South Asian Civilisations (Part IV) on January 10, 2022The Indus Valley Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1300 BC ( in its mature form from 2600 BC to 1900 BC). Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, […]
Zionism: Where do we go from Here? on July 16, 2021The purpose of this trilogy of articles was to find out why antisemitism is a misnomer and anti-Zionism would be the right substitute for it. It is because the demand for a country called Israel, in the place Palestine where Arabs have been living for centuries, is a part of the Jewish mythology formed over […]
Welfare programmes and the developing world conundrum on April 16, 2021The Third Industrial Revolution, birthed by global capitalism, brought with it new technologies and the promise of real change. Yet it has failed to deliver on several fronts, such as curbing climate change, the depletion of natural resources and poverty. Much lip service has been paid to tackling these issues and many social programmes have […]
Unity in diversity; A difficult passage for education on January 8, 2021Extension of improved education to all Pakistanis is one of the central demands citied as a precondition for economic progress, decreasing poverty and stabilizing the Pakistani state. One should not forget that it needs a strong economy and political stability to implement such plans. Modern educationwill not only certainly undermine the still existing pre-modern tribal […]
Post- Corona Pakistan on July 4, 2020While we are still in the middle of this pandemic and our bodies may be blocked, partially because of the partial lockdown, our electromagnetic beings and our brains keep working on the search for future models; and the reconfiguration of the global and national system that will come after this. Covid-19 has taught us that […]
Ladakh: More Chinese than Indian on June 22, 2020Recent clashes along the disputed Indo-Chinese border in Ladakh and the inability to get the problem under control are a visible sign how a long-standing dispute can endanger peace, not only between two major countries but a whole region. Ladakh is a region occupied by India since 1947 and administered as a union territory since […]
The Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report 1963 on June 7, 2020Transparency and learning lessons from mistakes once made is no virtue of most countries. Even when after a disaster a commission is installed to find out what went wrong and who was responsible there is a glaring lack of consequences for the people who made the mistakes and for the structures that lead up to […]
Mufti Muneeb moonfighting Fawad Chaudhry on May 29, 2020Pakistan has always taken the matter of moonsighting very seriously. However the moonsighting controversy is not Pakistan-specific, moon-fighting goes back to the 8th and 9th centuries when Imam Shafi put his trust behind science, Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal required sighting of the moon physically. The Quran doesn’t mention details about this point but the Hadith […]
Healthcare system needs overhaul! on May 13, 2020Both Pakistan’s current health policy framework and its implementation is a far cry from the goal of universal health coverage. Every citizen should have access to health care but that is not the case. The consequence of the sparse and low-quality services provided by the public sector means that most people in Pakistan rely on […]
Our cotton textile cash earner on May 8, 2020The largest manufacturing industry in Pakistan, it contributes 8.5% to our GDP and employs about 45% of the country’s labour force and 38% of its manufacturing workers. The 4th largest producer of cotton with the third largest spinning capacity in Asia after China and India, Pakistan contributes 5% to the global spinning capacity. Today 1,221 […]