The die is cast
Amidst much anticipation, the Multi-Party Conference (MPC) was held in Islamabad on September 20, 2020, hosted by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its young chairperson Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari. Almost the…
Local government’s return
THE new cycle of local government elections in Pakistan started with a bang. Though delayed by more than a year, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the first province to undergo the first…
TLP: the state’s continuing blunders
The violent clashes in the past few days between the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) are the latest incarnation of the state’s flawed and blundering policy…
Trouble all round
Trouble has raised its disquieting head, or is looming, on diverse fronts for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government. First and foremost, Chief Minister (CM) Balochistan Jam Kamal Alyani has finally…
Age of extremes
ONLY in Pakistan do we express outrage against the expected. The TLP-government agreement, which few were surprised by, caused much heartburn on Sunday evening, despite many insisting they knew this was…
The madressah riddle
THE state has yet to fully realise the sociocultural and political-economic inferences of religious education institutions or madressahs. Despite having long attempted to pursue the reform of this sector, successive…
The fuss about ‘reunification’
PAKISTAN’S Foreign Office offered what sounded like a high-decibel response to the routinely chest-thumping comments by Mohan Bhagwat, the head of India’s right-wing Hindu RSS. He had, not for the first time,…
Perceiving gender
MOST people go their entire lives without ever feeling any need to question their gender — a blissful ignorance, one may imagine, so very easily taken for granted. For them,…
Gwadar’s women
WHAT happened in Gwadar earlier this week was surprising for everyone in the country. Hundreds of women participated in the rally ‘Give Rights to Gwadar’, led by Maulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman of the Jamaat-i-Islami…
The people suffer
BALOCHISTAN Chief Minister Jam Kamal Alyani is in danger, and the threat isn’t an external one. His own Balochistan Awami Party members, led by speaker Quddus Bizenjo, want him to give…
