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Jun 27, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Navaira Ali Bangash
Bolivia’s army chief was arrested on Wednesday after sending soldiers and tanks to take up position in front of government buildings in what President Luis Arce called an attempted coup. The troops and tanks entered Plaza Murillo, a historic square where the presidency and Congress are situated, in the afternoon, prompting global condemnation of an attack on democracy. One of the tanks tried to break down a metal door of the presidential palace.
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Jun 26, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Navaira Ali Bangash
‘BABU’ a colloquial term and a remnant of our colonial past, was used to refer to the British bureaucracy, who would wield the stick to tax the people. Even after independence, our inherited bureaucratic system and ‘babu’ mindset haven’t evolved. Every year before the budget, we hear of tax babus arbitrarily formulating policies, including on health, to decide the fate of the people.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Faisal Bari |Asfa Sultan |Navaira Ali Bangash |Abbas Nasir
Development Pathways: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh 1947-2022By Ishrat Husain with Sarah Nizamani, Shagufta Shabbar and Masood Ahmed SiddiquiLiberty PublishingISBN: 9786277626198469pp. Where comparing oneself with one’s neighbours is not the best way to think about oneself and how one is doing, done at the national level it can be enlightening and can have many lessons for what could change and how as well.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Hisham Matar |Sara Danial |Asfa Sultan |Navaira Ali Bangash
My FriendsBy Hisham MatarPenguin Random HouseISBN: 9780812994841416pp. Renowned British Libyan author Hisham Matar, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his memoir The Return, has recently unveiled his latest literary offering, titled My Friends. Building on the success of his acclaimed works such as The Return and A Month in Siena, Matar’s new novel is a deeply empathetic and enlightening exploration.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Nadya Chishty-Mujahid |Asfa Sultan |Navaira Ali Bangash |Abbas Nasir
A World of Her OwnBy Ada JafarayTranslated by Aamir Jafarey with Asra JafareyHaripur Sungi PressISBN: 1000000097219430pp. Ada Jafarey is widely regarded by Urdu literary circles as the ‘first lady of Urdu poetry’. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including the President’s Pride of Performance (for literature), the Adamjee Literary Award and the Kamal-i-Fan accolade.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Claire Chambers |Asfa Sultan |Navaira Ali Bangash |Abbas Nasir
This year marks the 100th anniversary of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. When he published the novel in 1924, it was famously thought the sun would never set on the British Empire. Yet the Jallianwala Bagh massacre had happened just five years earlier. Such bloodshed undermined Britain’s so-called civilising mission in India. Appalled by the massacre, nationalist leaders increasingly believed that the only way forward was complete British withdrawal.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Sindhu Abbasi |Navaira Ali Bangash
On a cold January morning, newly graduated Waheeda took off her shoes and entered a data centre for the first time in her life. The small but heavy door could only be opened by data centre staff, with a security code to be entered into a machine mounted on the wall. Inside, it was freezing cold, and a man with knee-length, bright yellow rubber boots explained the dos and don’ts of being in a data centre of TechM*, an internet service provider (ISP) located in Korangi, Karachi.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Navaira Ali Bangash
PESHAWAR: With downpour and snowfall battering large parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the second consecutive day on Saturday, at least 22 people were killed and 25 injured in separate incidents. Most of the deceased and injured were children, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority. It said 14 children lost lives and 16 suffered injuries in weather-related mishaps. The PDMA said five children were killed in two incidents in Bajaur tribal district.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Mir Ali |Navaira Ali Bangash
As a 10th grade school kid, Mohammad Ali would sneak into the English Literature class of the Bachelor of Arts section of his alma mater, especially to attend it when the professor would be discussing Ernest Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and The Sea. Although an avid reader of suspense and detective stories and even Shakespeare, Ali hadn’t read Hemingway before his first exposure to the American writer in the BA class.
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Mar 2, 2024 | 
dawn.com | Nyla Daud |Navaira Ali Bangash
The crowds were adrenalin-infused, but then that is the norm at any Lahore festival. The premises overflowed, but then Lahore is a city where life is actually lived. The food court was a hornet’s nest with sweetened and spiced aromas, but then Lahoris live to eat. The Alhambra sprouted a rainbow of sounds and sights, but then spring was also in the air.
