The Friday Times

4 days ago | thefridaytimes.com | Raza Rumi

I finally visited Risham Syed’s Destiny Fractured at the Newark Museum of Art in late May. I had missed the opening—travel, deadlines, the usual whirlwind—but I’m so glad I made it in time. Risham is a dear friend whose work I’ve admired for years. Her practice has always inspired me—not only as an artist and musician but as someone navigating the overlapping maps of Lahore and the world, interrogating colonial memory and contemporary dislocations. This exhibition was, in a word, extraordinary.

1 week ago | thefridaytimes.com | Aamir Khan

Religion, deprivation, socio-economic malaise and other factors had played their role in the armed struggle by Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in India to fight the British. From 1857 till 1947, independence was the ultimate goal of these freedom fighters, branded as mutineers, terrorists and arsonists by the British. 1947 witnessed the birth of Pakistan, the first country to be made in the name of religion.

2 weeks ago | thefridaytimes.com | Zahid Hussain

About 50 years ago, in the late 1970s, on a cold, snowy night, I landed at Toronto airport to start a new life as a young man in search of his destiny. My reasons for making such a drastic decision to leave behind family, friends, and a well-paying entry-level job in Pakistan to move to a distant country about which, in the pre-Internet era, I knew very little, were never clear to me.

2 weeks ago | thefridaytimes.com | Aamir Khan

Over 35 years in public service, including the senior most roles within Pakistan’s top law enforcement institutions, I have closely studied the evolving nature of terrorism in our region. The challenges we confront today, spanning security, politics, and society, are not recent phenomena. They are the culmination of long-standing historical currents, unresolved traumas, and deeply rooted socio-political transitions dating back to the mid-19th century.

3 weeks ago | thefridaytimes.com | Yasser Latif Hamdani

Pakistanis often argue that, unlike India, Pakistan has never elected someone like Modi. Let us consider this coolly, calmly, and honestly, now that the war is over. Is Modi really worse than those who rule us? Under Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist government, Muslims are still free to practice, profess, and propagate their faith openly and without hindrance in all of India. Modi has not been going around forcing anyone to sign affidavits undertaking not to carry out Qurbani or pray Eid namaz.