Pakistan offers open source training toolkit

Article from www.linux.com

Tuesday March 20, 2007 (08:01 PM GMT)

By: Fouad Riaz Bajwa

Pakistan is the third largest low-cost IT-enabled and offshore business processes outsourcing services provider in Asia after India and China. The country's Open Source Resource Center (OSRC), a project of Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology, has developed and released a FOSS resource kit entitled "OSS Training Toolkit," originally put together in order to facilitate OSRC's own training workshops in Pakistan. The toolkit contains step-by-step manuals in six modules covering various Free and Open Source Software applications. All the content is available in printed manual form and as OpenDocument (.odt), Portable Document Format (.pdf), and Microsoft Word (.doc) files for download.


The toolkit covers databases, application servers, desktop applications, office productivity suites, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) software, as well as open source desktop applications for both Linux and Microsoft Windows. Along with the manuals, the toolkit provides a set of CDs that includes two Linux distributions, Ubuntu Linux Desktop and Fedora Server, as well as the other applications.

The toolkit's curriculum has been planned and laid out in such a manner that anyone from a basic to novice user can learn and benefit from it. It has been released under open source licenses through the OSRC Web site so that individuals and organizations interested in migrating from proprietary to open source networks can freely download, distribute, use, and modify the toolkit and its related CDs.

The many seasons and terrain of Pakistan

Area
796,096 square kilometres

Population
148.723 million

Location
South Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea, between India on the east and Iran and Afghanistan on the west and China in the north.

Land boundaries
Total 7,266 km (Afghanistan 2,430 km, China 580 km, India 2,240 km, Iran 909 km).

Coastline
1,046 km

Climate
Mostly hot, dry desert, temperate in northwest; arctic in north.

Terrain
Flat Indus plain in east, mountains in north and northwest, Balochistan plateau in west and desert
in south.

Elevation Extremes
Lowest point: Arabian Sea 0 m, Highest point: K2 (Mt. Godwin Austin - 8611 meters)

Independence
14th August 1947
(from Great Britain)

National Day
23rd March

Government Type
Parliamentary

Capital
Islamabad

Administrative Divisions

4 provinces (Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Balochistan)
Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT)
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
Disputed Jammu & Kashmir region includes Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas
Religions
Islam 97%, Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism, and others 3%

Languages:
National language: Urdu
Official languages: Urdu and English
Regional Languages: Sindhi, Pushto, Punjabi and Balochi

Pakistan, India agree to 7.23 billion dollars gas pipeline

Article from Dawn...
By Khaleeq Kiani


ISLAMABAD, March 8: Iran, Pakistan and India plan to start laying a $7.23 billion gas pipeline by September 2009 on a segmented basis to ward off possible US sanctions aimed at punishing oil companies dealing with Iran.

Each country will build the pipeline in its territory and Iran “has already started laying pipeline from Assaluyeh to Iran Shehr” to serve its eastern areas that would be extended by about 200 kilometres to Pakistan border, a senior official in the petroleum ministry told Dawn.

He said a tentative schedule for the pipeline’s implementation had also been agreed upon, envisaging completion of the project between June-September in 2014.

He, however, said that Pakistan would build the 655-kilomter pipeline in its territory through private sector on ‘build, own, operate and transfer’ (BOOT) basis, adding that a lead sponsor would be appointed immediately after signing the gas sales and purchase agreement with the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) by June 2007.

The lead sponsor will set up a special purpose pipeline company to undertake detailed feasibility study and make various arrangements to transport imported gas. The federal government or its controlled entities would take at least 10 per cent equity in the pipeline company.

Based on steel cost of $960 per ton (which may vary later), the 1,092-kilometre Iranian segment would cost $3.99 billion, while $2.64 billion would be needed for the 655-km segment in Pakistan. The 344-km-long Indian segment would cost $600 million.

The official said there would be two pipelines of 56-inch-diametre (class 600X-70) for the project – one delivering 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD) to Pakistan and the other that will take about 3.2 BFCD to India. Iran has about 944 trillion cubic feet (TCF) proven gas reserves.

Pakistan and Iran have already signed a term sheet for supply of 2.1 BCFD gas for 30 years that could be increased to 2.8 BCFD at a later stage.

The official said the pipeline route was expected to be finalised in a few days by the National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak) and then gas sales and purchase contract (GSPC), joint declaration and inter-governmental framework agreements would be signed before December 2008.

Pakistan is targeting to complete acquisition of right of way for the project by June 2010 and finalise financing arrangements by April 2009. Similarly, the construction Pakistan part of the pipeline is expected to start in September 2009 and complete in September 2011. The testing and commissioning phase is expected be completed by March 2014 and first flow of gas is expected in June 2014.