Just a few days ago, Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar’s latest venture PadMan – a film propagating awareness of menstrual hygiene – was reported to have been banned here in Pakistan. According to members of the censor board, films on “taboo” topics such as menstruation should not be allowed to be viewed in the country. In fact, the…
The Central Board of Secondary Education, on Thursday, issued guidelines, placing a “renewed emphasis” that all its affiliated schools adopt the mother tongue or a familiar regional language as the primary medium of instruction for early grades starting this academic session (2025–26), under the new National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-2023). The latest directive,…
In a striking display of the growing influence of artificial intelligence in corporate communications, a number of high-profile chief executives have begun deploying AI-generated avatars to deliver their companies’ quarterly results, according to a TechCrunch report. This week, Klarna and Zoom joined the ranks of firms experimenting with digital doubles, signalling a potential shift in…
ISLAMABAD : It’s a pleasant winter afternoon in Islamabad as I head out to the sets of much-anticipated film, Sherdil at an exquisitely built mansion in what can be called the suburbs of the capital. Sherdil, by definition are the aerobatics display team of the Pakistani Air Force (PAF). The feature film, however, fuses much more than mere jet flying…
Social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, experienced a widespread outage in the early hours of Friday, 23 May, affecting users across several countries. The disruption, which began around 1 A.M. IST, left many users unable to access the app or navigate the website. Reports of issues surged on DownDetector, with complaints continuing well…
Addressing a joint press conference alongside Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the interior secretary condemned the tragic terrorist incident and said the government stands in full solidarity with the affected families. Captain (retd) Agha said that initial investigations point to the involvement of Fitna al-Hind in…
The one thing I often crib about is how fame gets to actors’ heads. Fame is fickle; respect isn’t. Attaining the latter today is much harder and for me, the Raza Mir ménage deny the popular fashion of stardom. While late film-maker Raza Mir was associated with the first ever Pakistani film, Teri Yaad (1948), his son and veteran actor, Asif Raza Mir, amongst the most prominent…
While we have heard a lot about what flagship chipsets Qualcomm and MediaTek have to offer, Xiaomi, joining the fray, has revealed its own in-house flagship chipset, called the Xring O1. This chipset is said to go toe-to-toe with other flagship chipsets from the likes of Qualcomm and MediaTek, which are the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8…
In a significant move toward regional climate cooperation, Pakistan and Uzbekistan have agreed to strengthen bilateral collaboration on environmental sustainability and proposed the creation of a transregional “Green Corridor” linking Central and South Asia. The agreement came during a meeting between Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, Dr. Musadik Malik, and the…
MUMBAI: In Shakti Samanta’s 1971 romantic classic “Amar Prem”, the lead pair Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore never get a chance to get intimate in the way men and women get in real and reel life. No songs, no exchange of affection. And yet the on-screen pair in the movie were an epitome of…
