One Pakistan
The PTI has come up with a new, powerful slogan for the next elections – Do Nahi Aik Pakistan, Hum Sab Ka Naya Pakistan (Not two, one Pakistan – a…
Time for the justice of Solomon
We have run out of options. The time has come for Imran Khan to take charge of this country as the prime minister of Pakistan. There are six months left…
A lamp lit in the dark
The nation owes a collective vote of thanks to their lordships Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh and Justice Shahid Karim of the Lahore High Court for passing an order – a…
Cousin Afghanistan
Part - VI Afghanistan is neither our brother – like China, Saudi Arabia or Turkey – nor our bitter enemy – like India. Pakistan should not even dream or try…
Contesting culture
In 2004, while the Muttahida-Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) was governing KP, a puritanical vigilante group called Tehreek-i-Nijaat-i-Fahashi launched a crackdown against musicians in Peshawar. Under deepening conservatism patronised by the religio-political alliance,…
Our coup-lovers
In background conversations, senior military officials say there is consensus in the army that the democratic dispensation should continue. Senior political representatives also say, joyfully of course, that recent tensions…
India: back to the 1930s
Under the sway of some right-wing Hindu organisations doggedly espousing Hindutva, the Modi administration has menacingly brought India to the verge of complete desecularisation, Hindu extremism and intolerance. Alarmingly, the…
Heritage rights
Childhood picnics in the Shalamar Gardens always turned into family history lessons. “Ali Mardan Khan, governor of Lahore requisitioned our ancestor’s land to build the gardens; the family was relocated…
Pakistan’s Donald Trump
Even his fellow Republicans have labelled him insane. But, defying the predictions of all soothsayers and political pundits, Donald Trump’s still surging popularity with Republican voters suggests that he could…
The AAP’s moment
It has been described as the halting of the ‘saffron juggernaut’, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s worst recent political drubbing, a ‘Big Bang’ event in Indian politics, and Narendra Modi’s Stalingrad,…
