Karachi News

Karachi  (kərä´chē) , city (1998 pop. 9,269,265), largest city and former capital of Pakistan, SE Pakistan, on the Arabian Sea near the Indus River delta. The capital of Sind prov., it is Pakistan's chief seaport and industrial center, a transportation, commercial, and financial hub, and a military headquarters. It has a large automobile assembly plant, an oil refinery, a steel mill, shipbuilding, railroad yards, jute and textile factories, printing and publishing plants, media and entertainment industries, food processing plants, and chemical and engineering works. Karachi airport is one of the busiest in Asia. Karachi has a university and other educational institutions; the national museum, with a fine archaeological collection; and the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan. An old settlement, Karachi was developed as a port and trading center by Hindu merchants in the early 18th cent. In 1843 it passed to the British, who made it the seat of the Sind ...

The Japanese method of mimicking nature, and growing forests in the heart of the city, is being picked up in Pakistan, India and elsewhere as a way to combat the rising heat that is strangling the residents of big cities As temperatures rise globally, and urbanisation pushes people into concretised spaces, cities are struggling to deal with the negative health impacts. These include not just increased discomfort and exhaustion but respiratory problems, headaches, heat stroke, and even heat-related mortality. The last is a fresh memory for the residents of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, due to the heatwave of 2015 which killed over 1,200 people. Rafi ul Haq, a member of the Horticultural Society of Pakistan, said that the vanished trees and vegetation have decreased evapotranspiration – or the “natural cooling effects of shading and evaporation of water from soil and leaves”. From drastic and more expensive steps like coating roads with ...

The 42-year-old Khan took over his father’s mochi business after the latter retired four years ago. PHOTO: SARAH FAZLI Karachi is home to the most diverse of populations across Pakistan. Muslims, non-Muslims, Shia, Sunni, Muhajir, Balochi, Sindhi, Pashtun, Kashmiri, and also many other minority groups; many a people have found home here. Some of them love Karachi, others hate it. But Karachi has embraced them all – giving them the freedom to be themselves. Some folks weave dreams during the day. Some have adopted a nocturnal lifestyle and work during the night. Some read Jane Austen, while some unfalteringly quote  Faiz Ahmad Faiz . Some revere and find solace in its shrines. And yet, others destroy the very sanctity of those shrines. Some try to restore its glory, while others try to slaughter this goose to steal all its golden eggs. All of this happens at once, and this diversity is what makes Karachi both beautiful and painful. Vibrant and colourful, yet...

MS Dhoni of India hits out during the third Royal London One-Day International between England and India at Headingley on July 17, 2018 in Leeds, England. PHOTO: GETTY He came, he saw, he conquered. These words are the very least one can associate with Mahendra Singh Dhoni  for his performance thus far in international cricket. By placing the ball behind the square through to the third man boundary for a single, he recently achieved the milestone of making  10,000 ODI runs . On July 14, 2018 at Lord’s, the home of cricket, he became only the 12 th  batsman in the history of ODI cricket to achieve this rare feat. MS Dhoni plays a shot during the second ODI against England at Lords in London on July 14, 2018. Photo: Reuters As a fan, there are several memories I associate with the accomplishments of this gentleman. From his early days as a boy from a small town, the passage he passed through and the circumstances he overcame to get to this point, it all ...

Karachi has a love-hate relationship with the monsoon season. While Karachiites long for rain throughout the year, we shudder at the very thought of prolonged downpour, flooding, destruction and power outages that are inevitably associated with it. The last time this city truly got to enjoy the rainy season was during Mustafa Kamal’s tenure, when despite drains heavily clogged with rainwater – especially the Gujjar Nala and Neher-e-Khayyam – alternate drainage arrangements were made and the citizens were spared the entire rain-related trauma. Things are much, much different now. With monsoon rains that are imminent and expected any day now, infrastructure that is crumbling, a mayor in office with plenty of excuses to not do enough for the relief of Karachiites, along with a lack of ownership by the citizens, the city will surely descend into utter chaos if it rains heavily. After all, the entire country witnessed the state of developed cities like Lahore and Islamabad during ...

Merely two days after a donkey was brutally beaten up during a political rally, another tortured and severely injured donkey has been handed over to animal rescue team Ayesha Chundrigar Foundation (ACF). “Another day, another story of abuse. We do not know if it was related to anything political...all we know is that it is unimaginably horrific abuse at the hands of our people,” the NGO wrote in a post on social media on Wednesday. “This donkey was reported to us from Gulshan-e-Iqbal… It appears he has been pelted and beaten on the head repeated by jagged edge objects or stones. His skull is completely visible, maggots have eaten all the flesh within it. His left eye has been gouged out,” the post read. “He was bleeding so profusely we had to let it flow into buckets. We ensured his bleeding has stopped, given pain killers, maggots removed and wound thoroughly cleaned.” The animal rescue team also shared images of the torture inflicted upon the donkey. “Whether political or ...