Elections and religious minoritiesOne of the common refrains one gets from apologists of the religious apartheid when one speaks of the denial of basic and fundamental human rights to Ahmadis in Pakistan is that if they, the Ahmadis,...
Justice in the dockThe granting of bail to former Malir SSP Rao Anwar in the Naqeebullah Mehsud murder case, on July 10 has caused a sense of indignation and distrust towards the judicial system in large swathes of Paki...
A new threatSir: Pakistan has faced numerous threats since it was first founded. These include bigger, hostile neighbours; extremism and terrorism; as well as economic instability and political upheaval. However,...
Economic terrorismSir: Pakistan is a country with scarce resources, having been plundered by a powerful minority who held paid or elected public office, or were beneficiaries of corrupt tax evading commercial enterpris...
WMDs in terrorist hands?Sir: Both Iraq and Syria were attacked on charges that their regimes were making weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to use on other states or their own civilian populations. Iraq showed us that these...
A week of carnageSir: Balochistan bleeds once again. The Mastung terror attack took place at a time when the state was busy projecting itself as a self-proclaimed victor in the War on Terror. It took non-state actors...
The poison withinThere is no doubt we have a surfeit of poison within ourselves. The question is whether we want to remove it. Like all pre-industrial democracies struggling to find their democratic moorings, we are a...
Election observers and challengesThe interest the international community showed in the 2008 elections in Pakistan has, without a doubt, not been seen since then. In 2008, a massive number of election observers came to Pakistan for o...
SDG 4 and Balochistan’s education emergencyThe events of legislative activism and political argy-bargy in Balochistan vis-à-vis change in the provincial government and later in Senate elections clearly demonstrate the ability of provincial leg...