Possible Action against Celcos For Suspending SMS Packages During Eid

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) is considering action against Telenor and Mobilink over a reported withdrawal of SMS bundle offers during Eidul Fitr days without prior notice to customers, reported Dawn Newspaper."We have taken note of the withdrawal of the SMS bundle," said paper, while quoting PTA chairman Dr Muhammad Yasin.
"We are probing the matter before we take a decision to initiate a legal action. The authority will protect consumers' rights." He said the investigation would soon be finalised.
The two operators reportedly suspended their package for three Eid days and charged their subscribers between 20-paisa and Re1 per SMS.
About a possible refund of the amount paid by the customers on Eid days, Dr Yasin said the matter would be decided after investigation.
By the middle of this year, according to the PTA, the number of mobile phone users in Pakistan had reached over 95 million. Mobilink was leading with 29.5 million customers, Telenor 21.2 million, Ufone 20.5 million, Warid 18.1 million and Zong (CM Pak) 6.4 million.
Via ProPakistani.PK

Motorola Employees to Volunteer in Pakistan on Global Day of Service

Employees in 41 countries participate in over 300 projects with a focus on environmental sustainability
More than 100 Motorola, Inc. employees volunteered in the three cities including Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi today during the company's fourth annual global community service program. This year's Global Day of Service, themed "Green & Global," engaged nearly 8,000 Motorola employees in 41 countries and included volunteer projects focused on sustainable solutions for improved education and the environment.
Motorola employees spent half the work day supporting more than 300 projects that addressed a variety of community concerns, including education, environmental sustainability and social services.
Locally, SOS Children's Village of Pakistan benefited from Motorola's work at three of its sites.
"We are humbled by the opportunity to work with such dedicated organizations for a fourth year in a row to better the communities where we work and live," said, Rao Amir Sultan, Country Manager, Motorola. "Hand in hand with our partner organizations, the Global Day of Service allows us to work towards our common goals of better education, social support and protecting our environment."
As in years past, for each participating Motorola employee, the Motorola Foundation will fund the planting of a tree in one of five deforested regions of the world through a partnership with Carbonfund.org, reducing the day's carbon footprint. This year, every employee who reuses a Motorola T-shirt from a previous company event will get a total of five trees planted in their honour. Reinforcing the company's commitment to re-cycling, Motorola employees are encouraged to bring in used mobile phones for recycling to earn more trees.
"The spirit of volunteerism behind Motorola's Global Day of Service is commendable and SOS Children Villages of Pakistan is privileged to be part of this initiative each year," said Mrs. Ghazal Rehman, National Director, SOS Children's Village of Pakistan.  "We aim to raise orphaned and abandoned children in a family environment, ensuring they become contributing members of society.  The important issues addressed in the annual theme help sensitize our children towards the challenges facing our planet."
With a rich heritage of giving since 1953, Motorola Foundation and employees from all divisions come together each year to organize the annual service event that promotes teamwork and enables colleagues company-wide to engage with organizations addressing critical social issues.
Motorola's commitment to environmental sustainability does not end when the Global Day of Service is over. Since 2005, Motorola has reduced its carbon footprint by 20 percent by implementing energy-saving measures, consolidating facilities and purchasing renewable energy. For 2009, Motorola is purchasing more than 78 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of Green-e certified renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated from wind-power sources.
Via ProPakistani.PK

