Adil Najam

A fascinating new report ranks Faisalabad as the most business-friendly city in Pakistan, followed by Multan (2nd) and Lahore (3rd). Pakistan’s largest commercial metropolis, Karachi, comes out at 9th place in a list of 13 cities in Pakistan. The full ranking is: Faisalabad (1st), Multan (2nd), Lahore (3rd), Islamabad (4th), Sheikhupura (5th), Gujranwala (6th), Sukkur (7th), Peshawar (8th), Karachi (9th), Rawalpindi (10th), Sialkot (11th), Quetta (12th) and Hyderabad (13th).

In the first such ranking, conducted in 2007, Karachi was declared the top city in Pakistan in terms of business-friendliness. However, the comparison over time may not be entirely accurate since the 2007 ranking had included only six cities, as opposed to 13 in the 2010 rankings; and the methodology has also improved over the two reports.

Sehar Tariq

Pakistan’s stellarly good-looking tennis champ Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi became the first Pakistani to reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon when along with his Indian partner Rohan Bopannahe beat Lucas Lacko of Slovakia and Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine in straight sets in the Mens’ Double. Their straight set victory – 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2- in the Round of 16 now take them to the Mens’ Doubles Quarterfinals, and already place them in the top-8.

It was only two years ago that Aisam – who is Pakistan No. 1 and World No. 43 for Men’s Doubles -  became the first Pakistani to play at Wimbledon since 1976. Since then he has been steadily improving his game, including beating a doubles duo with Roger Federer in it last year. The news report in Dawn points out that “the Pakistani number one and world number 42 is a grass-court specialist and has been improving his performance at the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament in the last few years.”

But Pakistani Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and his doubles partner Rohan Bopanna from India are also attracting a lot of attention for where they come from, and what they are doing together. The unlikely Indo-Pak pair have been playing as one team and they have been sporting tennis jackets that say “Stop War Start Tennis.” Now they have suggested a novel idea of a tennis match played at the Wagah border.

Sehar Tariq

Times in Pakistan are tough. Things were never great but they were never this bad either. There weren’t as many incidents of violence, so many hours of load shedding or such high prices of food and electricity. And in our fast paced downward spiral, we have lost our sense of being one nation. Its each man and woman for himself or herself. Its the only way to survive. And in the pursuit of survival we will lie, cheat, steal, trample on others, cut corners and take the low road as often as possible to get to destination mere survival.

And in this Darwinian quest for survival we have become jaded and sarcastic and conditioned to believe the worst about those around us. Idealism, morality, humanity – seem like hollow buzzwords – such noble sentiments having been beaten out of us by circumstance.  On those rare occasions, when we are confronted with selfless displays of courage and nationalism; we tend to scoff at them and dismiss them as either political rhetoric or utterly naive insanity.

But this story about Captain Najam Riaz made me stop in my jaded tracks and led me to believe that maybe there is hope for the future.