Losing both war and peace
Inscribed on the wall of a Buddhist temple in Hawaii are the words: ‘Every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key can open the…
Politics and the pipeline
The ground-breaking ceremony for the Pakistan section of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline last Monday was an event of high symbolic importance. It was designed to seal Pakistan’s commitment to finally…
Of distant dreams and false myths
The goodwill Indians and Pakistanis manifest for each other can vanish in a jiffy when the hate-mongers on both sides get going. The ensuing slanging match usually takes the form…
India`s power slipping away?
Once in a blue moon, an Indian bureaucrat gets it right. R.V. Shahi, the union power secretary in 2003, took on a backwater job that few wanted, and resurrected the…
Tough tasks ahead
When the present parliament ends its term tonight, the tenure of the government will also be over and the focus will shift to the elections and then the challenges facing…
The long shadow of Afzal Guru
When Afzal Guru was hanged secretly last month in Tihar Jail, Indian officials claimed that it was a simple case of the law taking its course and that politics had…
Tax the rich
The Human Development Report 2013 just released by the United Nations Development Programme highlights the rise of the Global South, comprising 130 developing countries, as the main drivers of the…
Trade ties with India
To get a better idea of how Pakistan’s trade ties with India can develop, think of the difference between a long distance trek and a pole vault. Anybody who has…
The decline of Indian Muslims
Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece Shatranj Ke Khilari, or The Chess Players, is a sublime and moving lament for the passing of the Muslim aristocracy in India. As the British plot their…
Foreign investment
Four features of Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s budget stand out. First, thanks to its obsession with reducing the fiscal deficit, the budget fails to raise social-sector expenditure – just when…
