Foqia Sadiq Khan

Prime Minister Imran Khan has time and again vowed to work to make the poor better off as a result of the policies of his government; what we have seen so far is dispossession of the poor in the form of anti-encroachment drives and such other measures. As has been said in these pages that […]

The PTI government is completing its 100 days of being in power. As it has been stated elsewhere as well, hundred days is really an insignificant timescale to assess the performance of a government that has been elected for five years. However, since the PTI itself made promises regarding its 100 days performance, it might […]

Automation in Pakistan took place right before my generation who are in their mid-forties now. We remember the transition from the paper-based system to digitization. Amongst many small initiatives, the big breakthrough came through the automation in the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). According to the Centre for Global Development’s 2014 report, NADRA pioneered […]

The reactionary rightwing is rising in many part of the world and Pakistan is no different. One should read Pankaj Mishra’s new book The Age of Anger (2017) to understand why million of people around are the world are disillusioned by the broken promise of progress of the liberal democracy (as recently illustrated by the […]

The debate of extractive elite was rejuvenated by Acemoglu and Robinson’s famous book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty that came out in 2012. The book generated lots of interest and is still being quoted to explain the rise and fall of nations. I was quite critical of the book when […]

Institutional reforms are in vogue again in Pakistan. Now, we have a federal advisor on Institutional Reforms and Austerity. There is also discussion of moves towards possible privatisation of loss making state-owned-enterprises (SOEs), if Pakistan has to decrease the budget deficit and comply with the IMF’s prognosis, should we formally seek another financial bailout for […]

In NA-10 Shangla, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and NA-48 North Waziristan, women voters’ turn-out was less than 10 percent for the July 25 General Elections. Consequently, the results of these two constituencies were declared null and void in accordance with the Elections Act 2017. In Shangla, during the re-poll in September, women’s turn-out was over 10 percent, […]

A strong narrative has prevailed that alleges there was pre-poll rigging and post-poll manipulation in the July 25 general elections. As such, all stakeholders must work with the Parliament to ensure that all future elections are free and fair. All clamps on media freedom must also be removed. However, the elections are over and done, […]

You might be reading this article on the Election Day itself or right after the elections. There is one aspect missing in the current discourse on perceived manipulation of election, the deafening silence of international community. There is an old maxim that three things decide the nature of political outcomes in Pakistan: Allah, America and […]

Mention of the West brings a particular image to the mind of common citizens of developing countries. We imagine it is a place where there is rule of law, respect for human rights, and where knowledge and civility go hand in hand. The latest scandal coming out of the mega data company Cambridge Analytica, punctures […]