Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

By the time these words are printed, Pakistan would have a female foreign minister. She would be the same lady who had the honour of being the only woman in the country’s history to have presented the national budget. As I write, the media has gone crazy heralding this as a revolutionary step for gender […]

It is done. They did it. Just as we had wished, although not as we had suggested. Changes in the police and policing. One signature. Overnight. Instantly the very compelling reasons of it being complicated, requiring financial resources, overcoming administrative challenges, restructuring issues, federal-provincial complications, etc, vanished. During the last five years of working with […]

Shock is probably not the word that can entirely describe the feeling accompanying this situation. The decision of the democratically elected government of Balochistan to keep the findings of the Kharotabad incident under wraps is nothing short of tactics improvised by a dictatorial regime. The reason given for such hush-hush on the report has been […]

The armed forces are considered, perhaps, as the only institution in Pakistan that is disciplined and well managed. This discipline becomes part and parcel of every soldier. Betrayal and treachery are considered as the most serious crimes in the army, and anyone suspected of it, can go as far as getting a death sentence. Pakistan […]

The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) has been endeavouring for the rights of children in Pakistan for many years. SPARC’s annual publication, The State of Pakistan’s Children (SOPC), being published for the last 15 years, is just one part of their work. This publication not only serves as a […]

It took only seventeen hours and six to twelve heavily armed terrorists to convert PNS Mehran from an icon of Pakistani naval power to an image of world concern. The attack on a heavily fortified base, which serves as the backbone for not only the Navy for its aerial operations but also the Air Force, […]

All this week, my mailbox has been inundated with mails from individuals who all claim to be ‘non-members’ of the Hizbul Tahrir (HuT). The column that “outraged, disgusted and offended” the senders of these e-mails was called ‘Dealings with the devil’ (Daily Times, April 1, 2011). The onslaught of the e-mails within minutes of each […]

Bin Laden, the icon of terrorism; the symbol of fear in the western world is dead. Crowds of thousands of Americans came out in jubilation and celebrated the death of the person, who was responsible for killing more than three thousand Americans on 9/11 in 2001. It was certainly a victory for that nation, but […]

With all the hype about counter terrorism these days, the formulation of winning strategies and how we have curtailed extremism successfully, there is still a lot of doubt if this is the real situation on the ground. If one only takes a stroll through any sector in the federal capital of Islamabad, the horrors of […]

The nation celebrated March 23 with jubilation and fervour this year. This is not just a statement that accompanies the very next day after every anniversary of this historical event, the passing of the Pakistan Resolution; instead this time the sentiments went beyond the usual expressions of nationalistic pride. Every year since 1940, this day […]