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Farrukh Khan PitafiThe Express Tribune |
India is a big country. It is the world’s most populous nation. It has five thousand years of nearly unbroken cultural history. It has a rich...
Celebrated Urdu novelist Qurratulain Hyder knew the art of immersive storytelling. Aag ka Darya (river of fire), perhaps the greatest Urdu novel ever...
In case you are wondering about the title, it is a direct quote from an Indian campaign ad where a student girl returning from Ukraine tells her...
Two big stories. One dutifully ignored by our electronic media. The other magnified to a terrifying extent. One about India’s general election,...
There is something fascinating about the electoral process that has always excited this scribe. If democracy is a fairytale (most likely the Brothers...
Despite your valiant efforts to stay clear of the subject, Indian elections, being the world’s biggest exercise in procedural democracy, have the...
Netflix’s rendition of Cixin Liu’s brilliant work, 3 Body Problem, just dropped. It is as good as it gets. If you haven’t read the novel, I...
Diwaar kya giri meray khasta makan ki Logon ne mere sehn mein rastay bana liye (The wall of my ruined house barely crumbled And people made...
In Denis E Taylor’s sci-fi trilogy, which is now known as the Bobiverse, a von Neumann probe, or self-replicating spacecraft, escapes a devastating...
The US Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the state of Colorado (or for that matter any state) cannot disqualify Donald Trump (or any federal...
On the face of it, it was a simple question. Why do fanatics usually lose in the end? I was reading a history book, and it had not escaped my...
On the face of it, it was a simple question. Why do fanatics usually lose in the end? I was reading a history book, and it had not escaped my...
On the face of it, it was a simple question. Why do fanatics usually lose in the end? I was reading a history book, and it had not escaped my...
P akistan has produced many lost decades. It is difficult for a country like Pakistan not to look back and be seized by a boundless sense of loss. But...
T imes of India , January 24, 2024: “Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav finds himself in the news owing to a contentious comment on...
W hile pundits and media obsess about the politics of the immediate, let us take a deep dive into the world of structural misconfigurations that badly...
D o small decisions have far-reaching effects? Dr Frasier Crane insists they do in an episode of the sitcom named after him (Episode 13 titled ...
W ith the elections rapidly approaching all political elements double down on their narratives. If you want to look like a victim, you find ways to...
T his piece could have very easily been about the recent Iran-Pakistan diplomatic spat. But mercifully, it is not. There are two reasons. One, it is...
T he news that Elon Musk had named platform X’s AI companion ‘Grok’ came as a surprise. The name comes from Robert A Heinlein’s 1961 novel ...
W hen you are obsessing about petty domestic disputes and mundane minutiae of existence you forget to pay attention to the world-changing events...
I t is customary to write a summary of an entire year’s major events in its final days. I have been doing this invariably for the past twenty-five...
I magine setting out to settle on a distant planet with a large crew and realising as you land there after a long, arduous journey that you have made...
U ntil I sat down to write this piece, I thought I would write something about the country’s maritime security and interests, mainly because I just...
I have not seen the original, but the 2000 Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley starrer remake of the film Bedazzled is nothing short of a treat....
A fter appearing in 160 movies and winning countless prizes, including two Oscars, 90-year-old Sir Michael Caine announced this year that he is...
O n the eve of Thanksgiving in America, a car travelling from the US to Canada sped up at the border crossing and exploded. While other media groups...
Countless books have been written about this ape-descended life form that just refuses to take a hint. Kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class...
Hurt people hurt people. Sitcoms often embed such profound statements in their deep conversations. But by the time the part of your brain that deals...
Rachel Maddow’s new book Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism is a gripping tale of Nazi machinations in America in the lead-up to and during...
Privilege is its own reward. Isn’t it? Or is it a prison, a panopticon, which makes it impossible for you to escape? This takes me back to one...
The election season in the US is about to begin. In our region, too, it has kinda sorta started. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka all seem...
There are several analogies to describe our current state of affairs. Caught in a tractor beam and trapped in a gravity well. But one fits like a...
An old interview of a KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, has found its way back into the US discourse. Given to G Edward Griffin in 1984, this interview...
“W hich door would you choose? Blue — go to 15 years into the future with $50 million. Red — start your life anew at the age of 10 with all the...
Taika Waititi is a genius. I accidentally stumbled upon his Jojo Rabbit. And since then, every time he is involved in a project, I find myself...
Pakistani pundits have found a new pastime. Hardly a day passes without one of them announcing that the country is fast approaching a point of no...