Adil Ahmad

Five ‘Friends of Bhit Island ’ Celebrate Pakistan ’s Independence Day Rounding Up Support at the Neighboring Karachi Yacht Club Grey skies and rain greeted the 14 th of August 2013, but the Parade and Independence Day celebrations went on, dastardly terrorist attacks and threats of societal disruption not withstanding. The Karachi Yacht Club (KYC), picturesque and serene, organized a Sailing Regatta for its ‘Tindals’, the local term for professional sailors employed at the Club to teach and assist aspiring amateur sailor-members and take care of their yachts. Five ‘Friends of Bhit Island’ (Shehla, Ahmed, Ali, Adil and Moin) spent an exhilarating half day watching the races, playing water polo, and networking with the KYC membership raising support for the fight against marine pollution that has very adversely impacted the populations of the neighboring islands, in particular Bhit Island. Quite a few KYC Tindals are settled in Bhit Island , and it is hoped that the KYC sai...

Dawn, Friday, June 12, 1992 OUR OWN TRASH...... By Adil Ahmad Trash is a strong word. It conjures up all sorts of negative images - from the garbage heaps on the roadsides, to the Kalashnikov wielding, little birdbrain variety. All manner of trash gets generated in every society, the wisdom and stature of a society is determined by the reclaim ability, or recycle ability of that trash. What are we doing about refining our trash? At the moment it is stinking up the neighborhood. It is clogging the wheels of progress. It is degrading us as human beings. You can't walk the streets of your neighborhood at night after dinner. There is all manner of foulness lurking in the shadows. The trash is overflowing, over the top and all around. The potholes are wide open and the roads all dug up. Does it begin to sound distressing?! We haven't come around to the real trash yet. The kind that gives you blood pressure and ulcers, or just an old fashioned cardiac arrest! These ar...

Good news, bad news By Adil Ahmad (http://www.squashclub.org/main/resources/articles/squash_history/good_news_bad_news.shtml) Past chairman of the Karachi Squash Association, former head of the national selection committee, chef de mission and team manager of the 1981  Pakistan  squash team which won the World Championship in  Sweden Squash has a special place in every Pakistani's heart. It is not just a mere game for us. Squash has provided for us vital encouragement at a critical time in our development as a society and a nation, writes Adil Ahmad The dynamics of change can cut both ways. Things can get better and better, and then begin to deteriorate as a consequence of complacency, concentration lapses, and sometimes even malafide intent. Or the reverse may apply, with an alarming downhill progression - characterized by confusion, chaos, loss of credibility, and respectability - arrested by a re-energizing of the moral fibre, a re-awakening of the ...

The Dawn, Friday, October 11, 1993 AN EVIL NECESSITY By Adil Ahmad The land of the might Indus has witnessed a transition in time. It has withstood the ravages of northern invaders, playing host to some unpleasant visitors. Traditional hospitality and open heartedness on the part of local inhabitants has been mistaken for a submissive servility resulting in the guest overstaying his welcome, and the start of tensions invariably leading to full-fledged wars and hostilities. Modern times have seen this land united under the seal of common religious belief, but little else. In Islam the religious fervour shared by its adherents should theoretically have surmounted petty regional differences. It should have provided for a unanimous viewpoint vis-à-vis the stated national objective - to inculcate and propagate the teachings of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). But 1414 years later no leader has yet emerged to unite all the petty, warning factions. Each generation without the s...

The Dawn, Friday, February 12, 1993 LIFE IN THE FEUDAL LANE By Adil Ahmad IT NEVER gets too hectic in the feudal lane. Life carries on and nothing ever changes. Sure there is progress, or signs of it at least. The feudal has taken the urban strongholds by storm! He mixes it in with the most 'civilised' of them, and often becomes an indispensable part of their evenings. He is out there in the legislative arenas, full of sound and fury signifying quite a bit, actually! The feudal is our very own, homegrown aristocrat, irrespective of what our European community might have to say about it. He romanticizes the lords and masters of an age gone by, and he symbolizes the dreams and aspirations of his people. Sometime, it does get hectic in the feudal lane. There are other lanes alongside it running at a feverish pitch. They all run in the same direction. Towards peace and prosperity. The feudal survives in splendid isolation, for a while at least. But the genera...

