A malleable charter
WHILE it is appreciable that a solid monument is to be soon erected in Islamabad to symbolise the profundity of the Constitution, the record shows that the 1973 charter remains…
The precarious lives of politicians
FORMER prime minister Imran Khan was shot in the leg during an assassination attempt last week while participating in the long march. He survived. But Pakistani politicians seldom survive assassination attempts, which…
A riotous future?
AS our judges, generals and ruling class politicians continue to engage in myopic, factional battles for money and power, the teeming masses are increasingly restive. Every day there are new…
The caged country
PAKISTAN is one of the few countries where political surrogacy is still legal, where a seed can be planted by the military to gestate in the womb of democracy. Earlier…
Decolonising the law
TOWARDS the end of World War II, the idea of ‘decolonisation’ with its attendant images of freedom fighters, ouster of the English colonisers and creation of independent nation states had…
Inconvenient truths
DISAPPOINTMENT is the word that comes to mind when one thinks of Pakistan’s current situation. Sheer disappointment. Not necessarily with the state of our economy, the abysmal security situation, or…
Making the Constitution work
WHAT could be more ironical than a country experiencing a constitutional breakdown while ‘celebrating’ the golden jubilee of its constitution? Speakers at a commemorative convention held at Parliament House vowed, one after…
Student unions
ON Feb 9, 1984, Gen Ziaul Haq dealt an existential blow to Pakistan when he banned student unions. They were never truly restored though several civilian governments followed him and…
World News Day
IN 1896, The New York Times introduced on its masthead the words which went on to become not only its own manifesto but also set the standard by which other…
A saffron silence
HAD William Shakespeare been alive today in Pakistan, he would have given a different twist to his drama Julius Caesar. He would have reframed history in the light of our…
