China’s space programme took a major leap on Saturday (May 15) when an unmanned spacecraft, Zhurong rover, successfully landed on the surface of Mars, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported, marking the country’s first landing on another planet and the second space-faring nation after the US to land on the red planet.

Anthropologist Tobias Marschall spent 11 months living among nomadic Pamir Kyrgyz herders in the isolated mountain valleys of northeastern Afghanistan between 2015 and 2019. Below is a feature based on his research and field reports. Resettling an entire ethnic group in another country is a monumental task fraught with legal, political, and logistical complications. But that’s what Kyrgyz President Sadyr …

By Neelum Wali The word COVID-19 stands for coronavirus disease. Formerly, this disease was referred to as “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019-nCoV”. COVID-19 is linked to the family of viruses as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Different viruses are given their names according to their genetic structure. The virus was named as SARS-CoV-2 on February 11, 2020, due to its genetic …

by Aziz Ali Dad Let me start this review of the book “Hunza Matters: Bordering and ordering between ancient and new Silk Roads” by indulging in subjectivity. In 2015, I was a Crossroads Asia fellow at Modern Oriental Institute in Berlin, Germany. As a part of socialization, we interacted with different researchers and members of academia. On one weekend my …

News Desk Dr Pema Gyamtsho has been elected new director-general of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). “He will succeed Dr David Molden at his retirement from his current position as director-general in which he served for nearly a decade with his depth and breadth of intelligence, wisdom, and gracious people-oriented leadership,” ICIMOD board of governors announced the …

32 students hailing from Gilgit-Baltistan are stranded in China waiting for repatriation for the last three months Herald Special Islamabad: Scores of students hailing from Gilgit-Baltistan are stranded in China due to non-availability of flights and closure of Khunjerav border. They have been notified by their universities and dormitories to leave the host country by July 20. Over 30 students …

The team is there to re-measure the height of Everest, which is on the two countries’ border A team of Chinese surveyors have scaled Mount Everest, becoming the only climbers to summit the world’s highest peak during the coronavirus pandemic. Chinese media report the team is there to re-measure the height of Everest, which is on the two countries’ border. …

A comparative study of farming sectors of China and Pakistan   By Samiullah Najeeb   Agriculture is the most sensitive sector to climate change. The impacts of climate change and abnormal events such as rise in temperatures, extreme weather, drought, levels of carbon dioxide and sea result in a decrease in the quantity and the quality of food supplies. Climate …

The case of the Shughni language by Farman Ali The Pamirian languages are spoken by people in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral regions of Pakistan as well as Xinjiang province of China. The Pamirian Languages — a linguistic term — has been employed even before the advent of the Soviet Union, the first socialist state, by one of the pioneers …

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky …

In 1856, the Maharaja Gulab Singh ruled the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, with the blessing of the British. Lieutenant Thomas George Montgomerie, the commissioner of the Great British Trigonometric Survey of India, was trying to ascertain the heights of the peaks in northwestern Kashmir, but he couldn’t actually get close to ones he wanted to measure: He was …

News Desk Holiday spirits are back in Urumqi’s International Grand Bazaar. More than 60,000 visited the bazaar on Friday, as the bazaar, the biggest in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, enters its peak travel season, while far from its daily record accommodation of 300,000 from previous years. Liu Wanyue, the manager in charge of the bazaar area, told CGTN …

Pakistan prime minister’s halting approach has left a gap for the army to step in and orchestrate policy, says a report published in the British leading newspaper Financial Times.   Imran Khan has been sidelined by Pakistan’s powerful military after failing to act decisively on the coronavirus crisis or impose a lockdown in an attempt to curb the spread of …

By Raheem Sherazi   The whole world from South of North is under the grip of great fear of the coronavirus pandemic. It has not only generated panic all around but also resulted in an unprecedented impact in almost all spheres of life. International bodies like the World Health Organization (WHO) have recommended the simplest ways to deal with the …

By Shafqat Aziz The whole world is in an unprecedented turmoil in the aftermath of the Coronavirus. The world economies are shattered. The development indicators of the countries seem damaged beyond reparable. It has shaken the old beliefs and busted certain taboos. Millions across the globe are losing their jobs. The students are utterly clueless about their academic future. There …