[Owen Abroad] Global development challenges [podcast]

Global development challenges [podcast] 11 February, 2011 A new edition of the Development Drums podcast is now available online.  Malini Mehra from the Center for Social Markets and Alex Evans from the Center on International Cooperation at NYU take a step back and look at the broad sweep of the big development challenges of the 21st century. Malini Mehra and Alex Evans discuss the big development challenges of the 21st Century in Development Drums 25 Alex Evans and I recently took part in a discussion of the big development issues with a committee of Members of Parliament in the British House of Commons. Alex kicked off that meeting with a magisterial and somewhat pessimistic presentation which set out ten key issues for development, and we took his presentation as our agenda for this discussion on Development Drums. Malina and Alex are interesting and knowledgeable on a dauntingly wide range of issues, and the podcast covers a lot of ground: the changing distribution of global poverty; demographic change; the financial crisis; oil prices; food prices; feeding the 9 billion; climate change; trade; the changing face of conflict; the global governance deficit; and the implications for UK development policy. Each of these issues really needs an entire episode of Development Drums to be discussed properly, but I thought it was interesting to bring them all together to draw out common issues and ideas. The following thoughts struck me from the discussion: First – the importance of resilience which cropped up again and again in the discussion. I think this is possibly the Next Big Thing in development thinking (as if we need more Big Things). The idea is that we should be helping to develop the institutions and assets that ensures that people are resilient to shocks, of which there seem to be likely to be more. Second – treating shocks as opportunities as well as risks.  As Alex points out in the podcast, there was a narrow window after the collapse of Lehman Brothers during which we could have remade the global financial system: but nobody had a plan ready to go. There are going to be more shocks: will the progressive development community be ready to seize the opportunities these represent? Third – the almost complete failure of global governance. All the issues we discuss relate in some way to the failure to put in place effective global processes and institutions to solve collective action problems  such as on trade, climate change, or food supply. As Malini says, we are living in an era not of the G-8 but of G-0.  Alex provides an interesting analysis of the problems in the podcast: on the face of it, to my mind, the problems don't sound insurmountable. Fourth – the optimism and energy coming from emerging countries such as India and China. Malina both describes and embodies this.  But it's also clear that on many issues - notably trade and climate change - the interests of these increasingly powerful countries are now diverging from those of the less developed countries, and we need to think hard about ensure the interests of the poorest countries are not left behind a grand bargain between the old and new rich countries. Fifth – development policy isn't mainly about aid.  In a discussion which surveys the big development challenges confronting us, aid hardly gets a mention. Yet most of the development agencies in the world spend most of their time thinking about aid. How to listen to development drums You can listen to Development Drums on your computer straight from the website (http://developmentdrums.org) or download any episode (from here) to your MP3 player or computer. Alternatively, you can subscribe to Development Drums on iTunes free of charge (search for "Development Drums" in the iTunes store). As is the Development Drums custom, the podcast plays out with a slightly relevant song.  See if you can guess before you get to the end what it's going to be (there's a clue hidden in the title of the podcast, Episode 25: Global Development Challenges). Other development podcasts I find podcasts a convenient way to keep up to date, especially when I've got long plane flights or trips by road; and lots of people listen to them when running on the treadmill in the gym or during their commute. If you enjoy Development Drums, you may also enjoy the Center for Global Development's Global Prosperity Wonkcasts, which are a bit shorter than Development Drums.  As with Development Drums, you can listen online, subscribe to the feed or subscribe free on iTunes. The Guardian has also recently started a monthly development podcast.  The most recent editions are about "securitisation of aid" (that is, greater focus of aid on fragile states) and on so-called "Land Grabs".  Again, you can subscribe to the feed directly, or get it free on iTunes. Here's a complete list of development podcasts: Development Drums The Center for Global Development Prosperity Wonkcast The Guardian Focus Podcast Think Before You Give BBC Africa Today Peterson Perspectives PRI: Global Health and Development The World Bank Podcasts Philanthropy This Week PRI: The Changing World Other economics podcasts Tim Harford (author, and FT leader writer) has just compiled a list of the best economics podcasts. See the post online, read comments by others, or add your comments. Unsubscribe | Subscribe | RSS

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Telenor Announces Implementation of Karo Mumkin Ideas: ProPakistani

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• Telenor Announces Implementation of Karo Mumkin Ideas
• Ufone Becomes SAMENA’s 1st Cellco Member from South Asia
• What Does IPv4 Exhaustion Mean to You?
• Ufone Lady’s Package: Hourly Calls in the Day
• Not Happy with PTCL [L.T.E]

