A voyage around the TTP
At this time, when the new year has launched its promises and its threats against the backdrop of a wasted year, a great confusion is rising about the national sense…
Why civility matters
About a week ago, Federal Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb was accosted and harassed in London by a group of PTI supporters while on her way to a coffee shop. She…
Lynching season
A mentally challenged middle-aged man in Tulamba, a Khanewal village, is the latest victim of mob vigilantism on allegations of blasphemy. His brother revealed that the victim, Mushtaq Rajput, had…
Systemic nurturing of tragedy
At least twenty-three dead bodies in cars, on their way out of Murree. ‘Januaries’ seem to be particularly brutal. January 4, 2011: the Salmaan Taseer assassination. January 9, 2018: the…
Slippery slope of descent into barbarism
The Sialkot incident in which a Sri Lankan factory manager, Priyantha Kumara, was brutally bludgeoned to death by an enraged mob of the factory’s workers for alleged blasphemy and his…
Inconvenient unions
WHEN a prime minister marries, it is his or her own business. It is no concern of the state. When that marriage becomes itself a business, then polity has every…
The cost of surrender
THE terms of surrender may not have been made public but the capitulation could not have been more humiliating. There was nothing surprising about the government succumbing to a lawless…
Planning for a nation
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire IS there anything left to say about Sialkot? Condemn it more? Express outrage even more loudly? Use…
Ruined lives
Five bloggers, Salman Haider, Ahmed Waqas Goraya, Asim Saeed, Ahmed Raza Naseer and Samar Abbas were disappeared in January 2017 within days of each other. All five used social media…
The rise of fascism
In the post-Cold War world, an old phenomenon in new guises has raised its ugly head all over again. This is the rise of the far right and even neo-Nazi…
