Supporting people with disabilities in Pakistan — Shoukat is 30. He lives in Dera Habit, a village in Punjab, Pakistan. His physical impairment used to hold him back from living an independent life. He could not support his brother, who was responsible for earning a living for the whole family. …

The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia serves to raise awareness and drive forward LGBTI rights world wide — Khawaja sara preferred current Urdu term for Transgender. Although the Hindi Hijra is still often and widely used across South East Asia it has taken a negative hue in some circles in Pakistan as of often the case as language becomes stigmatised and then shifts and adapts.

In August 2014, Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations asked an Independent Expert Advisory Group to make concrete recommendations on bringing about a data revolution in sustainable development. While the group has published their report and recommendations there is still a long road to travel to…

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has passed away last year. He was a keen environmentalist. He wrote The Yellow Cake Revue, a collection of cabaret-style pieces that he performed with actress Eleanor Bron, in protest at plans to mine uranium ore in Orkney. Farewell to Stromness, which is probably his most famous piece is taken from this suite. The slow, walking bass line that pervades the Farewell portrays the residents of the village of Stromness having to leave their homes as a result of uranium contamination. It was first performed at the St Magnus Festival on Orkney. Stromness is the second largest town in Orkney.

These Scapa flow at the heart of the Orkney archipelago is a deep water body which is home to many scuttled German WWI battleships. These scuttled ships and those like them are the primary source of low-background steel. Low-background steel is any steel produced prior to the detonation of the…

Today in the park I was surrounded by a flight of swallows dancing and darting around me to take advantage of the flies disturbed by my walking through the long grass.

On the way to Glasgow Green each day the same single protester stands outside the High Court. I have always noticed him but never spoken with him. Today that changed. We spoke and he told me about what he thinks was a miscarriage of justice. It struck me how visible…

In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers or Fibonacci sequence are the numbers in the following integer sequence: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144… The Fibonacci spiral: an approximation of the golden spiral created by drawing circular arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares in the Fibonacci tiling. By definition, the first two numbers in the Fibonacci…

My reading list updated on a regular basis — This post is simply an externalisation of what I read on the above subjects. The things I have read most recently will appear at the top.