Delay in the judicial processes and pendency of existing cases is an old problem that has defied easy solutions in Pakistan. Most cases are trapped in the system due to a huge backlog of cases, excessive litigation in urban areas, corruption by the court staff and lack of proper monitoring of the functioning of courts. Efficient supervision and monitoring of courts can help in resolving some of the key problems in the system. We present preliminary results from a novel case record-keeping, management and monitoring solution that is able to meet several key performance goals of the National Judicial Policy. The overall aim of the work is to facilitate the work of the monitoring judges by helping them find the proverbial needle in the haystack and not get deluged by the volume of data routinely produced by the typical case-management systems.In this paper, we explore the application of intrusion detection techniques, such as the statistical anomaly detection schemes, to case management systems and present the results from our extensive case studies. Our proposed system, now in pilot, shows high accuracy in flagging anomalous cases, reduces the overall volume of information generated by the system and can help target several of the key reasons behind case pendency while bringing much needed transparency to the overall case-flow.

Abstract. Several Pakistani cities are among the world’s most polluted. In the previous three years, air pollution in Lahore has been considerably over World Health Organization guideline levels, endangering the lives of the city’s more than 11 million citizens. In this paper, we investigate the city’s capability to combat air pollution by analyzing three essential aspects: (1) Data, (2) Capacity, and (3) Public awareness. Several studies have reported the need for expansion of the current air quality monitoring network. In this work, we also provide a context-aware location recommendation algorithm for installing the new air quality stations in Lahore. Data from four publicly available reference-grade continuous air quality monitoring stations and nine low-cost air quality measuring equipment are also analyzed. Our findings show that in order to measure and mitigate the effects of air pollution in Lahore, there is an urgent need for capacity improvement (installation of reference-grade and low-cost air quality sensors) and public availability of reliable air quality data. We further assessed public awareness by conducting a survey. The questionnaire results showed huge gaps in public awareness about the harms of the air quality conditions. Lastly, we provided a few recommendations for designing data-driven policies for dealing with the current apocalyptic air quality situation in Lahore.