Intel & Dell Partner to Bring New and Innovative Products to the Local Market

Intel Pakistan & Dell Pakistan together conducted a series of road shows with notebooks cloaked in Cherry Red, Alpine White, Pretty Pink, Gecko Green and a whole array of other colors, accessorized with crisp widescreen displays to meet user's specific needs.The new products and services were showcased at a colorful event, with famous VJ Ayesha Omar and designer Munib Nawaz gracing the event. This event provided the visitors with a great visual experience resulting in holistic product know-how. Experts were also present at the venue to provide clear information on the high performance products that are tailored to the needs of specific consumer groups.
"The Dell Consumer series, based on Intel processors has embarked on a colorful and exhilarating journey in Pakistan. Our tagline' Yours is Here', religiously followed, exhibits that knowing our customers is what we do best. The personality of each SKU is uniquely positioned for customers that seek a high definition lifestyle at the best price points. Our killer products, the Inspiron portfolio and Studio series are responsible for creating some fantastic ripples in the market," said Nubla Iftikhar, Marketing Manager for Consumer and SMB for Dell Pakistan.
Asma Aziz, Marketing Programs Manager of Intel Pakistan Corporation, included "Intel is passionate about providing value to its consumers. It is exciting to see Dell's combining its effort in bringing new and innovative products to the local market. Intel and Dell are working together to harbor the creation of futuristic technology in Pakistan. Bringing Intel's award winning micro architecture along with other superior features, these products will provide a whole new performance experience to its users."
The notebooks are based on Intel Core microprocessors which are enabled by powerful multi-core technology. Providing all the bandwidth you need for next-generation highly-threaded applications, enabling faster, cooler, and better battery life notebook experiences. Built on a foundation of great features and design, the notebooks can deliver on what customers want, need and do with their individual digital experiences. World-class widescreen displays on notebooks support hi-definition lifestyle activities like watching movies, sharing photos, or shopping on the internet. A rich palette of seven color choices, including Red, Midnight Blue and Obsidian Black, gives notebook customers the opportunity to truly express themselves.
Dell has stressed on purchase with warranty cards to cater to genuine Dell products in Pakistan.
Via ProPakistani.PK

660 Million Text Messages Were Exchanged During Eid in Pakistan: Acision

Acision has announced that over 660 million text messages were delivered across its messaging systems during a 48 hour period in Pakistan, over the 2009 Eid festive season. With 95 million mobile subscribers representing 58% of the mobile penetration rate, Pakistan is one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world.
"It is becoming very normal for SMS volumes to peak during festive seasons, mainly due to consumers opting to send SMS greetings because it is inexpensive, easy to use and supported by 100% of all mobile handsets in the market. One of the key drivers for SMS traffic growth in this market is the introduction of SMS bundles this year for the prepaid segment. With mobile users taking advantage of such bundles, SMS volumes are rising to new record levels to over half a billion being processed in just two days. These figures demonstrate that SMS is still the preferred choice for communicating and is set to remain the most dominant data revenue driver for Pakistan mobile operators." Sherif Hamoudah, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Acision in Middle East, Africa and Pakistan said.
With SMS volumes continuing to increase year on year, Acision sees ample opportunities for operators to double SMS service revenues through innovations in messaging, and differentiation in the messaging experience through value added enhancements that provide convenience and productivity.
"Operators too, are realising that SMS must be managed in parallel to its overall business.  By growing a messaging business on an open architecture mobile operators can rapidly roll out new services. The scalable nature of the Acision SMSC means that operators messaging systems can effortlessly handle substantial increases in volumes of messages within seconds. As the world's leading messaging company, Acision has extensive global market reach which means we have a better insight into the present and future requirements of mobile operators and mobile subscribers." Hamoudah added.
Via ProPakistani.PK

Employees Suffering due to Huawei’s Unfulfilled Promises

Huawei has not paid bonus, annual leaves encashment and other benefits to Mr. Jehanzeb Taj, who was Manager HR at the company last year.
We had covered a comprehensive story over the topic, however, Huawei has still not paid a single penny to Mr. Jehanzeb despite promises from senior management at the company. Mr. Taj has sent the company a legal notice for his illegal termination and huge losses to him due to Huawei.
In a letter published in a Islamabad based English Magazine 'Solidarity', Mr. Jehanzeb has produced email communication between him and Huawei officials.
Solidarity Magazine narrates Mr. Jehanzeb's letter as following

I seek your support for including my grievance letter against HUAWEI for not fulfilling its written commitments and promises given me to "pay bonus, annual leaves encashment and other benefits due to be paid in return of my service".
They wasted my valuable time, damaged my career, and shattered my confidence on written assurance and caused financial disorder to me. I want to quote their promises made with me through email, for the respectable readers so that everyone must know and also share with their close ones about HUAWEI as a company.

Following are the scans of Emails, and are re-produced as they were published in Solidarity Magazine.

