Asif Ali Zardari becomes the President of Pakistan today after winning the presidential election. He secured 479 votes out of 702. His opponents, Retired Chief Justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui received 153 elctoral votes and Senator Mushahid Hussein received 43. Asif’s victory in three provinces is overwhelming, especially in Sindh where his opposing candidates couldn’t get a single vote. Only in Punjab Assembly Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqi is able to get more votes than Asif.The vote by the two houses of parliament and four provincial assemblies forms the 1,170-member, but 702-vote, electoral college. According to a Dawn update:

‘Asif Ali Zardari secured 281 votes out of the 426 valid votes polled in the parliament,’ chief election commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq said. He has secured 458 out of 702 electoral college votes, according to partial Election Commission results.

Asif Zardari is the 13th President of Pakistan. The ones who have been President before him include: Iskandar Mirza, Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry, Zia-ul-Haq, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Waseem Sajjad, Farooq Laghari, Waseem Sajjad, Rafiq Tarar and Pervaiz Musharraf. Waseem Sajjad has twice been the President of Pakistan.

Lahore owes much of its’ cultural flavor to the architectural developments made in and around its’ original walled city by the lineage of Mughal rulers who came to power in this area in the early fifteenth century. The establishment and development of the city itself was an outgrowth of this same rule, and although much of the old grandeur has been lost, the magic of Lahore still resides in the charm of the buildings of the old city. It was Mughal architecture that led Lahore towards its golden period, and even today this architecture is the reason that Lahore is labeled as a cultural city. No work done today can match the scale or significance of Mughal architecture. Indeed, since the fall of the Mughal Empire, little has been built, save the official buildings that were initiated or refurbished by the British rulers in the late 1800’s, that represents anything of much architectural impact within Lahore.

The reigns of Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb may be considered the golden period of aesthetic development in the history of Lahore. These were also the times during which Lahore expanded outwards in area and swelled in population. Under their rule the city resumed its’ status of a city of royal residence with gardens, tombs, mosques, and pavilions springing up in every direction. As a result the population increased and suburbs arose, until the city became, in the words of Abul Fazl “the grand resort of people of all nations,” and was celebrated for its fine buildings and luxuriant gardens. To this day almost all that is architecturally beautiful in Lahore is referred back to the period of the early Mughal Emperors.

This paper will primarily present the contributions made by the Mughals towards the development of Lahore. The various architectural sites of the city of Lahore will be discussed while understanding how the lifestyle patterns during that era affected the layout of the buildings. It was essentially Islamic power that radically altered the course of the country’s history and the development of her culture.
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Reference: http://pakistaniat.com/

Of all the folk tales of Punjab, Waris Shah’s Heer is the most widely read, recited (actually, sung), commented upon and quoted love story. People have even done Ph.Ds on it. It is a very long poem, written in the Punjabi baint meter, comprising of 630 odd stanzas of 6 to 12 or more lines each.

Syed Waris Shah wrote it sometime in the 1760s.

Rural folks in Punjab routinely gather, as they always did, at the end of a hard day’s work, under a tree or a chappar (thatched canopy) to smoke hukka and discuss and share the daily news, views and common problems. It is not uncommon at such gatherings for someone to sing a few passages from Heer. Folks listen to it, mesmerized both by the melody and its contents. Older people would often quote a line or two from Waris Shah’s Heer as a piece of wisdom in their conversations. In fact, Heer is quoted by the rural folks more often than any other traditional book of wisdom.

The story of Heer and Ranjha, like all such stories, is partly true and partly fiction. But it continues to have such a powerful hold on the imagination of rural folks that they want to believe it to be true.

Numerous people have written the story of Heer before and after Waris Shah, the earliest being Damodar and probably the latest being Ustad Daman. But it is only Waris Shah’s Heer that the world knows about — or cares to know about. By writing Heer, Waris Shah not only told a fascinating story but also raised the status of Punjabi from that of a rustic language, which was mostly a spoken language, to that of a language of literature. Many believe Waris Shah is to Punjabi what Chaucer and Shakespeare were to English or Sa’di was to Persian.

Waris Shah was born in a village in district Sheikhupura but studied at Kasur. He was a contemporary of Bulleh Shah and they are supposed to have studied at the same madrassah (not necessarily in the same class) under the tutorship of one Hafiz Ghulam Murtaza Makhdumi Kasuri.

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Lahore College for Women University is one of the most prestigious institutions of Pakistan with a full time enrollment of about 6000 students.

The glorious academic values of this oldest premier post-graduate female institution have been shaped by its institutional history, which is spread over a span of 84 years. Established in May 1922 as an Intermediate residential college and affiliated with the university of the Punjab, it was housed in a building on Hall Road, Lahore, with a strength of 60 students, 25 of whom were boarders and 13 staff members. In 1950, the college with 600 students was shifted to the present building on Jail Road, which was originally a school known as Sir Ganga Ram High School and Teachers Training Centre. This intermediate college was upgraded in 1925 M.A. English started in 1940 and B.Sc. classes started in 1955. Post-graduate classes in the subjects of Economics and Physics started in 1966, in Islamiat, Political Science and Psychology in 1979.

