Articles
The Israelite Conquest of the Ancient Middle East
According to the Old Testament, God promised the Israelites the land between the Nile and the Euphrates. This land according to the Bible was inhabited by the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Moses...
A Note on Welfare Work by Akhtar Hameed Khan
Conventional Philanthropy: In Pakistan philanthropic intentions have usually flowed in two channels either the erection of subsidised superb institutions or the distribution of doles. While the utility of superb institutes and charitable doles cannot be...
Unfulfilled Mandate
The Charter of the United Nations was drafted and approved in 1945. Its stated objectives are to prevent war, forced occupation, and promote global justice. This vision is beautifully captured in a sculpture in the...
Post-Covid planning
Before the coronavirus arrived, the directions for the development of Karachi had already been set in keeping with neoliberal thinking. The city was going to be ‘gentrified’, which meant taking away space from the poor...
Union Councils
According to activists who have participated in coronavirus-related relief measures, a number of learnings have surfaced from their work and from that of the NGOs they have been associated with and from government efforts. One,...
The Coal Project
THARPARKAR is not like the Sahara Desert. In the valleys between its sand dunes there are millions of trees (that nature has created and sustained over centuries) and rain-fed agriculture. After the rains its rangeland,...
KCR Concerns
THE Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) is arguably the most important project in the pipeline since it connects the four areas where over 45 per cent of Karachi’s jobs are located with important low- and middle-income...
Karachi Diagnostic
PROJECTS supported by international loans have a poor history in Karachi. The process of setting up the project after negotiating the loan follows a familiar pattern. A posh project office is established, expensive cars and...
Ugly Karachi
KARACHI is becoming an increasingly anarchic, ugly and divided city — but is loved and glorified by its comparatively well-to-do citizens, public intellectuals and those in search of an identity. Loving Karachi is understandable but...
The Role of Architects in Society – An Interview with Archi Times
“I will not do projects that will irreparably damage the ecology and environment of the area in which they are located: I will not do projects that increase poverty, dislocate people and destroy the tangible...
Eclipse of Feudalism
WITHIN Pakistani intellectuals and academia, it is agreed that Pakistani society has changed. However, there is little articulation of the fundamental nature and processes of change and how public policy should address it. The most...
Road map needed
RESEARCH by the Urban Resource Centre Karachi has established that in the absence of a reasonable transport system a large percentage of women do not work, children often do not get to school, time and...
