The Karachi Literature Festival has emerged as a cultural landmark of the city. It attracted bigger crowds this year and was an impressive intellectual event. But if it is grow, it must be more inclusive and its venue should be shifted to the Expo Centre.
All posts by Raza Jaffri
What Children Learn
An independent survey by an NGO has found that schoolchildren in Pakistan are not learning what they are expected to know. There are many issues that need to be addressed, one major one being pedagogy.
Telling The Untold Story
By Zubeida Mustafa
PEARL S. Buck, the American author who rose to fame because of her graphic and insightful novels on pre-revolutionary China, once remarked, “If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” But can you understand yesterday if what you learn about it is warped and one-sided?
That is inevitable when information of the past comes in the form of history written with a colonial construction. It portrays events through the prism of the powerful classes who owe their power to the colonial rulers of yesteryear. It was in this context that I found the film titled A People’s Untold History by Deneb Sumbul so remarkable. Continue reading Telling The Untold Story
A Hero In Times Of Fear
Nasim Hameed was proclaimed the “fastest woman” in South Asia at the SAARC Games in Dhaka. She has emerged as a role model for young girls in Korangi, the neighbourhood where her home is. She continues to live there.
Rebuilding Lives
The floods in Pakistan in 2010 were devastating. The government didn’t come to the rescue of the victims as was expected of it. But communities have begun to help themselves.