Some Thoughts on “Cricket Diplomacy”

The India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final in Mohali, India is in just two days (cricket cup, World Cup, it’s a big cup…), and my Facebook and Twitter feeds are oversaturated with anxiety-riddled , nail-biting discussion about the match. News agencies and leaders alike are gleefully using the term “cricket diplomacy” to describe the well-timed restart of [...]

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A Pakistan Win on Pakistan Day

It’s Pakistan Day today, and the Pakistan cricket team just defeated West Indies by 10 wickets to reach the World Cup semi-finals. Kind of poetic, no? The match took place amid tremendous Bangladeshi support in Mirpur, a fact that was surprising for some given the history between the two countries. But my friend Tafsir, who [...]

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Bye Bye Raymond Davis

The now infamous case of Raymond Davis ended Wednesday, when the American, who was indicted Tuesday for murder, was released after he reached a settlement to compensate the victims’ families. According to the NY Times, “After meeting with the American officials for more than six hours at the jail where the contractor, Raymond A. Davis, [...]

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Fox News #Fail

Silly Fox. Trix are for Kids. Yesterday, Fox News proved yet again that it’s a credible (*cough*) news source by publishing a story they thought was real news. The article ran on the Fox Nation website with this title, “Pakistan: Islamic Clerics Protest Women Wearing Padded Bras as ‘Devil’s Cushions,’” noting (via Salon), The Council [...]

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The WTF List

It’s been one of those weeks where I’ve gone WTF on a pretty daily basis. Here are a few reasons why: WTF #1: The earthquake-cum-tsunami in Japan. This is more like a sad “what on earth is happening” WTF. An 8.9 magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in the country and one of the largest [...]

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The Brain Drain Curse – Abdul Samad

In a lecture in 2009, research economist Abid Ali Abid made a bold statement, noting that hardly any country has suffered more from the ‘brain drain’ than Pakistan. In 2008, All Things Pakistan cited a Gallup survey that found that 62 percent of adults surveyed “expressed the desire to migrate abroad while 38 percent said [...]

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Happy Women’s Day!

It’s International Women’s Day today and I know you, dear readers, have seen your fair share of I-am-woman-hear-me-roar posts on this blog and elsewhere. Here’s another one. When writing this piece, I thought hard about the spirit behind International Women’s Day. In 1911, when this day was first celebrated internationally, women in most countries could [...]

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Teach for Pakistan: Bringing Innovation to Education

In Pakistan, the education sector needs vast reform and improvement, and education inequity and low school participation rates are enormous issues. According to Nancy Birdsall, the president of the Center for Global Development, the USAID education program in Pakistan is its largest in the world, with more than $330 million budgeted for FY 2010. However, [...]

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Another Islamabad Assassination

On Wednesday, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Minority Affairs was shot dead in Islamabad. According to news agencies, Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian member of the Federal Cabinet, was on his way to work “when unknown gunmen riddled his car with bullets.” Al Jazeera English noted that Bhatti’s driver was also wounded in the attack, and [...]

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