Category: Lifestyle

The lifestyle of millennials is underreported in our mainstream media. The Current’s lifestyle news covers social events and issues that are unique.

  • ‘Give me back my right to live,’ Indian Muslim woman Bilkis Bano fearful after release of 11 men who gang-raped her

    ‘Give me back my right to live,’ Indian Muslim woman Bilkis Bano fearful after release of 11 men who gang-raped her

    Bilkis Bano, an Indian Muslim woman who was gang-raped in the 2002 Gujarat riots, said that her peace has been taken away after the Gujarat government released her 11 rapists on Monday. Her rapists were released on August 15, i.e. Independence Day of India. They were convicted in 2008.

    https://twitter.com/Huda_asiana/status/1559476323852099584

    She has requested the government to reverse the decision.

    “How can justice for any woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land. I trusted the system, and I was learning slowly to live with my trauma. The release of these convicts has taken from me my peace and shaken my faith in justice,” said Bilkis in her statement.

    “My sorrow and my wavering faith are not for myself alone but for every woman who is struggling for justice in courts,” she added.

    “No one enquired about my safety and well-being, before taking such a big and unjust decision… Give me back my right to live without fear and in peace. Please ensure that my family and I are kept safe.”

    What happened with Bilkis Bano?

    At the age of 21, Bilkis Bano was five months pregnant when she was brutally gang-raped in 2002 in Gujarat.

    The 2002 Gujarata riots are considered one of the worst anti-Muslim riots in India that saw nearly 2,000 people — mostly Muslims — killed.

    On March 3, 2002, Bilkis and her family members were attacked by about 30 people armed with sickles, swords, and sticks. Among the attackers were the 11 accused men.

    Bilkis, her mother, and three other women were raped and brutally assaulted. Seven members of Bilkis Bano’s family, including her three-year-old daughter, were also murdered.

    Bilkis is now in her 40s.

  • Car drowned in Malir River recovered, seven people still missing

    Car drowned in Malir River recovered, seven people still missing

    A car drowned in the Malir River by a flash flood due to heavy rain in Sindh on Wednesday. Six members of a family and their driver were travelling to Hyderabad in the car.

    As per details, the Edhi team has recovered the car, but the seven people travelling in the car are still missing. There are flash floods in the Malir River due to the consistent heavy rain in Sindh.

    Read more– Schools and colleges to remain closed in Sindh today due to rain

    The Government of Sindh has announced a public holiday in Karachi and Hyderabad today (August 18, Thursday) due to heavy rainfall.

    The decision has been taken amid heavy rainfall in most parts of the province.

  • List of countries you can visit visa-free on your Pakistani passport

    List of countries you can visit visa-free on your Pakistani passport

    Pakistani passport currently ranks 109th according to Henley Passport Index 2022. Pakistani passport has consistently been in the bottom five during the past 10 years. Only Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan’s passports rank lower than Pakistani passports in 2022.

    However, having a Pakistani passport allows you free access to 10 countries and territories.

    Here is the list of countries you can visit without a visa:

    • Cook Islands
    • Micronesia
    • Niue
    • Vanuatu
    • Dominica
    • Haiti
    • Montserrat
    • St Vincent and the Grenadines
    • Trinidad
    • Tobago

    Read more–Pakistani passport fourth-worst in world, Japan, Singapore on top

    In addition to this, there are 23 other countries that allow visas on arrival for Pakistani passport holders. The list includes:

    • Palau Islands
    • Samoa
    • Tuvalu
    • Qatar
    • Cambodia
    • Maldives
    • Nepal
    • Timor-Leste
    • Burundi
    • Cape Verde Islands
    • Comoro Islands
    • Guinea-Bissau
    • Madagascar
    • Mauritania
    • Mozambique
    • Rwanda
    • Senegal
    • Seychelles
    • Sierra Leone
    • Somalia
    • Tanzania
    • Togo
    • Uganda
  • Schools and colleges to remain closed in Sindh today due to rain

    Schools and colleges to remain closed in Sindh today due to rain

    The Government of Sindh has announced a public holiday in Karachi and Hyderabad today (August 18, Thursday) due to heavy rainfall.

    The decision has been taken amid heavy rainfall in most parts of the province.

    The Board of Intermediate Education Karachi (BIEK) has also rescheduled its annual exams for August 18.

    In its latest forecast on torrential monsoon rains and urban flooding in Sindh and Balochistan, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) advised authorities to remain on high alert.

  • ‘Censored for being trans’: Transgender rights activist barred from speaking at an event

    ‘Censored for being trans’: Transgender rights activist barred from speaking at an event

    Transgender rights activist Mehrub Moiz Awan was barred from speaking at TEDx International School Lahore (ISL) after some parents of students at the school came forward to complain about a transgender rights activist being included in the panel.

    In a Twitter thread, Moiz wrote how the TEDx ISL admin informed her that she was being removed from the speaker’s panel because certain parents have stated that transgender individuals cannot speak to their children.

    “I was informed that I am being removed from the speaker’s panel because some parents have stated that they can’t allow transgender people to speak to their kids. This is the International School Lahore btw. No objections to the talk, no additional censorship, just flat-out refusal because ‘parents ko aitraaz hai k koi transgender talk day’ were their exact words. Verbatim. Is this even legal? And if it is, is this censorship?” wrote Moiz.

