The negative side of positive
PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh urged us all recently to shed `negativity`. I kept looking long and hard for `positivity` between the rolling hills of scams, the deepening crisis in the…
Bullish on Pakistan
ALTHOUGH the Karachi Stock Exchange has risen over 50pc over the last year, financial analysts have not rushed to declare Pakistan a `bull market`. The reasons for their caution are…
Promises galore
The Federal Budget presented by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is a week old now, and has evoked mixed reactions, mostly critical and highly suspicious of government's ability to meet the…
View Point: Afghanistan peace talks
Following the opening of Afghan Taliban's political office in Doha the first round of direct, official talks between the US and the Taliban starts there today to end the 12-year-long…
Poverty status: Another dilemma for the new government
Announcing an official higher or lower poverty number by the country sends the following kinds of signals to the international stakeholders, ie, foreign governments, multilateral and bilateral donors, international NGOs…
Budget – a long-term view
There are certain yardsticks to judge the quality, veracity, authenticity and efficacy of any thing related to any human activity. Similarly there are yardsticks to evaluate a budget presented by…
New cabinet and old mistakes
The election of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister by the National Assembly last Wednesday, followed by his oath-taking at the presidency, marked the culmination of the process of democratic political…
Drones and deception
The tragedy of Pakistan is that in this age of realism, its leaders are never realistic. They are creatures of absurd emotions, the consequences of which can be catastrophic. The…
It is all in divine hands
Legendary Urdu poet Mir’s verse, Ulti hogaen sab tadbiren kuch na dawa ne kaam kia (All the efforts backfired and nothing helped) has become a proverb. This is the same…
Precautionary or suspicious principle
In politics and economics besides the other functional subjects there is always the use of precautionary principle. This lays down specificities that have to be followed before the public is…
