Sakina Hassan

Mar 06, 2026

Family and community is broken. Can it be fixed?

Hassan Kamal Wattoo

Feb 26, 2026

A close reading of the judgement raises grave concerns about the current state of civil rights in Pakistan

Rana Saadullah Khan

Feb 18, 2026

The 10th Faiz Festival took place in Lahore from 13–15 February, featuring an array of writers, poets, artists and intellectuals. Rana Saadullah Khan found that the festival was a triumphant celebration of Urdu literature.

Nijah S. Khan

Feb 13, 2026

The 14th edition of the Lahore Literary Festival took place from February 6th to 8th, 2026 at the Alhamra Arts Council where writers and artists gathered to explore ideas of cultural and heritage preservation.

Ayza Khan

Feb 12, 2026

The 14th iteration of the LLF returned with a focus on celebrating the region’s cultural heritage.

Sara Danial

Feb 11, 2026

As the 17th Karachi Literature Festival unfolded against the backdrop of a ‘fragile world’, the focus was towards the powerful intersections of migration, media and memory. This year, the festival highlighted a unique cultural phenomenon: the rise of Gulf–South Asian narratives that challenge post-colonial boundaries. Through the lens of filmmakers, journalists and historians, KLF 2026 explored how the shared histories of the outside world and Pakistan are being reimagined for a new generation of readers and thinkers.

Aiman Tahir Khan

Feb 06, 2026

The most highly anticipated event of the year — Basant — has kicked off in Lahore. Rooftops are booked and set up, the kite trade is booming and you can feel the city pulsating with excitement. But are we chasing a nostalgic dream? Or will Basant be the same vibrant, communal activity most remember? Aiman Tahir Khan looks at the history of Basant, as the colourful kite-flying festival returns to Lahore after almost two decades.

Maheen Azmat

Jan 30, 2026

Maheen Azmat looks at the traditional South Asian aangan as a laboratory where competing visions of South Asian womanhood were actively produced in response to colonialism and nationalism.

Ayza Khan

Jan 29, 2026

Ayza Khan explores the undercurrents of literary and cultural resistance at the ninth iteration of Afkar e Taza ThinkFest held in Lahore.

Sidrah Haque

Jan 16, 2026

Millennial women, especially those wanting to be mothers, were once promised they could have it all: a solid career, a perfect family and enough time to spare to work on their own selves. So why is it that millennial women, especially mothers, are constantly exhausted and burnt out?

Furqan Ali

Jan 09, 2026

Nikkay Kay Paye, said to have been established in 1826 in Peshawar, is a favourite haunt for citizens in the colder months. Furqan Ali goes on his annual paye adventure and reflects on the city of Peshawar.

Sara Danial

Jan 07, 2026

Faisal Kapadia’s post-Strings journey shows that evolution does not require erasure. It can be quiet, thoughtful and still powerful. This was evidenced at Phir Milenge, a recent musical tour.

Neha Maqsood

Dec 27, 2025

In Pakistan, as in many parts of the globe, patriarchy has made the experience of being a woman a taxing and lonely one. In an age of cyber harassment and continued gender-based violence in the online and offline world, one writer finds solace in the uplifting work of other women.

Furqan Ali

Dec 19, 2025

There are multiple obstacles to transforming public libraries in Pakistan into spaces that can foster a sustainable literary ecosystem. The tragedy unfolds on many levels, ranging from the economic to socio-behavioural aspects. Reinvigorating this crucial public institution requires thoughtful reimagining that puts libraries at the centre of a community.

Mashal Rizvi

Dec 19, 2025

The Sunday Book Bazaar in Lahore, located along the footpaths on the corner of the historic Anarkali and Mall Road, provides a distinctive lens into how reading culture and knowledge access are shaped by urban informality, economic stratification and spatial politics.

Rehman Qadir

Dec 17, 2025

From at least the early 19th century, South Asian ayahs (nurses and ladies’ maids) were hired to accompany British families on ocean journeys between India and Britain. The essay focuses on the travelling ayahs and the racist attitudes experienced by them, especially on board seafaring vessels.

Arslan Athar

Dec 16, 2025

The exponential rise of humans delegating some of the most basic tasks to Artificial Intelligence has worried some, while others have welcomed it warmly. However, does having platforms such as ChatGPT resolve our friends’ problems, be our therapists and matchmakers taking away our humanity?

