Dr Qaisar Rashid

Is the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) becoming a begumat’s party? (The word begumat in Urdu is a plural of the word ‘begum’, which means the wife of a rich or influential man. In the social context, a simple meaning of the word begumat is the ladies of the elite class; in the political context, the meaning […]

Knowledge workers (educated and skilled manpower) create ideas and produce innovative products. A knowledge worker is recognised as a key driver of economic growth in the world. This point is yet to gain currency in Pakistan. The traditional economic resource base of Pakistan is agriculture, which in turn relies on the monsoon season and the […]

On November 12, Afghanistan’s High Peace Council (HPC) delegation led by Chairman Salahuddin Rabbani visited Pakistan to seek Islamabad’s close cooperation with the government in Kabul. The delegation remained successful in ensuring the release of a few middle-level Taliban prisoners but not the high-level ones such as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Mullah Toorabi. The […]

On November 5, speaking to a group of officers at the General Headquarters, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani said, “No individual or institution has the monopoly to decide what is right or wrong in defining the ultimate national interest.” This part of his statement is a realisation of the fact that defining […]

Almost one year ago, the Lahore convention of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) at the Minar-e-Pakistan captivated Lahorites. At the rally, Imran Khan appealed to the audience to think and act independently and yearn for a change. Interestingly, certain veteran politicians belonging to other political parties also started thinking independently and welcomed the word ‘change’. Subsequently, they […]

The Panama papers have indicated that stashing money away is a global phenomenon encompassing differences in religion, colour, race and ethnicity. Most human beings are the same from inside. The Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, is still groping in the dark who hacked its 11 million documents and handed them over to a German newspaper […]

Over the past several years, Pakistani politics have revolved around three main electoral slogans: bread, jobs and shelter. Lately, another two slogans — justice and honesty — have been incorporated into the list. With this, the job of politicians wooing voters has become an uphill task; politicians need to partake in introspection before they approach […]

Finally, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has issued its verdict on the writ petition of Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan filed almost 16 years ago. With that, the ‘role’ of the army and the ISI to assemble one type of politicians and construct one type of parliament has ended. Secondly, with that the civil-military balance […]

Ethnicity conveys a sense of relatedness. The reference of kinship may be a common language, skin colour, geographic origin, or mode of livelihood. Ethnicity is an expression of human endeavour to live together as a community — a closed one. Ethnicity is also a source of identity: the communion should be expressed in one common […]

Nation building may not be a modern concept but a necessary one. In the past, the people residing in an area (whether the area was delimited or not and whether the people had one common means of survival or not) used to devise measures to construct a nation rather than live as a mere gathering. […]