Amreeka, it was all about food & love!!

Before visiting any place, I google about that place and make so many assumptions about it. Never do I find my expectations coming true. Every place has its own peculiarities and culture and google and its images doesn't help much in coping up with the challenges you might face there or the fun time you gonna have. So was mine. It was my dream going to Houston, not because I like that place, but because my most beloved and most precious ones live there. Those people in my life who are my blood yet I had only spent days with them that I could count on fingers. Three of my nieces and one nephew and their parents. 

After becoming a mom, I am almost always starving and cooking has become a real challenge for me. Food is not that big trouble but my sleep has significantly reduced and its quality is pretty bad. The purpose of going there was to stock up on food and sleep so that I can cover up for 1.5 year of sleep and food. Luckily, I got both in over abundance plus one thing more in bonus: the Love!

Coming to the food, after being there for 2 weeks, I have realized that "You can only enjoy and appreciate food when you have an empty stomach". In there, I never really had an empty stomach. It was always full with all kinds of junk food, drinks, sweets and what not. American especially Texans care only about food in their life. Eating out multiple times a day is quite normal but food is so spicy- burning hot as hell. Although I liked it but initially it was a challenge to adapt to the food.  

The second thing is sleep. I guess when you have a stomach that is full and mind free of worries, the only thing you want to do is to bed down. I have had best of my sleeps there. The amazing thing was that Ebrahiem and I had the challenge of jet lag for only 2 days. Me and my son are otherwise insomniac. 

Talking about the bonus part, I was impressed with the love that I got from everybody especially from crazy babloo (Eaman), Mamoo M.. (Mahrukh) and R.. Bhai (Manahil also named brother MAC- Manahil Asad Chaudhry). I could not imagine how they could have so much love for me when they only saw me four years ago for only 7 days.  I would never have gone there if I did not have repeated assertions from babloo, threatening calls at middle of the night whether or not I am coming. 

How can I forget fitting into the backseats of car with four of us and one little Ebrahiem, singing and dancing in the car and then their father scolding us, sitting in the most garbage full car of my nephew and site seeing with him and his mommy, the sudden calls to come to a certain restaurant, being forced to eat all the heavy spicy food, fights with babloo and mahrukh for who will I sleep with, fights with Manahil for going out with my nephew, babloo hitting me with apples and stick because I decided not to sleep with her on my last day in Houston, Manahil bothering Ebrahiem and Ebrahiem choosing midnight to take his revenge by beating her up, babloo causing Ebrahiem to start to hate cola by filling him up with too much of it, writing crazy things on bhai's white board, fights between the cousins and all my nieces standing up against my nephew, babloo doing crazy things in the restaurants and saying: "I have no idea how that happened", babloo preparing bowl of ice cream with lots of whipped cream and oreo biscuits for herself; the bowl was enough for the whole family, babloo hiding whipped cream in the closet to eat it all, encountering and witnessing a jinn in a supermarket, babloo leading a prayer session for me with her sisters and aunt that I may find a job in Amreeka and stay with them forever, Ebrahiem learning lots of things there especially one little monkey rhyme and falling off on the bed, Ebrahiem seeking forgiveness from his sins saying Toba Toba all the time while he actually meant Tablet Tablet (the samsung one to play), babloo's cute questions about heaven and her prayers that she may get a house full of nutella, and she making the graph of her good deeds vs. bad deeds and her good deeds were always more than the bad ones, watching movies together and Mahrukh making parental settings on almost every scene, Manahil only letting us watch the beginning and end of the movie because she thinks its too long otherwise and because she has watched the movie already, singing songs at 4:00 am, all five of us, doing puppet show at night, acting and copying some funny relatives and making a performance show all the time, dropping and picking up babloo mahrukh from school, babloo and Manahil faking illness to stay at home, and finally the best one from Mahrukh by coming back from school early by faking illness and able to reach to the airport to drop me and Ebrahiem off. The puzzle was then solved why only Manahil and Eaman were crying when they were leaving for school and not Mahrukh who did that only at the airport!!!

From the diary of a proud phoppo and khala! 

My 1.5 year old techie

I am a complete chaos right now. Everyday my boy wakes up .. oh no, let me rephrase it, every time he sees me, he says "Taib", that means give me the tablet so that he can play the videos. Right now, he is playing youtube videos on both tablet and my smartphone but that's not enough. He often looks into my laptop screen and tries to use it as a touch screen as he has not developed a sense yet how does a laptop work (its not a touch screen).

Now in the last couple of days, I have witnessed the following:

1) Recently, my friends on skype were a bit surprise that I put the most weirdo photo as my skype display photo. How that happened was, I am an eye witness. He took a photo from my whatsApp and then edited it somehow and put it as my profile photo. Its a photo of several triangles in it.

2) He has created a youtube playlist for himself

3) Everyday, I receive a number of emails through my youtube account. Apparently my son has found a way to talk to his cohorts and he posts on their comments something like... asdkjsakfhafshsakf and I get similar messages like 7(&w(eJSDA

4) I have stopped finding unread emails in my inbox, its not because people have stopped sending me emails, but my emails have been scrutinized before I get access to them.

5) I have got miraculously subscribed to several cartoon channels

6) My dropbox which is connected to both tablet and phone gets weird photos of cartoons everyday. These are the screenshots he captures!!!!!

7) Over these months I learnt so many shortcuts for these smart devices through my son.

8) Now this one is a bit dangerous, he has started sharing my videos and photos (luckily at the moment only with dad but don't know who he would share in future)

9) His reply to emails through my inbox, his messages to my friends, taking random photos are relatively the simple ones.

10) Most importantly he only does the crazy stuff with my devices. He is not interested in others property at the moment.

11) He knows and finds out all the secret places where I hide "his" devices as if he is a sniffing dog.

"Wanna make me happy, give me nice food"

The title of the post tells, if I'd ever be famous, what proverb people would be using about me. Yes, I love food. and it is one of the reasons why I think life is so beautiful. I am particularly happy because I am born in Pakistan where food is simply not delicious but scrumptious. We Pakistanis do not eat food to live but we live to eat food. Everyday, the challenge of the person who is responsible for cooking in the house is to figure out what to cook today? I am sure no other culture or country find this so challenging. Food is one of the reasons as to why if I'd be given another life, I would love to be born in Pakistan. I don't know how the rest of the world recognize us, but I recognize my country because of the variety of delicious food. 

Below are the points where you can see how important is food for us:

1) We go to the wedding parties only to eat food. The purpose is partially to socialize but this too is food socialization. The reason is not at all to celebrate with the bride and groom. In the wedding parties, even the strangers help each other in filling the table with all the food served around. If the food isn't good, the party is considered a failure. If the food is good, even the most lousy party is considered a success. 

