TOPIK 2013

Yesterday, a lot of friends took TOPIK. It has been reported that more than 1 million people have taken the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) so far.

The Ministry of Education said a total of 18,702 people applied to sit the TOPIK at 18 test sites on Sunday, bringing the accumulated total to 1.02 million.

The TOPIK measures proficiency in grammar, reading, listening and writing of Korean of foreigners whose mother tongue is not Korean. The first annual test took place in four countries in 1997.

Some 2,692 people took the test in 1997, and after a decade the number increased 12 times to 34,028 in 2006.

This year, the TOPIK is sat in 62 countries.

The Ministry believes that the Korean Wave, the expansion of Korean businesses overseas and efforts to promote the language contributed to the jump in the number of TOPIK takers.

High Street Market in Itaewon

 

Since Itaewon is evolving into a place where foreigners in Korea can find foreign food items easily, more and more grocery stores are opening up. Competition is tough. Two of the major stores are: Foreign Food Mart (FFM)and National Foods Mart (NFM). There is one more store that one must visit and it is: High Street Market located next to Itaewon Hotel - same place where we used to have Thai Orchid.
This store is equally close  to Hangang-jin as it is to Itaewon.

As the sign says: they have specialized in meats, wine and bakery. The bakery is behind the main counter where you can buy freshly baked cookies, pies, muffins, bread and many more things. Here the imported stuff includes deli meats, cheese, cereals, canned food, vegetables and even spices and dals (which they have got from NFF).

On entering the store, it  offers a very different atmosphere/ambiance and it is a bit similar to the Whole Foods in the US but of course it's not as grand. I loved the way things have been arranged in this stores. Aisles are spacious and you can clearly see what they have.

Like other stores, some of their products are from Costco, National Foods Mart and even FFM. Cheese is the same variety that one can find at National Foods Mart. Their uniqueness is in the cafe and the adjacent bakery.

This is a good alternative amongst stores in Itaewon. If you are there, stop by, maybe you will also find a thing or two.

The website of High Street Mart is HERE and you will find much more info there.

Raining Now

Hippo in Itaewon: I screamed the same way as him ...seeing the rain!

This blog is not meant for weather reports but seems like I'll make it one. Life is but the repetition of things we do...when I had to write a diary in Korean, so I told my neighbor, an alumni from my school, that aside from lunch/dinner menu - my life is pretty much the same so it doesn't make any sense writing a daily diary. She thought that it's still important. Anyhow, it is raining pretty bad here - yes. Look outside the window. :-(

So it's about umbrellas today.  It's dark, wet, cold and snow is still all around. Weather does effect our mood... I have a class and haven't done my homework. I missed my last class since I was very sick. While studying languages, missing a class gives a feeling of being left behind and the gap is hard to fill. Regularity is important.

Post in Urdu

Abb voh zamana hai keh jis kay dil main aie voh kitab likh dalay aur kuch na sahi tau blog likh dalay....apni marzi hai. Mujhko kuch bhi likhnay say hamishah hee koft hoti thee....aur ajj bhi hoti hai....likin iss sabb kay bawajood main nay 650 posts likh dalay hain. Agar itna kaam apnay thesis per ker latee tau kiya hee acha hota.

Hamayshah yeh koshih rahi keh kisi tarah Urdu lihknay ka software hath aa jai....2012 main Pakistan janay kay bawajood, ajj bhi  meray pass koi aisa tareeqa nahi keh apni zuban main kuch likhon...

1990 ki dihai main akhri bar Urdu main kuch likha ho ga...phir tau kabhi zarurat nahi paree...Arabi, Francici aur Korean zubanon main aagay, peechay kaam shuru ho gay-ya...app na apni zuban aati hai na koi parai - na teetar , na bateer!

2013 ki shurwat kuch ajeeb si hoi hai isbar...kitnay hee log chal basay hain aur abhi tau sirf teen hee haftay guzray hain....dil udas hai....aik kay baad aik...tanta bandh gay-ya hai...

Umeed haikay 2013 waqat kay saath behtar ho jai ga.....aik ajeeb sa ahsas hai, sha-yed aik wajah yeh ho keh: yeh saal "chee-nee" calander main "pani kay sanap ka saal (Year of the Water Snake) hai....upar say sub theek, lay-kin aafut achanak aati hai...Allah khair karay!

Mehnaz - Legendary Singer is no more!

