Tag: books

  • Wondering what Imran Khan is doing in jail? His sister has all the updates

    Wondering what Imran Khan is doing in jail? His sister has all the updates

    Speaking to the media after paying a visit to Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan in Adiala Jail, Aleema Khan said her brother is doing just fine.

    “There is a glow on his face,” she said. “He has finished the Quran four times by now.”

    Aleema said Imran Khan has read a lot of books in jail and that he is “gaining a lot of knowledge”.

    When a reporter referred to the conflicting claims regarding Khan’s health and statements issued by his lawyers, Aleema laughingly said that there is no contradiction and it’s just that while losing weight and body fat is considered ‘healthy’, some people think it’s unhealthy and the other person has gotten ‘weak’.

    A reporter asked that his opponents are claiming Imran Khan is ‘breaking’, Aleema responded: “Go read up on hybrid warfare.”

    “You all are saying that Imran Khan has gotten weak, that’s not how it is.”

    “All prisoners are allowed to walk and exercise in prison according to international law. They thought that by disallowing him (Imran Khan) of these liberties, he would break.”

    She indirectly alluded to his opponents, saying that they should give up because Khan “will not break no matter how many false stories you publish”.

  • What will Imran Khan be reading in jail?

    What will Imran Khan be reading in jail?

    What will Imran Khan be reading in jail?

    On Wednesday, in a clip posted on X (formerly Twitter) Aleema Khan could be seen talking to the media, stating that her brother , former Prime Minister Imran Khan is doing well in Attock jail. Aleema Khan said that her brother told her that he has gotten time for himself after years. “He has started finishing the Quran for the second time and has also read Islamic history,” she said, adding that Imran Khan will adjust to any environment, no matter the conditions.

    Later in the day, Intazar Hissain Panjutha, Imran Khan’s lawyer, took to X, asking for book recommendations on the history of Pakistan, history of the region and current affairs.

    Today he posted a picture of the books being sent to Imran Khan for reading.

    So what is Khan reading?

    How Democracies Die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky
    Published in 2018, this book is on comparative politics about how elected leaders can gradually destabilise the democratic process to increase their power.

    Monsoon By Robert D. Kaplan
    It reflects upon the vitality of India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania for American power. Kaplan uncovers the effects of population growth, climate change, and extremist politics on the unstable region.

    People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
    Zinn presents a different side of history from the more conventional “fundamental nationalist glorification of country”, exposing the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that cater to a few elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.

    Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
    Diamond dismantles racially based theories of human history while discussing the way that the modern world came to be.

    World Order by Henry Kissinger
    The book escorts the reader through to the complex mechanisms that have governed international relations throughout history.

    Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam by A. Helwa
    Helwa uses references from the Quran, ancient mystical poetry, and stories of prophets and spiritual masters to help one grow spiritually and strengthen connection with God.

    The Narrow Corridor by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
    The writers contend that a country’s rise and fall is dependent on culture, geography, or chance, but on the power of their institutions.

    Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare by Thomas Rid
    A history of disinformation which tracks the increase in secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet trolls.

    The Revenge of Geography by Robert D. Kaplan
    Another book by Kaplan in the list. This one explores the role geography and the national borders play in world conflicts.

    Indus Divided by Daniel Haines
    Indus Divided talks about the significance of the Indus Basin river system for Indian and Pakistan and the dispute between the two countries after the partition in 1947.

    Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River by Alice Albinia
    It is part-memoir, part-essay in which the writer reiterates her journey through Central and Southern Asia.

    The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics by Andrew Small
    The book explores the outcome of Sino-Pakistani ties for the West, India, Afghanistan, and for Asia, overall. It highlights the sensitive facets of their relationship including Beijing’s support for Pakistan’s nuclear program, China’s dealings with the Taliban, and the Chinese military’s planning for crises in Pakistan.

    Balthasar’s Odyssey by Amin Maalouf
    It is a novel revolving around a quest to find a book supposedly published during the days of the Ottoman Empire.

    The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman
    The writer predicts the future wars — why and where will they happen and how they will be fought; who will acquire economic and political power and who will lose; and how new technologies and cultural trends will change the way we live in the new century.

