Actor Fahad Mustafa took to his Twitter handle to hit back at Danish Kaneria for his defamatory post about veteran cricketer Shahid Afridi. On December 24th, Afridi was named the interim chief selector of the Pakistani cricket team by the newly appointed PCB Chairman, Najam Sethi. His term is set to last until the end of the New Zealand series.
While reacting to the news, Danish posted an unpleasant picture of Afridi and made a jibe at Shahid’s selection. Fahad was quick to respond to his post, by saying that “And clearly he is not a fixer like you.”
A year ago, Fahad hit back at Indian cricket commentator Harsha Bhosle on Twitter after he targeted Waqar Younis for his religious statement.
Harsha tweeted, “For a person of Waqar Younis’ stature to say that watching Rizwan offering namaz in front of Hindus was very special to him, is one of the most disappointing things I have heard. A lot of us try hard to play such things down and talk up the sport and to hear this is terrible.”
Its equally hard to see muslims being portrayed as terrorists in almost every Bollywood movie for the longest.. I can’t imagine how difficult and embarrassing it must be for muslims in india to watch themselves being ridiculed like that.#stophypocrisyhttps://t.co/hr8mdQJ4ci
However, Mustafa took to Twitter and responded to the commentator, “It’s equally hard to see Muslims being portrayed as terrorists in almost every Bollywood movie for the longest. I can’t imagine how difficult and embarrassing it must be for Muslims in India to watch themselves being ridiculed like that.#stophypocrisy.”
This is @MazherArshad sahabs tweet im just a Pakistan cricket fan some one whatsapped me so felt proud and happy and shared it 🇵🇰 https://t.co/L0FUoIgdrC
According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, Moscow is ready to resume gas supplies to Europe via the Yamal-Europe Pipeline and can also send supplies to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the long term.
“The European market remains relevant, as the gas shortage persists, and we have every opportunity to resume supplies,” TASS cited Novak as saying in remarks published by the agency on Sunday.
“For example, the Yamal-Europe Pipeline, which was stopped for political reasons, remains unused.”
The Yamal-Europe Pipeline normally flows westward, but it has been mostly reversed since December 2021, when Poland chose to draw on stored gas in Germany rather than buy from Russia.
Warsaw canceled its arrangement with Russia in May, after previously rejecting Moscow’s demand that it pay in roubles.
Gazprom, Russia’s largest supplier, responded by cutting off supply and announcing that it would no longer be allowed to export gas through Poland after Moscow slapped sanctions on the company that operates the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe pipeline.
Novak also stated that Moscow is exploring increased gas deliveries via Turkey following the establishment of a hub there.
He also stated that by 2022, Moscow intends to have exported 21 billion cubic meters (bcm) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe.
“This year we were able to significantly increase LNG supplies to Europe,” Novak said. “In the 11 months of 2022, they increased to 19.4 bcm, by the end of the year 21 bcm are expected.”
Novak also stated, in a wide-ranging interview with the TASS news agency, that in the long run, Russia can provide natural gas to the markets of Afghanistan and Pakistan, either through Central Asian infrastructure or through an exchange from Iranian territory.
He also stated that Russia and Azerbaijan have agreed to enhance gas supplies for domestic usage.
“In the future, when they increase gas production, we will be able to discuss swaps,” he said.
Moscow is also discussing higher supplies of its gas to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, he said.
New York magazine cover story “The Year of the Nepo Baby” broke the internet, providing audiences with an in-depth investigation in to how nepotism thrives within Hollywood. The article explored how young stars with connections within the acting industry because of their famous parents or relatives, were able to quickly cement a career for themselves in comparison to anyone else with limited networking.
The article and it’s implications have now made its way to Pakistani Twitter, where one user decided to ask her followers about Pakistani entertainment figures who were able to break into the industry because of their familial connections. And the numbers are extraordinarily large.
We need to do a vulture inspired nepo chart for Pakistani celebrities too! To start off: Sethi siblings Shafi siblings Asim Azhar Danyal Zafar Ahad Raza Mir Azaan Sami Khan Haroon Kadwani Zaviyar Ejaz
Meesha Shafi and Faris Shafi are the children of veteran actress Saba Hameed. In February, Meesha defended her brother against academic Nida Kirmani’s complaints that he was an “elite rapper” by saying that both had been raised by a financially stressed single-mother, and had worked hard to arrive where they are now.
