The Nation writes – “Many may not believe it but it is a fact that KP police chief, Nasir Khan Durrani is the most powerful IG the country has ever had in a province…” — “The Chief Minister has even surrendered the powers exclusively meant for him under the rules”, Durrani told The Nation – more
Every Last Child – UN Video highlighting the efforts of KPK Govt against Polio
A short promo video by UN highlighting the efforts of KPK Govt in helping eradicate polio from Pakistan.
What has PTI done in KPK up until now! [Updated Nov 13th]

KPK Govt
[UPDATED 13th Nov 2014]
- POLICE – is independent & depoliticised – even IG of KPK has said there is no political interference by the political govt and he has been given a free hand to do his work. Umar Cheema a renowned transparency investigative journalist shared his own interaction with IG KPK Police sharing that there was NO POLITICAL interference with the KPK Police (Video Interview of IG KPK Nasir Durrani) – In November KPK Police introduced a complaint registration system Police Access Service via a simple SMS 0315-9007777 with assurances that a response will be made within 24 hours – if someone want to talk he can approach the PAS on toll free number 0800-00400, fax at 091-9223575 or email at pas.kppolice@gmail.com.-
- PATWARI SYSTEMS – is far better then before – TV Anchor Fareeha Aziz sent an undercover camera to catch anyone taking a bribe, even journalists Umar Cheema endorsed the same fact that they the patwaris were not taking bribes for fear of being caught. IG Nasir Durrani expelled 1 SP and 2 DSP’s on criminal charges. A Dawn-Herald survey conducted in 2014, showed that 52% of the people felt corruption had decreased, 39% said it remained the same while only 8% said it increased which was a stark difference from comparison to other provinces
- JUSTICE – The Peshawar High Court has introduced E-Citizens Grievance Redressal System — a unique justice system in Pakistan through which the people of KPK and tribal areas, especially the distressed and poor segment of society, would get justice within hours. The PHC would now receive complaints and applications just on a phone call, SMS or email through the Human Rights Directorate. The litigants would also receive reports on progress in their cases through phone, email or SMS. The HRD mostly deals with the cases of violation of basic human rights.
- HEALTH – The health system has improved significantly – patients testify that doctors are present in the hospitals to attend to their ailments. KPK gov also went through serious challenges regarding Polio and its resistance, they handled the issue and launched a Sehat Ka Insaf program during which each child will also receive vaccination against 9 preventable diseases and vitamin A drops and each family will be given a hygiene kit that includes soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, towel, water container, etc. A Dawn-Herald survey conducted in 2014 showed that Health sector had shown a remarkable 72% improvement far more than other provinces
- Sehat Ka Insaf started on 2nd Feb 2014 which immunised 485,000+ kids against 9 preventable diseases
- On 9th Feb, 63 UC were covered and the volunteers immunised 513,000 children
- On 16th Feb the 3rd campaign targeted 547,300+ children
- On 22nd Feb the 4th edition of the campaign targeted 77 UC’s across Peshawar and immunised 551,000
- On 1st March the 5th campaign targeted 95 UC’s across Peshawar and immunised 650,450 children
- 6th Campaign on 9th March targeting 97 UC and immunized 640,000 children
- 7th Campaign on 15th March targeted 95 UC and immunized 648,000 children
- Success of the Anti-Polio campaign can also be measured with the fact that sewage water samples collected on 26th Feb from areas tainted with Polio turned out to be negative for the first time in many years
- On 6th March the Ministry of Health approved the service structure for Doctors in KPK, a long standing issue which has been finally cleared up hoping this will pave the way to better health care professionals in KPK
- Economist hails that the Sehat Ka Insaf campaign was a remarkable effort considering the 8,000 health care workers were under threat and the KPK govt successfully immunized over 760,000 children in Peshawar
- Cancer patients to get free therapy
- Documentary by UN on Polio and KPK Govt efforts to help eradicate this disease
- EDUCATION – Teachers are showing up in schools – those who don’t are removed & new recruits are being brought in with a condition that they are not allowed to transfer between districts. Action was taking against 605 errant/absent teachers while 62 were fired. School Data is available online for the public to view. The entire education system is in the process to be unified to present one curriculum for all schools across the province in English. A Dawn-Herald survey conducted in 2014 showed that Education sector had shown a remarkable 70% improvement far more than other provinces
- KPK Govt launches Tameer-e-School campaign to rebuild thousands of dilapidated schools all across the province using cutting edge technology to monitor the funds and the adequate usage of the funds
- WOMEN – An SMS awareness campaign was started announcing free gynecological checkups & supporting medicines to pregnant women and an added bonus of Rs 2,700 to help sustain their pregnancy
- MINORITIES – for the first time in the history the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf government has initiated a financial assistance scheme for the welfare of widows hailing from the minority Hindu community.
