Ripple Effect

Yes you read that right -- Star Plus, the Indian television channel otherwise banned in Pakistan, but presumably available in most parts of the country, is the most-watched channel on cable television. In fact, it leads the next most-watched channel, Geo News, by such a wide margin that more people watch Star Plus than the next four channels on the ratings list. Not only that, the top five also includes two other banned Indian channels, Sony and Colors. Lest people be suspicious of where I'm getting all this from, this is in fact in the public realm, thanks to brandsynario.com, a Pakistani marketing and advertising website, which has posted the results of an exhaustive survey by Media Logic detailing the viewing habits of Pakistanis for 2010. Media Logic is incidentally the same company that does market research and ratings for the industry and hence its findings are normally taken at face value and accepted by all the channels. There are two ratings lists that are of interest. The...

What's with TV anchors gunning for Veena Malik -- did they expect her to wear the burka on Bigg Boss? -- as if she had ever done that in Pakistan and as if Pakistani film heroines wear such attire in Pakistani movies -- why is Kamran Shahid gunning for her? Would he do that with, say, Nawaz Sharif, or better still, Kayani? Also saw a show on Geo where viewers were asked the question (it doesn't come any loaded than this) that did they agree that Veena Malik's demeanour and behaviour on Bigg Boss had insulted Pakistan? The results, when I saw was watching the channel were: 93 per cent said 'yes' and 7 per cent said 'no'. I bet more than half of those 93 per cent (especially if they were men) wouldn't mind seeing Ms Malik dressed in a mini-skirt. If there's something this country's good at, it's sanctimonious hypocrisy I have to agree with Ms Malik -- people are going after her because she is a "soft target" -- and surely our TV ancho...

I have not seen these published anywhere -- they may be graphic, one of them at least but I am putting them up on my blog because people need to know of the monster of extremism and intolerance that is slowly eating away us from inside the first pic is of the governor -- he is shown from the back -- since he was shot from the back -- the police is trying to pick him up and take him to hospital -- in a police van because they presumably wanted immediate medical treatment -- the other pic shows two elite force policemen holding the killer with their feet on his chest and smgs (sub-machine guns pointing at him) -- this must have happened immediately after the assassination these pics were sent by a friend who did not want to be named -- they were taken by someone (other than him) who was in Mocca at the time -- that is precisely the restaurant where Mr Taseer had been having lunch - incidentally during my last visit to Islamabad, I had coffee at this place with a friend -- and our car was...

I have not seen these published anywhere -- they may be graphic, one of them at least but I am putting them up on my blog because people need to know of the monster of extremism and intolerance that is slowly eating away us from inside the first pic is of the governor -- he is shown from the back -- since he was shot from the back -- the police is trying to pick him up and take him to hospital -- in a police van because they presumably wanted immediate medical treatment --

Dawn Images -- front page article by Saadia Reza - what's a "dip-stick" poll? never heard of it -- and most popular tv anchors/talk show hosts -- mathura is one, ok -- but no 2 sonya rehman dawn news and no 3 juggan kazim -- dawn news seriously saadia -- who did you survey in the "dip-stick" poll? people at dawn news? i would think even loser-from-hell sahir would be more popular than either of these two -- city pages -- front page -- anchor article titled reads as if the holding of the conference itself raises questions -- wake up subs! also metro section -- inside pages -- coaching centres replace schools and colleges -- since when was this news --- hasnt this been happening for years -- arent the news pages supposed to carry topical news items?

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/3567/think-tanks-conferences-and-more-hot-air/ As a reporter for Dawn in the mid-to-late 1990s, one of the first beats assigned to me was to cover seminars on various issues in the city of Karachi. At first this seemed like an interesting proposition but over time it became a drag – not least because on ended up seeing the same people all the time, discussing the same things over and over again, and giving the same solutions over and over again. Surely, they didn’t need to hold yet another conference on this issue, one would say to oneself, given that the issue had already been done to death and the recommendations were known to all and sundry. Eventually it all came down to an exchange – and quite boring at that – of hot air. This week as I attend a reasonably high-powered three-day conference in Islamabad on a grand-sounding topic like “Peace and Sustainable Development: The way forward” (organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute), I...

What is it about standing in line that Pakistanis do not understand? What your friggin turn! That's what being in line means. And why do the ASF staff want us to turn on our laptops -- what are they trying to check in any case? As for the waiting in line, this happened at the last checking point, once carry on luggage is checked right before the gates area -- waited in line and it wasnt moving and airport staff were bringing morons from the side -- and no one saying anything -- usually its me and when other people start looking at you as if you have done something wrong (AS IF!) -- but thank god another person had the good sense to admonish the ASF tag-checker -- but the latter only smiled and did nothing, which infuriated the admonisher even more -- however the tag-checker could have been smiling because that is all that he could do once we landed at islamabad airport, shared a car to the hotel with urban planning expert extraordinaire Arif Hasan -- had to introduce myself using ...