Our essential reads for the week
For columnist Saba Imtiaz, a European heatwave became the key to evoking memories of home and remedy for her creative block.
Government officials in Pakistan put great faith in IT oriented solutions for every problem, from seeking justice to simply obtaining character certificates. But, is this faith justified? Can embracing IT work as a panacea for governance failures?
In September 2012, over 250 workers perished in a fire at Ali Enterprises, a garment factory in Karachi working for a German retailer. Was this arson or an accident? Laurent Gayer’s ‘Gunpoint Capitalism: Enforcing Industrial Order in Karachi’ takes this tragedy to take a probing look at a culture of industrial order through force in Karachi.
Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird (translated by Asa Yoneda, and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025) captured the public imagination with its post-apocalyptic narrative of a future depicting humanity’s precarious survival. But is this yet another in a long line of hyped spec-fic works translated from the Japanese, or does it offer greater insight into the genre?
Despite decades of reform efforts and investment in the FBR’s systems, resources and processes, the government is nowhere close to achieving its desired levels of tax collection. It is not the implementation that is wrong, but the strategy.
What explains Padel’s recent explosive popularity in urban Pakistan?
By Saba Imtiaz
By Umair Javed
By Maryam Jillani
Stories, Cultures, and Landscapes
Reflecting on the Zeitgeist
Despite decades of reform efforts and investment in the FBR’s systems, resources and processes, the government is nowhere close to achieving its desired levels of tax collection. It is not the implementation that is wrong, but the strategy.
Jul 18, 2025
A childhood favorite Punjabi film offers unexpected insights into contemporary Punjabi society
Jul 07, 2025
Despite decades of reform efforts and investment in the FBR’s systems, resources and processes, the government is nowhere close to achieving its desired levels of tax collection. It is not the implementation that is wrong, but the strategy.
Jul 18, 2025
A childhood favorite Punjabi film offers unexpected insights into contemporary Punjabi society
Jul 07, 2025
In September 2012, over 250 workers perished in a fire at Ali Enterprises, a garment factory in Karachi working for a Ge...
Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird (translated by Asa Yoneda, and shortlisted for the International Booker...
‘What is and was Lahore? How has it changed in its thirteen disruptions?’ These are among the many questions that flaneu...
Satire aims to provoke, but does Percival Everett’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel go far enough?
𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘓𝘢𝘮𝘱, the first ever book translated from Kannada shortlisted by the International Booker Prize, is a collection o...
The UK-based Pakistani author’s most recent novel A Woman on a Suitcase revisits marriage and the end of it
In our increasingly media-saturated landscape, in thrall of an attention economy that strategizes attracting eyeballs an...
Nobel Prize Winner Han Kang’s oeuvre may be be celebrated due to her status as a novelist “for the times”, but what sepa...
SPORTS
What explains Padel’s recent explosive popularity in urban Pakistan?
SPORTS
In recent years Pakistan has seen a bleak period in the T20I cricket arena. However, does the series clean sweep against...
In contemporary America, the system of financing election campaigns has become a vast, institutionalised behemoth that ensures elected officials are more accountable to their wealthiest donors than to their constituents. Therein lies the not-so-secret to bipartisan, unconditional support for Israel
From the encampments of Columbia University to the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza, an unprecedented sense of solidarity unites the world even as Israel strengthens its own dark alliances
A personal meditation on the distinction between art and luxury, beauty and gloss
