The Islamic Republic State of Pakistan is going through full hype of Election 2013. Infact, it is just around the corner. Every Pakistani, teenage to adult is excited and in full spirits supporting the best political party he/she has decided to vote for. Certainly, every individual, being a Pakistani, must show high spirits in taking [...]
Pakistan, our nation; a nation attained after the countless efforts and struggles of great leaders from yesteryear. A country made for the Muslims to be independent, to be free, and to have liberty. Alas, this was achieved; but not everyone got freedom and liberty as expected. The prime dilemma faced by Pakistan right from its [...]
You can diagnose any one around you talking politics if he/she is PTI supporter or not. Here are few (of many) symptoms. They blame CIA and US from anarchy to bad Governance. They protest throughout the year. They want a liberal political leader and yet they like to be friends with fundamentalists who like to [...]
We Pakistanis are in trouble since the creation of this country. Since its creation Pakistan has faced many challenges, which range from financial, infrastructural and political to floods, earthquakes and war on terror. Every thinking or non-thinking brain has his views in Pakistan. As the count of mouths increase conspiracy theories increase. But no one [...]
Ever since the hanging of Bhutto, the political fortunes of Sindh have been confined solely to the party he founded, the PPPP, which came to power twice under the leadership of his daughter, the late Benazir Bhutto, and now under her husband, the infamous Asif Ali Zardari. Bhutto has now ironically become a brand, one [...]
I pronounce myself guilty of reading banned books. Did I hear someone gasp? Probably not. Because reading banned books may not seem like a big crime, if a crime at all. Would I get a death sentence for perusing a copy of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses? If yes, then I better get my Last Will [...]
“Fatima, the speed limit is 60km/h. Why are you driving at 80?” she asked her friend as their car rushed down the road. She looked outside the window and every vehicle on the road seemed to be doing the same. They were all over speeding on a road which funnily enough, was sited adjacent to [...]
The Benazir Income Support Program, which consists of cash transfers to low income families on a bi-monthly basis, is the largest aid program in Pakistan (accounting for a third of the government budget) that catered to 20 million households in the year 2010-2011. In essence, the BSIP targets the poorest of the poor. Named after the [...]
Pakistan, rarely a peaceful land of peace where Youth instead of given a chance to raise voice in assemblies, there blood is shed in streets openly, where one does not feel secure to go outside, where Parchi system is common, where no one is accountable to its supervisor, where Media is biased, where Media is [...]
In a country of 180 million people, how much importance is attached to the single individual? Attempt in your own way to grapple with this question: can an individual become an institution? How much does one human being count for in the entirety and cacophony of a diverse nation? All too often, the news is [...]
“You tend to hear the worst 5% of the Pakistan story 95% of the time!” The above is a quote attributed to Pakistani Entrepreneur Monis Rahman in the August 8th 2011 edition of Forbes Magazine story titled “Want to Start a Company in the World’s Sixth-Most Populous Country? Time to Move to Pakistan”. So let [...]
The proliferation of splinter groups in Karachi- breakaway factions acting independently from their patron organizations- and increasingly the influx of thousands of Taliban militants in the city (who have sought refuge from drones strikes and the army operation in the cacophony of the metropolis), alongside the presence of the armed wings of the ANP and [...]
The Pakistani civil service, despite calls for repeated structural reforms, remains modeled on the pre-partition British model. Over the years, the civil service has suffered from diminished capacity, nepotism, over-politicization, mismanagement, all of which has rendered it impotent in offering basic public service and providing good governance. Bureaucratic procedures, in the public domain, are seen [...]
Nationalism works in unique ways in Pakistan. For the greater good, in the larger interest of the nation, certain contentious issues are kept out of the public sphere, are pushed towards neglect and indifference. The country and its territorial sovereignty, it is argued, trumps all moral considerations, any perceived transgression of the law as ordained [...]
The reality of Karachi eludes the gaze of an outside observer, of how a city can survive-and to a degree, flourish- as dozens are literally butchered every day, as strikes paralyze and shut down commercial and civic activity. The city does not reveal itself to the less curious observer, the inattentive bystander, the negligent spectator. [...]
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