That’s a bit flat and problematic as a general perspective. Faris and I were raised by an extremely hard working, very financially stressed single mother. We do not come from money. Are you suggesting, just because she put her sweat and tears into
Asim Azhar is the son of veteran actress Gul-e-Rana and musician father , and had spoken in an interview with Dawn Images in 2018 about how nepotism allegations did not take account of how hard he had worked in order to establish his career:
. I have put in a lot of hard work into my career. For about three years, I was just spending money on music that I would put out on the net and earn nothing back from it. And yes, I managed to get popular with a niche, mostly female, crowd but there were many more people who hated me and they were very vocal about it.”
Singer Danyal Zafar is the brother of singer and actor Ali Zafar, and has also addressed nepotism privileges. In an interview withDawn Imagesin 2017, he stated that he had a different style from his brother, so he won’t be using his sibling for connections. “I just feel the shoes are not in the same spot. One thing that he made sure I knew was that my struggle and journey will be my own. I will use my own style to mark my own space in the industry,” Danyal had stated at the time.
Ahad Raza Mir, the son of famed veteran actor Asif Raza Mir, during a talk show with Anas Bukhash, pointed out that no one bats an eye on nepotism in fields like medicine or military, not in the same way everyone criticizes children of actors for following their parents footsteps. “I was doing well so people said it’s because I’m a star kid. But there are doctors whose kids are doctors, there are generations in the army and generations in politics, no one bats an eye. But as soon as there’s a child of an actor who starts doing well, everyone starts yelling ‘nepotism’,” he said of his critics.
Azaan Sami Khan is the son of acclaimed singer Adnan Sami Khan and famous actress Zeba Bakhtyar. The actor was accused of nepotism when he was cast for the Hum TV drama Ishq-e-Laa with Sajal Aly and Yumna Zaidi. However, the director of the series had addressed the controversy on an interview with Fuchsia magazine, and revealed that Azaan had been cast in the role only after he had passed a screen test.
Haroon Kadwani is the son of actor and founder of Pakistan’s leading production house, 7th Sky Entertainment, _. He was accused of nepotism after he was cast in the drama “Ruposh”. but he rejected these claims in an interview with Fuchsia Magazine, saying that being the child of a star parent means a lot of expectations are placed on you. “People think it is easy to be a star kid but instead it is very hard for me. Being a star kid has its pros and cons. My father can give me one or two roles but after that it depends on talent. If your audience accepts you then you don’t need to be afraid of anything. However, if you are not talented, your audience will reject you and you will surely be aware of it,” Haroon emphasized.
Soon other users began naming famous celebrities within the Pakistani entertainment industry who have benefited from having famous parents and connections in the industry.
Ammar Khan is the daughter of veteran actress Fariha Jabeen. The actress had been questioned about the existence of nepotism in the industry last month in an interview at the show “Hasna Mana Hai” and simply said she was not a by-product of nepotism.
Zara Noor Abbass is the daughter of powerhouse actor Asma Abbas and is the niece of superstar Bushra Ansari. In the show Time Out with Ahsan Khan, Abbas and her husband Asad Siddiqui discussed the topic of nepotism with the actress sharing that she had stopped asking her aunt from picking her up from school after realizing how famous she was:
“Bushra Ansari was always just my khala to me. It’s only when I grew up that I realized the level of her popularity and would ask her not to pick me up from school. That’s when I really understood,” she said.
Ushna Shah is the daughter of radio and television actress Ismat Tahira, and had previously addressed the pressence of nepotism and the casting couch in the entertainment industry in an interview with The News, stating that she saw a lot of girls exploited in the business. “It is not necessarily by the top level people but the lower tier that these girls have to go through to get to the meetings and auditions,” she revealed, then went on to detail the sexism that actresses have to deal with. “Men like to pass comments that at some point were considered funny by our society. But it is not funny anymore.”
Several musicians like Bilal Maqsood and Jaffer Ziadi also made an appearance on the list. Bilal Maqsood is the son of veteran television scriptwriter and presenter Anwar Maqsood, while Jaffer is the son of lehendary singer Nayyar Noor and actor Shehryar Zaidi.
Nepotism doesn’t define a person’s career as a whole as a Twitter user wrote in reply to the thread that people like Bilal Maqsood and the Shafi siblings had worked hard and created their own career without the press linking them to their famous parent. However, it is also a shocking fact how the demand for connections lead to adults from ordinary families to be pushed to the sides. Last year, it was actress Saba Bukhari who had shed light on the prevailing discrimination based on family background in the entertainment industry. In an interview with BBC Urdu, the actress revealed instances of bullying she had encountered from actresses who demanded that she leave acting because of her limited connections. “There are some actors who make film sets a quite difficult place. I remember this accomplished actress was sitting right in front of me and she began insulting my face, and complained ‘where do they even pick up these useless girls from’. She said it directly to my face that I should leave acting, because I will never be able to make it here,” Saba revealed.
