Breaking News: Afridi can slap
The breaking news logo in red flashed across the screen and the news anchor continued to exaggerate the half-baked story for a good 10 minutes in a shrill, breathless manner. Autograph mangnay walay paristaron per chokkon, chakkon, dhakkon aur thapparon ki baarish (Fours, sixes, pushes and slaps raining on autograph-seeking fans) Shahid Afridi ki Karachi airport per maar dhaar se bharpur century. (Shahid Afridi whacks a fan completing a century with a bang) Shahid Afridi jazbaat per qabu na rakh sakay, maddahon ki dhunayi kardi! (Shahid Afridi loses control over emotions, bashes fans) Shahid Afridi kay shaeqeen ko dhakkay aur thappar! (Shahid Afridi’s pushes and slaps for his fans) As usual, all our ...
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Thoughts on Khayaban-e-Nowhere’s birthday
This week, Khayaban-e-Nowhere turns one. Some of you will applaud while others (particularly a segment of The Express Tribune’s online readership) will repeatedly smack their foreheads against a wall, wondering what the state of Pakistani English newspapers has come to. But we will come to that in just a bit. Khayaban-e-Nowhere has in its one year covered a strange multitude of topics. The great thing about Khayaban-e-Nowhere is that it has absolutely no particular regimen, plan or focus. It is essentially a writing space for anything under the sun. When you write about pretty much anything you begin to see ...
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Who is @Kalsoom82 Lakhani ?
Kalsoom Lakhani is founder and CEO of Invest2Innovate (i2i), LLC, a global social enterprise intermediary that matches investors with social entrepreneurs in emerging markets, with the pilot market launching in Pakistan in Fall 2011. Prior to starting i2i, Kalsoom was the director of Social Vision, which provided seed grants and hands-on support for social enterprises, and innovative initiatives in their start-up stages, mainly in Pakistan. Kalsoom is also a managing editor, and helped launch Think Change-Pakistan- a blog that tracks the social entrepreneurship and innovation space in the country. She also founded and runs the popular blog, CHUP, or Changing up ...
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The effects of the social media
The ongoing debate regarding the impact of social media is part of a greater construct in relation to the progression of democratic systems across the world. It cannot be denied that social media has played a unique role in gathering people to topple dictators and tyrants but the question remains whether this is necessarily healthy for the public sphere in which a functioning democracy runs. So when we talk about the ‘Arab Spring’, it is a unique set of events that have been launched through what many analysts call “the political awakening of Arab youth.” To start out, the new Muslim ...
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Sometimes the reward is in ignoring
I have written this post in response to the blog titled ‘Selling rewards for the after-life.’ Before I move ahead, I want to make it clear that I do not want to advocate what the person in the video is saying. My problem is also not with what the author has written in her piece – it is with why she, or anyone else for that matter, would give the video such importance. A friend of mine posted the now infamous video on my Facebook wall a couple of weeks ago. After I watched it, I deleted it and told ...
Read Full PostAre narcissists bringing social media down?
A great deal is expected from social media here in Pakistan. We are the younger generation’s hope and the older one’s handing-over brigade. We are supposed to act as a check and balance for not only political corruption, but for mainstream media which most of us regard as an out-of-control dinosaur. We are called saviors but I think we may need a little bit of saving from our own selves. This weekend was a busy one for the social media savvy here in Karachi. On Friday, there was Google MapUp held at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) which proved to be ...
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I love you, but you can’t have my password
I recently read a blog post about sharing personal e-mail accounts with your partners or spouse. The blog said about 33 per cent of women and 30 per cent of men share their online information with their partners. It also said that among unmarried couples, 10 per cent of the time, this led to a discovery of their partner’s infidelity. The figure was lower for married couples – about three per cent. The identity theft expert who gave these stats, Robert Siciliano, went on to warn that this figure was among those who had admitted to account sharing and discovering the infidelity ...
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Hate commenter: Why are you reading this?
Yes, you. The one who’s going to post hateful anonymous comments about how all this is a waste of time and how this publication is printing trash and the writer is representing mindless elitists whose only interest is in indulging themselves and not caring about human tragedies and natural disasters. Yes, you, who takes the time and effort to read all of what is on the ‘Life & Style’ and ‘Gossip’ sections and then refuses to comprehend satire, misunderstands sarcasm, and wastes office working hours on reading ludicrous items like this instead of engaging in philanthropic work and visiting NGO ...
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Fashion could save Pakistan!
In the year 2010, several things have gone wrong in our country and our beloved city Karachi. We’ve had our fair share of bomb blasts, floods, robberies and murders. Let’s face it; this hasn’t exactly stopped us from having our fun. Karachiites, are strong, determined individuals who tend to have a “c’est la vie” kind of mentality, which is not likely to change in the near future. Of course, it is likely that we will donate to a good cause and proceed to the Karachi Press Club several times a year to be involved in a safeguard of human rights campaign, but ...
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You know you are a nerd when…
Forever depressed, suppressed, and oppressed, the nerd inside me finally woke up one fine day and decided enough was enough! It was about time I raised a voice for my kind. Who are we? Walking through a mall, you find us staring at the latest gadgets rather than the really cute girl passing nearby. We have watched all the latest Hollywood movies and take out time to write a review for each and every one of them at imdb.com. If you lend us as much as a type-writer, you will see our blog the very next day on the website of The ...
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