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Irked by a slogan alone?

THE most tense, bitter and intense of moments are made bearable by clowns in every society who have an incredible sense of timing in providing comic relief when it is…

Addictive charity

STATE charity is an opiate: it creates addicts of both the donor and the donee. The poor accept charity because they have little or no option. Governments turn to charity…

Politics of the moon

“It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, And makes men mad” — Shakespeare IF for decades we associated Eid with Mufti…

A sham democracy

THE presumptuously titled Tahaffuz-i-Bunyad-i-Islam Bill that was adopted with undue haste by the Punjab Assembly some time ago continues to generate controversy at various forums with the objections that had persuaded the…

Pakistan’s positives

THE recent unearthing by EU DisinfoLab of the vast anti-Pakistan disinformation and propaganda network run by India has brought to light a highly-organised, concerted and sustained effort to malign Pakistan internationally. The…

Protecting against the second wave

AS Covid-19 cases rise across the country, it seems to be a matter of time before strict public health measures designed to stem the virus’s spread will be implemented. These…

Broadening social protection

In my last article, ‘BISP and institutional reforms’, in these pages on September 25, I discussed some of the recently introduced institutional reforms to make BISP a merit-based and responsive…

Ehsaas and the way forward

In my previous article, ‘Inclusive social protection policy’ which was published in these pages on September14, 2020, I tried to outline a roadmap for the policy and practice of integrated…

How to save the economy

Covid-19 has forced the world to learn several lessons it should have learnt long ago. The world now realizes that the financial economy cannot support the real economy in a…

The undocumented

Pakistan’s undocumented economy has always been a major reason behind its many problems, ranging from fiscal and current account deficits to inflation and poverty to high unemployment rates to being…