2005 August - 5

The Pakistan chapter of the UK-based international NGO, Oxfam, has recently begun broadcasting a radio series aimed at raising public awareness of honour killings. Oxfam aims to reduce social acceptance of such killings through a six-year campaign aiming at significantly reducing the number of women killed under the banner of ‘honour’. The twenty-minute programme series, [...]

By nominating renowned Sindhi writer and intellectual Sobho Gayan Chandani for Kamal-e-Funn Award 2004, the Pakistan Academy of Letters has taken the initiative to recognise the lifetime literary achievement of a regional language writer for the first time and set an example of promoting the spirit of literary harmony between all regional languages of Pakistan. [...]

It will be a close encounter of a new kind. Women police officials will soon join their male colleagues at important intersections in the capital to deal with traffic problems faced by motorists. It will be the first ever experiment in the country to authorise women police officials to run the traffic rule show. When [...]

An eight-member team from Pakistan will take part in the World Cyber Games (WCG) for the very first time. 72 countries are participating in the event to be held in Singapore in November this year. Mamoor said the preliminary rounds for the selection of the Pakistan team would be conducted in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. [...]

Poetry dominated the Adabi Chaupal held under the aegis of Arbab-i-Adab on Thursday as only one short story came up for discussion. The short story read out by Rahman Nishat was about a fugitive who assumed the role of a malang. The organizers of the literary sitting and the compere, poets Pervin Javed and Nasim [...]

A partially sighted student from Pakistan studying at the University of Bristol has been crowned ‘International Student of the Year 2005′ by the British Council. Muzzamil Lakhani, 22, was selected from twelve finalists to receive the top Gold Award and £2,000 in prize money. His severe visual impairment meant he was unable to walk even [...]

Karachi is probably the youngest of its kind on the world’s cosmopolitan map with a history of not more than 200 years, but it has its own myths although its cultural and ethnic configuration has entirely changed. A sizable part of the two localities that begins from Sarrafa Bazaar (jewellery market) in the east and [...]

After eating a bowl of warm papri chaat and admiring gold bracelets, Mirza said she understood why her elders often told her about how Pakistan fought to gain its independence more than half a century ago. Mirza and her mother, Neelum Mirza, said they were waiting to hear Abrar-ul-Haq, a famous Pakistani singer and crowd [...]

The book running over to 1,500 pages is a study of the history of Sindh in relation to its literature of the present and preceding years. It has been written in Urdu by Syed Mazhar Jameel, and will be translated by the Sindh Adabi Board as well as in Hindi in India by Sahitya Academy. [...]

Fortune smiled on two Pakistani expatriates, with Ahmed Rahmatullah, winning the jackpot of QR100,000 and his compatriot, Khan Mohammad winning the second prize, QR50,000 in the third raffle draw of this year’s Qatar Summer Wonders. He said that his hometown was in Karachi, the port city of Pakistan but Qatar is the country he has [...]