I was shocked to see the news of Mehnaz's death on BBC. Mehnaz was going to the United States for treatment, when she breathed her last in Bahrain. Mehnaz was only 55 years old and started her career as a teenager from Radio Pakistan in 1970. Saleem Gilani, the director general of Radio Pakistan, who was present at the music competition of her college and where she won the first prize, arranged her training for a month at the radio station. Pandit Ghulam Qadir, Mehdi Hasan’s brother was her teacher and Mehdi Hasan who came to the station frequently, would often say to her “do riaz regularly and you’ll do wonders”, seeing her potential.

Mehnaz had sung a variety of genres but specializes in ghazal, thumri, dadra, kahyal, drupad and reciting salam, noha and marsiya.

She was the daughter of celebrated sub-continental singer Kajjan Begum.

Being straightforward and blunt has not been very helpful for Mehnaz in her career. She said things as they were and that created a lot of problems—awards get scrapped and benefits were taken away. 

The famous Pakistani singer had moved to the United States due to her illness and in one of her interviews said that "we live in a culture in which as long as  you are alive no one gives you importance but you get it when you die."

Her golden period began with Mehdi Hasan when she sang duets with him. Later she sang duets with Noor Jehan and Naheed Akhtar. 

Kamran Faisal Dead - Investigative Officer Murdered

It is hardly 24 hours that we heard about the sad demise of Kamran Faisal, he was found dead, hanging from a ceiling fan in his bedroom in officer's hostel. He was 33 years old and left behind 2 young daughters the eldest has just started a kindergarten this month. Police called it a suicide however, his father said that he has been murdered, his cousin said that:  

"Kamran would do anything but not commit suicide. That’s something we know for sure. He was killed. And there was no doubt about it."

 In Pakistan the only suicide is by suicide bombers and that's my strong belief. The rest of them are plain and simple murders. Kamran Faisal was an unknown public servant until yesterday. He was a Deputy Director at the National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) and was assigned a task to carry out investigation on Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan in rental power project (RPP) corruption case for which Supreme Court of Pakistan had ordered PM's arrest. (Must read this). Two officers (Col. Sadiq and Kamran Faisal) who were investigating this case were suspended by the NAB chief (very typical - Pakistani style) earlier.

In Pakistan, we tend to forget news quite easily but for me the death of former Labor Minister Mr. Omar Asghar Khan  is still fresh in my mind who was found dead hanging from a ceiling fan (read HERE) . He was the son of Air Marshal (retd.) Asghar Khan and was among the very few, well deserved and highly educated politicians. Police called his death a suicide but it was proved wrong. It was suggested that there was this possibility that the Omar was first given sedatives and, upon his going unconscious, was hanged. 

Now, in the case of Kamran Faisal I'm very sure that he has been killed in exactly the same manner as Omar. Unlike many countries including South Korea where suicide is committed frequently, I believe that despite tough lives and depression, Pakistanis do NOT commit suicide no matter how odd the events in their lives turn. One of the reasons is a religious view on suicide: it is forbidden in Islam. In Quran it says: It is He Who give life and who take it, and to Him shall we all be brought back. [10;56]. 

 Unfortunately, Islam was being twisted for political gains by mullahs or religious power houses on and off again. In 1980's PLO used the suicide bombers as means to end their suffering for Israel's atrocities. Religious scholars through a fatwa called upon committing suicide as an absolutely O.K act. That was the beginning of the suicide bombers however, I saw another story here ( on who was the first suicide bomber), can't verify it though.

Back to suicides, just last week, we saw  the case of Aaron Swartz - how he was bullied by the US governments  through DoJ and how he ended his life. We must not forget that governments around the world are responsible for the death of people who they seem as agents working contrary to their vested interest.One more honest officer down...how unfortunate!

In Pakistan, this is just another death, a tamasha for the Pakistani media, and the culprits will roam free. Justice is denied again and this incident is a reminder for the rest of the people to shut up and not to mess with the politicians, industrialists, feudals - the power hungry  - who make up the government of Pakistan. It is also a reminder  for what awaits an honest  person in Pakistan and what price they have to pay. Morally correct and honest people are surely marginalized and targeted in Pakistan and no wonder that we see a brain drain in this country.

Oakwood Seoul - Accommodation in Seoul

Oakwood - What's that?

