Media Watch: Imran Khan is no Trump
. . . but they’re not poles apart either You would have seen it by now. Trevor Noah, the South African comedian who heads Comedy Central’s Daily Show after being handpicked for…
Media Watch: Damn the dams
There is something alluring about dams that is quite firmly affixed on our national imagination. I learnt at school that Tarbela was the largest earth-filled dam in the world much, much before…
Media Watch: Imran Khan’s “no security detail”
There is always a war of attrition between politicians and their security detail. The latter want too much, the former want as little as possible. That is the truth. It might not…
Media Watch: Quit horsing around
“I don’t kick a man when he’s down. I kick a man when he’s not looking.” Hawkeye, M*A*S*H* Yes, schadenfreude is a base emotion. Yes, we should all be above it. Yes,…
Nawab Nusrat Khan’s Tomb: Another hidden gem
Most readers will be unaware of this little architectural gem in Lahore known as Nusrat Khan’s Tomb. The reason that this tomb is so elusive and has left the public unaware of…
Media Watch: Women’s clothes
Though you might not guess as much by looking at him, the PTI’s honey-loving, rabble-rousing Ali Amin Gandapur, nominated for the murder of not one but two PTI members by the latter’s…
Media Watch: The joke’s on you
Satire, local practitioners of the craft bemoan, dies this side of the Suez. That is a defeatist attitude, of course. There has been plenty of tanz in these parts, much appreciated and…
Lollywood in trouble
Teefa In Trouble is hands down the entertainer of the year. In fact, one could go a few months further back and that claim would still remain valid. That, in a nutshell,…
Media Watch: On truncated tallies
“If you don’t stick to your values when they are being tested, they’re not values, they’re hobbies.” – Jon Stewart. For there to be more transparency and access to the media in…
Media Watch: “Your message here”
It is said that the man who made the most money in the California Gold Rush was a gentleman by the name of Levi Stauss. But Strauss wasn’t a gold prospector. He…
Freedom to commodify Kashmir
It’s been over a month since Eid-ul-Fitr, but the four films that jointly hit – in the most literal of senses – cinemas across the country still have quite a few ripples…
Reham Khan by Reham Khan: A trainwreck inside a dumpster fire
Literary disaster There are times when something is so bad it just has to be said. In the pursuit of art and greatness, there are hits, misses and disasters, and when it…
Jackpot? Jack-sh*t!
One look at the ensemble cast Jackpot and you begin to convince yourself that there might be a few laughs in there to be had. For, almost every name in the lineup…
Dr Bengai makes a case for Balochistan
Book review: A Cry for Justice: Emperical Insights from Balochistan Balochistan cries for justice. The province has, for seventy years, suffered a situation where the country has taken much from and given…
Trump slams NATO spending on eve of departure for summit
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday criticised NATO member states’ military spending and said it benefits Europe more than America, setting the stage for a potentially-acrimonious summit with leaders of the…
Book preview: Quiet Women by Afshan Shafi
“There are new poetries emerging in the twenty-first century, which are characterized by a ferocity that spans yet exceeds love and outrage, involvement and observation. The languages and literary traditions which underlie…
Na script, na acting
Of the four films that came out this Eid-ul-Fitr, Na Band Na Baraati appeared to be the underdog among the lot in the lead up. Of course, this is before the films…