The bonus has been paid in Jul 2009 to all employees but my valuable contributions have been ignored and Aug 2009 has also passed but company's promises are still not fulfilled. I let the readers and concerned officials to decide and intervene to enable me have my legal benefits and rights, also committed in words by Huawei's management.
Actually this has become the culture of Huawei to promise verbally and in writing where the employee demands his/her rights and benefits.
Similarly, promises made at the start for salary, probation period, promotion, employment contract type and other benefits are altered when an employee resigns from his/her previous job and joins Huawei, and employees are left with no choice other than frustration and de-motivation.
Muhammad Taj Rasool Jehanzeb
HR Manager of Huawei Pakistan

We tried to contact Huawei's PR department for their viewpoint over the issue, but we didn't get any response.

i-mate Closes its Business

Based in United Arab Emirates, i-mate made its name rebadging HTC-made Windows Mobile phones.
Now, market sources have revealed the closure of the firm. Staff were told to take two months' unpaid leave last week, the story said, although they subsequently found out the next day that the company was permanently shut down.
Complete details available here

Right Solution at Right Time for the Right Business

By Muhammad Altaf
Businesses and organizations are progressing and achieving success on an unpredictable speed. It is thus necessary for organizations to consider such a solution that not only fulfills their existing needs, but also feed the business to achieve more.
Data is a vital part for the survival of the business. The information processing on data gives an edge to the business to turn their dreams into reality. The realization of this fact gives a thought to the business to opt a solution of data warehousing.
Every growing organization is looking for a best solution for their business needs. These business needs are fulfilled by not only some specific business questions, rather these are fed by ad-hoc analysis as well. These needs can be achieved when enough data is available and the underlying platform is capable of extracting and presenting this information in timely and useful manner.  It is, therefore, necessary to opt for a solution that is in line with the business vision.
Every organization is concerned about which platform to choose? Which RDBMS / data warehousing solution will help them achieve their business needs and align their data to present not only the current picture of the data, rather to perform state-of-the-art ideas and thoughts by the visionaries, management, marketing staff and other departments.
In this article I will put some of the vital concerns in front of the organizations which can be helpful to take a right decision in the early stages of going for the data warehousing and deciding the underlying data warehousing solution for their business needs.
Business Model: Business model is what represent the business. If the model is scattered and doesn't provide a single integrated view of the business, it becomes difficult to extract accurate and useful information in timely manner. Thus business model is an important factor to decide along with other factors. It is equally important that business models should be flexible enough to accommodate and integrate new applications without major changes in the system.
Data Storage: Every day business is growing and thus the data is increasing. It is necessity of the business to select a solution that can easily accommodate large volume of data. The secret of success lies in the detailed data. It is identical to the fact that as much history one knows, one is in better position to give accurate prediction and analysis of future. Similarly, if large amount of data is available for analysis, it will place the business in better position to find the business trends and align the future needs and vision.
Number of Concurrent Users: With the growth of business, the users involved in querying the data for information and analysis increases. It, therefore, becomes an important consideration to choose a platform that can accommodate future needs of the users and may not appear costly with the number of users, both in terms of financials and manageability. On the other hand, if a business wants to grow, it has to do early analysis and have to indulge all the visionaries, marketing staff, managers and other departments in such analysis to be in better position for the competition and growth.
Workload: The underlying platform not only support for specific type of workload, rather it must provide a support for all the future applications and analysis. Businesses that are static in nature can never grow. Such business, however, may fade away with time, and may be cited as lessons learned from past. Along with time, business has to adopt new and business friendly methods for their platform to achieve more from what they invested.
For example, initially the workload may be only weekly batches, which then along with business requirements, understanding and growth can go to daily batches, and then eventually to ad-hoc queries, near real time data feeds and finally the active data warehousing destiny. The same cycle is true for reporting and business analysis as well. Therefore, it becomes necessary that the underlying platform have the capability to transform and can run hand in hand along with the business
Query Data Volume: Ask your self, whether the kind of analysis is performed will always be returning a single data element, or will it always be returning a huge volume of data? The answer is certainly NO. Query data volume is dependent on the kind of analysis and the volume of data available in the data warehouse. However, it is important that all kind of query data volume is appropriately supported by the solution. Moreover, it is also important that it is handled effectively.
For example, if only few rows have to be returned then there should be some mechanism to access the data efficiently (like indexes etc). Therefore, the concern should not only be how effectively it handles large volume of data, rather how efficiently it is handling / accessing small volume of data. There should be less cost involved with respect to system resource utilization (like memory, I/O etc).
Query Complexity: Growth leads to increase in data volume, and data volume leads to complexity of the business needs. It is relatively easy to start from ground and make a rapid success, however it is very difficult to maintain it and yet make more progress. The complexity of analysis increases, the complexity of business nature increase and thus it needs a solution that not only support for their simple needs, rather also support for complex nature of the business. In the beginning, there might be a couple of entities (or joins) of interest to the business users, however, after some time they might require to join more than dozen of entities to give a new value to the business.
Parallelism: The concept is similar to treating customer. Business wants to satisfy the entire customer and give them the level of importance necessary for it without delaying any of them. The same concept is true for the queries and other operations for the data warehousing, that is, every request should be treated like customers, without making them wait un-necessarily. This can be achieved only if the underlying platform supports parallelism in true sense.
Most of the platforms support all of the above. But it doesn't mean that all suits business needs. The question is not whether these are supported by the vendor or not, the question is, what the efficiency of the solution, when all of them are evaluated simultaneously. Every platform supports large volume of data, every platform supports concurrent users, but what are the limitations of the platform when these are required together? What will be the threshold when all of them are executed at the same time? Benchmark is not always a solution; similarly, answer to individual questions is not always a requirement, rather what will be the behavior of the underlying platform with all of the questions operating at the same time.
It is necessary that the right decision should be made for the first time. The return on investment (ROI) should be calculated to find the business value from the solution, because it becomes more costly and time consuming to migrate later to another platform. Remember the adage; intelligent people learn from their own mistakes, wise people learn from the mistakes of others. Similarly, right business requires right decisions in time.
Writer is Manager IT at Pakistan Telecom Mobile Limited (UFONE).

