Comment by Riaz Haq on June 29, 2012 at 4:25pm

Here's an interesting take on Pakistan by Aziz Nayani as published in Foreign Policy Magazine:

Since its establishment, Pakistan has fostered a sociocentric culture - one that emphasizes the role of community and groupthink, and encourages its members to act in a way that is best for the community or institution they belong to. It is no surprise then that Pakistanis have deep ethnic allegiances that spill over into politics. Ethnic groups, political parties, and even political institutions, as we have seen with the military and more recently with the Supreme Court, require a deeply imbedded sociocentric approach from all of its members.

On the polar end of a sociocentric perspective of society is the individualistic viewpoint - people examine issues and make moral decisions based on what is best for the individual and individual rights and liberties, and not necessarily that of the group. Individualism is much more common amongst people who can be classified as W.E.I.R.D - Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic - a recently coined term to classify a distinct group of people.
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At the center of this shift are an increasing number of western educated liberals who find themselves contributing to the national dialogue for a host of issues, thanks to an emerging, robust media. Browsing through the Opinion pages of Pakistan's leading national publications, the Express Tribune, Dawn, and The News International, amongst others, one will find no shortage of liberal viewpoints from a very educated, nearly WEIRD pool of authors - perspectives that are not representative of the population at large, and come from writers who have backgrounds that are not indicative of that of the average Pakistani.

A more ubiquitous media presence, coupled with greater access to information mediums such as televisions and Internet, has contributed to a stronger dissemination of these progressive views. As Pakistan's Internet users approaches 20% of the population, a 66% increase in just four years, and television viewing continues to rise, educated, progressive intellectuals have been able to draw attention to small, yet meaningful issues that display the changing attitudes in the country. This past January, the outrage over Maya Khan and her "Vigil-Aunties," a group of women who swarmed a public park to confront unmarried couples on live TV, exemplified the potential Pakistan's media has in mobilizing and creating outcry over practices that damage individual autonomy. It is not hard to imagine a time recently where such practices may have gone overlooked in Pakistan by the masses.

The rise of a liberal media in Pakistan is a significant trend in the country's ideological development. Individuals like Mir Ibrahim Rahman, the former Goldman Sachs Investment Banker and Harvard educated founder of GeoTV, have created a landscape that, while still nascent, has recently become formidable. Despite its other travails, the democracy that has remained in the country over the past five years has allowed the media to become a more impressive institution capable of catalyzing a paradigm shift in the country.
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But not all WEIRD Pakistanis find themselves channeling the media as their primary vehicle for progress. Members of civil society, like Ali Dayan Hassan of Human Rights Watch who was educated at Oxford, businessmen such as Abdul Quayyum Khan Kundi, who has served as the President of the Pakistan Chamber of Commerce-USA, and the hoard of Western-educated employees of companies like the Acumen Fund, have a much more subtle way of spreading a philosophy that is starkly different from the sociocentric approach that Pakistanis are accustomed to....

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/29/pakistans_weird_par...

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 7, 2012 at 10:36am

FHM magazine readers vote Veena Malik for the top 100 sexiest list, reports TOI:

According to the buzz doing the rounds, Bollywood starlet Veena Malik leaves behind Hollywood hotties in world sexiest women list. She broke all the past record and makes her mark in the list. She beat Hollywood Babes like Kim Kardasian, Britney Spears, Anjelina Jolie, Camaron Diaz, Megan Fox, Paris Hilton as well as her bollywood contemporizes like Poonam Pandey , Sonam Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty in a magazine poll.

Veena Malik said, "I am really excited with the news since it means people are not voting for me only based on my physical looks. They are looking at me in entirety".

Bollywood Bombshell Veena Malik fans from across the globe have voted to make her the sexiest woman in the world. She has been crowned the sexiest woman in the world by a leading men's fashion magazine.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-int...

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 8, 2012 at 5:08pm

Here's an ET report on Veena Malik stopping traffic in Bangalore:

Pakistani actor Veena Malik recently caused a traffic jam in Bangalore when she stepped out to shoot her debut Kannada film, Dirty Picture: Silk Sakkath Maga on Friday. When the beauty appeared on the sets, the gathering crowd caused a traffic jam, affecting several of the neighbouring business districts.

