What we get wrong about the Taliban’s ‘gender apartheid’
“This is a great opportunity,” US President George Bush declared days after the twin tower attacks on 9/11. An ambulance chaser at his core, Bush was a Caesar sitting atop the Roman Empire of our time,...
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International Childhood Cancer Day: Living well till the end
The Quetta Gladiators were playing the Lahore Qalandars in the ninth edition of the Pakistan Super League in Karachi. The Gladiators sealed the playoff by six wickets — with the most crucial one taken...
View ArticleChampions Trophy 2025: High stakes, high hopes for Pakistan
The ICC Champions Trophy has been held eight times since its inaugural edition in 1998. But it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the tournament’s latest edition, set to kick off on February 19, will be the...
View ArticleAll that you may not want to know about Pakistan’s Champions Trophy defence
The intention is clear. This is not one of those hum hain Pakistani hum tou jeetenge type pieces, for we’ve done that plenty on these very pages. All it gets you in the end is trauma and ridicule at...
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Champions Trophy winners of 2017 — where are they now?
The 2017 Champions Trophy win was a monumental event in Pakistan’s cricket history. Lots of careers were made and reputations cemented on that famous triumph. After all, you don’t thrash India by 180...
View ArticleEven Dubai appears ‘too far’ for Pakistani fans with Champions Trophy tickets
Waqar Ahmed, a Pakistani national based in Qatar, was among the lucky ones. In the online crowd of desperate fans, he managed to secure three tickets for the eagerly awaited Pakistan-India Champions...
View ArticleReputation at stake as Pakistan begin Champions Trophy defence against New...
Since Pakistan began to regain the trust of the cricketing fraternity as a host capable enough of staging safe and secure cricketing events, there have been several milestones celebrated. Sri Lanka’s...
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Pak vs NZ: 5 takeaways from Pakistan’s masterclass on how not to begin...
Pakistan’s lifeless and lacklustre display against New Zealand in their 60-run defeat at Karachi’s National Stadium in the first match of the 2025 Champions Trophy left much to be desired. Naturally,...
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‘Agony of choice’: Your guide to Germany’s election for the 21st Bundestag
Since September 2024, Germany’s then federal finance minister Christian Lindner had been warning of an ‘autumn of decisions’ or Herbst der Entscheidungen in a reference to what he believed were some...
View ArticleWhen cricket defies logic: Pakistan vs India, or the stories we tell ourselves
My first memory of a cricket match was the 2007 World T20 final between India and Pakistan. I’m sure I’d watched cricket matches before — after all, there must have been the ones that led up to the...
View ArticlePakistan vs India: A rivalry etched in sixes and heartbreaks
The latest Netflix series, The Greatest Rivalry: India vs Pakistan, just dropped — and like a last-over thriller, fans devoured it within hours. No cricketing feud burns hotter than this, and the...
View ArticleChampions Trophy: It’s advantage India from every angle, barring Pakistan...
Over the last decades, whenever these two have met in an ODI, it’s India that is pretty much unanimously seen as the favourites. Pakistan’s supporters may tip them to come out on top but that’s largely...
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5 takeaways as India exposes Pakistan’s 50-over frailties yet again
Defending champions Pakistan crashed out of Champions Trophy 2025 with their second-straight defeat of the tournament on Sunday, this time at the hands of arch-rivals India at the Dubai International...
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The missing children of Karachi — how the state is failing its most vulnerable
Chaos reigned at the Pervez household on the morning of January 7. It was the first day of school after the winter holidays and his three sons, Aariz, Sarim and Azfar, sure were a handful. The...
View ArticleThe Peca tweaks are aimed at combating disinformation free speech. Here’s why...
When the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) was originally promulgated in 2016, it was done under the pretext of tackling disinformation to preserve public peace. However, it didn’t take long...
View ArticleExodus from Pakistan: Why are thousands risking everything to escape?
The sea, vast and unforgiving, became a graveyard on January 2, 2025, as a small boat carrying migrants capsized near Spain’s Canary Islands. Among the 50 who perished, 44 were Pakistanis — dreamers...
View ArticleWhy the Trumpian chainsaw to the global order may be an opportunity for Pakistan
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has mounted an aggressive effort to reshape the post-Cold War world order. The foundational belief driving this shift is that access to the American market —...
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The killer highways of Balochistan
“Is the road safe?” Muhammad Ahmed, who was travelling from Quetta to Dera Ismail Khan after 15 long years, asked the bus driver. News over the last few months had not been good; he was concerned....
View ArticleBaloch women are leading the struggle for their rights, not just supporting it
In Balochistan, where pain has long been a cornerstone of its identity, a struggle led by women is taking root. While women have been involved in the campaign for Baloch rights since the early 2000s,...
View ArticleThe anatomy of grief (Pakistan cricket version)
Grief, as they say, comes in stages. Denial: Maybe this was just a trial, and the real tournament will commence now. Bargaining: Okay, God, you took this from us, but could that please mean we are...
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Timeline: Attacks claimed by BLA over the last one year
The rescue operation to release the scores of people held hostage by terrorists who hijacked the Jaffer Express train near Balochistan’s Bolan district continued on Wednesday, a day after the...
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‘Face to face with death’: Jaffar Express survivors recall two days of horror
In the dead of the night, Muhammad Numan saw a chance. The three armed men guarding his bogie were in a deep sleep. Quickly, he put together an escape plan. “It’s a gamble of life and death … it is now...
View ArticlePakistan’s security situation is off the tracks. Can the authorities reclaim...
The journey was supposed to be routine, almost boring. More than 400 passengers aboard the Jaffar Express were travelling through the rugged mountains of Balochistan on Tuesday when the train suddenly...
View ArticleLahore’s urban disaster: From colonial sprawl to capitalist chaos
It is no secret that Lahore has inherited a colonial legacy of haphazard urban planning. Rather than course-correcting, however, appear to have doubled down on the worst aspects of it. The latest...
View ArticleWhy Sindh’s farmers are up in arms over the Cholistan canal project
Among the crowd of students gathered on the Indus Highway on March 4, Saqlain Sindhi’s voice was the loudest. “Darya-e-Sindh par daaka dala jaraha hai (Indus River is being robbed),” he bellowed. As...
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From darkness to light: The promise of decentralised community-driven energy...
For nearly 12 million people in Pakistan, access to electricity remains a distant dream. The country faces severe challenges — its national grid struggles to reach remote regions, energy prices soar,...
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Net-metering saga: Much ado about the 0.83 per cent
The surge in generation of electricity through a distributed network has been driven by a significant reduction in solar panel prices globally, largely due to a supply glut in China, which is the...
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BYC protest, section 144 and Karachi
All the roads leading to the Karachi Press Club are blocked with big, blue police vans. The city’s downtown is clogged and shut down; it’s a mess. That, and there is Section 144 imposed in District...
View ArticleThe cost of silence on menstruation
Imagine spending nearly seven years of your life bleeding. Now, consider this: every woman, barring a medical condition, goes through exactly this. Here’s the math: on average, a woman menstruates 456...
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Dignity, duty and respect: How Karachi gives back in Ramazan
The Hassan Square interchange in Karachi is always bustling with activity — construction work continues, vehicles keep honking, and street vendors desperately call out to customers. But ever since...
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