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5 minutes with Shanoo Sharma – Bollywood’s casting director extraordinaire
A quick chat with Shanoo Sharma – Mumbai-based casting director at Yash Raj Films. She cast Ali in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and his next YRF project Kill Dil. Her other prominent finds include Ranvir Singh and Parineeti Chopra. As a casting director of one of the most prolific production houses in the world, what
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Pakistan’s Golden Boy: Ali Zafar
Who doesn’t love Ali Zafar? The man who won Pakistan’s heart over 11 years ago with a song that’s still as catchy as it was the day it came out, and has been playing music with his fans’ heartstring ever since. No success story in Pakistan’s recent entertainment history is as inspiring and well merited
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Border-less Love
In 1991, Rishi Kapoor fell head over heels for Zeba Bahktiar in the movie Henna. In 2004 Shahrukh Khan swept Preiti Zinta off her feet in Veer Zaara. Along the way came other inspiring real-life couples like Mohsin Khan and Reena Roy; Zaheer Abbas and Sam Abbas; Sonya Jehan and Vivek Narain, Aly Khan and
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International Fashion Showcase, Pakistan Chapter – London
Last month, The British Council and British Fashion Council collaborated for a second time on the International Fashion Showcase during London Fashion Week of February 2013, where 27 countries displayed the works of over a hundred burgeoning designers that best represent their respective country’s cultural and fashion ethos. Making its debut at London’s International Fashion
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Navin Waqar – Telelvision’s New Humsafar
Every Saturday evening for the past five months, Pakistanis everywhere quickly wrap up their businesses to rush home, switch off their phones and cosy-up in front of the television instead of going on about the weekend as they once usually did. Whether its Karachi or Peshawar; a retired couple in Naziabad or a rebellious teenager
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Moomal Sheikh: the girl with the golden name
The only consolation an ageing actor can provide his fans is perhaps in the form of his progeny—a child in whom they can trace the many shades of the star people once cherished and adored. And even though Javed Sheikh is anything but past his prime, it’s comforting to see his recently unveiled and rather
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10 Minutes with MEHREEN JABBAR- Pakistani Consultant for ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’
What does the work of a ‘Pakistani Consultant’ on an international project like The Reluctant Fundamentalist involve? Basically, as a Pakistani Consultant, I organized the first casting for Mira Nair in Pakistan last year. She met a lot of actors for various roles. I also periodically kept sending her music from Pakistan to keep
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The Not-so-reluctant Meesha Shafi
Who doesn’t know Meesha Shafi? The woman who brought back Arif Lohar and red mohawks; gave local women the confidence to wear wife-beaters and showed young mothers everywhere that getting married and having children does not render one’s career inutile—that it is only if you go chasing after your dreams that you’ll be able to
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Anatol Lieven @ KLF 2011
Anatol Lieven is a professor in the War Studies Department at King’s College London as well as a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC. His areas of expertise include US strategy and political culture; Islamist terrorism and insurgency; contemporary warfare; the countries of the former Soviet Union; and the Greater Middle
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William Dalrymple @ KLF 2011
William Dalrymple is the author of seven acclaimed works of history and travel, including City of Djinns, which won the Young British Writer of the Year Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award; the best-selling From the Holy Mountain; The Age of Kali, which won the French Prix D’Astrolable; White Mughals, which won Britain’s