The aftermath of Chernobyl on March 18, 2020In recent times, not many drama series caught the imagination of men and women of science as HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl did, and I was no exception. Unlike many others I enjoyed the privilege to discuss the series with an expert on the subject matter: Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy. Kamil Ahmed: What were the technical reasons behind […]
Naya pragmatism on March 11, 2019With the kind of reception, His Excellency Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Sultan (MBS) got on his very first visit to Pakistan, one thing became certain. The remaining four and a half years of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s Naya Pakistan will be more about pragmatic realism than the Islamic idealism that the PM has been […]
Labour of love — II on February 14, 2019Whenever a lover is rejected or if we put that in contemporary terms ‘dumped’ there are mainly four types of psychological responses. Protest Response is the phase in which the deserted lover attempts to regain the love of his abandoning partner. This response according to academics such as Helen Fisher may have evolved in human […]
Labour of Love-II on February 14, 2019Whenever a lover is rejected or if we put that in contemporary terms, ‘dumped’ there are mainly four types of psychological responses. ‘Protest Response’ is the phase in which the deserted lover attempts to regain the love of his or her abandoning partner. This response, according to academics such as Helen Fisher, may have evolved […]
Loan write-offs on August 26, 2018Banking like any other business involves risk taking and at times owing to economic shocks, natural calamity or poor business judgment situations arise where assets become sour. Until and unless there is some personal motive of the banker or some political pressure is involved loan write off is the norm for banks across the world. […]
Have the Aliens won? on July 7, 2018Recent administrative improvements made by Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) have left little room for the Pakistani deep state to engineer the elections at the national level.This is something the military establishment has been doing since the country was founded. Their aim?To achieve the kind of democracy that suits them, a farcical one.Now they are […]
Analysis of the military as a class — II on March 26, 2018Contrary to popular belief, entrenchment of the military as a class in the national economy and politics is not a natural consequence of its organizational abilities or the void left by the weak political elite and institutions. In truth, tacit support from United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) over the years, who were drawn […]
Analysis of the military as a class — I on March 21, 2018Milbus is the portion of the economy that consists of the undocumented and unexplained transfer of financial and other material resources from private and public sector to the military. This economic excess has resulted in military’s dominance as an independent class with its own elite and sub-classes in the country. This phenomenon isn’t limited to […]
Labour of love on February 14, 2018‘Theory of Entanglement’ in Quantum Physics suggests a concept of fundamental wholeness in a sense that two particles if once entangled (even for a brief period) are still deeply connected even if they are placed at two opposite ends of Universe defying concepts of locality and causality. All of it seemed absurd to me until […]
Behind the Pakhtun lines on December 15, 2017The history of the Pakhtun people is characterised by numerous foreign interventions and intra-ethnic divisions. Lack of written sources has left many details about important historical events murky. The prevailing narrative about the Pakhtun people and their history has been shaped by successive imperial powers and, more recently, the Punjab-dominated civil-military establishment of Pakistan. This […]