2) The long breaks on Friday for the people out for work is strategically arranged to have this and that particular food in this or that restaurant/ street. 

3) If a mother takes her children to some relatives and tells, Oh my child is too small to eat then it is a psychological obligation on the child to eat as much as and as fast as they can. 

4) Only those relatives are loving who serve us nice food, others we just keep normal relationship with. 

5) We receive a food platter everynow and then from the neighborhood in the name of "niaz" (food served for religious purpose). I don't know why but the biryani of niaz is always more delicious than the normal biryani. 

The best of the foods: So here I list the best of the best foods we have. You may add to the list if I skip something. If I make a real list, then it will reach infinity. 

1) Biryani- somehow I am a biryani ambassador. I make biryani out of anything from meat, chicken, fish, chickpeas, vegetable, to the versions that are relatively little known like daal biryani, kebap biryani, 

2) Haleem- A mix of meat with lentils and lots of herbs for garnishing and requires hours to cook. It is commonly made in the first Islamic month but with the more easier versions to cook through the packet haleem masalah, now it can be made any day any time

3) Kebaps- which kebaps we do not have? I know kebaps are very common in all the middle eastern countries but as we like to put daal in everything, our kebaps are commonly made with daal. 

4) Chola chat, dahi baray, pakoray etc. - Yes we are lentils eating nation. Here too, we like to make lentils cake, lentils snacks, lentils cookies and are widely cooked during Ramadan. We don't care how much it messes up with our digestive system during Ramadan but we think a Ramadan without such lentil snacks is not a real Pakistani Ramadan. 

5) Vegetables- We want to overcook everything. For meat and stuff, it might make sense, but we do want to cook vegetables so much so that the real color is gone. And it is hell spicy. But it is really really nice. and we want to garnish it with more spices.

6) Street food - This is a separate category in itself, although it is some variations of all mentioned above but it has its own taste. Whenever we plan to go to Pakistan for holidays, we vow each other for each as much as and as many times as possible. This is the basic motivation for going back. Irony is that the more unhygienic it is, the more delicious it is. As a home-made food can never taste the same no matter how much energy you put it. Aah, so much to say about it, I promise I will try my best to write a separate blog about it. 

Spices- We don't cook food but we cook spices and put little food in it. We use all kinds of spices in any kind of food like red chilies, green chilies, black pepper, white pepper, hot spices, you name it. That is the special thing about our food and it can go as extrme as it looks some people cook food in the spices. Benefit is that even if the food is spoiled, it can never taste or smell bad because any stingy thing can easily hide behind the spices. That is the main reason why street food never gets rotten (Yes a later messed up stomach is another issue).

 Once, my father (who was the best cook of his time :) made haleem. He made a platter of haleem for our neighbor and garnished it with lots of spices and said, these people will die out of spices. After making the platter, he left the room. I was really little at that time (may be 5 or 6). I repeated the sentence and added even more spices on top. I have no clue how the neighbor survived that haleem and I don't care. He was my worst enemy of mine at that age.

So which food do you like and your specific reasons for liking it. Looking forward to hear that from you all !!!

Who will get a job in future?

I want to give you a good and a bad news at the same time. First comes the good news. You don't need to be scared of your nerdy colleague who is sitting right in front of you with his thick eye glasses. He is NO MORE your competitor. In other words, his skills are being replaced with respect to time. But the bad news is NOW you have to compete with another thing which is the technology. Yes the smartphone you are carrying in your pant pockets, the laptop hanging on your back, the copy machine right next to you and the printer all of them are gonna eat away your job and not only yours but also your competitors, your partners, colleagues everybody's. So this is the age when human doesn't need to be afraid of each other. The machine that the men created by himself is going to eat them. 

The statistics provide us thought-provoking findings. At the time of ever increasing productivity, Brynjolfsson & McAfee (2012) tell us that between May 2007 to October 2009, the unemployment jumped by more than 5.7 which is the largest ever increase in the postwar period. During late 1960's, in the vogue of ever increasing technology, some economists and political scientists "foresaw" less working hours per week. They expected that these machines would "complement" their skills and "work for them"- hence less work per person per week. Even some predicted that by the time we would reach 2000's, work hours per week would be 30 hours and long vacations per year. But how the situation is like? Everyone knows. During my maternity period, I used to read how other co-mothers had to join their work immediately after delivery so where is the minimum legal period of maternity? And those who are lucky enough to retain their jobs are even working 70 hours per week. Employed people are increasingly getting "burnouts" and they have no family life whatsoever. Where is the machine that was going to work for me? I think technology is at its best at the moment innit?

While there are many ideas floating around as to where these jobs are and how long this would continue, the most popular one is the "end of work" argument, so the technological progress is not too little but too much. And the economists could not see it prior to 1970's. This is particularly important for the third world countries who will face more crisis but how we are going to see it from the "Knowledge Economy" prospect. 

The fact is that there are jobs in the market and these jobs are with ever highest salaries but there are not much capable persons to fill them up. These high profile jobs are those where humans are required to be ahead of machines and not to work parallel with them. Yes, this is the fact of today that you are no longer required to work parallel to machine. If you do so, soon you will be replaced with a machine who will better work in parallel with the other machine (your ex-colleague). However, there are areas where machines can't compete with humans and they can never do that. Machines are good with routine tasks but they cannot handle the non-routine tasks. That is where you punch-in. We already see a greatest restructuring in the economy. The banker's job which was considered the most high-profile job sometime ago, but now banking is not absorbing as many people as it used to do. Between January 2007 to January 2014, the gap between the jobs of computer programmers, consultants and likes and bankers has only been increasing. That is why they say that "computer programmers are in demand but bankers are not". 

Although these superior skills are somehow available in developed world but for the developing countries, the answer is No in general. So what will happen in future? The money is already floating into a fixed sector of economy into a limited number of people so do we expect more people falling below the poverty line in the developing countries in future?

There are some open questions in this regard:

1- How can we distribute the superior skills through out the economy- skills in which humans work ahead of technology and not in parallel?

2- Do we need a social restructuring again where one person is the sole bread runner of the house and companies not using the slogan such as "we are equal opportunity employers"? 

3- Are we able to design fiscal policies where work load is distributed appropriately so that the money circulates throughout the economy?

These are tough questions of today but I am sure twenty years ahead, we will not have at least this one as a challenge

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ― Rumi

The words in the title by Rumi are so deep in the meaning and perhaps I did not understand them the way they should be. I would still take the courage to write something about it as I found the words very very touching.

When the pain rips one apart, not physically but spiritually, there are open wounds. One is exposed to the loss, abuse or bully and in most cases, this exposure is accompanied with loneliness. People you trusted or loved are proved to be selfish and the pain multiplies. There is no place of refuge, just darkness around. Under such times of distress, one questions the purpose of his/ her existence.