Pakistan Telecom Sector Growing Faster than India: PTA Chief

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Dr Mohammad Yasin has said that Pakistan telecommunication sector has been growing faster than that of India with over 62 percent teledensity, encouraging the foreign direct investment (FDI), during an interview with Business Recorder. Dr. Yasin said that India lagged far behind Pakistan with 37 percent teledensity as compared to 62 percent in Pakistan.
He added that Pakistan's FDI policy was much more liberal than that of India to attract more investment in Pakistan telecom sector. The PTA Chairman said that the ever-growing teledensity of Pakistan was giving new opportunities to the investors for better returns, especially in the field of data services. Services like mobile internet, mobile banking and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) hold fortunes for any wise investor.
"Telecom analysts around the world still believe in Pakistan to be a lucrative market and Business Monitor forecasts that mobile subscribers in Pakistan would hit 100-million mark by next year", Yasin said. The sector has been growing at a rapid pace where growth rates have become the hallmark. However, slow growth was witnessed for the first time ever last year, he added.
Although slow growth, of only 7 percent, was observed in mobile sector last year, this trend cannot be attributed only to saturation as there are factors like international financial crisis, devaluation of rupee, security situation and re-registration of SIM programme.
"We do agree that saturation is there, but only in metropolitan areas. Moreover, the people are still keeping more than one SIM. So, one can say that sector would continue to grow though not as fast as before", he said. He said that PTA was trying level best to bring more growth to the sector and was taking every possible regulatory measure to ensure healthy competition beneficial to the telecom users.
"PTA has taken a number of initiatives which are proving to be very helpful, especially in the field of broadband proliferation, LDI re-emergence, and WiMax popularity", said Dr Yasin. He further said that PTA was focusing on growth of broadband. Currently the number of subscribers is 0.4 million approximately, whereas growth rate of broadband services was 146 percent in 2008-09.
He said that WiMax has a brilliant future in Pakistan and this is further strengthened by the promising start of companies like Wateen, Wi-Tribe, etc. "With more companies jumping into the market, the competition level will rise to compel the companies to bring down the tariffs, especially CPE charge", he added.
The PTA Chairman said that in addition, other technologies like Evolution Data Only/Evolution Data Optimised (EVDO) and WorldCall introduced in Pakistan by PTCL are gaining good momentum. He said that Mobile internet held a very bright future in a country where mobile penetration was more than 57 percent.
"However, the only setback that our mobile subscriber has is low literacy rate that hampers use of internet. Also, the lack of availability of local content is another reason, which could pose problems for wider adoption of internet by mobile community," he added.
"PTA is now focused on content development and aggregation, especially for education purposes", he said. Dr Yasin said that he did not believe that there was room for monopolies in the sector. "However, we do have to face the Significant Market Player (SMP) operator's issues with rest of the players".
"We do determine the SMP operator in each segment of telecom on yearly basis. We have also drafted competition rules that clearly protect operators from any anti-competitive practices by SMP's", he added. He said that looking at the current market situation where a feeling of price war was obvious, one could say that product differentiation could be possible on quality and easy availability basis.
Regarding improving 'Average Revenue Per User' (ARPU), he said that improvement in ARPU's data service like m-banking or mobile internet would be the solution. "Maybe, 95 million mobile users will be waiting to open their accounts", he added. He further said that currently in Pakistan five cellular operators have healthy competitive environment.
"Due to growing revenues and fair competition in the market, I believe that operators will continue to provide telecom services in Pakistan and value-addition and innovation is way forward for telecom operators' growth", he said. About 3G service in Pakistan he said, "Each and every technology and service has its future, and it caters a potential segment of the society."
Via Business Recorder

