Mr Khan, You are Morally Wrong on October 25, 2022The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) delivered its judgement in the Toshakhana reference against the former Prime Minister, Imran Khan on Friday the 21 October – just five days after he won 6 out of the 7 National Assembly constituencies from KPK, Punjab and Sindh in the by-elections of 16 October. The ECP disqualified him […]
Message from the Masses on October 22, 2022The by-elections of October 16 have conveyed a clear message. In normal political conditions, the results of the by-elections would not have inspired elaborate comments. However, in the current political impasse, we can hardly afford to ignore the message given by the populace. Imran Khan’s political movement against the ruling coalition has reached its peak. […]
Do We Have a Democratic or Theocratic State? on October 18, 2022The political, security and economic conditions of the country continue to trouble conscious citizenry. The nation has been grappling with political polarization and the onerous woes of the bad economic situation aggravated by the regime change in April 2022. Two other serious issues brewing up are the resurgence of the security spectre in the scenic […]
The Imperiled National Security on October 4, 2022The unauthorized recording of conversations of the highest within the fortified walls of high offices has laid bare our national security system. This should have caused alarms ringing about the security lapses in the country. Instead, these audio leaks have provided fodder to our politicians to start a new blame game against each other. The […]
The Declining Fortunes of the People’s Party on September 29, 2022I witnessed the birth of the Pakistan People’s Party in 1967 under Z A Bhutto, its cyclical rise and eclipse under the charismatic leadership of Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Muhtarma Benazir Bhutto and its precipitous fall under Zardaris. In the wake of its humiliating defeat in the successive general elections of 2013 and 2018 in […]
Martyrdom of Murtaza Bhutto on September 22, 2022I was posted as Consul in our Mission in Birmingham when the iconic son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was martyred near the Bhuttos’ ancestral house -70 Clifton in Karachi on 20 September 1996. The gloom of that tragic evening is etched in my memory when I was showered with queries from angry and worried Pakistanis […]
Alarming Situation in the Country on September 5, 2022A columnist has put it succinctly that the “Pakistani elite lives in a state of denial believing that the status quo in which they live an affluent life insulated from broader society is permanent. It is not. The bubble is collapsing, and the result will not be pretty”. This may strike pessimistic to some of […]
75 years of Life in Freedom: A Moment Of Reckoning (Part II) on August 12, 2022Pakistan was achieved through a democratic movement and given its territorial making or geographical composition. It could have been kept together by functional democratic institutions as a federal and parliamentary state with adequate autonomy to its constituent states. The third Martial Law in the country by General Zia was a fatal blow to democracy in […]
The 75 years of Life in Freedom: A Moment of Reckoning on August 9, 2022As a conscious citizen of this country, I have traversed a stream of jolting events and violent turns of history in my country that, over years, have caused me disillusionment and reinvigorated too my hopes in the resilience of this land. Many countries have survived more tumultuous and tragic histories than that of Pakistan and […]
We have Criminally ignored Education on July 4, 2022Education plays the most crucial role in the development of a society and a nation. The pivotal role of education in nation-building can hardly be overemphasized. The Muslims had always been in search of knowledge by teaching and learning. The western nations were groping in the dark alleys of ignorance when a Muslim society in […]