During the stability stage, when most of the things are turning out as per expectations, we make choices regarding people to hangout with, people to live with and people to trust. During the instability stage, when things don't turnout as per expectations, we feel betrayed because our choices are proved to be wrong and our love and care is not reciprocated. This is the time when we corner ourselves, detach from world and clad in depression and anxiety. Some strong people still manage to drive their life pretending to be normal but its not a joke and such people are also burning deep inside.

This wound and grief composes an important stage of one's life. Because of the way God Has created a human, the man chooses to live than to die and he makes tough decisions. He becomes a reservoir of energy and there is only one source left that can provide him with energy and that source is the Ultimate Truth- Almighty who is always by his side no matter what. The person who absorbs the light from the ultimate source is then a completely different human. 

But one has to think how he came out of trial. If the answer is getting closer to the creator, it means that the "light" has indeed entered through but if unfortunately, the trial made him further away from the creator, it means that the open place of wound was not a reservoir of light from the ultimate source, it became the reservoir of negativities. 

In any difficult situation where one has open wounds, do not forget that the light is there, its up to the human what he opts for the light or chooses to stay in darkness. 

My best friend is google!

Information Technology (IT) is a really big revolution ever on the face of earth. Things, relationship, businesses, social interactions, tasks and what not ... everything has changed. IT has wiped away the traditional ways to conduct tasks (home or work), changed the way to interact with friends, even the relationships. With very cheap ways of communication, nobody is really alone at any point in time. Soon, I assume that everybody would be chipped and would be able to tracked anytime anywhere. There won't be any Bermuda triangle or incidences like MH370 would ever be possible to happen (unless a doomsday happen and all the systems are crashed in one go). 

But is technology an integral part of your life? The recent research shows that the learning ability of humans is suffering because they don't keep things in their heads rather rely on so called "Wikipedia". They know they can always revert back to their friend "Wiki" and ask it again. At the same time, any sort of information is accessible and freely available and we humans can't keep everything into our heads so we over-tired our brains by exposing it to excessive amount of information (that is not needed by the way). For example, getting the biographical records of my favorite movie stars of soccer players (I am not a journalist by the way). 

Then comes the "blues". How am I tackling with routine troubles, or some big accidents of my life? Because I know that I come across system crash or software not working or not knowing the program code and I can easily find a solution online therefore I have started to think that my "Psychological" problems can also be solved by my friend "Google" or "wikiehow", I have turned my face away from the real problem solvers (a closed person) and trust my device more. I know telling google won't cost google's time and google is not gonna share my stupid queries with others. I can access my 24/7 online friend for all my troubles. But where are the "Relations" in all this. I have left them far away, so far that I cannot reach there. No airline, no ferry can take me there. I use my facebook to brag about myself and all my "network" know me as the 'happiest' person on earth. 

Just like the paperless world, my relationships are mass-less, body-less, blood-less. My friend ehow tells me how to tackle a difficult person, my husband google tells me how to look beautiful, my sister edrive keeps all my secret stories and my teacher google scholar gives me insights on my work. 

I am living a perfect "humanless" life because all my social needs are met through the wires! 

First Mother's day without You

Yesterday was the first mother's day without you and from this one, I will not be able to celebrate any mother's day :( Its sad but its a reality of life. I am somewhere between denial and anger, guilt and sadness. The flood of these emotions is growing deep inside my heart but we all have to spend our calculated moments in this life. And I am doing that.

I cannot send you any gifts and we cannot pamper you with delicious food, your favorite gift items or long phone calls. This mother's day was the saddest mother's day I have ever had. For me and my siblings, mother's day was a very special day. We would start arranging for her gifts months before this day and my mother, just like a little baby, would often inquire us: "How are you gonna surprise me this year?" In our family, mother's day was like Christmas or Eid.

While there are people who are blessed with this beautiful gift of Almighty and to enjoy it (of course temporarily), many of those are not aware of what can happen in case this gift is taken away. Yes, this can give those people chills or goosebumps just for imagining it, the reality is far more than that. Back in 2009, I had a lecture in the morning, and before that, I was talking to two twin sisters who were my friends. Somehow, they used past tense when they talked about their mum and I asked them where she is right now. They told me that she has passed away. I don't know what happened to me but my eyes started to shed tears with my heart full of emotions. Soon, my other classmates started to notice me, so my friends consoled me and I had to stop crying. I don't know why I was crying, missing my mum as she was far away, realizing that she is getting older and may leave me some day or simply feeling pity about my friends who had lost their mother already. But when I myself had to face this reality, I reacted in a completely different way. Emotions are not discrete, they are on a continuum and the "right" kind of emotions do not always come at the right time. A loss is responded with sadness, active grieving, denial, anger, guilt, shock, terror, melancholy or acceptance (we typically call patience). I can easily see that my subconscious mind has still not accepted this loss and that's why I see my mother in my dream multiple times as soon as I fall asleep and I discuss my day-to-day things with her. This can be said as the result of not being at her funeral, or simply tied up with my new-mother busy schedule along side my work but I believe that I am following a very long cycle of facing the loss. And I have my whole life to grieve about her.

Anyways, I was talking about how oblivious many people are about their parents. They either ignore them, downright disrespect them or delegate their responsibilities onto a third party by assuming that "others" are responsible for respecting and taking care of their parents. If you are falling under either of the category, you may need to correct your ways. First and foremost, no matter how educated or well-mannered you are, you must not disrespect your parents for they being naive.  Once they were appreciating your innocent acts so just enjoy every phase of life. Second, if they ask for extra attention, you can kindly ask them to expect a little less but do not ignore them.  Ignoring them is not a lesser crime that disrespecting them. Hence, give them their due share of time but that should not come at the cost of teasing them or violating the rights of others.Third, No one but "You" are responsible for their care. This responsibility cannot be delegated to the other person because you owe them the sleepless nights and not the third party.

This mother's day, I just want to pay a tribute to my sweetest mom in the world. I love you, you are the best in the world! Although, we used to have occasional disagreements but you were the one closest to me than anyone else around. When you left me, my life is a lot under disappointments; as if you took away my pleasures along with you. Things and people I used to enjoy do not give me any happiness anymore. There is hardly any night I do not dream of you. Losing you is such a big loss that I cannot put it into tears, only a heart that is melting but who can see the heart- its inside.

An Eternal Memory- I loved this one so much specially the last line

How far are you in your life?

