Noor Zehra Kazim is perhaps the world’s only player of the Sagar Veena, a string instrument designed for use in North Indian Classical Music, developed entirely in Pakistan over the last 40 years. I first heard of her when I found the Sanjan Nagar Institute’s website, a few years ago. News about Sanjan Nagar and the Sagar Veena has been slow to reach out to the mainstream, though it seems that even before its popular debut, the institute and the instrument were a big deal among the intellectual circles of 21st century Pakistan.

More here.

A film by Adnan Malik about Pakistani cinema.

Turning garbage into profit in Lahore

Productivity

Bring your files with you when you’re on the go. Add files to your Favorites for fast, offline viewing. Easily upload photos and videos to Dropbox. Share freely with friends and family.

Organise everything. No matter what needs to be done, from shopping lists to projects and todos – there is Wunderlist to manage it all. Share your tasks and lists by email or invite your friends, colleagues or co-workers to work with you in Wunderlist.

For editing text on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. PlainText is a simple text editor with an uncomplicated, paper-like user interface. Unlike the default Notes app, PlainText allows you to create and organize your documents in folders and sync everything with Dropbox.com.

Do you have a blog or manage multiple websites? Please get this! Creating and editing posts is at the heart of the WordPress experience. Write, add photos, check your spelling, and even create links without having to write a single line of code or HTML.

CamScanner is a must-have application for your iPhone. With CamScanner, your iPhone is actually a portable scanner, with which all your paper documents, receipts, notes, whiteboard discussions can be archived anywhere at anytime. Our Smart Image cropping and Image enhancement algorithm ensures the scanned images perfectly clear and recognizable. With OCR technology, text within PDF files will be searchable.

Read It Later Pro lets you save pages to read later, even without an internet connection. Read It Later can download offline copies of your pages so you can still read when you are offline or in airplane mode.

Read more books.. a lot more books. The Kindle app is optimized for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, giving users the ability to read Kindle books, newspapers, and magazines on a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. Thousands of books now at your fingertips!

Social Media

The application utilizes push notifications to instantly get messages from friends, colleagues and family. Switch from SMS to exchange messages, pictures, audio notes and video messages with WhatsApp users at no cost. All features are included without the need for extra in-application purchases.

Call, video call and instant message anyone else on Skype for free with Skype for your iPhone or iPod touch. Plus call and text your Contacts (or any other number) at Skype’s low rates. It’s great value with Skype Credit. Skype for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad is free to download and works over 3G* or Wi-Fi.

You know you need this one. Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Update your Status, browse your News Feed and view friends’ Profiles all from your phone. Works on all phones with mobile web access. Manage your pages if you have any!

Follow your interests: instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities, and what’s happening around the world. Get short bursts of timely information on the official Twitter app for iPhone. Probably the best Iphone app around.

Real-life sharing rethought for the web, wherever you are Google+ for mobile makes sharing the right things with the right people a lot simpler. So, some say Google+ is dead, but you will need this app if you want to manage your Google+ page for your NGO, website or other projects!

Photography

Snapseed is the only photo app you’ll want to use every day. It makes any photograph extraordinary with a fun, high-quality photo experience right at your fingertips. With this app installed on your iphone, you really don’t need any other. This one is about $5, the price of a burger.

Entertainment

Instant access to podcast subscriptions, stream or download episodes wirelessly, follow show notes and enjoy audio and video podcasts on-the-go. Instacast is the best solution to consume audio and video podcasts. It has been designed from the ground up with ease of use and incredible performance in mind. Absolutely super app. You’ll never get bored!

Think of Spotify as your new music collection. Your library. Only this time your collection is vast: millions of tracks and counting. Spotify comes in all shapes and size, available for your PC, Mac, home audio system and mobile phone. Wherever you go, your music follows you.

Saavn Music brings you the best of Bollywood and beyond – anytime, anywhere. Search and play the world’s largest catalog of Indian music, create and save your own playlists, and share your music with friends, followers, and contacts. Search for old Urdu music!

Play the AD-FREE version of Words With Friends, the game more of your friends are playing than any other word game! Experience for yourself why more than 20 million people are addicted to the word building, triple score seeking, chat bubble sending goodness of Words With Friends.

Play chess with your friends and family anytime, anywhere. The winner for BEST FREE GAME from the 2008 Best App Ever awards. Chess is good for your brain, so use this app and enjoy!

Last but not least

If you misplace your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac, the Find My iPhone app will let you use another iOS device to find it and protect your data. Simply install this free app on another iOS device, open it, and sign in with your Apple ID. Find My iPhone will help you locate your missing device on a map.You can then choose to display a message or play a sound, remotely lock your device, or erase your data on it.

And how could I forget these:

TED
Saavn
Instacast
GoodPlayer
Opera Mini
Evernote
360 Panorama
MotionX-GPS
Google Earth
Photogene
PhotoFresh
Web Albums
Google +
Flashlight

Note: App descriptions taken from the App Store.