Real leaders
For too many people in Pakistan, the potential of a better country can only be achieved through a single individual. This is a staggering and remarkable truth in modern Pakistan.…
A love-hate relationship
What is most striking about the BBC’s report that the MQM’s militants are trained in India, which also funds the MQM’s purchase of weapons? That key sources of the story…
Peshawar tragedy and Benazir’s assassination: Wages of appeasement – II
It was 'Washington's renewed interest' in Asif Ali Zardari and Rehman Malik and not Benazir that forced Musharraf-once a close ally of Bush-to offer firm opposition to US Late Neo-colonialism…
Citadel of Lahore taken
This was a huge affair, to my mind bigger than Imran Khan’s path-breaking jalsa way back in Oct 2011. And was the crowd charged? You had to be there to…
IMF and FBR
International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its Third Review under the 1Extended Arrangement for Pakistan, has noted significant shortfall in revenue measures from the original programme objectives. The IMF2 says that…
A historic day
In the previous three parts of this column I reproduced the farewell speech delivered by Gen Musharraf and the letter written by Ghulam Ishaq Khan to Zahid Malik. After the…
The grievance of Pakhtuns
Sophocles, one of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived the ravages of time, was convinced that “Of all the ills afflicting men the worst is the lack…
A media myth
Fortunately, both Hamid Mir, the intended victim of the April 19 shooting in Karachi, and freedom of expression will survive. Like Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, there is no scope for…
The Gandhi of Pakistan
We are creatures of extremes. My recent articles have provoked absurdly stern reactions. Extremist ideologues have accused me of apostasy and, therefore, ‘worthy of death’ as envisaged in their peculiar…
Dialogue with the devil
Maulana Abdul Aziz, the chief cleric of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, has never hesitated in projecting himself as a religious scholar. He was catapulted to fame in July 2007…
