Book picks similar to
The Tigers of Balochistan by Sylvia Matheson
balochistan
pakistan
south-asia
Shackled to my Family
Samina Younis - 2012
This is the true story of Samina Younis, born in Britain to a strict, religious Muslim family - a family that practices the tradition of forced marriage which they brought back with them from their village in Pakistan. One of seven sisters and two brothers, she was a bitter disappointment to her parents who desperately wanted a son; as a result she suffered terrible physical and mental abuse at the hands of both her mother and father; later she was to fall victim to continued abuse from her very own siblings. At the age of just sixteen, on a trip to Pakistan Samina was told that she must marry her second cousin, a boy she had met only once in her life and for whom she had no affection whatsoever. The writing of this book was Samina's only way of coming to terms with the life that she had been forced into, the mental conflict over her enduring love for a mother, now dead, who even on her deathbed was compelled to dominate and control her future. The book recounts her struggle against her family and her dramatic escape to a life of her own. The publishers and author wish to thank the thousands of people who have already read this book and made it such a success in raising awareness to cruel and archaic practices forced on women and men around the world.
Who Killed Karkare? The Real Face Of Terrorism In India
S.M. Mushrif - 2010
The allegation that sections of and individual Indian Muslims indulged in "terrorism" surfaced for the first time with the ascent of the Hindutva forces in mid-1990s and became state policy with the BJP coming to power at the Centre. With even "secular" media joining the role as stenographers of security agencies, this became an accepted fact so much so that common Indians and even many Muslims started believing in this false propaganda. This book, by a former senior police officer, with a distinguished career that included unearthing the Telgi scam, peeps behind the propaganda screen, using material mostly in the public domain as well as his long police experience. It comes out with some startling facts and analysis, the first of its kind, to expose the real actors behind the so-called "Islamic terrorism" in India whose greatest feat was to murder the Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare who dared to expose these forces and paid with his life for his courage and commitment to truth. While unearthing the conspiracy behind the murder of Karkare, this book takes a hard look at some of the major incidents attributed to "Islamic terrorism" in India and finds them baseless.
Truth Always Prevails: A Memoir
Sadruddin Hashwani - 2014
. . . We found bodies of our dear guests, colleagues, friends: faces I recognized, faces I had worked with and smiled at. The sight that stunned me was the crater—60 feet wide and 20 feet deep. It had been created by over 1000 kg of RDX. The hotel had not been attacked, it had been brutalized. Dead bodies and dismembered limbs, little pools of blood—it was a massacre. I had thought of myself as a hardened man who had seen violence and gristly sights—but what I saw that day left me shaken.’Truth Always Prevails is the memoir of one of Pakistan’s most prominent businessmen, Sadruddin Hashwani, chairman of the internationally renowned Hashoo Group. From sleeping in the back of trucks in the cold deserts of Balochistan to now owning a brand of luxury hotels as well as numerous other businesses, Sadruddin Hashwani has led a remarkable life. He has struggled against corrupt politicians and uncooperative government officials to build and sustain an extensive business empire. He has faced near-death experiences, most remarkably the 2008 bombing of his own hotel, the Marriott Islamabad, and has overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Filled with fascinating anecdotes and telling sketches of prominent Pakistani personalities, his is an extraordinary story that will inspire and entertain readers.
Yasmeen
Sophia Khan - 2015
She is also unpredictable, enigmatic, funny and tragic. And then one day, she vanishes, leaving behind a heartbroken husband and desolate daughter. Irenie refuses to accept that Yasmeen is gone; she haunts the house with the scents and sounds of her dazzling mother in an effort to maintain the illusion of her presence. Five years after her mother's disappearance, Irenie discovers a box of letters, beautiful, intimate love letters, which reveal a different Yasmeen, a woman who, all her life, was in love with a man named Ahmed. Why did the two never get together? What really happened to Yasmeen? On a quest for answers she suspects her father, James, has long suppressed, she travels to Islamabad, where she uncovers a trove of secrets for which she may not be ready. Over the course of a summer, father and daughter find that they must help each other move out of Yasmeen's shadow and forge their own stories. Simultaneously intricate and expansive, shattering and uplifting, this is a sophisticated debut about obsessive love, family ties and a desperate search for closure.
The Battle for Pakistan : The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighbourhood
Shuja Nawaz - 2019
Governing the Ungovernable: Institutional Reforms for Democratic Governance
Ishrat Husain - 2018
Despite the many challenges, both internal and external, the country was able to register a 6 per cent average annual growth rate during the first forty years of its existence. The country was ahead of India and Bangladesh in all economic and social indicators. Since 1990, the country has fallen behind its neighbouring countries and has had a decline in the growth rate.This book attempts to examine the reasons behind this slowdown, the volatile and inequitable growth of the last twenty-five years, and through a process of theoretical and empirical evidence argues that the most powerful explanatory hypothesis lies in the decay of institutions of governance. It also suggests a selective and incremental approach of restructuring some key public institutions that pertain to accountability, transparency, security, economic growth, and equity.
All Round View
Imran Khan - 1988
He tells of his life and the game he loves: from his childhood in Lahore, to his student days at Oxford (where he led the University team), his time at Worcester and thence to Sussex, culminating in his captaincy of Pakistan. A self portrait emerges of a man who has spent fifteen years at the top: years which have wrought changes - political, commercial and tactical - in the way cricket is played and promoted; changes too, in the man himself, as he reconciled his Muslim upbringing with the professional and personal pressures of being an international sportsman.
The Enigma of Pakistani Identity
Haroon Khalid - 2017
After its birth, the idea of the nation had to be given a concrete identity and they cleverly used religion, despite several different languages and cultural mores. The Enigma of Pakistani Identity lays bare the process of fleshing out this very identity of a newly-constructed country. Brutally honest, incisive, and upfront, this book is a well-researched work by one of Pakistan’s most promising new writers, Haroon Khalid.
