A very tall order, indeed! on March 1, 2018The next three months are going to be politically too chaotic for Pakistan. We have already entered the election phase. A caretaker government with a tenure of three months and a limited mandate is expected to be installed by end May. And meanwhile in the couple of months left in its tenure the outgoing government […]
Our strategic blunders on February 22, 2018The following excerpts from Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s speech at the 54th Munich Security Conference held last Saturday pinpoints the blunder that we committed under the misguided leadership of General Ziaul Haq when according to General Bajwa the Frankenstein (terrorism) was actually created by the liberal free world, with “willing, […]
Headless chicken on February 15, 2018The very political appeal on which the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) alias the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had thrived all these years had an inbuilt sun-set dimension as those who migrated from India to Pakistan following partition had lost their claim to the refugee (Mohajir) status as soon as they had taken up Pakistani citizenship. […]
Sub judice!? on February 8, 2018Considering the way Nawaz Sharif is fighting his case in what he calls the peoples’ court, it is becoming increasingly difficult to write him off from the country’s political arena for good. On the other hand, it is becoming equally difficult not to minus him from all future political reckonings in the country considering the […]
Discomforting conclusions on January 13, 2018Going by the quick- on- the- toe responses to any mention of the armed forces in the public domain by successive ISPR chiefs since the days of Major General (Retd) Ather Abbas one had expected the current ISPR Chief Major General Asif Ghafoor who has been known to be quicker on the draw than his […]
Punjab versus Punjab on January 6, 2018What is happening in Pakistan today is seemingly a war of attrition between the PMLN drawing almost its entire political strength from Punjab and an establishment that has always been monopolized by Punjab. The first test of this Punjab versus Punjab confrontation was witnessed during the longest ever sit-in staged in the country that too […]
PPP’s third reincarnation? on December 30, 2017Ten years is a long time. But it is still not possible to accept Benazir Bhutto is no more. She is missed, she is mourned but she continues to live in nation’s memory like a living legend. Like most high profile assassinations in this country hers too seems likely to join the list of Pakistan’s […]
The last lap? on December 23, 2017Transitions need to be handled with extra-care, especially when they represent a phased return to democratic dispensation from a non-democratic one. Such transitions can never be switched on or switched off in seconds or minutes or even in months because handing over and taking over takes time even years. In the case of Pakistan sometimes […]
The menace of half-baked mullahs on December 16, 2017Any Pakistani Muslim with rudimentary knowledge of Islam can, it now appears, take upon himself to play the God and order the killing of a person who according to this tin-pot God’s definition of a Muslim does not fully qualify him to claim to be a Muslim. For the Muslims the world over the finality […]
Muslim world — divided and conquered on December 9, 2017His timing seems to be almost perfect. With the world oil prices expected never to go back to the good old days of $100 a barrel, the oil exporting Middle East seems to have effectively lost forever its petrodollar power. And each of the country in the group currently seems to be in the grip […]