Standard Chartered celebrates World Sight Day
KARACHI (PR): Standard Chartered celebrated World Sight Day on 8 October across the country. With a focus on alleviating avoidable blindness, Standard Chartered, since the launch of the Seeing is Believing programme in 2004, has invested approximately $3.359 million in Pakistan. The Bank’s efforts have resulted in a 20per cent reduction in cataract blindness in Pakistan. In recognition of the Bank’s efforts, the Government of Pakistan has also made Standard Chartered a partner of the National Steering Committee for Eye Health.
The Bank has led various Seeing is Believing initiatives in the country for over 11 years, touching close to 11.5 million lives in this endeavour. Additionally, various projects, related to Seeing is Believing have ranged from: training over 60,000 lady health care workers, to distributing over 100,000 pairs of eye glasses and to screening 1.5 million children’s eye sights across the country.
In addition to this, the Bank has invested $1 million across 3 districts (Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi) to treat men and women who are known diabetics, for Sight Threatening Diabetic Retinopathy (STDR). It is estimated that this new programme will reach out to approximately 1million direct and indirect beneficiaries.
Commenting on this occasion Ms. Khadija Hashimi, Head of Corporate Affairs, Standard Chartered Pakistan said, “Through our Seeing is Believing programme, we have touched the lives of over 11.5 million people across Pakistan, as we work towards eradicating avoidable blindness in the country. Through our staff, partners and client network, we hope to continue raising awareness of the issue and working towards better health for the Pakistani community.”

PTA team meets TDAP CE
LAHORE (PR): A delegation of Pakistan Tanners Association under the chairmanship of Gulzar Firoz, Chairman, PTA, Central along with Rehan Hannan, Chairman South, Naveed Ahmed, Usman Umer met C.E, TDAP.
In the meeting different issues of leather sector were discussed. PTA has informed TDAP about the organisation of 2nd Pakistan Mega Leather Show scheduled to be held in January at Expo Centre, Lahore and requested for TDAP support. C.E, TDAP assured all possible assistance to PTA in this regard. The issues of sales tax returns and increase of custom duty on import of essential leather value addition components were also discussed.
PTA thanked C.E TDAP for resolving issues related to security in Korangi Industrial Area and water lines in the Tannery Area.

Djuice winners to represent Telenor at Norway
ISLAMABAD (PR): Telenor Pakistan’s youth centric brand “djuice” has announced the winners of the annual Apportunity contest 2015 today.
The team comprising Arusha Imtiaz, Asad Ullah and Hafiz Arslan Hafeez has won the contest for developing My Smaced App. It is a smart education ecosystem, which connects homes to schools by bridging the communication gap between parents, teachers, students and the institute itself. The winning team will represent Telenor Pakistan at Global Digital Conference in Oslo, Norway and compete for $13,000 against Apps from around the world.
Aqeel Iqbal, Hamza Khalid and Syed Zaid Hassan are the first runners-up for developing Kindergarten Prep, an App to support interactive digital learning for kids, and have won PKR 150,000. Musstanser Tinauli, developer of Fori Mazdoori has won PKR 100,000 by taking the second runner-up position.
Congratulating the winners of djuice Apportunity 2015, Deputy CEO and Chief Marketing Officer, Telenor Pakistan, Irfan Wahab Khan said, “The determination, talent and passion exhibited by our youth is a testament of the fact that Pakistan is accelerating towards a digital era. djuice Apportunity 2015 owes its success to all the highly talented participants of Pakistan and the very supportive partners and brand ambassadors” he added.
Other respective category winners include Kids ABC Learning, Doc Locator, Bar Puzzle and Save The Bird, all receiving PKR 50,000 cash prize each. All winning Apps will also be featured on the Telenor App store free of cost.
djuice Apportunity 2015 Judging Panel comprised of representatives from Microsoft, OPEN Islamabad, GEW, two of the leading technology bloggers from Pakistan and experts from Telenor Pakistan.

Afridi inaugurates basketball court
LAHORE (PR): Shahid Afridi inaugurated an international standard basketball court at the Farabi Government School in Muslimabad. This basketball court is one of the many philanthropic projects which The Shahid Afridi Foundation has set up at the school, where there was need of much attention of man power and finances. The cricketing icon has set up the foundation to help schools maintain sports and exercises and for that the foundation is providing infrastructure to support sports in schools.

Convocation of CIIT

LAHORE (PR): The Convocation of Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) was held on Friday the 9th October 2015 at CIIT, Wah Campus in which degrees were conferred to 313 graduating students of Wah Campus at undergraduate and graduate levels in the discipline of Management Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics. Out of 313, 231 students were male and 82 were female. Dr. S.M. Junaid Zaidi, Rector (S.I. H.I.), CIIT presided over the convocation ceremony.
18 graduates were awarded gold, silver and bronze medals on account of their excellent academic performance. Prof. Dr. Tayyeb Akram, Director, CIIT, Wah Campus informed the audience about campus achievements and future development plans of CIIT, Wah Campus.
The Rector, CIIT in his closing speech congratulated all graduating students and their parents on attaining degrees and advised them to work hard and contribute in the development of country and nation.

MUFAP elects office-bearers
LAHORE (PR): The Members of the Mutual Funds Association of Pakistan (MUFAP) have elected new Directors on the Board of Directors against the vacancies arising from the rotational retirement of some of the Directors. The new Board of MUFAP at its first meeting held on the October 1, 2015 has elected the Shahid Ghaffar as the new Chairman, Mir Muhammad Ali, CFA as Senior Vice Chairman and Mr. Imran Azim as Vice Chairman.
The Directors of MUFAP for the year 2015/ 2016 consist of: Shahid Ghaffar, Chairman, Mir Muhammad Ali, CFA, Senior Vice Chairman, Imran Azim, Vice Chairman, Mohammad Shoaib, Rehan N. Shaikh, Dr. Ali Akhtar Ali, Ms. Maheen Rahman, Imran Motiwala, Shahzad Jawahar, Babar Ali Lakhani and Ms. Mashmooma Z. Majeed, CFA, FRM, Chief Executive.
The Board of Directors of MUFAP at the first meeting of the new Board paid rich tribute for the outstanding services rendered to MUFAP by its outgoing Chairman Mohammad Shoaib, CFA, Senior Vice Chairman Shahid Ghaffar and Vice Chairman Mr. Yasir Qadri and the outgoing Directors M. Habib-ur-Rahman, Dr. Amjad Waheed and Farid Ahmed Khan through the very generous allocation of their time made to MUFAP and the sound leadership they provided to the industry.