UPA on shaky ground
When Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, the second largest component of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), walked out of the alliance last September, nobody thought that would immediately destabilise the…
Extremists` threat to polls
Doubts about the 2013 general election being held at all are likely to be entertained till the ballots are actually cast, but a more worrisome question is as to what…
Second ‘Shareholder Spring’ unlikely to bloom in Europe
While politicians and public have fulminated against lottery-sized pay awards in Europe's boardrooms, fund firms, which wield the real power, are less concerned by such excesses and unlikely to use…
The legacy of the PPP government
The Pakistan People’s Party got a monumental mansion built in Lahore for its supreme leader towards the close of its tenure (2008-2013), which, if doesn’t outdo, by all accounts matches…
Dubious assumptions
For some reason that only a team of historians and social scientists may fathom, our public discourse is, and has been, influenced more by dubious assumptions than facts. This is…
The general’s dream
In an informal meeting with a group of senior journalists, Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani insisted, “The army does not have any intention of derailing the…
Politics of expediency
The deliberate hash of local government to reflect the diverse demographics of the ruling coalition, the PPP in the rural areas and the MQM in the urban areas of Sindh,…
Taxing secrecy
Tax declarations of holders of public office - in fact all taxpayers - do not enjoy 'confidentiality' and 'secrecy'. Declarations have to be provided by the Federal Board of Revenue…
Change: order vs disorder
The Bible says there is a time for every purpose under heaven - "A time to be born and a time to die;...a time to weep and a time to…
The best government
If the federal law minister is to be taken at his word, the Swiss authorities are not going to reopen money laundering cases against President Zardari. This may be either…