Did someone say it right that women are at their best when they approach 40's? On this birthday, I realized that I am approaching my best age. Time is slipping away from my hands like sand. When I look back at my life, it looks like a second ago, I was a little girl held by my father in his hands taking rounds of the house in an attempt to stop me from crying, and a mother always ready to welcome me whenever I would wake up from my sleep. Then I approached the golden age, when you are not scared of any obvious thing. You do what you want, and you know how to become stubborn in order to get what you want. Then the teenage starts, the stupidest life time. You have really big dreams becoming a famous actor, singer, or a stylish politician. You don't care what the society says about you. You want to do the craziest fashion, wanna be clad in such outfits which people may stop for a second to look at you. Then the twenties when you start to think about your career, marriage, kids. This is also age of dreaming but mature dreaming, or rather dreams that "can" come true. And then you begin with early thirties, the time span where you really think to settle down somewhere, take a break, think what you have achieved so far and what you further want to achieve but not for yourself but for those who are later going replace you - ! You cannot afford gambling at this age. People usually avoid making any bigger/ riskier decisions of their life at this stage of life. 

This is the short story of my life! I guess that is the life of most people. Most but not for all. Everybody is born in a different situation. Being sheltered by loving parents is yet another comfort. When you lose them, that is the time you have to stand up for yourself and think mature. Some people never get mature because they know that they have a roof on their head and it will protect them in danger. The important thing is that people don't wait for you to get mature, neither does time. You have to meet their demands and you can no longer live in your isolated barbie world. 

You have to stand up, take responsibilities and finish your journey of life with lesser regrets!! 

سب ٹھاٹھ پڑا رہ جاویگا جب لاد چلے گا بنجارہ

Over these months, I have realized (to some extent) how this life is. It is just a small journey, we come and we go. It is just like the scene at any airport, arrivals and departures...... nobody come to the airport bringing all his wealth. In these times, I just hear the following words in my ears all the time: گر تو ہے لکھی بنجارہ اور کھیپ بھی تیری بھاری ہے اے غافل تجھ سے بھی چڑهتا اک اور بڑا بیوپاری ہے کیا شکر مصری قند گری کیا سانبھر میٹھا کھاری ہے کیا داکھ منقا سونٹھ مرچ کیا کیسر لونگ سپاری ہے سب ٹھاٹھ پڑا رہ جاویگا جب لاد چلے گا بنجارہ

English Translation:

If you are a millionaire, and your stores are brimming,
Know, O ignorant! There is always another merchant who is even greater than you.
What of your sugar, candy, jaggery and nuts? What of your doughs, sweet and salty?
What of your grapes, raisins, ginger and pepper? What of your saffron, cloves and betel?
All your splendor will lie useless, when the nomad packs-up and leaves

Naat from somebody

Disclaimer: This naat portrays love of someone for our prophet. She asked me to write this naat in Urdu script and publish it somewhere on internet, this naat was written by her so I don't want to post it in my name, but as per her wish I am publishing this:

ہمارے نبی کی شان ہے سبحان الله 
سادگی انکی بیمثال ہے سبحان الله 
سب سے اعلی حسن اخلاق ہے انکا 
فدا ساری  خلقت،  درجہ آفاق ہے انکا 
انکی تشریف  آوری رب کی ہے رحمت 
نماز  روزہ  زکات سب  انکی  ہے برکت 
جنکو دشمن  نے بھی امین ہے پکارا 
جن پر رب نے  اپنا قرآن  ہے اتارا
خوش  قسمت  مدینے  کی ہر  ہے گلی 
انکے  تبسّم سے کھلی  ہے کلی کلی

Social Exchange through Social Media

In today’s business world, the companies ought to harness competencies from the customers. In this respect, the markets are viewed as forums for firms and active users to share and combine resources and capabilities of each other in the process of product/ service development. Co-creation and Co-production are used to describe the relationship between firms and consumers. Co-creation is based on the idea that value is solely determined by the consumers and firms serve as either to facilitate value or to co-create by becoming involved in the customer’s value creation process. The Co-production on the other hand refers to the mere involvement of consumers in product and service development. According to Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2000), the morphing of customers’ role in the dynamic business environment from passive to active players demands companies to involve customers around four axes: 1) Engage in dialogue with the customers, 2) mobilize communities, 3) Manage customer diversity and 4) Co-create personalize experience. Today Social Media comes at the heart of mobilizing Social Exchange mechanisms in various forms.

Today, the purview of social media has swept away all the firm boundaries and customer premises. Online forums and tweeter feeds used for marketers and product developers towards discernment of customers desires is now an old story. The world is now at the verge of technological change and there is yet much more to be delivered by social media that will come at the later part of the talk. Looking at social media from Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s pivot points to exploit customer’s knowledge and ideas, we can think of social media providing the following:

•  Engage in Dialogues with Customers: Social media has long been thought to providing a new channel for companies to communicate with their customers but now it has fundamentally challenged to other forms of communication. Today companies are moving towards using social platform and social design mechanics to manage interactions across all communication channels to customers (Social-driven IT, Accenture Technology Vision 2012). This will also add value by insuring value adding communication among customers, employees and enterprises.
• Mobilize Communities: Matt Shaw (2011) reported that 84% of the adult customers feel that they feel more loyal to the brands because of social media and on the other hand, only 9% reported that social media are best to obtaining clear comprehensions about their favorite brands and 85% believe that a brand could not reach out to them over past 3 months. This indicates a clear gap between the potential of social media and the under-utilization of it. Hence social media needs to capitalize on mobilizing the communities in view of potential of social media to do that.
• Customer Diversity: Can be achieved effectively by social media. Social media provides the opportunity to manage various groups and networks and therefore an effective social exchange mechanism can take place by exploiting each fragment managed via independent network.
• Co-create personalize experience: It is very important to understand that Social media is just not about marketing. Social media is among the technologies, that Bingham and Conner in their book “” write as innovations that enable a new kind of knowledge-building ecosystem with people at its core. With examples from Best Buy to Intel and from Deloitte to U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, social media improves the way you recruit talent, engage employees, and build work-force capacities. Social media creates useful learning assets from customer’s experience with respect to your product and customer’s feedback. Hence, interaction between users and developers can establish valuable ties that can result into more customer loyalty and business value. Facebook recently launched the new version of Open Graph. It’s a framework that enables content developers to build applications that allow users to share whatever they are doing without overwhelming their friends.

Opportunities provided by Social Media:

Social media provides new opportunities to capture, measure, analyze and exploit social interactions in new ways.

·      

S   Social Polling which is an effective marketing tool to determine what works and what doesn’t. In this way, firms produce directly usable information which serves as the key to making business decision (Johnny S. John, 2009). 

     F8 event (Facebook event to bring together the developers, entrepreneurs and innovators who are building a more social web), facebook is now involved in exploiting the users activity by adding more verbs in addition to “Like”, such as “Read”, “Watch”, “Listen”, or “Travel”. In this way, if a travel agency learns that a user is planning for travel, they can render lucrative offers and cheap tickets to his desired place to travel. This is an insight that would not have triggered the travel agency had the user clicked “Like” for Madagascar.

