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This Sunday I made a trip to the “Mandi Maweshia” also known as Bakra Mandi that is being placed in H-11 this year – yes you are right the same ground where last year earthquake affectees were placed.

I don’t know if it’s large place that’s making the number of sacrificial animals lesser than every year or what … but I guess it’s enough to cater the needs of Islooittes.

Just step in the locality and a very familiar “Goaty smell” or as I normally say “the feeling of Bakriat” is what you’ll feel. Don’t worry move on. To be honest, this was the first time after so many years that I actually stepped inside the bakra mandi … face to face with all bakras and dunbas and gayays. So it was interesting too and incidentally I was the only girl in whole Bakra mandi at that time taking portraits of bakras aka goats and stylish “phedoos” aka sheep with utmost tries to stay as far as possible.

Few tips for newbie who may go out to look for animals just for fun with their parents, or maybe friends …. Few terms that are associated with Goats are:

Kheera: It’s the animal that is of 1.5 – 2 years old.

Donda: This animal is of 2+ age and usually have 4 teeth in front.

Choga: This is of around 4 years of age and is considered a bit older with not very good quality meat.

Please correct me if I’m wrong or any additions to this “knowledge-base”

The range of goats (sorry we didn’t asked for Bulls or camel :>) would go from 7K to 20+ for an average to a very good piece. Do take tips on your way to buying a sacrificial animal for differentiating between a healthy and sick animal … and do look thoroughly if the animal is hurt from somewhere.

Have a look at some portraits of Beauties I took …

It’s such a beautiful jauri of Goats … looking with all interest and the white one is even smiling for a picture.

The owner of this goat demanded Rs. 18K and the goat seems to know it so it does not really care and eating is all what it wants.

Just a note: Somehow I don’t like using It for such beautiful animals … so don’t correct my He’s and she’s ;-)

She looks sleepy … oh how much I wanted to go near it and cuddle it … lolz …!

And Masha’ Allah, isn’t he cute … a sheer beauty … all ready for heavens …!

OK – since I saw that banner somewhere for a share in sacrifice of camel – I wanted to have a look at this animal in Goat market … and here they are … I took this from a distance as somehow It appeared they were looking at me and the camel in second picture even took few steps further that’s why second shot I took in a bit hurry …!

Yup I’m in love with sheep since my childhood … so another view of them … oh yeah if you are buying a sheep aka Dunba this year and specially chakki waala dunba … please take are of your animal – since someone was telling me that people used to cut the chakkis from live animals …. How painful … eeeeeh … !

Last but not the least – It’s the animals who are kind of Eid ul Adh’aa’s kings and queens so they need a bit of decor too … so here are the right things to serve the purpose ….!

So this was me Live from bakra mandi – here I sign off – with full hopes that Allah swt accept your sacrifices done by following Sunnat e Ibraheemi … and reward you the best – all His mercies and blessings be upon all Muslims and the world overall. Ameen.

Have a nice Eid … !

As I was reading Daily Times this morning, I come to know through a report of theirs that butchers have set their asking prices already.

Rs 1,500-1,800 for slaughtering goat,
Rs 5,000-7,000 for bull,
Rs 9,000-10,000 for camel

Woah.

I’ve seen many households where they just give the asking price without any bargaining and then later cry over the meat being ruined by these seasonal butchers. If you haven’t advanced booked one, thoroughly inspect the chosen butcher candidate. Check the utensils he’s carrying, if it’s an axe (kulhari), bid him farewell right there, on the spot. He’s not meant for your cutie lil animal.

If you’ve enough manpower at home, follow the footsteps of Hadhrat Muhammad Mustapha SAWW. Gain extra sawaaab. If you are feeble-heart kind … stay indoors please.

Message for Eid:

Before keeping the legs aside … do remember the families around who haven’t tasted seen mutton/lamb/Beef since months. Probably it was last eid they saw it.

