Nobel Prize and minimum wages
THE Nobel Prize for Economics for the year 2021 awarded to David Card for his contributions to scholarship on minimum wages has vindicated trade unions, labour and human rights advocates…
Where were the professors?
In a recent article in these pages, a writer rewarded Pakistani academia with a collective F for its members’ supposed lack of participation in an important education debate: that on…
Development studies
In Pakistan, many public and private universities have established development studies departments. There may be different views about their courses and programmes. As a development practitioner, I have a fresh…
Local government capacity
Ideally, real good social science research offers a good combination of theory and empirical evidence. Theory needs to guide the empirical part of research and in turn gets moulded by…
Pakistan: here and now
Essay writing as a genre has not evolved in Pakistan. If you try to count the number of essay writers that Pakistan has produced over the last seven decades, you…
Taliban: questions, answers, and facts
Have the Taliban achieved power through the process of Shariah? Islam is clear that transfer of power is only credible through one route – and that is through advice and…
Awards for our doctors
The neglect to recognize the healthcare community in the recently announced ‘Pakistan Civil Awards’ has once again raised questions regarding the process of recognizing civilian heroes and if it's inclusive…
Greater visibility
PAKISTAN ranks only above Iraq and Yemen in the Global Gender Report 2020. Yet the long-discriminated-against Pakistani woman has made much overlooked progress. Conditions are terrible for her but trends,…
Changing the past
Here’s a riddle for you. Why do I think of Milan Kundera when I drive past the Teen Talwar roundabout in Karachi and am in a pensive mood? Naturally, when…
What is the UK-Pakistan relationship?
In Islamabad people will point in the direction of the British High Commission as the most important Western diplomatic mission, even more significant than the American. This is totally believable.…
