Budget blues
“It's a budget written by bureaucrats for bureaucrats” goes the refrain in the business community. No sooner had the finance minister finished his speech, the Karachi Chamber of Commerce was…
An ambitious budget
Turning to current expenditure, debt servicing is expected to increase by Rs125 billion, defence by Rs57 billion, grants by Rs3 billion and civil administration by Rs23 billion. On the other…
It is all in divine hands
Legendary Urdu poet Mir’s verse, Ulti hogaen sab tadbiren kuch na dawa ne kaam kia (All the efforts backfired and nothing helped) has become a proverb. This is the same…
Tax proposals – II
Initial developmental efforts are generally marked by inflationary tendencies in an economy. Inflation, if uncontrolled, may thwart all development plans and bring misery to the poor. A reasonable degree of…
Tax proposals – II
Initial developmental efforts are generally marked by inflationary tendencies in an economy. Inflation, if uncontrolled, may thwart all development plans and bring misery to the poor. A reasonable degree of…
Institutions and economic performance: Election Outlook-XIX
There is a long list of economists-from Adam Smith to W Arthur Lewis and from Douglas C North to Niall Ferguson-who have strongly highlighted the importance of institution building for…
Get agrarian
Land reforms and the imposition of tax on income derived from agriculture, which is presently exempt in the majority of countries like Pakistan, are two issues that attract a lot…
Pakistan and leadership transition in China
Since the 1990s, China's top leaders serve a maximum of two five-year terms. With the last batch of leaders having reached the end of their second term last year, there…
Monster machines fan out on US farms facing slow sow
With the US spring planting season off to a historically slow start, an increasing number of farmers are counting on powerful tools to catch up: Monster machines that sow 36…
Challenges and opportunities
Arrangements made for re-polling at 43 stations in NA-250 showed the ECP and the Army the difference such arrangements could have made to the May 11 election results whose authenticity…
