An edited version of this article was first published in The Express Tribune on Apr 15, 2013. Islamabad – Even 13 years after it was revealed that the monk who introduced Buddhism to Korea centuries ago belonged to a town in Khyber Pakthunkwa, the ancient Buddhist remains in the monk’s hometown are unmarked and ignored […]
World Autism Awareness Day 2013 – Autism: An Unwarranted Stigma
An edited version of this article was first published in The Express Tribune on Apr 2, 2013. Islamabad – The agony and frustration caused by social pressures and ignorance only briefly surface in Sadia’s voice. Most of the time when she speaks, the anger and pain are replaced by a more powerful sentiment: the determination of […]
In the Twin Cities, toxic air pollutant above global permissible limit
An edited version of this article was first published in The Express Tribune on Feb 12, 2013. Islamabad – The federal capital’s air quality might be slightly better than Rawalpindi’s, but both cities are on the wrong side of the international limit for an air pollutant. Researchers at the Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) monitored the […]
Social initiative helping street children
An edited version of this article was first published in The Express Tribune on Jan 22, 2013. A few years ago, Sarah Adeel was reading the famous children’s book “The Little Prince” to a group of six-year-olds. Suddenly, coming to a passage where one of the characters, a fox, tells the little prince it cannot […]
The dismal state of Islamabad’s public parks
An edited version of this article was first published in The Express Tribune on Jan 21, 2013. Islamabad – On this cloudy Sunday afternoon, Muhammad Shareef, a government employee, is slumped on a bench inside the public park in sector I-9/1. Shareef is not the park’s guardian but the grey bristles on his cheeks and his […]
In Islamabad, getting rid of the litter problem might not be easy
An edited version of this article was first published in The Express Tribnne on Jan 4, 2013. Islamabad – In the Karachi Company market in sector G-9, litter is a common sight. Plastic bags, wrappers, juice boxes and discarded packing material from fruit and vegetable crates line the pavement edges outside the shops and the […]
Balochistan’s first Rhodes Scholar in 40 years
An edited version of this article was iirst published in The Express Tribune on Dec 6, 2012. Islamabad – Rafiullah Kakar was in seventh grade when he left his village in Balochistan’s Killa Abdullah district to travel to a boarding school in Loralai. There were only two high schools in Kakar’s tehsil, just one middle […]
The Library challenge
An edited version of this story was first published in The Express Tribune on Nov 24, 2012. Bagh – Zeeshan Asad likes to read Urdu poetry. His favourite poet is Saghir Siddiqi. Asad was in class 3 when his school in Harighel in the Bagh district of Azad Jammu & Kashmir was destroyed by a […]