Farewell, Dear SM
TFT “Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come…” Salma Mahmud, or SM as we called her at TFT, quietly left us…
Book Review – Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District
There is usually too much romance, tragedy or judgment in books about South Asia’s sex workers Writing about the lives of “fallen women” is…
Zia’s unfinished business
My latest for Express Tribune The ghost of General Ziaul Haq and his drive to turn Pakistan into a theocracy continues to haunt us.…
Different strands of violence
My piece on the elections for The News Holding a peaceful election in 2013 would, perhaps, be one of the important milestones in countering…
Pakistan: Ominous clouds of violence overshadow Elections 2013
Holding a peaceful election in 2013 would, perhaps, be one of the important milestones in countering the power and influence of the extremists Within…
Challenges of Political Transition
My piece published here Pakistan’s next general election, due in a few months, will be the first where civilian forces are in charge of…
Raza Rumi Says Britain Using Altaf Hussain case as tool
Raza Rumi Says Britain Using Altaf Hussain case as tool…
Books, bombs & mangroves (on the fourth Karachi Literature Festival)
In its fourth year, the Karachi literature festival (KLF) has become a public event that brings together the cosmopolitanism and the fissiparous identities of…
Time for complete justice
Published in The News Dr Tahirul Qadri, who has kept Pakistani pundits busy for the past three months, faced a major blow when a…
Karachi Literature Festival: The great divide
The third Karachi Literature Festival concluded recently. I am posting a short piece of mine which was published by the News on Sunday. Another…
Time to move on
On peace with India for The News on Sunday After the recent LoC fiasco, there has to be long-term commitment and readiness to install…
A welcome shift
Here’s what I wrote for The News about the Pakistan Army’s revised security and threat assessment The Pakistan army has reportedly revised its security…
The dream that was not mine – Harris Khalique’s poetry
khud pe kia taari use woh khwab jo apna na tha (I let the dream take over me/ The dream that was not mine)…
2012 review: Great expose of the unelected
The year 2012 will be remembered for a fragile democracy that continued to consolidate itself amid regional instability and belligerence of unelected institutions trying…
Pakistan: Media Freedoms and Judicial Accountability
Media freedoms in Pakistan are no longer a cause of celebration. Recent events have shown that journalists are facing pressure from all sides. Historically,…
My painting as a magazine cover
KIndle Magazine , originally uploaded by Jahane Rumi. Kindle magazine has printed an excerpt from my forthcoming travel book. I has sent them a…
Polio, extremism and a failing state
The death of nine anti-Polio workers has come as a new low in the life of the Pakistani nation. Almost as if the country…
Books in the times of jihad
After a hiatus of nearly a decade, I found myself in the United Arab Emirates, also popularly imagined as ‘Dubai’ in Pakistan. I was…
Book review: An ambitious undertaking
Pankaj Mishra’s new book is an ambitious undertaking. “From the Ruins of Empire: the Intellectuals who Remade Asia” traces the lives and works of…
What the heart is like – a poem by Miroslav Holub
Today, my friend Khalid Mir told me rather casually that he had been reading poems by Miroslav Holub. I had heard his name; and…