Me, myself and I on December 21, 2018Contrary to my expectations Mian sahab is nowhere to be seen. I had predicted, based on information from “reliable” sources within PML (N), that Mian sahab would come out all guns blazing after the Chaliswan of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, and would make life somewhat difficult for the current government. My senior colleagues obviously disagreed, and […]
How will Bilawal play the game on October 3, 2018So Mian Sahab and Mariam are out of jail; Khan Sahab is firmly in power and Pakistan People’s Party(PPP)is still trying to figure out where it stands. The party is preoccupied with yet another crisis created by their co-chairman,who got himself tangled in corruption and money laundering allegations, yet again. All of this makes for […]
Where did we go wrong? on September 19, 2018Following the movement to restore Iftikhar Chaudhry as Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), the judiciary has emerged as the most powerful of the three pillars of the state. The courts, through judicial activism and populist decisions, have squeezed the Executive and the Parliament’s power to that of their subordinates. Call me old fashioned, but I […]
Man of the hour? on September 11, 2018Like many others, I also thought Shahbaz Sharif was a better politician, and perhaps a better leader than Nawaz Sharif. But weren’t we all wrong about the “man of the hour? After the July 2017 ruling by the Supreme Court (SC), that disqualified Nawaz Sharif from holding any public office, the ex-PM managed to create […]
The good, the bad and the outright stupid on September 4, 2018The initial euphoria following Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) victory has now subsided somewhat. The general public — much of which was expecting Khan to wave a magic wand and fix the chronic problems facing the country instantly — have gotten a reality check. Welcome to state craft 101, where rhetoric doesn’t necessarily translate into policy and […]
Afghan refugees: a humanitarian perspective on August 29, 2018In a world with complex political systems, deviating from diplomatic processes leads to nothing but chaos. Nevertheless, it is sometimes necessary to think out of the box. The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, and later on the US invasion in 2001,are examples of how military interventions lead to complete pandemonium. The […]