By Zubeida Mustafa
“DO not follow in the footprints of your elders. Create your own footprints,” is what Dr Mubarak Ali would exhort his students when he began his academic career as a lecturer of history at the Sindh University (Hyderabad) in 1963.
Continue reading History lessonsBy Zubeida Mustafa
SUICIDES by young men and women have been periodically reported from Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). Authentic figures are not available in the absence of scientific surveys and forensic facilities, which allows ‘honour’ killings to be masked as suicide. Nevertheless, the suicide rate in this region is, arguably, higher than the average in Pakistan (8.9 per 100,000).
Continue reading ‘Maraka’ truthsBy Farnood Alam
MORE than two hundred suicide cases have been reported from Gilgit Baltistan in the last five years. There are approximately 120 men and 105 women who have committed suicide. Keeping the River Gilgit on your right if you exit the city, you enter the district of Ghizer. In this district alone there have been approximately 115 deaths. Less than 40 percent are men, and more than 60 percent are women. In the last forty days there have been more than 17 suicides. As I write these lines, news of another suicide from Yasin, an area in Ghizer reaches me, making the total 18.
Continue reading A calamityBy Zubeida Mustafa
IT goes to the credit of gender rights leader Bindiya Rana that Pakistan is counted among the 20-odd states to have given legal recognition to the ‘third sex’ — non-binary people. They were counted in Pakistan’s 2017 census and are entitled to ID cards. Conservative Pakistan can now be regarded as enlightened in the matter of gender legalities — but not in terms of transgender people’s acceptance and inclusiveness in society.
Continue reading Gender rights