[Elections 2013] PTI Won These Elections, How?

To some the results of last week's elections were a total disappointment. Especially after how Imran Khan looked all optimistic about a clean-sweep and how he passed on this optimisim to his followers. I mean here, we are looking for Naya Pakistan where PTI has a simple majority at 136 seats and what did it end up achieving? A mere 29 seats. Thats disappointment for you.

But you have to force yourself to look beyond the numbers. 29 seats are not so much for forming a government but they sure are a hell-of-a-lot on so many other levels. PTI has won these elections, we just don't know it yet. Despite strong set backs from Machiavellian politics and rigging from rival political parties, PTI prevailed as a national political force with votebanks in each of the four provinces and a potential government in the KPK province.

Here is the boil-down of what PTI accomplished in these elections:

• PTI came out of the Colosseum of these hard-fought elections as a mature political force. Something it
  
  wasn't before. It received 17.8% (8.7 million) of the popular vote which effectively makes it the second most popular party of the country after, PML-N.
• It has come out of its home-ground of Mianwali and pervaded across the nation. Previously, the only seat the party won was that of Khan's home constituency in Mianwali. Now it has been able to win seats from some major constituencies in Rawalpindi, Peshawer, Lahore, Karachi, Multan, Sahiwal and Mardan. It has also come runner-up in most of the other constituencies it fought in sometimes by a margin of less than 500 votes. Which is a win in my opinion.
• If you look at these election results analytically, you will see that PTI has impressive votebanks across Punjab and KPK. The influx of new voters in the 2018 elections will definitely help PTI secure more seats at the center. Considering most of the people I know that were barred from participating by age limitations in these elections are fervent supporters of PTI. This is just a hypothesis and PTI's performance in the upcoming elections depends heavily on how well it runs KPK and how does the PML-N performs at the center.
• These elections grant PTI an opportunity to administer one of the most difficult-to-govern provinces in the country, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. This province is a hotbed of the menace of terrorism which will sure be taxing on the coming government. Plus this provincial government will help PTI implement its plan of Naya Pakistan on a smaller scale while the rest of the nation observes.
• PTI has upgraded from something non-existent to a political giant in Karachi. Not many parties can boast of that, coming out of the electoral furnace of Karachi, since the inception of MQM in 1988. PTI managed to grab more than 20,000 votes in Lyari (stonghold of PPP since 1968) and MQM's bastion of Azizabad. Here is a breakdown of PTI's results in Karachi, for the constituency it finished 2nd in:

240 14% Naz Baloch 21094 2nd

241 17% Dr Saeed Ahmad Afridi 27537 2nd

242 5% Akram Khan 10800 2nd

243 12% Zahid Hussain Hashmi 30001 2nd

244 15% Khalid Masood Khan 26252 2nd

245 28% Muhmmad Raza Haider 54751 2nd

246 17% Amir Sharjeel 31048 2nd

247 21% Rashid Siddiqi 35240 2nd

248 20% Subhan Ali 26348 2nd

251 24% Raja Azhar Khan 39766 2nd

252 30% Syed Ali Haider Zaidi 49324 2nd

253 30% Muhammad Ashraf Jabbar Qureshi 58989 2nd

255 11% Khalid Mehmood Ali 19032 2nd

256 28% Muhammad Zubair Khan 67797 2nd 

• Not to mention that PTI won the NA-250 re-elections by a considerable margin. These re-elections were conducted under the supervision of the army in the light of the heavy rigging allegations on the original poll-day. Such results have given more credence to the fact that a band of thugs and goons who consider themselves a secular political party ruthlessly sidelined the people’s mandate on May 11.
• Possibly PTI's biggest achievement is to bring back the youth of Pakistan into the process of
  
  electioneering and subsequently forcing the election fever to spread across the nation. The elections before PTI were banal affairs, comparatively speaking, the youth wasn't that involved in them and the results showed in the turnout figures which hovered from late-thirties to mid-fourties. This time around, all thanks to PTI, the youth, the elite class, the elderly, the former spectators and even the bed-ridden, all came out to vote and the election turnout touched the figure of 60% for the first time since the mesmerizing speeches of Bhutto lured the public out in 1977.
• PTI also made the breakthrough of social media into the whole process of elections; from campaigns to results to reporting rigging. Following the footsteps of PTI, other parties also made their social media cells and tried to vie for public's attention on online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This will help in the elections being fairer and more actively contested.
• PTI, if not conquered, then seriously dented PML-N's bastion of Rawalpindi which is affectionately called as mini-Raiwind by the latter party. It won 6 out of the 14 provincial assembly seats here (PML-N won 7 with one being won by an independent candidate) and 3 out of the 7 National Assembly seats. The results in NA-54 and PP-6 were subject to serious rigging allegations by PTI where the winning margins were less than 2000 and the results were considerably delayed. Subsequently, PML-N is nearly razed from the urban areas of the city and is merely clinging on to the outskirts. This shows that if it doesn't perform this time around then the people of Rawalpindi along with PML-N's other urban strongholds of Punjab are going to reject them completely.
• PTI's 28 seats in the parliament means that the party can take its strong opposition skills from the jalsa grounds to the great hall of the National Assembly itself. With acrid speakers like Sheikh Rasheed, Imran Khan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jawed Hashmi in its ranks it can prove to be the strong opposition that Pakistan has been craving for since the recent times. A good show on the opposition benches will not only help PTI steer the government but also boost its chances in the next elections.
• PTI has been a trend-setter and has transformed itself into a truly democratic party by conducting the largest intra-party elections in the 66 year political history of Pakistan. Teachers, shop-keepers, lumberjacks and carpenters swept away important posts prior to these elections and PTI has truly become the party of the people.
• Last but not the least, the massive, voluntary demonstrations and sit-downs in Karachi (Teen Talwar),
  
