Revolutionary adieu to Comrade Jam Saqi! on March 12, 2018Our cherished Comrade Jam Saqi passed away at the age of 74 last Monday. He remained a committed communist and steadfast believer in the socialist revolution till his last breath. The last political activity he engaged in was his speech on November 26, 2017, at the inauguration ceremony of Urdu translation of Leon Trotsky’s masterpiece […]
Looming environmental disaster on March 5, 2018The extraordinary cold wave that has struck Europeonce again brought forth the debate on climate change and its hazardous impacts on human life. Severe snow storms have completely disrupted life, with flights and trains cancelled and traffic grinding to a halt on major roads.The cold spell, nicknamed “the beast from the East” in the UK, […]
Pakistan on the ‘Grey List’ on February 26, 2018Last Friday the global money-laundering watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF) decided to put Pakistan on its terrorist financing watch list. The placement will come into effect from June this year. This move could seriously jeopardise Pakistan’s already crisis ridden capitalist economy. The 35-member body works by consensus and even China and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan’s […]
Julian Assange’s ordeal on February 19, 2018Last Tuesday, senior British district judge Emma Arbuthnot rejected Julian Assange’s appeal for freedom. Meaning that Assange will continue to face arrest if he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy and will be confined to the meagre room available to him in the embassy building, where he has managed to survive for almost six years. In 2012 […]
Mashaal, Naqeeb and Ali Wazir on February 12, 2018No one seems to be satisfied with the Mashaal murder case verdict. It seems like our colonial era judicial system is unable to resolve the grave social malaise that has set-in. The sickness of our society was laid bare by the reaction of the religious right to this verdict. Pakistan’s oldest and so-called moderate Islamic […]
Silver linings in Middle East’s turmoil on February 5, 2018Since the ebbing of the 2011 Arab and North African mass revolt that had swept across the region seven years ago, there are new mass stirrings in several Middle East countries in the last few weeks. Although this ferment is comparatively small, it exhibits a new awakening after the onset of their action, terrorism, mayhem […]
Violence at Punjab University on January 29, 2018Last week, a new surge in violence gripped the Punjab University, Lahore. On January 22, at least a dozen students and two policemen were severely injured in a clash between two students groups, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) and the Pashtun and Baloch Students Council (PBC) at the University’s Electrical Engineering Department. Students belonging to the Seraiki […]
Munnoo Bhai — a friend and comrade on January 22, 2018In the wee hours of last Friday, Munnoo Bhai passed away in Lahore at the ripe age of 84. He was known as a renowned poet, journalist and a playwright. He wrote columns for mainstream newspapers for more than sixty years. Few writers and journalists could make such a claim. But Munnoo Bhai was far […]
Balochistan’s deliverance? on January 15, 2018The resignation of the PML (N) lead government in Balochistan has ushered in a new political crisis in the present ‘democratic’ set-up doctored by the politicians and strategists in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The so-called mainstream parties, PPP, miscellaneous Muslim Leagues and now the PTI have little roots in the province. Even their parliamentarians don’t take […]
US-Pakistan: relations of ignominy on January 8, 2018Donald Trump’s first tweet of 2018 has created a furore exacerbating the contradictions in the already fraught US-Pakistan relations. He tweeted, “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies and deceit, thinking of our leaders as […]