A few days back I had the opportunity to sit down for an hour long talk with Dr. Aamir Matin, the Cisco Country General Manager who had flown in from Islamabad to be in Karachi for a few days. The casual meeting was arranged through the efforts of Rabia Garib of Rasala Publications and editor of NetXpress Online who just wanted us to sit and talk about anything over a cup of coffee.
There were no questions, per se, but a casual conversation where we touched a number of issues related to the IT industry, the overall economy in Pakistan and at the same time we did also touch the political nerve somewhere in between. It goes without doubt that Dr. Matin catches you a little off guard, where I expected an aloof CEO sitting across the table, but this guy was simply fun to talk to his casual style was definitely worth noting and I must admit he does carry refreshing aura of energy around him
Cisco is without doubt a core player in Pakistan’s IT arena and seems to have done well in Pakistan promoting its products in the open market while at the same time being mindful of its due role of corporate social responsibility here in Pakistan. Dr. Matin heads this unit fully aware of the difficulties facing this country and he remains adamant at exploring every opportunity available to Cisco and Pakistan, he was upbeat to point out that there has been a marked growth in infrastructure in the past few years and expects this growth to continue on into the years to come. To explain this phenomenon he had one simple sentence which aptly summarized the issue ‘if our routers are selling like hotcakes there must be something going on right in the country to show this growth’.
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Just a personal update for my blog readers, I am off to a four day 4×4 adventure cum camping trip to Hingol, Baluchistan. An estimated 14 off road vehicles are set to brave the dunes of Baluchistan in an attempt to reach Goran Gatti a mountainous region deep inside the 
Yesterday Business Plus host Jasmeen Manzoor – 
To continue adding a twist to the entire controversy surrounding the assassination of PPP Chairperson and Ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan. Sherry Rehman vehemently refutes the claims made by the Government that Benazir had knocked her head on a lever on the side of the vehicle. Sherry Rehman insists that she saw a bullet wound on the side of the head while she bathed the fallen leader in the final ritual before her burial. She that her car was used to transport Benazir to hospital. “There was a bullet wound I saw that went in from the back of her head and came out the other side. “We could not even wash her properly because the wound was still seeping. She lost a huge amount of blood. Rehman accused the government of mounting a cover-up over Benazir’s death. “The hospital was made to change its statement. They never gave a proper report, she said. “I believe the interior ministry is saying that she died from some concussion that may have taken place against the sunroof. This is ridiculous, dangerous nonsense because it is a cover-up of what actually happened. 
Two months before her death, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto sent an e-mail to her U.S. adviser and longtime friend, saying that if she were killed, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would bear some of the blame. “Nothing will, God willing happen,” she wrote to Mark Siegel, her U.S. spokesman, lobbyist and friend.