KARACHI: Iran’s former foreign minister Kamal Kharazi has said the perception in Pakistan that Iran’s Chabahar port, including subsequent development of roads and railways networks for enhancing the country’s trade, is a ‘rival project’ of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is not correct. He was speaking at a roundtable discussion with journalists, former and current…
How will the women from Mianwali who do not have CNICs vote in the upcoming election?
72-year-old Khayal Marjana lives in a mudhouse on a hill about ten kilometres from the centre of Kalabagh in district Mianwali. She doesn’t remember how long she has been living in the same house, but recalls that her parental house used to be on a hill opposite to where she lives now. She has…
Families of the ‘disappeared’ hear nothing but silence from officialdom
KARACHI: On a sunny weekend afternoon, the road leading to New Rizvia Society in Karachi’s Safoora Goth area has very thin traffic. A huge billboard overlooking the visitors at the society’s main gate demands the recovery of Engineer Syed Mumtaz Hussain Rizvi. Rizvi’s wife and nephew talk and share the details of his disappearance in…
Girls take lead in the regional round of Math Challenge 2018 in Karachi
Mathematics is an interesting subject — or at least it is expected to be around the world. However, if you hated math at school, it is probably because you grew up learning it in a boring, textbook-based environment. Pakistan is not known for its prowess in math internationally and lags behind many Asian countries in the…
Marriages of Inconvenience: How Pakistan is failing its child brides
Umerkot is famous. Mughal Emperor Akbar was born here in 1542. His parents – dethroned Emperor Humayun and his child-bride Hamida Banu Begum – were then staying here in exile in a 14th-century fort. Umerkot is also famous because of its ruler Umer Soomro who lived a few hundred years ago. One day while visiting…
The woes of Bengalis, Burmese and Iranians of Karachi
By Bilal Karim Mughal (1, 2, and 4) and Saher Baloch (3) 1 Even on a Sunday morning, Ibrahim Hyderi is abuzz with activity. Bazaars are brimming with motorcycles, cars, autorickshaws. Buyers and sellers are trading all kinds of household goods and fishing equipment. Khairuddin, a middle-aged man with dishevelled hair and a thin moustache,…
Behind every successful start-up, there are failures. This is one Pakistani entrepreneur’s story
Sameer Ahmed Khan, the founder of locally developed website Social Champ, had three failures under his belt before lady luck smiled at him and his current successful enterprise. Although his current venture — a homegrown startup which provides comprehensive tools to automate and manage your social media presence — is gaining traction, the success was preceded…
Pakistani science enthusiast’s astronomical observatory wins $5,000 grant
A Pakistani science enthusiast’s astronomical observatory has won a $5,000 grant at the National Science Week 2017, an initiative of the Government of Australia. The Southern Cross Outreach Observatory Project (Scoop) is a domed observatory mounted on a trailer and equipped with a computerised telescope. The aim of the observatory is to make astronomy more…
Can Bykea help you beat Karachi’s rush hour traffic?
If you don’t own a car or a motorcycle in a city as big as Karachi, commuting expenses may eat up a major portion of your monthly budget. Standardised rates for taxi and auto-rickshaw fares are a thing of the past and we often end up paying inflated fares even for nearby destinations, on the…
Can MandiExpress replace the Sabzi Mandi experience?
Like most Pakistani millennials, I spend so much time glued to a computer screen (studying or working) that I lack the basic skills required to shop for quality food items at reasonable prices from the open market. And because I’m not used to buying my fruits and veggies, keeping an eye out for quality while…