Stories by Asif Akhtar
Asif Akhtar is a PhD candidate in Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, where he is currently conducting research on news-media in Pakistan for his doctoral dissertation.
It is paradoxical that the state would feel justified in curtailing the press that was instrumental in making Pakistan.
Updated 17 Jul, 2019 01:53pm
So it should have been established by now that Ramazan is Islam on steroids. Anything ordained in the religion under...
Published 12 Aug, 2011 01:19pm
Dear Open Letter Writers, Good day, hope this open letter finds you in the best of spirits. The reason I am writing...
Published 27 Jun, 2011 12:42pm
It was time for Asr, the afternoon prayer. Through the windows of the mosque, daylight flowed in waves of golden...
Published 13 Jun, 2011 12:28pm
Where viewers of western media are rarely subjected to the blood and gore of war, victims of violence in the local...
Published 24 Jan, 2011 07:48am
While the old General seems to have made his way back in to the headlines, it often occurs to me how the Pakistani...
Published 19 Oct, 2010 12:36pm
The second out of three events held to launch Granta Magazine's Pakistan issue was held in collaboration with the...
Published 04 Oct, 2010 11:55am
By now Pakistanis must have gotten used to seeing dossiers and special reports on their country by esteemed Western...
Published 25 Sep, 2010 01:06pm
From lofty and very lonely heights, the foreign writer tries to decipher what went wrong with the game of cricket...
Published 14 Jun, 2010 03:32pm
So looks like its double-whammy for Pakistani entertainment enthusiasts this time. First we get beaten out of the...
Published 21 May, 2010 04:08pm
As the summer kicks off with the onset of the full-on load-shedding season, the Punjab government is trying to show...
Published 12 May, 2010 11:47am
It has been over a week since a private television channel broke the story about Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Malik...
Published 08 Apr, 2010 05:19pm
The past few days have been very eventful as far as public statements in Pakistani politics go. Punjab's Chief...
Published 19 Mar, 2010 01:47pm
Lately, there’ been a lot of talk about talking to the Taliban, and talking to the Taliban about talking to the...
Published 12 Feb, 2010 02:09pm
Pakistan’s recent appearance in the infamous US ‘countries of interest’ list, which isn’t exactly the list of most...
Published 18 Jan, 2010 03:21pm
Today I woke up to the fact that this was in fact the first day following the conclusion of the first decade of the...
Published 01 Jan, 2010 07:11pm
In a previous post I had alluded to a seemingly spontaneous process through which the Pakistani media jumped from ...
Published 21 Dec, 2009 01:55pm
A few weeks ago, The New York Times was thoughtful enough to do a little feature in a video blog titled 'Tuning out...
Published 07 Dec, 2009 04:38pm
Last week, in a blog titled 'The Convenient Curtain of Myth', I tried to show the dangers of viewing international...
Published 20 Nov, 2009 02:12pm
Recently, I met some jihadis who have been in the business of holy war since the 1990s. I was surprised to hear that...
Published 14 Nov, 2009 09:58am