    

    The traditional customer-firm relation is blurring away because users are now more actively involved in sharingexperience with each other. Toyota Private Social Network provides an opportunity for Toyota owners, dealers and cars. You can be alerted when your car needs battery recharging and also provides you with tips on maintenance from the dealers.

P    Provision of a social commerce platform like “The Gifts Projects” of eBay.

     Provision of commerce services like Geico’s service to pay bill online on Facebook without even clicking Geico’s own website.

    Better handling of customer’s problems, for example telco’s implementation of lodging complaints over twitter and that result into increasing the customer satisfaction level from 70% to 85%. 

Challenges - What firms need to capitalize on?

·         Companies need to revisit the whole business process and systems that implement them. All the firm boundaries where firm interact with customers need to be integrated with each other and “socially enabled”. This would mean at the very least that customers get the same answer to question whether asked over email, website, call center or face-to-face interaction.

·         Companies need to capitalize on new forms of data generated by those social feeds.

·         Establish an IT team to design and pilot cross-functional social media platforms.

·         Move beyond merely “Social listening” to managing social interactions. This can be done by helping individual business units to position their social strategies on top of enterprise wide strategy of social.

·         Monetize on social interactions.

·         Firms need to identify an effective social medium to interact with the customers so that optimal value could be achieved.

Social media is an effective mechanism for co-creation where various business units will interact with the customer to generate value by getting valuable knowledge from the customer. Companies today must adopt social media otherwise a Social Media legacy will culminate businesses in future as these companies will be lacking the useful insights from the customers that they know about them and their businesses will be lured away by the customers. 

Oct 14, 1990 & 2012

Life is a puzzle and sometimes, it shows its weirdest face. History repeats itself and we humans are perplexed. Today is October 14, 2013 and one year ago, I didn't this day would change my life like that. October 14, 1990, the day when my father had to leave for his trip to his hometown around 1000 KM from where we live. I remember the last time I ever shook hands with him. We bid him goodbye and I kept looking at him while he was leaving until he was out of my sight. We didn't know he was on way to his eternal place and this journey was just start of it. 

December 22, 1990, a day before he had to come back, he had a sudden heart attack which was quite severe and he died within few minutes even before the medical help could reach him. 

Last year until October 14, 2012, my life was so perfect and nice when my mother had a brain stroke that day. Initially it was not diagnosed, in fact I only came to know about the severity of her strokes few weeks after her death by getting access to her reports. Earlier I had "personally diagnosed" her disease through internet search. I thought that she had "Transient Ischemic Attack" meaning only little part of brain damage while it was "Tonic Clonic" means the whole brain was damaged. After her brain strokes, she did survive for 10 months but she was only physically present but not "really" with us. She passed away on August 22, 2013. Both on 22nd! (My mother born on Thursday, died on Thursday). Life is a mystery sometimes......

I actually lost both my parents on October 14, (father in 1990 and mother in 2012, my father physically and my mother mentally). I never saw either of my parent dead. My father passed away in his hometown and they buried him there. I came to know about his death on the third day because I was too little. For my mother, I opt not to go to Pakistan for her funeral. For me they are still alive. May Allah SWT forgive him.

I would relate it to another date, December 14, (1994 and 2012). On December 14, 1994, my mother had a worst heart attack. She was admitted in the hospital on that day for 1 month and 1 day (until January 15, 1995). And December 14, 2012 was the last day she was ever in the hospital. She was released from the hospital on that date. Every year, I would tease her and remind her of her heart attack and say, "mom today is your heart attack anniversary and she would get mad at me". From October 14, 2012 to December 14, 2012, she was admitted in the hospital for 5 times. From December 14 until the day she left us, we were on a roller coaster avoiding the fear of when she needs to be admitted in the hospital again. Her Tonic Clonic seizures could come anytime. But that day never came. She passed away peacefully in her home, in her room on her bed without any obvious sign of a stroke or attack. I saw her one day before her death, me, my friend who was visiting me and Ebrahiem. She was looking like an angel, so much carefree, like a small baby. That is why, when i heard this news from Aurin (same friend), i just could not believe it.

Parents are a shelter. When they are with us, we take them for granted and when they leave, we realize we have lost the biggest worldly support -  no THE ONLY worldly support. I have realized this but its too late. I hope those who have parents realize it before its too late. 

I love you ammi

Today, one week has passed since you are not (physically) around me anymore. Never really thought I will be writing something like that. But if I had to bid you goodbye forever, it would have been the most difficult task of my life. I know I have handed you over to someone Who loves you more than I do, who is "Rahman" and "Raheem". I know that this is only a temporary separation and I will meet you soon inshaAllah. I know whatever I could have done for you would not even tantamount to  one night that you spent taking care of me. I know I had not been the way I should have been. I know how I wasted my time in other stuff rather than valuing those moments by spending them with you, I know I have disobeyed you so many times. But I know you still love me a lot. You love and care is still surrounding me. 

The dilemma is, I lost you just after becoming a mother myself. Motherhood makes you realize so many things that you have been taking for granted throughout your life. I am not an ideal mother like you, that's why I really wished you could take care of my baby. The day when you had to leave this world, I was making this prayer in the morning: "May you get health and may you get all my life and energies and you be taking care of my child because you are much better than me". Then in few hours, I came to know that you met your ultimate destination and you left this world even without kissing my child. 

I know how you had to kill yourself after our father and absorbed all the tears inside your heart and never really showed us your sad face. Did I ever see you crying? No! You dedicated your life for your kids and your plants. And that makes me remind something funny about you. When you had to explain our house address to somebody, you used to refer to your plants; "the place where you see so many plants" :) You learnt me to be strong and look forward to mercy of Allah SWT because in the end, He remains and everything else perishes. 

Mom, do you know Allah SWT had talked to me at the time you were going through the most severe brain stroke in all the strokes that you suffered and when I was reciting Surah Rehman on you, and then I reached this ayah:

"Everyone upon the earth will perish, And there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor." (Quran 55: 26-27)

I got the message from Allah SWT that your days in this (fake) world are numbered. Yet, I kept praying for you, kept hoping for you because we all needed energies. We all needed strength to make your remaining days as much comfortable for you as possible. Yet, the mercy of Allah SWT is so much that you lived with us for 294 more days, got rid of the most life threatening thing that you had- 'your bedsore' of 4th degree, kept praying for us, getting to see my baby, striving your best to survive. There was even a time when your paralysis was partially gone and I saw you eating with your own hands. You were taken care by your daughters who were breathing with every breath you were taking and so much emotionally motivated by your beloved son. 

