Khorana is ours too
A DAWN article on Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011) threw me back 50 years when I, along with 600 other students had packed 26-100 (MIT’s largest lecture hall) to hear him speak. Being clueless […]
Another scam in the making
HUNDREDS of mediocre, dysfunctional universities are littered across Pakistan. Now another one is on its way. To be located at the Prime Minister House on Islamabad’s Constitution Avenue, it has […]
Balochistan: the foreign hand?
A GOONDA (hooligan) is usually imagined as a crude, violent, and poorly educated man. A smartly dressed black-coated young man boasting a law degree and earning a good income doesn’t seem to […]
Hooligans in high professions
A GOONDA (hooligan) is usually imagined as a crude, violent, and poorly educated man. A smartly dressed black-coated young man boasting a law degree and earning a good income doesn’t seem to […]
Today, I am proudly Iranian
A BABOON-faced thug with hair dyed orange threatens — and then repeats his threat — to destroy the world’s precious architectural heritage. He is not Mullah Omar, who ordered blowing […]
Why Pakistan loses its best
TWO weeks ago Pakistan’s only well-known mathematician left for the Western world. He has no plans to return. Since the country has almost no real mathematicians — a bare half […]
Lal Masjid: appeasement again?
MAULANA Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid fame is back on the scene. He is threatening a second round unless his demands are met. Negotiations are currently in process to placate […]
What when a woman dies?
THE powerful loudspeakers of my neighbourhood mosque have just announced a death. The introductory words never change: “Hazraat, aik zaroori ailaan sunyeh” (respectable sirs, hear now an important announcement). The […]
To see a woman’s social standing, just walk through a cemetery and read the gravestones
THE powerful loudspeakers of my neighbourhood mosque have just announced a death. The introductory words never change: “Hazraat, aik zaroori ailaan sunyeh” (respectable sirs, hear now an important announcement). The […]
Corona — our debt to Darwin
CHARLES Darwin is a name Pakistanis are taught to hate. School teachers and university professors tasked with teaching his evolutionary theory usually skip the subject or, if they go ahead, […]