Pakistan’s defective education
While the standard of education Pakistan has been going downhill, moral values have hit rock bottom. At a high school examination in Karachi, the nation was shocked to see not…
Beyond reform?
Since the start of World Bank funded Tax Administration Reforms Programme (TARP), FBR has been making tall claims about its automation efforts. All the chairmen of FBR, who headed the…
What did Mujib want?
During a parliamentary debate, Aitzaz Ahsan once chided his friend, late Sher Afghan Niazi about December being a difficult month for the Niazis of Mianwali. The remark, quite possibly, might…
The crushing weight of corruption
If corruption were to be defined as any benefits which fall free to a nation or its population then the extreme position is corruption by inheritance. The only redeeming factor…
The HEC impact
The period between 2003 and 2008 saw amazing developments in the higher education sector of Pakistan, dramatically changing the landscape of our universities. In 2003, only 2.6 percent of youth…
Crime and terrorism: Financial challenges – II
Risk-based approach: Nations are operating within a comprehensive international framework that deters financial crime and terrorism in the first place; detects it when it happens and disrupts the activities of…
Devolution and HEC
When I was in secondary school not everyone in my school could study for the ‘O’-Levels. The school conducted a test and if you passed, you were amongst the chosen…
The women from Kohistan
Four women clapping and two men dancing appeared in a grainy cellphone video from a remote village said to be in Kohistan. The ill-fated gathering was said to have occurred…
Good morning
I find myself equally agitated and concerned about students cheating in school examinations as I do about a dangerous drift that is perceptible in the state of affairs that are…
In transit
As I write this on the terrace restaurant of a hotel in the hills in Sri Lanka, there’s a small river tumbling over huge boulders a few feet away. The…
