Stories from and

A Nobel Prize for All Malalas in the World

  2 December 2014

The blog MujeresMundi is an infoactivism project run by Belgium-based Peruvian Xaviera Medina “committed to gender as a key to development”. Their most recent post refers to the Nobel Peace Prize that has been awarded to education Pakistani activist, Malala Yousafzai: […] Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that Malala...

Updates on the 18th SAARC Summit On Social Media

  27 November 2014

The ongoing summit of the The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was covered by international media with different perspectives. However non-official initiatives such as 18th SAARC Summit blog, Facebook account, Twitter and Google+ account are aggregating updates on the summit for easy archiving. Here are some examples: This...

Pakistan's State Owned TV Under Siege By Protestors

  1 September 2014

Last update at 7:45PM GMT, September 1, 2014 Hundred of protestors of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) have stormed into the Head Office of Pakistan's state-owned TV channel PTV. On 1st of September at around 11:20 am protesters broke open the main gate of Pakistan...

Sri Lanka Plans to Deport 1,500 Pakistani and Afghan Refugees

  23 July 2014

Facing persecution in Pakistan, many Ahmadiyya Muslims and Christians have taken refuge in Sri Lanka. These refugees are mostly held in Boossa and Mirihana detention centers and have to live on government-provided rations as they are not eligible for work. According to the media, the Sri Lankan government is preparing to...

Mobile Phones Drive Social And Economic Changes In Pakistan

  7 July 2014

From a slow start in the late Nineteen Nineties mobile phone penetration in Pakistan has jumped up in recent years to 77% nationally and amongst urban class people to almost 100%. Dr. Tahir Rauf at Pak Tea House reports that the ubiquitous mobile phone use in Pakistan has brought a...

The Unintended Consequences of Pakistan's Operation Zarb-e-Azb

  17 June 2014

On June 15, 2014, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb, a joint-military operation involving Pakistan against armed insurgent groups such as the Taliban (TTP), al–Qaeda, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The operation started exactly a week after the terrorist attack on the...

Helping Children Learning Urdu Alphabets

  8 May 2014

Chowrangi blog informs about a free interactive mobile app which introduces kids to Urdu alphabets and words. The app titled “Urdu Ustad” originally had the diaspora Urdu-speaking families as its target audience, but recently majority of download requests have come from Pakistan proving its usefulness.

Talk Show Hosts In Pakistan: There is Nothing Holding the Showman Back

  2 April 2014

You can imagine the irony when talk show hosts take over primetime news broadcasts and become more relevant to the pursuit of “facts” than their colleagues in the newsroom or out in the field. “Talk show hosts and TV anchors are the stars of the media revolution” as per Hassan...

Lahore Brigade Working To Solve Civic Problems

  26 February 2014

The first meetup of the Lahore Brigade members took place on Sunday, 23 February, in Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The brigade consists of civic hackers – software developers, designers, urban mappers who will be working to solve civic problems in Pakistan. Code for Pakistan and Technology for People...

Pakistan, Stay Out of Syria's Civil War

  25 February 2014

A day after a tiny news items titled, “Saudi Arabia ‘seeking Pakistani arms for Syrian rebels” appeared in Pakistani newspapers, political blogger Ahsan Butt posts a provocative piece warning Pakistan's foreign policymakers against tiptoeing into Syria's affairs. In “This is not our war (Syria Edition)” on the Five Rupees Blog, Ahsan...

10 Reasons Why I Do Not Want Shariah In Pakistan

  24 February 2014

One of the Taliban negotiators pulled out during a recent talk with the Pakistan government demanding that the agenda includes the strict imposition of Sharia law. Pakistani Blogger and Journalist Beena Sarwar highlights a protest note posted in Facebook titled '10 reasons why I do not want Shariah in Pakistan’...

Tanqeed's Bi-Weekly List of Recommended Readings On Pakistan

  9 February 2014

Tanqeed, a quarterly magazine on politics and culture on Tumblr, is an experiment in critical reflection on Pakistan. It is a blogzine, a scrapbook and a reporters’ notebook. This year, Tanqeed is accepting recommendations of lectures, essays, articles, videos on a range of subjects including politics, culture and society from...

Pakistani Superhero Ms. Marvel

  7 February 2014

It's a comic book. And yet, while I did a lot of laughing [it's got a lot of funny moments] I also couldn't stop the tears. Because I was so happy to see a version of myself reflected before me, not sensationalized or stereotyped. Blogger Aisha Saeed posts a review...

French Restaurant In Pakistan Closed For Not Allowing Pakistanis

  12 January 2014

Blogger Farzana Versey from Mumbai weighs on the hypocrisy regarding alcohol consumption by Pakistanis while reporting on a recent incident: La Maison, run by Frenchman Philippe Lafforgue, in a part of his house at an upscale area of the capital Islamabad, has been forced to shut down after there was...