Anwar Syed

Two elements in a recent Supreme Court judgment will have important bearing on our system of governance. One of them is taken well while the other is problematic. Concluding that the sellers of CNG are making enormous profits, it has ordered the price of the product to be reduced substantially. Second, it has declared that […]

In a case that Air Marshal (retired) Asghar Khan had filed in the Supreme Court 16 years ago but which was taken up only recently, an interesting development was revealed. Asad Durrani, a former head of the ISI, stated that upon the direction of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and with the knowledge and concurrence of […]

Candidates for election to the office of the president have been debating each other since 1858 when Abraham Lincoln encountered Stephen A Douglas. Since then debates have taken place between Thomas Dewey and Harold Stassen, 1948; Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver, 1956; John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon, 1960; Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, 1976; […]

Political parties are said to be getting ready for the next elections, which are likely to be held sometime in 2013. They are presumably articulating the assurances they will give the electorate concerning their performance if they are returned to power. The situation created by the general breakdown of law and order has assumed crisis […]

Every sensible politician will claim that beyond his own survival, preservation of the public interest is his primary concern. Foremost among its components is the survival of the nation itself. In the case of Pakistan, it cannot be taken for granted. Hostile forces within the country pose a greater threat to its continued existence and […]

One of its characterisations tells us that politics is the art of the possible. The realm of possibility is not firmly fixed. It expands or shrinks in response to the surrounding circumstances, which in turn are amenable to change. Possibility implies the ability of the concerned agents to assemble and deploy the ways and means […]

There is no place in the world where all is well. The difference between societies in this respect is one of degree and not of kind. A great many things may be going right and well in societal interaction at any given time but quite a few may be falling apart. Wrongdoings in Pakistan are […]

No one has seen tomorrow, for it has not yet come out from the womb of time. It will eventually surface and then join the infinity of yesterdays. There is nothing we can do to mend the yesterdays if something had gone wrong with them because they are no longer within our reach. Tomorrow is […]

The economy in Pakistan is sluggish. The more astute observers believe that it will not perk up until public order and tranquillity are restored. They are currently in a state of disruption. Not a day passes without 10 or so persons getting killed in Karachi, the country’s industrial and commercial capital. Most of these killings […]

Altaf Hussain’s leadership of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) is a phenomenon the whys and wherefores of which I have never quite understood. Living in London since 1992 and directing the politics of the Urdu speaking people, known as Mohajirs, he commands their unquestioning submission. They will do virtually anything he orders them to do. […]