Telenor Announces Implementation of Karo Mumkin Ideas Posted: 10 Feb 2011 04:53 AM PST Telenor Announces Implementation of Karo Mumkin Ideas is a post from: ProPakistani Telenor Pakistan announced the next phase of its 'Karo Mumkin' initiative, in a press conference at its head office today. The two winning ideas, out of 25,000 total ideas submitted to Karo Mumkin, will now be turned into real-life projects and will be launched later this year. Telenor Pakistan's Karo Mumkin initiative aims at helping people realize possibilities. In today's press briefing, both the winners shared details of their projects. Fariha Ambreen spoke about her project ‘Recycle Paper to Provide Notebooks to Schools for Under Privileged Children’ while Abdul Haq Mohiuddin gave details about his project ‘Donate Rs. 100 from your Monthly Salary to Make Education Possible for Street Children’. Usman Javaid, Director Marketing and Anjum Rahman, Director Communication and CR were also present at the occasion. Both Fareeha and Abdul Haq will work with project consultants and auditors Earnest & Young. Talking about the Karo Mumkin projects, Usman Javaid, Director Marketing Telenor Pakistan said: "Telenor Pakistan is providing the funds (Rs. 2 million for each of the project), the means and the tools needed for the projects to reach completion with the confidence that they will benefit the people of Pakistan. It has been a fulfilling journey and I am sure the spirit will inspire others to launch similar initiatives." Fariha Ambreen, one of the project owners, said: "It has been a gratifying experience to work on the project with Telenor Pakistan. I am in talks with 50-plus organizations which will become collection points for waste paper; I have already spoken with a premium packaging company in Lahore to convert the waste paper into notebooks. I am now looking at schools where the notebooks will be provided. I am excited at being able to turn my idea in reality. Although we have not reached our destination yet but we are certainly on our way." Abdul Haq Mohiuddin, the other project owner, said: "With Telenor Pakistan’s help and the project management consultants, I have been able to turn my idea into reality. I plan to launch a website to help people donate online and through easypaisa services. Considering that on an average 1800 students graduate from a university every year, imagine the possibilities if they would donate just Rs100 from their monthly salary for this cause." To implement their ideas, the two winners will establish NGO's with the names 'Sabz' and 'Edvolution'. The hope is that these eventually become self-sustaining. Telenor Pakistan representatives will act as advisory members on the Board of Trustees. Telenor Pakistan’s Karo Mumkin show began airing in July 2010 and was designed to enable people to turn a patriotic idea into reality. The Karo Mumkin show asked audiences to send in their ideas by responding to the question 'Where Do You See Pakistan in the Future?' Over 24,000 ideas were received of which two were selected by a jury panel. Related posts: Telenor Karo Mumkin Show; Starting Today! Karo Mumkin Show Hits its 'Grand Begining' Share the way You want Pakistan to be – Telenor’s Karo Mumkin Telenor Karo Mumkin – Play Your Part Telenor Celebrates its 5th Anniversary with Karo Mumkin Copyright © 2010 ProPakistani.PK

Ufone Becomes SAMENA’s 1st Cellco Member from South Asia Posted: 10 Feb 2011 04:41 AM PST Ufone Becomes SAMENA’s 1st Cellco Member from South Asia is a post from: ProPakistani Pak Telecom Mobile Ltd (Ufone) has become the first cellular operator from South Asia to join SAMENA Council, a telecom council with 80-plus registered organizations, said an email statement sent to us. Pak Telecom Mobile Ltd, operating in Pakistan under the brand name Ufone and a leading operator in one of the SAMENA region's most competitive markets, ranks among the largest cellular networks, with a subscriber base that exceeds 20 million. The company is widely accredited in Pakistan as the brand that revolutionized the industry and changed the perception that cellular services were only for the elite. Ufone has led the way to increase brand equity and market visibility through strategic consistency in reaching out to the masses, making network enhancements, and offering a diverse variety of value-added services. Ufone, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pakistan Telecom Company Ltd, has focused on expanding connectivity at affordable price structures in a market where average user purchasing power has been on the decline over the past several years. Among the earliest and most active players, Ufone has significantly developed Pakistan's cellular market and pioneered the launch of MMS, GPRS as well as GPRS international roaming and prepaid international roaming services in Pakistan. Ufone's CEO, Abdul Aziz said, "Ufone is a believer in innovation, to further equip the consumer with the latest in technology. Ufone's stride towards being a leader in innovation has earned acclaim off being among the region's most innovative top players. SAMENA gives a platform to inform and share real-time exchange of ideas with other regions. Ufone finds SAMENA's direction and progression to be of much strategic significance." Mr. Tom Wilson, who is the CEO and executive managing director of SAMENA, expressed his enthusiasm over Ufone's joining SAMENA by declaring that "SAMENA is a conduit of business ideas in the region. Our experience in the region so far has convinced us that SAMENA offers a highly strategic marketing and knowledge platform that operators should use to their advantage. Ufone will surely benefit and several of SAMENA's sub-groups and committees are open for Ufone to lead. I congratulate Mr. Aziz on his decision to join us." SAMENA Telecommunications Council's membership platform, since its creation in April 2006, has generated new approaches for better dealing with telecoms and pertinent regulatory challenges as well as for serving growing customer needs in the market.  Related posts: South Asia Mobile Summit Concludes in Bangladesh Pakistan Bags Telecom Awards at SAMENA Awards 2010 Get Free Ufone EDGE USB with Dell Vestro South Asia is the territory of the Mobile Pakistan Ranks 5th in Asia in Mobile Phone Users Copyright © 2010 ProPakistani.PK

