Dr Mohammad Taqi

The bombing at the Shikarpur, Sindh imambargah (mosque/worship place) may have been carried out by the terrorist group Jundullah but over 60 Shia who perished there were actually slaughtered by collective national apathy. While the Shias were picking up the bits and pieces of what remained of their loved ones after Jundullah’s bomb ripped through […]

“Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, and strike the other way” — French writer Jean Anouilh. In the wake of the brutal terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS), Peshawar, last month, the Pakistani civilian and military leadership made emphatic […]

A 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 […]

For Pakistan, the year 2014 ended with the tragedy at the Army Public School (APS) Peshawar and 2015 has been ushered in with inauspicious tampering with the Constitution. The 21st Constitutional Amendment Bill and the Army Act (Amendment) Bill 2015 were approved unanimously by both houses of parliament within a matter of hours to provide […]

The French statesman Dr Georges Clemenceau, who led his country during World War I, is said to have quipped: “It suffices to add ‘military’ to a word for it to lose its meaning. Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.” Despite decades of labouring under the establishment’s heel, Pakistan somehow finds […]

Ohnay phat meray jussay teJinnay teray vaal ni ma’iy(O mother, my body is stricken with as many wounds as the hair on your head).   We went to the Pakistan Air Force School and College together and then to the Khyber Medical College in Peshawar. He then moved to the Army Medical College and has […]

My city Peshawar is no stranger to terrorist attacks but the massacre at the Army Public School (APS) is particularly gut wrenching in that almost 132 innocent children and nine staff members were killed in cold blood. Grown men cried on Peshawar’s streets this tragic Tuesday. But the heart goes out to the mothers who […]

Just when everyone thought that Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif had concluded his maiden visit to the US, he extended his stay. He topped this with a high profile meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry. In a tweet, Mr Kerry declared the meeting “productive” and lauded the Pakistan army’s […]

At the conclusion of Russian Defence Minister General Sergei Shoygu’s one-day visit to Islamabad, his Pakistani counterpart, Khwaja Muhammad Asif, said that after the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, security in that country would be perilous and “Pakistan wants Russian engagement in the Afghan peace process.” One could not help but think of an […]

Former US Ambassador Peter Tomsen was almost prophetic when he warned in his 2011 book The Wars of Afghanistan, “If Pakistan hews to its fireman and arsonist policy in Afghanistan, the Obama administration will likely make little progress in Afghanistan.” He accurately noted: “The most valuable contribution that America can make to Afghan peace lies […]