Desperation, isn’t it?
The National Assembly (having PML-N majority) has passed the Finance Bill 2014 legalizing several taxation measures that ignore their moral and operational flaws. As the stakeholders visualise the impact of…
Enemy at the gate
WHILE Pakistan’s squabbling politicians have paralysed the nation’s capital in a naked power struggle, the emerging threat to the country from across the border has been almost completely ignored. The…
Beyond the consensus
“If you want to rob the people wholesale start a bank”, says a Chinese proverb. The validity of this ancient wisdom aside, China itself has moved a long way away…
Pakistan’s contempt for institutions
Every hero becomes a bore at last, quipped Emerson, the quintessential Boston Brahmin known for his old-fashioned, New England commonsense. And when heroes like Imran Khan, loved and idolised by…
Pakistan’s Moscow option
SINCE independence, Pakistan’s relations with Moscow have been mostly adversarial. Pakistan was America’s “most allied ally”. India aligned with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Moscow’s veto in the…
More trade options
PAKISTAN’S commerce minister Khurram Dastgir Khan says that a trade deal between Pakistan and India appears likely this year, even though matters between prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi…
Pakistan’s ‘war on terrorism’
FINALLY, Pakistan has declared its own ‘war on terrorism’. The North Waziristan operation, the prime minister’s pronouncements and the adoption of the Protection of Pakistan Bill by the National Assembly…
A nuclear myth
NUCLEAR deterrence was conceptualised in the US even before the Soviet Union produced atomic weapons. Anticipating that the Kremlin would acquire the ‘ultimate’ weapon, brilliant minds devised a strategy to…
Three queens
THE queen is the most powerful piece on the chessboard. Today, on the ‘chessboard of world politics’ there are three queens: the US, China and Russia. Japan, Germany, India and…
The globalisation project
Babar Ayaz in ‘Rejecting globalisation’ (July 1, July 2 2014) has attempted to sell globalisation in the name of workers. Let me point out that this is not new. Reactionary…
