Afghanistan’s first and only all women orchestra (Zohra) has been chosen the winner of Freemuse Award 2017. The award was apparently given to Zohra, Afghanistan’s first and only all women orchestra, for their role in empowering the women through music. Freemuse, the world forum on music and censorship, is an independent international membership organisation advocating and defending freedom of expression ...

They are led by Negina Khpalwak, Afghanistan’s first female conductor. In the face of death threats and accusations they are dishonouring their families by daring to perform, the women of Afghanistan’s first all-female orchestra are charting a new destiny for themselves through music. The group is set to be catapulted onto the world stage with a performance at the World ...

DUBAI: Those coward people who are trying to hack “The Pashtun Times” Facebook’s page, twitter and website are no lesser than the enemies of “Freedom of Expression”. The Pashtun Times team believes in strong democratic arguments in a peaceful manner. We speak beyond narratives and appreciate others to deal with us in sophisticated and professional way. Instead of hacking our ...

An Indian businessman has reportedly paid around $1.7 million to 236 fatherless as gifts by organizing a mass wedding for them. According to the reports, the diamond trader, Mahesh Savani put on the event for couples from poor families in the western state of Gujarat. Mr. Savani has organized mass weddings since 2012 and believes giving away brides is a blessing from ...

An Indian businessman and politician spent around $74 million in his daughter’s wedding in what is called as the country’s ‘huge’ and ‘controversial’ wedding that has attracted the world attention amid ongoing cash flow crisis in the country. Gali Janardhana Reddy daughter will spend the amount in his daughter Brahmani’s wedding that will last for five days, kicking off today ...

REUTERS US: Cyber attacks targeting a little known internet infrastructure company, Dyn, disrupted access to dozens of websites on Friday, preventing some users from accessing PayPal, Twitter and Spotify. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the outages that began in the Eastern United States, and then spread to other parts of the country and Western Europe. The ...

Yousuf Khan and Sherbano is a Pashtun folktale. The folktale is set in the beautiful Swabi District. This folk story has a great connection with  the historical hill of Kharamar. The hill of Kharamar – Rearing Snake range, stands at  the north side of the Mardan-Swabi high road near the village of Ismailia, Adina and Kalu Khan. Now barren, the ...

A former lawmaker and prominent Pakistani politician Afrasiab Khattak said that Pakistani security establishment’s support for the Afghan Taliban is an open secret. He is not the only one, as several other politicians and critics slammed security establishments of their country for their ‘good and bad’ terrorist approach. He said that “unfortunately”, the state couldn’t muster the political will to ...

KABUL: Afghanistan officially became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) after Meshrano Jirga or Upper House of the Parliament approved the laws required as preconditions for membership, officials said on Friday. Afghanistan has become the 164th member of the organization. “The WTO gives us the opportunity to bring reforms in the trade sector, it is also very important ...

Initially let’s put a glance at the history of saffron as recently some reports suggested that the cash crop to Afghanistan came from abroad which is a total falsehood echo. The word saffron goes back as far as 10,000 years. Saffron is said to be derived from the world “Zarparan” in Dari which means a flower with its stigma valued ...