Dr Mohammad Taqi

As the world at large focused on events in the Arab world and Pakistanis remained preoccupied with CIA contractor Raymond Davis, a jirga composed ostensibly of tribal elders from Kurram Agency announced on February 3, 2011 a ‘peace’ accord between Shias and Sunnis in Parachinar, the headquarters of the Kurram Agency. However, a closer look […]

The toppling, within a month of each other, of two autocratic rulers, due to popular uprisings, is a first in North Africa and the Middle East (ME). Well, as a placard in the Tahrir Square read last week: “Two Down, Twenty To Go!” These events have monumental geopolitical implications for the broader region — a […]

Revolutions, historically, have remained a geostrategic forecaster’s nightmare. For starters, revolutions are difficult to define and identify. What may appear, prima facie, to be a revolution in the making, may stop short of achieving any significant change. Unless a popular socio-political movement results in fundamental transformations in a society’s state and class structures and relationships, […]

A columnist friend recently asked me to do a write-up on what he described as the Pashtun political dynasties and, specifically, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s family. At the time it did not appear to be a difficult proposition to take up and I agreed. However, when I eventually got to the task at hand, it […]

They were jubilant. They were celebrating. They had come to admire, congratulate and fete the killer. And they want him set free. Not because they think he is innocent of any guilt but because they believe he did actually kill the ‘guilty’. Guilty of what and tried by whom, one may ask. The response comes […]

“The sorrowful smell of the mist, Lingering over the Indus, Gentle waves of rice, dung and rind, This is the salt cry of Sindh, As I die let me feel, The fragrance of tears” — Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.   “It was a Sindhi poet, Shah Abdul Latif, who captured the forlornness of his country […]