Kamila Hyat For a society that hopes to move towards progress and development – something the PTI government clearly aspires to achieve – we work in strange ways. The Air University, a public research university established by the Pakistan Air Force, held a seminar at its Islamabad campus in April this year to discuss jinns and the role of the […]

10 years on from LeT’s 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, JeM writings call for further seaborne attacks on India by Tufail Ahmad India will mark the 10th anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks on 26 November. A decade ago, 10 jihadi fighters from Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), arriving by sea from Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, landed on the coast of Mumbai and […]

Naipaul’s observations on South Asia are insulting, but may not all be off the mark By Khaled Ahmed, The Indian Express Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was not much liked in either India or Pakistan. An Area of Darkness (1964) was banned in India but no one could have missed the excellence of his prose, including the infamous page on “how Indians […]

 by Mobarak Haider Recent elections in Pakistan re-confirmed the trend and commitment of its ruling elite and military establishment. It is a trend that we have seen in Iran’s political face for the last four decades under its theocracy. This same trend dominated Arabs in the better parts of 20th century but has recently started reversing with the great political […]

Sharif’s imprisonment will not end his political career and will outlast the retirement of generals and colonels who plotted his downfall. Pakistani Generals’ arrogant stupidity makes Nawaz Sharif rise as a heroic fighter for democracy HUSAIN HAQQANI 14 July, 2018 Nawaz Sharif’s decision to return to Pakistan and go to prison marks a new phase in the country’s politics. Sharif […]

The military, the intelligence apparatus, and their allies in the superior judiciary are working overtime to ensure that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s party does not win | Commons by Husain Haqqani The powers-that-be must seriously consider the price Pakistan pays for each round of their attempt to manipulate the political process. The outcome of Pakistan’s parliamentary and provincial elections, […]

EditorialUpdated June 27, 2018 AN adversarial relationship between a free media and the state and public officials it seeks to cover is necessary and desirable in a democratic polity. In Pakistan, which has had long spells of undemocratic rule, such a relationship has often veered towards outright threats and violence against the media. Today, as the country prepares to hold an […]

Khalid Umar Can a married woman in her fifties, mother of 5 adult children and grandchildren, belonging to a modest, conservative Muslim religious family background of Pakistan dare to enter into a romantic relationship with another man, dating him over a period of more than 2 years? Would not it be against the social and cultural norms of the society? […]

  Nadeem Khalid In his brilliant masterpiece “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, Marquez narrates the story of a murder, which is about to take place in a small provincial town in Latin America. Nearly the whole town finds out about the impending murder before it occurs, but no one ends up telling the victim either because they cannot find him, […]

By Khan Zaman Kakar A progressive magazine that was shut down for raising an intellectually strong voice in favour of the marginalised To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize – Voltaire At the turn of this century, a progressive journalist Mohammad Shoaib Adil launched an exceptionally unflinching Urdu monthly Nia Zamana in Lahore […]

Javed Chaudry In order to assess the compatibility of Islam and secularism, we need to define and understand what these two entities are, only then we can be in a position to answer the question. The answer will depend on our definitions and our understanding of those two terms. In its simplest and the basic form, secularism means the separation […]

By Zakaria Virk Vision 2030 reforms aim to increase the percentage of Arabian working women from 22 percent to 30 percent. Saudi Arabia has embarked on an ambitious drive to ease social controls, re-introduce entertainment and empower women at all levels, including giving them the rights to attend sporting events and to drive. The changes encompassed in Vision 2030 constitute […]

Schools have been part of the inevitable Islamisation of Pakistan’s polity by Khaled Ahmed A girl from Pakistan has offered the best diagnostic of the ailing state and her work, Pakistan under Siege: Extremism, Society, and the State (Brookings), takes you into the guts of what has gone wrong. Madiha Afzal is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution Washington […]

Mr. Haqqani, who was in India last week for the launch of his new book ‘Reimagining Pakistan: Transforming a Dysfunctional Nuclear State’, said the country needs to “re-think its overall direction”, including in the economic sector. Pakistan should become a “trading nation rather than a warrior nation” while ensuring it does not turn into China’s pawn, Islamabad’s former envoy to the […]

By Jamal Khashoggi -Washington Post In an interview with the news program “60 Minutes,” Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said of Saudi Arabia before 1979, “We were living a very normal life like the rest of the Gulf countries. Women were driving cars, there were movie theaters in Saudi Arabia, women worked everywhere. We were normal people developing like any other […]

Khaled Ahmed Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi is wanted by an Anti-Terrorism Court in Islamabad but is absconding and no one knows where he is. The Supreme Court is also hearing a case against him relating to the November 2017 violent “dharna” that disrupted life in the twin cities Islamabad-Rawalpindi for 20 days. Although it is no big deal […]

by Liaqat Ali Advocate Justice Shaukat Siddiqui of Islamabad High Court yearns to thrust himself in media limelight. As a judge, his decisions are prone to tilt towards his personal dogma and understanding of religion rather than on statue and constitution. Justice Shaukat Siddiqui was considered a close collaboration of former chief justice Iftkhar Chaudhary. He had actively participated in […]

Mohammad Taqi The first two months of this year were marred by a barrage of bloody terrorist attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban and the ISIS’s Wilayah Khorasan (Khorasan province/ISIS-K). The Taliban formally claimed a perfidious attack using an ambulance as an improvised bomb and have continued to target Afghan civilians and security forces in similar attacks while announcing, last month, their desire to talk peace – but only […]

Remembering Asma Apa, the Pakistani Activist Who Stood for Those No One Else Dared Represent By Mohammad Taqi In 1969, a group of schoolgirls was protesting the martial law regime outside Governor’s House in Lahore when one of them scaled the wall of the mansion and planted a black flag up top. That girl was rusticated from her school, the […]

Khalid Mahmood At present, our society is literally trapped in a cul-de-sac, and there is no one around, to lead this dysfunctional state out of chaos. Survival of dynasty and conserving ill-gotten money is top priority of the elite class. Delhi might be rape center of the world, but Kasur has become epicenter of child molestation, rape and murder.  Kasur […]