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Reading view

In search of @Autumnshade

What began as the theft of my Twitter account became a lesson in how powerless users are when the gates to their digital lives suddenly close.

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Abdus Salam and the jihad of the pen

Persecuted inside Pakistan, the Ahmadis continue to see the Nobel-winning physicist’s life as evidence that scientific excellence and spiritual conviction can coexist.

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The mega AI bubble

A frenzied scramble for a stake in AI has set off a mega IPO boom, with abundant liquidity and hype driving valuations to extraordinary levels. As prices begin to fall, investor capital and pension savings are increasingly at risk.

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Empathy won’t save politics

A new faith in empathy is spreading through academia, technology and politics. The promise sounds humane, but the politics beneath it may be far less innocent than its advocates imagine.

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Unoriginal sin

The controversy over the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize has exposed how AI has embedded itself into both the writing and judging of literary fictionβ€”and the implications this holds for human creativity.

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Speech under watch: Reading the 2026 IT rules

Draft IT Rules shift online speech control toward Ministries, allowing direct takedown orders to users and making platform advisories binding. Compliance pressure pushes platforms toward pre-emptive removal of political and critical content.

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AI can dress me, but my taste still wins

AI styling tools may flatten personal taste into a narrow, brand-driven aesthetic, but active negotiation with the algorithm, grounded in self-knowledge and history, can preserve agency.

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