Dr Qaisar Rashid

Talk about the elections for NA-122 Lahore on October 11, 2015 will remain incomplete if the name of Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar is not mentioned. Sarwar was instrumental in organising the election campaign of Aleem Khan, the candidate of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), besides cobbling together an alliance of about 13 political parties against the rival […]

On October 11, 2015 in the by-election held in NA-122, Lahore, the challenger was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) of Imran Khan. On the latter’s behalf and place, Aleem Khan was the candidate contesting the election. The nature of the challenge was this: the PTI claimed that the electoral constituency of NA-122 actually belonged to the […]

The recent fall of Kunduz to the Taliban has effectively rejuvenated those who were fearful of their irrelevance if the Afghan peace process had been successful. They are now out to claim it a major Taliban victory in Afghanistan after 2001. If the late General Hameed Gul were alive today, he would have felt excited […]

The point is not whether or not the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif is more popular than Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif. The point is this: what is the performance of the government run by Nawaz Sharif who landed in the hot seat of the premiership when the media was independent and […]

On September 8, under the lordship of Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Chief Justice (CJ) Jawwad S Khawaja, the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan issued orders to the government to implement Article 251 of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan. A critical evaluation is required of both the relevant article of the […]

Over the years Pakistan’s bureaucracy has developed its own expertise of indulging in corruption, called white-collar crime. To proscribe corruption there are anti-corruption departments. However, if corruption is committed outside Pakistan, these departments face limitations in investigation in terms of bearing the high cost of investigation and difficulties in having access to documents and bank […]

Is Afghanistan still the dumping ground of empires is a question that haunts many thinking minds. Nevertheless, the empires of this age are all set to help Afghanistan come out of the morass of economic insufficiency and social torpour, which are the hallmarks of today’s Afghanistan whether it is engaged in a war or not. […]

A stalemate is reached when neither of the opposing parties to an issue relent on their demands. The same is the case with the dialogue for peace between Pakistan and India. It is a dialogue for peace because both countries entered into an agreement at Simla, India (July 2, 1972) to resolve their mutual disputes […]

Craving for chaos in tranquility is a knack few people are endowed with. Sheikh Rasheed of the Awami Muslim League is perhaps one of them. Rasheed is still optimistic about finding another opportunity to launch a second round of political commotion after having lost the first one, the dharna (sit-in) last year. Embedded in this […]

The discontentment of the masses may trigger an uprising but only when the dissatisfaction is genuine and not fictitious. An attempt to coerce Pakistan to experience its own kind of Arab Spring got frustrated last year. The decision of the Judicial Commission report, which endorsed the credibility of the 2013 elections, has sealed the fate […]