Babar Ayaz

Imran Khan has perhaps scored well in the first innings of the first Test match of politics played at Minar-e-Pakistan last month. And for the urban middle class political pundits who are tired of corruption and bad governance, it was an exhilarating moment. Educated but politically naive youth and many contemporary journalists have pinned their […]

“It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad: The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day… I go in the rain, and, more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind; And I think, […]

Some 800 people have been killed in Karachi in the last seven months of 2011. This translates into about 113 people a month and roughly four people a day. Now, any crime statistician or dodgy bureaucrat/politician would turn around and try to underplay the blood bath by claiming that, for a city with a population […]

The inevitable separation of bickering coalition partners — PPP and MQM — happened last month, which unleashed a fresh wave of violence in the city. Ostensibly, the MQM said that the PPP was putting undue pressure on it to withdraw one candidate from Azad Kashmir elections. But everybody knew that the real bone of contention […]

After 63 years of an arduous journey, on July 1, 2011, finally more power was devolved to the provinces from the Centre. These rights were usurped by the Centre the day this country came into being. Thus, accepting the provinces’ legitimate rights in the constitution by the present parliament in general and the ruling coalition […]

The co-chairman of the PPP, Asif Zardari, turned ‘khaki’ while addressing his party leaders and workers on the birthday of Benazir Bhutto and lashed out at Mian Nawaz Sharif for criticising the army. Getting defensive, the PML-N leaders have not only started praising the army but also declaring that they are “custodians of Islam” and […]

Political analysts and politicians from the opposition are criticising the government for the omissions in the making of powerful inquiry commissions to investigate the Abbottabad and PNS Mehran events, and Saleem Shahzad’s murder. Sympathisers of the government claim that the government appointed the commissions as per the laid down law. But critics say that the […]

A temptation that is hard to resist while writing on the lacklustre budget for the coming fiscal year is to reproduce much of my article from last year, which was published in this space. Most of the targets set in last year’s budget, though they were modest, have been missed. The only new factor that […]

Terrorists who attacked the PNS Mehran on May 22 knew the ‘security blind spot’. At least that is what the Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the media soon after the operation. Further follow-up reports confirmed his observation. Now the entire media is asking how the terrorists knew about this ‘blind spot’. The obvious conclusion is […]

Pakistan’s government, opposition and the media energy are exhausted by the issues related to terrorism, foreign policy, government bashing and judicial populism. The whole nation indulges in these headline catching issues so much that they spend very little time focusing on primary issues like health, education, unemployment and poverty reduction. A common excuse given by […]