Jul 21, 2025
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?
Jul 18, 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 07, 2025
A childhood favorite Punjabi film offers unexpected insights into contemporary Punjabi society
Jun 24, 2025
Even as the local economy has come to rely on tourism, Gilgit-Baltistan faces grave ecological, cultural and social challenges as a result of the recent surge
Jun 23, 2025
Kafka's In the Penal Colony provides an insight into the psychology of power at play in the violence that has been inflicted on the Palestinians. What does it mean for writers to refuse to be "tourists" to this spectacle of suffering?
Jun 20, 2025
For too long Pakistan’s economic policymakers have blamed taxpayers for not shouldering the country’s fiscal burdens. But this deflects from the state’s culture of profligacy, which is at the root of the country's debt crisis.
Jun 05, 2025
Under colonial influence, the visual grammar of our past—soft silhouettes, draped fabrics, floral motifs, jewelry worn by men with ease—was stripped away. What remains is a masculine rigidity suspicious of any sartorial playfulness
Jun 05, 2025
Pakistan's myopic focus on raising tax-to-GDP ratios rests on flawed assumptions and distracts from real fiscal reforms.
May 31, 2025
While most citizens of Karachi do not have access to cultural spaces, the well-heeled enjoy the vast expanses of country clubs, spaces reminiscent of the colonial era that function as a soft mechanism of exclusions, making it clear who is deemed to deserve leisure and comfort in the city.
May 24, 2025
The country benefits far more from decent facilities everywhere, than world-class facilities in small pockets. Infrastructure development should take into consideration the needs of everyone, not just a segment of the population.
Apr 29, 2025
From the ban on X (formerly known as Twitter) to the arrests of activists over speech, PECA has allowed the state to exercise the most arbitrary set of controls over Pakistani citizens’ use of the vast playground of the internet
Apr 22, 2025
The government’s project to ostensibly revitalise the river and “develop” its surrounding areas has drawn sharp criticism from local residents and activists
Mar 27, 2025
Given that a vast majority of women in Pakistan already wear long tunics, full sleeves, and dupattas, is modest fashion just a repackaging of what already exists?
Mar 10, 2025
Cricket in Pakistan may be a deeply political project, but our attachment to the sport - the heady highs and the dismal lows - make it so much more
Mar 06, 2025
Pakistan is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world, and agricultural and fishing communities of Sindh are paying the price with their lives uprooted and livelihoods decimated
Feb 24, 2025
This year’s edition of the Lahore Literary Festival may not have lived up to the hype and star power of LLFs past, but it still remains a crucial and thriving space for cultural dialogue
Feb 10, 2025
Any attempt at adapting a literary giant’s work for the screen - especially one as stylistically and visually experimental as Marquez - is going to be a lofty mission
Feb 04, 2025
Pakistani brides increasingly opt for the luxe aesthetic without the price tag, but not without judgment
Feb 04, 2025
Pakistan is experiencing an exodus of our young. How does losing almost an entire generation of students with advanced degrees and ambitious dreams change us and them?
Jan 21, 2025
The institution of marriage is an ideal in Pakistani society, the only acceptable and moral way to live, and when you choose to not enrol in the great program, a lot is assumed about you and a lot is said about you
Jan 21, 2025
Across five venues, KB24 stirred Karachiites out of complacency with art that implicated its audience in the climate crisis we face today
Jan 21, 2025
This Islamic cultural figure from 13th century India took liberties with language that have turned into the conventions of our present
Jan 21, 2025
Calls for a boycott for this year’s season bring us back to the question of the very legitimacy of Coke Studio as a platform for Pakistani music
Jan 21, 2025
Dharti Dhar Dhar Dharke Gi: Artist As Witness, COMO Museum’s show curated by Salima Hashmi, is a searing homage to the artist’s testimony of a world rife with systemic violence
Jan 21, 2025
A self-avowed devotee and admirer of Nusrat’s artistry remains largely unmoved by his posthumous album ‘Chain of Light’
Jan 21, 2025
Heera Mandi might have been famous for the singing and dancing women, but in the midst of all this, it was also home to the tradition of classical music - a tradition that is now dying
Jan 21, 2025
Climate activist and expert Dawar Butt speaks about the underlying causes and potential solutions to the cataclysmic air pollution in Pakistan
Jan 21, 2025
The burgeoning perfume industry in Pakistan is largely a copycat factory, dominated by clones of internationally well-known designer fragrances. Will we see a turn towards innovation soon?
Jan 21, 2025
How did a humble spice, used in home kitchens and ayurvedic medicine mostly in South Asia for centuries, suddenly become a global super food?
Jan 21, 2025
Watching the Israeli genocide in Gaza unfold as a parent has been heart wrenching, an uncanny double life, watching children torn apart on our phones while holding our sleeping babies
Jan 20, 2025
An explainer on Pakistan’s electricity shortfall
Jan 20, 2025
Beauty workers in large Pakistani urban centres face a distinctive set of struggles with little recourse
Jan 20, 2025
Decisive and effective policies to address the existential threat of rapidly deteriorating air quality is long overdue
Jan 20, 2025
A meditation on the duties and efficacy of artists in times of oppression and injustice
Jan 10, 2025
While the pandemic thrust many Pakistani fashion brands into e-commerce, a deeper look reveals that the foundations of this industry—logistics, customer support, and post-sale service—remain alarmingly shaky
Dec 04, 2024
Sadia Khatri reimagines the private and public in rural Sindh