Ammi, I didn't really lose you, I lost the praying hands of yours. How can one imagine a person having so many brain strokes would be perfectly reciting the prayers from Quran  (word-by-word from heart) for her daughter who is miles away. That is why you have such an important status in front of Allah: 

"Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to parents. Whether one or more attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say, "my Lord! bestow on them Thy Mercy, even as they cherished me in childhood." (Quran: 17:23-24)

Who can imagine a person who, according to the doctor, had all the diseases except cancer would see my sad face on Skype and ask me about it, "Why is Sadaf having a sad face". This reminded me of: 

"We have enjoined on man kindness to his parents; in pain did his mother bear him, and in pain did she give him birth." (Quran 46:15)

You know what was the most demotivating thing for me when you were in serious condition in the Special Care Unit, this narration:

After the death of his mother, Prophet Musa A.S. went again to Koh-e-Toor where he finds Koh-e-toor and its surrounding much more forbidding than they had even been. He arrived at the designated place in a state of fright. Musa A.S. entreated Allah to enlighten him why he was haunted by such nameless fears. He heard this reply: 'In the past whenever you visited Koh-e-toor, your mother started praying for you. She begged that I show My Mercy to you and she invoked My Grace upon you, and she implored that I overlook your oversights and forgive your errors. I do listen to the prayers of a mother for her child. But now she is dead, and her prayers have gone with her. You are therefore no longer being shielded by the prayers of your mother. Therefore take heed and warning lest your err. And this is the reason for your terror'. 

I cried a lot there but later in another difficult moment facing my personal troubles, I prayed to Almighty that I have almost lost the praying hands of my mother. You be my parent and You be by my side. For a parent can die but You never die. That is how I got back my strength and I got back my motivation. 

I know now when I say you "I love you mama", I won't hear this back "I love you too (with a big cute smile)". You even used to reply this when you were really very sick. This all would have killed me if I did not have faith in Almighty that you are in His merciful arms. I know I have to do sabr to get Hasanaat and become your Sadqa Jaria. 

"And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient, 

Who, when disaster strikes them, say, "Indeed we belong to Allah , and indeed to Him we will return.

Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And it is those who are the [rightly] guided." (Quran 2: 155-157)

I am grateful to Almighty for blessing me with such a great mom for so many years of my life. I am proud of you my ammi. 

"Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest." (Qur'an 13:28) 

And seek help through patience and prayer, and indeed, it is difficult except for the humbly submissive [to Allah ] (Quran 2:45)

That is why I am not at unrest like I used to be when I lost my father and uncle. And when I smile around, its not that I have forgotten you. I know how hard it was for you to see me crying and since now you cannot stop me crying anymore, my tears would be a big burden on you. I want to seek patience from Allah SWT and make as much prayers for you as possible and fulfill all the dreams you wished for me. Bringing up my child according to Quran and Sunnah and instill upon him your love so that even after I am dead, the prayers for you may not discontinue. And my little one will keep calling you "Bari Mama" the word that always brought smile on your face. 

Mama, I need to tell you that I am carrying forward all the good messages I have received from you so that your soul may benefit from it. I will try to continue the good deeds which you were routinely doing. People think that my mother has passed away, but I believe that mothers never die- good mothers never die and no mother is a bad mother. 

I love you mama and I would keep saying it despite the fact that I will never get "I love you too" reply from you :) May Allah SWT keep you in His mercy..... Amen. May you together be with your parents, husband, kids, sibglings, friends and all who you loved in Jannah. Amen

Your youngest child,

Sadaf

Why Information Technology often termed as Information and Communication Technology?

IT and ICT are often used interchangeably but using these terms together have a solid context and implications. This could be regarded as a chicken and egg problem as which one of them comes first: the information or the communication? When searched over internet, there are various nice differences between IT and ICT. In this writing, I am not interested in the differences because of the same reason as these terms can be used interchangeably but why? What had happened during the evolutionary process of both Information and Communication that make these two distinct entities inseparable? It is important to note that prior to 1950’s, the two terms were largely distinctive from each other and fortunately the economics of these two sectors were also separate from one another. 

The exponential increase of well-known specie of planet earth namely “Man” gave rise to mass of information and man became incapable of handling, storing, generating, retrieving that loads of information. This information was growing rapidly. Thankfully, we live in an imperfect world full of capitalists, utilitarian, who have a never-ending desire to bring about out-of-box solutions to maximize their utility. Computer was an invention that later became innovation to tackle with the problem of data and information handling. The restless capitalists were not satiated with the excellent computer architecture of any time and their desire to have more brought them to a dynamic world where Gordon E. Moore, cofounder of Inter was to say 1965 that “the number of transistors that can be placed on a silicon chip doubles every 12-18 months”. 

During the time when information was progressing with a transient phase, communication was already taking giant leaps towards more and more innovative solutions. With the advent of telegraph and telephones, and subsequent network externalities making it more beneficial for the users to join the networks giving rise to further investments and henceforth innovation. 

One way or the other, these communication solutions were fostering the information deep inside. This means that the innovations taking place in the mother “communication” were soon to transform the daughter “information”. The devices in the switches and transmissions equipment of telephone networks could also revamp the computers. From relays to vacuum tubes to transistors, computer started its journey from mainframes to supercomputers to desktops to laptops to iPhone and what not? It was the magical transistors that were originally invented by Bell Laboratories and AT&T; for Telephone Company that transformed the information part completely. Hence, from 1960’s, the segregated terms, Information and Communication were used along. Later, with the advent and adoption of Internet from 1990’s, the two terms becomes further integrated. 

Interest-free Microfinance Project in Pakistan

After starting my career as a Credit Analyst in one of the largest banks of Pakistan and targeting mainly commercial loans (SME), I experienced both bears and bulls in the market and regulatory requirements from very relaxed to very strict. I could love my job if had I seen any value we were contributing towards the society! Financing our clients on as liquid security as possible (meaning financing them against their own money) and charging them heavy sum of interest could only pull the water towards the deeper side was just our case as we were grabbing whatever we could from our clients. And that's what we called "We are doing business with you" and there I learnt the wrong interpretation of business - Give us and only us policy. In the end, while reporting the nasty cases to loan recovery department, more than 95% of irrecoverable loans were coming from our corporate clients and peanuts from the small enterprises while these small and medium size enterprises are the largest contributor to the economy. 

I read and listen a lot bad about Pakistan and which is sometimes also reflected in my writings. This is failure of our society in particular and the world in general to conceive and recongnize the highest value projects from our country. Until recently we were unaware of a giant leap towards the betterment of our micro businesses. Today I read a news about Harvard University inviting Dr. Amjad Saqib today to address students at Harvard for his Microfinancing (Qarz-e-Hasana) Programme. When I read this news, I immediately opened wikipedia to see his name in the prominent contributors towards microfinancing and to my surprise, I couldn't get anything about him or Pakistan while the page says a lot about Grameen Bank's Muhammad Yunus and of course, the western legends. I therefore thought to put a brief account on his project and how he gained such a fame to be invited at Cambridge, Harvard and several other well-reputed institutes and awarded Presidential Award of Pakistan "Sitar-e-Imtiaz" in 2010. 