Although Malik’s presence was kept secret by film-makers, the masses caught a glimpse of her when she first arrived. Around 20,000 screaming fans started congregating around the area, making it impossible for security personnel to manage the crowd or control the traffic. When the solution got completely out of control, the film’s producer called in the police to handle the fans.

Despite the hoards of people surrounding her, Malik seemed to be in high spirits, enjoying all the attention coming her way. The actor, who first became famous from a stint on the Indian version of “Big Boss”, made her way around the crowd gracefully, waving to all her fans and signing autographs.

“This response is unbelievable. I am sure the movie will be a hit,” she later commented.

The film, which also stars Akshay and Anitha Bhat, is a regional remake of Milan Luthria’s blockbuster Dirty Picture released in 2011. Shooting for Dirty Picture: Silk Sakkath Maga officially began in studios last week.

This was the second time Malik has been mobbed by her fans. Before this, the actor attracted a large crowd on Fiji Beach, Australia, proving that she has a great fan following all over the world.

Her crazy fans

“I think I have been appreciated a lot. A Pakistani guy wanted to kidnap and marry me – but he was a kid back then,” Veena told The Express Tribune. “Another Pakistani fan used to send me flowers every day. There’s a guy on Twitter who calls himself Mr Veena Malik; I consider him a psycho, for he has hacked my Twitter and email account,” she said.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/405423/veena-malik-halts-traffic-in-ban...

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 1, 2012 at 7:03pm

Here's a CNN report on first Indian-born playmate whose father is Christian and mother Muslim:

Sherlyn Chopra, the controversial, unstoppable and very expressive Indian model has now beaten them all to be the best thing someone with her ambitions could wish for- being a Playmate!
Sherlyn's all ready to be featured on the worldwide leader of men's erotic magazines, Playboy. So her hiatus from the Bollywood scene isn't because she's on a break- but because she's about to get the biggest break someone with a body like that could wish for. Not just that, she's bonded with the founder of the magazine, Hugh Hefner over the weekend. Don't believe us? Check out Hugh and Sherlyn's Twitter timelines, to be flooded with not only their photo together, but also photos of Sherlyn hanging out with other playmates.
"Playing dominoes with @CrystalHarris @trishafrick @ChelseaRyan_pb @cristalcamden @missashleyhobbs @sherlynchopra," tweeted Hugh, and Sherlyn went on to call Hefner “The most compassionate man on planet Earth!” in her tweet, tagged along with a picture of both of them.
So what most of our Kingfisher babes actually talk about has been achieved by Ms Chopra, whose limited stint in Bollywood shouldn't bother her anymore now. We suppose directors and producers will now line up to sign the lady for their films. Are you listening, Pooja Bhatt and Poonam Pandey?
Also, the unabashed lady is all out with images of her, in the nude- shot during her shoot there. She calls it a liberating experience.
Well, way to go, we say!

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-814776

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 20, 2012 at 5:04pm

Here's a Reuters' story on underground parties in Pakistan:

Women in short skirts and men with gelled hair bump and grind on a dance floor as a disc jockey pumps up the volume. The air is thick with illicit smoke and shots of hard liquor are being passed around. Couples cuddle and kiss in a lounge.

This is not Saturday night at a club in New York, London or Paris. It is the secret side of Pakistan, a Muslim nation often described in the West as a land of bearded, Islamic hardmen and repressed, veiled women.

Pakistan was created out of Muslim-majority areas in colonial India 65 years ago, and for decades portrayed itself as a progressive Islamic nation. Starting in the 1980s, however, it has been drifting towards a more conservative interpretation of Islam that has reshaped the political landscape, fuelled militancy and cowed champions of tolerance into silence.

But the country remains home to a large wealthy and Westernized elite that, in private, lives very differently.

Every weekend, fashion designers, photographers, medical students and businessmen gather at dozens of parties in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore to push social boundaries in discreet surroundings that would horrify, and enrage, advocates of the stricter brand of Islam.

"This is just epic," said Numair Shahzada, bobbing his head to the beat at a party in a farmhouse outside Islamabad as fitness instructors moonlighting as bouncers looked on. "The light and smoke show is phenomenal."