Well, the official name is: Oakwood Premier Coex Center located at a short walk from Samsung Station and Bong Eun Sa Buddhist temple in Gangnam, Seoul. They are luxury serviced apartment that boasts the experience of a 5-star hotel accommodation (according to their website). Actually, I think that they are better than the 5-star accommodations because Oakwood provides an ambiance of a home away from home than what you'd expect in a hotel room and that in itself is very comforting. In addition, this place is connected to COEX Mall through a basement and that is a definite plus point, it is just 2 subway stops away from Gangnam Station. Location of Oakwood is one of the advantages of staying there even for someone who is in Seoul for the very first time.

110V and 220 V sockets/switchboards are side by side - it's wonderful for someone who has a mismatch of gadgets

When we were invited by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) and BUZZ KOREA - we got to stay there alongside Grand Hilton in Seoul. Oakwood was way better than Grand Hilton in service and accessibility and the room was very spacious compare to Hilton. Not just that, they have a complete kitchen which is also very helpful and an excellent bathroom with steam sauna facility. It is huge for a single person but is ideal for a family or a couple.

I loved this idea that they have a 110V and 220V sockets. Fully equipped kitchen with home appliances and crockery for 4 people, pots, pans simply everything, they even have a washer/dryer in the room that came with a bottle of detergent. By the way, the various choices in terms of rooms that they offer include: studio, one bedroom, 2, 3 and 4 bedroom choices and a penthouse - click here. The rooms are exactly what you see in pictures, actually better and extremely comfortable. They have everything you'd need. The bathroom with steam sauna facility was outstanding.

A fellow blogger from Japan, Naoko in her blog titled - Burura,  has done a wonderful post on reviewing Oakwood so check out the details and great pictures on her blog. If you know Japanese then its even better, you can read through it. I will never be able to post as much pictures as Naoko covering both the major and minor details however, these are a couple of photos I took of the room and the bird's eye view of Gangnam, Samsung dong and Jamsil from the room and the corridor's window.
Some of the images are below..

Roof Parking at COEX, Seoul

Oakwood has a record number of families from the Middle East who have chosen to live there instead of the other choices that they had. In a matter of few days, I met about 9 families who are very happy that they chose Oakwood and even though they have kids - things are much better than they'd expected. This place is one of the biggest hub of the Arab community in Seoul.

Source: Oakwood

Starting rates for a studio with breakfast would cost 500USD per night but one can get a big discount if your stay is for a couple of days or on long term basis. So call them and get details.

World Trade Center from the window -  Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Most important of all, pets are allowed in Oakwood and that's one of the reasons to choose this place however,  for the size and number of pets, call them first.

Olympic Stadium at Jamsil can also be seen from Oakwood's window

KEPCO Head office

If your company will pay for the accommodation don't forget to checkout residential options at the Oakwood Hotel. In my opinion it is one of the best choices and is located in the heart of Seoul, it is better than Fraser Suits in Insadong.

Bong Eun sa in the green cluster...

The green area is where the Bong Eun Sa Buddhist temple is located (pic. above) and in the picture below - after zooming in...it is much clearer, it's very unique that in the middle of sky scrapers we have Bong Eun Sa in the cluster of tress.

Bong Eun Sa Temple - Zoomed!

Once I came out of the Oakwood Residence to catch a bus to head home -  the same building (in photos above) looked like this (from below) from the main road :

 

and like this...

I could still see the Trade Center building while on my way towards Pangyo.

I enjoyed the view from the windows at Oakwood and had a panoramic view of Seoul without going out. One can see even across the Han river, a subway train crossing over the bridge on Han and neighborhoods such as Oksu and Hannam could be clearly seen along the Gangbyeong Highway.

Exhibition ‘Manhwa (Cartoon) Story & Painting’ (Jan.23)

Cartoon exhibition of 19 major Korean cartoonists, titled ‘Manhwa Story & Painting: The Colors of Manhwa’ is slated to take place from January 23 through the 28 at the Insa Art Center in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Cartoon-related products will be sold during the exhibition and several events are scheduled to take place including an autograph session by the participating cartoonists. A documentary film featuring highlights of an international cartoon exhibition that took place last year, the planning and preparation process of the exhibition, and interviews with the cartoonists is planned to be shown and is said to be an exciting draw to the exhibition.

This exhibition started in Tokyo, Japan in September of last year and toured Beijing, China in October, London, England (UK) in November, Los Angeles, USA in December, and will finish its journey with this exhibition in Seoul.

