The tax connection
The country has been seized by a political storm after the Panama leaks. The military has, perhaps on its own, started an operation in Punjab after the horrific Lahore suicide…
State’s incapacity
Here’s a puzzle: for the past three decades, most sections of the ‘development’ intelligentsia, professional economists and technocrats, analysts, senior members of the bureaucracy, and the top leadership of nearly…
Fata or Pata?
After 68 years of our history, Fata parliamentarians realised the need for mainstreaming Fata – with the 22nd Amendment, which is the change of ‘Federally Administered Tribal Areas’ to ‘Provincially…
Fata – the presidential order
The recent presidential order regarding Senate elections for Fata and its subsequent withdrawal was a classic example of manipulation of events by the government when it comes to the tribal…
The real energy crisis
Pakistan has been reeling under energy crisis now for nearly a decade. Why cannot it put its act together? The issue is not with the generation of energy but with…
A brief history of us (1836-1838)
The period after Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 and the first war of independence in 1857 is a tumultuous one, a period of change in South Asia. This phase is however…
Who will fill the vacuum in Fata?
ARE IDPs abettors of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or victims of both the TTP and state policies? Are we reluctant to help North Waziristan IDPs as generously as we did in…
Public finance: government role in economy
Great Swedish economist Knut Wicksell (1851-1926), whose work earned him the recognition of ''''the economists'''' economist'''', had profoundly argued: "The science of public finance should always keep...political conditions clearly in…
The great migration
I sit sad in the valley/Listening to the river that says Trespasser, trespasser, trespasser./I stubbornly say, All the same It’s still beautiful./And I know that’s true But I know also/Why…
Change in Fata
The shockwaves of 9/11 hit deep in the tribal areas. Maliks were killed, drones fired and the long-established political agents lost much of their status and authority. The army campaigns…