Young men and women mix freely, dancing, talking or drinking. Some curl up together in quiet areas.

Although alcohol is prohibited in the country, many have brought their own liquor. Whisky is carried in paper bags and vodka is disguised in water bottles arranged along the dance floor.

The party-goers form only a tiny minority of the country's 180 million people, but overall, Pakistan is not repressive. Women can drive, are enrolled in universities and have played prominent roles in politics. Unmarried men and women can interact without risking the wrath of religious police.

People from its most populous province, Punjab, are renowned for their exuberance.

But a conservative form of Islam is chipping away at the tolerance.

A few hours drive from Islamabad's party circuit, parts of remote tribal regions have fallen under the sway of hardline Taliban militants, who dream of toppling the U.S.-backed government and creating a society where revelers would face flogging, or worse....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/20/us-pakistan-partying-idUS...

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 28, 2012 at 5:13pm

Here's NY Times on Pakistan unblocking YouTube:

Pakistan’s interior minister announced on Friday that the country plans to lift a ban on YouTube that was imposed in September, following violent protests over a crude anti-Islam film uploaded to the site by an Egyptian-American. The government acted to rescind the ban just hours after the star of one of the year’s most popular YouTube videos, a singing Pakistani fishmonger, was given a hero’s welcome upon his return to the city of Lahore from Britain.

The minister, Rehman Malik, revealed the news in a series of updates to his Twitter feed, in which he said that Pakistanis should be able to access the site within 24 hours and congratulated the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on finding ways to “block anti-Islamic material.”

Mr. Malik’s comments were published one day after the Pakistani star of the viral video was given an elaborate welcome in Lahore. According to a report in Friday’s edition of the Pakistani newspaper The Nation:

Hundreds showed up at Lahore airport to honor Muhammad Shahid Nazir, who scaled the British music charts with “One Pound Fish,” which he originally composed to entice shoppers at the East London market where he worked. The song became a YouTube hit after someone filmed Nazir singing it at the market and Warner Music signed him up for a record deal in the hope of getting the coveted Christmas-number-one spot in the charts.

Mr. Nazir owes his stardom to a freelance Web designer’s YouTube clip of the fishmonger singing his “One Pound Fish” tune at a market in London’s Upton Park in March. The video of that performance has been viewed more than seven million times.

Mr. Malik’s comments were published one day after the Pakistani star of the viral video was given an elaborate welcome in Lahore. According to a report in Friday’s edition of the Pakistani newspaper The Nation:

Hundreds showed up at Lahore airport to honor Muhammad Shahid Nazir, who scaled the British music charts with “One Pound Fish,” which he originally composed to entice shoppers at the East London market where he worked. The song became a YouTube hit after someone filmed Nazir singing it at the market and Warner Music signed him up for a record deal in the hope of getting the coveted Christmas-number-one spot in the charts.

Mr. Nazir owes his stardom to a freelance Web designer’s YouTube clip of the fishmonger singing his “One Pound Fish” tune at a market in London’s Upton Park in March. The video of that performance has been viewed more than seven million times.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/pakistan-to-lift-youtub...

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 10, 2016 at 10:13pm

#India has world's third highest Internet porn traffic after #US (no. 1), #UK (no. 2). #Pakistan not on the list http://www.businessinsider.in/Pornhub-came-out-with-its-2015-Year-i... …

Pornhub, every man (and a few women's) best friend is out with its annual review where it goes deep into the insights of how every country fared on the porn website.

The statistics are intriguing to say the least, proving that the world watched a lot of porn this year. Like a lot.

Take for instance the fact that approximately 4,392,486,580 hours of porn was watched on Pornhub in 2015 which is almost 2.5x longer than homo sapiens have been on the planet.

And, the most surprising bit? Turns out 'love' is the most used comment on their videos.

Someone call the irony police, we say.

The statistics get even more interesting when they analyze the trends from India.

For a start, India ranked 3 among Pornhub's top 20 countries when it came to traffic, surpassing Canada, Germany, France, Russia among other and losing out to big brothers United States and United Kingdom.

Secondly, on an average India lasted a whole minute longer this year than they did last year, coming to 9 minute 30 seconds and making it to rank 4. Philippines, United States and Australia outdid our country in this aspect.

