In 1979, the organisation's growing importance was felt during the Soviet war in Afghanistan , as it worked hand in glove with the CIA to support the mujahideen resistance, but its activities received little coverage in news media.Since that time, the ISI has projected its influence across the region in 1988 its involvement in Indian Kashmir came under increasing scrutiny, and by 1995 its mentoring of what became the Afghan Taliban was well attested. But it was the organisation's alleged links with Al Qaeda and the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, at the heart of Pakistan's military zone, that really threw it under the spotlight. These controversies and many more have dogged the ISI, including its role in Pakistan's testing of a nuclear weapon in 1998 and its links with A.Q. Khan.Offering fresh insights into the ISI as a domestic and international actor based on intimate knowledge of its inner workings and key individuals, this startlingly original book uncovers the hitherto shady world of Pakistan's secret service.

    In a fit of rebellion, he quits his job to bicycle the Karakoram Highway in northern Pakistan. He is twenty-two and absolutely clueless. Miraculously, hilariously, he survives — and discovers his life’s passion.Over the next fifteen years, Kirkby navigates an evermore uncertain and uncommon path, honing his skills on some of the most challenging expeditions the world has to offer. Whether it’s gun fights and crocodile attacks while running Africa’s Blue Nile Gorge, the rescue of a fallen sherpa on Mount Everest, evading capture in Myanmar’s forbidden tropical paradise, or learning to embrace the wilderness on the Tatshenshini River of Canada’s Arctic, Kirkby shares with the reader the excitement, doubts, insights, and even the uncomfortable self-knowledge that a life lived on the edge brings.

    

    It was only the bravery and well-executed strategic decisions of the soldiers of the Indian Army that countered the very real threat of losing Kashmir to Pakistan. Recounting the battles fought by five different regiments, the narrative reconstructs the events of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, outlining details never revealed before, and remembers its unsung heroes.

    In Naked Airport, critic Alastair Gordon ranges from global geopolitics to action movies to the daily commute, showing how airports have changed our sense of time, distance, style, and even the way cities are built and business is done. Gordon introduces the people who shaped this place of sudden transition: pilots like Charles Lindberg, architects like Eero Saarinen, politicians like Fiorello La Guardia, and Hitler, who built Berlin’s Tempelhof as a showcase for Fascist power. He describes the airport’s futuristic contributions, such as credit cards, in the form of fly-now-pay-later schemes, and he charts its shift in popular perception, from glamorous to infuriating. Finally, he analyzes the airport’s function in war and peace—its gatekeeper role controlling immigration, its appeal to revolutionaries since the hijackings of the 1960s, and its new frontline position in the struggle against terror.Compelling and accessible, Naked Airport is an original history of a long-neglected yet central creation of modern reality and imagination.

    The young and dashing Sultan Kowaishi has just returned from London to Bombay after passing his barrister exam. Among the first persons he meets is Mohammed Ali Jinnah, already an advocate of note, and is quickly drawn to him. It is also the time when Jinnah decides to join the Indian National Congress, soon to become its brightest star. The stir against the British rule holds no interest for Sultan but it attracts his wife Rehana, and, inexorably, weaves its way into their lives.In this brilliant saga of love and betrayal, pain and redemption, set amidst the long struggle for freedom and its terrible twin, the call for Pakistan, we confront questions that are as relevant today as they were a hundred years ago. Questions of identity, of purpose, of the shackles of a thousand memories . . .

    Yet its true origins, man-made character, and importance to the city have been largely forgotten.