Bisma Ahmad

Dec 09, 2025

A couple of weeks ago, Lahoris woke up to disturbing news — Nasir Bagh was being turned into a (underground) parking plaza. Protests erupted and confusion, naturally, reigned supreme. Urban design practitioner Bisma Ahmad recounts her experience of witnessing the ‘development’ and subsequent assessment of the Lahore Authority for Heritage Revival’s (LAHR) latest project.

S. Mohsin

Nov 28, 2025

Who is the ideal citizen in Pakistan today? Activists, academics, artists and attorneys endevaoured to answer this at the People’s Assembly for Political Rights, organised by the Progressive Student’s Collective.

Aamir Ali Shah

Nov 28, 2025

The latest fashion revolution in Pakistan (and abroad) is the style influencer-turned-creative entrepreneur pipeline. What does it mean for the Pakistani fashion landscape? Are influencers and creatives more in tune with what the people want? Does visibility always mean viability? Aamir Ali Shah explores the recent rise of the creator-led brands.

Sara Danial

Nov 28, 2025

Mobile phones now serve as a primary point of access to the internet (and thereby to a global community) across many regions. However, women in low and middle income countries continue to face substantial barriers in gaining this access. Closing the gender gap in mobile and internet access for women in Pakistan can be a boon for the economy.

Alefia T. Hussain

Nov 28, 2025

The proverbial ‘smog season’ is in full swing across Punjab, affecting the lives of millions of people. Anti-smog guns, vehicle emissions certifications and new mapping technologies are the provincial government’s latest interventions. But are they simply shiny, new gimmicks?

Haroon Sethi

Nov 17, 2025

Can Pakistan find a way out of its persistent growth trap? Haroon Sethi, chair of the Roundtable ‘What Is Pakistan’s Way Out Of Its Growth Trap?’ held at the Indus Conclave 2025, reflects on the discussion.

Muhammad Haris Hassan

Nov 13, 2025

The announcement of Lahore’s Yellow Metro Line project was met with government enthusiasm and civil society disapproval. Months later, what is the status of the project and why the secrecy regarding its execution?

Misha Anwar

Nov 05, 2025

One month ago Lahore played host to the Indus Conclave 2025, where artists, writers and intellectuals gathered to rethink balance, belonging, ideas of progress and what it means to build the Global South. Misha Anwar looks back.

Zuha Siddiqui

Nov 01, 2025

A craft essay about making bolognese and how friendship is indispensable to the work of writers.

Fizza Ghanchi

Oct 29, 2025

The 6th edition of the Gandhara Independent Film Festival recently took place at NAPA, Karachi. With films from over 10 countries and a sizable local contingent, the festival continued to provide a platform for independent voices in cinema.

Shahira Khan

Oct 24, 2025

As Pakistan confronts urgent development imperatives, the fiscal burden of debt servicing leaves little space for action. Can debt swaps provide a path forward to transform crisis into opportunity?

Nijah S. Khan

Oct 24, 2025

The Indus Conclave 2025 gathered writers, artists, intellectuals and activists from the Global South and beyond in Lahore to discuss the most pressing issues of our times.

Manahil Tahira

Oct 20, 2025

Manahil Tahira explores how Pakistani cinema’s quintessential comedian traded timing and set up for embodiment and sheer unpredictability

Zainab Mohiuddin

Oct 20, 2025

In the heart of Bahadurabad, Kokan Family Park stands as a beacon of hope, where public parks are increasingly endangered by urban development and government neglect. Managed by a dedicated neighbourhood committee, the park is more than a patch of green—it is a crucial part of a community’s day.

Marium Naveed

Sep 12, 2025

A green, public space off the Islamabad Expressway in the leftover land between a highway, a looping exit ramp and an underpass, technically known as a ‘cloverleaf island’, has become a makeshift park for hundreds of people who frequent it. Marium Naveed wonders what this makeshift park tells us about the city the public wants and needs.

Aamir Ali Shah

Sep 10, 2025

In the race to package and promote South Asian fashion to the world, India is sprinting ahead, often with items that have roots on both sides of the border. These crafts were never confined by the Radcliffe Line, but their identity politics now are. Aamir Ali Shah explores the fight for claiming textile heritage and the role of GI tags.

