Bilal Zuberi
A few weeks ago I organized an academic panel discussion on global climate change and the impact on Pakistan. The speakers were leaders in the field of climate change and sustainable development, and provided a crisp account of the short and long term threats that developing countries such as Pakistan faced in the wake […]

Bilal Zuberi
My narration below traces back to a recent Iftar/dinner conversation with a non-Muslim, non-Pakistani friend. She wanted to know how I would spend a typical Ramzan day in Pakistan. Innocent question, but one that took me on a delightful, and extremely nostalgic, trip down memory lane since I have spent the last 13 Ramzans […]

Bilal Zuberi
The bureaucracy and agencies of the government, as slow and tedious as they may be, should still get credit when they attempt to do something to make lives easier for the citizens. For example, we have praised PTCL in the past for providing an online service to pay phone/electric/gas utility bills online.
Now it is […]

Owais Mughal, Adil Najam,
Bilal Zuberi and Darwaish
Today we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Pakistan’s birth.
We could talk about what was promised of Pakistan. What has become of it. Or what should be done to improve it. But we try to do that at Pakistaniat (ATP) everyday. And we do realize that ..aah ko […]

Bilal Zuberi
If you are married, how closely did you read the Nikah Nama before signing it?
Some time last summer my fiance decided that time had come for us to tie the knot. I was excited. So excited that I hastily agreed to do the Nikah (Katb-e-Kitaab, as levant Arabs call it) within the next few […]

Bilal Zuberi
Karachiites will certainly remember fiery speeches from Altaf Hussain and other MQM leaders of the 1980’s and 1990’s where he argued and pleaded against the rural-urban quota system which had been imposed in the Sindh province since 1973. MQM, at that point, had argued strongly that such a quota system was not only […]

Bilal Zuberi
Imagine 42 degrees celsius (107 degrees Farenheit) weather, no electricity, no fans, high humidity, no drinking water, and knee deep water on streets. Now imagine living through that for more than 24 hours. Terrible!
That is precisely what most Karachiites have been going through for more the past 2 days. A huge monsoonal storm hit […]