Babar Azam can add a strong meme game along side his various cricketing qualifications. At the Pakistan V New Zealand ODI cricket match on Monday, we got a surprising but hilarious reaction from Babar Azam.
It soon launched a plethora of memes. We may disagree on cricket but we can all agree that the internet surely knows how to make us laugh.
The number of people participating in this year’s Hajj will return to pre-pandemic levels, Saudi Arabia’s ministry of Hajj has announced in a tweet
About 2.5 million pilgrims participated in the religious journey in 2019. To stop the spread of COVID-19 , numbers were significantly reduced for the following two years.
Prior to reopening its doors to one million international pilgrims in 2022, the kingdom only permitted small numbers of its citizens to perform Hajj in 2020 and 2021.
In 2022, nearly 900,000 pilgrims, including some 780,000 from abroad, were welcomed in the Kingdom.
Indian fantasy sports platform Dream 11 has adopted an interesting policy called the “Dream 11 Unplug” that will fine employees who disturb colleagues on holidays.
As per Indian media reports, the company will fine it’s employees PKR 272649.94 for violation of policy.
In a LinkedIn post, the company wrote: “At Dream11, we actually log off the ‘Dreamster’ who is unplugged, off from every possible Stadium communication platform, be it Slack, emails and even WhatsApp groups. We do this to ensure absolutely no one from the Dreamster’s work ecosystem can contact them while they are on their well-deserved break.”
The post said that allowing employees to cut off from all company systems and groups is one of the best perks. “We are not bothered with work calls, emails, messages, or even WhatsApp for seven days. This helps us spend some quality time doing what we love. And for me, it’s time to head to the mountains. I, for one, do not feel guilty about not having a sufficient network. It’s the most distinctive form of unplugging. This disconnected time also helps one rejuvenate, relax and come back feeling fresh, happy, and renewed energy to give one’s best performance,” a Dream 11 employee said.
During the first week of January 2023, Lahore police arrested 1,657 criminals in total.
Police detained 254 people on suspicion of possessing illegal weapons and displaying them and 97 people on charges of aerial firing.
62 people were detained by police on gambling-related offenses. Furthermore, the Lahore Police detained 227 individuals charged with major offenses within the first week of this year. During the first week of 2023, police made 227 proclaimed arrests.
86 target offenders, 110 court absconders, 117 POs, and 24 criminals in the A category were all apprehended by police.
Police detained 62 people for violating the kite-flying law. According to the National Action Plan, 114 people were detained under the Sound System Act, 115 under the Arms Act, 74 under the Security of Vulnerable Establishments Ordinance, 254 under the Tenancy Act, and one in a case involving hate speech.
A woman in Lahore was allegedly tortured and then murdered by her husband and in-laws, ARY has reported.
Details indicate that the event occurred in the Nishtar Colony area of Lahore, where a woman was allegedly tortured and killed by her husband and in-laws over a domestic quarrel.
The woman, who had been subjected to assault, was taken to a hospital where she passed away while receiving treatment, according to a statement from the police.
On the complaint of the victim’s brother, Nisar, a first information report (FIR) has been filed against the husband and in-laws.
The FIR claimed that after the torture, suspects Arshad, Ashraf, and Neelam administered poison to the woman.
Police are conducting raids to arrest all the accused involved.
The Directorate of Public Affairs and Hearing of Taliban Complaints in the Balkh province, Afghanistan, has announced that male doctors are no longer allowed to treat female patients.
According to Afghan newspaper Hasht-e-Subah, the Taliban also announced that working rooms for male and female healthcare workers should be seperated, and female patients should reach out to female health workers instead of male ones for their problems.
It further banned men from walking into the rooms of female patients.
The Taliban have placed a number of restrictions on women including a ban on education, barring them from attending high school or university in December of last year. In November, 2022, the Taliban had banned women from entering Kabul’s parks or funfairs.
A woman in Lahore was gang-raped after being lured for a job, ARY has reported. The culprits recorded videos of the immoral act to blackmail the victim.
Details indicate that a first information report (FIR) has been filed at the Gujjar Pura Police Station under the provisions of kidnapping and sexual assault.
The FIR has been registered on the complaint of the rape survivor.
The woman said in the FIR that the defendant, Khalil, had invited her to travel to Kot Khawaja Saeed Hospital for a meeting and had given her a job.
As soon as she arrived, the suspect led her to a house where he and two other accomplices forced her into a room and raped her on gun point.
In the FIR, the woman alleged that the suspect had also videotaped the immoral behaviour and had told her not to call the police.
