My school in Badin
Four months after torrential rains hit rural Sindh, the people of Badin are still trying to rebuild their lives. Shaukat is a fourth grader at Kehar Khan Lund primary school in Badin. This video shows his journey to school every morning – a school surrounded by stagnant rain water. Every day, Shaukat and his seventy-two classmates wade through filthy stagnant rainwater, smiling, even laughing at their struggle. However, their teacher says with no help, little can be done to keep the school functional. Even though Shaukat is fond of learning and says that his favourite subject is poetry, he will ...
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Charity clubs: Everybody’s got a plan
There are six people seated around a table, each with paper and pencil in hand. There’s the quiet hum of an air conditioner and the rustle of paper and a serious, practical kind of silence in the air. A paper with questions listed on it is passed around the table for verification- these questions are to be asked in the interview conducted by these six people. Someone giggles, which is immediately cut short with “Seriously, please.” Is this a top secret board meeting of a corporation? Has someone died? No, it’s a meeting of a few 17 and 18-year-olds… ...
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The ‘curse’ of the PPP
Akbar Zaidi, one of the country’s foremost political economists, in his magnum opus ‘Issues in Pakistan’s economy’, discussed at length the Bhutto government of the 1970s. The writer brought in a new side by delineating the causes for that government’s failure with regard to various aspects of policy making, including the legendary “bad luck” factor. The bad luck dynamic, in Zaidi’s analysis, comprised of some salient factors, both international and domestic, that contributed to the unwrapping of the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) socialist economic agenda. These were the oil crisis of 1973 that led to high inflation and balance of ...
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Video Blog: No one cares about the floods
The people of Sindh have lost their homes and have been forced to live in make shift houses made out of pieces of wood and whatever clothes they could salvage from their ravaged belongings. They don’t have food to feed themselves, and clean water is a mere dream to them. Their livestock is dying because there is nothing to feed them. The floods have washed away their crops, and with that, their sole means of survival. In addition to this, these people have been beaten by their landlords for having moved to a safer place, away from the inundated lands. They ...
Read Full PostAre you a part of Slackistan?
“You should talk about the film Slackistan.” The clock on the wall strikes 11 am: the boy behind me is watching the second hand tick by, his head slumped against the desk. The girl next to him is using her dupatta as a pillow-cum-blanket. Its the cliché free period, but today is too hot and humid to talk, let alone work. The only person wide awake is sitting right next to me. “You know, Slackistan?” she reiterates. The film Slackistan? What else could possibly be said about that one year old film? Article upon ...
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Video blog: What I saw in Badin
Two hundred people have fallen prey to the devastation that hit Badin and other areas in Sindh by more than 1,000 millimeters of rain in the last month. This is the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Sindh. Compare this to the 70 odd millimeters of rain that has fallen in Karachi over the past few days and one begins to realize the magnitude of the catastrophe Sindh is facing. I was in Badin earlier this week with a group of volunteers called SA Relief. I witnessed, first hand, what exactly was going on. From our entrance into the Golarchi area ...
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Armageddon 2012: Will the world succumb to climate change?
I still remember clearly how me and my friends were laughing out loud at every scene of the movie 2012, back in 2010, when we sat together to watch it .We never thought that this natural chaos shown in that movie would ever happen to us until July of last year. The print, electronic and social media began to frantically scream about the great floods in Pakistan in which around 1,985 people lost their lives, nearly 40 million people affected and a loss of $43 billion had to be endured by the already sick economy. The floods were something ...
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Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, it is time to go home now
Badin, the constituency of Dr. Zulfiqar Mirza has once again been hit by heavy rainfall and floods. According to news reports, 300,000 people have been displaced and are suffering from insufficient food and water supply. A few days ago, Prime Minster Mr Yousaf Raza Gilani visited the camps in the affected areas, and after his departure the scene turned chaotic as flood victims fought over the inadequate amount of relief goods. The police had to baton charge the people to bring the situation under control. Some flood victims sustained injuries while others had to run away empty-handed in order to ...
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Eid: A time to celebrate
Where does the spirit of a holiday come from? Festivity and celebration is usually associated with things and with people one is surrounded by. But in a country like ours, which is marked by uncertain circumstances and constant upheavals, external stimuli does not provide sufficient reasons to celebrate. In the past the end of Ramazan was usually greeted with relief and pride as the long hours of fasting were behind us. This year however, people are questioning the reasons for celebration. It is heartwarming to see citizens sharing each other’s pain and hesitating to celebrate Eid even as hundreds have ...
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Happiness scarred
There must have been a time in this country when the days drawing close to Eid-ul-Fitr were marked with joy; when faces reflected true happiness; when an air of celebration was felt across the nation; when households prepared for the festivities with gusto; when happiness was awaited for happily. There must have been such a time. Is this wait till Eid-ul-Fitr still a happy one today? Can we feel the air of festivity? Can we wholeheartedly hope to rejoice and celebrate? If your conscience is still alive, if your eyes still see and if your heart still feels, the ...
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