Child marriage: laws, verdicts, solutions
Pakistan turned 77 this year, yet the children harbored by the fifth most populated country continue to be failed by the state. One of the many challenges in this regard…
Slippery slope of descent into barbarism
The Sialkot incident in which a Sri Lankan factory manager, Priyantha Kumara, was brutally bludgeoned to death by an enraged mob of the factory’s workers for alleged blasphemy and his…
Ruined lives
Five bloggers, Salman Haider, Ahmed Waqas Goraya, Asim Saeed, Ahmed Raza Naseer and Samar Abbas were disappeared in January 2017 within days of each other. All five used social media…
The fear of man
In April of 2017, Indonesian artist, Adrian Syaf was fired from his job at Marvel Comics for slipping the numbers 5:51 and 212 into issue #1 of ‘X-Men Gold’. The…
Changing the landscape of thought
The leader of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, Maulana Khadim Hussain Rizvi, left just as quickly as he had arrived on the political scene. His death on Thursday left many surprised and…
The middle path
Liberals saw Mumtaz Qadri’s execution as the triumph of reason, while Islamists declared him a martyr. Friday sermons thundered at the injustice of rulers. In such polarised times, is there…
Paralysed state
THIS is not the first time the Pakistani state has been cowed by a violent mob and surrendered its writ in favour of those who challenged it so blatantly. In…
The perils of appeasement
ONE thought the moment had arrived. The judges had broken the ring of fear. The prime minister’s tough words reassured the nation. The civil-military leadership were said to be on…
When the system fails
While many of us have essentially forgotten about Aasia Bibi, the Christian woman and mother of five children who was arrested and jailed on blasphemy charges in 2009, others await…
The survival of extremism
So much is happening in the political arena at this time that any detour into another territory would seem unwarranted. The Senate elections this weekend had a star billing. There…
