Do parties understand youth bulge?
PAKISTAN is the 46th youngest country with a median age of 20.4 years among 237 countries and territories in the world, according to UN Population Division statistics released this year.…
Atypical politics
MANY wonder why our politics is so unlike Western democracies’. Politics emerges from and reflects societal realities. Our society is unlike Western ones and thus too is our politics. But…
Our popular leaders
POPULAR leaders with non-elite roots, pro-poor agendas and origins in institutionalised grassroots political movements often deliver equitable and democratic progress. Non-elite roots obviously aid such agendas while a rise through…
Religion & politics
WHENEVER there is a mention of religion in Pakistani politics, it is regarded as nothing more than a tool to exploit the public’s religious sentiment for personal political gains. While…
Four key trends
IN my last piece, I wrote about instability caused by states that do not respond to or reshape new demands and pressures from society. The most relevant example from Pakistan…
A riotous future?
AS our judges, generals and ruling class politicians continue to engage in myopic, factional battles for money and power, the teeming masses are increasingly restive. Every day there are new…
Policing and the right to protest
IT appears as if Imran Khan has deliberately slowed down the pace of his party’s ‘long march’ on Islamabad. But the challenge of providing security to the protestors and maintaining law and…
Don’t ban PTI
THE PTI is visibly crumbling. Each passing day sees senior members deserting their supreme leader. Those who have always served power were terrified once the establishment made May 9 into…
Taliban & liberalism
IT has been 14 months since Afghanistan was handed over to the Taliban by the most fearsome military force the world has ever known, the US army. For most of this time…
Unstable states
We face today one of the worst bouts of political instability to have plagued us since 1947. Some states like India are stable with regular fair polls. Others see polls…
