The Kurram conundrum
The Kurram district, situated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has historically been a region of considerable strategic significance and cultural depth. Nestled along the western frontier, it shares a volatile border with…
Kurram’s crucible
WHEN KP CM Gandapur says Kurram’s problem is a conflict between two groups and not militancy, he has got blinkers on. Either that, or he is deliberately hoodwinking a nation…
A national compact for 2025
THE new year starts with the country facing multiple challenges that need to be met in a politically calm environment. The complex nature of overlapping challenges and the fact that…
Is Trump the answer?
GIVEN his past record, it was surprising to see endorsements for candidate Trump by Muslim Americans, including influential imams, in the swing state of Michigan and the Pakistani-American Public Affairs Committee (PAKPAC).…
Malala returns to a region in crisis
Twelve years after she was evacuated out of Pakistan as a badly wounded schoolgirl, Malala Yousafzai has returned to her home country at a critical time for girls’ education. “For…
Struggling against terrorism
IT has been a decade since the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, which killed some 150 students and staff in December 2014. It was the darkest moment in Pakistan’s…
Imperfect alignment
THE world is in turmoil, and politics in South Asia is in a state of flux. Remaining static in an evolving situation where the parts are moving faster than the…
Cultural resistance
MOB lynchings under the pretext of blasphemy have become commonplace. In exceptional circumstances, law enforcement officials intervene and take accused persons into custody before the mob sets upon them. But…
APS and after
For a parent, the loss of a child remains a searing wound that just will not heal. And when a parent is one of many whose progeny’s lives were snuffed…
Requiem for whom?
ONE question that always bothers me is: who is the big brain that this part of the world has produced? As if defining the criteria were not difficult enough, the…
