Behind the veil
When Saima, my late mother’s maid, first joined our staff, she used to wear the full burqa. But after a bit, when she saw that neither my mother, nor her…
Dangerous ground
Universities have long been celebrated as platforms for the free exchange of ideas, innovation and social progress. But Pakistanis should be concerned about the kinds of ideas that are being…
9/11: War of what?
On September 9, 2001, twelve years ago, a gruesome and heinous crime against humanity was committed in New York - wanton attack on twin towers of World Trade Center symbolising…
Dispossession, orthodoxy and Indo-centrism
The All-Parties Conference, which included the leadership of the major political forces and the military high command, has resolved to counter terrorism in the country by initiating a process of…
Idiots of history…all utterly wrong
Imagine Mustafa Kemal’s folly as he went about resisting the victorious Allies and raising the banner of revolt: he did not call an all-parties conference (APC). He did not consult…
Beyond Jinnah’s secularism
That Mohammad Ali Jinnah was secular is old hat. Two of his recently unearthed radio broadcasts that lay hidden in the archives of All India Radio testify yet again to…
Limitations of power
ON Saturday, President Obama declared, `I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets`. But he went on to say that he had also…
To the Punjabi intelligentsia
Even when Pakistan had not been dismembered and Bengalis were the largest ethno-linguistic group within the state –outnumbering all other groups and nationalities combined – the Punjabi elite and middleclass…
Humanity at stake in Syria
Wimp. That’s what pundits in the west and Middle East seem to think about President Barack Obama following his ‘flip-flop’ over Syria. Even those opposed to western interference in the…
Dangers of military intervention
The spectre of US military action against Syria has not diminished with the surfacing of divisions among America’s European allies and the resounding rejection of such intervention by the British…
