Adil Najam
ATP contributor Mast Qalandar is a chronicler par excellence of ‘All Things Islamabad’ (here, here, here, here, here). His writings on Islamabad constantly reminds us – even those of us who have lived long in the Capital city – that Islamabad is much more (and also much less) than what we think it is.
!["Poverty]("http://pakistaniat.com/images/Islamabad/Islamabad-poverty-1.jpg" "\"Poverty")
Indeed, like any other city, Islamabad is a city of many faces. That, in itself, is not unusual. What is unusual, and worthy of note, is that too many of these faces of Islamabad are totally hidden from the public discourse on the city. Including from the discourse of those who live there. This post is about one such face.
The particular face you see above is that of Masoom Bibi. It is captured here by photojournalist B.K. Bangash of AP. I have written about B.K. Bangash before and I know him from the Zia-ul-Haq days when I was a school kid writing on sports for The Muslim in Islamabad and he was already capturing amazing human sentiments on film like the ones he captures here.
!["Poverty]("http://pakistaniat.com/images/Islamabad/Islamabad-poverty-2.jpg" "\"Poverty")
!["Poverty]("http://pakistaniat.com/images/Islamabad/Islamabad-poverty-3.jpg" "\"Poverty")
!["Poverty]("http://pakistaniat.com/images/Islamabad/Islamabad-poverty-4.jpg" "\"Poverty")
!["Poverty]("http://pakistaniat.com/images/Islamabad/Islamabad-poverty-5.jpg" "\"Poverty")
To understand this face of Islamabad look also at the other photographs in the series. They all relate to the cost of living in Pakistan and how the poor in Pakistan are coping with the recent hikes in the price of everything in Pakistan. The AP caption reminds us that "in the recent months milk prices go to Rs 42 per liter from 30, prices of rice sky rocketed to double, a 20 kilograms bag of wheat flour jumped to Rs. 350 (US$5.80) from the usual price of Rs. 230 (US$3.80) and also flour became a scarce commodity."
What is immediately striking here is that this, too, is Islamabad. This is not the Islamabad of politicians, of bureaucrats, of foreign dignitaries, of buzzing streets. This is the Islamabad of Masoom Bibi.
This is an Islamabad that we ignore. An Islamabad we deny. An Islamabad we would rather wish away. Just like we would much rather ignore, deny and wish away Masoom Bibi. But here is a reality that we cannot ignore, cannot deny, cannot wish away. Masoom Bibi is real. Her challenges of daily survival are real. And so is her Islamabad.
At the end of the day, it is not just about this other Islamabad or even about Masoom Bibi alone. This reality is everywhere around us (here, here here, here, here, here, here). There are Masoom Bibi’s everywhere around us. It is all too easy to get worked up about politics. About ideology. About religion. But the lives of and the survival challenges of ordinary people are too "ordinary" for us to get excited about.
Today, we will look at Masoom Bibi with a tinge of discomfort in our heart, and we will look away. Waiting for her – or at least this post – to disappear. Tomorrow will be another day. A day without Masoom Bibi to haunt us. Tomorrow, our passions will return and the firebrand pontificates of various political and religious and ideological ilks will invade this blog again telling everyone else just how right they themsleves are and just how wrong everyone else is.
Tomorrow, we will all secretly wish, Masoom Bibi will be gone. Except, she won’t!
GAUGING GROUPON’S PUBLIC OFFERING.
States News Service November 10, 2011 BOSTON — The following information was released by Harvard Business School:
Groupon’s initial public offering made a big splash in the stock market last Friday, but according to Robert Wheeler, a Fellow at Harvard Business School’s Forum for Growth and Innovation, how investors value the stock in the long term is a more important test for this and other IPOs.
Robert Wheeler (@Robert Wheeler27) is a Fellow at Harvard Business School’s Forum for Growth and Innovation. He earned an MBA from Harvard last year with high distinction as a Baker Scholar. Prior to HBS, he served as an officer in the US Army. go to site groupon atlanta
Last Friday, Groupon’s stock finished its first day of trading in the public markets up nearly 31% from its offering price of $20 per share. The company raised nearly $700 million to fund operations, and demand for the initial public offering (IPO) significantly outstripped supply by nearly a 10-to-1 margin. The IPO even priced above the $16-18 per share range that Groupon itself was targeting, enticing the company to float more shares than it had initially planned.