What Does IPv4 Exhaustion Mean to You? Posted: 09 Feb 2011 11:17 PM PST What Does IPv4 Exhaustion Mean to You? is a post from: ProPakistani By Walid Janjua This is a Guest Post by Walid Janjua, who is a self professed technology geek and open source advocate. He is providing consulting in Data Networks, VoIP networks, Visualization and Business Process Automation to small and medium companies in Islamabad/Rawalpindi. These days you can not visit a technology blog or a major news portal without reading about the looming catastrophe of IPv4 exhaustion. Some people are claiming that this is going to be the death of the internet and others suggest that a solution is available and the average user will not even feel the difference. For most non-technical people, they have never really heard of the term before, let alone what it does and how it is going to effect them. I am going to try to explain the entire problem and its effects on you. What Rally is IPv4? On the internet every computer has a unique address. Think of this as your telephone number. If someone wants to contact you, he/she is going to call you by dialing your number. The same way, every internet connected device (for instance your computer is a device connected to internet) requires its own unique internet address, or an IP address. On a very basic level, different IP addresses communicate with each other to make the magic of the internet possible. It is worth mentioning here that in most cases the IP addresses are unique for each of the device connected to the internet. The problem: The current incarnation of the above mentioned system (IPv4), dates back to research carried out in the 1970′s and 1980′s. Since then it really has not changed all that much. The problem with the current system is that they are not enough unique IP addresses within the system to assign to every person or device which wants to connect to the internet. The body which governs the allocation of IP addresses IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), has already assigned all of the remaining pools of of IP addresses to regional bodies (RIR's) to be further allocated to companies and individuals. Now, that there are no more IP address available to assign, what do we do if someone wants to connected to the internet. Solutions In the very short term, the remaining IP address which have been assigned to RIR's will need to be allocated to service providers and businesses in such way that it is ensured that they are only assigned to those originations which really need them. But this is certainly not a real solution. Other solutions do exist which we will look at. NAT NAT stands for Network Address Translation. With NAT, an entire network is assigned only one public internet address (public IP address). All the hosts within the network are assigned a Private address with which they can not communicate with the internet but they can communicate with each other over the private network. Within the network a server or a router is performing NAT. The server/router accept requests from the hosts on the private network on their private addresses to connect to the internet. The router/server then sends out the requests over the internet using its public internet IP address. This arrangement has a lot of inherent issues. Hosts within the network will not be able to host web services e.g. a web host, a public DNS server etc. with using something called Port Forwarding. IPv6 The only real solution to the problem is the adoption of IPv6. With IPv6, the size of the available IP address has been changed many fold. In IPv4 the maximum available IP address are 4,294,967,296. However, almost half of them have been reserved for other other purposes. On the other hand, IPv6 has 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 unique addresses. To put this into perspective, that is approximately 5×1028 addresses for each of the roughly 6.5 billion people alive today. Unfortunately, a significant portion of the internet core infrastructure is not ready for this transition to IPv6. In some cases only a software patch can fix the issue but in more severe cases, the hardware needs to be replaced. In the medium term, both IPv6 and IPv4 will have to be used simultaneously. Adoption of IPv6 Most companies and large internet service providers have been very slow in adoption of the new protocol. As it stands, only a handful of service providers are offering IPv6 based connections. According on study, only 1.81% of all the devices connected are connected over IPv6. Conclusion Certainly the future is IPv6 but the adoption has been at a snails pace. If IPv6 is not adopted on a state level, many disruptions can be expected within the medium term. I would recommend everyone to contact their service provider to seek IPv6 connectivity. Sooner or later, everyone has to take the plunge. Related posts: PTA Determines 2014 as Depletion time of IPv4 for Pakistan Is Pakistan ready for IPv6? Internet Users in Pakistan hit 17.5 Million Mark Telenor Offers GPRS Bundles Zong Rs. 1 Phone – Just another Deceptive Marketing Catch Phrase Copyright © 2010 ProPakistani.PK

