Bilal Zuberi

It seems that the SECP (Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan) has finally decided to take strong action against CSIBL (Crescent Standard Investment Bank Limited) (See related ATP post on SECP and economic governance here). It is reported that the entire Board of Directors of CSIBL has been suspended, and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Anjum Saleem, has been restrained from officiating as CEO of the Bank, with immediate effect, by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). In addition, the press release from SECP also stated that Badr-ud-Din Khan, a veteran international banker, has been installed as the Administrator.

This news has been long coming. CSIBL, and other subsidiaries of the Crescent Group, have been in the news for quite some time now for suspected fraud and irregular accounting. The fate of CSIBL, the largest private investment bank in Pakistan, was clear when on August 26 an “un-approved and un-audited” annual accounts for the year ended December 31, 2005 were published that showed a loss of Rs 2,118,546,000, or a loss per share of Rs 16.85. To the dismay of the shareholders, this meant the entire equity was eroded and the share value was thrown to a negative valuation of Rs 6.85 per share. (Source)

This episode is yet another painful reminder of the weakness of the financial regulatory and enforcement bodies in Pakistan. The scars of the Mehran bank scandal are not healed yet, and while CSIBL is now in the news, I suspect there are other institutions still operating that warrant an equally detailed investigation by SECP. This is only a symptom of a larger systemic problem.

Read Full Post

Owais Mughal

N5 is the designation for the National Highway of Pakistan. It is the longest highway of Pakistan and has a total length of 1756 kilometers. It starts from Karachi and ends at Torkham.

While many people know about the major cities that lie along N5, there is a colorful array of smaller towns and villages which are also worth mentioning. In this article I will limit the discussion to the smaller towns of Pakistan which do not get covered in Mainstream media.

Lets start our journey on N5 which will be 5 episodes long. Our first stop today will be Bhit Shah.

Karachi (N5 km Marker 0)

Chaukundi Tombs (N5 km Marker 26)

We have a dedicated post on Chaukundi tombs. Please read here.

Kotri (N5 km Marker 145)

Hyderabad (N5 km Marker 163)

Bhit Shah– The Mound of the King

Traveling north from Hyderabad on N5, one has to drive 45 kilometers on the highway and then three kilometers east on a side road to reach the town of Bhit Shah. Bhit Shah is famous for the tomb of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai (1689-1752) who is considered by far the greatest poet of Sindhi language.

The shrine is situated on a ‘bhit’ (mound) and hence the name of the place Bhit Shah, the Mound of the King. Millions of devotees come to his tomb every year. The tomb was raised by the first of the Kalhoras and subsequently beautified by the Talpur Mirs. The tomb and an adjacent mosque are famous for the tile and mirror work done on them. It is interesting that none of the tiles used in the Bhit Shah complex come from the nearby tile making center of Hala. The tiles used here either come from Naserpur or Multan.

Shah Abdul Latif had forsaken a life of material comfort for he was born to a background of material wealth. For those who thirst for temporal power and tyranny he expressed his dislike as:

Clean in dress, dirty of soul
Donkey worthy slaves they are

Another of his verse goes like this:

Wind blew! The sand enveloped the body,
Whatever little life left, is to see the beloved.

Bhit Shah is the only shrine anywhere in Pakistan that has a post-sunset performance of Sufi music and singing everyday of the year. The main instrument played here is the drone-flute damboro, said to have been invented by Shah Abdul Latif himself.

Read Full Post

Adil Najam

For all of those, me included, who wondered what a 7-star hotel looks like; this is it.

To find out what it feels like, you will have to wait an indefinite amount of time until this surreal StarTrek-like structure actually comes about in Islamabad. Will it? And if it does will it really look like this!

This would have made a great photo-quiz had written about the hotel a few days ago, had Asma not already posted the URLs to these pictures as a comment on that post, and had these pictures not been flying around in all sorts of emails from Pakistan. Despite all of the above, I thought they would still make a great post; maybe some of the koolness will rub off on the site. And I am sure the builders could do with some more free publicity.

Plus, as regular readers know, I have a thing for pictures with tullas (cops) in them (see here, here and here). And this one – even though imaginary – has that traffic cop perched right in the foreground. By the way, don’t miss the helicopter hovering above (near the helipad) either!

I am not sure we need any more discussion about whether this hotel is a good idea or not. But what about the design? Is this eye-candy or eye-sore? Will this really take us to the ‘next frontier’ (apologies for the pun)? Does this look more like ‘heaven on earth’ or ‘pie in the sky’?What do you think?