Modi in distress
Narendra Modi came to power when BJP swept the elections in 2014. Modi earlier had become famous for having orchestrated the genocidal killings of Muslims in his home province of…
Buffeted by Trump and vote-rigging charges, India’s Modi starts to push back
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is navigating one of the most challenging stretches of his 11 years in office. A contentious ceasefire with archenemy Pakistan, renewed scrutiny over his age…
From the Afghanistan files
It was on the BBC World Service at 7pm Riyadh time on December 24, 1979 that I heard the news that the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. The operation had…
Silencing the war drums, amplifying her voice
On May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor, a retaliatory strike on Pakistan to ‘avenge’ the terror attack in Pahalgam that killed more than 30 civilians. Touted by the Indian government…
Judicial indiscretions
MUCH has been said about the backlog of 2.4 million cases in the judicial system. At the Asma Jahangir Conference in 2024, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah stated that in 2023, judges had decided 1.69m…
Leadership — intellect or wisdom?
Intelligence matters for leadership. Its presence is seen as a guarantee for good leadership to prevail. The premise of this thought relies on the hair splitting of intelligence into social, practical…
Hazrat Ali’s martyrdom
The words spoken memorably by Hazrat Ali (a.s) after he was struck with a poison-laced dagger more than 1300 years ago, remain well preserved as evidence of the rich wisdom…
The continuing polio challenge
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries that still have the polio virus. Pakistan in spite of multimillion-dollar campaigns featuring well known personalities and run on all media is…
New scholarship on religion and reform: Part – II
'The latest contribution by Ali Usman Qasmi to the existing scholarship on the history of Pakistan and how religion has influenced citizenship and other issues in the country is Qaum,…
Remembering ABS Jafri Part – II
ABS Jafri’s first book that I read was ‘Here lies India’, containing his columns about the India-Pakistan War of 1965. During and after the war he wrote columns seven days…
