A silver lining?

The whole world seemed to believe for the last year or so that the Pakistani government was about to fall down in face of the incoming hordes.  By hordes I refer to the militants  which are battling our army these days in south waziristan and as reports filter in are proving to be a tough…

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Jaag mere talib – e – ilm protest in karachi

Oct 24th Saturday saw us, me and Dr Awab that is standing in front of a pleasant surprise. A small throng of students in front of the press club with banners, megaphones et all denouncing the Taliban with passion. They had a press release they were organized and they came from 4 different colleges and…

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Is there no hope?

It gets harder and harder to write everyday. So bizarre is the scenario in Pakistan that the news feed  jacked into my mind is full of people exploding at different places, human bombs strike us every day, killing all around them in their suicides.  Every single day brings reports of suicide bombings in different cities…

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Weekly roundup 8.6.09

Well what a week this has been. Its pretty tough living in this heat in Karachi, although shockingly the electricity has not gone for 10 days now. How can we go from 8 hours of no lights per day to no power outages for this long? Did someone push a magic button? What is the…

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A new horror

Not a day goes by without some sort of threat in Pakistan to its citizens. by these mysterious men we have come to know loosely as the Taliban. We have as citizens of this country faced, murder, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, days without electricity and food shortages, we have dealt with car jacking and god…

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National bloggers conference

To all the Bloggers out there and the Bloggerettes and the Blaggers and the Blaggerrets, the 18th of April shall see us gather under the roof of Regent Plaza Hotel Karachi to unleash our collective might upon this land. Hmm sounds skeery? Actually no its going to be a “National Bloggers Conference” where the IT…

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Fake video or not?

Merely a day after the entire civil society and intelligentsia of Pakistan seemingly erupted over the shocking footage of a 17 year old Chand bibi being flogged by militants, she has come out and denied the whole thing ever happened. According to the story that was broken first in “The News” the investigation team visited…

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Seige at Manawan, Lahore

Another day dawns in Pakistan with a new attack on our country and people. This time the target is in Eastern Pakistan, a Police academy outside Lahore situated on the way to the Wagah India/Pak border. According to unconfirmed reports the attackers were dressed in police uniforms and broke in with automatic weaponry and hand…

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Hijab & why I observe it

By ZAINUB RAZVI I’m often asked what it feels like to observe pardah. “Isn’t it difficult?”…“Don’t you feel hot?”… “Can you breathe alright?”…You could be forgiven for thinking that most such questions come from non-Muslim westerners, who have little or no idea about the practical implications of such a lifestyle choice (yes, pardah implies a…

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