  Lahore (Lalick Chowk), Islamabad (D-Chowk), Rawalpindi (Kacheri) and elsewhere in Pakistan against the alleged rigging in these elections perpetuate that the people have come to realize the power of their vote and aim to curtail its misuse. This is probably also a first in Pakistan's electoral history since the mandate of Mujib-ur-Rehman was neglected in the 1970 general elections.

So, after reading this I hope all Insafians will understand that things can only look up for PTI from here. These elections are a series of Twenty-20 games; if PML-N has managed to win the first game the series is still alive and PTI can come back stronger and sharper and hit its opponent like a boomerang in the next game. So don't give up hope yet, there is a long wait ahead but I am sure the game will surely be worth the wait.

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[Elections 2013] The Establishment's Game

Establishment is a dreaded word in the political arena of Pakistan. Politicians equate it with something of an all-powerful and beyond reproach ghost that sits up top and runs the puppet show that is our government. Critical things like the budget and international relations are controlled by this ghost and the politicians dread its wrath.

For an average Pakistani, establishment is just a word. They listen to talk-shows and TV bulletins - wherever this word is mentioned, they take it superficially, without knowing what is behind it.

Officially and briefly, establishment is meant for continuation of policies and to keep the transitions smooth between the policies with changing government structures. It is comprised of bureaucracy (civil or military) and its siblings. It is independent of political influence.

Traditionally, across the world, they also try to manipulate the country politics besides their assigned
responsibility. It is a natural tussle between politicians and establishment. There are multiple factions of establishment. In some countries, civil establishment dominates and in some countries, military establishment dominates. Pakistan is perceived as a military dominant country. But the fact is that it is a civil bureaucracy setup and feudal system which actually strengthens the military influence and allow generals to rule when they take over. Another interesting fact is that there has never been a totally anti-establishment political party yet. Every political party opposes one faction of establishment while enjoys the support of other faction.

The military of Pakistan enjoys a popular public image. It is perceived as messiah thanks to the soft (read: paid) media. This is why after every other coup d'état with which it overthrows an elected government, it faces minimal resistance from the general public. These coups are frequent, bloodless and successful for this very reason.

Political satirists, Begherat Brigade, after their hugely successful song Aluu Anday took a bold step and targeted the powerful oligarchic establishment of Pakistan in a new release. The song titled Dhinak Dhinak hits hard at the establishment of Pakistan and its unwelcomed role in the politics and interests of Pakistan.

The song faced considerable set-backs because of it targeting an influential division of Pakistan and it may never be released on mainstream television but it is a step in the right direction. It will make an average person more aware and circumspect of the shadow games being played in Pakistan.

On another note, if the song was powerful then the ending was even more powerful. It showed the group holding a placard reading: No need to like this video, we will be dead anyway. Powerful indeed.

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Game of Thrones: Pre-Season 3 Boil-down

The 3rd season of HBO's epic saga, Game of Thrones, premieres in a few hours. And there is a fair chance that you people would have forgotten some of the main things that happened in the previous two seasons because GoT's plot is as intricate as they get. It is a multi-layered concoction of betrayal, revenge, magic, passion and otherworldly beings and remembering everything about it is a tad too tall a task. So here we present to you a terse refresher of all the major happenings in the Westeros during the past seasons:

Stannis Baratheon is defeated in the Battle of Blackwater thanks to the ingenuity of Tyrion Lannister and the timely arrival of the allies: The Lannisters and The Tyrells.

Lannister, on the other hand, is nearly assassinated on the battlefield by one of his own. Had it not been for his faithful squire Pod, he would have to deal with a lot more than a mere, facial scar.

Tyrion's father Tywin, in a bold move, replaces his son at the influential position of the Hand of the King.

The duplicitous widow of Renly Beratheon, Margery Tyrell, is
all set to become the Queen of the Realm.

