Rewriting the social contract
In Pakistan’s rural heartlands, a silent revolution is underway. For more than a century, the Indus Basin canal network, designed under British colonial rule, dictated the rhythm of agriculture. The…
Taxes, inflation & social welfare
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has achieved a historic milestone of collecting taxes of Rs 4.17 trillion in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, for which…
The outrage machinery
IT was hard to figure out what to write this week. Not that there was a shortage of issues but it is occasionally (perhaps frequently?) difficult to figure out what…
‘Left behind’ workers desert EU socialists for populists
With his square-jawed good looks, easy smile and way with words, Edouard Martin could have been a Hollywood movie star. But the steel worker and trade union activist who confronted…
The triumph of modern machinery
The construction industry plays an important role in the social-economic development of a country. The activities of the industry have great significance to the achievement of national development goals of…
Square peg, round hole
Pakistan’s present economic and social machinery from IPPs to BISP lies littered with good intentions gone bad. Giles Firmin’s ‘The Real Christian’ has a line which fits us like a…
A flight from thinking
In today’s world, we cannot aspire for the kind of freedom enjoyed by Greek philosophers who remained independent from the necessities and compulsions of life. Their cultural ethos and intellectual…
The ambiguity of freedom
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” – Soren Kierkegaard Living in today’s world, we cannot aspire for the kind…
The rise and retreat of the TLP
The recent fall from grace of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) is as dramatic as was its rise. Led by firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who passed away in 2020, the…
Israel’s enablers
Gaza does not mark the end of the settler colonial project. It marks, I fear, its final phase. Western states, enriched by their own occupations and genocides – in India,…
