Articles & Column

Pakistan is going through intensely traumatic times. Floods and rain has inundated half the country. Vast swaths of rural and urban spaces have been devastated. Millions of acres of standing crops and animals have been washed away. Homes, roads, bridges have been destroyed. Thousands of […]

On August 14 Fareed Zakria interviewed the former president of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani on CNN’s program Global Public Square. Ashraf like Mahbub ul Haq, Ha Joon Chang, and John Maynard Keynes is among the intellectuals who keep revisiting and evolving their ideas and who dare […]

Habibullah Kalkani better known as “Bachai Saqao”, which means a water carrier, ruled Afghanistan from January 17th to October 1929. He forced King Amanullah to abdicate. He was thrown out by Nadir Shah. Kalkani, of Tajik origins, came from a humble background, earning his livelihood […]

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”. Steve Biko Many of my friends wonder how changing at the personal level can bring changes at the national level. It does not make sense because it is counter […]

Punjabi is a flamboyant language. Its one-liners convey more than a thousand words. The present situation bringsto mind “chor uchka Chaudhry tey gundee Run bardhan.”It translates “when the head of a clan is a rogue and a thief, his gangster counterpart reigns supreme.” I don’t […]

In the late 1990s, an NGO partner of UNDP convened an all-parties conference on environment in Islamabad. There were many interesting speakers, but Dr. Ghulam Hussain, former Secretary General of the Pakistan People’s Party made 3 thought provoking comments on the failure of our system […]

I used to farm in Kasur till I moved to Canada. In the earlynineties rural areas had limited TV access. To while away evenings, we would invariably congregate at “deras” of local landowners. Conversations would touch uponvarious topics, including local issues. It included stories about […]

When Imam Hussain (AS) was leaving Mecca for Kufa, he came across a poet Hammam Ibn e Ghalib, also known as Farazadaq. Imam met him at manzil e Sifah. Imam asked him “what do the people of your city think about me”. He said, “their […]

ECP’s findings that PTI has done “prohibited fundraising” are bogus. They have thrown the kitchen sink at PTI full of falsehoods. PTI team has to go into overdrive to identify persons and companies wrongly named and debunk these assertions. PDM’s rejoicing is premature. Will it […]

Government of Pakistan suffers from underperformance at 4 levels. One, Pakistan does not allocate higher budget for health and education of people due to low tax to GDP ratio. Pakistan’s citizens spend twice the size of government’s budget for social development on welfare activities. Some […]