View Point: Good news from Balochistan
Balochistan-related good news in a long, long time is the decision of Balochistan National Party-M (BNP-M) headed by Baloch nationalist leader, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, to participate in the upcoming elections.…
Politics for profit
A Frenzy of activity marked the final moments of the Sindh government’s tenure with signs of frayed nerves visible in the Chief Minister’s House and elsewhere. What did it indicate?…
Rumours and conspiracies
Wasn’t the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan said to have been about our warm waters? Never mind whether it was the Cold War or Charlie Wilson’s war, wasn’t there the obscure…
Is Pakistan finally coming of age?
The clouds lift, methinks, to some degree and the Pakistani prospect looks brighter than it has done for a long time. All because Pakistan with its great capacity for not…
Bell the democratic cat
Pakistan has just sworn in its first non-criminal, non-corrupt, and non-elected prime minister in five years. Draw two lines under ‘non-elected’ because our failed version of democracy only throws up…
Lollywood: an obituary
In terms of production, the late Lollywood was once rated as one of the world’s top ten film industries. Until the 1980s it was not called Lollywood. It was on…
Extremists` threat to polls
Doubts about the 2013 general election being held at all are likely to be entertained till the ballots are actually cast, but a more worrisome question is as to what…
The right to asylum
In December 2012 a group of some 45, mostly Pakistani, refugees took shelter in one of Vienna`s biggest churches. Because they feared immediate deportation the church seemed a safe place…
Bangladesh & 1971 syndrome
Bangladesh is again plunging itself into another phase of political turmoil and violence. The decision by the Dhaka-based International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) to award capital punishment to two key leaders…
A compromise solution?
What the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) needed, if not the major political parties that have bickered over the selection of caretaker prime minister endlessly, was a compromise candidate. Former…
