Guest Post by Darwaish

Mall road is one of my favorite areas of Lahore and I have some wonderful childhood memories associated with it. There is no other road like it which we all love here in Lahore, probably because it’s so close to the heart of the old city.

Yesterday while driving around the mall road, I decided to look for a book shop and buy 3 books which were long pending in one of my wish-list. So driving slowly, I started to recall the old books shops where I used to buy books with my father when I was a little kid. To my great surprise and shock, I could only find Maqbool Academy which is located in famous Diyal Singh Mansion and Feroz Sons. All the other old book shops were either closed or they had changed their line of business.

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Adil Najam

Its time to take stock of the year 2006. Its also time for another ATP Poll.

We did think of doing something around a ‘Person of the Year’ theme and I even thought of a few possible candidates (here, here and here). But that seemed too obvious, and more likely to turn into a popularity contest rather than a thought-provoking discussion.

Instead, we want to focus on the following question:

WHICH EVENTS AND TRENDS FROM 2006 ARE MOST LIKELY TO LEAVE A LASTING IMPACT ON PAKISTAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY?

Our desire is to have the focus not just on what has happened in 2006, but in the implication of what happened in 2006 on the FUTURE of Pakistan. The emphasis is clearly on the future, and we hope to have a good discussion on why, which trend will impact the future of Pakistan, how.

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Adil Najam

I first saw this on Adnan Siddiqui’s blog a couple of days ago. I bookmarked it and planned to do a post of good lookin’ bakras closer to Eid-ul-Azha (or Bakra Eid). Over the last two days, however, I have received more than a dozen emails – including many from readers suggesting a post on this – that makes me wonder if I misread the significance of this phenomenon!

Quite simply, it is a now-obvious and, therefore, brilliant entrepreneurial idea. If you can sell books over the Internet, then why not sell meat, especially religious qurbani opportunities on Eid for those living outside Pakistan in places where the mechanics of the sacrificing animals as religious obligation is not easy to manage.

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