Rozee and Ufone Create UJob Portal

Ufone and Rozee have partnered to launch a mobile version of the Rozee job portal. This allows user sto get mobile alerts (called U-Job Alerts) and if they have GPRS enabled phone, even apply right there. Users have to setup their profile (city, job category) and subscribe to the service before they start getting alerts. Job alerts will entail Job title, company information and job ID. GPRS Users also have the option to apply for a particular Job by accessing WAP link in the SMS alert.
How useful will this service be?
For some job seekers, getting the right alert on their phone can be very useful, especially in this economy. For others, this could add to the long list of apps which send out sms left and right. From the point of view of employers, it means that they will get a lot of hastily sent resumes. As Mansoor writes, sometimes sending a CV quickly is important but a well-written cover letter is even more important.
Eventually, it all depends on how good is the filtering and personalization — otherwise it will neither help the candidates nor the employers much.

Pak-China Tech Centre asked to Offer Online Courses

President Asif Ali Zardari advised that technical courses offered at the joint Pakistan-China Technology Center should also offer online courses to the students across the country.

He was talking to a delegation of M/S Huawei Technologies of China led by its Chief Executive Officer Ye Jingyue who called on him at the Presidency. The meeting was also attended by Luo Zhaohui, Ambassador of China in Islamabad.
The Huawei Technology of China and COMSATS University have jointly launched the Information Technology Training Programme, which would offer multiple courses of short, medium and long-term duration. Spokesperson to the President former senator Farhatullah Babar said that the joint venture was launched in pursuance of the President's recent visits to China.
Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Pakistan and Chairman COMSATS assured the President that students from all over the country would be admitted to the courses offered in the programme.
Via The Nation through APP

Another Network of Illegal Exchanges Busted

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has seized networks of illegal gateway exchanges in Karachi and Islamabad, which were causing loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer. PTA and FIA's National Response Center for Cyber Crimes (NR3C) in Karachi and Islamabad launched crack down on the networks of illegal gateway exchanges and arrested two persons from Karachi and another from Islamabad.

The raids were conducted following the information obtained through PTA facility, which detects illegal telephone traffic. Chairman PTA, Dr Mohammed Yaseen while appreciating the joint efforts of PTA and FIA teams, has given directions to PTA Zonal Offices to expedite action against such illegal activities by conducting raids throughout Pakistan.

Mobilink Donates Recycled School Bags

Mobilink provided 2,000 underprivileged students of Care Foundation with environment friendly school bags made by recycling discarded advertising skins bringing the total number of donated recycled school bags to 25,000.

