Pakistan’s authoritarian tingeThe Pakistani state has always aspired to be an effective authoritarian state. It may now go even further and become an efficient fascist state. Here is why I think it might happen. Since the 1980s, t...
Elections and sustainable democracyThe elections for another five-year term (2018-2023), only two days away, are an occasion for national jubilation and celebration — a good omen for continuance and consolidation of democratic rule in...
Who’s pulling the strings?Sir: Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui has gone on record and said that the judges that are serving the country are not safe within it. Their phones are tapped and they are under immense pressure. He said...
Mandatory drug addiction testsSir: Given the onslaught of vicious allegations and counter allegations by the politically driven social media cells of contesting political parties, as well as the manner in which a few politicians r...
Neglected schoolsSir: Recently, I accompanied the Education and Literacy Department’s Assistant Monitor, as he was on a mission to visit the schools (polling stations) in remote and rural areas. The visit was aimed at...
Solving KashmirThe people of Kashmir have tried, time and again, to translate themselves from passive recipients of violence, legitimated by legislations of the physically and psychologically removed parliaments of...
Our security challengesWhat is national security? Walter Lipmann’s defines national security as,“A nation has security when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate interests to avoid war, and is able, if challenged, to...
Judicial activism and enforced disappearancesOn March 14, 2016, around a dozen men, some wearing uniforms and some wearing masks, trespassed into a house in Islamabad, they forcibly abducted Sajid Mahmood (the owner of the house) and disappeared...