Athar Osama

Today, over a hundred and fifty million Pakistanis celebrate the 42nd Defense of Pakistan Day. It was 6th of September 1965 when Pakistan’s armed forces faced off against India’s in the first full-scale war between the two countries. Much to the credit of the brave men (and women) in uniform that day–and for next 2-3 weeks following that–the enemy attack on the City of Lahore was repulsed and the General J. N. Chaudhary‘s dream of having his drink at Lahore Gymkhana on the evening of September the 6th was squashed.

Raza Rumi

While the ‘easy-white-woman’ stereotype is being reinforced, how can Pakistan become a tourist destination?

Conversing with Charlotte is always a pleasure. She’s original and witty; each encounter with her is memorable – regrettably, the last one for all the wrong reasons. She told me some stories about her visits to Pakistan that left me uneasy, even embarrassed. Charlotte, or CV as I call her, is an international development worker who remains committed to her work in the much-maligned world of development assistance. She has worked through the horrors of east African genocides and actually does something about the poverty and discrimination that we all love to talk about but often ignore.

Guest Post By Syed Ahsan Ali.

President Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto have been in dialogue for sometime now. The dialogue has so far yielded nothing. As external forces are increasing pressures on both of them to find a way to from an arrangement that can fight greater challenges of militancy in the region, things are moving towards an alliance of moderate and liberal forces in the country.

Pakistan People’s Party is facing risk of losing huge public support by entering in this kind of dialogue. Polls are clearly showing that PPP‘s popularity is dwindling as this dialogue is getting towards its eventuality. Why PPP is doing this? Is there only external pressure or is there any real ideology behind these meneavours.