Reaching out

For the last three years, I have been engaged in doing social work on a stop-start-stop basis with various small community-based organisations. During this time, I have had the opportunity to go all over interior Sindh, from Sehwan Sharif to Jacobabad, in flood relief and development activities. In almost all the trips, our organisation has been doing…

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Jawwad Farid and risky business in the IT sector

I would rather have one Jawwad than ten Mohammad Asifs, what about you? PHOTO: CIO PAKISTAN Whenever we dicuss the IT sector in Pakistan, the conversation is usually about what we lack and not what we have. Then we compare it to India with all its government subsidies, state of the art infrastructure and lament all the…

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KLF roundup

The Karachi literature festival has been held in this city for the last three years. It has now become a galvanizing point for a collection of writers showcasing their latest books and literature enthusiasts flocking to learn and bask in the glory of these wordsmiths. This year the event was held on the 11th and…

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Moral policing gets show axed

On January 17, 2012, a morning show was broadcast on Pakistani news network Samaa TV where its female host, Maya Khan, and a group of middle aged women were seen scouring the parks of Karachi. Their sole objective was to hold accountable couples visiting the parks in order to be on a date together without their guardians’ knowledge. During…

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Let’s bring back concert culture

We are a nation that has suffered much over the years economically, politically and physically. We really need more people attending creative events and listening to music. PHOTO: AFP So what do people my age talk about when they meet? When I say my age I mean the mid-30s where almost all of us have…

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Blog awards – my win list

t’s that time of the year again. Tis the season of the blog awards in Pakistan, a tradition that began in 2010 with CIO & Google partnering to host the first blog awards of this nation. No they aren’t some hokey pokey geeky awards given in the shape of graphics in an email to people…

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Pk relief mission badin part 2

  Two hundred people have fallen prey to the devastation that hit Badin and other areas in Sindh by more than 1,000 millimeters of rain in the last month. This is the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Sindh. Compare this to the 70 odd millimeters of rain that has fallen in Karachi over the past…

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The human tragedy remains

I was standing on the banks of a muddy tributary making its slow rippled way through rice paddies. A cold wind was blowing in my face and ruffling the trees freshly washed from last weeks rains. The sky was partly overcast with shafts of lights peeking out from among the clouds onto the fields, it…

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The tall tale of the bull

One of my neighbors has gotten a bull. It is not just the usual run of the mill, medium-sized animal either, this one is big – bigger than I am and frolics in the area because after all it would be pretty cruel for the owners to keep him locked up. A few nights ago,…

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Why is Kaali a gaali

A few days ago I was surprised to see an advertisement for under arm fairness cream on television. Now I know that the third world has a skin complex but I never thought we had fallen in our own minds to this extent. I suppose it started with the English who may have colonized and…

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