The year 1990 was a turning point in the history of the Institution. It was granted Administrative and Financial Autonomy on 1st August 1990, declared as a Degree-Awarding institution on 13th August 1999 and was elevated to the status of a Women University on 10th September 2002.

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Pakistan School of Fashion Design (PSFD) is a graduate school for fashion design located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. The school was founded in 1995 and is known as the preeminent fashion school in Pakistan. PSFD was the first institution to offer graduate training in fashion design in Pakistan. It is affiliated with Les Ecoles de la Chambre Syndicale Parisienne in Paris, France.

In 2006, the PSFD and the French Federation for Ready to Wear Women Garments (FFPAPF) decided to formalize cooperation and collaboration for the exchange of knowledge and skills and promotion of business between France and Pakistan’s garment industries. The agreement envisages a programme for development of the PSFD into a modern international fashion marketing institute, which could support and prepare Pakistan’s garment industry for the international market. It also creates links between the Pakistan and French garment industries for exchange of information, awareness raising, delegations and seminars.
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The Punjab Archaeology Department (PAD) officials on Sunday said the PAD is renovating the Badshahi Masjid after an interval of 27 years.

The PAD had planned to renovate the verandah (made up of red sandstone) of the mosque more than a decade ago. They said the PAD could not start the work due to lack of funds. They said the PAD had no red stone experts at its disposal. They said the stone, imported from India, had been stacked at the back courtyard of the mosque since 1980s. The Rs 40 million projects would be completed by 2010, they added.

They said the unavailability of the red sandstone in Pakistan was a main reason behind stacking it. The stone had been used in architecture and foundation of the mosque, they said.

The rainwater had also played its role in damaging the verandah. The mosque is owned by the Punjab Auqaf Department and is a protected monument under the Punjab Special Premises Preservation Ordinance 1985. The maintenance and repair of the mosque is the responsibility of the PAD.

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The Punjab provincial capital city, Lahore witnessed the hottest day of the season on June 10, 2007, as the temperature soared to 48 degree Celsius breaking all past 78-years’ records of sizzling heat, while the mercury at 50 degree Celsius at Mianwali kept everything exposed roasting.Metrological department told that the Lahore temperature until 3.00 PM afternoon was recorded in different places at 48 degree centigrade.

Earlier, such a high temperature in the city was recorded on June 8, 1929. Meanwhile, the people’s plight in this simmering heat has further worsened by prolonged unannounced load-shedding besides water supply has also gone haywire due to several hours of power outage everyday. The image below illustrates the people of the city spending time at Lahore Canal.

Other cities of Punjab also witnessed record summer heat, as some people reading their barometers in their cars reported mercury shooting up to as high as 50 degree centigrade. Reference: http://pakistantimes.net

Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC) is a state-of-the-art cancer centre located in Lahore, Pakistan. It is a project of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust, which is a charitable organization established under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860 of Pakistan. The institution is the brainchild of Pakistani cricket superstar, Imran Khan. The inspiration came after the death of his mother, Mrs. Shaukat Khanum, from cancer.

MISSION STATEMENT

To act as a model institution to alleviate the suffering of patients with cancer through the application of modern methods of curative and palliative therapy irrespective of their ability to pay, the education of health care professionals and the public and perform research into the causes and treatment of cancer.

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 HISTORY OF THE HIGH COURT

Lahore High Court is the oldest superior Court in the country and its predecessors Court have been providing justice since 1866. Presently, Lahore High Court stand established by virtue of article 175 of Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It has principal seat at Lahore and three benches at Rawalpindi, Multan and Bahawalpur.

THE CHIEF COURT OF THE PUNJAB

The history of the High Court at Lahore is spread over the last hundred and fifty years.

By 1830, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the famous Sikh ruler of Punjab, consolidated the innumerable small principalities ruled by independent chieftains in the Province. Before the consolidation, there were no Judicial Courts, no written laws and no established authority to maintain or enforce them. The chieftains decided cases according to their own whims and discretions Certain rules of customs for settlement of civil and criminal disputes through arbitrators governed the field , but they were by no means uniform or reputable.

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Lahore is Pakistan’s true food centre. The induction of quality Thai food has made it more cosmopolitan. Lahorites have access not only to a large number of Pakistani dishes and Punjabi specialities, it has fast food restaurants, Western dishes, steak houses, pizzas, Japanese, Chinese, Lebanese, Afghani, Thai cooking and even Indian ‘Thali’ and ‘Dossas.’

Food Street
The success of Food Street in Gawalmandi, established in 2000, has been beyond its organisers’ imaginations, and has led to other Food Streets being set up. The concentration of Western-styled restaurants on posh M.M. Alam Road can be called Lahore’s ‘Elite Food Street.’

Now I shall try to rate Lahore’s leading restaurants to make the choice easier for the readers, based on atmosphere, quality of food in relation to prices and service etc.

Atmosphere
The foremost factor for assessing any restaurant is the atmosphere it provides to its customers who leave their houses to visit it. The restaurants classified on the basis of atmosphere are as follows:-
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