A self-defeating advice
Former premier Nawaz Sharif has asked the government to hold "serious, meaningful and result-oriented" talks with the Al-Qaeda-inspired local Taliban militants to bring peace in the country. A review of…
Afghanistan beyond 2014
The post-2014 situation in Afghanistan, after the withdrawal of the US/Nato/ International Security Assistance Force, has been the subject of a most vexing debate in recent times. The main difficulty…
Education and mobility
When I was in college, our undergraduate classes were allocated on the basis of student roll numbers. We were thus forced to interact with students who did not belong to…
The Indo-Pak tango
What prevents India’s total domination over Pakistan? India is ahead of us in practically all indicators of national power potential – size, population, natural resources, economy and military. It outperforms…
The path to peace in Fata
The residents of Bara in Khyber Agency have faced an extremely difficult situation ever since Pakistan joined the war on terror and deployed the army in the tribal areas. A…
Victims and victimhood
Salman Rushdie, a much-feted victim of intolerance, was vigorously promoting his memoir recently when I asked a friend in London to send me a copy of The Rushdie Letters. It…
Critical responses
In dealing with the menace of terrorism, clarity is finally emerging at the institutional level. The army chief`s speech last year on Independence Day was encouraging as he stressed clarity…
Dead or disappeared
When President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law the Actions (in Aid of Civil Power) Regulation, 2011, almost nobody noticed. Then, as now, Pakistan was in the midst of its…
Reconciliation is the key
Perhaps the best news to emerge concerning Afghanistan over the last few days is the five-day visit of the Afghan defence minister Gen Bismillah Khan Mohammadi to Pakistan at the…
A BJP-driven U-turn?
Looking at the U-turn in Indo-Pak relations, January seems a strange month. The change perplexed everyone, because throughout 2012, a perception was built that these belligerent neighbours had finally accepted…