Thirdly, when it came to searches, it was found that while 'the vast majority of top, gaining and relative searches contain 'indian,' search terms 'japanese' and 'indonesia' both made some impressive leaps to get into the top 10 list with 14 and 47 place jumps respectively'. 

However, the top three relative searches, i.e., searches exclusive to the country's users as compared to the world gave an accurate representation of the three priorities of every Indian man (in a particular order)- Indian Bhabhi, Indian Actress and finally an Indian Wife.

Guess, Make in India is really working then?

And, last but not the least, the most searched pornstar for Indians remains Sunny Leone, followed closely by Mia Khalifa.

Phew. No surprises there atleast.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 15, 2016 at 9:49am

#Pakistani who designed dresses for Angelina Jolie and Madonna sweeps an old house In #Ajmer. 


http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/01/14/yousuf-bashir-qureshi-ajm_n... … via @HuffPostIndia

Noted Pakistani designer and artist Yousuf Bashir Qureshi has fulfilled a promise he made to his mother, even if it meant taking a trip into the heart of Ajmer to first discover, and then sweep the floor of an old house quietly residing in Langar Khana.

Qureshi’s mother Abida Bashir had asked her son to fulfil her dream of finding her childhood home where she resided before migrating to her family to Pakistan in 1947, and clean it.

Making his debut trip to India, Qureshi managed to track down the house, and was overwhelmed by the memories that his mother had passed on to him come to life. “The moment I confirmed that is the native house of my mother’s family, I closed my eyes for a minute, recalling the childhood days that my four uncles and six aunts spent here,” Qureshi told ToI. He kissed the doorstep to his family’s past. “It was a very emotional moment… it was as if I was with my entire family as I went from one room to another.”

Qureshi spent two hours reminiscing in the home that has received a few modern makeovers, but retains a few elements of the past, including the fluting strains of qawwali from the dargah nearby. Just before he left –- accompanied with pictures of the old house from the present owner as a gift -- he swept a part of the building, to fulfil his promise to his mother.

A graduate from the University Of Nebraska in Food science, Qureshi has garbed celebrities such as Sheryl Crow, Angelina Jolie, and Denzel Washington, and Madonna, and is also an avid photographer and a gardener. Qureshi eventually returned to Pakistan in 2002 to start his label YBQ, that is based out of Karachi, that he runs alongside being a resident professor at Indus Valley School.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 13, 2016 at 10:30am

Banned in #Pakistan: A #Muslim #Porn Star’s Sexual Crusade http://thebea.st/1o8Ls18 via @thedailybeast


Pakistani-American adult film star Nadia Ali is famous for wearing a hijab in her porn films. She says she’s challenging how the veil suppresses women’s sexuality.
A woman enters. Donning a hijab, she prepares and serves dinner for her turbaned husband. She appears subservient, but when the man isn’t looking, swipes his car keys, slips on a pair of high heels, sneaks out the door of their posh mansion, and speeds off. When she returns, the enraged man grabs her by the neck and drags her into the house. She pleads with him not to use “the stones” to torture her, so he opts for beating her with a switch. The woman screams, “I’m sorry! I did something for you,” but he doesn’t relent. He begins to get aroused by the pain he’s inflicting, and before you know it, the veil is lifted and we’re in the midst of a full-fledged porn scene. 

Welcome to Women of the Middle East, a controversial adult film that comes with the tagline, “They may look suppressed, but given an opportunity to express themselves freely, their wild, untamable natural sexuality is released. This may just be what was in bin Laden’s porn collection, experience it for yourself.”
The veiled woman is played by Nadia Ali, a 24-year-old porn star and first-generation American from Pakistan. She’s been in the adult industry for just a year, but doesn’t mind pushing religious boundaries in the name of XXX entertainment. Oh, and she’s also a practicing Muslim.
Ali is often filmed wearing her hijab—and little else—while engaged in various hardcore sexual activities. Hijabs, or veils worn by many Muslim women to cover their bodies in the presence of males outside of their immediate family, are deeply rooted in Islamic culture and religion. Tied to the Quranic concept of female modesty, they’re also viewed by detractors as a way to subjugate and silence women. For Ali, donning a hijab in porn is empowerment. Determined to break down the barriers of this age-old taboo, she doesn’t think of her work as anti-hijab porn, but in a culture where it is conceivable for a cleric to ban women from touching bananas and cucumbers due to their phallic resemblance, she hopes to inspire change.