Zainab Najeeb

Sep 01, 2025

An anthropologist’s fieldwork takes her to Peshawar, where she becomes an unwitting observer of her own life—and the dynamics of inhabiting a new city—as she dines solo. What was once taken as granted or a vessel to romanticise her own life becomes a negotiation to (re)claim space and a sense of self.

Mehvash Amin

Sep 01, 2025

Publisher, Pushcart nominated poet and erstwhile editor of prominent lifestyle magazines in Pakistan, Mehvash Amin shares her journey as a woman in Pakistan’s publishing sphere—a personal account of navigating the obstacle course laid out for her as she publishes 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘩 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸, as well as highlighting her work with PAWPE.

Furqan Ali

Aug 28, 2025

With the first meeting of the 11th National Finance Commission scheduled for 29th August, 2025, and three previous Awards being inconclusive, Furqan Ali wonders if the upcoming 11th Award will break the curse.

Haroon Sethi

Aug 25, 2025

The people of Pakistan may have won freedom from the yoke of British rule, but did they ever really gain independence from colonialism?

Sara Danial

Aug 12, 2025

Where politics build walls, art builds bridges. Sara Danial speaks with Mauj., a Karachi-based theatre collective behind the recent production of Ramayana that has had social media buzzing on both sides of the Pak-India border.

Dur e Aziz Amna

Aug 12, 2025

Following the passing of her maternal grandmother, Dur e Aziz Amna reflects on grief, love and rituals of mourning in this heartfelt elegy.

Fizza Ghanchi

Aug 04, 2025

The trio of friends behind the short film Karmash speak to us about dropping out of film school, premiering at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and their creative process.

Madeeha Maqbool

Jul 31, 2025

With the new financial year underway in Pakistan, we break down the Budget for FY25/26 in order to explain how the year ahead will be.

Haroon Sethi

Jul 21, 2025

Government officials in Pakistan put great faith in IT oriented solutions for every problem, from seeking justice to simply obtaining character certificates. But, is this faith justified? Can embracing IT work as a panacea for governance failures?

Haroon Sethi

Jul 18, 2025

Despite decades of reform efforts and investment in the FBR’s systems, resources and processes, the government is nowhere close to achieving its desired levels of tax collection. It is not the implementation that is wrong, but the strategy.

Mahnoor Khan

Jul 07, 2025

A childhood favorite Punjabi film offers unexpected insights into contemporary Punjabi society

Alefia T. Hussain

Jun 24, 2025

Even as the local economy has come to rely on tourism, Gilgit-Baltistan faces grave ecological, cultural and social challenges as a result of the recent surge

Bilal Tanweer

Jun 23, 2025

Kafka's In the Penal Colony provides an insight into the psychology of power at play in the violence that has been inflicted on the Palestinians. What does it mean for writers to refuse to be "tourists" to this spectacle of suffering?

Haroon Sethi

Jun 20, 2025

For too long Pakistan’s economic policymakers have blamed taxpayers for not shouldering the country’s fiscal burdens. But this deflects from the state’s culture of profligacy, which is at the root of the country's debt crisis.

Aamir Ali Shah

Jun 05, 2025

Under colonial influence, the visual grammar of our past—soft silhouettes, draped fabrics, floral motifs, jewelry worn by men with ease—was stripped away. What remains is a masculine rigidity suspicious of any sartorial playfulness

Haroon Sethi

Jun 05, 2025

Pakistan's myopic focus on raising tax-to-GDP ratios rests on flawed assumptions and distracts from real fiscal reforms.

Alaina Asim

May 31, 2025

While most citizens of Karachi do not have access to cultural spaces, the well-heeled enjoy the vast expanses of country clubs, spaces reminiscent of the colonial era that function as a soft mechanism of exclusions, making it clear who is deemed to deserve leisure and comfort in the city.

Haroon Sethi

May 24, 2025

The country benefits far more from decent facilities everywhere, than world-class facilities in small pockets. Infrastructure development should take into consideration the needs of everyone, not just a segment of the population.

Zainab K. Durrani

Apr 29, 2025

From the ban on X (formerly known as Twitter) to the arrests of activists over speech, PECA has allowed the state to exercise the most arbitrary set of controls over Pakistani citizens’ use of the vast playground of the internet

Alefia T. Hussain

Apr 22, 2025

The government’s project to ostensibly revitalise the river and “develop” its surrounding areas has drawn sharp criticism from local residents and activists

Aamir Ali Shah

Mar 27, 2025

Given that a vast majority of women in Pakistan already wear long tunics, full sleeves, and dupattas, is modest fashion just a repackaging of what already exists?