Admission is free of charge.  Manhwa101 is on You Tube too.

If you are in Seoul take time out to visit this exhibition, I'm sure it will be super fun!

Venue: Insa Art Center 1F (Jongno-gu Seoul-si) (41-1 Insadong-gil Jongno-gu)
☞ Period: January 23-28, 2013
☞ Admission: Free
☞ Homepage:
    The exhibition homepage www.manhwa101.kr (Korean, English)
    Insa Art Center www.insaartcenter.com (Korean)
☞ Inquiries: +82-2-736-1020 (Korean, English)
☞ Transportation: Anguk Station (Seoul subway line 3), Exit6 (300m walk along Insadong-gil)

Saudi Arabia: A Nightmare

Desperate after six months of hard work with no pay and an employer who refused to grant him permission to travel home, the 26-year-old Egyptian stood atop a building, threatening to jump to his death.

While police officers in the provincial Saudi Arabian city of Taif managed to convince the young man to climb down to safety Friday, he was later detained, and many foreign workers in the kingdom face a similarly desperate plight. More than 8 million migrant workers are employed in service jobs in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, giving it the highest population of foreign workers among the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to Human Rights Watch. The organization notes that in 2011, Asian embassies alone recorded thousands of complaints from workers forced to work 140-hour weeks with no days off, in many cases without being paid a salary.

The late King Faisal abolished slavery in the kingdom in 1962, though frequent mistreatment of laborers has left many living in slavelike conditions. Human-rights organizations have criticized Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship system—which requires all expatriates to have an in-country sponsor, usually the employer, who is responsible for their visa and legal status—as an enabler of worker exploitation. It is not uncommon for employers to take possession of workers’ passports, and many employers have been known to refuse workers’ requests to return to their home countries for visits and deny requests to change jobs.

Being overworked and having pay withheld has not been the only concern. Unprecedented numbers of rapes and other abuses have been reported among domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. A study by the Committee on Filipinos Overseas found that 70 percent of Filipino domestic workers reported physical and psychological abuse. In October 2012, Al-Watan reported that an Indonesian maid died 18 months after being hospitalized following a severe beating at the hands of her Saudi sponsor’s son. Although the young Saudi man was allegedly responsible for the worker’s death, he faced no legal repercussions. And frequent reports of rape from Nepalese workers in Saudi Arabia were a contributing factor in Nepal banning women younger than 30 from working in the Gulf states last year.

With many workers living in dire circumstances, similarly dire consequences have resulted. A number of workers who have been mistreated or not given proper medical assistance have resorted to suicide. The most recent reported case was that of an Ethiopian maid, who hanged herself in her employers’ home in late December 2012. The maid’s employers said they believed she suffered from a mental disorder, though she had never been examined or treated for such a condition.

Unfortunate cases of frustrated workers murdering members of their sponsor families also have become more frequent. One Indonesian domestic worker killed her sponsor after her requests to return home were repeatedly denied. The worker was beheaded. As a result, in 2011 the Indonesian government banned its citizens from traveling to Saudi Arabia to work.

If a foreign worker in the kingdom lands in a compromising legal situation, retaining suitable legal representation is extremely difficult. In some cases, workers have been coerced into signing confessions to crimes they haven’t committed. In others, where disputes have arisen between the employer and the employee, employees have been compelled to sign legally binding documents protecting the Saudi employer from being held accountable. All legally binding documents in Saudi Arabia must be written in Arabic, and workers often are intentionally deceived about the content of the document they are signing. Regrettably, such cases have meant dismal outcomes for the employees. Some have been forced return home without pay, while others have been sentenced to death without a fair trial or representation. The latter was the case earlier this week for a young Sri Lankan domestic worker who was beheaded. Fearing such grave consequences, many domestic workers refuse to report abuse.

Christoph Wilcke, the senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch, predicted in 2010 that without the abolition of the sponsorship program and serious legal reforms to protect domestic workers, horrific cases of brutality would continue in Saudi Arabia. Despite continual calls by human-rights organizations for serious reform, the kingdom has made no meaningful changes, leaving millions of workers extremely vulnerable today.

Hundreds of thousands of domestic female workers have been physically and sexually abused by the Saudi employers more often than not and on top, the Saudi government failed to protect these domestic workers. There are no laws in Saudi Arabia regarding these temporary migrant workers hence, they are in vulnerable condition.

