Political crises and the role of the opposition on June 28, 2012Some petitioners have already knocked on the court’s door for the follow up on the implementation of the National Accountability Ordinance (NRO) verdict. Imran Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) has also announced that he would go to court, and soon the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) would follow suit. Nevertheless, the newly elected […]
Judiciary strikes again, to its own peril? on June 21, 2012How many know that 15 million people were killed in the Great War only because a nondescript Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, vented his patriotic angst by assassinating the Archduke Fernandez, the heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne? It provided the proverbial spark to the tinderbox that the early 20th century Europe had become after being […]
Our ever-scandalous elite on June 14, 2012Until now it was the politician, bureaucrat, general, businessman and their agents and middlemen who took the judiciary’s flak for being so unscrupulous and evil. But now the gods of fury have turned against the judiciary itself, with the Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Chaudhry’s good repute coming under a thick fog of allegations against his […]
Its time the penny dropped on June 7, 2012The rights to life and liberty are not given by any constitution; they are natural and hence recognised by the constitutions as being inalienable and universally respected. Therefore, the most vital touchstone of a modern and respected state is its track record of human rights, not just economic development or military prowess. The abusive and […]
A trickery called the budget on June 7, 2012Reading the salient features of the budget on Saturday morning, I could not stand to watch live coverage of one of the most vulgar fracases that ever took place on the floor of the House among the parliamentarians, the supposed symbols of collective morality and personal civility. The first question that hit my mind was […]
Dealing with the roots of crises on May 31, 2012Whether it is the energy crisis, political instability, ethnic violence, civil-military imbalance, institutional frictions, recurrent insurgencies, regional wars or international tensions, the root causes of our chronic ailments lie in the tripod on which the modern polity rests: legitimacy, authority and governance. The trivet can sustain itself when one or even two of its legs […]
Decapitating Sindh? on May 24, 2012Usually, Karachi is identified with red, the colour of the blood of those unsung and unknown peddlers, hawkers, drivers, plumbers and shopkeepers, who are felled every day by a most efficient killing machine that is running round the clock in the metropolis, under the eyes of the law enforcement agencies, and in absolute disregard of, […]
Pak-US relations: the issue of sovereignty on May 18, 2012The debate about protecting our sovereignty vis-à-vis the US had long been going on in the media, particularly with respect to the CIA-launched drone attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) causing ‘collateral damage’, a euphemism for killing innocent civilians. But the debate received a new spurt by two recent events: the killings of […]
Targeting the tombs on May 17, 2012We have seen terrorists blow up the shrines of mystics and saints — Bari Imam, Data Ganj Baksh, Abdullah Shah Ghazi, Sakhi Sarwar — but now even poets and political icons are in the crosshairs of terrorism. Akora Khattak, a small city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has been twice hit by terrorism; one to […]
When the saviours are savaged on May 10, 2012“This event has totally devastated us in all forms, but more so it has damaged the hope of those who were likely to benefit from our presence in those areas where no one dares to go,” Rafiullah Qureshi, an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), wrote from Abuja, Nigeria. He was […]