    Designer Maria B is also among those parents who complained about the activist being on the speaker’s panel.

    Twitter is condemning the removal of Mehrub Moiz from the speaker’s panel. In solidarity, some other panelists have also decided to boycott the event.

    Have a look at some of the reactions:

  • Women outperform men but 13% less likely to be promoted: Study

    Women outperform men but 13% less likely to be promoted: Study

    A study from MIT Sloan Associate Professor Danielle Li finds that female employees are less likely to be promoted than their male counterparts, despite outperforming them and being less likely to quit.

    In the paper, ’Potential’ and the Gender Promotion Gap, Li found that even though female employees received higher performance ratings than male employees, they still received 8.3 per cent lower ratings for potential than men. Results showed that women were 14 per cent less likely to be promoted than their male counterparts. The annual promotion rate is 1.64 percentage points lower for women, corresponding to a 13 per cent lower likelihood.

    Management-track of 30,000 employees at a large North American retail chain between February 2009 and October 2015 was studied. Women made up about 56 per cent of entry-level workers. Rising through the ranks, women made up 48 per cent of department managers, 35 per cent of store managers, and 14 per cent of district managers.

    The research found out that relative to men with the same scores for potential, women outperformed their previous year’s score. Yet they were still given lower potential ratings heading into the next year.

    “The result I found most depressing in the paper is the result in which women outperform their stated potential,” said Professor Danielle Li in an interview. “Women have to hit a higher threshold of future performance in order to justify the same potential score.”

  • Faisalabad torture case: Khadija denies reports of reconciliation

    Faisalabad torture case: Khadija denies reports of reconciliation

    Trigger warning: Violence

    Khadija, a female medical student who was subjected to torture in a viral video in Faisalabad, has denied reports of reconciliation with the main suspect, Sheikh Danish, and said she is still fighting the case against him and his family.

    “It is an old video,” she said while referring to a video in which she is apologising to Danish. She said that she was asked to make the video for some campaign.

    In addition, Khadija said that she needs support to fight her case against Danish.

    A video of a woman being subjected to torture in Faisalabad went viral on social media. A woman’s voice can be heard in the background as the girl is being tortured.

    As per the details, the girl being tortured in the video is a final-year BDS student. In her complaint, she alleged that Ana Ali, the daughter of the accused Danish Ali, had been a friend of hers since their school days and that she (the complainant) frequently visited her house

    The complainant claimed that during these visits, the accused Danish Ali became interested in her and even wrote her a formal proposal, which she declined.

    The complainant said that after she rejected the proposal, the accused began to put pressure on her through his daughter Ana Ali to change her mind and accept his proposal.

    The complainant claimed that the accused started sending her death threats. The complainant alleged that the accused Sheikh Danish Ali, his daughter and Faizan, Shoaib and Khan Muhammad barged into their house and then kidnapped her along with her brother and took them to their residence.

    “The accused tortured me and my brother and abused me in different ways and compelled me to lick their shoes. Later, accused Ana Ali and Maham made a video of me while cutting my hair with scissors on the instruction of accused Sheikh Danish and made the video viral on social media,” she added.

    Sheikh Danish Ali was also accused of attempting to rape her.
    Faisalabad Police have arrested six accused.

  • Attack on polio team: Two police officers martyred

    Attack on polio team: Two police officers martyred

    Two police officers were martyred in an armed attack on a polio squad in a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) district. Armed men opened fire on the polio team in Tank district.

    Constables Pir Rehman and Nisar were killed in the incident. They were both deputed on the security of the polio team.

    Following the incident, a contingent of police and security forces arrived in the area, collected evidence, and began the investigation by gathering eyewitness testimony.

    The current polio campaign will run until August 24.

    Earlier this year in June, one polio worker and three others were killed as a result of an attack on the polio team in North Waziristan.
    Pakistan has reported at least six cases of polio this year, As per the World Health Organisation (WHO), Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two polio-endemic nations in the world.

  • Did water come to earth by asteroids?

    Did water come to earth by asteroids?

    Water may have been brought to Earth by asteroids from the outer edges of the solar system.

    A report in Deccan Herald (DH) suggests that scientists said this after analysing rare samples collected on a six-year Japanese space mission. Researchers scrutinised material brought back to earth in 2020 from the asteroid Ryugu.

    The 5.4 grams (0.2 ounces) of rocks and dust were gathered by a Japanese space probe, called Hayabusa-2, that landed on the celestial body and fired an impactor into its surface.

    In a new paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, scientists said the Ryugu samples could give clues to the mystery of how oceans appeared on Earth billions of years ago.

    “Volatile and organic-rich C-type asteroids may have been one of the main sources of Earth’s water,” said a study by scientists from Japan and other countries.

    But the organic materials found “in Ryugu particles, identified in this study, probably represent one important source of volatiles”.

  • Foreign tourists allegedly harassed during Independence Day celebrations at Pakistan Monument

    Three foreigners, including two women and a man, were harassed by a mob in Shakarparian in Islamabad on Independence Day. In videos that have gone viral on social media, some men could be seen surrounding and harassing the tourists.

    According to the Islamabad Police, the incident took place at the Pakistan Monument.

    “No one complained to the administration present at the site of the incident,” the police said.

    The Islamabad Police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) and have sent the videos to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for the identification of the suspects.