Pakistani News for the Rest of Us

Pakistani director Mehreen Jabbar’s critically acclaimed film Ramchand Pakistani is receiving accolades throughout India when it premiered at New Delhi’s Osian Cinefilm Festival. Though the film is not without its share of stereotyping, it has some excellent performances by the young boy who plays Ramchand, and Nandita Das as the mother of Ramchand. This utterly …

Pakistani modern art market is soaring, thanks to recent boom in economic activity, rising incomes, investor interest and a line-up of upcoming artists - plus increasing corporate and Arab patronage. Pakistan’s art market has gone crazy over the past year, with prices multiplying 10 to 20 times over. And famous artists are not the only …

Irtiza Haider, a Pakistani student of class 8 from Faisalabad has been crowned to be the world’s youngest Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA). He did it by answering 80 percent of the questions correctly in 2 hours, in order to pass the CCNA test. The CCNA, is a certification that emphasizes on the …

It’s being called Pakistan’s ‘unsinkable’, virtually floating ship which aims to give people a taste of sailing or cruising without actually going anywhere. Spread over 55,000 square feet, the ship is currently ‘anchored’ at the shores of Clifton Seaview Beach in Karachi. The ship’s entrance resembles a departure terminal, and its separate decks have been …

Swiss dairy giant Nestle has made Pakistan the home of world’s largest ever milk production plant. The 2 million-litre-a-day Punjab-based milk processing facility will rise to over three million liters in coming years. Pakistan is the world’s fourth-largest milk producer, and Asia’s second-largest, behind India, so the location of Nestlé’s latest investment is fitting. …

Adrees Latif, 34, a Pakistani-by-birth photojournalist has won the Pulitzer prize for his photography for Reuters in Myanmar. Adrees’s photograph of the fatal shooting of a fellow journalist, the Japanese videographer Kenji Nagai, won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. Monks and nuns were under fire for their protests against the Burmese government in …

Anmaar Habib, an 18-year old Pakistani girl trained in California, plans to represent Pakistan in the 2010 Winter Olympic games. In 2002, Anmaar Habib was the first female skier to represent Pakistan in any international ski event. Skiing in Pakistan is not for the faint hearted. AJ describes her voyage to the Karakoram mountain …

Pakistani-descent Shaan Rahi, a lanky basketball player aiming for college basketball in the United States, could become one of the few of South Asians to do so. Five years ago while visiting his father’s hometown in Pakistan, Shaan had a pleasant experience on a basketball court in Sahiwal, a town just outside Lahore, the …

The Karachi Stock Exchange recorded a new all-time high amidst growing hopes among investors to pump more money into Pakistan after reportedly successful elections. The benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange index of 100 shares rose around 1 percent or 142 points to close at 14,972 points, a new all-time high, on the back of growing political …

A humongous kurta from fashion designer Deepak Perwani in Karachi has been given the certificate of being the world’s largest by Guinness Book of World Records. The kurta, large enough to be worn by a 175-foot tall person, was unveiled at a public ceremony. The kurta was measured last month by professional experts of …

Ali Saleem, or Begum Nawazish Ali as known to hundreds of thousands of Pakistani television viewers, remains upbeat about what he or she does best. It’s a message Saleem usually delivers swathed in gorgeous saris and thick makeup, with glitter on his hairless arms and a mischievous lipstick smile on his face. Ensconced in the …

What is it about the Pakistani men that attracts such numbers of beautiful western women? Princess Diana, Jemima Khan, and the latest being Britney Spears with her beau Adnan Ghalib. The West acknowledges it. Wonder when the Pakistanis will wake up to this fact. Quite naturally, its people are culturally and socially wealthy. Let us …

Namira Salim, the Pakistani explorer and adventurer, and a woman being trained to go into space, landed to a ferocious weather welcoming her in Antarctica. It took more than 40 hours of flights, plane connections and even an emergency landing before she arrived at Punta Arenas, Chile, the southernmost tip of South America. …

Recent events have not dampened Pakistan’s continued banking and financial sector expansion. The latest development follows a spate of purchases by overseas banks looking to expand in Pakistan. In the latest deal, Saudi Pak Commercial Bank (SPCB) is due to be bought in a $200m deal. Standard Chartered in 2006 became the first international bank …