Liberal arts taboo
PROF Alexander Key was spot on when he suggested in his talk at a private university in Karachi that students should be offered more options in the field of liberal…
Turn it on again
ABOUT a fortnight before the US presidential elections in 2016, I attended a talk at a university in Chicago featuring New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and former Obama adviser…
Kacho area’s plight
PAKISTAN is geographically vast and ecologically diverse. The country has dry temperate mountains with the largest glaciers outside polar regions in the north, plains in the middle, coastal areas in…
The problem with Shahrukh Khan
MOVIE actor Nasiruddin Shah was promoting his book at a function in Delhi when his brother in the front row rattled him with a simple question. Why was it that…
Cricketers who also win hearts
THE school-going cricket enthusiast in our Lucknow neighbourhood was the only one to own a decent radio in the 1960s. Rajiv Puri, Bappal to us, would wait for daybreak to…
The unseen worker
THE PTI as we knew it is on its death-bed. While Imran Khan was always and is still the truly big fish in a small pond, the clearly forced departures…
Perils of punditry
IF the government decides to call for elections just a few days shy of the current parliament’s term-end, the caretaker administration will have 90 days in which to complete the…
Dust, disease, death
THE villagers of Suraj Gali and the adjoining Khoi Maira (about an hour from Islamabad) are an unhappy lot. The cause of their despondency is the mining and stone-crushing of…
Rethinking Pakistan’s agriculture
THE climate change-induced rains of last summer left millions of people homeless in many parts of Pakistan. While it is correct to put pressure on the international community to pay…
Time for renewables
AROUND the world, economic targets and progress are assessed by taking into account the uninterrupted supply of power. Understandably, countries with highly developed power distribution systems also fare better on…
