Re-imagining the nature of development: Biodiversity conservation and pastoral visions in the Northern Areas, Pakistan

Examines how, in the mountainous village of Shimshal, national parks and “community-based” conservation projects such as trophy hunting are deeply problematic, promoting exploitive ideologies of nature and development while delegitimizing the values and rights of pastoralists. The Shimshalis have creatively resisted the appropriations of their land by creating a Shimshal Nature Trust, implementing a model of ecological sovereignty instead of “community participation”—challenging the very logic of protected areas in international conservation

Spaces of nature: Producing Gilgit-Baltistan as the eco-body of the nation

A while ago, when I was studying in Grade 8 at an English-medium school in Lahore, our class was divided up in four groups for a Geography project on Pakistan. The group of which I was a part had to make a sculptural map of Pakistan, demonstrating the diverse physical and social qualities of its landscape. And so we had set about carving our country with materials like styro-foam, cotton, cloth, and cardboard. In the final map that we made, the region of Gilgit-Baltistan - then the “Northern Areas” – had remained unlabeled and unpeopled, marked only with mountains made of clay. Even today, nature remains the primary modality through which Gilgit-Baltistan is understood within the Pakistani national imagination. Its magnificent peaks and breathtaking valleys invoke within Pakistanis a simultaneous sense of emotional attachment and proud ownership, permitting them to claim Pakistan as “beautiful”. In this article, I elaborate how the aesthetics of nature constitute a key terrain for state power in Pakistan. Gilgit-Baltistan is integral to the way in which the spatial structure, geographical essence, and physical-ecological constitution of the Pakistani nation/state is imagined, and as such, the region helps to consolidate a sense of the national self through the definition of the natural self. If maps produce the geo-body of the nation (Winichakul 1997), then representational practices surrounding the ecology of particular regions serve to constitute what I call the eco-body of the nation, converting natural splendor into territorial essence and epitome. I have retained the region’s previous name of “Northern Areas” in this article, as the analysis was undertaken prior to the name change in 2009

Outrageous state, sectarianized citizens: Deconstructing the ‘Textbook Controversy’ in the Northern Areas, Pakistan

This paper examines the ‘textbook controversy’ (2000-2005) that arose when the Pakistan state introduced new, overtly Sunni textbooks in the Northern Areas, and the local Shia population began to agitate for a more balanced curriculum. The conflict reached an acute stage during 2004-2005, as violent confrontations took place between Shia and Sunni communities, and a constant curfew paralyzed daily life in Gilgit for eleven months. I argue that the Shia mobilization against textbook Islam was not just a form of “sectarian” outrage; rather, it symbolized a broader political claim to inclusion in a context of long-standing regional subordination and religious suppression. The politics of sectarian emotions in the Northern Areas must therefore be understood in relation to the regulatory processes of state-making, which are the very source and embodiment of ‘sectarianism’ and ‘outrage’ in the region

From Hallaj to Heer: Poetic knowledge and the Muslim tradition

How do we comprehend the poetic universe of Muslim South Asia, and why is it important to do so? This is the larger question — at once historical, sociological, literary, and political — which forms the heart of the inquiry in this paper. In my attempt to address this question, I attend particularly to the themes of language, time, love, spiritual subjectivity, key figures, and resistance in understanding the place of the poetic in Muslim tradition. I then offer glimpses of the Seraiki poetic landscape from southern Punjab in Pakistan, to illuminate the continued power and politics of poetic practice in present-day Muslim lifeworlds

Libra: An Economy driven Job Scheduling System for Clusters

Clusters of computers have emerged as mainstream parallel and distributed platforms for high-performance, high-throughput and high-availability computing. To enable effective resource management on clusters, numerous cluster managements systems and schedulers have been designed. However, their focus has essentially been on maximizing CPU performance, but not on improving the value of utility delivered to the user and quality of services. This paper presents a new computational economy driven scheduling system called Libra, which has been designed to support allocation of resources based on the users? quality of service (QoS) requirements. It is intended to work as an add-on to the existing queuing and resource management system. The first version has been implemented as a plugin scheduler to the PBS (Portable Batch System) system. The scheduler offers market-based economy driven service for managing batch jobs on clusters by scheduling CPU time according to user utility as determined by their budget and deadline rather than system performance considerations. The Libra scheduler ensures that both these constraints are met within an O(n) run-time. The Libra scheduler has been simulated using the GridSim toolkit to carry out a detailed performance analysis. Results show that the deadline and budget based proportional resource allocation strategy improves the utility of the system and user satisfaction as compared to system-centric scheduling strategies.Comment: 13 page

Seed policy in Pakistan: The impact of new laws on food sovereignty and sustainable development

This paper highlights the challenges that genetically modified (GM) seeds pose for farmers, citizens and the land itself in Pakistan. It explores the history of agricultural policy in Pakistan from the Green Revolution to what is now being dubbed the “Gene Revolution”, and analyzes how harmful effects of both are being amplified by two recently passed laws: the Seed (Amendment) Act 2015 and the Plant Breeders\u27 Rights Act 2016. The analysis of these laws is done from a food sovereignty perspective on sustainable development, where food sovereignty represents “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.” Finally, the paper offers comparative perspectives on seed policy and activism from Ecuador, Bolivia, India and Europe to suggest ways in which GM seeds have been approached with caution or outright bans, in order to promote health safety, farmers\u27 rights, resistance to corporate monopolies over seed, and preservation of indigenous biodiversity. Ultimately, the paper sheds light on the forms of control and corporatization that patented GM seeds embody, and asks: who owns the seed and want kind of food do we want to leave for our future generations

Determining the Relative Importance of Personality Traits in Influencing Software Quality and Team Productivity

