The fault is not in our stars
"Dil ka jana thehar gaya hai; subh gaya ya sham gaya",reasoned the ever stoical Meer. Many Pakistan watchers in India,including those ever hungering after a juicy bone or two to…
Predictions are not easy
In December 2000 the CIA’s National Intelligence Council produced a document that predicted what the world might look like in 2015. It contained some very trenchant forecasts about Pakistan which,…
Earth alienation
Any major development in the field of science and the world of ideas leaves an indelible mark on the course of history and human consciousness. Sometimes society resists an invention…
Pakistan’s security challenges
While there are reasons to be upbeat about Pakistan-Afghan relations, unfortunately, similar optimism cannot be expressed about Pakistan-India relations. In fact, the conduct of the Narendra Modi government has significantly…
The deterrence myth
The concept of nuclear deterrence gained increased prominence during the cold-war period when a generation of national security scholars and practitioners, including Bernard Brodie, Kenneth Waltz, etc, advocated nuclear development…
Tense border ties
The times — and with them, Pakistan’s borders — are tense. It has long been predicted that the drawdown of international troops and political transition in Afghanistan would lead to…
The hour of trial
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may have succeeded in clinging to power for now against the backdrop of anti-government sit-ins in Islamabad and mammoth public rallies in the other major cities,…
How dare she?
Malala Yousafzai is a clever little girl. Too clever by half. Back in 2012, at the ripe old age of 11 (when her parents should have actually been thinking about…
How green was my valley
This article is not about the Richard Llewellyn novel where a ‘town is reduced to a contaminated shell’. It is about one of Pakistan’s strikingly beautiful valleys which will soon…
Tips to happiness
Or rather tips to living reasonably well in today’s Pakistan…a Pakistan beyond tinkering or fixing in bits. Most of us are coming slowly to the realisation that this country needs…
