Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Till the penning of this piece, it has still not been established if the Karachi airport was attacked once or twice. Let me rephrase this sentence since we cannot use the word ‘attack’ any more if the Honourable Colonel of Rangers is to be believed. Till my writing of this piece, it is not clear […]

Pakistan is not a country for many. You should not stay here if you think rationally, if you are liberal in your religious ideas, if you are pluralistic, if you believe in freedom of expression, if you are poor and if you belong to any of the communities, groups, belief systems or nationalities that are […]

Understanding has its own benefits and gratification. For years, in various newspaper columns and increasingly lately on blogs and social media, I have expressed my inability to understand the seemingly irrational and barbaric actions of fellow citizens. This inability to understand extends to the actions of the government too. Not to pinpoint any government but […]

I rub my eyes and read again. And again, then sniff my morning tea, thinking the Pathan has mixed something not so kosher in it. Read again. Yes, apparently it is what it is. A roundtable was held at the ministry of planning, development and reforms this week, presided over by the honourable minister himself. […]

A journalist friend just put up a blog post on his blog. He has written about a young Baloch woman who managed to study and is now working at an international organisation against all odds. The young woman proudly tells my journalist friend, “I refuse to surrender. If I give up, patriarchy, feudalism and tribalism […]

Spinning a good yarn is important. Story telling is increasingly being dismissed as futile. It is especially tragic given the fact that we have a strong history of storytelling. The Pakhtun culture, for instance, was largely an oral one with a rich tradition of storytelling. The Qissa Khwani Bazaar, in fact, owes its name to […]

If there is a bomb blast, there will be two kinds of people running towards the bombsite rather than away from it: the police and the media. Both have lost their lives due to the nature of their jobs. While the Pakistani police are still unsung and uncared for, the dangers to the Pakistani media […]

What is everyone smoking? That is the question I ask myself every morning as I skim through the newspapers. The latest offering is that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has presented a list of about three hundred women, children and non-combatants who they claim are being “illegally detained” by Pakistani security agencies. When the honourable Defence […]

For the past few weeks, it is with consistent and increasing frustration that I write in this space. It appears to me that the weekly scribble is only done to waste newsprint as they are words having no impact. I wonder if others like me, who indulge in this weekly exercise, share this frustration. After […]

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is miffed. Like children losing a game, they are crying foul. In a statement after the death of Asmatullah Shaheen, they claimed that this was an irreparable loss, that the Pakistan government was responsible for his killing and that it was on the warpath to eliminate the Taliban. The statement almost […]