By Zofeen Ebrahim and Elena Berton KARACHI/LONDON, Oct 22: From turning organic waste into fertiliser to sharing farm equipment, new businesses seeking to address social problems in Pakistan have made the South Asian nation one of the best performers in the second global poll on social entrepreneurs. Pakistan was one of the three countries, along with Australia and the …

 By Amir Hussain Our carefully manufactured brands of holy war are no longer available to fight the battles of strategic importance on two fronts at least i.e.  Against the enemy within and the one outside the national borders.  Left to their own choices by state the religious puritans in the recent past enjoyed liberty to harass and persecute the imagined enemy within …

TASHKENT Nine countries in Central and West Asia on Friday signed a historic declaration that will accelerate cross-border cooperation on energy issues and move the region a step closer to the creation of a regional energy market, a statement issued by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said. According to the statement, energy ministers and leaders from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the …

News Desk ISLAMABAD The PTI-led government’s plan to launch specialist media courts sparked a furious backlash on Wednesday from media organisations, politicians and human rights defenders who said the move was an attack on freedom of speech. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s special assistant for information and broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan said late on Tuesday that cases against the media would …

Karachi: His father was assassinated by a notorious Karachi hitman, while his police partner was murdered by the Taliban. Personal tragedy haunts the hard-boiled novels that are turning top cop Omar Shahid Hamid into one of Pakistan’s most popular English-language authors. For nearly two decades Hamid has worn a badge in Karachi, the mega port city on the Arabian Sea …

Islamabad: The Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) has outrightly rejected the Government suggestion of establishing Media Courts, stated in a statement issued on Friday. According to the statement, PBA asked the Government to reveal the real purpose of the proposed media courts. An incomplete document was shared with PBA a day earlier which gave no real details, purpose, need or intent …

ISLAMABAD: An emaciated wolf rested its head on a block of ice, seeking relief from stifling heat in a zoo in Pakistan’s capital, while another gazed at a family enjoying an afternoon picnic as an elephant swayed its head nearby. The elephant, named Kavaan, generated international headlines for the zoo in 2016, when pop star Cher sent representatives to check …

News Desk A joint report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Pakistani media watchdog Freedom Network has labeled Pakistan a “high-risk country” in terms of media ownership. The July 18 report says the ownership of more than half of all media in the South Asian country of 220 million people is concentrated in the hands of only a few. …

Renowned Pakistani poet, Himayat Ali Shair passed away in Toronto, Canada on Tuesday. He was 93. According to reports, the poet suffered from cardiac arrest in the morning. Shair was born on 14 July, 1926, in Aurangabad, India and moved to Karachi after Partition. He then pursued an MA in Urdu at the Sindh University, Jamshoro, to start his writing …

By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON: Many children in Pakistan cannot read a sentence even after years in school, says a new study of the country’s education system, arguing that the focus should now shift from quantity to quality. The study — “Pakistan’s Education Crisis: The Real Story,” by a Wilson Centre global fellow Nadia Naviwala — seeks to explain how Pakistan’s …