    He has collected anecdotes and assessments from a large number of Mr Jinnah’s colleagues and acquaintances, and he has strung them together very skilfully upon an outline of the domestic events of Mr Jinnah’s life and of the great political events in which he played so dominant a part.’—Tablet, 5 February 1955‘In his Jinnah Hector Bolitho has written his best book for many years—a direct, unpretentious biography of the man whose single and unswerving determination primarily created Pakistan and who…accepted the sacrifices entailed without demur.’—Daily Telegraph, 26 November 1954‘By the test of sheer achievement, Mohammed Ali Jinnah must be reckoned as one of the most dynamic and successful political leaders thrown up by the present century. It has fallen to Mr Bolitho to write the first full-scale biography of this remarkable man, and he has done it very successfully.’ —The Economist, 4 January 1955 ‘He has taken the greatest care to check his facts, and to take the opinions at first hand of Jinnah’s contemporaries. The result is a fascinating biography packed with incident and anecdote, which does not forget the magnitude and the growth of Jinnah—a biography that is eminently readable.’—Nottingham Journal, 1 February 1956

    As a result of this, Salman Rashid’s family fled Jalandhar for Pakistan, the newly created country across the border.They were among the nearly two million people uprooted from their homes in the greatest transmigration in history. Besides those who fled, other members of the family became part of a grimmer statistic: they featured among the more than one million unfortunate souls who paid with their lives for the division of India and creation of Pakistan.After living in the shadow of his family’s tragedy for decades, in 2008, Rashid made the journey back to his ancestral village to uncover the truth. A Time of Madness tells the story of what he discovered with great poignancy and grace. It is a tale of unspeakable brutality but it is also a testament to the uniquely human traits of forgiveness, redemption and the resilience of the human spirit.

    

    

    Can I advise you to just move?" A young family moves into a neighbourhood with a reputation for crime. As they make their home in one of the oldest parts of the city, Carissa Halton reflects on the changing view from her little yellow house. While others nervously examine the less than-stellar reputation of her surroundings, she heads out to meet her neighbours, and through them discovers the innate beauty in her community. Halton invites us to meet a cast of diverse characters including cat rescuers, tragic teens, art evangelists, and crime fighters, whose walks of life, though very different from her own, has led to them being the people in her neighbourhood. Threaded through this collection of essays are questions about the social and economic forces that shape and reshape our cities.

    Everyone's wearing black. And on-stage a tenor is blowing his heart out, a searching, jagged saxophone journey played out against a moody, walking bass and the swish of a drummer's brushes. To a great many listeners--from African American aficionados of the period to a whole new group of fans today--this is the very embodiment of jazz. It is also quintessential hard bop. In this, the first thorough study of the subject, jazz expert and enthusiast David H. Rosenthal vividly examines the roots, traditions, explorations and permutations, personalities and recordings of a climactic period in jazz history. Beginning with hard bop's origins as an amalgam of bebop and R&B, Rosenthal narrates the growth of a movement that embraced the heavy beat and bluesy phrasing of such popular artists as Horace Silver and Cannonball Adderley; the stark, astringent, tormented music of saxophonists Jackie McLean and Tina Brooks; the gentler, more lyrical contributions of trumpeter Art Farmer, pianists Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, composers Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce; and such consciously experimental and truly one-of-a-kind players and composers as Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. Hard bop welcomed all influences--whether Gospel, the blues, Latin rhythms, or Debussy and Ravel--into its astonishingly creative, hard-swinging orbit. Although its emphasis on expression and downright badness over technical virtuosity was unappreciated by critics, hard bop was the music of black neighborhoods and the last jazz movement to attract the most talented young black musicians. Fortunately, records were there to catch it all. The years between 1955 and 1965 are unrivaled in jazz history for the number of milestones on vinyl. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, Charles Mingus's Mingus Ah Um, Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners, Horace Silver's Further Explorations--Rosenthal gives a perceptive cut-by-cut analysis of these and other jazz masterpieces, supplying an essential discography as well. For knowledgeable jazz-lovers and novices alike, Hard Bop is a lively, multi-dimensional, much-needed examination of the artists, the milieus, and above all the sounds of one of America's great musical epochs.

    Since 9/11, terrorists in Pakistan have killed over 40,000—and counting. Often risking his life, Qasim Rashid journeys into the heart of that terrorism to unearth the untold story of those silenced by Taliban suicide bombings, secret police torture, and state sponsored religious persecution. Rashid exposes the horrifying truth about growing radicalism in Pakistan and its impact on Western security. But most importantly, Rashid uncovers the inspiring untold story of millions fighting back—and winning.

    Roughing it for most of journey, Shah shared his travels and his tales with a diverting mix of eccentric characters.