Claim: A poster which stated that United Arab Emirates (UAE) has banned visas for people belonging to various cities in Pakistan, has gone viral on social media. Some media outlets have also reported the news.
The cities include Abbottabad, Attock, Bajaur Agency, Chakwal, Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan, Hangu, Hunza, Quetta, Kasur, Kohat, Kotli, Khushab, Khurrum Agency, Larkana, Mohmand Agency, Muzaffargarh, Nawabshah, Parachinar, Sahiwal, Sargodha, Sheikhupura, Skardu and Sukkur.
A warning on the poster stated, “Dont apply visa for a person who has been born in any of the above-mentioned cities, your visa will be rejected and the fee is non-refundable.”
Fact: Speaking to Geo News, Consulate General of the UAE Karachi Bakheet Ateeq Al Remeithi denied the news and termed it fake.
Remeithi said that Pakistani citizens can apply for a visit visa and visas of other categories.
He also revealed that he has issued visas to citizens born or residing in the aforementioned cities, from the Karachi consulate.
The consulate general also said that rumours like this are spread from time to time.
The Federal Government has launched an internship program for over 20,000 engineers across Pakistan, providing them with a monthly compensation of Rs. 40,000.
Speaking at the 56th Annual general meeting of Institution of Engineers Pakistan, the Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Ahsan Iqbal, revealed that the government is working on promoting the engineering sector of Pakistan.
Iqbal further stated that a budget amounting to Rs 6.5 billion has been approved for five universities, with the government also deciding to establish an institution bearing the name of the late nuclear scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Ahsan Iqbal had stated last month that over 20,000 scholarships would be offered to unemployed graduates in Pakistan, and under the Youth Development Initiatives program launched by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, these scholarships will be offered to students from remote parts of Pakistan.
Senators in the United States of America (USA) approved a sweeping annual spending package of $1.7 trillion, allocating $200 million for gender equality and strengthening democracy in Pakistan.
Ukraine has got the lion’s share, with $45 billion approved in a aid and reforms to election law.
It is to be noted that Pakistan’s allocation is under the US fund for gender equality, which is a 20-fold increase from the funds reserved in 2020.
In 2020, the US congress cleared $10m for addressing gender disparity and $15m for strengthening democracy in Pakistan. In 2000, Pakistan received $25 million for the same purpose.
The sweeping annual spending package was rubber-stamped by the House of Representatives.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoye said: “This bill is a critically important piece of legislation not only to keep our government funded, keep our people being served but also to show that the United States of America’s government works.”
A principal of a government school in India’s UP state has been booked for making students recite Allama Iqbal’s poem “Lab pe aati hai dua ban kay taamna meri”.
The principal Nahid Siddiqui was booked after a video of a student reciting the poem went viral on social media. The First Hand Information (FIR) alleged that a “religious prayer” was recited at the government school in a bid to convert the students.
The school principal has also been suspended by the Education Department. The School has 265 students enrolled in Classes 1 to 8.
Prominent Indian Journalist Rana Ayyub while sharing the screenshot of the news report wrote, “The principal was suspended for singing this song ‘Ho Mera Kaam Garibon Ki Himayat Karna Dardmando Se Zaifon Se Mohabbat Karna.’ Me, my siblings sang it. Your hate will kill you from within you bigots.”
Celebrity public news is an unnecessary but amusing part of our lives. We abhor it but we love the small distraction it provides us from our daily lives. We hear headlines about a celebrity getting married, getting engaged, or promoting some diet tea product and move on. But there are a few times when a celebrity begins trending not because of an announcement but also because of a disturbing rise of misogynist backlash that pales in comparison to how a male public figure would be dealt with. And we cannot ignore this trend and go about our day, because it reflects on how publicly, women are made to face the same kind of scrutiny and slut-shaming that men aren’t subjected to at all.
This morning, Reham Khan announced her marriage to 36-year-old Mirza Bilal Baig. Minutes later, the ex-television host was trending across platforms. There was a wave of posts congratulating the journalist and filmmaker and sending her warm wishes for her future. The feel-good factor was quickly overshadowed by a tsunami of trolls sending hateful comments trolling Khan for the 13 year age-gap in her marriage, calling her all sorts of slurs, assumptions that she is power-hungry and selfish for wanting to marry a younger man when she is in her forties.
Some of the comments, like this Bashir here, seems to assume Reham is a man-eater for marrying someone younger than her. Would he say the same for male politicians marrying and discarding their young wives as soon as they get bored?