“I’ve been told, ‘you’re not a Muslim, you’re a disgrace to Pakistan, Pakistan won’t accept you,’ but I do come from a Middle Eastern background and I am Muslim, not the way my parents are, but by practice,” Ali tells the Daily Beast. “My sister covers her head, she’s modest, married, and has kids. My mom covers her head and prays five times a day, I pray two times a day but I’m still a practicing Muslim.”
According to Ali, one can be a practicing Muslim and a porn star. Aware of the potential conflict, she felt any consequences she might face over her choices would be worth it in the long-term. And since homosexuality is technically illegal in Pakistan, which is trying its damnedest to ban online porn altogether, she intends to film plenty of girl-on-girl action this year, too.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 13, 2017 at 10:41am

Rise of #Canada-born #SunnyLeone, massively popular #porn star and most-Googled person in #India. #Bollywood

http://theweek.com/articles/595515/bizarre-rise-massively-popular-p...


For four years in a row, the most Googled person in India has been Sunny Leone. Who? The daughter of Indian immigrants to Canada, Leone was a successful pornography star in America before returning to India to launch a movie career in Bollywood, where even kissing on screen is taboo. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi might win elections, he loses to Leone in Google searches. In 2014, the year Modi was elected in a landslide that effectively decimated the secular-socialist Congress Party that had dominated the country until then, he was second to Leone. And in 2015 he was a pathetic 10th.

India is a conservative society and Modi comes from a brand of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism that wants to stop India's drift toward the West and restore traditional standards of sexual modesty. Hindutva hotheads have been known to forcibly marry couples just for hanging out on Valentine's Day because romance before marriage, as far as they are concerned, is Western debauchery. Modi's health minister considers sex education in schools as an invitation to licentiousness and wants to replace it with mandatory yoga classes. So what is Leone doing in Modi's India?

However, to really understand India, the emerging nation, the better question might be: What is Modi doing in Leone's India?

The conventional explanation for the parallel popularity of Modi and Leone might be that India is a "land of contradictions": extreme poverty coexists with extreme wealth; extreme pacifism with extreme violence; extreme veneration of women with extreme disrespect. Hence, Modi, who seems never to have had sex with anyone (he left his wife without consummating his marriage and took a vow of celibacy that plays well with Indian voters), and Leone, who has made a career out of having sex on screen with everyone (men, women, and inanimate objects) are just another one of those Indian dualities. Modi appeals to the chastity-worshipping side of India and Leone the Kama Sutra-practicing side. They are India's yin and yang.

But this explanation misses the tectonic shifts reshaping India's cultural landscape.

All prudish societies typically have an underside that serves as a safety valve for pent up sexual tensions. But Leone is not merely the cyber equivalent of the red light districts of Victorian England — a taboo that libidinous Indian men secretly enjoy via a computer and an internet connection. To be sure, Indian men partake in their share of pornography (six of the world's top 10 cities for pornography downloads are in India), but Leone's appeal is not limited to them.

Her Indian movies, steamy B-grade blockbusters that push the limits of Bollywood (which itself pushes the limits of Indian prudery), are household favorites. Their song-and-dance routines are played at virtually every Indian wedding. In fact, Leone notes, she is "embraced with open arms" at private Indian events. Even wives and sisters eagerly pose with her for pictures. This is in sharp contrast to the Indian-Canadian community in her hometown of Sarnia, Ontario, which has ostracized Leone.

All of this would be less remarkable if Leone made some attempt to hide her past or apologize for it. But she doesn't. To the contrary, in her debut appearance on India's Bigg Boss, a popular reality-TV show, Leone, in a carefully orchestrated marketing move, told the entire country that she was an "adult film entertainer" in America. What's more, instead of saying she was forced into a tawdry career by economic necessity or family need, she nonchalantly asserted that this was her "choice" — meaning that of all her options for making a living, she chose monetizing her body. "I am good at turning a quarter into a dollar," she says.

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