    As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam by Annemarie Schimmel
    It is a story of Islamic poetry that covers the ambit of traditions and cultures, from Arabic religious verse to the Persian Sufis and the popular folk poetry of India and Pakistan.

    Adrift: How Our World Lost Its Way by Amin Maalouf
    The book traces how civilizations have divided throughout the 20th century, combining personal narrative and historical analysis to caution in regard to the future.

  • Malala working on her ‘most personal book yet’

    Malala working on her ‘most personal book yet’

    Nobel laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai has revealed that she is in the process of writing her next book, emphasizing that it will be her most intimate and personal work to date.

    In a social media post on Monday, she expressed her excitement about the book.

    “I am overjoyed to announce that I am working on my next book! The last few years of my life have been marked by extraordinary transformation — finding independence, partnership and, ultimately, myself. This will be my most personal book yet and I can’t wait for you to read it,” wrote Malala in the caption of the post.

    “This October will be a decade since ‘I Am Malala’ was published, shortly after my 16th birthday. I am excited to share what has happened since and take the next step in my journey with the incredible teams at @atriabooks in the U.S., @wnbooks in the U.K. and more countries coming soon,” she added.

  • President Alvi shares list of 10 must-read books

    President Alvi shares list of 10 must-read books

    Dr Arif Alvi, the President of Pakistan, has shared a list of his favourite books for readers.
    In a 31-minute-long video, President Alvi listed his top must-read books and encouraged the youth to study them too.

    Check out President Alvi’s recommendations below:

    • The End of History and the Last Man
    • The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
    • Journey into Europe
    • The Islamic Enlightenment: The modern struggle between faith and reason
    • Humane: How United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War
    • Three Presidents and an Aide: Life, Power & Politics
    • Think Again
    • Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality
    • The Illustrated Rumi: A Treasury of Wisdom from the Poet of The Soul
    • Sukhn-e-Iftikhar | سخن افتخار
  • Words ‘markup’ and ‘interest’ to be taken out of Math books

    Words ‘markup’ and ‘interest’ to be taken out of Math books

    The Textbook Publishers Association (TPA) on Thursday demanded the government to direct the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) to issue them no objection certificate (NOC) and withdraw the “heavy fee” for publishing textbooks under the Single National Curriculum (SNC), claiming it will push the book prices up further.

    TPA President Fawaz Niaz said PCTB had imposed a heavy fee for reviewing textbooks published under the SNC that would result in increasing the books cost up to 300 per cent, according to a report published in Dawn.

    “The publishers will pay Rs45,000 to the Mutahidda Ulema Board (MUB), Rs80,000 to external review committees, and Rs15,000 to the PCTB for issuance of the NOC,” said Fawaz.

    Fawaz said the PCTB had also formed a committee of the MUB to review every book, including those of science and mathematics.

    “The members of the MUB committee have issued a direction that the words ‘interest’, ‘markup’ be eliminated from the mathematics textbooks,” Niaz said.

    Niaz also said some of the religious scholars, who were members of the committee, also directed the publishers not to print any sketches or diagrams in the biology textbooks showing human figures.

    Questioning separate mechanisms in the provinces for introduction of the new curriculum, he mentioned there would be no SNC in Sindh and Balochistan, while in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the NOC from the MUB was not required, as the job of monitoring the syllabus from Islamic perspective was assigned to subject specialists, unlike Punjab.

  • Bride in Mardan asks for Rs 100,000 worth of books as ‘Haq Mehr’

    Bride in Mardan asks for Rs 100,000 worth of books as ‘Haq Mehr’

    A bride in Mardan has asked her husband to give her Rs 100,000 worth of books as Haq Mehr.

    According to details, Naila Shamal Safi is a writer and says that she wanted books to highlight their importance in our daily lives. Naila is a resident of Tangi area of ​​North Safi Charsadda while her husband Dr Sajjad Jwandun is a resident of Bhai Khan area of ​​Mardan. Dr Jwandun has completed his Ph.D in Pashto while Naila is currently pursuing her Ph.D.

    https://twitter.com/syedazmatjmc/status/1371132721687322626?s=20

    Haq Mehr is the obligatory gift or dower given to the wife by the husband at the time of nikkah.

