A wish list? on December 3, 2017In a country like Pakistan which is overwhelmingly Muslim the question of the finality of the Prophet (PBUH) can have just one answer, no matter who is answering the question. Having said that let us see how we spent almost the entire month of November this year trying in vain to find the non-existent repudiator. […]
Boulders enroute the 2018 polls on November 25, 2017For the PMLN, the route to the 2018 elections is getting narrower by the day. The celebrations over Nawaz Sharif’s success in keeping his party office intact via Parliament were too short-lived as the ostensibly inexplicable refusal of PPP Co-Chairperson Asif Zardari to support the government in getting the bill allowing fresh delimitation of constituencies […]
Defiance is the issue, not corruption on November 18, 2017It is almost four months now since he was disqualified. But Nawaz Sharif seems to have succeeded so far in keeping his Party from morphing into a ‘Q’ like faction or factions. And with only three months to go for Senate elections he is likely to redouble his defiant efforts to disprove all those TV-talk […]
Urban Sindh up for grabs? on November 11, 2017Dr. Farooq Sattar, Mustafa Kamal and most of the Muttahida’s current and former parliamentarians havesuccessfully served as the political face of the now defunct Altaf Hussain-led MQM. Most of these men and women perhaps had never indulged in the mafia-style activities of Altaf’s MQM like bhattha collection and other unlawful acts generally associated with the […]
Pakistan’s strategic blunders on November 4, 2017Questions are now being increasingly raised in the US over Washington’s policy of training and equipping foreign militaries ostensibly to stabilize ‘fragile’ states. Since the end of World War II, U.S. has used this ‘time-honored’ foreign policy tool for promoting America’s global hegemonic ambitions. According to Mara Karlin (Why Military Assistance Programs Disappoint—Foreign Affairs Nov/Dec […]
Friends,not masters on October 28, 2017Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif’s speech in the Senate the other day on what had transpired in the official interactions during US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s short visit to Pakistan must have sounded like music to those of us who love to hate the US. At the same time those of us who earnestly believe […]
Let us go back to basics, not to IMF on October 21, 2017Countries lacking in energy, technology and capital—the three essential ingredients needed to achieve a modicum of economic sovereignty and establish a social welfare state—like Pakistan does have either continued to suffer like we do from chronic under-development or have adopted innovative paths to break out of their respective economic stagnations. The East Asian countrieshad readily […]
A never ending war on October 14, 2017Suddenly, out of the blue the huge trust deficit that had marred the relations between Pakistan and the US for over a decade seems to have taken a big hit as a Canadian-American family of five was recovered from the kidnappers by the Pakistani security forces Thursday acting on the intelligence provided by the US […]
Swamys self-delusionary rant on October 7, 2017Late last week BJP leader Subramanian Swamy threatened, India would break Pakistan into four pieces as soon as it would acquire the requisite capability which he believed New Delhi would get around April 2018. Normally such claims are best ignored as they serve no purpose other than poisoning further the already sullied relations between the […]
Strategic defiance on September 30, 2017Following his ouster from the Prime Minister’s office Nawaz Sharif is seemingly defying the heaviest of odds of his life trying to keep his Party intact. He knows that with a disintegrating party he would quickly lose his grip over the federal and Punjab governments. This would mean not only forgetting for good the anticipated […]