Don’t resume hanging
Among the first acts of the new rulers is their reported decision to roll back one of the most ennobling policies of the previous government — the moratorium on execution…
Security meltdown
Shocking as it may be, despite the uncontrollable spiral of militant violence threatening to push the country beyond the brink, we do not have a coherent strategy to counter the…
Mandviwalla vs Sheikh
Serious charges are surfacing against the newly appointed Finance Minister Saleem H. Mandviwalla and lately the three-year reign of Dr Hafeez Sheikh marked by unsustainable reliance on domestic borrowing, poorly…
Towards TARP-II?
In the beginning it was tax evasion, and then became rampant corruption and eventually mafias took over, making the FBR irrelevant in most of the sectors-Ali Arshad Hakeem, Chairman FBR.…
Agenda for the nation 2013 and beyond-III
Over the past five years, extremely bad governance wrought with corruption and compromise in the name of continuity of democracy has brought the country to a disastrous point. This has…
Technocratic turncoats
Turncoat or ‘lota’ is a familiar word for the people of Pakistan. It is a pejorative commonly used for our politicians who change parties frequently at the altar of ‘national…
Missing the target
There are too many large untargeted subsidies in Pakistan that are wasting a lot of resources due to their untargeted nature. The wheat subsidy goes to all the people who…
The state and economic development
The role of the Pakistani state in the country’s economy has recently come under scrutiny - in reference to the ongoing electricity and natural gas/CNG crisis. The argument usually put…
Supremacy versus obligations
The economic challenges the post-election regime will face are massive, but no politician talks about how his/her party will address them. All they do is to label those who ask…
Differences in perception
Why do perceptions vary over the outcomes of government policies and actions? In this writer’s view this is because interpretations and some of the official data may not be consistent…