Ufone Lady’s Package: Hourly Calls in the Day Posted: 09 Feb 2011 10:57 PM PST Ufone Lady’s Package: Hourly Calls in the Day is a post from: ProPakistani Ufone has introduced Lady's package which will allow its customers to make hourly on-net calls in the day from 10 AM to 5 PM. There are daily charges of 50 paisas too, associated with this package. This is what suits the best to ladies, to make hour long calls to their friends and family members when there's nothing much to do. Tariff: Daily Charges: 50 Paisas Calls to Ufone and PTCL (10 AM to 5 PM): Rs. 2 per hour Calls to Ufone and PTCL (5 PM to 10 AM): Rs. 1.25 per minute Calls to other networks (24 hours): Rs. 1.25 per minute SMS (Ufone to Ufone): 50 Paisa SMS (Ufone to other networks): Rs. 1 How to Subscribe: To subscribe to Ufone Lady's Package, dial *34# Terms & Conditions: Calls to Ufone and PTCL numbers will be charged at Rs.2+tax per hour Daily subscription fee of 50 paisas+tax will be applicable Calls made to free numbers and short codes are not included in hourly call rate 19.5% FED on usage and 10% withholding tax at recharge or bill applies Terms and condition apply Related posts: Not one or two, Call Five numbers Free Forever: Says Ufone Ufone Super Ghanta Offer Uth Package Offers Free on-net Calls after Two Mins Ufone Introduces Youth Package Ufone Ghanta Package Now Available from 9 AM to 5 PM Copyright © 2010 ProPakistani.PK

Not Happy with PTCL [L.T.E] Posted: 09 Feb 2011 10:46 PM PST Not Happy with PTCL [L.T.E] is a post from: ProPakistani Did you receive some surprised calls from PTCL regarding DSL connections in December? If so then you are not the only one. Various customers, including me, received numerous such promotional calls. Each time they would call and state that you have have applied for DSL connection leaving one perplexed. I lost my patience when I simultaneously received call on my cell and landline number. Further more the caller tried to convince me that they have cheap [emphasize] DSL packages. Either PTCL was trying to achieve some "DSL registration" targets or they thought it will be an economical way of marketing. Irrespective of the reason, the act was a foolish. A company with a reputable standard bearing the Logo of Pakistan does not comply with such an act. It gave a sense of "untrustworthiness" to the customer thus such marketing campaigns backfire. After privatization of PTCL, the company did take revolutionary steps and did wonders. In fact in a leaked PTCL's Budget report it has been projected that company earned 9 billion profit this year (2011). But what more was discovered in that report was that not a single penny would be spent on improving the quality of service for more than 4.5 million landline subscribers. The triple play project is sure eye catching but there has been issues with it which are being dealt poorly by customer service. PTCL'S EVO, which has recently won consumer Choice Award is rated 59% poor by the customers. This should be an eye opener for PTCL. My point of mentioning PTCL's services is that they have got an amazing portfolio with such a huge product line, but why in this world they are not focusing on customer support to capitalize from their products and offerings?  If the authorities of PTCL are reading this please never repeat the act of December again, it shows the company's desperation to get new costumers. Stop wasting time on calling each customer several time to convince them for DSL connection because even if they get convinced the company's quality of service wont last them for long. Huzaifa Saleem   ——————————————————— Letter written to ProPakistani reflect readers thoughts, feelings and experiences. ProPakistani may or may not, partially or fully, agree with content of these letters. ProPakistani bears no responsibility in any manner of the content produced in these letters/emails. You can write to us by visiting this page or email us here: letters [a] propakistani.com (remove spaces and replace [a] with @ ) Related posts: wi-tribe Announces Happy Day Offer Customers Not Happy with Auto Activation of PTCL Voice Mail Unlimited On-Net Calls for One Hour: Warid PrePaid Eid Mubarak to Everyone – Here Comes Eid Messages PTCL to Offer Unlimited On-Net Voice and Broadband Plans Copyright © 2010 ProPakistani.PK

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