Babar Ayaz

Relentless cacophony about sovereignty of the country can be heard once again. Killing of Mullah Mansoor Akhtar, the amir of the Afghan Taliban, in a drone attack in Balochistan has signalled that the US and Afghanistan’s government have changed their policy of coaxing Pakistan to stop sheltering terrorists who have been hitting their people for […]

Didn’t we already know since the 1990s that the prime minister had properties in London? Didn’t we know that the prime minister’s sons were doing property business in London for a long time now? Didn’t we know that the prime minister and his sons had set up a steel mill in Saudi Arabia during his […]

A good omen for the women of Pakistan is that the Sindh and Punjab assemblies passed laws for the protection of women from domestic violence. A bad omen in this regard is that although the Sindh assembly passed the law in 2013, it has not yet been implemented. The commission that had to be formed […]

Strong chances are that many old parliamentarians would be ousted if the criteria set in the 2013 elections nomination forms are closely followed. This may give an opportunity to many less known ‘cover candidates’, which each party will have to put up to meet the eventuality of disqualification of their first candidate. More importantly, my […]

Major failures for which the coalition government is criticised are: corruption, energy, increased unemployment, high inflation, low tax revenue collection, public sector hemorrhaging impact on economy; depreciation of rupee against dollar by 58 percent in five years; falling foreign direct investment; and low GDP growth. The burden of checking corruption, which has affected the development […]

As the outgoing parliament celebrated completion of its five-year tenure, many people ask what democracy has given to the people. It is indeed a pertinent question but wrongly phrased. The question should be what has the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led coalition delivered or failed to in the last five years. Questioning the efficacy of a […]

Though the ground-breaking ceremony of the Pakistan-Iran Gas Pipeline Project is about 18 years late, the national consensus is in favour of the project. The idea of the ‘Persian pipeline’ has been in circulation since the early 1950s, but the preliminary agreement was signed between Pakistan and Iran in 1995. And there onwards a criminal […]

Though the ground-breaking ceremony of the Pakistan-Iran Gas Pipeline Project is about 18 years late, the national consensus is in favour of the project. The idea of the ‘Persian pipeline’ has been in circulation since the early 1950s, but the preliminary agreement was signed between Pakistan and Iran in 1995. And there onwards a criminal […]

In this land of uncertainty, conspiracies and chequered political history, people’s scepticism is understandable. Most people ask, “Do you really think elections will be held on time?” As one knows, actually people who raise such questions are itching to tell you what they think. Thus it is better to pose a counter question: “What do […]

Too much has happened in the last few weeks leaving the majority of the people flustered as they try hard to understand why the country is trapped in this maze. Look at some of the major incidents and developments. The outgoing cabinet decided courageously to move ahead with the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project and handing […]