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Dec 2, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Parvez Mahmood
On the 12th of February earlier this year, just four days after the contentious elections, before the final counts had been announced and before the outlines of the incoming governments were known to anyone except the small circle of overlords and their cohorts, this author had written in this space that there were two choices left for the future of our country; either a soft coup or a bloody anarchy.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Parvez Mahmood
The origins of the Shahi Qila of Lahore are shrouded in the mist of times. Due to paucity of written records, the available sketchy information indicates that some sort of fort had been in existence since the inception of the city in the first few centuries AD. It would have been a mud structure at some location, and certainly not as massive as the later Mughal fort. The Rajput rulers of Lahore lost the city to Mahmud of Ghazni in the early 11th century.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Parvez Mahmood
Click here for the previous entry in this series One of the most precious historical artefacts of Lahore is the Mughal-cum-Sikh complex on the northern side of the walled city. It comprises the Alamgiri or Badshahi Mosque, the Shahi Qila, Shaheedi Gurdwara, Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi, Hazoori Bagh, the marble Baradari, the Tomb of Sir Sikander Hayat and the Mausoleum of Allama Iqbal.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Parvez Mahmood
When the idea of this article took shape, it was only meant to describe this author’s childhood reminiscences of offering prayers in the 1960s at the Badshahi Mosque Lahore. However, it soon became evident that no matter how disciplined the author stayed, he would meander through the by-lanes of memory and history, much like the river to the north and west of the city. Eventually, this article has ventured into unpredictable directions.
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Aug 24, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Parvez Mahmood
My first visit to Griffith in the Australian state of NSW was in 2007. Since then, I have lived here for a cumulative five years over seven visits, and have come to regard it as my second home. Griffith is a friendly town where the main economic activity is farming, and farm related industries and businesses.
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Jul 15, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Muhammad Toheed |Parvez Mahmood |Raza Rumi |Adeel Daniel
Of the many visits that I have made since 2007 to this small agricultural town of Griffith in the state of New South Wales in Australia, the first long visit of nearly one year was in 2014. To fend off isolation and monotony, I joined a group of senior citizens who met thrice a week for an hour each week.
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Jun 27, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Sanchita Bhattacharya |Gulzar Dildar |Parvez Mahmood |Meher Rana
As the civilised part of the world covertly converses and passively shows disdain about the Afghan Taliban's ban on educating girls over the age of 12 for more than 1,000 days, two important reports vis-à-vis Afghan women have come into the public domain. The Spectator reported on June 23 about the systematic sexual abuse of women by Taliban operatives and commanders in Taliban-controlled prisons.
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Jun 19, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Parvez Mahmood |Ishtiaq Ahmed |Malik Achakzai |Yasser Latif Hamdani
This piece began its journey on the laptop in the latter half of March this year, when, in the wake of the suicide attack on a Pakistan Army post in Waziristan with the loss of precious lives, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had conducted retaliatory airstrikes on the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in eastern Afghanistan, followed by heavy artillery exchanges across the border. Sadly, it was the third of the four immediate neighbours that we have traded bombs with in last four years.
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May 23, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Shahzad Naveed |Varsha Torgalkar |Ahmad Faruqui |Parvez Mahmood
Kafiro Dherai, which falls in the district of Shangla of Pakistan, has a beautiful and relatively large-scale site of a group of Bodhisattvas and seated Buddhist carvings. However, the carvings have been recently damaged. Treasure hunters have tried to take the Buddha carving out of the boulder by drilling. It is still there, but it might soon perish if no measures of protection are taken.
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May 21, 2024 | 
thefridaytimes.com | Parvez Mahmood |Yasser Latif Hamdani |Ahmad Faruqui |Raza Rumi
There is no point in fretting about past. In due time, mistakes made are history, errors of judgments belong to the past and false hopes are bereft of expectations. Agonising about ‘what should have been in the past’ is no remedy for dealing with the tribulations of the present.