All in all, I’d say Groupon, which didn’t even exist three years ago, must have been pretty pleased with its first day as a public company.
The road to this point has not been easy, however. Many merchants — the people who pay Groupon to run its deals — have been disappointed with the results of their interactions with the company. Customers either don’t show up at all or come just once. And in light of fierce competition and customer fatigue, many market observers have openly questioned the sustainability of Groupon’s business model, which has been extensively imitated by others, including heavy-hitter Amazon. Despite these problems, the public markets valued Groupon at just under $16 billion – more than double the reported $6 billion that Google offered for the company less than a year ago.
At first blush, therefore, it would appear that Groupon’s strong IPO performance settled the debate.
But I think some serious questions remain. Fundamentally, Groupon’s business model has yet to be proven. Its traditional daily deals business is looking less and less appealing at scale as we learn more and more about what the economics of the market look like at maturity. The company is experimenting with numerous other products such as Groupon Now instant deals, Groupon Getaways travel deals, and Groupon Goods deals on merchandise to extend and sustain the business.
But the absence of entry barriers, the feverish competition, and uncertainty regarding the ultimate success of any of Groupon’s initiatives give me pause.
The company’s stock performance last Friday is not what potential investors in the company should be considering as they make their buy or sell decisions. Rather, they should be evaluating whether Groupon has the potential to be a $16 billion company when trading closes this Friday, next Friday, or on any given Friday a year or a decade from now. go to site groupon atlanta
When things get bubbly, it is important for us to remember that this is the ultimate litmus test for this or any other IPO.
About Harvard Business School:
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 200 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and doctoral degrees, as well as more than 80 open enrollment Executive Education programs and more than 60 custom programs. For more than a century, HBS faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching to educate leaders who have shaped the practice of business and entrepreneurship around the globe.
Beautiful, wonderful website. I definitely have to admire the amount of precious work which is place on this forum. The other article I read was of Owais Bhais’ – Pomengranate.
Hi
It is a very nice and good post and I like it.
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/cowas.htm
Nice article about reality of our political leadership.
thanks for a good informativ article. thanks a lot
It is heart warming to see ATP and Professor Najam returning to its credo……the people. But to put things in perspective, the reality is that with the exception of few thousand visitors of this site, most Pakistanis will never get to see this article. Visitors of ATP are a very narrow and select group that is lucky enough to have knowledge of English language and access to computers and Internet. It is like members of a small group talking among themselves. So what is the point of articles like this many ask.
Nothing, unless the argument and the message of ATP and Adil is carried one step further.
Those of us who are touched by this exercise and agree with Dr. Najam, it is incumbent upon us to carry the message further in our own way and raise the general conscience and public awareness with ultimate aim of eradicating poverty and illiteracy among our own people. Unless on our turn, the readers of ATP carry the ball further, we will never reach the goal line. I know most of us are capable of doing it. The question is: “Are we willing to do it?”
The indifference manifested by some on the thread rather surprises me.
But, okay, if you want to continue to feed religious fanaticism in Pakistan, being indifferent to the majority of citizens which also happen to make up this suffering underclass is the way to do it.
The poor are not stupid but neither do they wish to starve indefinitely. When all hope in politicians and institutions is truly gone, people turn to revolutionaries. And in Pakistan’s environment those would be……?
thought provoking isnt it? There is no harm in discussing politics and poverty at the same time. Afterall, the solution to the poverty has to be political indeed.
And then it is important to talk about it, to show how concerned we all are and mind you, when you go to talk to them, and take their pictures, and want to talk about them, the poor are not embarassed at all. They infact feel the warmth of it. Of course it is not enough, of course it is not the end nevertheless it is important.
It takes time to build solid convictions but the things start from here.