Ironically, everybody in Pakistan defends the constitution of Pakistan 1973 but its implementation even after 3 decades has never been seriously done or thought. For example, Article 38(f) requires the state to "Eliminate Riba (Interest) as early as possible" and the article 31(2)c requires to secure the proper organization of zakah and ushr (charity obligated on richer to be given to the needy)" so that a truly Islamic State could be established in Pakistan. While our whole banking systems is corrupted with and plunged into all forms of interest and nobody really bothers even to start the elimination of Riba. I don't know what they mean by "As Soon as Possible" may be I misinterpret its meaning.  

In this context and to target the funds to reach masses who actually deserve them, a well-educated development professional initiated a project in 2003. His name is Dr. Muhammad Amjad Saqib. Despite being a graduate from King Edward Medical College Lahore, Pakistan, a Graduate in Public Administration, Hurbert Humphrey Fellowship from American University, DC, and Civil Services DMG, he became prominent by founding Akhuwat Foundation, first ever Interest Free Microfinancing. In order to reach the target audience, the foundation operates from churches and mosques to targeted to poverty alleviation, micro-finance, social mobilization and education management. 

The distinguishing features marked by this foundation are as follows:

1) Giving Interest free loans upto PKR 10,000 and this loan amount is repayable in 10-12 installments

2) Financed and benefited 130,000 families with total amount of PKR 2 Billion

3) No security or loan guarantee required for financing

4) Recorded highest rate of loan recovery in the whole world marking the rate 99,85%

5) Largest foundation of interest-free loan in the whole world

6) The other preeminent microfinancing foundation like Grameen Bank requires up to 40% of interest while Akhuwat is based on zero interest rate. 
7) Transforming borrowers into Donors whereby those who are able to successfully start their business/ project have the opportunity to donate to spread the virtues. 

8) The highest loan recovery rate also establishes the fact that our nation is not a bunch of dishonest and corrupt people - when trust is invested in us, we can mark records for integrity and probity


The link to the official website of Akhuwat is: http://www.akhuwat.org.pk

Today on Pakistan day, March 23, 2012, Dr. Saqib will be addressing the Harvard students the merits of interest-free loans given to the deserving people but I wonder if such people can also earn any "Material" acknowledgement from western society like our Shermeen Obaid Chinoy from Karachi, Pakistan who  received that recognition by getting an Oscar for her movie "Saving Face". She has been making documentaries on the negative faces of our society sometimes a bit exaggerated and in return receives a lot of applause from the world. I hope that they will treat Dr. Saqib equally though he is presenting the other side of the coin showing we Pakistanis to be honest, loyal, honorable, intellectual and  intelligent nation. Let us see if the world can remove the tag from us regarding our nation as Rabble (as shown by Ms. Chinoy) to a Nation (by Dr. Saqib) - Fingers Crossed :)

Five Forms of Government Explained

The video below gives an account on five basic forms of Government which are:

1) Monarchy (Rule by one person)

2) Oligarchy (Rule by a small handful of people)

3) Democracy (Rule by majority of the citizens)

4) Republic (Rule by law)

5) Anarchy (No government)

Please watch this to get a quick overview of these forms of governments. 

Five Basic Forms of Goverment

After watching this video, I have the following opinions or confusions:

My views in context of Pakistan:

When Pakistan was founded, the name given to it was "Islamic Republic of Pakistan". The Pakistani passport I am holding shows the same name. I studied in my high school that the system of Pakistan is based on "Sovereignty of God". This makes it a Republic State means ruling on the basis of Shariah. Now I am in utter confusion. We call Pakistan a democratic country and our leaders bluntly raise the slogans "Sovereignty of People". 

My questions from our leader is "Are you telling me something I am never taught"? Why our syllabus is conflicting with practical aspects of leading the country? 

My views in context of India:

Being the biggest democracy of the world (as they say it), is it not your duty to prove to the world that "Democracy is the best". How can you show that? Just with the recent economic growth? Is there any reduction in the crimes per capita owing to this super form of leadership? When other big nations ruling on Democracy are failing, how are you going to defend this best form of government? How can you show the fruits and merits of Democracy? Is there anything to learn from the failing governments of say Greece, Portugal, Italy, USA etc. 

All insightful views are welcome! 

Mijn eerste blog in nederlands

Dit is mijn eerste blog in nederlands. Ik had beloofd om een blog in nederlands schrijven na het passeren mijn nederlands tentamen. Zo, een goede nieuws is dat ik voor mijn nederlands examen geslaagd ben. De tentamen was niet zo moelijk maar heb ik altijd een bang voor examen. Bovendien, in vergelijken met "Dutch for Beginners", "Dutch Intermediate" is veel verschillend en moelijker. Het niveau van biede boeken is heel verschillend met elkaar. In het begin van Dutch Intermediate, ik vind het heel moelijk. Maar God maakte het makkelijker voor mij. Hij gaf me vrienden die me geholpen veel. Één van mijn vrienden is Boukje. Ze hielp mij met mijn huiswerk, mijn tentamen, en moedigde me aan nederlands te leren. Op mijn verjaardag, gaf ze mij cadeaus die me kon helpen in nederlands te leren. De tijd voor een kopje thee het beste was voor ons te oefenen. Met dank aan haar. Ze is een goede vriend voor mijn en mijn collega. Mijn ander collega Marloes helpt me ook met mijn huiswerk en oefenen. Terwijl het doen een moelijke taak, moet je heel wat aanmoedinging. Ik heb het veel van mijn collega's. Voor meer nederlands te leren, moet ik oefenen meer en meer "doodling". Ik ben doodling veel deze dagen. Terwijl ik naar mijn kantoor, ik doodle altijd. Mischien de mannen onderweg denken dat ik gek ben. Ik geniet van doodling! omdat het helpt bij het leren.

Ik heb een grap te tellen. Toen we nederlands leren, waren we maken veel fouten. Hadden we een veel intelligente dame in onze groep. Een dag, kom ze laat. De leraar vraagt hoe gaat het ermee. Ze zeg dat ik mooie ben. Ze bedoelde te zeggen  "Ik ben Moe (tired)" maar ze zegt "Ik ben Mooie" (Beautiful). De leraar zei dat ja, je mooi bent maar het is raar om te zeggen het zelf. we lachen veel. Dergelijke fouten komen veel in taalcurssen.

