Our essential reads for the week
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.
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.
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.
Rabih Alameddine’s The True True Story of Raja The Gullible (and His Mother) recently became the first Arab-American work to receive a National Book Award in Fiction. The decades-spanning novel tells the story of a singular life and its absurdities. Rana Saadullah Khan dives into Alameddine’s tragicomic world.
Born in 1993, Iranian artists and sisters, Maryam and Marjan Baniasadi, work in different mediums, but share the same impulse: preservation. For Marjan, it’s the threadbare nature of Persian carpets; for Maryam, the fragile persistence of plants in the city. Ameera Khan charts their decade-long artistic practices, both individually and as a sister-duo.
For a country where young people make up a majority of the population, the potential of gaming as a career path remains largely untapped. However, this cultural export of Pakistani creativity holds immense soft power (and economic) potential.
By Saba Imtiaz
By Umair Javed
By Maryam Jillani
By Haroon Sethi
Stories, Cultures, and Landscapes
Reflecting on the Zeitgeist
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?
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.
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?
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.
Nov 28, 2025
Rabih Alameddine’s The True True Story of Raja The Gullible (and His Mother) recently became the first Arab-American wor...
Lahore in Motion: Infrastructure, History and Belonging in Urban Pakistan (UCL Press, 2025), edited by Ammara Maqsood, C...
In Adrian A. Husain’s second collection of sonnets, Knife of the Tide (The Peepul Press, 2025), recollection is not mere...
Georgette Heyer, writing between the 1920s and 1970s, may in fact have invented the ‘Regency Romance’ sub-genre. What se...
Mahreen Sohail’s debut book, 𝘚𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘚𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 (A Public Space, 2025), is a collection of short stories that can only...
In a country plagued with literacy problems and lack of institutional support, can book reviewers be the catalysts in nu...
Mother Mary Comes To Me by acclaimed author and activist Arundhati Roy is not just a memoir about a complicated mother —...
How many selves must one carry to be seen as one? Ammar Yasir explores the central conceit behind a lesser-known Dostoev...
SPORTS
For a country where young people make up a majority of the population, the potential of gaming as a career path remains...
SPORTS
What explains Padel’s recent explosive popularity in urban Pakistan?
Debt-for-climate swaps are no longer boutique transactions, but are being pitched as a central tool to help countries break free from the vicious cycle of debt distress and climate vulnerability. Can the G77+China succeed in making them more than symbolic, clever deals on the margins?
The USA, for decades, has been at the forefront of cutting edge research and tech development; the H-1B visa has arguably played a major role in this, as global talent gravitates towards leading American institutions, whether in tech, medicine or academia. With President Trump’s new $100K talent tariff policy, the world wonders whether this will lead to a brain drain away from the USA.
The 19th International Architecture Exhibition, titled 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘴. 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭. 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭. 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦., curated by Carlo Ratti and organised by La Biennale di Venezia opened in May 2025. A team of eight dedicated Pakistani architects and researchers presented (𝘍𝘳)𝘈𝘨𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘚𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴, while facing bureaucratic hurdles, visa and shipment delays and the four-day war back home. Zoya Gul Hasan walks us through the installation and ponders Pakistan's future at international art biennales.
