Fun-starved Islooites demand cinema in Capital
ISLAMABAD: The movie-loving people of the federal capital have no place to go for enjoying movies at big cinema screens as there exists not a single cinema in the Capital city of the country.
The city used to have three movie theatres, two of which fell prey to the apathy of the city administration and the third was destroyed by extremists. Islooites have to go Rawalpindi to watch a movie on the big screen, which has more than 10 cinemas including Ciros, Capital, Gulistan, Shabistan, Naz, Plaza and Odeon. Cinema lovers expressed grave concerns over the situation, saying that the government’s double standard polices deprived them of this public recreation. People said that on the one hand the government claimed to be promoting cultural activities and on the other hand the capital did not even have a movie theatre.
Despite the utmost effort of the cultural ministry for reviving film industry in the country which had been languishing during the past 2 decades due to the negligence of government and proliferation of piracy, poor conditions of the film industry has minimized the number of cinema houses in the country.
For this reason, only those cinemas were making popular business who made inroads to the Indian films including Cinepax, Rawalpindi, which opened its doors for Indian movies attracting maximum number of viewers and best of cinema experience by bringing all the latest Hollywood and Bollywood movies on the same day and date.
The Cinepax goes with houseful on holidays seating approximately 1,400 people with a variety of food services as the people of capital have not a single cinema in their premises and they throng to ticket house of Cinepax in Rawalpindi.
Pindites being supplied contaminated water Sustainable Policy Development Institute (SDPI) conducted a workshop in the slum area on the outskirts of Rawalpindi relating to the Access to Safe Drinking Water in City Slums project.
It was joint venture in collaboration with the UNEP National Committee of the Republic of Korea.
SDPI team met with around 40 local female/male residents in preparation for the distribution of material for assembling AHD Nadi filters, in the area.
The meetings are a part of a four-month pilot project in the urban slums of Islamabad and Rawalpindi for providing access to safer drinking water to slum residents, conducted with the support of Association for Humanitarian Development(AHD), an NGO in Hyderabad, Sindh.
Local residents identified the lack of clean water as a major issue in James town and expressed concerns over health issues amongst the community’s children.
Dr. Mahmood A. Khwaja, Senior Advisor and Research Fellow at
SDPI, explained how the AHD Nadi filter provides an ingenious low-tech solution to water contamination issues in urban slum areas.
The Nadi design uses a mix of different sizes gravel and sand- in baked clay containers, locally available. AHD Nadi filter is cheap to build even at the household level, easy to maintain and effectively improves biologically contaminated water.
The meeting included discussion over hygiene issues, in which members of SDPI training team and AHD resource person, Mr. Khurshid Bhati, explained that in project pre-feasibility surveys of the slum area, it was established that most of the diseases in the area are water borne.
He told that stomach worms, diarrhea and dysentery, as well as scabies and other skin ailments, are usually the result of contaminated drinking water.
The Project aims to provide safe drinking water by distributing a locally self-assembled AHD Nadi filter in each street, and in a few of public places such as schools, mosques and near cluster of local shops close to open market within James town area.
“Members of our team and I myself was very happy with today’s workshop”, said Dr. Khwaja, adding, “we had a great turn out and the women were very enthusiastic and concerned over the implications on the health, especially of their children, in the local area due to the dreadful state of local water supplies.”
Source: The Nation
Date:2/19/2010
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