- ENVIRONMENT – KPK gov is committed to improving the environment, it has launched a massive 1 billion tree plantation drive across the province and is working on preserving our natural resources
- ACCOUNTABILITY / EHTESAB BILL – a very robust & independent Ethesab Bill to catch corruption, this will even keeps PTI’s ministers in check as a deterrent from doing corruption for the fear of being exposed by the public / media
- RIGHT TO INFORMATION – allows the citizen to get gov information to keep watch and catch corruption or non performance, gauged to be one of the best RTI bills world over and also ranked to better then Punjab RTI Bill. Journalist and PTI-critic Umar Cheema has even documented identical RTI requests sent to KPK and Punjab, displayed a sincere response by KPK government while the Punjab govt was riddled with bureaucratic red-tape. KPK govt publicly shares the list of all govt Public Information officers and their contact details
- RIGHT TO SERVICES – allows the citizen to demand basic services in stipulated number of days (~30 days) or else the bureaucracy will be punished – Public Add – In September 2014, a gentleman from Mardan was successfully able to register an FIR, after having been denied his basic right courtesy of this office
- LOCAL GOVT BILL – giving powers all the way down to the village level
- CONFLICT OF INTEREST BILL– prevents Gov officers / bureaucracy to silently bid on tenders and reap benefits – PUBLIC ADD – (Pg 1 & Pg 2)
- ELECTRICITY – KPK Government has a serious commitment to solve the province electricity crisis – for this reason it has asked the Federal Govt to hand over PESCO (management and distribution) to allow for a permanent solution. KPK Govt has initiated launch to 356 Micro-hydel projects all over KPK. While Kalam also got 400KW of Hydel power after 6 years without electricity
- ENDING VIP CULTURE – enough of media expose have been done to curtail the KPK Ministers VIP protocols – even the CM KPK was reported using Govt helicopter for his personal use – and he paid the dues from his own pocket
PTI remains focused on bringing a positive change in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and these progress notes will continue to be updated highlighting the efforts being made throughout the province
HEC “Fed on Ideology” by Bina Shah
An op-ed by Bina Shah spilling the beans as to what triggered the HEC directive to silence – primarily started from the Islamic University UN Model Conference where students smashed the Israeli stall – but typical bureaucracy, they stretched their imagination to ordering the censorship of all/any voice of political reasoning “The state has no right to dictate the ideals of individuals” read the full op-ed by Bina Shah in Dawn – Fed on Ideology
Sindhi Number plates – Bhej Pagara – 1
Sindhi number plates “Bhej Pagara – 1” I’m told there are a number of cars (30-35) with the same identical number plates roaming around in Sindh – presumably by devout followers of Pir Pagara in some sense it provides them the unlimited access to exploit the administrative system with no one to catch them on
Being a non-Sindhi speaking individual (know only very little sindhi) I have always wondered what Bhej actually stands for – upon asking on twitter I was told, please clarify if there is some other / alternate meaning to Bhej
ہرکارہ یا پیامبر پگارا
Hrkara ya Paimbar [sic] Pagara
The devout followers of Pir Pagara do place him and his lineage in a high degree of respect, its their choice, but to impose that right to safe passage all across Sindh …. I have my own reservations. By any sense of the law this is wrong.
HEC Fatwa – Letter by Isa Daudpota to HEC
A letter sent by Isa Daudpota to the Executive Director of HEC regarding the HEC notification silencing anti-Govt discussion and debate
————
Dr Mansoor A Kundi
Executive Director
Higher Education Commission
Islamabad.
Dear Dr Kundi (cc Chairman HEC and some academics),
Dr Abdullah Sadiq and I received a query about the attached note — circulated by you to universities — from our friend, Mr Naeem Sadiq in Karachi.
Only now have I ascertained that the note is genuine. What you are essentially recommending is censorship! Given the already suffocating intellectual environment on our campuses, your note will only strengthen those who wish to create a repressive atmosphere of George Orwell’s brilliant dystopia, “1984”
HEC silencing Students from having Political opinions
In a shocking notice to Universities across Pakistan the Higher Education Commission has instructed all students enrolled in universities to refrain from raising any objections or opinions against the Government of Pakistan.
HEC Directive (No.10-1/A&C/HEC/2013/869) instructing all degree awarding institutions to “remain vigilant and forestall any activity that in any manner challenge(s) the ideology and principles of Pakistan, and/or perspective of the Government of Pakistan thereof.” – Courtesy Access is my Right & Bytes For All
Re-Blogging Social Media Brain Farts
The Teeth Maestro blog has been online for over 10 years, since July 2004, back in the day when Blogging was considered a fad and called citizen journalism and not social media perse, from its infancy, many saw it grow, from the era of Orkut to Blogspot, the era of Google, to Facebook and then cometh the crashing the sensational micro-blogging site called Twitter. All technologies have been a rude awakening for each passing trend, each technology struggled to present to the vibrant youthful generation hungry to share nuggets of their “brainfarts” to an awaiting audience of millions, whosoever presented the right exposure usually captivated the content producers for sometime to come – but ironically this new generation has a very short term memory, and quite literally an hour later this young content producer truly and totally forgets his previous brainfart to move onto a new one, hence no need to search or the need to walk down memory lane of what he/she may have said a month back.