Editor's Note - The flood season is around the corner, and it will do us well to revisit the experience obtained from the 2010 effort. AMAN FOUNDATION IN FLOOD RELIEF WORK Interviewed by Adil Ahmad, Editor, TCS CONNECT Corporate Magazine, January 2011 They were very quick out of the blocks and mobilized an international team of water paramedics, along with twenty Zodiac inflatable watercrafts for rescue and relief work. I heard Ahsan Jamil (CEO, Aman Foundation) talk live via telephone from Jacobabad to the assembly of expert guests on Ayesha Tammy Haq’s talk show on the Business Plus TV channel. While he came across as lucid and analytical, I could sense a quiet desperation in his voice that conveyed an impression of being overwhelmed by circumstances, and a tacit acceptance of the same. “That was at the end of the first day of roaming 60 kilometers on the water and doing the rescue work. I was sitting in a single cabin truck squashed between the foreign parame...

GOOD SAMARITAN Dr. Sania Nishtar Founder & President Heartfile Report filed by Adil Ahmad (Editor, TCS CONNECT Corporate Magazine) Rana and Saeed Allawala, both members of the Heartfile Leaders Network, hosted a reception recently at which Dr. Sania Nishtar, the Founder and President of Heartfile, introduced the Heartfile Health Financing Program, her global award winning social protection program which protects people from foregoing medical care, or being pushed into poverty as a result of medical costs.. Heartfile is a non-profit NGO think tank with a focus on policy analysis and innovative solutions for improving health systems in Pakistan . “Here at Heartfile, we seek to act with integrity, to be inclusive, and to work co-operatively while retaining our independence at all times,” says Dr. Sania Nishtar. Heartfile was established by   Dr. Sania Nishtar who, in 1999, left a lucrative career as Pakistan ’s first woman cardiologist to establish the NGO. Hea...

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM THE MILITARY  Harvard Business Review (November 2010) Reviewed by Adil Ahmad (Editor, TCS CONNECT Corporate News Magazine) Ever since the TCS Case Study started getting taught at the Harvard Business School, we at TCS have begun taking a closer look at the Harvard Business Review, much to our great good fortune! Martial races are not uncommon in the land of the mighty Indus. The many different people who populate the territories that Pakistan now encompasses have in their lineage ancestors who lived the Spartan life of warriors, and spent their waking hours in the saddle, or trekking long distances in search of glory on the battlefield, and turning their swords into ploughshares during times of peace. COMPLEXITIES OF STAYING COMPETITIVE Given such an inheritance, and faced with the complexities of staying competitive in the modern day connected global village, I was delighted to find the Harvard Business Review (November 2010) ca...

TONY BUZAN COMES TO TOWN Think Ingeniously – Enhance Creativity – Boost Productivity By Adil Ahmad,  Editor, Octara  www.octara.com  PULL QUOTE: “Having struggled through my student days, I was determined that everyone should have the benefit of this liberating thinking tool” – Tony Buzan In measured manner the father of Mind Maps put forth his treasured thoughts that have brought about a global revolution in the way the human brain can be optimized for knowledge retention. Over 200 high powered delegates registered for this one-of-a-kind seminar, representing a cross section of Pakistani trade, commerce and industry. Most were familiar with the content on offer. Mind Mapping has been around for the last four decades. But the occasion was unique for it offered the privilege and pleasure of hearing it from the horse’s mouth, as it were. Octara’s latest offering, Tony Buzan, is an international celebrity and the world’s leading author on the brain a...

Dawn, Friday, September 10, 1993 IN DEFENCE OF 'CORRUPTION' By Adil Ahmad Talk about corruption and accountability has been fashionable for quite a while in our very fashion conscious society. Everybody talks about corruption, and the havoc it plays into our everyday lives. The cop, the taxman, the water-man, the electricity-man, the gas-man, the phone-man, and every other official kind of man comes in for a lot of stick as the 'aggrieved' pick daintily at caviar and sip all manner of exotic brews brought in from distant lands. What exactly is it that they are talking about? What is this 'corruption'? And if so many people feel so strongly about it, then why is it so enduring? In the Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary corruption is variously defined as 'to make putrid, to taint, to debase, to spoil, to destroy the purity of, to pervert, to bribe'. One thing that immediately becomes very clear from the above is the undesirab...