Ik weet dat ik veel fouten in mijn blog gemaakt. Ik laat het aan mijn nederlandse lezen om mijn te corrigeren. Dus ik houdt het bewerken van dit blog.

Een mooie dag verder voor jullie allemaal en Tot ziens,

Food for thought!

Did you ever encounter a situation when you meet somebody and you want to run away from them? I read a book during my childhood about spiritual knowledge and the author explained how our bodies disseminate rays and how people meeting us are affected by those rays. The author explained how you can analyze the rays that your body is disseminating by standing in front of a mirror for few minutes. I would partially disagree because such a process will have external influences as you have a tendency to misjudge yourself. 

When two persons meet and they both encounter with the rays that the other person is discharging, each one of them takes a decision to withhold the relationship or to carry it on. We, as we see, are not made up of a body with complex compound chemicals rather we are made up of rays. When this ray or light gets into a dead piece of mass, people see us. They see us as if we are beautiful or have some defect in the body. To prove this, ask some mother who will find her daughter the most beautiful girl in the world. Why this happens, because a mother is unable to see your outer self. You belong to her and she knows you from the time you were not existing. Therefore, we are all the time under a mass of lights and rays and we never recognize this truth nature has entrusted in us. This is a complex phenomenon. I am not a psychologist, or psychiatrist, or physiologist. I don't need to be one to understand this process. Science says that your retina gets more than half time of its original size when you see something that you like. This is something physical that can be measured, I just know what I feel from inside when I see my loved ones. I cannot forget the smile my 6 months old niece was giving me when I was facing a very difficult time of my life. Based on this, we love each other or we hate and we develop a strong telepathy with people who are closed to us. For example, we siblings constitute the similar chemical material while our chemistry is so different from each other that we have a strong tendency to hate their spouses while our siblings are deeply in love with them. Other than that, we rarely share the group of friends among our siblings. This clarifies that belonging to the same chemical composition does not mean belonging to the same set of rays or light. We love our siblings emotionally, deeply and whatever because nature is playing its role here. Its one of the miracles of Allah that he forms strong affinity among people who are otherwise so much different in the true me. As Allah explains in Al-Quran: 

30:21 And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He has put love and mercy between your [hearts]: Verily in that are Signs for those who reflect.

And therefore it is amongst His greatest blessings that despite sharing nothing in common, you live with someone really strange to you, sharing no habit no part of nature yet  you spend the whole life with them. I always wonder how we chose from a number of classmates only one Best Friend, and that remains our friend for decades and sometimes Till Death Do Us Part. 

This phenomenon enhances the polarization of people towards a particular group and creates tendency to pull the like-minded people towards them. This is the beginning of an end. This mutual grouping is part of nature but does not appreciate creating hatred and hostility. We do not accept others thoughts, ideas, language, color, caste, countries, religion, schools, thoughts, likes, dislikes, nature, style, and we ought to IMPOSE our nature on to the others. And WHHOOOOOOO everything ends. Why? Just imagine how world would have been if Almighty had created everything in White? Secondly, in the absence of all heterogeneity, the tendency for human to grow becomes limited as opposing views come from "within group". 

This is not an abrupt end, this is an open question, a food for thought for my readers! and I leave it up to them to give the end a shape! 

Need of an Economic Reform

For the last couple of months, I was thinking to work on a project - creating awareness on the weaknesses of current economic system and need for economic reformation. In the previous months, I saw some well-known lawyers and writers in Pakistan are working on similar projects but their goals are more quantitative while I am working only on the awareness side. This was a great motivation for me to kick start my work. Of course, European and American Economies which are suffering a lot from Economic turmoil are also working hard but I would like to make a bold argument here. Despite being a student of economics, I see serious loopholes and weaknesses on the grounds they have been working on. Anyone can see it whether knowing economics or not. For that reason, I posted some earlier blogs to set a ground for my discussion. In this blog, I would like to summarize the issues covering global economic crisis, their basis and how an efficient economic system can be developed to address them. My later blogs inshAllah would cover the important issues in detail. I don't intend to bring up a theory of my own, I am not John Maynard Keynes or Adam Smith or any of the fathers, mothers, or uncles of economics (I don't intend to be one) and I would again like to bring a bold statement here, I am not convinced with the models they presented. If Keynes economic model was so stable and value enhancing, our current economies which are based on his theories would not have such a steep downfall. I know much better economists - those who are surely not in your knowledge. The economies developed on their models resulted 100% employment, 100% sponsors but no one requiring assistance or any financing needs. Its a pity that world is totally unaware of such economic systems even those who know, give a deaf ear to them. 

We have to reckon upon the fact that today, bigger economies are falling down. Who would have expected American Economy to have such a great fallback or Italian Economy taking its last sighs. How euro is surviving the austerity is a big question mark but we cannot say how long Germany and France would be able to carry the dead weight loss of dying economies of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece. These are not small countries or economies. Anyways, I do not want to spend too much time here on European Crisis as there will be more posts carrying the needed stuff.

I presume most of my readers are not economists therefore I would not go technical :) I don't understand forces of supply and demand therefore I saw the simplest definition of economics on wiki (surprisingly) "Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Goods and Services in the Economy". Now I put my wiki on one side and try to put my own concepts here. How the Production, Distribution and Consumption is taking place? What is the basis on which everything is circulating. Its a Piece of Paper, its a darling of all of us and we all know it. Its name is "Currency". In my definition, "Money is a miraculous piece of paper which forms the basis of all the valuable things in the world (except morals)". When I say piece of paper, please try to hear the sarcasm in my words. Is it not astonishing that Queen Elizabeth's biggest palace worth so and so much dollars which are some pieces of papers, Sultan Brunei's gold aircraft worth a couple of pieces of paper - everything valuable on this earth worth some pieces of papers. The ups and downs of these currencies take place through a very vague process and in an unexpected event, you can fall down from hero to zero. Your Net Worth can be your Net Liabilities. What is behind such dramatic events? A "Paper currency". So my first target would be the reformation of system in which we value things. 

A paper currency is a non-trivial issue, paving way for such economic models that have ruined us from the roots. We assume everything is going to be alright once we are back on track and once countries start to grow in real terms. It is not possible now. We have opened a box of evils and the only key to close it back is to reform:

1) The mode of Exchange

2) The mode of Financing

3) The mode of Taxation

Only these three. I am not a scholar therefore, I would be taking some or more of the stuff from scholars based on my comprehensions. Just a request, if you would like to add something to my small scale project, please feel free to do that. Also, please motivate me to keep up my very small level work by criticizing, adding and communicating with me. I want to give my share to the world, my motive is to make it a better place to live in. Please let me know if you have different ideas about it. Let us contribute even the smallest thing we can! to make our world a better place to live in! I thank you very much in advance and Wishing you all a very happy 2012.