakim lived, he remained in Chakrali village not very far away. There he died and was buried sometime in the 1850s. Early in the 20th century he is reported to have started appearing in the dreams of the people of the neighbouring village of Sui Cheemian exhorting them to remove his remains from the Chakrali tomb to Sangni fort.
As all these pointless tales unfold, this one has a few meaningless twists as well. But to cut a tedious story short, the corpse was dug up and transferred to the fort and the domed mausoleum raised above it. The story goes that the casket (taboot, the narrator insisted it was a taboot) being dug up was opened to reveal the man as if in living splendour with beads of water on his face. This surely can be nothing but pure hogwash for Muslim burials are in shrouds, never in caskets!
Ever since the transference of the skeleton there are two festivals of the dead saint. The one at Chakrali where he was originally buried and the other at Sangni fort. Much money goes into the boxes placed at both sites. The one in the fort being the real winner for here the faithful gather every Thursday leaving behind a goodly booty for the current descendent. Enriched by these donations, he lives like a parasite off the superstitions of simpletons. Three generations before him have done the same and he carries the tradition forward.
So much for superstitious legend concerning the tomb. As for Sangni fort, it is quite evident that it could not have pre-dated the Sikh period. But the question was why would the Sikhs build a fort in the Potohar badlands? There are some interesting facts that might show why. First of all by the beginning of the 19th century Gujar Khan had evolved into a busy mart for the trade of wheat. The grain, grown in Gujar Khan or brought over from Chakwal to the southwest and Kallar to the north, was famous under the generic name of Gujar Khan wheat and transported off in all directions. This trade would have meant wealth in the area.
Now, the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh took control of this part of the country in 1814 and were soon well established. To me it appears that the fort was built in order to facilitate tax collection: a small fortified garrison in the heart of a country seething with recalcitrant hill tribes known for their warlike propensities. But some due needs be given to the tradition of the Dogras having built this fort. Again, in 1831 Maharaja Ranjit Singh granted the district of Murree as a fief to Gulab Singh the Dogra ruler of Kashmir. The town of Gujar Khan may have gone under Dogra control at that time or shortly afterwards when Ranjit Singh died and the Dogras expanded their sway. History tells us of the ruthless rule of the Dogras wherein the slightest dissent was punished with death. In that case the Dogras would have kept a tight little garrison at Sangni forever prepared to ride out and quell this little rebellion or that.
Not long after that the War of Independence (or the Mutiny, suit yourself) was fought in 1857. Shortly thereafter Rawalpindi district became part of the Raj. With the return of order and justice, Sangni was forgotten. Years later, sometime in the 1920s, finding it vacant, the keepers of the shrine of Abdul Hakim, an obscure saint, appropriated it for his tomb. What the real motive was behind this usurpation was perhaps known only to this early example of the now well known qabza group. They may perhaps have thought that the lofty edifice of Sangni would lend grandeur to their own unknown saint. If that was it, a visit on a Thursday will show that they did not do so badly.
Related The Fort Oblivion, Sangni