Image Courtsy: Sbmoot

Thankfully it was a Saturday eve otherwise the causalities in ETC may have gone exponentially high. Even now … around 6-10 deaths and 20+ injured are reported in ETC. The fate is still undecided. temporarily offices are being shifted but they can’t work from home for months to come. Cold assumptions are … without regarding structural miscarriages the building authorities will give OK to move back in. A social dilemma. We condemn the sad demises later on but value them NOT when they are alive.

Here’s a pictorial overview of what Marriott and ETC has faced.

An aerial view taken from an army helicopter shows the devastated Marriott Hotel two days after a suicide truck bombing in Islamabad on September 22, 2008.  Courtesy: AFP PHOTO/Aamir QURESHI

Please share your views? What steps should be taken NOW? How to fight this evil of terrorism?

Also how this continuous economical attacks can be fought? If you were a victim of this 9/20 attack, in any way, what steps your company has taken to ensure your safety?

Please refrain from personal attacks … Share the positive energy … that’s what we need right now.

More Reads and PicS:

• Another aerial view of Marriott … the double road in front of it is .. GONE !
• Assessment of battered Marriott.
• Marriott’s owner, Sadar ud Din Hashwani, has said that the hotel will be up and running in three month’s time … in the meanwhile, employees WILL get their salaries.
• For victims of terror a Citizens trust is up. Please follow the link to read more about them. You can find more on it through this Facebook group.

This is what awaam is crying about today.

Let the Zardari (ooops, Janaab Zardari Sahab) make you fool … let his camp take the left over economy from Pakistan in their Dubai and London accounts.

haaa.

Image Courtesy: Ammar

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Exact Location.

But one of the other things you probably do remember is that you learned that wheat is Pakistan’s staple crop. Pakistan’s super crop. Wheat is to Pakistan what chocolate is to Willy Wonka. Well, kind of. At any rate, Pakistan’s average production of wheat over many years has been 21.5 million metric tons, making it the 9th largest producer of wheat in the world. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reported that in 2005 Pakistan produced over 21.6 million metric tons of wheat, more than all of Africa (20.3 million metric tons) and nearly as much as all of South America (24.5 million metric tons).

And then in January 2007, the government of Pakistan predicted a bumper crop of 23.5 million tons – the highest ever production of wheat in Pakistan’s history.

Of course, this estimate was being made two months earlier than such estimates are usually made, but at the time we didn’t really think about that. 23.5 million tons of wheat were coming!

Now, analysts were a bit skeptical about the official estimate – seeing as the area of wheat plantation in the country had increased by only 1% over the previous crop year, while the government’s estimate reflected a whopping 10% rise in production. If you remember your maths textbook from school, you may be able to discern how that doesn’t quite equate. Sure, growing conditions were favourable, but experts are saying that the actual crop production in 2007 was at least a million tons lower than what the government had predicted.

Coincidentally, 2007 also saw the greatest shortage of world wheat stocks in 26 years, due to severe weather conditions in the major wheat-producing regions of Canada, Australia, the EU and Ukraine. Which basically meant that global wheat prices were at record highs. So high in fact that, according to Wikipedia, people in Italy were complaining about the rising price of pasta.

That obviously played a huge part in the government’s decision in April 2007 to lift its four-year ban on wheat exports. Traders quickly took advantage of this lucrative situation and exported 500,000 tons of wheat to India. The government then reinstated the export ban on May 25, 2007. Despite the small window of opportunity, exports had the desired effect of raising farm prices, and these traders made huge profits.

However, wheat exports also set in motion the spiral of food inflation, which would slowly build in early summer and get much worse during Ramadan, when demand traditionally increased and so did prices.

“The decision to export was plainly wrong … Maybe somebody made money off of this, but I think more than corruption it was incompetence.” – Shafqat Mahmood, former agriculture minister

To make matters worse, at least 1 million tons of wheat and wheat flour were smuggled into neighbouring countries due to the favorable price differentials. According to agricultural specialist Asmat Raza, a Pakistani living in a border town can earn about one third more than his daily wage as a laborer by smuggling a single 20 kilo bag of flour into India. Even so, he says, most smuggling is organized and carried out by influential groups. Critics blame the government in part for flour smuggling because it eased restrictions on transportation of wheat between provinces in 2004 to promote an open market.

