The legacy
As Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela started his final journey, mourners outside his Johannesburg residence could be heard singing: “Mandela ha hona ea tshwanang le yena” (there is no one like Mandela).…
Congress, Modi and the road ahead
‘I found power lying on the streets of St Petersburg; all I did was pick it up’, said Lenin. This is true modesty considering the total revolution that the Bolsheviks…
Sentenced to deformity
When I was a small boy in Scotland, a long time ago, there was a much-feared disease called infantile paralysis. Nobody I knew contracted it, but when you visited somebody…
The value of good deeds
Human life is mortal. However, it can be made immortal by performing lasting good deeds. According to the Quran, life on earth has three phases. Allah says that it is…
VIEWPOINT: Drone war: rage and reaction
Its opponents are after PTI for blocking Nato supply line until the US reneges on its drones policy causing indiscriminate killing of our citizens. If it continues, they warn, the…
Collective destructiveness
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."-Aristotle A friend once remarked that in our country it is much easier to get illegal work done rather than legal. With due…
Punjabi intelligentsia revisited
A few weeks back a note to the Punjabi intelligentsia was published in this space. The response it received was overwhelming and I continue to get a message or two…
Geoffrey Douglas Langlands: Forever Pakistani
"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple,…
Elder statesmen anxious over Africa’s poor leadership
There's no two ways about it: Africa's leadership is in decline. Corruption and poverty remain high, data shows, while a small elite prospers and heads of state demand immunity from…
Modi (mis)appropriates Patel
Whatever its other sins and there are many one charge can never be made against the Sangh Parivar: that of having produced a halfway tall intellectual. No star in its…
