The limitations of Saarc
The fact that the war of words between heads of Pakistani and Indian delegations overshadowed the deliberations in the recent Saarc interior ministers’ meeting in Islamabad is yet another reminder…
A boxed-in Sharif
While he spoke of peace at the Heads of the State Council of the SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has little of that at home. Domestically,…
Reverberations of Quetta
We cannot close our eyes to the fact that this Independence Day is being celebrated under the shadow of one of the most horrific acts of terror in the blood-dripping…
Let us see tomorrow
Fast forward to October 30. What do we see? Cameras and news reporters tell us that Islamabad is choking with people: that there is a roaring multitude of oceanic proportions…
Other surgical strikes
South Asians are at their humorous best when they try to look serious. As if the surgical strikes of Narendra Modi were not enough to amuse us, awards received by…
Fixing politics
Away from the glare of publicity and in near total silence, fundamental changes are taking place in the role and profile of the country’s establishment in national affairs. From intrusive…
Crises in the shadows
Ramazan has been a cruel month. A time for piety and forbearance has yielded a harvest of fear, anxiety and vicious political bickering. Terror has surfaced again in Karachi, the…
It’s not just cricket
We are told that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. The allusion here is that a nation’s leadership is shaped by good education and…
Semi-civilian rule
In the middle of the self-imposed tension of holding the PSL final in Lahore, and the attendant consequences of deployment of resources to manage the risks that we ourselves had…
Rangers operation in Punjab
After the February 13 terrorist attack in Lahore the Punjab government has agreed, though grudgingly, to call in the Rangers but won't fully empower the paramilitary force to freely carry…
