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SOCIETY: DANCES WITH THE GORILLA

Medical school graduates pose with a performer in a gorilla costume at their farewell dinner in Karachi | FAS Events Comedian Tabish Hashmi once joked that the wedding of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s son should be a humbling experience for all those flaunting their lifestyle on Instagram. That ‘us’ nobodies should sit on the side and simply observe what actual affluence looks like. He wasn’t wrong, given the kind of muscle the Ambanis were able to pull, from Hollywood to Bollywood. The spectacle was less a wedding and more a reminder of how far wealth can stretch the idea of celebration. Just the images of celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg, David Beckham and the Kardashians casually drifting through the venue like guests at some lavish exotic retreat was nauseating to most — and perhaps deeply inspiring to the local elite circles, who must have spent the endless wedding feeling painfully ordinary by comparison. However, the masses, Indian masses in...
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In pictures: Muslims pray on Mount Arafat as Haj reaches its peak

Huge numbers of Muslims prayed on Mount Arafat on Tuesday at the climax of the Haj pilgrimage, as a punishing desert sun sent temperatures soaring towards 40 degrees Celsius. From daybreak, thousands of white-robed worshippers recited Quranic verses on the 70-metre rocky hill near Makkah, where Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) delivered his last sermon. More than 1.5 million people have joined Haj this year despite the shadow of war across the Middle East created by the US and Israeli war on Iran. More than 30,000 Iranians have made the journey, about a third of the 86,000 originally expected. Iran’s IRNA state news agency said the “wartime situation” explained the drop. Haj, one of the five pillars of Islam, must be performed at least once by all Muslims with the means to do so. With temperatures hitting 44 degrees in Makkah in recent days, Saudi authorities have urged pilgrims to drink plenty of water and protect themselves from the sun during the mostly outdoor rituals, wh...
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India orders migrant detention centres in West Bengal, sparking arbitrary explusion fears

India’s ruling Hindu-nationalist party has ordered detention centres for undocumented Bangladeshis and Rohingyas in West Bengal state, sparking fear among minorities that it could lead to arbitrary expulsions. The directive comes just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won power in the eastern state for the first time since the country’s independence in 1947. The order calls on local authorities to set up “holding centres” for “apprehended foreigners” awaiting deportation, as part of a broader crackdown on illegal migration. The government has defended its “detect, delete, deport” principle, saying those targeted are migrants staying illegally in the country. “Illegal migration has security and socio-economic ramifications which are often well beyond law enforcement” read the order, issued last week. The decision has fuelled anxiety among West Bengal’s roughly 35 million Muslims, many of whom share linguistic and cultural ties with neighbourin...
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Amid Mideast conflict, Indian finance minister calls for focus on '3Fs' — fuel, fertiliser and forex

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged the country on Monday to focus on fuel, fertiliser and foreign exchange and underlined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plea to conserve foreign exchange as “very important” amid the Gulf crisis. Earlier this month, Modi called on Indians to conserve fuel and foreign exchange and avoid gold purchases, among other austerity measures , to better manage the energy shock and economic headwinds. “The prime minister giving a call to conserve foreign exchange, as far as possible, is very important,” Sitharaman said, adding that the stress on ‘3Fs’ — fuel, fertiliser and foreign exchange — should be viewed in this context. India has been reeling under the effect of rising crude prices and supply disruptions after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the US-Israel war on Iran . High prices of crude, fertilisers and gold are creating some challenges on the external front, Sitharaman added, while speaking at an event in Mumbai. India, th...
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PM Shehbaz meets Chinese counterpart in Beijing

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was welcomed on Monday at the Great Hall of the People, where he met his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang. PM Shehbaz landed in China on Saturday on a four-day official visit, reaching Beijing yesterday after making a stop in Hangzhou. The prime minister was presented with a guard of honour upon his arrival at the Great Hall of the People. Both the leaders shook hands and introduced their respective delegations to each other. The national anthems of Pakistan and China were played as both leaders stood at the salute dias. Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, who concluded his visit to Iran on Saturday, could be seen present on the occasion as well. Addressing the delegation-level talks with Li Qiang, PM Shehbaz thanked the Chinese side for its “very warm invitation” to visit China. “It is always a great pleasure to visit your great country, and each time we come, we find new changes and major developments taking...
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In Spectrum: Memory, migration and making of Lahore’s urban soul (Part-I)

In Lahore, food is never merely food. It is memory, migration, performance, class, longing and history carried on the tongue. Few places embody this truth more vividly than Gawalmandi, the dense and storied neighbourhood in central Lahore whose narrow streets, smoky grills, old facades and crowded eateries became inseparable from the cultural imagination of the city. To speak of Gawalmandi is to speak of Lahore itself: a city built through displacement, improvisation, coexistence and reinvention. Until recently, Gawalmandi has been celebrated primarily for its famous Food Street, for sizzling kebabs, fragrant hareesa, fried fish, doodh-jalebi and late-night crowds that gather under strings of lights. Yet reducing Gawalmandi to a culinary destination alone would flatten its layered historical significance. The neighbourhood is also a site through which one can understand urban modernity in South Asia, the social consequences of Partition, and the transformation of everyday life in pos...
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