Much ado about Punjab
Those of us with short memories will not remember that there was a time when Punjab was not the most populous province in the country. For the first quarter century…
The mood of the moment
Pakistan’s mainstream political leadership appears edgy these days. All of a sudden many politicians seem to have had a revelation that a conspiracy is being hatched to derail the country’s…
Mapping the establishment
As the battle rages between the political government and its rival, popularly known as the establishment, the public silently awaits the final result. For some, the civilian government has already…
Lessons for the US
There were significant moments in the 20th century when heightened awareness of major human values – freedom, justice, order, security etc – forced American, and other western thinkers and academics…
Turkey’s Erdogan decade
Not long ago, Turkey was a security state where the establishment controlled policy through a shadow government. A clandestine network of military officers and their civilian proxies exercised utmost ‘legitimacy’…
Shadow politics
Adopting an innovative approach months before the general election, the Jamaat-e-Islami has, probably for the first time in Pakistan, named a ‘shadow’ chief minister. The party’s choice for would-be chief…
The meaning of Modi’s victory
With Narendra Milosevic Modi’s third consecutive victory, Gujarat has taken a big step backwards and India has suffered a political setback. The result will raise Modi’s ambition to play a…
Defining imperialism
Is there a Saudi imperialism? No, there is not. Still, the term ‘Saudi imperialism’ is fast creeping into left-liberal narratives. Drawing our attention to ‘Saudi imperialism’, such narratives refer to…
No time for mutiny
The symbol of an Anglican bishop is a crook (a hooked staff); and that of an archbishop is a double cross. Coincidentally, that’s what many of the English used to…
In the cross-hairs of change
And that perhaps lies at the heart of our current political imbroglio political and state grandees are not ready to understand the true dynamics of change. If they do grudgingly,…
