Hard choice
It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. — Deng Xiaoping Deng’s remarks about the irrelevance of the colour to a cat’s…
Worth of a life
How much is a human life worth in Pakistan? Not more than peanuts, given the impunity with which people are being killed in this benighted country of ours. The state’s…
On different floors of the same hotel
Joseph Schumpeter, the Czech-born Austrian-American economist, is said to have once said that income distribution in a society is just like a hotel with three floors where the rooms at…
Muted blowback
The high casualty figures in the Wagah terrorist incident in Lahore confirm that the perpetrators have scored a major victory. That said (and not to downplay the barbarism they have…
As the US reasserts itself
Afghanistan’s new power tandem has gone ahead with what Karzai would not accept, a status of forces agreement with the US, thus clearing the way to America’s military role after…
Pakistan power sector agenda: Issues and solutions of T&D sub-sector – I
Pakistan has been faced with power crises and its multiplier effect on the economy for decades. This issue has been reviewed extensively and many options have been debated by experts…
Floods of misery
Pakistan is experiencing its fourth major floods in the past five years. The increasing frequency and intensity of the flooding not only underscores Pakistan’s — and South Asia’s — vulnerability…
The scriptwriter
Optimists in Pakistan are besieged by a worrying realisation of the fragility of the enormous gains this country has made in the last decade. These gains have been exposed as…
More, not less
Almost like clockwork, the ‘fake democracy’ crowd is back. Those claiming that the era of dictatorships and coup-mongering was over utterly failed to take into account the intellectual and moral…
A month into the revolution
Imran Khan wants (a) the public to stop paying taxes, utility bills etc; (b) for the IMF and other international lending institutions to stop funding the government; and (c) for…
