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'Censor my internet please!'
A recent survey conducted by Pew Research has stirred the dreaded old debate on whether internet users in Pakistan care much about internet censorship. The result from the survey reportedly reveals...
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Bhutto and I
On the morning of April 4, 1979, the military dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq hanged to death Pakistan’s first elected Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.Today is the 35th anniversary of that...
View ArticleTTP, winning the war on TV
We are so used to them now, the bearded commanders of our television screens.We know that someone important among them is called Hidayatullah, that their spokesman is Shahidullah, and that they are led...
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Prisoner 4978
‘The beginning of a thing is a mirror of its end.’ –Asadullah Ghalib“All these years, Jack, you were a prison warden, and I never really asked you about your prisoners.” He had just turned 70 and we...
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Movie Review: Need for Speed's realism beats Fast and the Furious
Director Steve Waugh’s Need for Speed, stars fast action cars – three Koenigsegg Agera’s, a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento, McLaren P1, Saleen S7 (amongst others) – and, subsequently, a yarn about a...
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Feudal death threats from middle class Pakistanis
I’m motivated to write this blog because of a death threat that was bought to my attention, posted on to a news update on the teenage activist, Malala Yousafzai. Since web 2.0 sites have become popular...
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Why I'm skipping 'Game of Thrones' Season 4
My Facebook newsfeed is abuzz with comments and updates heralding the launch of the fourth season of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’. As an ex-fan, my disposition these days is of a crestfallen man watching...
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Muhammad Bin Qasim: Predator or preacher?
We all know that Arab General Muhammad Bin Qasim conquered Sindh in 712 AD. However, the facts surrounding this conquest, and the ill fate that followed for the conqueror is known to few among...
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Movie Review: Main Tera Hero, ‘Govinda Ishtyle’
Main Tera Hero, David Dhawan’s remake of Telugu movie Kandireega, is a trivial hodgepodge of events as Sreenath Prasad (Varun Dhawan), a small town rascal, falls for Sunaina (Ileana D'Cruz), who...
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A legible prescription for careless doctors
Their hands may be blessed with cure, but not with good handwriting. Prescriptions from doctors in Pakistan are often illegible, missing instructions on dosage, and list unnecessarily a large number of...
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If it's not the TTP... ?
Men grieve the death of relatives at a hospital in Islamabad, after a bomb tore through a bustling market, killing at least 21 people. -AFP PhotoCould dialogue have saved the lives of the 21 people...
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Should we negotiate with the UBA too?
Imagine taking all the lessons we’ve received from our arduous tango with the Taliban, and applying them to another malady creeping over us; one that has carried out two deadly attacks on our civilians...
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United we fall?
It won’t be an understatement to suggest that on most occasions watching Pakistani TV talk shows can be like experiencing an exhaustive roller-coaster ride.Within a span of 50 minutes or so, the...
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Goodbye, Archie
I read my first Archie comic when I was around 10 years old in the late 80s, and vacationing in Karachi. And I was a fan from the first comic book. It opened me up to the suburban American life, which...
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The “Global” Malala
In a recent essay, “Making Martyrs”, published in Guernica magazine, author Hassan Altaf writes about Malala Yousafzai’s memoir. With the earnest dark-eyed Malala staring out from the book’s cover,...
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Reinventing art
How does one reinvent art that was perfected centuries ago? Kausar Iqbal, an artist from Lahore has exquisitely managed just that. I had first travelled to Lahore as a child and the walled city, known...
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Fashion, destroying Pakistan from within
Traitors are everywhere in Pakistan - but in fashion they have found their home.We are all aware of the plot to break Pakistan into 46 pieces to benefit the liberal, secular (read: evil) western...
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Imagine telling the Taliban a woman could lead you to God
“Send a bouquet of your face with the morning breeze,” wrote Persian poet Hafez (1320-1389), who caught the fleeting glimpse of a beautiful girl on a terrace when he was 21. That one glimpse captured...
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Forced conversion, real terror
Caught up in the frenzy of building bridges and belittling opponents, this government, like its predecessors, has failed to pay any attention to the rights of minorities in Pakistan. As if forced...
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Kabuli Pulao: Pride of the North
Kabuli Pulao is considered an ancestor of the Yakhi Pulao and is best described by Arminius Vambery, a Hungarian Professor of oriental languages. Vambury widely traveled central Asia, Afghanistan and...
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