Afridi’s googly and CII’s no ball

Posted on March 14, 2014 by beenasarwar

Afridi kitchenUpdated version of my PERSONAL POLITICAL column published in The News op-ed and TOI blogs on Friday

Beena Sarwar

Shahid Afridi’s googly lobbed at women’s cricket in Pakistan in an interview, dismissing women as just good cooks, went viral on social media over the past few days.

And recently, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) decreed that Pakistani laws that prohibit under-age marriage and place conditions on a married man’s attempts to take another wife are ‘un-Islamic’.

Ostensibly very different, both stem from the same patriarchal mind-set that sees women as inferior to men, justifying itself by invoking religion or cultural traditions. Continue reading →

Filed under: Gender | Tagged: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

India, Pakistan: Cross-border cooperation against polio. “Failure is not an option”

Posted on June 15, 2013 by beenasarwar
‘Bowl out polio’: Pakistani cricketers Younis Khan and Imran Farhat give polio drops to a child at a UNICEF event in New Delhi, Jan 2013. Photo: PTI

‘Bowl out polio’: Pakistani cricketers Younis Khan and Imran Farhat give polio drops to a child at a UNICEF event in New Delhi, Jan 2013. Photo: PTI

Here’s something I wrote for Aman ki Asha recently, published in the June 5, 2013 edition:

India and Pakistan are working together against a common enemy. Pakistan’s new government must take up the baton

By Beena Sarwar

Over the past year, Pakistan has been studying how India dramatically eradicated polio, with the World Health Organisation striking it off its list of polio endemic countries in February 2012; the last case was recorded in January 2011. Continue reading →

Filed under: Health, Pakistan-India | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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