Poll rigging: doesn’t it matter?
After the Model Town tragedy, law enforcers refused to bash the protestors prodding the PML-N, and self-proclaimed 'defenders' of democracy in the opposition, to seek a negotiated settlement with Pakistan…
Israel’s suicidal act
Last week, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) charged Israel for its latest invasion of Gaza calling its aerial bombing of civilian areas "disproportionate and indiscriminate"; by July 22, the…
Bitcoin catches on in tech-savvy Romania
In a well-lit office with red window frames in downtown Bucharest, Romania's first bitcoin ATM attracts many who until it opened in May had to buy or sell the digital…
Goals and challenges for FBR
Internationally accepted, the primary role of tax authorities is to ensure compliance with tax laws; its effectiveness, however, depends on a variety of external factors including the state of the…
Pakistan’s Moscow option
SINCE independence, Pakistan’s relations with Moscow have been mostly adversarial. Pakistan was America’s “most allied ally”. India aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Moscow’s veto in the…
Five causes of the crisis
Never have the unfortunate people of Pakistan been so full of apprehension about their future on Independence Day as they are today. What gives their anxiety sharper focus is the…
The Modi juggernaut
One week can be a long time in politics. May 16 saw the official confirmation of Narendra Modi’s landslide election victory and the unprecedented humiliation of the mother party of…
The Isis crisis
Isis is supposed to have ‘morphed’ within barely a month from an insurgency group in Syria into more or less a regular army in Iraq. It is flush with money…
No border control
Disease does not respect borders. It originates in one country and then crosses borders, afflicting hundreds and thousands in its destructive sweep. In the 14th century, vast swathes of central…
Go local
The famous author of jungle stories, Jim Corbett, writing about in-fights between creatures of the same species highlights an interesting point. “Fights of this nature, i.e., between two panthers or…
