Which side are we on?
The Lord gave us some of the world’s most fascinating rivers, the tallest mountains, and a broad expanse of the bountiful sea. What the Lord did not give us, for…
Talks with the Taliban
We need to see how matters stood on the ground before 9/11. There was no army in Fata. All matters of government and those of the tribes were dealt with…
Who rules Pakistan?
A Month or so ago, political economist Akbar Zaidi published a piece in Economic and Political Weekly calling for a revision in our academic understanding of state and society in…
Tribes and terrorism
Rustam Shah Mohmand, a member of the team appointed by the government to negotiate with Taliban, ignited a debate this week through an article contributed to a national English daily,…
Where next?
You may have heard of a man called David Cameron. He is prime minister of the UK and arguably even more inept than his immediate predecessors, Messrs Blair and Brown,…
Dominant narrative
Why do people take pride in jumping the queue in Pakistan? Why do they want to distinguish themselves by showing others they can jump the queue? People could be in…
A girl abandoned by the state
A crying shame it is for this country that it is not shaken to the core by the suicide of an 18-year-old near Muzaffargarh. We have no evidence of opinion…
Islamabad’s ‘stain’
The decision by Islamabad’s Capital Development Authority (CDA) to demolish at least a dozen informal settlements in the capital area starting the last week of March has been met with…
An avoidable crisis
Contradiction and conflict between the military on the one hand and the political government and judiciary on the other are unavoidable in this transition to a fully democratic constitutional state.…
Bhagat Singh: for the deaf to hear
Though it keeps resounding with “Inqilab Zindabad,” the film does little to explain the slogan that Bhagat had raised with unprecedented vigour. The most politically important scene in the movie,…
