Clik here to view.
Celebrating Gaddafi's 100th and other stats
For all the cricket-starved in this country, the past three days have been an exhilarating tale of entertainment and anticipation, with the T20 series ending with a last-over thriller. Spectators...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Food Stories: Cake rusk
Had I known that cake rusks could be made at home, bakery style, I would have pestered Ammi to make them every day of my childhood.Oddly enough, I did not stumble upon this information until a week...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Turning 30, ripping up the bucket list
Once, when I was an undergraduate at LUMS in Pakistan, we were asked to create 'future CVs' for ourselves, imagining where we would be 10 years down the road. According to my calculations, by the age...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The ‘unfair disadvantage’ of being Khushwant Singh's son
Like father, like son. Rahul Singh, a distinguished journalist, has inherited his love for Pakistan from his legendary father Khushwant Singh.Hiding behind distinguished Indian journalist Rahul Singh’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The HEC should never rank Pakistan's universities
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Pakistan should be the last institution to make public its ranking of universities.The commission is directly responsible for funding research and providing...
View ArticleBreaking the silence on menstruation
We have a lot of days related to women on the calendar, but May 28th is one that I hadn’t heard about before: Global Menstrual Hygiene Day. I was alerted to this by Irise International, an NGO that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sheer news! FatXact scandal! Modi selfies boost economy!
Western journalist writes book on Pakistan that does not have a veiled woman or a terrorist on the coverLondon: Experienced British journalist, Robin P. Nash, recently launched his third book in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daska: All that is wrong with Pakistan's police and lawyers
You can tell you live in a dysfunctional society when you see the guardians of the lives and property of people brazenly shooting them dead, and the guardians of the law unabashedly breaking the law.An...
View ArticleKP polls — There is no honour in barring women from voting
Tomorrow, the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa go to the polls to elect new local bodies, exercising their hard-earned democratic right of casting ballots for leaders of their choice. However, a dark...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A walk through the Delhi Gate
The weekend was here. To escape the monotony of a nine-to-five life, I grabbed my camera and hopped onto a bus to Lahore, where my friends awaited me. One of them, a die-hard Lahori, had decided that...
View ArticleAre Pakistan's 'legitimate' degrees any better?
An investigation into a fake degree business in Pakistan is currently ongoing. This is a good time to take up the side-topic and ask ourselves some questions about the dire state of education in our...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kalash: An odyssey of the heart
The compulsive urge to travel is a recognised physical condition, and is known as 'dromomania'. I can say without any hesitation that I suffer from it. Every time I look at the map and retrace my...
View ArticleRemember the Ahmadis of Lahore, remember the forgotten
A small girl who I will call Hina, sits perched on a stool, in the one corner of the living room untouched by the light streaming in from a procession of windows. Everything else is astir; rattling...
View ArticleWhat Pakistan needs beyond brick and mortar
The Pakistani economy is looking good. After years of downturns and rough patches, things appear to be finally moving in the right direction. The World Bank believes that the growth rate should be...
View ArticleInternet.org: An offer so great that it’s not
I have changed five Internet connections in the course of a year, broadband, mifi, cable net, fibre optic and evo-shevo you name it, each one worse than the other. It’s as if my workplace is entirely...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Solitude and doodh patti in Iceland
According to the big bang theory, the earth is 4.54 billion years old. Iceland, the youngest land mass to emerge out of the Atlantic Ocean floor, formed by volcanic eruptions, is between 16 and 20...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Food Stories: Namkeen Gosht
My mother used to make the most delicious Namkeen Gosht, but only once a year at Eid-ul-Azha, hence it was truly an Eid-to-Eid fare. I begged and pleaded but Ammi always said, 'Bakra Eid is just around...
View ArticleMastung: More massacres, more denial
It happened again. In an unfortunate incident which took place in Balochistan on Friday night, dozens of heavily armed gunmen wearing the uniforms of security forces (as described by eyewitnesses),...
View ArticleCan Bilawal save the PPP?
To date, his claim to fame is his pedigree. His legendary mother, Benazir Bhutto, inspired millions of downtrodden in Pakistan. Yet, if Bilawal Bhutto Zardari inspires to do justice to his mother’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jhulay Lal's cradle of tolerance
One of my colleagues asked me some time ago:‘Can you believe that Hindus and Muslims can pray at the same place simultaneously?’‘Well, of course not, at least not in Pakistan,’ I swiftly retorted. He...
View Article