No role model close by
AS the turmoil in Egypt illustrates, political transitions are never easy. In uncertain and chaotic times, people are jailed, demonstrators shot and killed and military coups happen. Life becomes bleak…
Brotherhood on the brink
Those who cannot remember the past, warned George Santayana, are condemned to repeat it. Having lived under military rule for the better part of the past several decades, Egypt’s secular…
The Annual Plan
The good news is that the function of Planning and Development at the federal level has been upgraded to the status of a full-fledged ministry by the PML (N) government.…
Seizing the moment
It’s been almost a month since Nawaz Sharif took oath and we’re still waiting. The first big opportunity for the new government to demonstrate its tough new approach was the…
Pakistan’s recognition of the Taliban
For too long have the people of Afghanistan walked through the dreadful valley of despair. Tuesday’s attack by the Taliban near the presidential palace in Kabul portends an escalation of…
‘Greed and desperation’
“President Zardari is a very devious man,” said the old farmer. “Whatever he gives you with one hand, he will take away twice as much with the other.” I spent…
Numbers from a hat
Sleight of hand, a rose-tinted view of revenues and external inflows and a hopefully supportive State Bank: the budget, long on rhetoric and short on action (to reflect a road…
Improving the transportation fuel efficiency
The use of CNG for road transport was developed in USA in nineteen seventies however, it never found its general application, only recently it is being used to a very…
Paying it off
So we are told that the government plans to retire the circular debt and restore power supplies. Under the present circumstances, it is hard to imagine a better policy stimulus…
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…
