A Letter to Lala

At this precise moment in the world cup no one is doubting the fact that the dark horse of the tournament team Pakistan has more than demonstrated their ability and prowess to win in their match against Srilanka. They have beaten one of the hosts of this world cup in front of a packed crowd…

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How did BBC Asian Network allow this?

The BBC Asian network has generally been regarded as a standard in the world of radio broadcasting since its inception on 20th October 1988. Its focus being on news and programmes featuring the music, culture and diversity of England’s asian community. Listeners to this network were thus understandably shocked when on the 1st of Feb in a radio program hosted by Mr Nihil Ashanayake whilst…

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Rise & Reclaim

I am not a cricket analyst and will never claim to be one but what I am, is a fan of the game itself. As a fan of the Pakistan team I have had the pleasure of witnessing our victories in some unusual circumstances. For instance the match against India in Sharjah where Javed Miandad hit…

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Access denied!

Most of the best statistical analysis about our country is present with our telecom operators who invest in and maintain extensive data on our population as it is to their intrinsic benefit. In a very recent survey according to“Teletimes International” Pakistan is a country of 169 million people with 2.49% of its populace falling under…

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At Crossroads

It seems as though the country has been neatly fractured into two visible sides: the conservatives and the liberals. Every incident in the recent past, be it the assassination of Governor Salman Taseer or the Veena Malik debacle, reminds us again and again, that the valuable middle-ground and the people who actually make some sense…

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Enter the future

Things are changing very very rapidly in this world of ours. This week we all came to know that astrology is all wrong and that they  (astrologers) forgot to include some weird quadrant in subspace in their calculations and thus there is now a 13th astrological sign (ophiidunnowhathefuk) and somehow I am now a saggitarius after being…

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A garden in shigar

  A Garden in Shigar from Mahera Omar on Vimeo. (2010) Nusrat, Khezran, Zakia, Asiya and Sajida are five young women from the scenic Shigar Valley in the mountainous northern areas of Pakistan. As interns with the Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan (AKCSP), their project is to landscape the Abruzzi secondary school’s garden in the…

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Time to decide

This week has been something out of a nightmare. Nations all over the world celebrate new years with a gusto, with an eye towards the horizon and the wind in their sails. We here In Pakistan start 2011 with a government so paralyzed in politics it cannot see beyond its own doorstep & a nation…

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Enter 2011

There is a small one room restaurant on Jenkins Avenue in Norman Oklahoma called “Greek house”.Its family owned, full of little square tables and it serves gyros. You can get them on a plate or in a sandwich and as soon as one enters the place the air is thick with the fragrance of meat roasting on a skewer. The fries…

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Identity crises

A few days ago, I came across some videos of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at Columbia University. I looked up some more videos of Ahmadinejad and realised there was one thing all of them had in common: whether he was speaking to Larry King on TV or giving a talk at an American university…

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