The Dark Knight

I have not felt this satisfied after a movie in a long long time. The Dark Knight was excellent. I think it was even better than Batman Begins, which I loved too and had been fortunate enough to see on an IMAX screen in New York three years ago. I only regret that I couldn’t watch The Dark Knight on the IMAX too.

Movies in Switzerland are very expensive. Tickets are 18 francs for lower level seating and 20 for the gallery. With student ID, one can get a ticket for 16 francs. And on Monday nights, known as Kinomontag, all movies are 12 francs for everyone. Hence, I usually try to go to movies on Monday nights. However, some friends asked me along to the movie today, and since I hadn’t seen them in a long time, I decided to tag along. However, I felt a little heavy-hearted forking over the 20 francs for the gallery seating they wanted.

But believe me, when the movie ended I felt like getting up and giving my sincerest applause. I fully expected the rest of the audience to do the same. I felt disappointed when they didn’t, since my hands were aching to give vent to my pleasure. For the first time since coming to Switzerland, I did not regret paying the full-price for a movie ticket. This movie was fully worth the 20 francs that I paid today. In fact, I would have probably paid more.

One last note, Joker most definitely stole the show (and hats off to the late Heath Ledger for making the character so completely his own that not many people will associate it with Jack Nicholson anymore), but I think the true credit goes to the writers, who gave such an engrossing plot with neverending twists and a very satisfying ending, that even the 2.5 hour movie seemed like it was timed just right.

Geothermal energy in Pakistan

I would like to ask the Alternative Energy Development Board why geothermal energy has not been considered within the portfolio of energy sources promoted by the board? Currently, Geothermal energy provides about a quarter of the power needs of Iceland and Philippines, while Kenya aims for the 25% mark in the next few years. In addition, geothermal energy provides a significant portion of the power generation in dozens of other countries, including New Zealand, USA, Mexico, etc. Geothermal heat pumps are also used as a major source of heating for single-family homes in countries like Switzerland, Austria, etc.

A sample dry-rock heat pump (Source: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ecolabel/pdf/heat_pumps/hp_tech_env_impact_aug2005.pdf)

A resource assessment needs to be carried out for geothermal energy in Pakistan. Usable areas could be those with naturally occurring hot springs, or those with a high temperature gradient (40 degrees Centigrade or more per km drilled into the earth), i.e. hot dry rock. At the least Pakistan can adopt geothermal heat pumps, which do not require as high underground temperatures, to take care of heating needs. Since heat pumps exchange heat with that of the earth, they can be used to provide heat for hot water, instead of the current gas geezers, as well as space heating for the house during the winter. In the summer, they can be run in reverse cycle to provide cooling for the homes, as they suck the heat out of the house back into the earth. Just the adoption of heat pumps can lead to significant savings of both natural gas (currently used for heating) and electricity (for air conditioning) in Pakistan. And if geothermal energy could be further exploited to increase the power generation capacity of Pakistan, then the benefits are limitless.

Much focus has been given to wind energy, which is available as a viable resource in less than 8% of Pakistani land according to an NREL study, only a fraction of which would be technically viable due to other existing uses for that land. Therefore, it is important that more attention be given to geothermal energy, which, when also considering heat pump applications, is a resource that could potentially be used all over Pakistan.

P.S. For a good introduction to heat pumps, both geothermal and ambient air, see this EU report.

Hindering from the Path

I was receiving my daily dose of the Quran today. I like to read a paragraph a day (a manageable portion in the rigorous demands of daily life), the Arabic text with the English translation. I like to base my practice and my interpretation of Islam on what I have myself read in the Quran, rather than just hearsay passed down through generations, which is, unfortunately, the way Islam is practised by most Muslims in our part of the world. I thank my father and friends at the MIT-MSA daily for encouraging me to question and learn more about the faith I was lucky enough to be born into.

These days I am reading Yusuf Ali’s translation. Today, I came across an ayah (verse), that very aptly worded what I have felt every time I hear of the incidents in the NWFP:

“And take not your oaths to practise deception between yourselves,

With the result that someone’s foot may slip after it was firmly planted,

And ye may have to taste the evil of having hindered (men) from the Path of Allah,

And a mighty Wrath descend on you.” (16:94)

Now this verse refers specifically to those who seek to deceive others, but I think it applies as strongly to any individual who causes the loss of faith in others, especially those who harm others in any possible way.

So, those ill-advised men and women, who think that by burning down girl’s schools, and CD shops, and threatening barbers, and carrying out suicide bombings, they are doing God’s work, beware! By causing harm to others, by killing their loved ones, by denying them the right to an education, by denying them a peaceful existence and livelihood, you are actually causing them to lose faith in Allah. And your acts will not lead you to Paradise, but rather to a Mighty Wrath for having hindered others from the Straight Path.

Doing Business in Pakistan

I happened to come across this report when going through my brother’s blog archives (http://alchemya.com/wordpress2/2008/03/24/ease-of-doing-business-in-pakistan/) yesterday, searching for his entry on the Fatimah Jinnah Girl’s School. Needless to say, what I saw in this blog entry interested me as a prospective small business owner, even though the role may be a few years away.

