Adil Najam

Pakistan International Airline (PIA) has new livery. And, I must say, it looks very nice.

Much nicer, certainly, than the last back-fin livery they had (the ill proportioned waving flag). That one just did not work, especially with the white background to the plane. Always seemed like it was an after-thought that did not do justice to the flag or the aeroplane.

I should also confess that when I first heard that these new designs were coming, I did not much like the idea. Why must every airline try to follow the British Airways example? On this one, however, I will admit that I was wrong. Whoever has done these designs have done a good job.

I am told that there are four designs (one for each province) and they are all depicted here. Additional designs may come. Pay particular attention, also, to the name and city of each plane. The four depicted here are: Thar: Colours of the Desert (in light shades of blue); Lahore: Garden of the Mughals (strong reds and blues); Peshawar: Gateway to the East (red and green on earthy yellow); Gwadar: The New Port City (bold yellow, red, green and blue).

Altamash Mir and iFaqeer, please note the name of the Lahore plane; we do acknowledge our Mughal past… sometimes! (Although, I should add, there are some aspects of our ‘Mughal heritage’ that I am neither proud of nor do I wish to own or emulate; e.g., imprisoning one’s partents and killing one’s siblings).

And, yes, I did note that the Baluchistan plane is smaller and older than all the others. I hope there is no hidden meaning in that!

All pictures courtesy of Jetphotos.net.

Adil Najam

Two news items from this week give me cause to worry about economic governance Pakistan.

They suggest that the independence of economic governance–which some consider to be the most important contribution of the current government–might either be illusory, or is diminishing.

Both stories are about the removal–reportedly for political reasons–of two key economic decision-makers. The first story is about the country’s Chief Economist, Pervaiz Tahir, and the second gives details about the earlier easing out of Dr. Tariq Hasan, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).

On Pervaiz Tahir’s removal, according to a report in The News (18 June, 2006; full story here):

The country’s chief economist has reportedly been removed from his post after he differed with the government on poverty reduction and GDP growth rate figures. However, the government has outrightly denied any such development. Secretary Planning Division Akram Malik, however, when approached said: ‘This is absolutely untrue.’ He said the poverty figures of 10 per cent reduction during the period 2001-05 had been calculated by the UNDP, World Bank and Asian Development Bank experts following the internationally recognised methodology. He said although Pervaiz Tahir was the country’s chief economist, he was not an expert on calculating the poverty figures.

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Adil Najam

Pakistani comedian Rauf Lala and the Irfan Malik-Ali Hasan duo have taken Indian TV audiences by storm on the super-hit Indian television show ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge-II’ on Star TV-India. Both received more than 150,000 audience votes each on this competition show that is the current sensation on Indian TV and are now in the so-called ‘Mega Super Finals’ (yes, everything has to be a ‘mega’ on reality TV).

According to a recent Reuters (June 20, 2006) news story:

For weeks, Rauf Lala and the pair of Irfan Malik and Ali Hasan-known as Pakistan’s Laurel and Hardy-held the spotlight on the ‘The Great Indian Laughter Challenge-II’, before they were chosen for the finals through a public voting system. The winner will be decided on Friday (June 23), but the Pakistani comedians say the result will not matter. “For us, we are already winners because we got so much love and warmth from the Indian audience. Our performances were so appreciated and they voted us into the final,” Malik told Reuters.

Apart from these three, the competition had also featured two other Pakistani comedians: Wali Sheikh and Kashif Khan. All are from Karachi. All have a more theatre-based background and situational comedy style. And all are cut in the Omar Sharif comedic mode: sarcastic, cutting edge social commentary, word play, situational.

In fact, some readers may recognize Rauf Lala as an erstwhile Omar Sharif sidekick who has appeared with the later in many stage show recordings. Although there have been some allegations, especially on the Malik-Hasan duo, of some off-color humor and of plagiarizing from Omar Sharif routines, overall the audience reaction has been tremendous.

All in all, Indians can’t stop laughing at these funny Pakistanis and one of them just might win the big prize this Friday!