IDEAS 2006: Arms for peace?

November 20th, 2006 by Kashif Aziz ( 2,429 Views )

International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) is a defence exhibition by the armed forces of Pakistan. This is an attempt to showcase defence equipment manufactured in Pakistan. The fourth IDEAS exhibition, IDEAS 2006 will be held in Expo Center, Karachi on November 21-24, 2006.

Organized by Pegasus Consultancy, IDEAS 2006 is a venture of Government of Pakistan, supported by Pakistan Armed Forces, coordinated by Defence Export Promotion Organization and Export Promotion Bureau.

IDEAS is targeted at top-level decision makers from the defence ministry, armed forces, airlines, transport ministry, maintenance & engineering companies, research & training institutes. The targeted audience will include the Pakistan Defence Forces, senior armed forces personnel & defence procurement experts from countries in Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Exhibitor Information:

Aircraft & Air Force related Systems
Naval Systems including all types of Crafts
Air Defence Systems
Electronic Warfare Systems
Aerial & Ground Mobility Systems to include Aircrafts & Helicopters
All types of Fighting & Logistics Vehicles, Tanks, APCs, IFVs, etc.
Radars
Artillery Sytems
Missiles
Armaments, Munitions,Weapons & Electronic / Optometry devices
Surveillance equipment to fight & identify all types of terrorist, ethnic, sectarian & law enforcing activities
Equipment & supplies to support humanitarian relief operations.

Earlier 165 exhibitors and 26,500 attendees were estimated to participate in the exhibition. However, Director General (DG), Defence Export Promotion Organisation (DEPO), Syed Absar Hussain, has said that more than 3,000, including 200 foreign delegates would be attending IDEAS 2006.

All upgraded versions of heavy military equipments, indigenously made by the Pakistani experts, including Saad, the Armed Personnel Carrier (APC), Tanks Al-Khalid and Al-Zarrar and Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV), besides other equipment would be displayed in the exhibition.

“Our own army is using the same arms and equipments, which we are presenting for sale, which will convince and satisfy our buyers”, he said.

Absar hoped that IDEAS-2006 would be attended by over 200 foreign delegates and the country will hopefully gain a profit of more than 400 million US Dollars as compared to the past profit of 150 to 200 million US Dollars.

On the flip side, People of Karachi will suffer from traffic jams and security blockades during the entire event. Most of the roads leading and leaving to the Expo Center would be closed for VIP traffic, creating bottlenecks on other roads.

According to City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal, roads and footpaths leading to the Expo Centre have particularly been decorated due to which a prominent change is being felt in the megapolis. This will project a positive image of the city across the world and would become a major attraction for the people.

Earlier, it was in the news that Army mounted pressure on the CDGK to open the National Stadium and Hassan Square flyovers and their adjoining roads for vehicular traffic at least a week before the commencement of IDEAS 2006.

Initially, the CDGK authorities informed the army that the work to build the two flyovers would be completed much before the commencement of Ideas-2006 but later the army realized that the completion of the two projects till November 20 was nearly impossible.

ideas 2006 beautied karachi However, in an attempt to make it possible, the sources said, the army started pressing the city government to expedite the development work and open the two flyovers and the adjoining roads for the exhibition-specific traffic. The army also wanted the CDGK to repair and carpet Karsaz Road before the exhibition, as it would be one of the probable routes of President Pervez Musharraf. The army made it clear that the whole area, near the Expo Centre, would be declared as high-security zone for about a week and during this period they would not allow any laborer to carryout development work.

It is observed that adjacent roads are carpeted, footpaths and pavements repaired and beautification attempts are made to give a ‘clean’ look to the area. While optimists are all in praise of this, people wonder if we need to have IDEAS in all parts of city so that whole city would get a face lift. Also, one wonders why the ‘pressure’ was not applied earlier when Karachities were suffering traffic jams during Ramadan.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 20th, 2006 and is filed under Current Affairs .

