DreamBig, a fabless semiconductor company founded by NED University alumnus Sohail Syed, has been acquired by Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) for $265 million. The Silicon Valley-based startup is developing networking chips for data centers, with hardware specifically designed to run AI applications. The startup  does not manufacture its own chips but instead licenses its designs to other semiconductor companies. It has had a partnership with Samsung’s foundry division to bring its hardware to…

"Ana minkum wa alaikum" declared Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City in his victory speech on November 4, 2025. The phrase translates to "I am from you and  and I am with you".  "New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant", he added. Mamdani is the first Muslim and first immigrant of South Asian descent. At 34, he is not only the youngest but also the first mayor of the Big Apple who was…

Millions of Pakistani workers have been participating in the development of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other Gulf nations over many decades. They have been doing so in spite of the almost complete absence of basic human rights and harsh working conditions. A recent Pakistani government report…

The US government granted 16,320 immigrant visas to Pakistani nationals. Another 11,861 immigrant visas were given to Pakistanis by the Canadian government in the same period.  The total number of new Pakistani immigrants admitted as permanent residents in…

Pakistani student enrollment in America's institutions of higher learning rose 16% last year, outpacing the record 12% growth in the number of international students hosted by the country. This puts Pakistan among eight sources in the top 20 countries with the largest increases in US enrollment. India saw the biggest increase at 35%, followed by Ghana 32%, Bangladesh and…

Did the U.S. make it clear to Pakistan in 2022 that Imran Khan was not acceptable as the prime minister of the South Asian country? Did the Pakistani military then use the Opposition parties led by Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari to remove Imran Khan from power through a successful No-Confidence vote in the parliament? The answer to both of these questions appears to be a resounding "yes" based on the leaked contents of a secret diplomatic cable, the actions of the Opposition politicians…

Pakistani students have received more EU-funded Erasmus scholarships and US-sponsored Fulbright scholarships this year than students from any other country in the world. These are fully-funded scholarships for recipients to study at universities in the European Union and the United States. Pakistan has also seen a post-pandemic surge  of student visas to study in Australia, the US and UK this year. …

British Pakistani Humza Yousaf, 37, has made history. He has become the first Muslim to lead Scotland after winning the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) to succeed Nicola Sturgeon. He is also the youngest person to be elected First Minister of Scotland. Humza's father was born in Pakistan and his mother in Kenya.  "We should all take pride in the fact that today we have sent a clear message, that your color of skin, your faith, is not a barrier to leading the country we all call…

It is International Women's Day on March 8, and its theme is "DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality". It's a day to highlight Pakistani women's participation in science and technology. Nearly half a million Pakistani women are currently enrolled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses at universities, accounting for nearly 46% of all STEM students in higher…

Multiple polls over the years have found that the Pakistani military has traditionally enjoyed widespread popular support in the country. This support has been particularly strong among the urban middle class Pakistanis who have now become the backbone of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party which has accused the Pakistani military of orchestrating an assassination…

The mighty Russian military's recent string of losses to the much smaller Ukrainian forces are bringing back memories of the humiliating Russian defeat at the hands of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Communist Party leaders who presided over the disgraceful Soviet exit were soon ousted from power and replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev's attempts to reform the Soviet system…

Technology startups in Pakistan received record $249 million funding during January-June 2022, up a whopping 171% from the same period last year. A total of 35 deals closed, up 6% from the first half of 2021. July 2022 saw a maiden investment from Sequoia Capital which is considered among the top venture capital firms headquartered in Silicon Valley, California.  Last year was a banner…

A year after joining Amazon Marketplace, Pakistan is currently ranked as the third biggest source of new sellers joining in 2022, according to Marketplace Pulse research. Amazon e-commerce platform has global reach. As of March 2021, Amazon Marketplace operated and sold in 18 countries, mostly in advanced economies of Europe, Japan and North America as well as in emerging markets like Brazil, China, India, Arab Gulf states and Turkey.  …

Two Pakistani girl students from Karachi have won the first physical science award of $1,500 each at Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF 2022) held May 7 through 13 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Ume Kulsoom and Talia Kusloom, the winners from Pakistan, are 12th grade students at Pak-Turk School in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi. …

Hamtramck, part of the greater Detroit area, has elected its first Muslim mayor and an all-Muslim city council this month. The newly elected council members will begin their term in January,2022, according to The Detroit Free Press.  The city's population is dominated by immigrants, including 19.7% Bangladeshi, 11% Pakistani, 10.9% Polish and 10% Arab. The rising Islamophobia in America has served…

Security software pioneer John McAfee was found dead in his jail cell in Spain today. He was 75 years old. He started McAfee Associates in 1987 in his small house in Silicon Valley, in response to the news of a Pakistani computer virus called Pakistani Brain, thought to be the first to infect personal computers. Miko Hypponen, a top software expert, believes that "they (Pakistani brothers Amjad and Basit Alvi) never meant to destroy any data or cause any harm for anyone". He was fighting…

“With all my privilege and profile, I often wonder if this is going to be the year they round us up, if this is the year they’re going to put Trump’s Muslim registry into action, if this is going to be the year they ship us all off,” Riz Ahmad said back in 2019 at Creative Artists Agency's Amplify Conference. “The representation of Muslims on screen — that feeds the policies that get enacted, the people that get killed, the countries that get invaded.”…

Americans see Pakistanis as "aggressive and violent" while Pakistanis say Americans are "loose, immoral and arrogant", according to research study findings of American cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand. She told an interviewer that the American media portrayed Pakistanis as "big bad wolf".  Gelfand is a distinguished professor at the University of Maryland. She studies why different cultures…

On October 12, 1999, Pakistani military toppled democratically elected Prime Minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif. This action followed the Prime Minister's sudden decision to sack Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf and the Prime Minister's simultaneous orders to deny landing permission to the Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 777-200 that was bringing the Army Chief…

A recent Dawn newspaper article entitled "Getting Ahead in the West" by British journalist Owen Bennet Jones suggests that Pakistanis in the US and the UK are doing poorly relative to their Indian counterparts. It builds this narrative using the example of 3 ministers of Indian origin and just one junior minister of Pakistani origin in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet. It also cites the…