The young students who have recently returned to school after their summer vacations queued up in excitement to receive the school bags at a ceremony held at CARE Foundation's Iqbal Town Campus in Sheikhupura.
Speaking on the occasion, Omar Manzur, Director Public Relations and CSR, Mobilink shared, "Mobilink applies a responsible business conduct, along-with an elaborate CSR philosophy which encourages personal involvement in community development. Through the Recycled School bags initiative, we reassert our commitment toward promoting education for the underdeveloped sections of the society while also keeping the environment in mind. We are grateful to organizations such as CARE for allowing us to contribute effectively."
The Chairperson of CARE Foundation Seema Aziz highlighted the inspirational role of the Mobilink Foundation, the grant-giving arm of Mobilink. Voicing her appreciation, Seema Aziz said, "Mobilink has consistently supported us since 2007. More than 980 students have benefited through Mobilink Foundation's assistance in supporting the operational cost of the CARE school – MC Girls High school in Harbanspura.
A group of volunteering Mobilink employees assisted the CARE staff in distribution of the school bags. Mobilink is the first and only company in Pakistan to implement a billboard skin-recycling program to reduce non-biodegradable materials from the environment.
Since the launch of the Recycled Schoolbags initiative in 2007, Mobilink has donated 25,000 bags made from recycled advertising skins to CARE Foundation, Zindagi Trust and students who took shelter at Mobilink Camp for IDPs.
As a socially responsible citizen, Mobilink has also launched Pakistan's first Handset Recycling Program to share the benefits of cellular communication with the hearing impaired and the disabled and minimize the environmental impact of cellular waste through recycling. Mobilink has also recently signed the Copenhagen Communiqué, which calls on governments to agree on an ambitious, efficient and equitable international climate framework at the final negotiating meeting in Copenhagen this December.

Nadra e-Sahulat Centers, Do We Really Need Them?

For the last two years, Nadra had been working hard to introduce stat-of–the-art facilities for its consumers. I would like to discuss one of its public related facilities in the country, called e-Sahulat Centers.

Before I go to e-Sahulat thing, let me mention here that Nadra is the largest IT based organization in our country exporting its product to various developing countries like Bangladesh and Sudan for past 3 years. Nadra has earned our country over 500 million dollar foreign exchange through its services and software export, over the years. It has been instrumental for good governance through its IT enabled products, for instance CNIC, E-passport, e-border control system and others.
Cellular companies, banks and security organizations of Pakistan are heavily relying on the Nadra for the data it has of countrymen.
We have been listening so much about Nadra's e-Sahulat in the country but it is still far away from its so called existence in the country. When last year it was inaugurated by the Federal Minster for Interior Mr. Rehman Malik, it was expected that these centers will expand swiftly and people will be eager to have these centers around them, but unfortunately this hasn't happened so far.
In its effort to keep the project alive, Nadra has now collaborated with other leading companies like Intel Pakistan and PTA to promote its e-Sahulat Centers. These franchises will offer services like utility bill payment, CNIC verification, easy load or balance transfer for the mobile and phone companies, printing, scanning and photocopy services at very easy access and low charges.
According to internal sources of Nadra, the authority has opened over 20,000 e-Sahulat centers in the country and now more than 1500 such franchises are being opened in the populated areas of the country.
Anyone who has got matriculation certificate and if he can operate a computer and have a space/shop, can apply for the franchise license with payment of the fee (which is Rs. 33,000).
This is this opportunity for the people who have good sense of business and self-employment. This is basically an extension of Nadra's e-Sahulat Centers, where people will be allowed to not only transact utility bills, but they can also offer other services, such as printing, scanning, fax and telephony services.
Registration fee of Rs. 33,000 includes cost for computer, broadband, scanner, printer and a Fax Machine. Anyone can apply for e-Sahulat center under this programme through applying at NADRA offices.
As in the past, there were some cases of fraud in the name of e-Sahulat in the country therefore; Nadra has asked all the consumers to be careful while paying for their utility bills. Everyone should check the license issued by Nadra and don't forget to receive the electronic receipt of the payment. Customers are also advised to call the Nadra Helpline# 051-111-786-100 for any query.

Why e-Sahulat?
Regardless of its expansion and possibilities of its success, I would like it say that these centers are not offering things which attract customers, rather these centers are offering things which attract the franchisees.

• Paying Utility Bills is not a very hard task now days. People pay them at the post offices and banks without any complaint – where as the e-Sahulat has seen proven fraudulent activities and that is why people are asked to check before paying any thing at these centers.
• We already know that some banks are offering to pay utility bills through SMS and even through credit cards. Then why one will choose to have such facility, while he is not 100% sure for them.
• Easy load is now available at every shop then why pay to have this facility. So this is nothing special for the general public. You can go anywhere in the country and get easy load or scratch cards by paying the amount.
• CNIC verification: Does it make sense to ask for a computerized identity card to be verified from e-sahulat centers – when it can be verified through a single SMS.
• Nadra is asking us to be alert from any fake e-Sahulat center in the country.

