Aliya Anjum

In September 2023 Prime Minister Narendra Modi willhold the G20 international summit in Indian-occupied Kashmir to announce India’s ownership of the disputed state. Tacit international approval is sought through attendance. Almost all member countries of the G20 are increasingly pro-India. Brazil is an Indian ally in BRICS, BASIC, G-4, IBSA, and International Solar Alliance. Australia […]

Every Pakistani visitor to the US should prioritize visiting the world-famous Smithsonian museums. Museum of American History showcases the tremendous hardship the early European settlers withstood to make America their home, as invaders in the cold and harsh frontier land. They were the have-nots of Europe who headed to America as the land of opportunity. […]

I recently read a comment on international social media: “When Satan takes something that is beautiful and ruins it, it all begins with the mind!” The comment nailed it. This is exactly what is wrong with Pakistani society today. Our minds are messed up. Our spiritual gurus on social media are solidifying the poor mental […]

The Aurat March tradition will be six years old this year on International women’s day. Aurat March’s predominantly negative perception is mainly owed to provocative and explicit slogans and placards. Interestingly many women oppose the Aurat March. A scene from an American movie based on a true story, Not Without My Daughter, showed the wife […]

The Karachi international Festival (KILF) is a yearly intellectual treat as it encapsulates our socio-economic landscape. KILF best showcases globalization and its discontents in Pakistan. Organised and managed by a British publishing house, the luminaries were all western-educated and trained. The exception to this rule were those associated with Urdu literature, poetry or the performing […]

A low end international food chain recently made record creating sales on its first day of operation in Pakistan. The queues to drink expensive coffee were long. Meanwhile, in other areas, the poor were queuing up to receive flour bags for the government subsidized rate of Rupees 1000. This queue needed food for survival. Pictures […]

Not too long ago, good quality ready-made women’s clothing was sold in what were called boutiques. In Karachi, a few shops dotted a particular street in Clifton and a few existed on Zamzama boulevard. The concept of brands was little known in Pakistan then. There was one company, which sold high-quality fabric at a premium […]

The dearly departed General Zia-ul-Haq was the first to use the slogan of Islam to gain and retain power. He endlessly preached to the choir and stressed upon clothing and empty ritual. Thanks to his pioneering ways, the entire nation now seeps in hypocrisy. From social media preachers to Tele-muftis to mosque imams, everyone is […]

In Pakistan, lying is a way of life, yet the nation desires an honest leader. Each Pakistani seeks for himself or herself what he or she denies others. Religious innovations, or bidaat, over the centuries have infantilized and objectified women. Herein lies the root of all evil. The absolute denial of agency and public space […]

Boko Haram in Nigeria and the TTP in Pakistan are geographically, linguistically, and culturally disparate groups. However, the identical trajectory of Boko Haram and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) establishes that they were created from the same mould. Such Salafi-Jihadi movements claim to be subaltern resistance to the forces of globalization. Nigeria and Pakistan have their commercial […]