The present study planned to assess the medicinally important plants in the lower Margalla Hills of Islamabad, Pakistan using scanning electron microscopy of their pollens. Both quantitative and qualitative characters of the pollens were analyzed. The shapes of the pollen were prolate, spheroidal, elliptical, and oblate. Exine sculpturing showed rugulate, scabrate, psilate gemmate, and reticulate ornamentation. The people residing in the rural areas are thought to depend, primarily, on medicinal plant resources for many health care needs. A sample of 140 respondents was selected and interviewed by using a stratified random sampling technique. Results showed that the local communities of lower Margalla Hills are highly dependent on plants to treat various ailments, for example, respiratory (28%), digestive (46%) nervous, circulatory and dermatological problems (6% each), and reproductive problems (8%). The continuous dependence of the local community on ethnomedicinally important plants has led to serious degradation of the natural forest of lower Margalla Hills. Priority-based conservation and sustainable use of these forest resources are necessary, and use of alternative resources will also help in the forest conservation.

Textbooks play a strong part in constructing gender roles and status in society. Thus, the images, lessons, and stories of gender portrayed in textbooks affect the perception of prevalent masculine behavior. To develop an insight into the phenomena, this article analyzes the institutionalized patriarchy and patriarchal values embedded in the Urdu and English National Book Foundation textbooks for grades 5, 6, and 7. The study used content analysis techniques to decode the tone, juggling of meanings, pictorial representation, topic selection, word selection, number of pages devoted to each topic, and gender placement of Urdu and Social Studies textbooks. The study explored whether women are portrayed as followers of men and men as having a leadership role. The mother is predominantly presented as a housewife who stays at home, cleaning and cooking all day. While the father goes to work every day and comes home and relaxes after a hard day’s work. Such placement of gendered roles has an effect on the thinking of young students and they internalize the idea that such roles are a natural part of their personality. Moreover, the books reflect a reality which is more male-oriented, while female representations are lacking in the dominant reality.

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For last 2 decades Swat has witnessed changes in almost every aspect of culture, space, and ecology. Among these changes, the environmental crisis remains a major issue addressed by different media outlets and academic and nonacademic organizations. Along with popular narratives and discourses the poets also have their take on the environmental crisis of Swat though mostly ignored in research of cultural and environmental studies. This paper aims to investigate themes of Pashto poetry in context with the environmental crisis. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how Pashto poetry is situating the environmental crisis of Swat and how poetry works for the preservation of the environment. Findings are based on published sources of poetry, interviews, and informal discussions by using the vignette method for collection of data. The framework of social poetics is used to theorize the environmental crisis and how poets take on the crises. The findings suggest that the poetic expressions point out development and militancy as instruments of environmental crisis in Swat. The paper further argues that different objects and elements in flora and fauna are romanticized and instrumentalized as symbols of beauty and love in Pashto poetry which works in the preservation of the ecological system of Swat. Moreover, poetry also produces themes of peace, condemnation of violence and unplanned development, resilience and hope to heal the wounded ecology of Swat.

The current research was conducted in Dara Adam Khel, Pakistan to explore the structure and procedure of the informal social justice system- commonly known as Jirga. The war on terror made it imperious for tribal Pakhtuns to bring back their chaotic lives on the right track to achieve economic prosperity and peace in the region. Pakhtuns residing in Pakistan have been suffering from this tempestuous situation since decades. Terrorism has brought the social structure to standstill. Due to the war on terror, the Jirga system has experienced a serious setback. The Jirga system has served the Pakhtun society as a complete code of conduct in maintaining peace and harmony. The data was collected through Focus Group Discussions, Key Informant Interviews and In-Depth Interviews. Majority of the respondents were aged between 45 to 70 years and they were selected through purposive sampling technique.