Lessons from Tharparkar
The invasion of Tharparkar district by rich donors and relief convoys should not divert attention from the need for long-term answers to the grave problems faced, seasonally or permanently, by…
Poor report card
On March 14, 2013, Pakistan accepted recommendations made during its second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council, promising the Pakistani people as well as the…
Beyond clichés
Pakistan’s doublespeak on security policies is notorious throughout the world. Last week, the government extended its practice of saying one thing while doing another into the realm of social issues.…
Literary masterpieces
The country is passing through difficult times. We hear and read about nothing other than terrorist attacks, murders, suicide bombings, shootouts, etc and the press blows everything up. Any one…
Why a census counts
Counting the population has been an intensely contentious and challenging affair in Pakistan. The last census was held in 1998. Since then preparations have occasionally been undertaken to hold the…
TTP ceasefire: should Pakistan be taken seriously?
So there we have it. The resolve stories were a bit premature. Appeasement wins again and of course it will be hailed as a triumph of statesmanship. And the army…
Being partisan
Last week in London, Indian Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid spoke on the challenges facing democracy in India. While the content of his talk was interesting, the partisan lilt…
Bigotry in the name of God
The chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), Muhammad Khan Sheerani, has stated that prohibition of child marriage under the Muslim Family Law Ordinance is un-Islamic. He argued that…
The Indian within
As India and Pakistan struggle to resolve their political differences presently, there is an India/Pakistan-related struggle going on inside me too. My inner instincts tell me that a big part…
Finally a policy to decipher
The National Internal Security Policy (NISP) is not based on rocket science. But does it need to be? True, the policy could have been written better. It could have been…
