KARACHI: Raza Haider, MQM leader and member Sindh Assembly, and his guard have been gunned down here in Nazimabad on Monda, Geo News reported.

Unknown armed motorcyclists fired shots at Raza Haider as well as his guard when he was preparing to attend a funeral prayer at Jamia Masjid of Nazimabad Block No.2.

Raza Haider, who received a bullet in his head died when he was being rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. The guard later succumbed to his injuries while receiving medical aid at the hospital.

The MQM leader was elected from PS-94 Karachi 6.

Separate incidents of firing were reported in different parts of the city shortly after the fatal attack on MQM leader while two vehicles were set on fire in Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Gulshan-e-Iqbal.

The incident sent a wave of fear and panic across the metropolis, as shopkeepers pulled down their shutters in view of any violent reaction by enraged people.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik condemned the incident, urging the people to remain calm.

He termed the targeted killings in Karachi as a ‘latest formula’ being used to destabilize the country.

Rehman Malik urged MQM leaders to wait for investigation and called upon the people to observe restraint.

He said he would soon hold a meeting with MQM leaders.

MQM leaders Babar Ghauri and Haider Abbas Rizvi expressed profound grief on the tragic incident.

“It would be difficult to put a cap on the chapter opened (today),” Babar Ghauri asserted.

Basit Riaz Sheikh, a Pakistani Ph.D student in AVLSI Lab at Cornell University, the United States has won the best paper award at Global Scientific Conference-2010 held in Grenoble, France.

World’s fastest supercomputers are characterized by the number of floating-point operations they can perform in one second.

Basit Riaz Sheikh (son of former ADG FIA Ahmed Riaz Sheikh) presented the design and implementation of a first high-performance asynchronous floating-point unit.

Compared against the state-of-the-art designs including the commercially manufactured microprocessors in nanoscale technology, Basit’s fully implemented transistor-level design not only performed at 3.2 times higher speed but also consumed 6 times less energy.

He was awarded the best paper award for his ground-breaking research.

Basit is the first Pakistani to win such a prestigious award at a premier circuits and computer design conference.

He is advised by a renowned scientist, Professor Manohar who recently co-founded Achronix Semiconductor, a 100 million dollar giga-scale asynchronous chip design company.

via=’ProPakistani.PK’Basit Riaz Sheikh

Sohail Abid recently toured whole of Punjab on his motor bike. His tour spanned 27 cities in first phase, while he has plans to visit Northern Areas, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan later this year, most probably with same transportation channel.

For those who don’t know, Sohail Abid is a freelance coder/developer based in Islamabad, a good friend, prominent figure in Pakistani blogosphere.

There would be other people too, who were adventurous enough to roam the country, but Sohail Abid’s made his journey particularly special with the help of technology and the social media.

Sohail created a Facebook page, where he shared updates through mobile phone, which included interesting facts, information, pictures and tales of places he visited.

In very short span of time, he got over 1200 visitors – with no advertising, no struggle.

Sohail was equipped with an iPhone with facebook and twitter applications, to keep his fans posted about the happenings.

Here is what he wrote to ProPakistani:

Mainly two things made it possible to share live tour pictures and updates easily: iPhone and Telenor Persona (with monthly GPRS/EDGE package)

I was taking 2MP pictures and uploading right from the location where they were being taken. And this involves small towns, villages, jungles (lal suhnra), desert (cholistan), and Derawar Fort. Telenor worked everywhere, even in Cholistan.

He will leave for Northern Areas’ tour next week – you can join him by becoming a fan of Tour De Pakistan

Following are few pictures from Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/tourdepakistan

HOUSTON: A ceremony in connection with Milad-un-Nabi was held at Consulate of Pakistan in Houston Texas.

A large number of Pakistani youth attended the Milad. The youth recited poems eulogizing Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him) and also read essays on the life of Prophet. A quiz competition on the life of Prophet was also held and various gifts were distributed amongst participants.

A written essay and calligraphy competition was also held and top three position-holders received book prizes from Consul General Mohammad Aqil Nadeem.

All participants in Milad were also given appreciation certificated by the Consulate. On this occasion an exhibition of calligraphic work of Ms. Sobia was also on display and participants showed keen interest in the artwork.

Ustad Faraz Khan was a special speaker for the Milad and he delivered a thought-provoking lecture of the life of Prophet.

KARACHI: Former captain of Pakistan cricket team Shoaib Malik has expressed gratitude for nation and media for supporting him.

In a statement, Shoaib said he is thankful to God and Pakistani nation who extended full support during his tough times. He said God knows everything and said he will personally thank the media friends as soon as he reach back home.

“ I apologize if anyone feels hurt as far as my decision is concerned,” Shoaib added.

On the other hand, Indian police said investigations are on as the case against Shoaib Malik has not been abolished.