Apple v. Samsung - the saga continues

By Natasha Lomas

In the latest episode of the Apple vs. Samsung legal drama that’s been playing out in the U.S. district court of Northern California, the pair met again at an appeal hearing on Thursday to argue their respective corners. Judge Lucy Koh is reviewing the jury’s $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung.

Apple is hoping for a ban on the sale of Samsung devices the jury deemed to infringe its patents when they returned their verdict back in August, while Samsung wants to reduce the damages award against it — or trigger a new trial.

Counterfeit coins

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

The grand old man of Jinnah’s Pakistan, the unparalleled Ardeshir Cowasjee, died last month. This great secular urban citizen of Pakistan has managed to blaze quite a trail for those who still want to see this country prosper and reclaim Jinnah’s idealism for Pakistan. Unfortunately, there continues to be no realisation of the precipice our deviation from Jinnah’s vision of a secular state has brought us to. Naysayers on both the right and the left continue to bulldose the memory of Mr Jinnah for their own petty self-interests. Cowasjee rescued the idea of Jinnah’s Pakistan from oblivion but, unfortunately, one Cowasjee is not enough to counter the tomes of misrepresentation that have passed for historical works in Pakistan.

1-10 Application update Bhagat Singh

The Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool, a movement launched by the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, had filed the petition against a move by authorities to rename the roundabout.
Zahid Butt, a local trader who filed the petition on behalf of the organisation, claimed that RAW, India's external intelligence agency had funded the Bhagat Singh Foundation to raise the issue.
He claimed the Foundation lobbied the Dilkash Lahore Committee that recommended the renaming of the roundabout.
Senior JuD leader Maulana Amir Hamza, who heads the Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool, has said the group will not allow places to be named after Hindus, Sikhs or Christians.
"Pakistan is a Muslim country and such ideas cannot be appreciated," he said recently.
The JuD wrote a strongly worded letter to district administration chief Noorul Amin Mengal and other government officials, warning them not to rename the roundabout after a "Hindu freedom fighter".
The Dilkash Lahore Committee had rejected all objections and asked authorities to notify the new name for the roundabout without delay.
In a related development, civil society activists have filed two applications in the Lahore High Court, asking it to make them parties to the case challenging the renaming of the roundabout.
Activists Taimur Rehman and Saeeda Diep filed the applications in the Lahore High Court yesterday through lawyer Yasser Latif Hamdani to support the renaming of the chowk after Bhagat Singh.

These applications were accepted.