Religious bigotry and Pakistani Christians on April 20, 2016 I have received tremendous feedback for my last article, “Pakistan, the game of religious bigotry” (Daily Times, November 10, 2012), but one email in particular has compelled me to touch on the challenges faced by the Christian community in Pakistan. I had mentioned Christians just once in my last article, but not enough about […]
Missing the Malala moment? on April 20, 2016Almost a month after Malala’s canonisation as Pakistan’s Joan of Arc, the news of her heroic act is already beginning to fade away from the national consciousness and the more mundane and ephemeral issues of politics are elbowing it off centre-stage. The important issue of the accountability of our past civilian and military leaders — […]
The $ 46 billion question on April 28, 2015While the long-awaited and oft-postponed visit of the Chinese president, with happy tidings of funding a $ 46 billion dollar mega infrastructure cum energy project, is the main preoccupation of the media in Pakistan, the much broader implications of its economic underpinnings have received much less attention. China’s rise as a global economic power has […]
The 25 million missing students on November 17, 2014A recent report by an NGO funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), run by a journalist/television personality/former diplomat/USAID contractor, on the state of elementary education in Pakistan has made the seemingly earth-shaking revelation that 25 million children, or roughly 50 percent of the children of schoolgoing age are not in schools. The […]
Civil-military relations: the next phase on June 9, 2014Notwithstanding the myriad problems facing the country, the discourse on civil-military relations continues to overshadow all internal and external crises in Pakistan. Apart from the seminal episodes of military coup d’etats since Ayub Khan’s original sin, the military has continued to interfere in civilian government affairs indirectly, especially in the 1990s and since 2008. There […]
The harm in eating instant food on March 25, 2014Sir: These days children — and even adults — are more inclined towards ‘ready to eat’ food. According to them, it saves time and is good in taste too when compared to home-cooked meals. A recent study has proved that homemade food is more hygienic and fresh when compared to packet food because the latter […]
Educational deprivation in a feudal culture on March 17, 2014In April 2009, President Obama in his Prague speech called nuclear terrorism “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security”. Even though the possibility of a terrorist organisation carrying out a nuclear attack is slight, the consequences of such an attack would obviously be of gigantic proportions. Against this backdrop, President Obama mounted an […]
With Faiz in exile on February 14, 2011The Faiz centenary year is an open season for writing on or about Faiz and of making some claim about one’s proximity to him. I find it difficult to resist the temptation, although I must make a telling personal disclosure at the outset. Despite having been an admirer of his poetry and politics and having […]
A tale of two political assassinations on January 16, 2011Condemnable as all assassinations are, they differ in the manner in which they describe the underlying social narrative and the way people react to them in drawing moral conclusions about them. Salmaan Taseer’s shooting in broad daylight in the shopping area of a ‘posh’ neighbourhood in Islamabad, close to his private residence, by a policeman […]