Software projects are almost always team efforts and successful projects involve well-formed and well-composed teams. Past studies have revealed that personality contributes to effective team composition and, therefore, project success. Yet despite its importance, only a couple of empirical studies have quantitatively evaluated the impact of personality on software quality and team productivity. Our previous study was an effort in this direction. In that study, we proposed a metric called Team Homogeneity Index and evaluated its impact on software quality and team productivity for two phases (implementation and testing) of the software development life cycle. This study is a continuation of our previous work. In this study, we replicate our experiment on three different phases of software development life cycle (i.e. analysis and design, implementation, and testing). We also determine the weights for all five personality traits using input from the industry and propose an improved version of Team Homogeneity Index called Weighted Team Homogeneity Index. Finally, we conduct a comparative analysis of Team Homogeneity Index and Weighted Team Homogeneity Index to determine whether weights assigned to personality traits make any difference. Our findings reveal that weights do make a difference and Weighted Team Homogeneity Index is more strongly correlated than Team Homogeneity Index for almost all of the teams, especially those composed of practitioners, in the three different phases of Software Development Life Cycle

Spaces of Nature: Producing Gilgit-Baltistan as the Eco-Body of the Nation

Spaces of Nature: Producing Gilgit-Baltistan as the Eco-Body of the Natio

Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction: (Book Review)

Contemporary Linguistics was initially (First Edition 1989) composed to present an introductory textbook on linguistics to enlighten the students about different areas of linguistics (morphology, phonology, psycholinguistics, semantics, syntax, and sociolinguistics) with the aims to provide up-to-date coverage of the subject areas, and provide a clear and direct presentation of materials for the students of linguistics. In this regard, editors of the book strived to: incorporate up-to-date and comprehensive text; present the knowledge of the subject from working experts on a particular topic; adopt a modular approach to explain complicated concepts in an engaging and digesting style; and offer extensive support to instructors and students to teach and understand the book. The book was warmly welcomed by the students, and well appreciated by the experts in the field of linguistics. As a result, the editors have been charting various developments in the subject through different editions (1-6). The current edition (7th 2017) of Contemporary Linguistics comprises of 14 chapters. Chapter one previews language and its features. Chapter two discusses the sounds of speech focusing the part of articulators to produce sounds, symbols representing sounds, grouping of sounds into classes, and features of sound. Chapter three reviews the distinctiveness of sounds, and the use of transcription to describe the variation of sounds. Chapter four throws light on word structures explaining different concepts on morphology. Chapter five presents the analysis of sentence structures explaining how words: are categorized; and combined to form phrases and sentences; and how sentence structures are diagrammed. Chapter six describes different concepts of semantics e.g., derivation of meaning, contribution of speaker’s attitude and belief, context, and setting toward meaning. Chapter seven explains how different languages are classified based on morphological, phonological, and syntactic similarities. Chapter eight discusses: how and why a language and its sounds change over time; and what syntactic and morphological changes are noticed in a language. Chapters nine and 10 explain how children acquire first and second language by developing vocabulary in different stages of acquisition, and what factors influence the acquisition process. Chapter 11 answers the questions related to the: methods employed by psycholinguists to study language processing; linguistic principles involved in language production and comprehension; and psycholinguistic models applied to explain language processing. Entitled ‘Brain and Language’ chapter 12 describes the structure of human brain and its relation with language, and neurolinguistic investigations on language and brain. Chapter 13 explains the use of language in social contexts focusing on how: class, ethnicity, gender and place influence language variation; dialect variation takes place over time; language contact influences development and use of language; social interaction influences the use of language; and people deal with language. Chapter 14 explains the development of writing systems, the emergence of alphabetical systems, the development of writing systems in non-European languages, the development of modern English spelling system, and the relation between reading and writing. Each chapter of the textbook starts with a quote from world-famous literary works followed by the chapter objectives, a detailed overview of the topic, and ends in a chapter summary, key terms, recommended reading, and exercises. Quotes (at the start of every chapter) are very concise and exciting, and present a very appealing introduction of the topic. Chapter objectives comprise of short statements that present an easily understandable aim of the particular topic. A detailed overview of the topic provides a comprehensive discussion of different aspects of the specific topic. Chapter summary (titled ‘Summing Up’) presents a precise summary of the discussion on a specific topic, and makes it easy for the reader the digest the essence of the discussion. ‘Recommended Reading’ section provides references to the materials for further reading on the topic. Exercises, at the end of every chapter, are also very interesting and help to assess readers’ comprehension of the topic. The current edition is very advantageous for several reasons such as it: presents revised content on four chapters (2, 3, 4, and 5) on phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax; updates two additional chapters ‘Second Language Acquisition’, and ‘Language in Social Contexts’ with the aim to incorporate the recent scholarship in the field; provides LaunchPad Solo that offers features (interactive exercises, advanced questions, interactive IPA audio charts, additional reviews on core topics, further exploration of four chapters); provides study guide of the book; presents ‘Instructor’s Resource Manual’ as a teaching guide for the teachers of the textbook; gives detailed and advanced information on the subject; provides online exercises to support multimedia technology in the classroom; and reflects recent research on linguistics. Important boxes like ‘Language Matters’ (present general knowledge on specific topics) and ‘For the Student Linguist’ are the plus of the textbook that is rarely found in any other textbook of linguistics. To be brief, Contemporary Linguistics is a wonderful textbook that features valuable and unique things that further make it a ‘springboard to the realm of scientific analysis’, and ‘a greater appreciation for the wonder of human language, the variety and complexity of its structure, and the subtlety of its use’ (Preface, p. xiv). About Book Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (7th Edition). Edited by William O’Grady, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Macmillan Learning, 2017, pp. 674, 35.99$ (Paperback), ISBN: 978-1-319-03977-6