(Published in The Nation)
The ISS is a joint venture between the US, Russia, Japan and EU, and more than 220 people from 17 countries have visited it since the year 2000. Its purpose is to serve as a micro-gravity and space environment research laboratory and where crew members conduct experiments in a number of scientific fields. But the most exciting thing about it is that the ISS was actually assembled in space, making it the largest structure to have been built there – ever!
(Published in The Nation Pakistan) Please do not tell the rest of us how to live our lives based on your idea of religion. Because that is not religious freedom, that is religious privilege and we are not going to soothe your fears by holding ourselves back. Or to paraphrase Jon Stewart, “We are not going to censor ourselves to comfort your ignorance”.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
Before this, when people talked about water on Mars, it was with reference to ancient or frozen water. Earlier this year the Curiosity Rover detected the possibility of salty water below the surface, however the MRO discovery is the first evidence for the presence of liquid water in the present time.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
Ladies and gents, we may very well have found Earth’s cousin, 1,400 light years away from us! NASA scientist John Grunsfeld has called this Earth 2.0. If Kepler 452 b turns out to be a rocky planet (this is yet to be confirmed), this bodes well for further research on whether there is liquid water, an atmosphere and thus some form of life on it.
(Published in The Nation)
On July 14, this coming Tuesday, a human made space craft will visit Pluto, the erstwhile planet, current dwarf planet. This is a world that is 3 billion miles away, in what is known as the Kuiper Belt (a disc of comets and small planets beyond Neptune), the farthest planet humans have ever seen and studied and the first Kuiper Belt object to be visited.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
Developing countries like Pakistan should contribute to global mitigation efforts, but more importantly, Pakistan needs a solid adaptation plan that will ensure that human and natural systems are made resilient to the impacts of a warming world.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan) Enforcing “respect” for religions cannot and must not come at the cost of not respecting human rights. This isn’t about respect. It is about forcing people to follow one ideology and it is time that we left such ideas behind.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan) I fail to understand why it is necessary to make things difficult for others so one can perform one’s religious obligations. Aren’t Muslims taught that “Huqooqul Ibad” are very important? So when did we get to the point where consideration for your fellow human is something alien to us?
(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
I think it is time to get over the greatness of our religion and nation as our only unifying factors and start asking questions of why we are where we are; and this includes not only questioning ourselves but most importantly, our leadership.
(Published in The Nation)
Earth Day and for that matter many environment conservation efforts now have climate change as their central agenda. This is because our footprint on this planet has ensured that we continue to increase global temperatures to the extent that all other damage we have done through pollution and unsustainable development is exacerbated.
