Dr Haider Shah

Popular perceptions are generated when similar events happen on a regular basis. In the last few days, the media’s attention was grabbed by the relentless killings in Gilgit-Baltistan on the basis of religious beliefs and the Senate’s rejection of the Prevention of Domestic Violence bill that aimed at minimising domestic violence after members opposed the […]

He did make a fair point when he said he was not a fugitive from a court of law nor was he hiding in a cave. Making a mockery of the bounty announced by the US, Hafiz Saeed looked very relaxed and complacent and sounded persuasive in his flashy press conference at a Rawalpindi hotel. […]

“People knew what was coming but they did not know how to stop it from coming. And they needed to know it very quickly.” I have stolen these lines unashamedly from the opening of my eight-year-old son’s story, which he is writing with a mixed inspiration from science fiction movies, kids’ horror novels and Xbox […]

Various buzzwords can serve as the chapter titles for narrating Pakistan’s turbulent history. Of late ‘status quo’ and ‘change’ have become the buzzwords in the political discourse of the country. Some more examples are ‘roti, kapra aur makaan’ (food, clothing and shelter) in Bhutto’s government, ‘Islamisation’ during Zia’s dictatorship and ‘accountability’ during the Musharraf regime. […]

Our media has an insatiable appetite for bringing down the heavens over petty issues. And as addicts would welcome a fresh supply of a new dose, our fun-starved viewers also demand that nonsensical tirades should be unleashed upon them all the time. While the television sets were already ablaze with Memogate discussions, Veena Malik’s images […]

We know that the classical Urdu poet Daagh Dehlvi was fidgety about a new ‘salaam’ (greeting) sent in a letter by his beloved in a famous ghazal sung by maestro Ghulam Ali. Of late the Pakistani security establishment has been investing a lot of its energy and time in knowing who was behind a ‘salaam’ […]

“We traded, we conquered, we governed.” In these six words, John Kaye sums up 350 years of British involvement in the Indian subcontinent, which started in the 17th century. When David Cameron visited India in July 2010, Britain wanted to re-energise its involvement with India, this time for the promotion of trade only. When the […]

The Lahore meeting of Imran Khan received wide coverage in the media, followed by enthusiastic commentaries in talk shows. Personally I could hear two voices inside me, of the Leibnizian optimist and the ‘nuktacheen’ (disbelieving) cynic. Drawing some insights from the Theory of Constraints I am interested in knowing whether the constraints that are holding […]

Whenever a vacuum is created, storms gush in to fill the void. This is one of the well known laws of nature. One needs a very high level of Leibnizian optimism to believe that the present coalition government is governing at all. When the perception of bad governance is strong, the criminal justice system is […]

In part one of this piece, I raised this question in the backdrop of the turbulent economic situation of the major NATO powers. The post-withdrawal situation in Afghanistan has been discussed at length by analysts in the popular media as well as academic annals but its impact upon Pakistan’s internal situation has received rather less […]