The woman in the FIR said that Khalil, the prime suspect, befriended her on social media and introduced himself as the manager of a medicine company.
Police are investigating the case.
Saudi Arabia is set to amend its marriage law to allow Cristiano Ronaldo to live with his partner, Georgina Rodriguez without marriage, Spanish media has reported.
Saudi Arabia marriage law prohibits couples that are not married from living together . According to Daily Mail, Ronaldo is already living with his spouse and may not be sanctioned by laws.
”The Saudi Arabian authorities, today, do not interfere in this matter [in the case of foreigners], but the law continues to prohibit cohabitation outside of marriage,” wrote Daily mail while quoting a law practitioner.
The 37-year-old Portuguese forward joined Al-Nassr and became the highest paid footballer in December 2022 following a mutual termination of his contract with the Premier League side Manchester United.
In Pakistan, smoking contributes to around 166,000 deaths annually, of which 31,000 are caused by passive smoking.
The World Health Organization predicts that this figure won’t go down considerably in the upcoming years despite health warnings, quitting initiatives, and expanded tobacco control measures. These combustible cigarettes not only endanger the environment but also the human body.
The industry’s carbon footprint from the manufacture, processing, and transportation of tobacco is comparable to one-fifth of the CO2 produced by the commercial aircraft industry each year, according to the WHO study “Tobacco: Poisoning our world,” which furthers the effects of global warming.
According to Brecorder, the ultimate objective to completely remove the hazards of climate change, according to experts, is to stop smoking, but doing so can be challenging and come with a risk of relapse. Scientists across the world have been researching for years to develop possibly less dangerous substitutes that smokers can switch to as their initial step to stop smoking.
They said that countries like Japan, US, UK, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland took it upon themselves to lower these numbers and by legalizing and funding research towards HTPs and adopting Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) strategies. The results have been very promising as most of these countries saw a sharp decline in the number of smokers and the risks associated with it.
If anything exemplifies how deeply Pakistani culture vilifies and moral polices women, it is the pervasive rishta culture. Which is a process of the parents of a boy and rishta aunties going to houses where unmarried women are present, and evaluating them on how good of a chance they have for getting married.
The process is designed in a manner that closely resembles walking through a cattle market, where women line up obediently to be able to prove themselves as the perfect bride and housewife to the mother of the boy. She is endlessly interrogated about her looks, her posture, whether she is well educated or not, or if she plans on having a career after getting married, and so on. Nothing is spoken of whether the man is good enough for her, or will be able to provide and care for her for the rest of their lives. In the process, women are forced to internalize the message that their sole existence and expectations surrounding life should accommodate her future in-laws, rather than her own self. The rishta procedure involves being repeatedly humiliated and berated over minor things, and often leaves the woman feeling more over-burdened and mentally tortured over the expectations that she is suppose to completely serve her independence to cater to her family’s needs.
Twitter recently had a conversation when a user shared how the rishta culture can demoralize women by demanding them to serve their best selves, and then be out right rejected for it. Also how, the rishta culture breeds the patriarchal imbalance in prevalent in our society, turning women into submissive beings to cater to the men in their lives.
“This rishta culture in our society is so sick. A random khandan come to see a girl, make her feel uncomfortable with judgmental looks n questions. And then reject her for no valid reason, without even thinking that their munda has no aukaaat !!!!!”
Thus began a conversation with women sharing their own instances of being hounded and subjected to personal, invasive questions that demoralized their independence and mental health. How this woman on Twitter shared the way she was aggressively hounded by rishta aunties and made to feel inferior throughout the conversation
“Some aunties did the same to me. They liked me, talked to my family. They thought I am so dumb. When they talked to me, they were so rude and they were uncomfortable because I was opinionated. I was like I will cut you off. Hate such women and men too.
They just want a showpiece and they are not sure about what they want. It’s ok their loss. That girl should focus on her goals and herself. Live life to the fullest. Zindagi aik baar milti he. Women should not be ghulaam of other women or anyone.”
Other Twitter users have shared how the Pakistani rishta culture invades a woman’s personal space, and evaluate her over the most minor and irrelevant things, like how this user says an acquaintance was berated over having short hair.
“My hate for rishta culture increased tenfold today after I learnt that one of the rishta ladies asked a girl, “Baal khud chotay rakhay hein ya barhtay nahi hein?” How could someone be so small minded?”
Other women shared how women are subjected to consistent scrutiny and humiliation, even being berated over small things like glasses.
Women are not one dimensional objects on whom men and toxic aunties can project all of their insecurities and expectations on. It is no woman’s responsibility to cater to the men in her life, and it should never be drilled into her mind to revolve her life around them.