The incompetence argument against democracy
Like drug addicts, we will endure almost any indignity for yet another hit from the bong of low-grade gossip that passes for national news. Tahirul Qadri’s travails on flight EK…
BJP’s scare-mongering over foreign funds
A journalist isn’t generally expected to comment on news in which s/he figures as an actor. But I’m compelled to do so in respect of a report by India’s Intelligence…
Viewpoint:A new chapter in Pak-Iran relations?
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is back from his two-day fence mending visit to Iran. Relations between the two neighbours have been strained because of some recent developments. Almost immediately upon…
Obama: one eye on Asia, another on global turbulence
Foreign policy crises are chasing Barack Obama around Asia, drawing his attention from a key region and providing fodder for domestic critics who see him as a toothless leader out-manoeuvred…
Our foreign policy after Modi
It is generally believed that rational human beings have a universal longing for peace. But artificial distinctions on the basis of religion and nationality keep the peoples of South Asia…
A historic day
In the previous three parts of this column I reproduced the farewell speech delivered by Gen Musharraf and the letter written by Ghulam Ishaq Khan to Zahid Malik. After the…
Engaging Modi
THE invitation to Nawaz Sharif and other Saarc leaders from Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi to attend his inauguration was even more surprising than his landslide electoral victory. To put it…
Nawaz’s Delhi escapade
Narendra Modi is India’s second prime minister from Gujarat – the first was Morarji Desai, whose term from 1977 to 1979 marked a turning point in the country’s politics inasmuch…
The audacity of hope
The flight to New Delhi for Pakistan’s prime minister to attend Narendra Modi’s inauguration among other Saarc leaders is a short one, but is nothing short of a diplomatic coup…
Where will he stop?
At a press conference last Wednesday following Nawaz Sharif’s return from Delhi, Sartaj Aziz claimed that although it was “essentially a ceremonial occasion”, the actual result and outcome of the…
