Havelian aur Hava: On Architecture and Air Pollution

How Karachi's architecture became environmentally unsustainable.
By sarah shamim |

Anti-Ahmadi hashtags: Initiated by Jamiat Ulema Islam, supported by all

The hashtags #AhmadisAreNotMuslims and #Expose_Qadyani_ProMinisters may have been started by JUI activists, but their popularity amongst users across the political spectrum reflects the strength of anti-Ahmadi hatred in Pakistan.
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#SackShireenMazari

We analyzed a network of Twitter accounts targeting Pakistan’s Minister of Human Rights.
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Trend of over 99,000 tweets appears to have been manufactured by TLP

#WeStandWith_MuftiMuneeb: An organic Twitter hashtag or a creation of coordinated TLP support? We analysed twitter data to find out.
By |

Is piddarshahi a feminine noun?

On sisterhood, solidarity and the sacrifices made to organise and attend Aurat March
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Apocalypse babies

On the anxieties of motherhood during the Anthropocene
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Comrade: A lament, a love letter

What does it mean to be a comrade today? What unfulfilled desire, what future promise, does it hold?
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Does your pichal pairi have a guitar-slinging boyfriend?

On the possibilities inherent in Pakistani speculative fiction
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Where are students supposed to live?

Last year’s CDA action against hostels exposed a paradox: Education is a priority. But are students?
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What makes a story true?

A Sundance film imagines conversations between a ship berthed at Gadani and the labourers who come to break it
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Is abortion legal in Pakistan?

Lack of clarity has made life difficult—and dangerous—for millions of women
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City of slights

More and more people are living independently in Karachi, by choice or by circumstance. What problems do they face?
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Why is it so difficult to talk about female genital cutting in Pakistan?

Reticence, resistance and intimations of a reckoning
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ایمپریس مارکیٹ کے متاثرین کا کیا بنا؟

گیارہ نومبر 2018 کو ایمپریس مارکیٹ پہ ہونے والی انسدادِ تجاوزات مہم نے کم از کم تین ہزار پھیری والوں کو متاثر کیا
By and |

Afterlives of the Empress

It took one day to evict informal vendors from Empress Market. It has taken a year—and counting—for them to rebuild their lives.  
By and |

She had a child through a sperm donor. Nadra refuses to recognise it.

A non-traditional family's looming collision with the patrilineal Pakistani state
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Sued for saying #MeToo

Criminal defamation lawsuits are rising at an alarming rate in Pakistan. What happens when you’re served?
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#MeToo and the media: Mistakes we know we are making

In light of the rape allegations against the CEO of Dawn, we asked journalists how we can better report on ourselves and each other.
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A moon in your name

On Kashmir, poetry and hierarchies of resistance
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Indigenous iterations of azaadi in Kashmir

Tracing the life and legacy of Maqbool Bhat
By |

Alchemy in a Pakistani classroom

As authoritarian and neoliberal logics undermine universities, students remain their saving grace.
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A note from the editor

(Re)introducing Soch Writing
By |

A Web of Disinformation

How is a Brussels-based group managed by Indian stakeholders influencing narratives about Kashmir?
By |

Something stinks in the Capital

Will Islamabad's single-use plastic ban help control the city's sprawling landfill sites?
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Silencing Kashmir

Social media platforms are silencing dissenting Kashmiri voices. Soch investigates how, and why.
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Karachi’s Missing Children

Why are rising rates of infanticide not a pressing issue for Karachi's police?
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Marching for Water

Hundreds of people from the Indus delta region marched 140 km in July this year. Their demand was simple: Water.
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One Khokha, One Thousand Lives

Why then is the CDA so adamant to shut down Islamabad's khokhas?
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The Kashmir Dispute – A Timeline

India and Pakistan have been locked in a territorial dispute over Kashmir since 1947. This timeline charts the history of the region and the conflict
By and |

India Scraps Kashmir’s Special Status Amid Statewide Crackdown

Indian has revoked Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special autonomy to Kashmir. What does this mean for Jammu & Kashmir?
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Promising Sex, Delivering Adverts

How are an entrepreneur from Sargodha, developers from India, sexual frustration, cybersex pages, advertising revenue and an impersonation scam related to each other?
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Bad Doctors by the Dozen

There are over 600,000 non-registered medical practitioners in the country. They are distributing ‘medicines’ to patients without being answerable to anyone.
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“I am part of you”

Jalila Haider is here to stay, to challenge the present order, and rebuild the future for her community. In these pursuits, she is relentless.
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Silencing journalists, one tweet at a time

Who began #ArrestAntiPakJournalists on Twitter? What did they hope to achieve?
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What the Jharu Embodies

If the forced identity of Pakistani Christians has become sanitation workers, then the symbol most commonly associated with them is the jharu.
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A Culture of Rape

Rape culture in Pakistan is the embodiment of a constant power struggle; one that is carefully nurtured and disdainfully disregards that female wounds are deeper than male ‘desires’.
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Last man standing: Hammad Azhar

Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar has the unenviable job of guiding Pakistan’s tax policy; Soch sat down with him to learn more about revenue collection going forward.
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Quetta’s Missing, Dying, Dead, and those Left Behind

Communities in Balochistan have been protesting for over a decade. Can anyone hear them?
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Maybe think again about fasting while pregnant

About 75 per cent of all pregnancies overlap with Ramzan in any given year.
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Can the Pakistani job market afford graduates?

After a lifetime of investment, can most graduates today afford basic expenses such as rent, transport and food?
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“Many accounts on Twitter are created for propaganda”

Rizwan Saeed, an online big data researcher, talks to Soch about his frustration with ‘propaganda fake accounts.'
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What Digital Media ‘Gets Away’ With

Whether its reports about aliens or sex, why is it that digital media appears keener to take risks than print media?
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Smartphones and the fight against sexual harassment

The smartphone’s role as a whistle-blower on society is probably least available to those experiencing the heaviest brunt of social injustices.
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Facebook and fifth generation warfare

Fifth generation warfare was popularised by Major General Asif Ghafoor. There are very few mentions of it online.
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The truth behind India’s airstrikes in Balakot

Nine days after the Balakot airstrike, Soch visited the bomb site to explore what happened first-hand.
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The tragedy of Lahore’s Orange Line

The Orange Line Metro Train is slated to launch by June 2019. This correspondent visited the affected sites in January 2018 to assess the heritage and property damage caused by its construction.
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What political parties believe about healthcare

Pakistan’s total expenditure on healthcare is a mere 3 percent of its GDP.
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Afghanistan and Syria’s role in geopolitics

Welcome to World War III, where superpowers can have their cake and eat it too.
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Unexplained abductions in Karachi

Countless people around the country have gone missing this year after being associated with Pashtun Tahafuz Movement.
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Pakistan’s biggest threat: contaminated water

the World Bank estimates that water pollution costs Pakistan around $6 billion, or roughly 4% of its GDP annually.
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