“Now there are huge stocks of wheat lying near the Afghan border … It is virtually impossible to gauge how much was spirited over the frontier.” – Abid Sulheri, Sustainable Development Policy Institute

Unfortunately, all this wheat was being waltzed out of the country while domestic demand increased. Food prices in general jumped by about 14% in 2007, on top of double-digit increases for the two previous years. Most of Pakistan’s wheat utilization of 22 million tons is for human consumption; however, the rise in prices of corn and broken rice relative to wheat resulted in farmers increasing their utilization of wheat in poultry and livestock feed. Also, as rice got more and more expensive, people were consuming more and more wheat instead. This likely pushed domestic wheat demand above 23 million tons.

And well, we didn’t have 23 million tons.

So we had to import.

In September 2007, then-PM Shaukat Aziz announced that the government would import 1 million tons of wheat, stating that this action was necessary to “maintain a reasonable buffer stock for the future.” (Whereas, of course, at the time we didn’t even have an unreasonable buffer stock for the present.)

Now, if you’ve actually been reading this article and not just skimming through it as I would, you know that global wheat prices at this time were sky-high. So the export price for Pakistani wheat during the April-May export window was approximately $225-232 per ton – and for December 2007 delivery, the import price of wheat from Australia and Russia was $380-400 per ton, exclusive of transportation.

Therefore, we imported wheat at prices 70% higher than the prices we exported them at.

Former agriculture minister Shafqat Mahmood says that even with faulty predictions, the wheat harvest is usually completed by May, so the government would have realized its error and had six months to prepare for shortfalls by the year’s end. Of course, the government didn’t prepare. Which brings us to the present crisis, and the long lines at utility stores where people must wait for several hours so that they may or may not get their hands on a sack of flour.

“We were told there was a bumper crop of wheat this season, but look at us.” – Sher Nawaz, labourer, who waited three hours in a crowd at a Peshawar bazaar, only to have the state-subsidized flour run out before he and 100 others got any

As is always the case when things go horribly wrong, the administration is pointing its finger at scapegoats. Besides blaming smugglers for the flour shortage, the government also blames it on hoarding by unscrupulous suppliers. It is, indeed, speculated that hoarders could be sitting on as much as 2 million tons of wheat.

(Interestingly though, the flour mills are all owned by families with ties to both government and major opposition parties – which is why the public and press are doubtful that any of the hoarders will be brought to justice.)

Meanwhile, the government has set up an emergency food committee to remedy the situation. This committee, according to its chairman, Farooq Ahmed Khan, sends millers enough wheat every day to feed about 120 million people. In addition, about 5,000 paramilitary forces now guard flour mills and escort supply trucks.

So, esteemed readers, if you’re ever running a country where wheat is the major agricultural crop, and you want to successfully create a flour crisis – you know where you got your pointers from.

You’re welcome.

In hindsight, lowering the official crop estimate should have had the same effect on farm prices as exports, while keeping more wheat within Pakistan. – Asmat Raza, agricultural specialist

Do we need to say more after seeing expression of Joy and Helplessness on this old fellow’s face.

Image courtesy: Dawn

Then things changed, and the sleepy little town started booming. Now you travel here and you find all the trappings of an upcoming modern city! Flyovers, underpasses, construction everywhere, filled shopping centers, and finally long lines at the pumps!

Today, i had to run my car on petrol, because the four pumps i visited, had lines of upto 20 cars deep waiting for CNG!!

Islamabad is truly waking up!

Analyze yourself … the ground realities and the all-promising economic progressive trends we are being shown on different tv channels everyday.

Traders, especially those selling soft drinks, said they had left deep freezers in front of their shops, full of soft drinks, ice cream and bottled water, but all these items disappeared during the siege of the area. The shopkeepers also protested on Friday night and alleged that police were involved in the disappearance of goods from their shops. The shopkeepers have displayed banners in front of their shops, asking the ‘culprits’ to deposit the money for the items they had stolen.

and the recent curfew caused loss of 55M Rs in Aabpara, Melody markets.

who should blame who now? Culprits en actuale will remain missing & Unidentified.