Burying freedom of expression on May 13, 2015Following in the footsteps of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), the Karachi University (KU) too disallowed its faculty and students to hold a discussion titled ‘Baloch missing persons and the role of state and society’ last week. The event was a commemorative service for the fallen civil rights activist Sabeen Mahmud who was murdered […]
Peace prospects in Afghanistan on May 6, 2015Peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which were virtually dead since the former president, Mr Hamid Karzai got the Taliban political office in Qatar shut down in 2013, seem to have been resuscitated over this past weekend. Still, neither side was willing to describe their proximity meeting in al-Khor, Qatar as formal negotiations […]
The republic of fear on April 29, 2015Sabeen Mahmud, the founder of The Second Floor (T2F) – a platform for dialogue — was murdered in cold blood minutes after her establishment had hosted a panel discussion called ‘Un-silencing Balochistan –Take 2’. According to her mother, Mehnaz Mahmud, who was also injured in the attack, two unknown assailants pumped five bullets into Sabeen […]
Afghanistan: will the real IS stand up? on April 22, 2015The Afghan military chief, General Sher Mohammad Karimi, apparently became the first foreign leader to preside over the passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul last week. General Karimi emphasised the need for “sincere” and robust counterterrorism cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and advised caution against letting the “historic opportunity” of defeating terrorists […]
Denial, deception and disgrace on April 15, 2015“I am alright doctor sahib,” said veteran Pashtun progressive-nationalist leader Lateef Afridi over the phone, adding immediately, “How are the family and children?” Lateef Lala — as he is lovingly known throughout the Pashtun lands — had narrowly escaped an improvised explosive device planted outside his house in the Peshawar suburb of Hayatabad earlier this […]
Not an unclear deal on April 8, 2015The framework of a deal agreed last week between Iran and the US, UK, Russia, China, and Germany — the P5+1 — seems to have considerably stabilised Iran’s geopolitical stock if not sent it sky-rocketing. Just days prior, the conflict in Yemen between the Zaydis and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh on one side and […]
Tired canards about Yemen and sectarianism on April 1, 2015As the crisis in Yemen quite predictably lingers on, so does the chorus of what the veteran US diplomat and Yemen expert Barbara Bodine had once described as the “tired canards about Yemen”. In tandem with the cookie-cutter analysis of the Yemen situation is the tedious discourse on sectarianism in Pakistan, depicting any potential Pakistani […]
The Afghan leadership duo in DC on March 25, 2015By the time we go to press, the president of Afghanistan, Dr Ashraf Ghani, would have addressed the US Congress to many standing ovations there. The Afghan leadership duo of President Ghani and Chief Executive Dr Abdullah Abdullah arrived in Washington DC on the Nowruz — the Afghan new year — trying to turn a […]
Thirty years of takfiri terror on February 25, 2015The predominant narrative in Pakistan now seems to be that India and its intelligence agency RAW is responsible for all acts of terrorism, including the vicious attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The federal defence minister, Punjab’s home minister and the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) chief have […]
Pakistan, Islam and economics: Burki to Bourke-White s on February 14, 2015A Pakistani-US economist who once served as Pakistan’s caretaker finance minister, Mr Shahid Javed Burki, has made an interesting observation in a recent column of his, ‘Economics was the basis of Pakistan’, for an English language daily. He says: “Pakistan was created not because its founding fathers thought that ‘Islam was in danger’ but for […]