Or like this man jumping in the bandwagon to accuse Reham of being a gold digger, marrying famous men to write explosive books about them. Sir jee, women don’t exist in boxes to depend on men in order to make their own fame. Reham Khan had a career before she married Imran Khan. She didn’t need him to make her place in the public sphere. No woman should be reduced to her personal connections, her hard work counting for naught.
If the men were not enough , a lot of women can’t find it in them to support another woman comfortably living her own life and doing whatever she wants. Like this one calling her ‘graceless’ and unwilling to settle down. Why should you put an age limit to settling down and getting married? Women don’t die after their forties. They cannot suddenly stop living life and exploring what they like. As far as Reham’s multiple marriages go, Islam has granted both men and women equal permission to marry or divorce, so she has not committed any crime.
As a popular feminist slogan goes: ‘Sexism is a social disease’. It reduces women down to mere objects, forces them to deal with the endless unsolicited comments from not only men in their lives, but outside their homes consistently. It demands them to keep moulding themselves according to what other people think of them, and never seek their own independence or choices. When the truth is: women don’t need to keep justifying their choices to others.
We saw this previously with Churails actress Yasra Rizvi, when she faced an endless amount of hateful comments calling her ‘gold digger’ and ‘power hungry’ when she married a man ten years younger than her. Last year after rumors spread of a split between the two, Rizvi uploaded a post of the couple reminding everyone that they chose to remain blissful about their union, despite what haters think.
Hopefully, with Reham Khan and other public figures finally putting the notion of settling in your 20s in its grave, our audiences, especially mard hazarat, can come to respect women as multi-facated beings who don’t need to get married at the age of 25 and give up on life. It’s necessary for women to realise that they don’t owe an explanation about their decisions to random men, and it doesn’t make them a failure if they choose to marry later in their lives.
We’ve seen the football and cricket world cups hosted in different countries around the world, and seen how the host would integrate their culture to bring a refreshing take. The internet went absolutely wild when Qatar topped the FIFA world cup ceremony by rewarding Messi with the bisht, a black cape that is given to Arab conquerers to symbolize them as revolutionary heroes.
One of the coldest photos you'll ever see. Emir of Qatar putting the bisht on Messi as if he has ascended to the football thorne winning a great battle. Just clear your mind and throw of your phobia. You'll see a picture worth thousand words. pic.twitter.com/5dgD5GaZP4
Amidst Shaniera Akram’s digital feud with actors Feroze Khan and Imran Ashraf, veteran actor Noor Bukhari slammed Shaniera for being nosy.
“Please ignore her she has commitments on every celebrity,” the former host penned on Instagram.
“She commented on one of my and Resham’s posts, and we completely ignored her. I don’t even know who she is.”
Bukhari then lent support to Imran Ashraf, who clarified his driving reel with son Roham, and added, “You don’t need to explain as every parent is aware of their child’s safety and well-being. More power to you. Stay blessed, we all pray for you and your family.”
Akram then took to her Instagram story and addressed Bukhari’s criticism. “Are you kidding me?” the activist wrote. “I never said anything to you, Noor other than disagreeing that Humayun Saeed was too old to play romantic heroes. Give me a break.”
Akram continued, “I’m sorry if it offended you or anyone else, but it kills me to see people, especially ones with big followings, doing dangerous things with their kids and then posting on social media. It’s just not okay with me.” In the next story, Akram wrote, “And please get over yourself. You know exactly who I am and what I stand for.”
Later, Bukhari apologised to Akram while agreeing with the latter about the kids’ safety issue. “You are absolutely right on the safety part of our kids,” she shared on her Instagram story. “I apologise that I misunderstood you. I feel no shame to apologise as my comment was not in good taste. I’m sorry.”
Surprised by Bukhari’s apology, Akram thanked her and shared, “Wow, thank you! Really didn’t expect that. At least this is cleared up and we can move forward.”
Earlier this year Akram come forward to share her thoughts on the ageist remarks made by Noor about Humayun Saeed.
“I don’t know about this. From my experience, I think many incredible love stories happen a lot in the second half of life,” said Shaniera Akram.
“So many people haven’t found their true love or are still looking for it. There are many unmarried, divorced [and] widowed people in the world — don’t rule them out. Theirs is the true story of finding love,” she wrote in her Instagram story.
Taking to the Instagram story section, Noor said that the storyline of London Nahi Jaunga is extremely weak. She also took a jab at Humayun, believing he should be doing more mature roles. Bukhari added that “Love doesn’t happen in this age.”
The much-anticipated Lollywood film was released on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha and its leading cast includes Humayun Saeed, Mehwish Hayat, Kubra Khan and Vasay Chaudhry.
