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Environment, British Columbia and the PunjabArchive for Recycled Goods
Cultural show getting popular with Lahorites
Sunday, September 21, 2008
By Our Correspondent
LAHORE
A FABULOUS cultural extravaganza, organized by Road Association in collaboration with The Creators held at Alhamra Arts Council, is getting popularity with the Lahorites in the provincial metropolis.
Three-day ‘All Pakistan NGO’s Festival 2008’ opened on Friday and it would end on Sunday. The festival offered a great opportunity to different non-government organizations to participate and interact with the people hailing from different areas of the country, particularly from Peshawar and Quetta.
Different NGOs have also set up stalls where handicrafts, ranging from clothes to children’s toys, are being put on display for attraction of the people. President of Youth Wing of Road Association Adda Jaffery, while talking to The News, said the Association had also exhibited its model plan of recycling waste material in the centre of the festival to give an idea to the people that environment could be maintained through recycling and other methods.
She said the Association would launch this project very soon. She said participation of students was really very encouraging at the festival.
Cultural activities, including puppet show, theatre and mushairra, are being organized to highlight various literary, social and cultural aspects of the society. She said the basic objective of these activities was to point out the issues being faced by different people in the country. Talking about the stalls, she said the Association also helped the people get basic education and learn different skills so that they could also become active members of the society.
She said the Association also sought help and collaboration of different NGOs so that an understanding could be developed among the civil society organization for resolution of all the social problems of the society.
Mushairra has been organized to pay tribute to the late renowned poet Ahmed Faraz and students of different colleges will recite their poetry in this regard. About theatrical performance, she said the students would perform at the festival to highlight social issues.
The Association is not a donor-funded and it raised its revenue while holding different activities and through sale of tickets at the festival, she said, while adding that it was also working for development of skills of the domestic women workers so that they could also earn their livelihoods.
The Monsoon Festival 3
The Monsoon Festival 3 – Webpage Uploaded
The Monsoons this year continue to bless us, and we are still celebrating the rain, and The Monsoon Festival 3! This year again, the festival showcases new creative expressions in fashion and painting.
The artworks have now been uploaded on the website, and the catalogue of the festival is out!
Visit The Festival Webpage Here
This year, the exhibitions include:
Monsoon Fashion 2
The Monsoon Chapter 3
Celebrating Krishna
In addition, browse through pictures of our fabulous Hariyali Teej Celebrations, and order some special funky Monsoon T-Shirts!
Keep celebrating the season of love, keep the rainbows blazing.
Happy Monsooning,
Himanshu Verma
himanshu@redearthindia.com
PTB bans use of recycled paper for books
View the ‘solution’ found by Punjab Textbook Board (PTB) on the initiative of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif: To assure ‘quality’ books to students, BAN THE USE OF RECYCLED PAPER! Wow!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
By Khalid Khattak
LAHORE
The Punjab Textbook Board (PTB) has banned the use of recycled paper in preparation of textbooks in order to ensure the provision of quality books to the students of government and private schools of the province.
The PTB has also formed an advisory committee comprising of representatives of publishers, mill owners and the board which would monitor the entire process of textbooks printing for the coming academic session.
The initiatives have been taken on the special directions of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif who took stern notice regarding the provision of poor quality textbooks to the students.
Teachers and students have been raising objections to the low quality textbooks being distributed by the government among the students of the government schools. The Punjab government provides free textbooks to students of the government schools across the province.
Sources in the PTB said 70 million textbooks would be printed for free distribution among students for the next academic session. They said publishers and printers had been directed to ensure the use of fresh pulp and not recycled paper in preparation of the books. They said the mill owners had also been asked to certify their paper, adding the initiative was aimed at discouraging the practice of using poor quality paper for printing of the textbooks.
They said the PTB officials had a meeting with Punjab Chief Secretary (CS) Javed Mahmood recently, adding the CS had ensured the assistance of district administration to carry out raids during the printing process. They added the PTB Subject Specialists would also be part of the monitoring teams to ensure that the entire process of publishing and printing was up to the standard.
A PTB official, seeking anonymity, said at present 75 percent of the books which were distributed among students of public schools free of cost were printed through open tender system while the remaining 25 percent, meant for open market for sale among students of private schools, were printed through the allocation system. He said owing to the use of recycled paper the PTB had to receive complaints regarding poor quality of books, adding that the banning of recycled paper would certainly help fix the problem.
He said, under the open tender system, the entire process of books printing including purchasing of paper was done by the publishers while under the allocation system it was responsibility of the PTB to provide paper to the publishers for printing of the textbooks. He said the PTB would ensure the provision of quality paper to them.
The official said in order to avoid any unpleasant situation in the provision of books the PTB had also fixed the dates of orders adding the task would be completed in three installments. He said, for the first installment, Dcember 31, 2008 had been fixed as the last date while for second and third installments January 31, 2009 and February 15 would be the deadlines respectively.
When contacted, PTB Chairman Sohail Masood confirmed banning of the recycled paper in preparation of textbooks, adding an action would be taken if the new criterion was violated. He said since mills had been asked to certify their papers they would ensure the provision of quality paper as their repute would be at stake. He added the paper provided by the PTB to the publishers would also carry watermark of the board so that no one could use low quality paper.
