Similar origins, divergent paths
Over the years the National Students Federation (NSF) stood up against dictatorship, religious orthodoxy, espoused egalitarianism and produced leaders such as Meraj Mohammad Khan, Dr Rasheed Hasan Khan and many…
Gen Raheel and the monster
Exception justifies the rule. So has COAS General Raheel Sharif by sticking to his date of retirement in a country where only a third of army chiefs doffed their uniforms…
View Point: Trying General Musharraf
Many found it hard to believe him when Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan announced last Saturday that former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf is to be tried for high…
To the Punjabi intelligentsia
Even when Pakistan had not been dismembered and Bengalis were the largest ethno-linguistic group within the state –outnumbering all other groups and nationalities combined – the Punjabi elite and middleclass…
Gen Zia all by himself
In this country of many dictators Gen Ziaul Haq truly stands out, all by himself, without the associates who had helped him perpetuate his rule. During his time Zia was…
Incomplete justice
THE state-sponsored judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB), a key founder of both mass democracy and constitutionalism in Pakistan, is a historical and legal fact which very few independent…
Caretaker system’s future
THE national sentiment seems to be strongly opposed to the continuation of the current constitutional arrangement of appointing caretaker governments at the federal and provincial level when the legislatures are…
Stop fearing ordinary people
THE legendary public intellectual and political analyst Abdul Ghafoor Noorani, who passed away at 93 in Mumbai last week, had believed that Narendra Modi’s foreign policy flowed from his ideological prejudice cradled…
Amendments past & present
THIS is not the first time that a package of multiple constitutional amendments is being contemplated. The package of amendments under the umbrella of the Eighth Amendment was passed by the National…
Renewing democracy
FOLLOWING Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination in 1951, Pakistan witnessed a carousel of prime ministers, with six leaders in seven years, each serving an average term of 14 months. The wobbly…
