The Killers!!

By Huda Ayaz

Our government is not praised with good words in this very era. One line that I go through very often on TV channels and newspapers is that “The government failed…” The government failed to do this, the government failed to that, etc etc. And recently I came across with the same line in a newspaper that says, Government has failed to get control over the dengue fever in Pakistan.

With all the wanted criminals, suicide bombers, thieves, drug dealers, etc, dengue’s mosquito is also in the spotlight. This tiny black and white stripped creature with greenish wings scared the hell out of humans, affected more than 6,000 people of Pakistan, including myself as well.

My cousin, who is a doctor, told me that patients of dengue fever always remember the particular mosquito that transmitted dengue in them, which I took as a joke because there are plenty of mosquitoes keep biting you everyday. Funny as it sounds, I do start believing this fact when I was bitten by IT!! and sadly, I was bitten by IT in my extra-green-university.

With so much grassing and dire sanitary condition of our university especially after heavy rains in summer vacations, bizarre insects, hideous bugs and all weird sorts of mosquitoes are easily be seen within our varsity’s premises. Result in rise of various diseases, which are flagging our healths.

Teachers and students are the pitiable sufferers, and it can be said with certainty that half of this fever is spreading in Karachi because of our university’s darn greenery. Money that is expending largely over building new departments, should also be use to enhance gardens, and for cutting off the extra splurge of greenery. That would surely help us to dominant over these mosquitoes and bugs.

Safai Day!

By Suzanna Sardar Masih


Much has been written in our blogs about the Student’s Week and the consequent Safai Day that followed at the Department of Mass Communications. You might say that the subject has been done to the death, but I have a rather different aspect to discuss.

Tuesday Nov 2nd was celebrated as Safai Day in our department with texts messages floating the day before that those interested in cleaning up the department should come with sponges surf and other cleaning supplies.



The day began like just any other day with students gathering in the main lobby to discuss the plan of action. Brooms and mops were grabbed, detergent water to wipe the walls was prepared, Scotch Brites were fought over, sleeves were rolled up and work began. Paparazzi soon joined in and pictures were being taken all over the department of the working brigade, after all someone needed to document the noble work the students were doing for the department.


The department janitor feeling left out of the action jumped in with a hose and splashed all corners and walls of the lobby with water. The work was enjoyed thoroughly by the participants and after all was done the lobby did present a brand new and clean look.


However what got to me was why was all the cleaning only concentrated at the main central lobby. Why were the adjoining corridors, the classrooms and the top floor left out? After all isn’t Safai Day supposed to be about complete ‘safai’. The water cooler looks as disgusting as it did before with paan stains all around it. Our classrooms are still dirty. Dustbins are still overflowing with rubbish. You step in the lobby and you get a good image but you turn to the corridor and the image changes. Perhaps Safai Day should instead have been Safai Week with us working from the inside out and not just on the outside. This way all classrooms would’ve been cleaned.



I do not mean to undermine the work done by my fellow students. In fact I believe it is great that MCDians are always so eager and keen to participate in all sort of activities. But I do feel that the activity was ill planned and incomplete and so I am voicing my concerns here as I know that most of them will read it. Maybe next time a well thought out and planned Safai Day would bring out even better results.

"NOT ALLOWED"

By Tooba Altaf

This particular piece of writing is about the “not allowed” places of Karachi University. You really need to struggle for getting into these places. Some of them are:

THIRD WORLD CENTRE:

LOCATION: It stands beside HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry.

Third World Centre is a research centre but what kind of research is done there? This is really a question. Some special permission is required to enter a place and they really have trained their security guards as they will only listen to you if you have the pass otherwise the simple answer is bring the permission.

INSTITUTE OF SPACE AND PLANETARY ASTROPHYSICS:

LOCATION: Enter from Silver Jubilee gate of Karachi University, on the left side you will notice a building atop a hill. It is an old building of this institute.

You simply can’t enter this structure because of the locked fence and secondly, due to the 'rumors' related to this place.

BOTANICAL GARDEN:


LOCATION: It is situated at the main entrance (gate no.1) of Karachi University, on the right side.

This is one of the most beautiful places of Karachi University but here again some special permission is required from the Botany department to actually see this place.

I can only come up with these three, can anyone add on the list???

Voicing for Career Couseling Center

By Hurma Khan

In our educational system, there isn’t any trend of Counseling for students which help them to better understand their talent.

