Poverty of political discourse
IN Pakistan’s deeply polarised and fraught environment the tone and content of political discourse has plunged to a level not witnessed before. Political conduct may not have been polite in…
Political revenge
A POLITICAL activist known for his engaging debating style, silenced forever after being shot to death on a university campus. Could there be a more poignant illustration of the state…
Political economy of floods
The story of Karachi is the story of a home that catches fire every monsoon, then frantically calls the fire brigade, yet never repairs the stove. The fire seems endless,…
Political dialogue is indispensable
Communication and negotiation are indispensable pillars of politics, serving as a bridge between conflicting ideologies and facilitating solutions that ensure governance, stability, and progress. History is replete with examples where…
Dream of political stability
IT is often believed that engineering political stability is the solution to a nation’s economic and security challenges. The idea of this so-called stability is used to justify the suppression…
Political turmoil & reset for unity
As one of nine nuclear-armed states of the world, Pakistan plays a significant role in regional geopolitics. However, consistently plagued by political instability, it has been facing multiple challenges on…
Season of political realignments
WHAT does the recent flurry of political activity signify? A new and more intense phase of political manoeuvring? Stepped up efforts by political parties to mobilise support to strengthen their…
Stagnation of political sphere
A FEW weeks ago, my father, who often catches up on news programmes he has missed via YouTube, began to watch one such show. Almost 15 minutes into the programme…
Finding political legitimacy
I wrote about the CAR framework last month and posited that governance has become much more challenging because ‘capability’, ‘accountability’ and ‘responsiveness’ have all become compromised. These qualities have been…
When sanity is banished from discourse
We are living through times when a foreboding often casts its shadow that whatever we were taught through our evolving years, whatever we learnt through a lifetime of passion, labour,…