    Talking to BBC Urdu, Dr Sajjad said that he was happy to hear about his fiancee’s demand and hopes that this step will pave the way to end the practice of asking a big amount in Haq Mahr.

    “In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, boys are often asked for Rs 10 to 20 lacs in Haq Mehr, while different demands are made for dowry,” said Dr Sajjad, adding: “People criticise when the first step is taken against the norm but our work is appreciated by all so far and I think the world has come a long way so we must move forward.”

    Naila said that she is now in a relationship with not only her husband but also with the books.

    “I have a lot of books in my bedroom and other rooms in my house. We have put some books in the cupboards but many are still in cartons. I will set those up after my wedding rituals,” she shared.

  • President Alvi shares his list of 10 must-read books

    President Alvi shares his list of 10 must-read books

    After Prime Minister Imran Khan’s monthly book recommendations, President Dr Arif Alvi has shared a list of his favourite books.

    Read more – Duchess of Cornwall shares a list of her favourite books

    In a 14-minute-long video shot inside President House’s library, President Alvi listed his top must-read books and encouraged the youth to read them.

    “I want the interest of book reading to stay alive in Pakistan,” says President Alvi in the video.

    Check out President Alvi’s recommendations below:

    1. Revelation: The Story of Muhammad (Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him) by Meraj Mohiuddin

    2. Capital & Ideology by Thomas Piketty

    3. The Anarchy by William Dalrymple

    4. Upheaval (How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change) by Jared Diamond

    5. Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

    6. The Metric Society by Steffen Mau

    7. The Big Picture by Sean Carroll

    8. Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark

    9. Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom

    10. The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

    Later, President Alvi’s son Awab Alvi shared that the president makes a conscious effort to include reading in his daily routine.

  • Punjab Textbook Board MD says hacker liked porn video from his Twitter

    Punjab Textbook Board MD says hacker liked porn video from his Twitter

    The chief of Punjab’s books and curriculum regulatory authority refuted accusations of inappropriate online activity and called it “a social media hack”.

    As per reports, Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) Managing Director Rai Manzoor Hussain Nasir took to Twitter to clarify the allegations made regarding inappropriate online activity. He issued a statement in which he said he fired at least 10 employees that were involved in “corruption” and “security breaches on my personal Twitter account”.

    Nasir said he was “accused of liking an immoral picture on Twitter and also of making inappropriate comments on photographs” after he banned at least 100 books on July 23.

    “I deny these allegations emphatically and maintain that I have been the victim of a social media hack. I am making every effort to secure my social media accounts going forward,” he added.

    He said that the PCTB under him had formed 30 committees to review a wide range of books.

    “The 100 books that have been banned contain blasphemous, objectionable content that is anti-Pakistan,” Nasir said, adding that the publishers of those books did not have the required No Objection Certificate (NOC).

    “Also during the past few days, I have dismissed 10 staff members in my office who had been involved in corruption,” he stated, adding that he shared the update as he believed it “to be connected to security breaches on my personal Twitter account”.

    Referring to the online activity on his Twitter account as an “obvious attempt at character assassination”, he said he would continue to lead the PCTB tasks responsibly.

    Last week, Rai Manzoor Hussain faced criticism for ‘liking’ a pornographic video on Twitter after the decision of PCTB of banning 100 books for containing ‘anti-national’ and ‘blasphemous’ content.

  • Banning books

    Banning books

    German poet Heinrich Heine once warned, “Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.”

    In Pakistan’s case, we may not be burning books, but we are banning them. From banning online apps to games, from media censorship to censoring books, Pakistan is on a downward spiral. According to Geo, the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) banned a hundred school books in a single day for containing content deemed “anti-national” and “blasphemous”.

    “We are currently examining over 10,000 books being taught in private schools,” said PCTB Managing Director Rai Manzoor Hussain Nasir. “So the banned textbooks could be in thousands once we are done.”

