Women and property
It was a story of one woman and two men, each one alleging that she was married to him. There were two accounts and two marriage contracts. The first man,…
The population debate
The controversy generated by a contraceptive advertisement run by various TV channels – and the subsequent decision to take it off-air – highlights how divided our society is on the…
Hubris as justice?
The Election Commission of Pakistan should not have abdicated responsibility. It should have definitively fixed a date for the presidential election, passed a reasoned order in response to the PML-N’s…
Chaos under the heavens
The last few years have seen our nation being bestowed with several not-so-flattering epithets. Either we are ‘the most dangerous nation’ or ‘the most resilient nation’. We annually grace the…
An inability to think
An abiding sorrow it is that in the midst of all these nerve-shattering events that almost threaten the very survival of the country, there is little evidence of a serious…
Pursuing normalcy
The Nawaz government has been in power now for nearly two months. Rather unusually, the prime minister has kept the foreign ministry portfolio to himself, supposedly because it is too…
The making of an Asian tiger
The remarkable economic success of the ‘Asian Tigers’ (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) has long fascinated the world, Asia in particular. The Asian Tigers resurfaced during the May…
Why do they hate us?
During George W. Bush’s tumultuous eight years in power, America’s global standing fell to its lowest level in decades. Were it not for the power of its guns and dollars,…
Eyeless in Gaza
The prime minister’s visit to the foreign office, despite the media hype, was a non-event. Front-page newspaper photographs and television footage showed him sitting grim-faced at the head of a…
The back-channel reality
As anticipated, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has launched ‘back-channel’ diplomacy to improve relations with India. This is a welcome initiative. The man he has chosen to represent Pakistan, Shahryar Khan,…