The Curse of Mohenjodaro
Maha Khan Phillips - 2016
When footage of a team of archaeologists bursting into flames at the ancient site of Mohenjodaro goes viral, the world is horrified and shaken. While authorities suspect it to be an incendiary terrorist attack, Nadia Osbourne determines to find her archaeologist sister, Layla, convinced that she has survived. Her frantic search takes her to the ruins and forces her to confront her own demons – her inexplicable dreams about a woman named Jaya.3800 BC. The city of Meluhha is on the brink of a revolution and Iaf and his coterie of corrupt priests will do anything to maintain their power. Jaya is the only one who can read the Bloodstone, the heart of the Goddess Shakari, and divine the future. But with her daughter under Iaf’s control, will Jaya be able to prevent what is to come?Inspired by the legends surrounding the lost Indus Valley city, The Curse of Mohenjodaro is a gripping thriller about a powerful relic, a sinister cult, and family secrets that haunt generations.Maha Khan Phillips is a multiple award-winning financial journalist, and the author of Beautiful from This Angle and The Mystery of the Aagnee Ruby. She grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. She has a bachelors degree in Politics and International Relations and a masters in International Conflict Analysis from the University of Kent at Canterbury. In 2006, she completed a masters degree in Creative Writing from City University in London, where she currently lives with her husband and son.
The House of Bilqis: A Novel
Azhar Abidi - 2008
Though Samad attempts to persuade his mother to join them in Australia, she insists on remaining in Karachi even while Pakistan is facing turmoil. It's 1985. The mullahs and the generals are in control, and an insurgency is beginning in Kashmir. Meanwhile, Bilqis's servant girl, Mumtaz, enters a relationship with Omar, a young man caring for a neighboring house. Omar is an intense man who resents Pakistan's class system, and his frustration leads him to the freedom movement in Kashmir. But Mumtaz is in love and willing to sacrifice her honor to be with him. The intertwining stories of Bilqis, Samad, and Mumtaz offer a powerful and nuanced portrait of Pakistan in the modern era-a place of conflicting loyalties, rich with history and culture, and plagued by violence. Abidi's precise and elegant prose illuminates the struggle between a mother and son to reconcile their love for each other with their love for home.
Pakistan: The Formative Phase, 1857-1948
Khalid B. Sayeed - 1968
In addition to the basic theme of the Muslim nationalist movement, Khalid Sayeed has also focused on the workingand development of the British vice-regal system, and argues that the vice-regal system that Pakistan inherited from the British sustained Pakistan through the on-going political and cultural tensions that it has faced ever since its establishment.
The Leopard and the Fox: A Pakistani Tragedy
Tariq Ali - 2006
As rehearsals were about to begin, the BBC hierarchy—under pressure from the Foreign Office—decided to cancel the project. Why? General Zia ul Haq, the dictator at the time, was leading the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was backed by the USA. According to expert legal opinion, there was a possibility of a whole range of defamation suits from the head of state to judges involved in the case. In consequence, it was decided not to broadcast this hard-hitting and provocative play.The Leopard and the Fox presents both the script and the story of censorship.
The Making of Exile: Sindhi Hindus and the Partition of India
Nandita Bhavnani - 2014
The Making of Exile hopes to redress this, by turning a spotlight on the specific narratives of the Sindhi Hindu community. Post-Partition, Sindh was relatively free of the inter-communal violence witnessed in Punjab, Bengal and other parts of north India. Consequently, in the first few months of Pakistan's early life, Sindhi Hindus did not migrate and remained the most significant minority in West Pakistan. Starting with the announcement of the Partition of India, The Making of Exile firmly traces the experiences of the community - that went from being a small but powerful minority to becoming the target of communal discrimination, practiced by both the state as well as sections of Pakistani society. This climate of communal antipathy threw into sharp relief the help and sympathy extended to Sindhi Hindus by other Pakistani Muslims, both Sindhi and muhajir. Finally, it was when they became victims of the Karachi pogrom of January 1948 that Sindhi Hindus felt compelled to migrate to India.The second segment of the book examines the resettlement of the community in India - their first brush with squalid refugee camps, their struggle to make sense of rapidly changing governmental policies and the spirit of determination and enterprise with which they rehabilitated themselves in their new homeland. Yet, not all Sindhi Hindus chose to migrate and the specific challenges of those who stayed on in Sindh, as well as the difficulties faced by Sindhi Muslims after the formation of Pakistan, have been sensitively documented in the final chapters. Weaving in a variety of narratives - diary entries and memoirs, press reportage, letters to editors and, advertisements, legends and poetry, dozens of interviews and a wealth of academic literature - Nandita Bhavnani's The Making of Exile is one of the most comprehensive and multifaceted studies of the Sindhi experience of Partition.
If I Am Assassinated
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto - 1979
Under trial for authorizing the murder of a political opponent, Bhutto writes a scathing denunciation of military dictatorship, rebuts the allegations against his government made in General Zia-ul-Haq's White Paper, and writes of his achievements.Bhutto predicts that, should his murder be permitted, the rivers of the Indus Valley will turn red with blood. Smuggled out of prison and published in neighbouring India, If I Am Assassinated continues to be the most controversial piece of political literature to have been written in Pakistan.
My Brother
Fatima Jinnah - 1987
It is thought that the publication of Hector Bolitho's book, Jinnah Creator of Pakistan in 1954 prompted Miss Jinnah to write about her brother as it was felt that Bolitho's book had failed to bring out the political aspects of her brother's life. It was published by the Quaid-i-Azam Academy in 1987. A major focus of the book are his political aspirations and how his failing health affected them.