Bollywood movie revenue suffered 12% drop in 2016 to $338 million, the sharpest decline ever, according to Reuters news agency. Meanwhile, the global movie revenue rose just 1% to a record $38.6 billion last year, according to a report by Motion Pictures Association of America.…

Why was Mashaal Khan, an Abdul Wali Khan University student, killed by a mob of his fellow students in Mardan? What does this lynching incident say about Pakistani state and society? Is it a failure of the state? Or is it a symptom of a larger societal problem in the country? Do extreme right-wing politicians, media, judges and bureaucrats share responsibility for this ongoing madness of vigilante justice…

Washington D.C. based AI technology firm Afiniti, founded by serial Pakistani-American entrepreneur Zia Chishti, has filed for initial public offering (IPO) at $1.6 billion valuation, according to VentureBeat.

Zia Chishti founded his first company Align Technology in 1997 in …

Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 and survived to tell her story, has become a household name in the West. She and her family have found a new home in Birmingham, England.

She has been honored with some of the highest international awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Last week, Malala was named the youngest ever UN Messenger of Peace, with a special focus on girls'…

Pakistan's KSE-100 continues to offer attractive valuations for investors in 2017.  Its equities are trading at a forward price-earnings ratio of just 9.1, according to Pakistani brokerage firm Arif Habib Limited.

Pakistani shares are on offer at a deep discount to the Indian shares trading at 17.3 price-earnings multiple. While India's stock market is among the world's most expensive, the Pakistani…

A 3-person team of Pakistani students, including a female student from Islamabad's National University of Science and Technology (NUST), won first place in a contest organized by Stanford Center of Longevity. The team's entry is a device they designed and prototyped that enables tremor patients to perform daily routine tasks.

The Purpose: 

The purpose of the contest is to encourage innovation to help improve the quality of life of aging populations in the…

Consumer confidence index in Pakistan jumped five point from the prior quarter to reach 106 in Q4/2016, according to Nielsen’s global survey of consumer confidence for 63 countries released recently.…

A segment of CBS 60 Minutes, top rated American newsmagazine on television, has recently brought sharp focus on H1B visa abuse. It alleges that the H1B visas are being misused by Indian body shops to bring low-cost Indian software engineers to the United States to replace higher-paid American…

World Happiness Report 2017 ranks Pakistan (score 5.269) at 80, well ahead of the rest of South Asia.

The latest world happiness report released on March 20, 2017 ranks Bhutan (score 5.011) at 97, Nepal (4.962) at 99, Bangladesh (4.608) at 110, Sri Lanka (4.44) at 120, India (4.315) at 122 and Afghanistan (3.794) at 141 among…

How does President Trump's latest travel ban on citizens of 6 Muslim nations differ from his earlier executive order blocked by courts? Will the new order face similar block? What is the economic impact of Trump's travel ban on US travel and tourism industry? Will it lead to increased trade deficit and job…

Recent reports of Russian hacks of the American Democratic Party's election campaign staff to influence the outcome of US elections have brought international cyber espionage in sharp focus once again. How many nations have such capabilities? What are their names? Are India and Pakistan among them?…

A Transparency International (TI) study of 16 Asian countries, including India and Pakistan, has found that India has the highest bribery rate.  69% of survey respondents in India said they have paid a bribe, given a gift or done a favor to receive government services like education and health care. Vietnam follows with…

U.S. President Donald Trump's revised travel ban on citizens of six Muslim-majority countries will not reduce its impact on tourism, according to Taleb Rifai,  the head of UN World Tourism Organization. "People don't go to places where…