Sansa Stark, promised to the sadistic King of the Realm, Joffrey Baratheon has finally wriggled free of the clutches of the latter. Clutches of impending matrimony that is. She is still held hostage by the queen, Cersei Lannister, at the King's Landing despite the fact that Joffrey ditched her for the influential Margery Tyrell.

Meanwhile, the sly Lord Peter Baelish after his surreptitious heroics in the Battle of Blackwater hinted to his interest in his one-time-lover's daughter, Sansa, as he offered to help her escape from King's Landing.

The eunuch Varys reignites his rivalry with Baelish when the latter gets a promotion. To attain an inside scoop on things he befriends one of Bealish's main prostitute, Ros.

The wicked sorceress Melisandre, who worships a certain 
God of Light, makes Stannis sea ominous visions in the fire.

Back in the island fortress of Dragonstone, Stannis Baratheon falls deeper into the clutches of the red sorceress Melisandre. His has his doubting after the horrific defeat at Blackwater but it is put to rest when the Melisandre shows him some vision in the fire; a vision that probably reinforces the sorceress' claim of Stannis being the savior of Westeros.

On the other hand, Robb Stark, the self-proclaimed King in the North, is facing internal afflictions after giving the Lannisters every bit as much trouble as he is getting. He was doing well until his mother Lady Catelyn, in a moment of madness, released his trump-card: Jamie "The Kingslayer" Lannister, without his consent. The Kingslayer, is notorious among the Northerners after he attempted to kill Bran Stark when the little kid found out about his incestuous love-affair with Cersei Lannister. His release dealt a heavy blow to the Northern forces' morale.

Jamie Lannister is enroute to the King's Landing under the
guard of Brienne of Tarth.

After freedom from the Northerner's camp, Jamie Lannister, makes his way to King's Landing under the stern watch of Brienne of Tarth. The gigantic woman knight who pledged allegiance to Lady Catelyn after her master, Renly Baratheon was assassinated by Melisandre's black magic. She showed unwavering resolve in fulfilling Catelyn's wish of exchanging Lannister for the Stark girls. So much so that she didn't even stop at killing other Northerners that stood in her way.

Unbeknown to the the fighting Starks, one of their girls they assumed to be captive at King's Landing is actually quite free. Arya Stark was never really hostage as she escaped with one of her father's associate, Baelor, soon after the beheading. But she didn't go far and was taken in by the Lannister forces to work at the extensive ruins of Harrenhal which work as a makeshift prison and torture area for the Lannisters. However, later she escaped with help of a weird guy named Jaqen H'ghar who, at parting, gave her a coin a phraseValar Morghulis which were to be used if she wanted to summon him again. At the moment she is roaming the Riverlands with Robert's bastard son, Gendry and a fat kid.

After the announcement of general amnesty by Robb Stark,
Theon Greyjoy's own men pack him into a sack and
send him to the Northerner's camp.

Meanwhile at Winterfell, things took a turn for the worst when, after the departing of most of the Starks, except for the young Bran and Rickon, Theon Greyjoy took his chance and conquered the small fortress with a handful of men from Pike. Earlier, Greyjoy had made his way to Pike to regain his place at the royal court after the Starks of Winterfell had adopted/abducted him in an earlier battle between the two houses. He is jolted when his father, Balon, doesn't accept of his arrival and treat his sister, Yara, as the son of the family. He conquered Winterfell with the intent of proving his mettle to his father but his ambitions are shattered when his own men turn on him after seeing the implausibility of the task at hand.

Bran and Rickon escape Winterfell during the siege but then return and hide in the family crypt. Greyjoy's tried to cover this up by supposedly burning the two Stark children. However they are very safe and on their way to the Wall with Osha, the wilding, Hodor, the docile giant and the two direwolves.

The dragons of Dan Targaryen will play a key role in
this season.

Across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys Targaryen, the last of the royal family that once ruled Westeros, is getting desperate to take back the Iron Throne. Flanked by the astute Sir Jorah Mormont, a handful of savage Dothraki warlords and a cradling a triplet of young dragons she made her way into the elite and mystical city of Qarth hoping to get some help for in quest. Once inside she is betrayed, a good amount of her Dothraki followers are slain and her dragons are kidnapped by the mysterious warlock, Pyat Pree. But she goes to great lengths to get back her  children and is successful in retrieving them from the diabolical House of the Undying. Following this, she and her people plunder what is left of Qarth to get enough money to buy a ship.

After they are captured by a group of wildlings, Snow and
his mentor, Qorin Halfhand put on a fight that makes
Snow look like a traitor. At the end of that fight
Halfhand is killed.