Social Media Brain Farts: Sporadic bursts of Social Media regurgitationsBloggers in general were true content producers, they penned their thoughts, oblivious to the scrutiny of any hawkish editor, their idea came into existence in true raw form, uncensored and unmanipulated by any grand content policy, they made abundant errors, from mere spelling mistakes too hideous grammatical blunders, but they wrote, they debated, they argued, and oft they just had a good time. For them literally any platform with an audience would do just right, and in the midst of their hunt for their own audience, this content producer aka blogger aka citizen journalist got lost in the frenzy and their content hijacked into a wormhole by the very same platforms they choose to embrace, the content no longer belonged to them, but instead held captive by the platforms owners to use as and when they please, to up-expose or down-expose as per their own algorithm of human brainfart research to best cater to their audience.
#StartWithTheBoys – Vogue Empower message for Violence Against Women
Just came across this infomercial campaign by Vogue Empower – their message for Violence Against Women / Domestic Violence – the video is a very thought provoking message and a message that needs to be drummed up massively to a point of embarrassment to those who do engage in domestic violence
I fully support this campaign and hope you do too.
25 Million children are Out of School in Pakistan — But, those ‘in’ school are equally Out of School
Recently Alif Ailaan published a report titled 25 Million Broken Promises: The Crisis of Pakistan’s Out-of-School Children exposing the pathetic situation of education in Pakistan – but if there are millions of children out of school in Pakistan – then Im embarassed to share that the children “in-school” are equally uneducated and can be eqaully categorized as “out-of-school” – This is a video of a school in the metropolitan school based in Karachi – if such is the standard of education in an urban center – pray what might be the state of education in a rural school reportedly educating the future of our children
May Allah have mercy on our rulers, Sindh has received billions in funds for the past year but the situation in education and all other sectors are still at the mercy of corruption by the same leaders who rule over them
“Pillars of Clay” by Fahd Husain
Fahd Husain writes an op-ed in Express Tribune — These two paragraphs are worth reading — “Don’t blame democracy or dictatorship or even the system that remains the same regardless of who is at the top. Blame the fact that we are missing the fundamental element of a representative system: the individual is the foundation”
“If you wait for this manipulative system to reform itself, you are in for a long wait. If you think these rulers — all of them — will suddenly grow a revolutionary brain, you need to see a shrink. This, my friends, ain’t happening. The increasingly aware citizenry — yes you — will have to make a collective heave to push the fat cats out, and reclaim this glorious nation that the Quaid gave to you — not to them” Read the entire op-ed at ET “Pillars of clay“
Petrol Prices > Tabdeeli Aagaye Hai
تبدیلیی آ نہی رہی – تبدیلی آ گئی ہے
پٹرول کی قیمت میں بہی تبدیلی آگئ ہےTabdeeli Aa-nahi Rahi – Tabdeeli Aa-gaye Hai
Petrol prices mein bhee Tabdeeli Aa-gaye HaiMubarak to all Pakistani – let it be on record that it is definitely because of Imran Khan sb’s pressure & the popularity of the Dharna’s and the Virality of the Go Nawaz Go chant that has made the Noora’s scramble to provide some relief to themselves even if its mere moral survivability from the #GoNawazGo slogan
I leave you with a thought as the Nooras are high fiving each other on Rs. 9.4 of price reduction – the fact is that globally the crude oil prices have fallen by ~34% which if translated from Rs. 103/ltr should have been close to a fall of Rs 35+ tax – someone is still pocketing the ~25% difference – shared on Facebook by Awab Alvi [link]
Nilofer scares Karachi billboards to expose a city underneath
For what its worth Nilofer has striped clean Karachi skyline from the billboard clutter. To expose, albeit partially, a beautiful city of ours which used to lay beneath
Where’s my refund, Mr Zardari? – Ali Najib Sidiki
Good to read that Ali Najib Sidiki raising his voice on this issue >> Tribune Blogs >> Where’s my refund, Mr Zardari? >> Ironically it was quoted as the only charity they did claim and it was SZABIST – so one has to wonder where the “rest” of the looted money has disappeared off too. Possibly deep pockets of “Zardari families “own” charitable case” – I guess they deservingly need it the most [?]
Ten truths about electoral rigging — a rebuttal by Dr Awab Alvi
Zahid F Ebrahim, in his article of August 4 titled, “Ten truths about electoral rigging”, published in The Express Tribune, presented a very biased view on the topic. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should have stepped in to allay doubts of any election rigging, but with this article, it seems that the neutrality that was needed to conduct a free and fair election was never there to begin with. It seems that this was the mindset from the start: to appease the powers that be, instead of giving Pakistanis even a semblance of a free and fair election.
I truly respect Mr Ebrahim and his father. I believe Mr Fakhruddin G Ebrahim is an honest person, but his appointment, especially considering his age, probably was the factor that failed Pakistan. This job required a commander, who would whip, snap and beat the life out of anyone who so much as stumbled in performing his duties to conduct transparent elections. I do not challenge the former chief election commissioner’s honesty or integrity on a personal level. I am aware that he, along with his family, have sacrificed a lot this past year — but I would like to raise some concerns here.