    Rai is taking these steps under the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board Act, 2015, which was passed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government. It seems that both the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the PML-N do not value critical thinking and fundamental freedom.

    This policy is a complete disaster. We saw what happened under the Zia regime back in the 1980s when our curriculum was infused with extremist ideology. It changed our society and led to intolerance. Now we are seeing a repetition of something along the same lines. Rai Manzoor has a problem with a book of mathematics where counting concepts were explained to the young students showing pictures of pigs. He also has a problem with Gandhi’s quotes being taught in another book. Gandhi was India’s founding father but he fought for the rights of Muslims in India and was consequently killed by an RSS extremist for propagating peaceful co-existence with the Muslim minority. Are we demonising someone just because we want to see him from the prism of animosity towards India?

    If we want to keep our children isolated in a globalised world by teaching them only about ourselves, and not any non-Pakistanis, the solution was not to ban books with Gandhi’s quotes but probably to add more quotes from Pakistani historical figures. Do we not want to teach our children about the struggles of Nelson Mandela, who is quite often quoted by Prime Minister Imran Khan? Banning books or taking out quotes of non-Pakistanis is ridiculous at best and dangerous in the long term. The path we are taking today will impact our coming generations.

    The power of deciding curriculum and books is a grave power. For it to be in the hands of someone who is no Chomsky or any other learned figure, we must raise our voice at this grave injustice that is being inflicted upon our future generations. Our national interests are not so weak that they will be endangered by some quotes from non-Pakistanis. But it seems that we want to ban critical thinking. We want to ban the foundation of learning, i.e. asking questions and being inquisitive. We want to produce robots instead of intelligent human beings. We must resist this type of indoctrination. Closed minds cannot lead this country to progress. Stifling freedom of expression and censoring books will push Pakistan back by decades. Let us not go down this dark path. 

  • Official, who banned books in Punjab over ‘blasphemous and anti-Pakistan’ content, is a ‘pervert and misogynist’

    Official, who banned books in Punjab over ‘blasphemous and anti-Pakistan’ content, is a ‘pervert and misogynist’

    Punjab Curriculum & Textbook Board (PCTB) Managing Director (MD) Rai Manzoor Hussain Nasir, who had on Thursday banned 100 books being taught in private schools for carrying “blasphemous and anti-Pakistan” content, has come under fire for being what Twitterati call is a “pervert and misogynist”.

    BOOKS BAN:

    Addressing a press conference, Nasir said that the PCTB had started critical review of 10,000 books being taught by private schools across the province and in the first phase had banned 100 books of 31 publishers including Oxford and Cambridge for blasphemous, immoral and anti-Pakistan content.

    The PCTB MD said that the board had formed 30 committees for this purpose. He said it was sad that nobody checked these books earlier and had no idea what was being taught to our kids in private schools against hefty fees. He said the banned books had distorted facts about Pakistan and its creation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Muhammad Iqbal while these books also carried blasphemous content. He said Pakistan was portrayed as an inferior country to India while Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) was also shown as part of India in maps in some of these books.

    Rai Manzoor Nasir said that instead of including sayings of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Muhammad Iqbal, etc. one of the books carried sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and some unknown people. He said in a book of Mathematics counting concepts were made explained to the young students showing pictures of pigs. He said one of the books by Cambridge tried to promote crime and violence among the students on the basis of unemployment in the country.

    The PCTB MD said that these 100 books had been immediately banned and the publishers had been directed to immediately stop publishing and selling the books. He said District Education Authorities (DEAs) across Punjab will visit private schools (after reopening of schools) to check if these books were still being taught. He said FIRs would be registered against the publishers for violation under the provisions of the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board Act 2015.

    ‘PERVERT AND MISOGYNIST’:

    Already under fire for what was criticised as a move to “crackdown on the future of children by banning books”, things took an uglier turn for the PCTB MD as Twitterati called him out over “hypocrisy” and being a “pervert and misogynist”.

    Besides calling him out for liking porn videos on Twitter, netizens also highlighted that Nasir was involved in moral policing over the social networking site.

    He was also criticised for being a racist and tweeting against Afghan refugees.

    Have something to add to the story? Let The Current know in the comments below.