tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15910525343234301102024-03-05T09:00:15.570+05:00Urban/UrbaneMaking sense of the urban experience in PakistanRafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-63090303093022369472014-05-13T14:25:00.000+05:002014-05-14T10:39:18.210+05:00Lahore Canal Heritage Park under threat
The Lahore Canal is part of the heritage of Lahore and protected by the Lahore Canal Heritage Park Act, 2013. A meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Heritage Park has been called for 15 May 2014 with three items on the agenda. All three are infrastructure developments along the Canal.
For more background read here and here.
Here's a copy of the meeting notice:
A copy of Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-77058296701129793572013-10-16T16:17:00.001+05:002013-10-16T16:17:44.591+05:00On Biblical and Literary Justice
Once again, my friend Adam Sulkowski asked a question that forced me to stretch deep into my memory for a quote. Adam asked how one is to judge the morality of historical figures. Do we condone their brutality "'cause they rolled that way" or do we apply modern standards to their actions.Well, anyway, I was reminded of something I wrote for TFT back in 2005.
Lawyers with extraRafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-63466420962933808912013-08-01T15:03:00.001+05:002013-08-01T15:06:08.969+05:00On the Difficulties Faced by Judges
Another one from the old TFT Miscellany-at-Law days.
Readers will no doubt agree that judges have difficult
jobs. When they are not busy dealing
with phone calls from frantic Law Ministers, they are elbow deep in listening
to arguments or writing judgments. It
will also be self evident that each case, however different from another, must
present before the judge the same Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-40233828769966123792013-08-01T14:53:00.001+05:002013-08-01T14:53:22.994+05:00On Bias
This article was written over a decade ago, during the Benazir
Bhutto’s appeal against her conviction by an Accountability Court. Then, the Court convicting her was accused of bias. I wrote this article - part of a series of columns for TFT on the miscellany of law - reflecting on some aspects of bias.
Recently, the Supreme Court has been criticised for being biased again.
The Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-71599319344094274782012-06-14T10:19:00.000+05:002012-06-14T10:19:48.188+05:00Where is our Rosa Parks
My column in The Express Tribune today is about the exclusionary nature of cities. You can't fit more than a thought in an 800-word piece, so I'll be the first to say mine is nowhere near the last word on the subject.
What I also find interesting is how the inequity/exclusion in cities is a global phenomenon. There's some solace, I suppose, in knowing we're not the only ones.
Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-59758794184609176992012-03-13T08:53:00.000+05:002012-03-13T08:53:06.922+05:00Open Letter to the Competition Commission of Pakistan
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Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-21733887256914428652011-12-27T13:04:00.001+05:002011-12-27T13:04:15.407+05:00Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007)
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Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-44141212276912658342011-06-23T21:41:00.005+05:002011-06-23T22:07:22.831+05:00Letter from Ardeshir Cowasjee to Mr. Justice (R) Sardar Muhammad IqbalArdeshir Cowasjee is arguably Pakistan's most influential columnist. He's lost the bite he had a decade ago - and they are hundreds of aspirants to the title - but, back in the day, the Cowasjee column was The Last Word.Before he became Dawn's Sunday centrepiece, he was a letter writer. It was his wit and turn of phrase in this avatar that got him the column (and maybe the fact that he's Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-11497978710548436152011-06-22T20:21:00.004+05:002011-06-22T20:51:01.272+05:00How Mian Jan got a jobMy grandfather, Syed Mahmood Alam, was a tennis player. He has the distinction of playing Wimbledon twice: Once as an Indian and then as a Pakistani.Few people know that tennis is also how my grandfather landed his first job.Last night, while I was searching for something else, I came across a note he wrote about how he was hired. I thought I would share it with you.Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-43215521639255741042011-05-14T09:17:00.001+05:002011-05-14T09:21:09.830+05:00The Burning Platform of our Development Challenges<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-73259102744862525512011-02-16T18:45:00.003+05:002011-02-16T19:40:39.958+05:00On Blasphemy<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-1869471620879712532010-09-23T07:43:00.004+05:002010-09-23T15:35:38.134+05:00A glimpe into how the city worksCity pages come and go, but it's rare to find a story that reveals to you how the a city like Lahore is actually run. Ali Raza has, for quite a while, been handling the environment beat at The News' Lahore office. I've been following him for some time now because he has the knack of finding real environmental stories where everyone else doesn't go beyond "cleanliness drives".Ali Raza seems to Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-12052216753900038262010-05-27T14:25:00.001+05:002010-05-27T14:26:45.900+05:00Water and Irrigation in PakistanAn enlightening talk by Dr. Danish Mustafa of Kings' College LondonRafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-41755667438455997382010-04-05T12:03:00.003+05:002010-04-05T12:06:18.172+05:00War or Peace on the IndusDr. John Briscoe is a former World Bank official who specialized in