Paint it red on May 19, 2016Today, I feel ashamed to call myself a Pakistani. I am ashamed because I have let my fellow countrymen down. I say this because I have not done anything to protect more than 300 of my fellow Pakistanis living in Chak 44 of Mandi Bahauddin. I feel responsible because I have allowed a bunch of […]
Lessons from the Panama scandal on May 12, 2016Talk to the man on the street or the top-rated talk show anchor, the gist is the same: the Panama Papers leaks is a political bombshell with high targets and collateral damage. I am not interested to see if that is going to happen or not. What I am interested in is the lessons of […]
Government failed:: citizens succeededd on April 26, 2016They were not Sunnis or Shiites but only Muslims and that’s what was written on one of the walls of the apartment buildings destroyed by Sunday’s blast in Abbas Town, Karachi. Citizens of Karachi are famous for being proactive even in the face of a tragedy and a similar situation was being witnessed in Abbas […]
Government failed: citizens succeeded on April 25, 2016They were not Sunnis or Shiites but only Muslims and that’s what was written on one of the walls of the apartment buildings destroyed by Sunday’s blast in Abbas Town, Karachi. Citizens of Karachi are famous for being proactive even in the face of a tragedy and a similar situation was being witnessed in Abbas […]
Lessons from and for the Hazara on April 25, 2016We in Pakistan do not celebrate diversity. We fear and abhor it. This hypothesis is firmly supported by the recent spate of persecution of the Hazara community. Hazaras trace their roots back to the Mongols and, undoubtedly, contribute to the diversity of Pakistan. In addition to this, it is one of the most educated communities […]
For the people? on April 23, 2016As a resident of Islamabad, I have viewed and experienced the recent unfolding political events at first hand in the past few days. A cleric with fiery rhetoric and claims of ushering in a revolution came into the capital with considerable fanfare and then dwindled into non-existence. In the same period, there were two suicide […]
Of interference on April 22, 2016Today, I write about outsourcing. Of a different kind. Over the years, with the mushrooming of non-governmental organisations, governance it seems has been outsourced to NGOs. On any given day, hotels are booked by NGOs conducting ‘capacity building workshops’ for government departments. Be it the finance ministry, civil defence, human rights ministry or the police. […]
Awarding outreach on April 22, 2016Recently, there has been an explosion of coverage given to banned militant outfits and their leadership in the print and electronic media. This coverage is being given in the backdrop of the drawdown in Afghanistan, tensions with India and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) offer for negotiations. In addition, these groups have been openly allowed to conduct […]
Making sense of it on April 20, 2016During just the last ten years, 44,674 people have lost their lives in the war on terror. Not all of these were civilians; the figure also includes security personnel and terrorists. Of these, 14,877 or 33.3 percent were civilians, 4,736 or 10.6 percent were security personnel and 25,061 or just over 56 percent were terrorists. […]
The policing disconnect on April 20, 2016“Pakistan ka badsha kaun hai” (who is the king of Pakistan) is the question a colleague asks repeatedly during the police workshops and consultations that we do together. The answers are predictably cynical, differing only in terms of the names of the different presidents. Previously, the answer used to be Musharraf, now it is Mr […]