Making a new social contract
In the aftermath of the harrowing attack in Lahore and the occupation of Islamabad by religious bigots, the same old catchphrases are repeated on the air waves by the influential…
Slow advancement
The performance of the Pakistani women’s team in the World T20 tournament has generated much excitement and inspired many a tweet and Facebook update about Pakistani women taking over the…
Whither Quaid’s Pakistan?
“On 23rd March, 1940, a group of valiant and fiercely determined individuals gathered at Manto Park, Lahore, and resolved to give their fellow countrymen a new homeland.” This is the…
Mozambique gas projects raise risk of resource ‘curse’
Carlos Candido has been fishing in Mozambican waters for three decades, unaware until recently of huge gas deposits beneath the ocean floor. Now the gas wealth is about to released,…
Sustainable development reform French lessons
France will be the host for this year's Conference of the Parties (CoP), which is the apex body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The government has…
Goals for whom?
Everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve seen that people want essentially the same things: they want their children to be educated, they want decent work that enables them to reach their full…
Romance for socialism?
Punjab Assembly has just passed the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Amendment) Act 2016. It is the successor of an ordinance with the same title, promulgated in 2015. This law requires…
Beyond the girl in the river
Two-time Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy just focused on one victim of an attempted honour killing and brought the attention of the whole world to the scourge of patriarchal terrorism in…
The paradox of work
When it comes to making the wrong predictions, the science and art of economics has its fair share of such instances, just like any other academic field. The recession of…
Angry America
The dominant sentiment in America today is anger. Popular anger about lower economic expectations; nationalist anger at the loss of global dominance; anger against President Obama for acknowledging the limits…