Tagged with: DEPO, Expo Center, Hasan Square, IDEAS 2006, Karachi, National Stadium, Warfare

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6 Responses to “IDEAS 2006: Arms for peace?”

1

Muhammad Dawood
November 23rd, 2006 13:25 GMT
Arms are for Peace? I think question mark here is not needed. We know some personalities preached for life without violence however their followers were brutally taken over by oppressors.

Evil was born before this earth was created and evil finds many followers in the humanity. Arms are needed for self defence.Every society possess these and even the civilized nations do not hesitate using it (remember Nagasaki and Hiroshima). Infact its basic requirement for survival in this present so called civilized world.

Traffic jams are a routine in Karachi no matter if an event is organised or not. Answer does not lie in banning all events in Karachi, however, the question remains what is the solution to the Traffic and who will do it?
2

Kashif Aziz
November 24th, 2006 11:32 GMT
There is no second opinion about importance of arms and show of strength on the enemies. But when state starts to show its might on its own people, things get sour. There is no logic in organizing such a high profile event in the heart of city where 30,000 law enforcement personnel are required to weave the artificial blanket of security. As the event was not opened to general public, it could be safely held in the cantt area or any of armed force bases. For no obvious reason, people of Karachi are held hostage for 4 days. Civic center was closed for 2 days - what about the loss of revenue and suffering of people who came there to get things done and found the offices empty, without prior information.
3

Farhan
November 24th, 2006 20:09 GMT
This exhibition is unncessary, and just proves how much money we spend on buying expensive toys. We could use all that money for educating our people, for developing the civil infrastructure, and to just make life better for the people of Pakistan.
4

Faisal Ahmed
November 25th, 2006 09:40 GMT
I would say it has been great success for Pakistanis but we can never forget problems which had been faced by citizen of Karachi during this Expo
we have been facing double sawari restriction on motorcycle mind it we do not have very good transport system in this mega city.
However I would say be by gone let by gone� but we must have plan for next exhibition, which will be going on next year.
I must congratulate to city Nazim Mustafa Kamal Bhai who has been doing really great job for Karachi.
I would add my one suggestion here for city government and also provincial, national government please try to make citizen convenient and we must make plan first for our respected citizens.

With well wishes and best regards for Governor of Sindh Dr. Ishart sahab and Nazim Mustafa Kamal.

Faisal Ahmed
5

Ali Asghar
November 30th, 2006 14:43 GMT
I agree with most people that the people of KHI suffered a great deal in terms of traffic etc. But we all are forgetting one thing, that is our beloved country somehow managed to develop weapons which will help us defend our home from enemies.

We are on the road of merging as strong nation and we should all be proud of that.

We all agree that mush of the money should be spend on education, health, and security but we all must not ignore the fact that we have to self reliance on defence and must let others know that Pakistan is a strong nation, which should not be messed with.

Thank you
6

smfarid
December 8th, 2006 15:56 GMT
Exibition or fraud

A day we became independent we are watching a misery,disdain,disturbance,sectarian violence,war torn situations,killing each other usurp others rights and property there is no normal tomorrow we have seen. pakistan always being tussled with india on the issue of kashmir unfortuently both these two nations are playing with the kashmir and their people because this is the only way to make them fool and extragavant on this disease termit issue having been affected in no mans land increasing amont of ammunations and weapon doesnot create a single influence on the well-being of the shadow,gloomy,groan generation.inflation taking higher than higher prices of commodities rasing mount we know that in the past or present the making of weapons doesnot implied in the race of good countries but pertain to those countries who fought world war 1 and 2 self proclaim president should considered over needs of a people like drinking pure water , decreasing the price of the food, open the job opportunities,promulgation of law and order and wipe away the corrupation from the army and other respective areas develope a concrete infrastructure and the list goes on and on these are the problems of every being dont make a bullet to shut our aperture or kill innocent give us opportunity to bring the country to the top
we love pakistan more than any army general or whatever
GODBLESS PAKISTAN AMEN

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