SEECS Atrocious Parking Policy

Proclamation:

This article is not a part of any kind of propaganda movement. It just represents an opinion about something ridiculous that has never been witnessed before in any university.

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Recently SEECS finally managed to get its “automated” parking system, which is part of the campus automation and access control that was promised when we shifted to this campus three years back. The parking system consists of a barrier that is operated using an RFID card. I would not like to comment on the parking system and its shortcomings but the parking policy needs to be looked in to.

As you might have seen the parking space for SEECS is very small compared to the number of vehicles and students that it has to accommodate. Moreover almost two thirds of it is occupied by faculty, rest that is available to students is now further dented by this automated system. You can’t park your car in that parking space if you don’t possess the RFID card. Now to get the RFID card you have to go through a process which can be best described by this official email that i received:

From this semester i.e. Fall 2010 SEECS has setup the automated parking system. It has been decided to allow a limited number of students to park their cars inside the SEECS parking lot with the following conditions.

• You need to first register using the Online Registration Form
  https://spreadsheets.google.com/blah blah balah
• After Online Registration you have to pay Rs. 1000 (Refundable RFID Card Security) and Rs. 500 per month in Accounts Department.
• After Fee Deposit you need to submit payment slip to Mr. XXX for issuance of RFID Card. You shall get the card on the next day.
• Only first 50 students will be accommodated. Students will be served on first come first served basis.

I have been in the RFID industry for some time, although not for long but I know for sure that an RFID transponder costs no more than Rs.200. Even for the sake of argument if we consider it to be worth Rs.1000 – which is ridiculous – , what kind of university charges its students for using the parking lot?

SEECS proclaims to abolish military style rule of the administration by taking small measures which are of no value i.e. ban on ragging and giving responsibility to students, but in its core is the same biased and dictatorial mentality which is even worse than a disciplined military environment.\

This article has also been published on http://www.irnustian.com

Political Rundown

Vows of solidarity, proclamations of national strength, speeches of democratic mandates, here they are dressed up in the most expensive cotton roaming between the Flood affected people and again kicking dirt on face of every Pakistani, yelling “we are with you” . Now call me a whatever you want but this system of your democracy cant work. The reasons behind are many but to name the most prominent are;

• People like me and you sitting in their homes knowing everything and yet just typing their loath to their stupid blogs and considering that our part is done
• People in the 70 percent of rural areas UNEDUCATED, who just vote aimlessly and later regret what have they done
• People like our “Politicians”, who only know how to throw dirt on everyone’s faces

The current system of government works in Britain, US and India because the public there has a strong base for supporting it. We being belonging to an area which has repeatedly been evaded by conquerors, resulting in creation of a volatile nation driven by rumors, extremism, media and most of all politicians, just are too weak as individuals to support it. There is a strange volatility about us that makes us weak for supporting democracy. Volatility is something that makes a man who is master of manipulation, use his power to control us like puppets. Result a prolonged turmoil throughout the country and here come in our politicians, who tend to save us all from it and Voila we have a new assembly and most of them are under qualified for their jobs. Then the process repeats in a loop again and again.

I dont blame the Army for being powerful in the bones of this country. They are not powerful, they are where they should be, the fault is in our National Administration – Government. They are too weak to take the responsibility of administering a country. Therefore providing a chance to its institutions to take over.

I cant see the future of Pakistan anywhere near being bright if these big fish remain in the roots of our country. Do what they may, the loop in which we have stepped into will never end unless some sanity showers on the country like monsoon and so the masses realize their responsibility as citizens of a state.