Editorials

Any unusual activity by the army personnel on the Constitution Avenue is liable to arouse public curiosity. Such is the unhappy history of the relationship between the army and the civilian government that this is bound to revive bitter memories among many. It was unusual for the army controlling traffic at the Avenue checkpoint instead of police. For the soldiers to stop a federal minister in a car flying the national flag was regrettable and to point guns at him, a really serious

A bomb would have been kinder. Hysteria has set in the Pakistani establishment after US President Barack Obama formally endorsed India for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Having played the jilted lover's role of late, at least as far as relations with the US are concerned, Pakistan is going to interpret this bombshell as the last straw on the camel's back. It is being viewed, not incorrectly, as the most significant development in US-India relations.
Should we worry,

President Obama's three day tour of India is the most important part of his trip to Asia that will also take him to Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. The US president has been at pains to explain that his mission is aimed at seeking avenues for US exports, crucial for resolving the issue of unemployment, which continues to erode Obama's popularity at home. This explains why a large number of US business executives form part of the President's entourage. An India flush with money and

Of late, the Taliban's version of Islam has been referred to as tribal. It is a misnomer. There is nothing tribal about this, or, at least the interpretation of the word tribal that we have come to apply to the area bordering Afghanistan. No traditional conflict amongst the tribals bombs mosques, kills women and children. And none of it was beyond the control of senate of the spingiri, translated, literally, as the white beards. The control of old men can be at the same time a problem

Times are tough. It doesn't take an economist to figure this out. Making ends meet has never been this difficult, especially for the salaried classes and the sustenance wage earners. The peculiarities of our polity are such that inflation has never become a focal point in anti-government movements, if not general strikes. Maybe the reason for this is that the political opposition feels it also would not be able to do a good enough job in stemming the tide of the great price hikes.

Within days of declaring in the National Assembly that midterm elections remained an option, Ch Nisar has denied that his party ever asked for snap polls. A categorical demand by another PML(N) MNA on the floor of the house that "midterm polls must be held next year" was thus no more than a theatrical exercise. So was the clear cut demand made by Khwaja Asif on a TV channel a day earlier. Calls of the sort made by leaders otherwise considered responsible manage to do enough harm by

Even though the flood waters have receded, the flood victims in Pakistan are still drowning in misery with the approaching winter, lack of coordinated relief efforts, water-borne diseases and general mismanagement, adding to their ever-increasing troubles Internally, Pakistan has been plagued with issues of governance and an already shambolic infrastructure badly damaged by the floods. Externally, there has been a lack of international mobilisation around the issue and an alarmingly

The PML(N) and PML(Q) have finally agreed on Senate's representatives on the Committee to appoint members of superior judiciary, despite the Q League's rather strange desire to have two members of its own. As often happens with new experiments, the appointment of members of the Judicial Commission has also hit unforeseen snags.
First came objections to the nomination by CJ of retired SC judge Ali Hasan Qazalbash on grounds that he was unsuitable for being an octogenarian

Governments are inefficient. Specially ours. This is not to talk about the incumbent political government but the very machinery of the state itself. Though it is fashionable to attribute a lot of our woes on the lack of political will to solve them, one also has to factor in the limited capacity of the state in not just responding to challenges but also just performing a normal routine duty. Delays and lack of insight blights not just the inability of the state to evacuate a village

No final word in politics. The most seemingly certain of realities are in a flux. Only two years ago, the incumbent President of the US was sworn into office after perhaps the most impressive election campaign in that country's history. His popularity was unprecedented. Even though his predecessor George W Bush was extremely unpopular, the '08 election was not a referendum against the Bush but one in favour of Obama. The conservatives were nigh completely decimated and the GOP faced

In an ironic contrast to Mian Nawaz Sharif's talk about principles, visions and long term plans, the PML(N) leadership below him remains wedded to realpolitik aimed at achieving narrow political gains and unconcerned about the negative impacts this could have on national politics. Rebutting prime minister Gilani, who emboldened by recent talks with PML(Q) leadership, had ruled out the possibility of the change of government through mid-term polls or military coup, Ch Nisar hinted at a

While Washington builds pressure on Pakistan to conduct an operation in Waziristan, Al Qaeda is fast building up new strongholds and taking recourse to more sophisticated methods to target the West. The impression one gets is that the terrorist network is more inventive and efficient than the US. Meanwhile Al Qaeda is widening its recruiting base practically in all the continents.
On Monday, four people were arrested in Athens for plotting to send parcel bombs to French

A man on a mission, Nawaz Sharif. He is determined to recast himself and his party in the anti-establishment role. Addressing the South Asia Free Media Association at his house in Raiwind, the veteran leader said that had the military not taken over in '99, the country wouldn't be facing the problems of inflation, unemployment and terrorism that it is today. Though that isn't entirely true, there is no denying the fact that the previous government's policies towards the economy and

It's a whopper of a jump. Six rupees doesn't quite get you a soft drink anymore but as a price differential of a commodity that drives the prices of other products itself, the jump is going to rankle the budgets of households across the country. Ogra is a far more hated body than the PCB and there is a lurking suspicion that something somewhere is wrong. But, as opposed to the cricketing body, no one can quite put a finger on what is wrong. The tea-stall legions will talk of the

With the timeline for the US troops' withdrawal only eight months away and no light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan, Washington's options are getting limited. What must have added to President Obama's blues is that the war in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly unpopular at home and there is strong opposition even within the administration to the prolongation of the conflict. Meanwhile, the surge which was aimed at seizing the initiative from the Taliban has failed to achieve

The suggestion to privatise the Railways by the federal finance secretary is bound to draw public criticism. Regardless of how unfeasible; expensive; dangerous (at times) and even, in functional terms, unpopular the organisation will get, it is still the people's railways. The emotive resonance of the railways might not touch a chord with the metropolitan demographic that is reading this, except, perhaps, amongst the elder lot. But to the masses of the smaller towns and the

That the four Muslim League factions which were expected to form a single party could settle only at an amorphous alliance underlines the absence of unanimity over immediate aims and objectives. Alliances are normally formed by opposition parties to bring down a government through street power or use their combined parliamentary strength to form a new administration. As things stand, Pir Pagara's PML(F) is an ally of the PPP-led coalition both at the center and in Sindh. What is more,