Daroon-e-Khanna

The 6th Karachi International Book Fair was held in Karachi this week. More than 300 publishers/ booksellers, more than a quarter million visitors over five days. You might have read about the importance of such events, you might have heard about the achievements of the fair and you might have been told about the diversity on offer.

But since more than 70 percent of the stalls were trying to make money by making the readers better Muslims, we concentrated on the free goodies on offer. Here is our alternative tour of the 6th Karachi International Book Fair.

Owais Mughal

Two years ago we had brought you a report on where to find Daal-Roti in Taipei and today we’ll do the similar report for Kaohsiung.

With a population of 2.8 million, Kaohsiung is the second largest city of Taiwan. While the city is fast turning into a cosmopolitan business center, Pakistani food still has to make inroads here. One restaurant that is breaking this barrier in Kaohsiung is called ‘Lahore.’ It is located on Lin Chuan Street and today I got a chance to eat there and had a quick chat with the owner who goes by the name of Ali. (Our title photo to the top right shows the main sign board of Lahore Restaurant on Lin Chuan St, Kaohsiung.)

Ali told me that his business started as a small stall serving Pakistani chicken wrapped in chapatis and today it has grown into a proper restaurant with a seating room for approx. 15 people.

Adil Najam

Given all the political maneuvering, convulsions, rearrangements, revelations and rearrangements of recent days and weeks, maybe it is time, once more, to request our readers to please grade the performance of the key figures in Pakistan politics. We had asked you to do so in October 2010 and  in April 2010 and earlier in 2009 (here and here). We had presented the comparison between the first two results here. Now, as another tumultuous year in Pakistan politics draws to a close seems to be a good time to get a fourth data point.

Can you please grade for us the performance of the six power centers in Pakistan: the President, the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, the Chief of Army, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Media. The focus, once again, is on how you think they have performed in these roles. In this installment of ATP Polls we would like to find out how you grade the performance of those holding key offices in Pakistan: President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, and Opposition Leader Nawaf Sharif. Once again, we have included the Media (as a whole and as an institution) since they also influence Pakistan’s power balance.