Press control: Demanding brides, Altaf gets body shamed and Punjab girls get 'kitchen skills'

The Express Tribune presents you a weekly dose of just that with handpicked stories from across the Pakistani press

Need comic relief? The Express Tribune presents you a weekly dose of just that with handpicked stories from across the press. ET shoulders no responsibility for proliferating them.

Dowry woes: Bride marries guest
Nawa-i-Waqt reports a Sargodha baraat had to return without a bride following a disagreement over dowry (mehr). The groom refused to pay the demanded mehr of Rs100,000. The bride was then married off to a wedding guest who agreed to fork out the amount.
This snippet originally appeared on The Friday Times.

India shining: Nude Jain monk takes pot shots at Pakistan
Narendra Modi, Manohar Parrikar, Mehbooba Mufti. The latest entrant to the exhaustive list is Jain monk Tarun Sagar. Over a 40-minute lecture at the Haryana Assembly, Sagar, who appeared in the nude, delivered his Kadve Vachan as lawmakers listened attentively.


"Humara padosi desh, sab ko maloom hai, atankvaad ko aasan de raha hai…bhasmasur paida kar raha hai… Bharat ko pareshan karne ke liye. Mujhe lagta hai aaj nahi toh kal bhasmasur tayyar kar raha hai apne liye. Ek baar galti kare woh agyan hai, do baar galti kare woh nadaan hai, teen baar galti kare woh shaitan hai aur jo baar baar galti kare woh Pakistan hai. Jo har baar shama kar de, woh Hindustan hai (Everyone knows that the neighbouring country is harbouring terrorism … creating Bhasmasurs to trouble India. If someone makes a mistake once he is ignorant, if someone makes a mistake twice he is innocent, if someone makes a mistake thrice he is the devil, and if someone makes a mistake repeatedly, that is Pakistan. And the one who forgives repeatedly is India),” The Indian Express quoted the monk as having remarked.

From bhai to sir: Altaf Hussain over the years

PHOTO: DAILY UMMAT

Carried by Daily Ummat on August 23, 2016. Body shaming is uncalled for, no matter who the target.

Punjab government reinforces stereotypes
Schoolgirls in Pakistan will be given poultry to care for in an initiative partly aimed at teaching them about the kitchen, raising the eyebrows of women’s rights activists across the country.



Punjab officials said that the government will initially be providing girls in 1,000 primary schools with four hens, one cock, and a cage, AFP reported.

Naseem Sadiq, head of the Punjab government’s livestock department, said that the programme would “train these small girls about kitchen waste” as they feed their charges leftover food from lunch. “We preferred girls’ schools for this project to boys because girls, mostly, have to deal with the kitchen and they are more responsible and caring than boys,” Sadiq said.
Women’s rights activist Farzana Bari criticised the project for reinforcing stereotypes by telling girls their role is “limited to the kitchen only”. “It would be very good if the government focused on boys’ schools more to create … responsibility and equality,” she said.

Read the full story at The Express Tribune.