Andleeb Abbas

Armed attack. Daylight terror. Hostages. Killings. Blasts in Quetta, Wana and Bannu. This is not 2012 but 2022. They are back. They are threatening. They are spreading. Islamabad-based institute PIPS (Pakistan institute of Peace studies) has published a paper that claims that a 51 per cent increase in terrorism has occurred in Pakistan since the […]

Emotional scenes. Live cut. A yearning father. An anxious son. Staff ready with flower garlands. A hero’s welcome. This is not a welcome back to a martyr who laid his life for his country. This is a welcome back for a citizen who escaped the country four years ago when he was asked by the […]

Murder in the Kenyan Safari. Seems like the title of an Agatha Christie novel. Her famous best seller “Murder on the Orient Express” got so much notice that it was turned into a movie that is still talked about, watched and followed. The tragic murder of Arshad Shareef in the back and beyond of Kenya […]

It is hacked. It is hung. It has crashed. It has a virus. These are all terms from the world of computing technology. These describe the messing up of the system. Such computers are then sent for repair. Such computers are then scanned with detectors and run with software to make them virus free. Such […]

Don’t. Let it be. Let the sleeping dogs lie. Better not. Keep away. Avoid. Stop. These are all warnings. These may be alarm bells to ward off. These may be pearls of wisdom trying to save you from disaster. Or, these may be just a retreat call to can yourself with the same worms who […]

Take a bet. Make a guess. Open the tarot cards. Read the palm. Study the stars. Many in Pakistan are trying all these avenues. The game is “Kon banega COAS” (Who will be the next COAS). There is such an overkill of this discourse that it is almost reached OCD levels (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The […]

The dinosaur effect. The Darwin principle. The system has hanged. These are some ways to describe the way things have been and the way things are being forced to be. In the corporate world, change is to be accepted, adapted and celebrated. Organisations strategise to remove resistance to change and develop business models that can […]

Come November. There was a super hit movie “Come September” in the 60s. This movie was about a rich billionaire and his controversial life manifested by his yearly sojourns in Italy every year in September. In Pakistan, it is Come November but not each year. After every three years. The speculation starts a year before. […]

Times have changed. It is not shoot-on-sight. It is shove, shut and shoot on tweet. The social media era has given the voiceless a voice. It has also given the faceless, a face. The tragic murder of Arshad Sharif, Pakistan’s ace anchor, has just sent this nation into an emotional earthquake. People are shaking. People […]

Take off their clothes. Beat them. Rip them. Whip them. That seems to be the major topic to be discussed or not to be “discussed.” This is not a striptease bar but this is definitely a political tease and torture “game.” The strippers and whippers may be the “namaloom afraad” (the invisible people) that were […]