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The Express Tribune

Jinnah and the film industry

Taking a cue from a recently discovered letter penned by Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in which the Quaid expressed a desire to see more Pakistanis acting and producing films, Tughral Yamin opines that the letter couldn't have been discovered at a better time. "Pakistani film industry today is exemplified by mustachioed men with gandasas staring down plus-sized women as they dance. Cinemas themselves are dominated by Bollywood and Hollywood. The industry has been on the verge of demise ever since the separation of East Pakistan, and the advent of the VCR," she writes. "Quaid's letter could not have been uncovered at a more apt time. It shows the enthusiasm he possessed for films, that too at a time when the entire region was embroiled in a crisis much graver than cultivating a film industry," writes Yamin.

TIME

Rape in India: A result of sex selection?

In her column, Erika Christakis observes that the massive protests that Indian cities saw post the Delhi gang rape had a deeper story to tell: the preference for male babies in India and much of the world may be at the root of this senseless violence. "Growing evidence suggests that in countries like India and China, where the ratio of men to women is unnaturally high due to the selective abortion of female fetuses and neglect of girl children, the rates of violence towards women increase," she writes. "Alarmingly, the imbalanced sex ratios arising from what some have called "Gendercide" are wreaking havoc on the fabric of many growing societies, not just in Asia but in Eastern European countries such as Albania, Georgia and Armenia. Perhaps this reality will finally get the world's attention when the shortage of women worldwide has downstream economic, health, and security effects, and we realise that the missing girls are a devastating loss to us all," reads the article.

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