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An Administrative Blackhole

An administrative blackhole

Karachi seems to be a hapless city, with no one owning it despite the fact that it feeds millions of people. Its problems are increasing day by day and no…

The Administrative Mindset

The administrative mindset

Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, the PTI government has set out to retool the civil service. In his address to senior bureaucrats on September 14, the prime minister…

Arresting Divisions

Arresting divisions

It helps to realise that religion is underwritten in the purpose of Pakistan. At least, that is how the country was first imagined. The fact that Quaid-e-Azam went from one…

Public Mis-service Inc

THROUGHOUT my profession, I have closely engaged with government ministries, agencies and departments, both at the local and federal levels. In my younger days, the calling of the public services…

Governance in Balochistan

Balochistan is in turmoil. At one end, there are peaceful mass demonstrations. On the other, an active violent insurgency that is spilling over outside the province. Common to both is…

Renewing democracy

FOLLOWING Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination in 1951, Pakistan witnessed a carousel of prime ministers, with six leaders in seven years, each serving an average term of 14 months. The wobbly…

Policy games we play

WHY do governments fail to do what they say they want to do? Any student of public policy will testify that policy is not what they say they will do…

Jumpstart Pakistan?

As Pakistan struggled with ever-growing challenges in recent decades, a succession of regimes have sought to jumpstart the country – notably its economy – without comprehensively tackling long-term challenges. It…

Voice of the vote

Rigged. Stolen. Cheated. Conspired. Pre and post-election such adjectives are common, by losers. From the remote mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan to the rocky mountains of Colorado, regardless of the result, the…