Source: The Daily Beast

Case of  Ruyati binti Satubi (Jave Indonesia) is here.

Indonesia STOPS sending workers to Saudi after the  beheading.

White House Petition to Remove Swartz Prosecutor

 File Photo

Following Aaron Swartz’s suicide last weekend, a petition calling for the removal of his former prosecutor, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, has hit the 25,000 signatures needed to draw a response from the White House.

Ortiz, who had previously been named the Globe’s Bostonian of the Year for her pursuit of corruption and white-collar crime, is now under fire, with Globe columnist Kevin Cullen writing that her prosecution “failed miserably” when judged on proportionality and humanity.

As of this writing, the petition had 29,713 signatures.

Ortiz’s office has declined to discuss the case with the Globe.
Sign the petition HERE.

Read about Ortiz in detail on The Daily Beast.

Liberate an Article from Jstor in the Memory of Aaron Shwartz

The Archive Team, a group of online activists and progammers on Monday published a unique online memorial to late Web prodigy and pioneer Aaron Swartz, 26, who took his own life last week.

The Aaron Swartz Memorial JSTOR Liberator is a bookmarklet — a button that users can drag to the top of their Web browsers — allowing users to “liberate,” articles from JSTOR, the subscription academic aritcle database that Swartz accessed without authorization in late 2010 and early 2011 from a computer at Masschusetts Institute of Technology. Swartz downloaded 4.8 million articles, for which he was later charged by federal authorities in Massachusetts on 13 counts including computer fraud and wire fraud. Swartz’s family said in a statement that the federal government’s aggressive prosecution of Swartz in the case was a contributing factor to his suicide.

The Archive Team’s new JSTOR Liberator bookmarklet bypasses JSTOR’s user interface and allows users to commit an act of civil disobedience, downloading an article from JSTOR without a subscription. Notably, the only articles that can be taken are those already in the public domain.

Separately, other online activists have gone further in their own acts of disobedience with online law and protocol in memorializing Swartz, a co-creator of the RSS specification and a founder of a company that would become part of Reddit, among numerous other projects. Some hackers reportedly downed MIT’s website in honor of Swartz, while others posted the entire contents of the JSTOR database he hacked on The Pirate Bay file-swapping torrent website.

Swartz’s official memorial website, set up by his surviving family and partner, can be found here. Suicide prevention information can be found here.

CNN's interview (video.2) of Prof. Lawrence Lessig is here.

Tribute to Aaron Shwartz by Academics

 

#pdftribute #ICYMI

The movement appears to have started on Swartz's own site Reddit and was echoed by Anonymous on Twitter, who wrote: 'Please share: Academics posting their papers online in tribute to Aaron Swartz using hashtag #pdftribute #ICYMI.'

Anonymous crashed MIT's website on Sunday evening in a defiant move over the prosecution of Swartz which the hacker group described as 'a grotesque miscarriage of justice'.

Read more: here.

Also here.

2013 - FREE Korean Language Course

Seoul Global Center's (SGC) FREE Korean language course of three month duration has started registering students from January 16th. You have to go to SGC to physically and submit the application. 
 
Course Duration: Monday February 4^th ~ Friday April 26^th, 2013 (12 weeks)

ㅇ Classroom: Conference room in SGC

ㅇ Eligibility: International Residents in Seoul(This program is designed for adults)

ㅇ Fees: Free of charge(The textbook should be purchased by students) 

How to Apply

ㅇ Application period: Wednesday January 16^th ~ Thursday January 17^th, 2013

-          Office hour: 9am ~ 6pm / Lunch break: 12pm~1pm※ Please be advised that we accept registration only during the sign-up period.

ㅇ Application procedure: Actual applicants must visit SGC in person and fill out the form

Online or proxy application is not acceptable.

ㅇ Application requirements
      - Alien Registration Card
      - A copy of applicant’s color photo (size: 3*4cm)

ㅇ Admission: First-come, First-served basis

3.       Class size: between 12 and 15 studentsIf classes are all full before the application period is over, the applicants can be put on a waiting list if they would like. If there are drop-outs within the first two weeks, these spots will be filled with people from the waiting list in the order they signed up.
Please be advised that there will not be a waiting list for basic course participants.

