Bemoaning the lack of a single culture or socio-political aim to bring Pakistanis together to end the perpetual cycle of corruption, nepotism and stagnation is probably the activity Pakistanis indulge in most often. I was talking to SB in Karachi when she told me that they suffered 20-hour-a-day power cuts last summer and were expecting [...]
Archive for the 'Pakistan' Category
Pakistan Day Mubarak!
23Mar07I might go for a flag-raising ceremony at the Pakistani embassy this morning. Or not. Anyway, SAA sent me a really nice video featuring rarely-seen pictures of Allama Iqbal (courtesy the folks over at All Things Pakistan), so check it out:
Libraries in Islamabad, Part 2
22Feb07This is disturbing. I just sat down to start drafting the petition/letter I want to send out about establishing a public library in Islamabad. In the interests of being factually accurate, I looked up which public libraries are operational in Islamabad right now; unsurprisingly enough, there are just 2, both fairly low-key affairs hidden away [...]
NA pointed me to Ayaz Amir’s latest column today. It’s not too long, and worth a read. Mr. Amir asks what the purpose of founding Islamabad was, and points out how shoddily the city is being run as it continues to explode beyond the capacity it was designed for. The themes are familiar: the traffic [...]
Check out the new post on the Nairang Foundation blog. Atif’s a recent LSE graduate who has implemented a great idea for raising donations for The Citizens Foundation. It’s a great example of how to pitch in, and an inspiring success story to boot! Please feel free to forward a link to others, or cross-post from [...]
Heeeere’s Mushy!
28Sep06Continuing the taxpayer-funded publicity tour for his autobiography, Pakistani President (and supreme military honcho) General Pervez Musharraf appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He comes off as a decently urbane, fairly liberal kinda guy. Proof? Check out the comments YouTuber’s left about the video. But there’s an unshakeable shadiness to him that he isn’t [...]
Nairang Foundation blog
28Sep06It’s up, here. The next step is to hand out accounts to the people I think will be interested in posting here. If you’re interested (and think I won’t be contacting you anyway!), please shoot me an email. The goal is to put up links related to current affairs, particularly development and politics, in [...]
Bumper-to-bumper in Islamabad
13Sep06Man, it’s good to be back home. Forsooth, Chicago/New York/London/Paris have their own charms, but there’s no city like Islamabad. When I visited in February this year, I felt a little depressed: Islamabad seemed jaded, the colours worn out and the lifestyle routine. Spring had just sprung when I visited in May, so the colours [...]
Imran Khan, he is a Superman! Super, super, super, super, Supermaaaaan! He is a Superman! - Hassan Jahangir This is really worth reading. Imran Khan’s always been (paradoxically) a bit of a recluse, so lots of people, myself included, think of him as a hypocritical elitist, lecturing about ‘Brown Sahebs’ while being one in the truest sense. Even [...]
Huma Zafar just sent me this great link from the Common Language Project. I always find myself protesting internally when I read negative articles about Pakistan, especially when written by a foreigner. The standard cache of cliched arguments (”they’re part of the problem”, “they can’t understand our culture”) surfaces and I have to actively suppress [...]
Libraries in Islamabad
19Mar06Yesterday, the topic of conversation suddenly became the British Council. And the fact that the library has been closed down because of security concerns, so that the only part of the British Council that’s really still open are the parts that are making money: the department that administers the O/A’Levels and various other exams such [...]
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