Umair Javed

Mar 10, 2025

Cricket in Pakistan may be a deeply political project, but our attachment to the sport - the heady highs and the dismal lows - make it so much more

Rahmat Tunio

Mar 06, 2025

Pakistan is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world, and agricultural and fishing communities of Sindh are paying the price with their lives uprooted and livelihoods decimated

Nijah S. Khan

Feb 24, 2025

This year’s edition of the Lahore Literary Festival may not have lived up to the hype and star power of LLFs past, but it still remains a crucial and thriving space for cultural dialogue

Haneya Zuberi

Feb 10, 2025

Any attempt at adapting a literary giant’s work for the screen - especially one as stylistically and visually experimental as Marquez - is going to be a lofty mission

Sana Tahir

Feb 04, 2025

Pakistani brides increasingly opt for the luxe aesthetic without the price tag, but not without judgment

Mariya Karimjee

Feb 04, 2025

Pakistan is experiencing an exodus of our young. How does losing almost an entire generation of students with advanced degrees and ambitious dreams change us and them?

Arslan Athar

Jan 21, 2025

The institution of marriage is an ideal in Pakistani society, the only acceptable and moral way to live, and when you choose to not enrol in the great program, a lot is assumed about you and a lot is said about you

Kulsum Ebrahim

Jan 21, 2025

Across five venues, KB24 stirred Karachiites out of complacency with art that implicated its audience in the climate crisis we face today

Ilma Qureshi

Jan 21, 2025

This Islamic cultural figure from 13th century India took liberties with language that have turned into the conventions of our present

Ibrahim Tanweer

Jan 21, 2025

Calls for a boycott for this year’s season bring us back to the question of the very legitimacy of Coke Studio as a platform for Pakistani music

Tehmina Khan

Jan 21, 2025

Dharti Dhar Dhar Dharke Gi: Artist As Witness, COMO Museum’s show curated by Salima Hashmi, is a searing homage to the artist’s testimony of a world rife with systemic violence

Nauman Faizi

Jan 21, 2025

A self-avowed devotee and admirer of Nusrat’s artistry remains largely unmoved by his posthumous album ‘Chain of Light’

Amel Ghani

Jan 21, 2025

Heera Mandi might have been famous for the singing and dancing women, but in the midst of all this, it was also home to the tradition of classical music - a tradition that is now dying

Aamir Ali Shah

Jan 21, 2025

The burgeoning perfume industry in Pakistan is largely a copycat factory, dominated by clones of internationally well-known designer fragrances. Will we see a turn towards innovation soon?

Haneya Zuberi

Jan 21, 2025

How did a humble spice, used in home kitchens and ayurvedic medicine mostly in South Asia for centuries, suddenly become a global super food?

Mariam Tareen

Jan 21, 2025

Watching the Israeli genocide in Gaza unfold as a parent has been heart wrenching, an uncanny double life, watching children torn apart on our phones while holding our sleeping babies

Rutaba Tanvir

Jan 21, 2025

Sara Javed Rathore

Jan 21, 2025

Daniyal Tahir

Jan 20, 2025

An explainer on Pakistan’s electricity shortfall

Amna Chaudhry

Jan 20, 2025

Beauty workers in large Pakistani urban centres face a distinctive set of struggles with little recourse

Aisha Khan

Jan 20, 2025

Decisive and effective policies to address the existential threat of rapidly deteriorating air quality is long overdue

Dur e Aziz Amna

Jan 20, 2025

A meditation on the duties and efficacy of artists in times of oppression and injustice

Aamir Ali Shah

Jan 10, 2025

While the pandemic thrust many Pakistani fashion brands into e-commerce, a deeper look reveals that the foundations of this industry—logistics, customer support, and post-sale service—remain alarmingly shaky

Sadia Khatri

Dec 04, 2024

Sadia Khatri reimagines the private and public in rural Sindh

Mariam Tareen

Nov 15, 2024

Climate activist and expert Dawar Butt speaks about the underlying causes and potential solutions to the cataclysmic air pollution in Pakistan