中國語 http://global.seoul.go.kr/bbs.do?cmd=view&url=/bbs/index.jsp&BOARD_ID=8&BOARD_SEQ=14098

日本語 http://global.seoul.go.kr/bbs.do?cmd=view&url=/bbs/index.jsp&BOARD_ID=8&BOARD_SEQ=14097

4.       For more information, please contact

    ㅇ Phone: (02) 2075~4180

    ㅇ Email: hsahn3003@gmail.com

    ㅇ Webiste: http://global.seoul.go.kr

   ㅇ Location: Seoul Global Center, 3^rd floor of the Korea Press Center

                 (Exit 4-Press Center direction, City hall station, subway Line 1 or 2 / Exit 5, Gwanghwamun station, subway line 5)

Raw Nerve - Aaron Swartz

....The problem is that the topics that are most painful also tend to be the topics that are most important for us: they’re the projects we most want to do, the relationships we care most about, the decisions that have the biggest consequences for our future, the most dangerous risks that we run. We’re scared of them because we know the stakes are so high. But if we never think about them, then we can never do anything about them.

You can read Aaron's diary here.
May his soul rest in peace.

Hundreds of Aaron's picture are here on FLIKR  and his former girlfriend's reaction.
His GREAT interview on 'Internet Freedom' HERE.

Korea Ranked 19th-Best Country ...

Korea has been ranked the 19th best country for babies to be born in by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a think tank affiliated with the business magazine.

The think tank ranked 80 countries. Korea scored 7.25 points ahead of Japan in 25th (7.08 points), France in 26th (7.04 points) and China in 49th (5.99 points).

Germany and the U.S. shared 16th place with 7.38 points.

The 11 categories of the ranking were geography, demography, social and cultural characteristics, public policy, gender equality, political freedom, health, job security, violent crime rates, the state of the world economy, and future income projected for 2030.

Switzerland came first, followed by Australia, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

The Washington Post blog reported on Monday that per-capita GDP alone "explains some two thirds of the inter-country variation in life satisfaction, and the estimated relationship is linear."

But some of the wealthier countries such as the U.S., Germany, Japan, and the U.K. failed to make the top 10. China, the world's second largest economy, is way below economically struggling European countries like Italy, Spain and Greece, which ranked 21st, 28th, and 34th places.

Nigeria was the worst country to be born in out of the 80 included in the ranking.

Aaron Swartz - Dead

Source: Wired.com

We often say, upon the passing of a friend or loved one, that the world is a poorer place for the loss. But with the untimely death of programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, this isn’t just a sentiment; it’s literally true. Worthy, important causes will surface without a champion equal to their measure. Technological problems will go unsolved, or be solved a little less brilliantly than they might have been. And that’s just what we know. The world is robbed of a half-century of all the things we can’t even imagine Aaron would have accomplished with the remainder of his life.
Aaron Swartz committed suicide Friday in New York. He was 26 years old.
When he was 14 years old, Aaron helped develop the RSS standard; he went on to found Infogami, which became part of Reddit. But more than anything Aaron was a coder with a conscience: a tireless and talented hacker who poured his energy into issues like network neutrality, copyright reform and information freedom.  Among countless causes, he worked with Larry Lessig at the launch of the Creative Commons, architected the Internet Archive’s free public catalog of books, OpenLibrary.org, and in 2010 founded Demand Progress, a non-profit group that helped drive successful grassroots opposition to SOPA last year.
“Aaron was steadfast in his dedication to building a better and open world,” writes Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. “He is among the best spirits of the Internet generation. I am crushed by his loss, but will continue to be enlightened by his work and dedication.”
In 2006 Aaron was part of a small team that sold Reddit to Condé Nast , Wired’s parent company. For a few months he worked in our office here in San Francisco.  I knew Aaron then and since, and I liked him a lot — honestly, I loved him. He was funny, smart, sweet and selfless. In the vanishingly small community of socially and politically active coders, Aaron stood out not just for his talent and passion, but for floating above infighting and reputational cannibalism.  His death is a tragedy.
I don’t know why he killed himself, but Aaron has written openly about suffering from depression. It couldn’t have helped that he faced a looming federal criminal trial in Boston on hacking and fraud charges, over a headstrong stunt in which he arranged to download millions of academic articles from the JSTOR subscription database for free from September 2010 to January 2011, with plans to release them to the public.
JSTOR provides searchable, digitized copies of academic journals online. MIT had a subscription to the database, so Aaron brought a laptop onto MIT’s campus, plugged it into the student network and ran a script called keepgrabbing.py that aggressively — and at times disruptively — downloaded one article after another. When MIT tried to block the downloads, a cat-and-mouse game ensued, culminating in Swartz entering a networking closet on the campus, secretly wiring up an Acer laptop to the network, and leaving it there hidden under a box. A member of MIT’s tech staff discovered it, and Aaron was arrested by campus police when he returned to pick up the machine.
The JSTOR hack was not Aaron’s first experiment in liberating costly public documents. In 2008, the federal court system briefly allowed free access to its court records system, Pacer, which normally charged the public eight cents per page. The free access was only available from computers at 17 libraries across the country, so Aaron went to one of them and installed a small PERL script he had written that cycled sequentially through case numbers, requesting a new document from Pacer every three seconds, and uploading it to the cloud. Aaron pulled nearly 20 million pages of public court documents, which are now available for free on the Internet Archive.
The FBI investigated that hack, but in the end no charges were filed. Aaron wasn’t so lucky with the JSTOR matter. The case was picked up by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann in Boston, the cybercrime prosecutor who won a record 20-year prison stretch for TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez. Heymann indicted Aaron on 13 counts of wire fraud, computer intrusion and reckless damage. The case has been wending through pre-trial motions for 18 months, and was set for jury trial on April 1.
Larry Lessig, who worked closely with Aaron for years, disapproves of Aaron’s JSTOR hack. But in the painful aftermath of Aaron’s suicide, Lessig faults the government for pursuing Aaron with such vigor. “[Aaron] is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying,” Lessig writes. “I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.”
Update: Aaron’s parents, Robert and Susan Swartz, his two brothers and his partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, have established a memorial website for him, and released this statement.