water. He is now the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering, Harvard University.Dr. Briscoe makes a strong case regarding water sharing between India and Pakistan through the Indus Water Treaty. It is cool calm voice in a sea of hysteria, and it should be given serious consideration.Taken from The News (http://Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-55947406545361803312010-04-02T12:41:00.004+05:002010-04-02T12:54:17.556+05:00How the (more than) other half livesTwo weeks ago, on the 20th of March, a fire broke out in Shanti Nagar, a slum in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in Karachi. Locals informed the fire department of the incident almost immediately, but by the time the fire trucks arrived – and whether their delay was caused by their inefficiency or because they had to negotiate the crowd that had gathered on the scene – there was nothing left but the ashes of Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-24277602744478266062010-02-19T16:30:00.001+05:002010-02-19T16:36:14.316+05:00Scandal in the Real Estate Development MarketThe dirty secret of Pakistan’s urban development finally got its first public airing the other day. District and Sessions Judge Mazhar Hussain Minhas completed the inquiry ordered by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and has submitted a 115 page report on how a handful of property developers and private housing schemes managed to acquire almost 30,000 kanals of land in and around Islamabad.The Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-79876616480327636492010-01-18T14:03:00.003+05:002010-01-18T14:07:31.234+05:00Small farmers face brunt of dry spellEye-opening article by Imran Ali Teepu in Dawn (17 January 2010)ISLAMABAD: The changing weather system has further added to the difficulties of small farmers in the Potohar region who primarily depend on rainwater for their meagre production.And the Met Office does not foresee any immediate relief for them as it forecast that the current dry spell would continue for another week or so.An officialRafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-8828830058954363822010-01-15T14:58:00.003+05:002010-01-15T15:02:48.318+05:00Cross-cultural interactionSo this lady just called me to invite me to a lecture on Cross-Cultural Currents hosted by the Asian Study Group and says to me, perfectly matter of fact: "Rafay, if you know any "goras", can you bring them along." Then, I think, she understood she had sounded like and clarified: "It's for cross-cultural interaction, you know" and tried to laugh it off. The effect was to get her even more stuckRafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-45807035819668955162009-11-17T23:18:00.001+05:002009-11-17T23:18:49.370+05:00Davos Question 2008 - Urban traffic and congestionThe solution to traffic: cycles!!!Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-73473851917468414302009-11-17T23:12:00.001+05:002009-11-17T23:12:23.708+05:00Edward Burtynsky photographs the landscape of oilThe IBM ad after this short TED video is very interesting. It shows the effects of a congestion charge on automobiles.Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-65372536519347890042009-11-16T11:26:00.002+05:002009-11-16T11:29:17.755+05:00Say a Prayer for LahoreFrom The News, 13 November 2009 (http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=208278)The only thing as incredulous as the recent announcement by the Government of Punjab -- it announced its intention to construct a highway through the heart of Lahore -- was the recent statement of the CEO of Fashion Pakistan Week that their glorified display of clothes was a "gesture of defiance towards the Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-44768408869932463292009-11-06T17:19:00.002+05:002009-11-06T17:23:06.218+05:00Punjab Assembly turns into a "fish market"This has to be one of the most riveting descriptions of an Assembly session in recent memory. Brilliant stuff. Far more entertaining than TV. Wait, this should be on TV!!From The News (http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=206968)Punjab PA turns into fish market as Sana, Zaheer trade allegationsFriday, November 06, 2009By Babar DogarLAHORE: The Punjab Assembly turned into a fish marketRafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-398923586802173372009-11-04T20:05:00.001+05:002009-11-04T20:05:32.564+05:00Insights into a Lively DowntownInteresting documentary on what people think make city center's successful. You'd be surprised that trees and benches are one of the important reasons why people like some downtown streets over others.Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-49806878463994997912009-11-02T10:36:00.003+05:002009-11-02T10:42:08.280+05:00Bazalgette!Here's the brilliant Steven Johnson explaining how a cholera outbreak in London during the 1850s changed public infrastructure systems:
The outbreaks and Great Stinks eventually led to legislation to clean up the city of London (the largest and filthiest city in the world at that time). One of the heroes of the time was Joseph Bazalgette (another was John Snow). I wrote an article about Rafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1591052534323430110.post-45621181983592490802009-10-29T10:53:00.002+06:002009-10-29T10:56:26.313+06:00Some good news?Below is a news report indicating the government may table legislation making it more expensive to import the raw-materials needed to make plastic bags. Apparently, it's part of anti-polythene bag legislation that's on the cards. I hope this happens. It would be good news. Taken from The News. Law on degradable polythene bags shortlyRafay Alamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00125735594813770157noreply@blogger.com0