With Naya Pakistan, attempts at Naya Lahore in the offing. Apparently, a task force has been set up for a shake-up in matters pertaining to the city.
IMF-imported economist and policy wonk Dr Nadeem-ul-Haq is also going to be on the body. There is too much urban sprawl in Lahore, the fellow and his hum khayals think. The need of the hour, they say, is to go vertical. This is an old line of Haq’s. The man says a measure of economic vibrancy is the number of construction cranes that can be seen doing their thing on a city’s skyline.
There goes Lahore’s cultural ethos, one should presume? Is the city to go New Delhi’s way and get lost in a cement jungle?
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A bit of high drama at the Faiz Mela. Some progressive elements from journalism and academica were not allowed to appear on panels.
The poor and working classes, are always going to be too busy to attend such events. The progressive middle class, the only group making such events relevant, are also slowly being chipped away at. Soon, the Faiz Mela is also going to become, ironically, an event for the elite.
