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Book titled “Kalkatak—a crossroad of cultures in Chitral published

Chitraltimes Report

ISLAMABAD: The Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI), an Islamabad-based research and training center working, inter alia, for the documentation of languages and cultures of northern Pakistan, announces the publication of its fourth book on culture.

The book titled “Kalkatak—a crossroad of cultures in Chitral is authored by Fakhruddin Akhunzada and his co-writer Finnish anthropologist Maarit Liljegren. It is the first focused discourse on the culture of the southern part of Chitral Valley.

The book is an ethnographical description of a village (Kalkatak) of Chitral, based on research carried out jointly by the Finnish anthropologist Maarit Liljegren and Fakhruddin Akhundzada, the latter hailing from the village.

What sets this village apart is that it is situated at the crossroad of a number of ethnic and linguistic groups: Palula, Shekhani, Gojri and Dameli are some of the communities surrounding it. It is also somewhat unique in the sense that the village has gone through almost complete language shifts as many as three times during the last century.

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Electric Consumers constitutes an action Committee to restore power

By Zahiruddin

CHITRAL: The consumers of electricity in Chitral city gave a deadline of one week to the government to end the daily load shedding of twenty hours failing which they will resort to violent protest strike and will lock out the local hydro-power station. Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, they said that the consumers have constituted an action committee with members representing each village and mohallah of the town. Muhammad Sardar, Abdul Latif Khan, Abdul Wali Khan Advocate, Habib Hussain Mughal and others regretted that the government is turning a deaf ear to the miseries of Chitralis due to the excessive load shedding of electricity. They held responsible the PESCO officials for mismanagement which leads to frequent power breakdown in the city. The members of the action committee alleged that some an influential group is making the thing worse for the consumers who have captured the office for the last twenty five years. Castigating the high-ups of WAPDA, they said that the generation capacity of the local hydro power has dropped to only 0.6 mega watts from two mega watt due to the faulty machinery fitted there since 1973 but no a single screw has been replaced. They said that feasibility study for the up-gradation of the power station has been carried out to enhance its capacity to four mega watts but the government did not bother to materialize it. They criticized the minister of population from Chitral Saleem Khan for not uttering a word for the solution of electricity crisis in Chitral. They also criticized the MNA from Chitral Shahzada Mohyuddin for his indifference towards the problem.