Squandering away opportunities?
There are no two opinions that the present regime had inherited an extremely fragile economy in June 2013. It inherited a nervous private sector, declining investment-both domestic and foreign-slower economic…
The new Middle East
The Arab world will never be the same again. It has transformed, for better or for worse, in more than one ways and is still in flux. What was thought…
Shiver me timbers! Iceland’s Pirate Party could seize power
Iceland boasts full employment, a peaceful society and a well-functioning welfare state - yet voters are so frustrated with the political establishment they're ready to elect the Pirate Party to…
Politicking: what’s its cost?
Pakistan today is a country wherein each day begins with revelations of bad governance that shock its citizens. Yet the country's in-power politicians are focused only one thing: holding on…
The Davos man
Let the mouths move, the agenda churners busy themselves, and the chatterers pretend to move mountains even as they remain indifferent. As if one needed to be reminded exactly what…
Trudeau time
Back in August, the Toronto Star published a cartoon depicting Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper prostrating himself in front of a statue of Richard Nixon and asking, “What now, o…
The challenge of poverty
Poverty is an ugly state for the majority of the world's people and nations including Pakistan. Why are we seeing this phenomenon? Should it be enough to blame poor people…
Human security and Balochistan
The Baloch problem has so far mostly been seen from the lens of the classic realist angle of national security. The pathologies identified and the remedies suggested for resolution of…
Fbr Collection: Startling Facts
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), in its Biannual Review (January-June 2014-15), claims that "despite several challenges like poor law and order in the country, energy shortages and compression of…
Widening disconnects
Official statistics and narratives have a reputation that is not entirely undeserved or unjustified. The narratives are generally constructed with a certain condescension that the audience will buy whatever is…
