Houstonian Corner (V10-I20)

Indians sail through annual Houston cricket match at Tom Bass Park

The traditional Pakistan Vs India match was organized at Tom Bass Park Harris County by the Houston Cricket Club. Local Pakistani and Indian Cricket players participate in this pressure and prestigious match. This year Indians performed their hat-trick of wins, meaning they have won three times in a row, when they beat Pakistan by 7 wickets.

Best batsman award went to Supratim Srinivasam (India), best bowler award went to Tejas Sanghawi and best fielders award went to Talha Syed (Pakistani).

Chief Organizers of the event Khalid Nabi thanked both the teams for a good game and the various sponsors for their contributions in making the game possible. He applauded the efforts of umpires Peter and Donald and good two weeks work of grounds-man Devon. Prizes were given away by Houston Cricket League President Fayyaz Sarwar, PAGH Office Bearer Taslim Siddiqui, Coordinator of the MAQ T-20 International Cricket Memorial Day Long Weekend Cricket in Florida and Congressman AL-Green Liaison Officer Bobby Refaie and others.

Cricket is played every weekend at Tom Bass Park (BW 8 & Hwy 288 in South East Houston near Pearland) and some other places across the Greater Houston Region. Are you interested in knowing more about Cricket in Houston: Then call Khalid Nabi 281-520-6350 or Fayyaz Sarwar 832-287-8700 or Bilal Saeed 832-215-4949.

Grand Dinner of MQM-Houston with Nazim Karachi Syed Mustafa Kamal

Syed Mustafa Kamal, Nazim-e-Aala of Karachi, is on an official visit of USA being special guest of State Department and is visiting Houston to sign on the memorandum to start the work in making Karachi Sister City of Houston.

Former MQM MNA Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui spoke, highlighting how under the dynamic leadership of Quaid of MQM Altaf Hussein, such strong, vibrant and hardworking Nazim-e-Aala of Karachi Syed Mustafa Kamal got produced.

Syed Mustafa Kamal explained how without getting any political mileage, he and his team have brought clean water and sewage-&-sewerage system to 98% of Karachiites and he has done most of the initial work in such areas that in fact voted against him.

There have been places along the islands, where fresh water had not reached homes in the past 300 years.

Once that is done, he is proceeding further with roadway and other projects. All is being done through Public and Private Partnership. All these efforts have made sure that those big businesses of Karachi, who at one time, were considering relocating to Middle East, are now willing to stay in Karachi and are booming.

One example he gave is a 300 industrial unit strong area of Korangi. Water was distributed via water tanks to these 300 facilities and there was no sewerage system for the discharge of the factories. When he first learnt about this from Korangi Association, he thought they were exaggerating: But that same night around 2:00AM., he went there secretly and thought there was a battle going on with hundreds of water tankers going in all directions and factory discharge making pathways littered with dangerous waste and marshy ditches.

His administration, working together with the factory owners, have totally changed the shape of Korangi: Now every industry and home has direct water supply and an efficient sewerage and drainage system. He said “Remember that just this area of Korangi is giving the Government of Pakistan Rs.25-Crores every day and employs 1 million people.”

Answering some of the question, Syed Mustafa Kamal said his city administration have dedicated about 40 government public schools to be Model Schools with special curriculum and twenty dedicated personalities including Singer Shehzad Roy to run these schools and produce students, who can compete with pupils of private schools like Grammar and City School and if this is successful, the system will be replicated in all the 3,500 schools.

Through our Sister City relationship with City of Shanghai China, he explained, we are going to get a recycling system to clean the city, where the company keeping this Chinese Commerce hub will keep Karachi clean by not charging us, as they would be earning everything via producing goods through re-ycling and even generating power.

Syed Mustafa Kamal said indeed there is a shortage of power, but it is due to an increase in demand, where factories that once worked eight hours now are able to work 24 hours.

Syed Mustafa Kamal explained to TMO that he handles 18 departments and details of those can be found on their website at: http://www.karachicity.gov.pk/ – Everyone should remember Karachi in their prayers and good words, he said.

On your next visit to Karachi, every expatriate Pakistani should come and see the things happening: Move around to rich and poor areas and see for yourself how it has changed. You will find our traffic system is far better than other Asian and Middle Eastern Countries.

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