Pakistan Discussion Thread

[KeyboardWarrior]

Ayesha Farooq, first to pass qualifying tests for combat, says she will do "same activities" as male colleagues. Ayesha Farooq Pakistan's first war-ready female fighter pilot has said she is ready to defend her country, and sees no difference between herself and her male colleagues when it comes to "precision bombing". Ayesha Farooq, from Punjab province's city of Bahawalpur, is one of 25 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade. Out of the 25, there are five other female fighter pilots who have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat, news agencies said on Thursday. Non-fighter pilots fly slower aircraft, ferrying troops and equipment around the country. "I don't feel any different. We do the same activities, the same precision bombing," the 26-year-old said of her male colleagues at Mushaf base in north Pakistan. growing number of women have joined Pakistan's defence forces in recent years as attitudes towards women change. "Because of terrorism and our geographical location it's very important that we stay on our toes," said Farooq, referring to Taliban fighting and a sharp rise in sectarian violence. Deteriorating security in neighbouring Afghanistan, where US-led troops are preparing to leave by the end of next year, and an uneasy relationship with India, add to the mix. Farooq was at loggerheads with her widowed mother seven years ago when she said she wanted to join the air force. "In our society most girls don't even think about doing such things as flying an aircraft," she said. Family pressure against the traditionally male-dominated armed forces dissuaded other women from taking the next step to become combat ready, air force officials said. "More and more ladies are joining [the force] now," said Nasim Abbas, Wing Commander of Squadron 20, made up of 25 pilots, including Farooq, who fly Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jets. "It's seen as less of a taboo. There's been a shift in the nation's, the society's, way of thinking," Abbas told Reuters news agency on the base in Punjab's Sargodha district. There are now about 4,000 women in Pakistan's armed forces, largely confined to desk jobs and medical work. But over the last decade, women have become sky marshals, defending Pakistan's commercial liners against insurgent attacks, and a select few are serving in the elite anti-terrorist force. Like most female soldiers in the world, Pakistani women are still banned from ground combat. Pakistan now has 316 women in the air force compared to around 100 five years ago, Abbas said. "In Pakistan, it's very important to defend our front lines because of terrorism and it's very important for everyone to be part of it," said avionics engineer Anam Hassan, 24, as she set out for work on an F-16 fighter aircraft.

[Texy]

All the best to her! She could be an inspiration to other girls breaking the threshold. Growing up in a dominated patriarchal society, women need more role models like her.

[cricfan123]

:hatsoff:

[Clarke]

That's atleast one area you're ahead of us :P

[beetle]

Good...now may be you have a chance at any war.....:giggle:

[DomainK]

Good luck to her. I hope she never has to see an actual war.

[gs]

Good luck to her. I hope she never has to see an actual war.

+1

[coffee_rules]

That's atleast one area you're ahead of us :P

Not true.

[Clarke]

^ Not "Fighter" pilots.

[velu]

Female pilots and Chinese fighter jets :hmmm: Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

[KeyboardWarrior]

^^^ also American F-16s ....

[KeyboardWarrior]

First Pakistani Woman to earn PhD in Astrophysics First Pakistani Woman to earn PhD in Astrophysics KARACHI: One would expect Mariam Sultana, the first Pakistani woman to earn a PhD in astrophysics, to be admired and revered by her students. Instead, she finds herself warding off the invective heaped on her and clearing the misconception that she has studied astrology, a pseudoscience which is considered haram. “The students somehow confuse my field of study, extragalatic astronomy, with fortune telling or palm reading,” she told The Express Tribune. “Their parents do the same thing and advise their children to stay away from the subject.” After working assiduously for almost six years, 30-year-old Sultana, a lecturer at the mathematical sciences department of the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology (FUUAST), earned her PhD a week ago. When she started her coursework back in 2006, she was a research associate at Karachi University’s (KU) Institute of Planetary Astrophysics. She explained that the goal of extragalactic astrophysics is to understand the formation of planetary systems, stars and galaxies which are embedded in the cosmic web. Her work was supervised by Dr Salakhutdin Nuritdinov, a professor at the National University of Uzbekistan. He was appointed in 2006 to FUUAST through the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) foreign faculty hiring programme. Dr Nuritdinov is a pioneer in the field and allowed Sultana to further develop mathematical models that he had created. “I didn’t feel worthy enough to do such high standard work,” said Sultana. “It was Dr Nuritdinov who led me all the way through.” In her thesis, she investigated the instabilities and physical conditions which gave galaxies their ring shape. Sultana was thrilled when two eminent professors agreed to become examiners for her doctoral thesis. One of them was James Binney, a professor of physics at the University of Oxford. He also heads the Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics. The second examiner was Dr Ana Katrin Schenk, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California. Dr Binney wrote to her and said that “[sultana’s] thesis represents a considerable body of work, and from a technical aspect, it is surely worthy of a doctorate.” Sultana plans to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship in the United Kingdom. “But first I want to supervise all the PhDs which were left incomplete because of Dr Nuritdinov’s departure from Pakistan,” she said. She is currently supervising the doctoral students at FUUAST’s mathematical sciences department. :hatsoff:

