Emel Publications – Islamabad Pakistan

During the past year, Pakistan continued to witnesses a rapidly changing political, social, economic and cultural environment which affected the publishing sector of Pakistan. The high inflation rate and daily increase in the prices of commodities and raw materials brought the publishing output down to its lowest level in the recent memory.

A number of factors contribute to the decline in the scholarly output including, but not limited to, inflation, high cost of book and journals, continued low literacy rates, ongoing war on terror which restrict movement of researchers and their ideas for search of truth and ground realities.

Yet during this period of chaos, a very pleasant change occurred in the publishing Industry – five new publishing agencies of international standard joined were established in Pakistan. The Pak Institute for Peace Studies opened a publishing house named Narratives publishing policy analyses and research studies on regional and global issues. Markings is a new publishing venture focusing on art and calligraphy. EMEL PUBLISHING House in Islamabad are also bringing out titles adhering to international publishing standards.

Universities have also reactivated publishing. The Government College University Lahore established Naqoosh Research Centre an Urdu language and literature research center with goal of bringing out new titles.
Hazara University in Mansehra established an Hazara Chair which will published work in the Hindko language as well as prominent authors of Hazara region (Haripur, Abbottabad, Mansehra). To date the Chair has published twenty titles.