Protecting consumer interests
THE Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) recently fined two large manufacturers of electrical appliances for using retail price maintenance agreements (RPMs) to control the pricing of some of their products…
A variant of the bizarre
The Friday Column “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”. – Euripides The verdict announced by the ECP in the PTI prohibited funding case is a…
Where Pakistan stands at 75
To think about independence on its 75th anniversary, without the teething problems that Pakistan inherited due to a poorly planned and brutally carried out — rather rushed — Partition, will…
Crisis of political imagination
It keeps us on our toes to defend the fortress of morality and keep the power of a shrewd politician far away from us. It keeps us engaged in a…
The many shades of grey
A situation, where an individual has competing interests or loyalties, is normally referred to as prone to 'conflict of interest". Different circumstances can create situations of conflict of interest. An…
Values and policy decisions
Public policy environments will invariably include some contentious policy decisions. These decisions will often involve implicit value judgements about what is important and what is not. In debating contentious policy,…
Who lost America?
BEGINNING with China in 1949, then Cuba in 1959, and Iran in 1979, Americans have been arguing over who ‘lost’ these countries. It is time for another debate. Who lost…
Not a victory for rule of law
HOW many of us feel proud when the chief justice takes suo motu notice on issues of women empowerment, building and master plan violations, horrendous fundamental rights abuses, or even…
The WTO: decisions and constraints
The selection of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian national, as the director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is significant for at least two reasons. She is the first woman to…
CAR regionalism and Pakistan
Regionalism refers to institutional cooperation amongst countries of a region. Any country has to be first regionally integrated if it has to efficiently integrate globally. This is particularly true for…
