Articles for category: Opinion

Lateef Johar

Dear world, does a Baloch life really matter?

In October three years ago, I, accompanied by a few fellow refugees from Balochistan, waited outside a Canada Border Services Agency office for another Baloch refugee friend who was being investigated to ascertain he was not a bad guy. As we waited, we received the news that another friend, a Baloch student leader, has been ...

Sadaf Iqbal Baloch

--Internet photo

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: An introduction

One Belt One Road (OBOR) or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s one trillion dollars transport and trade infrastructure grand vision to connect China to the rest of the world. Announced in 2013, belt refers to the road and railway networks and the road to the sea routes. It features several economic corridors: ...

Sameer Mehrab

-- Internet photo

The Headless Woman captures ghosts of the missing on camera

The Headless Woman, or La Mujer Sin Cabeza, released in 2008, is the third feature film by the highly-regarded Argentian director Lucrecia Martel. Her prior films Swamp and Holy Girl also deal with similar subjects. The Headless Woman is almost universally praised for its cinematic form, as the director does not suggest anything through the ...

Ahmed Kulmeer

Gwadar, CPEC and the water tanker fart

This is the story of the time in the early 80s when Gwadar was a small, sleepy fishing town of hardly 20,000 people. A time when General Pervez Musharraf, the mastermind of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), was probably a low-ranking officer in the Pakistan Army. A time when the land value in Gwadar was ...

Sameer Mehrab

ما و دُنیا

دُنیایا کئوم ہست و تکریبَن گیشتریں کئوماں ملک ہم ہست۔ ہر کسا کہ ملک نیست، بزاں ماتا نئیاورتگ۔ ما بلوچ ہم انچیں کئومے ایں کہ مارا ملک و سرڈگار ہست بلہ دگرانی دستا ایں، مارا سیاسی واک و وتواجہی نیست۔ ما انچو گواتا گون ایں، بزاں ما بئے نہ ایں۔ پرچا؟ کہ دُنیا بے ایمان ...

Sameer Mehrab

A letter to cousin Behrouz Bochani in Manus Island

Hey Behrouz Bochani, I will take the liberty of calling you Cousin. But don’t be taken aback or take me as a pusher. Let me explain. I am a Baloch from the Pakistani occupied Balochistan. My people, for some reason, believe that the Kurds are their cousins and somehow we got separated in the distant ...

Asma Akhtar

A digital painting by Saeeda Bibi

Banadi Shehak: the first Baloch woman to lead a battle

By Asma Akhtar and Imrana Rasheed Whenever history recalls feminine courage, women’s heroic contribution and their unchallenged determination, Banadi Rind appears as an epitome. Banadi belongs to a Baloch tribe of warriors: the Rinds. According to Balochistan ke Qabahil by Manzoor Bukhari, Rind is a Persian word, which means “brave”.  According to some legends, Rinds ...

Maryam Khanzai

Is identity crisis a disease?

A few days ago,  I woke up in the morning pondering over the recent clash between Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and the Pakistan Army in which the latter opened indiscriminate firing on unarmed civilians causing many casualties. The tweet of the Director General ISPR, Major General Asif Ghafoor, was echoing in my ears: “Identity crisis ...

Sameer Mehrab

Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawad -- Internet photo

May God save us; military has found a new enemy

A few days ago in North Waziristan, Pakistani army attacked a peaceful public rally headed by elected members of the National Assembly Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar. The army claimed it was in their defence that they opened fire at the protesters. It claimed Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar were leading an armed assault on ...

Mureed Baloch

China hurt in Gwadar PC hotel attack

On Saturday, May 11, 2019, four gunmen stormed the luxury Pearl Continental hotel in the heavily-guarded city of Gwadar, a port-city that Pakistan has been long advertising as the “safest” in ensuring China’s success with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), all thanks to the host country’s uptight security measures. The media-savvy operation, claimed by ...