Pakistan’s foreign office has reacted to the hit US televison show Homeland rather negatively for calling the country a “hellhole”. It has also reacted to the atrocious killing of 100 and more of its children in Peshawar by asking the national media to show more...
Although twice as more men commit suicide in Pakistan than women, it is almost with certainty that one can say the women that do are married. This is according to the ‘The pattern of suicide in Pakistan’ by Murad Moosa Khan and Hashim Reza in...
If you have not been slapped, punched, shoved or physically threatened by a male relative or even a stranger, you are one of those one in 10 women who just escaped being part of a harrowing epidemic in Pakistan. Go celebrate. Go celebrate that you...
When a report comes out naming the worst perpetrators of oppression of any sort, expect Pakistan to take a sizable share of the cake. Picture this: 2,058,200 has been the number revealed by the 2014 Global Slavery Index of Pakistanis under modern slavery. Can we...
Some 150,000 schools across Pakistan commemorated I Am Not Malala Day. Walks and press conferences lit up the educational landscape of this country. It blacked everything else out though. It darkened everything that Malala stands for: education of the girl child, education for all, books...
As if it were not bad enough that Pakistan has always shown a dismal performance when it comes to the gender gap, there is more bad news: it is getting worse, not better, over the years. Either these indicators are being ignored by the people...
This is not a piece about finding justice for Aasia Bibi. God knows it would be very costly if that were so. Aasia Bibi has indirectly cost Pakistan a brilliant governor in Salmaan Taseer and a valorous minority’s minister in Shahbaz Bhatti. This is a...
The politics of protest orchestrated by Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri have defined many chasms between the well-governed society of our dreams and that of the real facts on the ground. The worst thing about it is that it has disclosed this chilling absence of women...
We are all headed towards oblivion — there is a good chance that no one will ever know who we were and, therefore, some may choose to hasten the inevitable end. It makes no sense to do this though if you are 17, a girl...
Published in Daily Times on June 29th 2014. The Punjab police’s brutality against Tahirul Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) workers was unpardonable. It led to 11 killed and over 80 injured. With all the hunters of our people out there, the police being part of the...