[KeyboardWarrior]

Team Pakistan sweeps debating competition in Mexico The team beat South Korea in the finals. Two team members, Zainab Hameed and Azeem Liaquat, bagged the first and second position respectively as the best speakers at the competition while the third member, Ahmed Shujaan, scored the fifth position. KARACHI: For the three 15-year-old students selected to represent Pakistan in one of the largest high school tournaments in the world, The Karl Popper Debating Championship (KPDC), the first-time visit to Mexico became their time to shine. Not only did the Pakistani team win the final against the team from South Korea, but all three participants were listed in the top 10 speakers of tournament. The titled was achieved after winning through 6 preliminary rounds, 3 elimination rounds and the grand final. Karachi Grammar School student Zainab Hameed was named the top speaker of the competition while Azeem Liaquat, student of the Salamat International Campus for Advanced Studies in Lahore, came second. Their compatriot, Ahmed Shujaan from the Aitchison College, was not far behind either and bagged the fifth position among more than 200 participants. Teams from 45 countries came together to debate on a mix of prepared and impromptu motions. The event was a part of the 18th edition of the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) Youth Forum held in Mexico from July 2 to 15. This topic for the KPDC finals was “Guantanamo Bay prison should be closed down immediately”. Team Pakistan was defending the motion while team Korea had the burden to prove that the motion should not be adopted. The teams participated in two competitions –the KPDC and the mixed team track. In the former, they represented Pakistan as a team while in the former, they were split up and paired with debaters from other countries. First time for everything “It was the first time that Pakistan participated but it was also the first time that any team won with all nine votes of the judges in its favour,” said team Pakistan’s coach, Daniyal Asad, also the general secretary of the Debating Society of Pakistan. Asad also won the best coach cum adjudicator award. A two-day selection camp, comprising the top 20 speakers at the “Under-17 Pakistan National Debating Championship”, was arranged by the Debating Society of Pakistan in Lahore. The participants were primarily the O’ level or matriculation students out of which Zainab, Ahmed and Azeem were selected. Asad told The Express Tribune that the society has been running the debating circuit across the country successfully for the past 20 years without help from the government. “Some form of patronage from the government would have helped in grooming the talent.” The expenses of trip were paid by the US-based Open Society Foundations. Team effort After being selected for the competition, a five-day training camp was organised by the debating society in Lahore, following which they continued to research and collaborate for about two weeks through online mediums because Zainab was in Karachi while the other two participants were based in Lahore. “We had a lot of team chemistry right off the bat and that was probably the main reason that we were successful,” said Zainab. She gave credit to the coach and other trainers for strenuously helping them all the way through. “We didn’t actually have a lot of knowledge about topics like civil liberties and terrorism,” said Zainab while talking about the competition’s theme. “We didn’t even know that the Guantanamo Bay is actually a legal black hole but we had to defend the motion in the finals.” Zainab recaps that the moment their victory was announced, everybody except for the three stunned team members were cheering them on while chanting “Pakistan… Pakistan”. “It was not only a competition but also a great learning experience during which we got to prove our talent,” said Ahmed. He recalled one of the most memorable moments for the team when the three performed “bhangra” in traditional Pakistani outfits at the talent night. :two_thumbs_up:

[veer]

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[veer]

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[KeyboardWarrior]

Pakistan Army: First female paratroopers make history A total of 24 lady officers successfully completed the course at Parachute Training School, Peshawar. ISLAMABAD: The first group of female paratroopers completed their training on Sunday, the military announced, hailing it as a “landmark achievement.” A total of 24 lady officers of Pakistan Army successfully completed the course at Parachute Training School, Peshawar. Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani congratulated all the lady officers and their training staff on successful completion of the course. Captain Kiran Ashraf was declared the best paratrooper of the batch, the military said in a statement, while Captain Sadia, referred to by one name, became the first woman officer to jump from a MI-17 helicopter. After three weeks’ basic airborne training, which included exit, flight and landing techniques, the new paratroopers completed their first jump on Sunday and were given their “wings” by the commander of Special Services Group, Major General Abid Rafique, the military said. In 2006, seven women broke into one of Pakistan’s most exclusive male clubs to graduate as fighter pilots – perhaps the most prestigious job in the powerful military and for six decades closed to the fairer sex. :hatsoff:

[veer]

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[veer]

Lols u r trolling now... Mod merge all these threads.. It's getting irritating..

[veer]

Mucho Gracias!!!

[veer]

No worries... Happy trolling..