Beyond the Wall, Ned Stark's bastard son, Jon Snow, is well set to infiltrate the huge, wildling army of Mance Ryder. A former member of the Night's Watch, he proclaims himself the King Beyond the Wall. But much to the Night's Watch's horror they have got a lot more to take care of than just Mance Ryder - the demonic, undead White Walkers have awoken from their deep slumber. They make their decisive march to the Wall, and what lays beyond, in humongous numbers as the long Winter falls on the Westeros.

The White Walker chief that finds the cowardly Samwell Tarly hidden behind a rock
but surprisingly doesn't kill him.

The closing shot of Season 2.

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[In Review] PTCL Broadband

PTCL is Pakistan's biggest provider of data services. Their broadband reach spans the complete country and they are an indomitable force in ISPs with over 1 million subscribers nationwide. Despite this, they come under fire numerous times due to their lackluster customer services and rickety infrastructure.

Installation:
Installation was a hassle. I had to wait for nearly 1.5 week before the installation guy came and that too after tons of phone calls to the customer service representative. Apparently, there is zero coordination between the organization - every-time I called them they said a man was on the way.

Quality Metrics:

The speed of my connection is fairly good for a PTCL connection. Then again this might be due to the fiber availability in my area and my connection's proximity to ONU (gray boxes on the roadside with a PTCL logo on them). I normally get around 490 kbps+ for direct download and 98 kbps+ for upload. Top speeds in torrents remain the same, however they are prone to inexplicable drops but recover soon afterwards. You might need some tweaking to get to those speeds because an unoptimized P2P connection won't take you beyond 250 kbps. If you haven't forwarded a port for your torrent client then it is even worse - you will get abysmal download speeds (less than 15kbps) but superlative upload speeds (greater than or close to 100 kbps). On the other hand, the ping remains pretty excellent at between 30-50 ms within the country. (There was no good PingTest server close to my location.)

Uptime:
I used to experience a lot of downtime with PTCL. The connection sometimes suddenly goes down without any

A PTCL customer should
get used to this symbol.

 reason. I found that most of these connection drops are related to PTCL's shitty and sluggish DNS servers. Changing my default DNS servers to OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220) fixed almost all downtime problems but still every now and then I get a "No Internet Access" logo.

Device quality:
I have the standard-issue FiberHome AN 1020-25 modem-cum-router. The device is pretty good and its WiFi signal strength is quite awesome. The coverage are is greater than my TP-Link WR740N router which impressed me.

Customer service:
PTCL's customer service is very shoddy. It seems like their is no coherence among the different levels of the organization and in general it feels like they care little about us customers. Complaints aren't resolved until you go down to your respective exchange or utilize the influence of some higher authority. Unlike Wateen, their selfcare portal is more like a framework than something functional. It has never worked for me however I have read that it was functional for some period in 2011. With the new transfer caps in effect, there is no way to check your bandwidth usage apart from calling 1236. Two years and they still can't fix a damn portal - speaks volume about PTCL's commitment to customer satisfaction.

The PTCL portal is as rudimentary as portals get. No stats or data except for account info are accessible.

Caps:
PTCL's unlimited packages from 1 mbps to 8 mbps are not unlimited in the true sense of the word. A 300 GB download+upload limit is applicable on all such connections. Exceeding this limit will incur a penalty of Rs. 5000. This fair usage limit is justifiable for low bandwidth connections like 1-2 mbps but slapping this on high-speed internet beyond 4 mbps is unwarranted. The PTCL people should at least increment it with the increasing download speed.

The Bottom Line:
PTCL's speeds vary across the consumer spectrum plus their customer service isn't all that great. So, I would recommend that before getting rid of your previous connection do a test run of PTCL. Your experience in the first week will tell you how they will shape-up for you. If you are acquiring broadband for the first time then it is advisable to ask around your neighborhood about PTCL's standard of service in your area.
All in all, PTCL will turn out great for a few but worst for many. It is, however, fairly good for me. I know many would disagree but I am giving them 4/5.

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[Ramblings] The Tree

There is a tree, right in front of the window of my bedroom. To many its just another average tree but to me its much more than that. It is tall and its incredibly slender, khaki branches are laden with beautiful, jadeite leaves. Such frailty of its boughs allows it to sway in the lightest of breezes. During windy days, its leaves rustle with a rhythm that is uncannily similar to that of a beating heart. It is as if it has suddenly awoken from its sedate, statuesque slumber and adopted a life of its own - a life that is brimming with the need of announcing its spirit, its vitality to the outside world.


The tree seems even livelier when the moon is in its full splendor; rays of moonlight seep through its gloomy façade, giving it an otherworldly ambiance. It glows bright and as it focuses the light through the mesh of my window and into my room, I feel as if I have a companion in a dreary and desolate night. I cherish this. I cherish this tree's companionship. I know a more personalized name is long overdue but I don’t want it to be like some ordinary pet, I want it to remain an extraordinary tree.

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