For an India of many states
Sometimes political leaders do the right thing for the wrong reasons. This is true with a vengeance of the decision of India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance, led by the Congress,…
Early warning systems in social conflicts
Early Warning System (EWS), and its adjunct, Early Response (ER) have had their origins since olden times when in primitive societies people were keen to know about future untoward developments…
Fallout of Syrian conflict
Is there some hope to be entertained that the tragedy in Syria will be brought to an end either by the efforts of the international community or by some miraculous…
Permanent victimhood
Politically speaking, Malala’s gravest error was to survive the attack by the Taliban gunmen who shot her in the head on her way back from school in 2012. Had she…
What Punjab can do and what it has never done
Mystics and divines, poets and singers, men of enterprise and of daring, of quality and base instinct, the best dancing girls in the entire sub-continent, Punjab has given birth to…
Naya Pakistan: Building a Pakistani nation
Over sixty five years after Pakistan came into being, we are a state with a fading sense of the nationhood that inspired the Muslims of the subcontinent to rally behind…
Make politics ordinary
Those who care for historical comparison may note that in 1988, General Zia’s children of dictatorship were voting for a democratic revolution promised by a waving Benazir Bhutto from atop…
Not in the name of religion
At a meeting on Monday, the Senate's Special Committee on Election Issues took exception to the ECP's inclusion in its new Code of Conduct the guideline that candidates cannot seek…
Of distant dreams and false myths
The goodwill Indians and Pakistanis manifest for each other can vanish in a jiffy when the hate-mongers on both sides get going. The ensuing slanging match usually takes the form…
Internal security challenges
The Supreme Court is disillusioned and disappointed at the failure of the federal government as well as the provincial governments of Sindh and Balochistan to maintain law and order by…
