Be Pakistan

Verify National Identity Cards (CNIC) Through SMS

National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has signed contract with cellphone companies, including Mobilink, Telenor Pakistan and Warid Tel, for verification of the computerized national identity cards (CNICs) through SMS.
Nadra has initiated the facility under which people can attain the verification of CNIC through SMS. Subscribers will have the facility to verify the CNIC by sending SMS at 7000. In first phase, Mobilink, Telenor Pakistan and Warid Tel were included in the facility, while negotiations with two more companies, Ufone and Zong, are in progress.
The agreement was signed in an impressive ceremony held at Nadra headquarters, which was attended by senior officials of Nadra and mobile phone companies. Bilal Shiekh of Mobilink, Aamir Ibrahim of Telenor Pakistan and Syed Babar Ahmed of Warid Tel signed on behalf of their companies, while Chief Administrative Officer Brigadier Kamal Aziz (Retd) represented Nadra.
Read the rest of this entry »

Afridi’s Shirt At Lord’s Museum

Shahid Afradi

Lord’s cricket museum, the world’s oldest sporting museum commonly known as Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Museum is displaying Shahid Afridi’s shirt. Afridi who played a very vital role in Pakistan’s victory in T20 world cup in England, have many world records with his name. Afridi said “he is extremely proud that the shirt he wore in the ICC World Twenty20 final against Sri Lanka will be placed in the world-famed cricket museum at Lord’s”.
Museum contains rare article used by many great crickers including a sparrow which was killed by a stroke from the bat from Jahangir Khan, father of former Pakistan captain Majid Khan, has also been preserved in this museum. Other than this articles used by Sir Donald Bradman, Brian Lara, Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar have also been kept in the museum of Lord’s.

Pakistan a ‘Rising Star’ in Research

Pakistan has been rated a ‘Rising Star’ in research multiple times over the last couple of years by ScienceWatch.com, a Thompson Reuters website which tracks trends and performance in research by analyzing its database of scientific papers and citations. The ‘Rising Star’ rankings are published every two months to acknowledge new entrants, by identifying the scientists, institutions, countries, and journals which have shown the largest percentage increase in total citations.  In the May issue of the ratings, Pakistan was named a ‘rising star’ in two areas, ‘Materials Science’ and ‘Plant & Animal Science’. Amongst other countries of the region, Bangladesh was also listed as a rising star in ‘Computer Science’ and ‘Pharmacology & Toxicology’. Iran was named in four categories, and Qatar and UAE in one category each.
This is not the first time that Pakistan has been named in these ratings recently. In fact, Pakistan’s record has been very consistent since
March 2008, the earliest ratings that are available on the website. Here’s a listing of Pakistan’s mention in the ‘rising star’ ratings:

• March 2008: Engineering, Mathematics
• May 2008: Materials Science
• July 2008: Engineering
• September 2008: Computer Science, Engineering, Materials Science, Mathematics, Plant and Animal Sciences (5 areas!)
• November 2008: Engineering
• January 2009: Computer Science
• March 2009: Computer Science
• May 2009: Materials Science, Plants and Animal Sciences
• July 2009: None

Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, the country’s top university in terms of the number of publications per year, has also been recognized as a ‘rising star’ institution, in Jan 2009 and July 2008 issues, both times in the area of ‘Engineering’.
The ratings are based on the largest percentage increase and not the absolute numbers, and therefore, cannot be used to quantify research productivity in absolute terms. However, they definitely demonstrate the trend of a substantial increase in international publications from Pakistan compared to previous years. It is very healthy that a number of different areas are covered in these past two years, showing an across the board enhancement of research productivity.
While there has been a lot of debate on the effectiveness of HEC’s reforms in higher education, at least one thing is clear: the increased emphasis on research, largely due to HEC’s programs, has started to bear fruit. These are hard numbers here, based on data by the company that maintains the largest scientific citation index in the world, and cannot be easily refuted by the nay-sayers.

Source