Jinnah’s Pakistan And The Long Shadow Of Power, Poverty And Misgovernance
- 20-Feb-2026
Over half the population faces poverty and exclusion as elite capture, weak governance and corruption erode trust, deepen inequality and threaten social stability
Karachi’s Crisis: Why Federalisation Is No Solution
- 29-Jan-2026
The Gul Plaza in Karachi was gutted by a ferocious blaze a week ago. The MQM-Pakistan has since intensified its absurd demand for the separation of Karachi from Sindh. Karachi, like all big cities of developing countries, is confronted with the usual problems of local governance: poor availability of municipal services, inefficient management of sewerage […]
Pakistan seizes rare chance to reset US ties as Trump turns focus from India to Islamabad
- 03-Oct-2025
The military conflagrations in Europe and the Middle East, Tel Aviv’s relentless and violent pursuit of the Jewish goal of ‘Greater Israel’, the Sino-US competition verging on confrontation, President Donald Trump’s trade wars, the disillusionment of the European states with the US trans-Atlantic policy, the Indian persistent hostility towards Pakistan have, though, dealt a serious […]
Why the Pakistan–Saudi Arabia Defence Pact matters
- 22-Sep-2025
The recent Arab and Islamic Summit has ended with a whimper, suggesting no concrete measures to stop the aggression of Israel against the Muslim countries. There were expectations that the airstrikes on a residential quarter of Qatar to assassinate the Hamas team of negotiators by Israel might have jolted the Arabs out of their traditional […]
Arrogant hegemon subdued
- 26-Jun-2025
This is the second time the fickle-minded Indian leader, Narendra Modi has pushed the two nuclear neighbours to the edge of death and destruction for electoral advantage or his self-projection as a bulwark against Pakistan. In 2019, he was facing an assertive Congress in the general elections. The Pulwama suicidal attack was a tragic incident […]
Israel on rampage.. 2
- 26-Dec-2024
The wealthy Arab states were anxious before the first election of Donald Trump in the year 2017 about the reduced US role in the Middle East looking desperately for new strategic partners, and they are now concerned about the expansionism of Israel with the support of the US and the Western countries. With the exit […]
Israel on Rampage
- 21-Dec-2024
With the plunge of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon in chaos, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Shia rule in Iraq facing imminent threat of de-stabilization while Gaza is being reduced to rubble by the relentless Israel, the Arab states are individually engaged in a desperate exercise for survival. I feel a strong repulsion […]
Reconciliation, not confrontation
- 21-Dec-2024
In Pakistan, the February 2024 elections generated an academic discussion in the wake of the surprising success of the PTI-supported independent candidates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab and the large number of purported votes polled by them in Karachi despite the daunting odds. Two senior columnists wrote in Dawn that the PTI received a vote […]
Small provinces, bigger grievances
- 12-Nov-2024
The general elections, though a democratic transition from one political administration to another, have always brought about political upheavals in our land since 1970. We painfully witnessed the loss of our eastern wing post-1970 election, the imposition of Martial Law in 1977, a political game of musical chairs from 1988 to October 1998, and unending […]
The Unsettling Situation
- 21-Sep-2024
We have apparently a democracy in the country with elected institutions that include the executive, opposition, National Assembly, Senate, four Legislative Assemblies and representative administrations in the provinces. All fit well in the loose definition of an elected political dispensation but fail to withstand strict evaluation of democracy. Pakistan’s democracy is still passing through the […]