It looks like that the policy makers at Nadra mis-judged the market demands and they took a quick jazbati decision, and are now are trying to implement it any way. In fact one should think of dropping this programme, and spending the same money for creating job opportunities in a better and productive manner.

Over 2 Million Students in Punjab to Get Computers

Government of Punjab will save Rs. 1.8 billion by using NComputing in over 4,000 schools

More than 2 million students in Punjab, Pakistan will soon receive computer education for the first time with the help of NComputing's ultra low-cost virtual desktops. The Chief Minister of the Punjab has driven the program, which is setting up computer laboratories in more than 4,000 government-owned secondary and higher secondary schools.
NComputing virtual desktops have revolutionized learning in developed and developing countries by making computer access more affordable than ever before. The solution takes advantage of the fact that today's computers are so powerful that the vast majority of applications use only a small fraction of the computer's capacity. NComputing enables a single computer to be virtualized so that many users can tap the unused capacity and share it as if each person had their own computer.
In Punjab, each school will be furnished with a 15-seat computer lab will be run on 3 desktop PCs and 12 NComputing virtual desktops that will connect to the PCs. In addition to reducing purchase costs, electricity usage for these labs will be 90 percent lower than a traditional all-PC computer lab. Finally, when the useful life of the PCs is complete, only a few PCs will need to be upgraded – saving even more funds.
"It is a sustainable and environment-friendly project with very low recurring costs. In the overall context of the project, we are saving over Rs. 1.8 billions, which is almost 36% of the total project cost. As far as the electricity savings is concerned, the Government of Punjab would save another over Rs. 10 million per month as the NComputing devices use only 1 watt of electricity as compared to 110 watts or more for a typical PC," says the IT Labs project's Additional Programme Director Joudat Ayaz. "We have reduced the number of PCs being purchased and the cost of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) has also been drastically reduced".
"With the NComputing technology, a new era in computer literacy has started in Punjab which will enable the provincial planners to impart meaningful computer training at low cost," said Mr. Saiyid Hasan Rashaad, VP of NConnexion, NComputing's distributor and authorized service center for Pakistan & Afghanistan.
"NComputing is proud to have been chosen by the Government of Punjab to enhance computer literacy and to equip the future workforce of the country with the computing skills they need to compete on a global economy," said Mr. Manish Sharma, Vice President of Asia-Pacific for NComputing. "NComputing has become a valuable contributor to the lives of millions of people across tens of thousands of institutions and organizations in more than 140 countries. We continuously endeavor to enable schools, businesses, and governments to expand and improve their computing capabilities at extremely affordable and sustainable costs."

Verify NADRA CNIC Through SMS

In the race of technology, NADRA hits another achievement while it launches a very useful service for verifying CNIC details. Now you don't need to visit NADRA offices to get someone's details verified or to get some details regarding this.

It has become very easy now to verify anyone if you are going to have dealing or are hiring him/her.
Simply verify their CNIC by sending an SMS to 7000.
Write CNIC Number without dashes and send it to 7000. In response you will get name and father's name of that particular CNIC number holder (in urdu fonts).
Example: write 3740149922830 and send to 7000

Charges: Rs. 10 plus tax per Message (Around Rs. 12 including taxes)
At the moment this service is available for Mobilink, Telenor and Warid customers while Ufone and Zong are in process to get listed.
One may think that this is a privacy loop hole, however, as it does not provide any contact details of the CNIC holder and only reveals the name and father's name – so it is acceptable and helpful in many means.
Talking about benefits, this service will really help the public in there general as well as special matters as you can easily verify someone's details to check the scam or fake ones, these credentials can really help out in business deals as well as personal contracts where you need to be sure about the real person.
This service will also be helpful to law-enforcement agencies as they may be able to get more details as compared to public because there is another special number for them. They can get CNIC information by sending the number at 7001.
Subscribers will get details through cellular companies which would collect data in real time communication from NADRA National Data Warehouse. This is thought be a secure data transfer as service numbers are labeled as "Special Numbers".
NADRA is also supporting law-enforcement agencies and govt. to implement and cope up with prevailing law and order situation. This step is regarded as a good initiative as it will support telecom infrastructure as a big advancement and will led others to bring these kinda changes and revolutions. A lot of thing are on their way but still a BIG job is to be done.