Pakistan

A second chance

Source: Dawn.com By Cyril Almeida SOMETIMES big decisions turn on simple questions. In the aftermath of 9/11, the question was a simple one: did we get it? Did our generals get that 9/11 was an epochal, seismic shift, that the old way of doing business had to be chucked out, […]

False nationalism

Source: Dawn.com THE comprador, clientelist military of a clientelist state has suddenly found its own sense of pride and nationalism. A military which has been critically dependent on US aid for far too many years has now turned around to say that it will ‘rely on domestic resources’ to make […]

Sikhs kept out of their own temple for Shab-e-Barat

The Sikh community in Lahore have been prevented from observing a religious celebration at a gurdwara, their musical equipment thrown out and their entry barred, after a religious group persuaded the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) that celebrating the Muslim holy day of Shab-e-Barat was more important than the Sikh […]

Weaponisation of Pakistan

“Weaponisation” as a negative concept was something to which I was completely unfamiliar while growing up. Though I spent most of my childhood in Lahore, my rural, agricultural background meant arms had always been a regular presence in my life. I had learnt to fire, load/unload and clean them as […]

And donkeys might fly!

Source/Credit: Dailytimes on Line. I have a serious issue with fundamental rights. Sometimes I feel that my definition of the term is totally delusional, given the respect that it commands in this country, and the true term is actually ‘fund-a-mental’, in its urban sense. The more I read and the […]

US drones target white jihadis

Source: Asiatimes on line. The Pakistan al-Qaeda network is increasingly recruiting white Muslim converts to widen the pool of terrorists able to foil racial profiling and hit Western targets. The July 5 killing of another white jihadi amid an unprecedented surge in drone attacks in Waziristan since a European terror […]

Destructive words

Karachi, which had shown some signs of calming down as theskirmish legislation between the PPP and MQM on local government faded somewhat into the distance, has been set aflame once more following the unwise diatribe by Senior Minister of the Sindh government Dr Zulfiqar Mirza against MQM chief Altaf Hussain. The PPP, including the president […]

Mumbai rocked, Pakistan suspected

Terror returned to Mumbai on Wednesday nearly three years after the massive assault on the city that left 164 people dead. The latest attack was a relatively smaller incident, with three bomb blasts killing 21 people. The significance is no minor matter though, for while no group has claimed responsibility, […]