HAH Report   The Awami Workers Party President Fanoos Gujjar died of cardiac arrest on Saturday. He was 63. His funeral rites will be held at his native village Riyal, Batala Union Council, Buner District at 3pm on Sunday, said a statement issued by the party leadership. The party has announced to observe three-day mourning on the death of the …

HAH Report     Social and rights activists as well as researchers have called upon the Gilgit-Baltistan government to take policy and legislative measures for curbing child sexual abuse. They stressed the need for change in patriarchal mindset, raising awareness about the crime in schools and setting up care centres for vulnerable children. They were speaking at a seminar on …

 HAH Report   Islamabad: Education activists Thursday joined forces to call for the urgent convening of a national Girls’ Education Task Force. In a statement issued here after launching a series of fact sheets to draw attention to the state of girls’ education, the organisations, including Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE), Pakistan Youth Change Advocates (PYCA), Social Youth Council of …

By Anayat Baig A new mantra of “provisional constitutional provincial status for Gilgit-Baltistan is being floated by the ‘Naya Pakistan‘ proponents, generating another controversy on social media and in political circles. While some pro-province forces are upbeat about the proposition, Kashmiri leadership as usual has expressed their reservation about it. If such a plan is approved and imposed on Gilgit-Baltistan …

High Asia Herald Report   Islamabad Lawyers of Gilgit-Baltistan will observe “Constitutional Rights Day” on Tuesday, (Nov 27) by abstaining from courts and organizing rallies and meetings. The call for observing the day has been given by Gilgit-Baltistan Bar Council (GBBC) and bar associations, said an official statement of the Council. Lawyers will not attend courts throughout GB and all …

HAH Report Islamabad The government has formed a 10-member committee to examine the constitutional, governance and administrative reforms for Gilgit-Baltistan. According to a summary submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan by the Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP), Anwar Mansur Khan, Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Minister will be the committee’s convener with federal and GB law ministers, GB governor, the …

HAH Report Kathmandu: A centre of excellence on Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) was launched on Tuesday (Nov 13) at ICIMOD to improve access to modern, affordable and reliable energy services in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, says a press statement. The centre, called Regional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Capability for the Hindu Kush Himalaya (REEECH), aims to …

HAH Report Islamabad Gohar Abbas, a young journalist from Gilgit-Baltistan has won the prestigious ‘London Foreign Press Awards’. He is the Pakistan correspondent for Agence France Presse (AFP), a French news agency. Known as the “Oscars of Journalism”, the annual Foreign Press Association Media Awards ceremony is considered among the most prestigious ceremonies in the world. Gohar received the award at …

Mudabbir Ali Some say it is a year-old video. Be that as it may, the video came under spotlight of social media very recently. It showed students – both girls and boys – of Karakorum International University (KIU) dancing to a folk song alongside TV anchor Sanam Baloch. And it has generated a lively outburst of public debate in Gilgit-Baltistan. …

Aziz Ali Dad ‘If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed but if you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.’—Mark Twain Asia encompasses diverse countries and regions – in terms of religion, culture, language, ethnicity and history. However, the region has remained a geographical category not a cultural entity because of the lack – if not absence – of initiatives to conceptualise …

ON Monday, the KP government announced a ban on any male parliamentarian or officer entering, or being invited as chief guest to attend any event in, government schools for girls. The circular, issued by the KP education department, also ordered a blackout of coverage, whether on social or mainstream media, of any such functions. Public opinion on this move has …

By Sultan Abbas After the incidents of Punjab University and Peshawar University recently the vigilantism has reared its ugly head in Karakoram International University Gilgit. The debate over women’s participation in cultural activities has taken the social media by storm after performance of dance by some KIU girl students in a TV programme. It indicates the division in society over …

Zaighum Abbas Social media outburst over a video clip of few girls dancing on folk songs in a TV’s morning show touched new highs last week. The gunnery sergeants of ‘honour’ and ‘ghairat’ encamped in their laptop trenches and started their shelling with vitriol, bigotry, abuse and misogyny as prime weapons messing up with emotions of people. The female students, …

In his two-part article, Zameer Abbas touches upon the other sides of Juan Ellia’s personality as a progressive thinker,  biographer, translator, and historian which have been overshadowed by his poetry. Zameer Abbas The popularity of Jaun Elia (1931-2002) as a poet has risen in recent times. Despite his intellectual versatility, he was not as well-known during his lifetime as he …

Civil society, as a key concept of social theory, has remained a Western construct for the most part of our contemporary history of politics and development. My previous article was a summary of Western perspectives on the civil society that were introduced to the non-Western world during the colonial period. In another article, titled ‘The paradox of civil society’ published …