Targeting the Ahmadis

I feel sick to my stomach. Today more than 70 people were killed and 108 were injured when gunmen launched simultaneous attacks on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore. The attacks – involving blasts as well as gunfire – took place during Friday prayers, when “over 1,000 worshipers were present in the mosque.” The NY Times cited [...]

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Enough with the Conspiracy Talk

Everybody loves a bloody conspiracy theory. But according to the NY Times, this is especially true in Pakistan. The news agency noted yesterday that conspiracy theories are “a national sport in Pakistan, where the main players — the United States, India and Israel — change positions depending on the ebb and flow of history.” Forget [...]

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Guilt by Association? 130 Relatives of Taliban Fighters Expelled from Swat

According to news agencies, about 130 relatives (25 families) of suspected Taliban militants have been expelled from their homes in Swat Valley and are currently “living in a camp guarded by the military.” Here’s the interesting part – the families were not “banished” by the Pakistani military. They were ordered to leave by Swat’s local [...]

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From South Park to the LHC Ban – How Did We Get Here?

How on earth did we get from a South Park cartoon being censored to the Lahore High Court banning Facebook? As I wrote here a few weeks ago, Comedy Central censored the oft-controversial South Park after the show depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit, leading a fringe Islamist group Revolution Muslim to make [...]

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Assessing the National Finance Commission Award – Bilquis

On December 31, 2009, the federal government and finance ministers from Pakistan’s provinces signed the 7th award of the National Finance Commission, a development that was widely regarded as a positive step in Pakistan’s political and economic progress. Below, Bilquis, a consultant from Lahore, assesses the NFC award and whether it should actually be considered [...]

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NPR’s Journey Along the Grand Trunk Road

NPR (National Public Radio)’s Morning Edition just started broadcasting a really fantastic series on the Grand Trunk Road, which stretches across the subcontinent from the Bay of Bengal to the Hindu Kush mountains. It is one of South Asia’s oldest and most historic highways, ultimately linking India and Pakistan together, and NPR correspondents are making [...]

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Microfinance in Pakistan: A Q&A with Kashf’s Roshaneh Zafar

Roshaneh receiving Vital Voices’ economic empowerment award (Marie Claire) In 1996, the Kashf Foundation became Pakistan’s first microfinance institution, empowering both women and families in an attempt to replicate the Grameen Bank model in the country in a nuanced way. Today, 14 years later, Kashf has 152 branches nationwide, boasts 305,938 supported families, and operates [...]

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The Comeback Kid 2.0

Remember when previously exiled politicians made their grand return to Pakistan with garlands around their neck and victory signs in the air? In the case of the late Benazir Bhutto (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif (PML-N), their advisers/PR teams released op-eds, press releases and statements, allowing party supporters to salivate over their much-anticipated comeback to Pakistani [...]

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Raising Boys not Barbarians – Sehar Tariq

According to the Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights NGO, there were at least 7,571 incidents of acid attacks, rapes, spousal beatings and other violence against women in Pakistan in 2008 alone. And because that statistic is based on media reports, the number is actually higher, particularly since most victims don’t come forward about their abuse. [...]

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Bloody Hell (Part deux)

Wednesday morning. You walk bleary-eyed to the metro to get to work. The sidewalk is bustling with other morning commuters, a sea of black suits and unfashionable commuter sneakers (you are in Washington, D.C. after all). As you are about to get on the escalator, you grab a copy of the Express, the Washington Post’s [...]

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