Not all students are alike and some require proper guidance to choose their career. There are hidden abilities which a student can never explore himself. In this regard Counseling plays a vital role but we are deprived of this blessing.

Well instead of cursing our educational system I would like to highlight a positive step taken by Pharmacy department to ensure better guidance for their students to help them towards prosperity by simplifying their problems through counseling.

This center was established in the month of January this year and it has been named as “Pharmevo career counseling center.” Almost 85% of the students of the first batch to pass out seek guidance from this center have happily attained employments.

The counseling center follows criteria of self assessment after students are done with Pharm-D- to explore the fields of interest of the students. Then the students are asked to choose their desired field of specialization which is followed by checking aptitude level of the students to know whether they comply to their choices or not. The specialization fields are Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy, hospital management and community medicine. Finally lectures by professionals of respective fields and work shops are held to help them to get a feel of competitive environment.

It would make our work easier if we can get the same blessing too as it will help us to show the best path to follow according to our capabilities.

Pharmevo is trying to expand it services in the entire varsity or at least for the whole faculty of Sciences and this intention was showed recently by Dr. Iqbal Azhar, chairperson of Pharmocognosy, department of Pharmacy and members of Pharmevo counseling center.
Currently 180 students are enrolled in the second batch and will past out in December.

Students week a time for parties to show their muscle

By Nabeel Hashmi

Students week is supposed to be a time period where students are seen involved in different competitions to showcase their talent and potential but what I witnessed was pretty sad.

The leading political parties of Karachi university went head to head in order to prove their dominance and muscle in the institution trying to out do their opponents by staging various programs to attract the most number of students towards their respective zones.

For neutrals it would astonishing to read zones but let me clarify it that yes there are zones of Jamiat, APMSO,PSF,ISO etc. From years these parties have set their eagle eyes on the varsity because they feel it is the best platform to draw the youth of country to support their cause on a bigger platform.

Such has been the ignorance and bullying of parties that on one end one can hear Holy Quran being recited meanwhile on the other loud music. I would like to blame both the sides because if one can hear the Holy Quran easily than they should wait for a while. On the other hand if the music is going than the other party should wait so that the respect of the Holy verses should be maintained.

The reason to highlight this issue is to make people realize no one can be bigger than religon and society. We as students should condemn such acts because if we would skip their programs than it would make them realize that alone they are nothing it is the public which makes them stronger may it be a university or a country. Fights, bullying and blood shed in not required to bring a change........ It is the will and a courage to condemn and skip things which can ultimately result positively. The journey towards betterment can be very easy if we can stand up cohessively and move in one direction.

The amount of neutral students in KU are about 30, 000 where as the number of political workers collectively are less than 2000. If we feel something is wrong then we should raise our voice through any platform we can and I condemn what has been going in the Karachi university.

The Dead Couches

By Ifrah Ali Khan

Of all the criticisms that I have gone through by my friends because of restricting myself only to the departmental based issues, here I am kicking again with another one. I strongly believe, when one has much to write on the issues that has been plaqueing my “own department”, then why not go for it.

So, here comes another dead topic (as I know majority will agree to it), comprising of the very strange problem of the department and that is about the bad or I would rather say the worst condition of the couches placed at different corners of the department.

Previously, these couches provided a lot of comfort and ease to the students as well as to the visitors. These fluffy couches were totally in demand. One could never see the couches empty as everybody wanted to comfort themselves on them. As soon as one left the couch, it was suddenly grabbed by the others waiting for their turns to come. Moreover, these couch served as the comforting bed as well as some of the students used them for sleeping purpose. But unfortunately, this was history. Now the situation is quite different. Now the same couches are not alive but dead! They sometimes give you the impression of a ruptured balloon whose air has been sucked out. The fluffy comforters have now turned into the lifeless dis comforters. Today if one wants to punish himself/herself, can do it by throwing oneself into those couches.

Apart from this, there is an interesting fact about these couches. One can find very weird type of iron solids coming out of them. As everything that exists has some function, similarly, the function of these nail type solids is to tear the clothes of the students. This is a very serious problem that some of my friends have faced. They have actually got their clothes and abayas destroyed!

Now what the administration is thinking about? How many more clothes are going to be destroyed by these wild couches? The administration really need to ponder over this problem and should replace these couches with something as soon as possible.