Our beloved brother, son, friend, and partner Aaron Swartz hanged himself on Friday in his Brooklyn apartment. We are in shock, and have not yet come to terms with his passing.
Aaron’s insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable—these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter. We’re grateful for our time with him, to those who loved him and stood with him, and to all of those who continue his work for a better world.
Aaron’s commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life. He was instrumental to the defeat of an Internet censorship bill; he fought for a more democratic, open, and accountable political system; and he helped to create, build, and preserve a dizzying range of scholarly projects that extended the scope and accessibility of human knowledge. He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place. His deeply humane writing touched minds and hearts across generations and continents. He earned the friendship of thousands and the respect and support of millions more.
Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.
Today, we grieve for the extraordinary and irreplaceable man that we have lost.

—
Quinn Norton: My Aaron Swartz, whom I loved
Cory Doctorow: RIP, Aaron Swartz
Alex Stamos: The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”
Photo: Flickr/Creative Commons
Aaron's Talk at the MIT: HERE
Source: www.wired.com

...on adopting cats in the East Coast of the United States

This post is on cats again, if you are thinking about adopting one and you are in the US then visit CAT WOMAN's blog. She calls herself a woman on mission to help the feline friends. She rescues abandoned and stray cats and get them fixed and also look for good homes. It is a huge task and she has done a wonderful job. You can also make donations, it is a huge financial burden...

Shah Zaman Baloch and Imran Qureshi

Photographed by Shah Zaman Baloch

Work of Shah Zaman Baloch can be seen here, he is a film maker and a photographer. Especially, the film that he made on kite flying in Lahore, Pakistan is fantastic. It is called "Kati Patang" or a Stray Kite. You can  learn about Pakistan through his work too.

There is one more name from Pakistan in Miniature Paintings and it is Imran Qureshi (brother of Faisal Qureshi of Doctor and Billa fame), he has been selected as the Artist of Year 2013 by Duetsche Bank.

You can see his work HERE and don't miss out: Blessings Upon the Land.

The study by Iftikhar Dadi, Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia, was long overdue. Pakistani artists claim a cosmopolitan genealogy which encompasses Indo-Persian sources, Mughal glory, orientalist Islamic art, calligraphic modernism and feminist resistance. Their ambivalence towards nationalism, Dadi argues, was due to the political reality of a nation-state formation which: 'failed to supply an adequate aspirational horizon for numerous South Asian Muslim intellectuals before and after 1947'. The lack of an 'avant-garde' is attributed to the absence of academic structures to deconstruct and its 'temporary deferral' is perceived as a characteristic of historical trauma. …

Source:Art Monthly Newsletter