Pakistan`s dilemma
The Pakistani establishment has been as much a victim of its successes as it has of its failures over the years. The Afghan policy during the 1990s that manufactured the…
Dereliction of diplomatic norms
Adam Thomson, Her Britannic Majesty’s High Commissioner in Pakistan, could do with a refresher course on diplomacy. He told a select group of journalists at his residence in Islamabad on…
Conflict economics
A paranoid style of thinking is entrenching itself in our country, and a bizarre reading of our economic challenges and destiny lies at the root of it. Over the last…
Smoke and mirrors
One lie that changed our world was that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (December 1979) resurrected the old czarist ambition to extend Russian domination to the warm waters of the…
Fixing education
By focusing their attack on privatisation of education instead of fixing the regulators of the educational market, such as the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) and the HEC,…
Kargil lows
Gen (r) Shahid Aziz’s effort to ‘disclose’ an open secret has brought the Kargil conflict back into focus. Finding out who knew what and to what extent is certainly important.…
Emerging economies
Since long, Pakistan is locked up in a situation of economic volatility, infrastructural deficit, financial disaster in public sector entities and growing poverty. Reformatory policies undertaken by different sectors of…
Endemic corruption
Pakistan is going through an immensely difficult era. Is it because of democracy? Is it because of the legacy that Musharraf left behind? Whatever the diagnosis the fact is that…
The Indo-Pak tango
What prevents India’s total domination over Pakistan? India is ahead of us in practically all indicators of national power potential – size, population, natural resources, economy and military. It outperforms…
The IMF’s visit
The IMF mission that was in Islamabad ostensibly to discuss the contours of the next programme has gone back to Washington. This scribe has been struggling to understand why they…
