The WTF List of 2010

It’s New Years Eve today, and what a year it’s been. 2010 has been littered with many a Pakistan-related WTF moment, and I thought it best to go beyond the “Top Philosophical Things You Should Be Doing With Your Life” type lists (mainly because they make me feel bloody inadequate) and give you a list [...]

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Working Girls

This past weekend, the NY Times published a video report by Adam Ellick, which delved into the growing number of lower-class women in Karachi entering Pakistan’s service industry. In the accompanying article, he wrote, “The women are pressed into the work force not by nascent feminism but by inflation, which has spiked to 12.7 percent [...]

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The Musical Reverberation of Arooj Aftab

Lahore-born and raised Arooj Aftab is an emerging musician whose music is influenced by an array of artists – from traditional Pakistani singers to contemporary sounds from the likes of  Erykah Badu. A self-taught guitarist, Arooj was one of four recipients of Berklee Music’s first merit-based scholarship, allowing this innovative musician to receive a formal [...]

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2010 Trending in Attacks on Pakistan’s Minorities

A version of this piece first appeared in Foreign Policy‘s AfPak Channel, in a series called, “The Hidden War: The Stories You Missed in 2010″: The persecution and targeting of religious and sectarian minorities has occurred throughout Pakistan’s history, but a number of attacks in 2010 highlight a qualitative shift in this trend. The scale, [...]

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Don’t Jealous of My Uth-Oye!

Whohoo! The second line of Uth-Oye!, “a socially conscious, cause-based design initiative,” is now out. Last year, the graphic t-shirts were both unique and spunky, displaying choice catchphrases like, “Don’t Jealous,” and images of flying auto rickshaws, bleeding gas pumps, and a King of Spades armed with a muchie and an AK-47. This year, the [...]

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Snaps for the Sistas

Last week, the first ever TEDWomen was held in Washington, D.C., bringing together men and women thought leaders to explore the question – How are women and girls reshaping the future? The two-day conference featured over 70 speakers that cut across disciplines and generations, from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright to Ugandan “bean breeder” [...]

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The Blasphemous Use of Blasphemy

Another day, another arbitrarily imposed blasphemy case. Over the weekend, police arrested Naushad Valiyani, a doctor in Hyderabad, for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Valiyani, who is Ismaili, was reportedly detained following a complaint by a medical representative, who said the doctor “threw his business card, which had his full name, Muhammad Faizan, in a [...]

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Remembering the Flood Affected

  Back in July, when monsoon rains inundated Pakistan, there was no shortage of news about the floods. We received constant updates on the villages that were washed away, the homes that were submerged, the families that were displaced from their homes. We heard stories about children who were malnourished, about mothers who were vulnerable [...]

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The Status of Swat Valley

  Last August, while visiting a skill-building center in Pirwadhai (outside of Rawalpindi), I met a group of women from Swat Valley. Following the Pakistan military’s operation against the Taliban in Swat, these women and their families had been displaced from their homes, choosing to live with host families rather than in relief camps, falling [...]

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The Last Time You’ll See Me Write “Wikileak” & “Dump” in the Same Sentence

  It has been a few days since the latest Wikileaks fiasco began, and news channels, online media sources and Twitter have been flooded with constant updates. At this time, I really would love it if I didn’t have to see 1) the word Wikileaks followed by “dump” 2) the word Wikileaks followed by “state secrets [...]

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