Prime Minister Gilani, we understand, is going that extra mile, literally, to show that he is tightening his belt in these days of economic hardship. For instance, he drove in his Land Cruiser to the Supreme Court recently, never mind the helicopters that hovered above through out the journey.
Encouraged by public response, the PM decided to show another form of extreme austerity on his recent trip to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum. We hear that he specifically asked for a small aircraft, a challenger G-4 to be exact, to transport him to Davos. And so we had this TV footage of our man cutting down on costs in sympathy with the common man. However, what the camera did not catch was the change of planes that took place on the way. Apparently there was a stop over in Istanbul where the Challenger was discarded and the PM added on a bit of gloss by continuing his journey in a bigger aircraft chartered for the purpose.
Smart idea, but it seems you cannot please all the people all the time. At Davos, a member of the Davos club broke with tradition and instead of throwing a lunch in honour of the PM, chose as his guest of honour another delegate from Pakistan, Imran Khan, who incidentally had come on a commercial flight.
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We hear that a beauty parlour in Lahore’s commercial thicket, M M Alam Road, is attracting a lot of interest but for reasons other than the pursuit of beauty. Apparently this place, which at anytime can be seen treating a dozen snow men who turn out to be ladies getting a full body bleach, belongs to the family of a very important person . This one happens to be of Pakistani origin but of US citizenship, chooses to live in a tax free haven (is it Monte Carlo?) in Europe while being a lobbyist in Washington for Pakistan. There can only be one person with so many makeovers, Mansoor Ijaz, of course.
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Now M M Alam Road may not be Monte Carlo but it markets high end labels and attracts the most extravagant shopaholics.
Recently, the owner of a store that stocks designer bags and shoes revealed that a woman on a dowry shopping spree spent Rs 47 lakhs in this store and was thankful that the price tags were “less than in London.” An expensive way to get smart but another jewellery store in the same vicinity put up a diamond necklace with a one crore rupees price tag and actually had women fighting over it as in a fire sale. Talk about hard times in Pakistan.
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