However, it wasn’t until today, when I was doing research on the Pakistan wind energy paper for my professor, that I decided to followed the link to the World Bank Report, and was even more excited to see that:

“If each Pakistani region
adopted Lahore’s regulations on starting a business,
Peshawar’s regulations on dealing with licenses, employing
workers and contract enforcement and Karachi’s
regulations on bankruptcy, taxes and property, Pakistan’s
ranking would jump from 74th to 52nd on the ease of
doing business.”

This is a very positive sign. And among all Pakistani cities, Karachi ranks the highest. I have always known that the Pakistani people, especially Karachiites, are very resilient, that all our political instability does not stop business from going on as usual. But this is the first time I have seen it all put into words, or rather numbers in this case.

Now, I do not want to take a little air out of the bubble, but when I searched for the latest edition of the report, which is still a working paper, I was a little disappointed to see that Pakistan’s rank fell 2 points to 76, whereas India jumped from its 132nd rank to 120. But that is still no reason to lessen the excitement. We have maintained our rank as #2 in South Asia, behind Maldives. It just means that other countries have introduced a larger number of business reforms over the past couple of years, resulting in their jump in rankings. If it is any consolation, many of the countries we may have felt are in better circumstances than us, have lower rankings in reality, e.g. China, Jordan, India, Croatia, Greece, Russia, Indonesia, Algeria, Egypt, and Philippines.

So, what is my point? My point is that we still need to bring in a lot of reforms to improve our rankings, including cutting the number of steps required to register a business from 11 to the OECD level of 6, and reducing costs of starting a business from 21% of income per capita to the OECD average of 5% and further reducing the time to export (24 days) and time to import (19 days), even though all of the above have seen drastic improvements in the last few years. Pakistan also needs to improve its performance in enforcing contracts, which, even though it ranks better than India and Bangladesh, is still a very miserable 162, and could be the biggest deterrent to foreign investment.

But, all in all, our situation is nowhere near as horrible as we thought it was. In fact, the World Bank’s report has provided me with a lot of positive data to report in my wind paper, and will allow me to present a much rosier picture than I previously thought possible.

The Blame Game

It seems every time I manage to go through the Dawn, the only other news I consistently see, amid all the regular blood and gore, is headlines about how the previous government failed to do its job. At the time of the budget, it was Finance Minister Syed Naveed Qamar, who blamed the previous government for a GDP growth rate of 5.8% vs the target of 7.2%. He refused to take into consideration the turbulent year that Pakistan underwent during the previous budget year, specifically the number of times Karachi and the rest of Pakistan was virtually shut down in the grip of violence, whether that be due to the fight to restore Chief Justice Chaudhry, the arrival and subsequent election campaign and assassination of Ms. Bhutto, or other things. In the face of such chaos, it is a miracle that the GDP grew at all, let alone by 5.8%. That growth may or may not have anything to do with the government at that time, and may actually be a testament to the resilience and courage of the Pakistani people, but it was an excellent growth, nevertheless.

But this is just one incident. The papers have been peppered with the blame game for the last several months, whether it is through the statements of Mr. Zardari, or through those of other PPP and PML-N leaders. In fact, it appears that most of the effort of the new government is focused on finding evidence of the failures of the previous governments.

As a Pakistani citizen, I would like to request PM Gillani, Mr. Zardari, Mr. Qamar, and the others in the new government to please divert their time and energy to the job that they have been elected to do. This country is already facing too many problems, poverty, inflation, terrorism and growing extremism, rampant illiteracy and the energy crisis, to name just a few. Even one day spent not addressing these problems, instead of other superficial things, is a day lost in the progress of Pakistan and its people.

First steps

It’s amazing. After choosing “nidagivesvent.wordpress.com” as my blog link, I have spent the last 5 minutes worrying whether “gives vent” is grammatically correct, or if plain simple “vents” should be sufficient. But really, don’t you think “Nida Gives Vent” sounds better than “Nida Vents?” I must admit my creative attempts at choosing a title for my blog yielded far better results in the 5 minutes I took to create a wordpress account right now, than they did over the last couple of days. Previous results included uninspiring titles like “Nida’s Rant on Energy, Aerospace, Pakistan and other things” and “Nida’s Tirade on Aerospace, Energy, Politics and the World” and “My Tirade on ——.” I am sure you get the point.

I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog for the last many months. My brother started a couple of years ago. My younger sister followed about a year ago ( http://dcdesi.wordpress.com/ ). But I kept putting it off, amid the distractions of daily life. I wrote many articles and many letters to the editor in my mind, as I saw events unfold around the world, but never put them into words.

Finally, yesterday, when I was venting to my brother-in-law, over chat, about recent developments in the renewable energy world, he said, “Maybe you should start your own blog.” And really, when I went over the chat text, I realized I had spent enough time and enough words to have written several blog entries. However, I still did not create my account then.

In the end, it was after reading about the current political developments in Pakistan today, in Dawn, that I finally created my account. I was tempted to send a scathing Letter to the Editor, but was forced to rethink the wisdom of that choice. I may still send in that letter, but for temporary easing of my frustration, this blog is a quick solution.

For those curious about the letter I wanted to write, my next blog entry should be up in a day or two.