Editor's Mail

Yet another blow to the poverty stricken, flood affected and helpless Pakistani public was inflicted as the US secretary of state Hilary Clinton has appealed to international donors to immediately stop all aid to Pakistan.
Whether this is a good thing or bad remains debatable. It would be totally bad if the entire confection was actually to be used to assist and rehabilitate the devastated people, which is an impossibility considering past examples and models of corruption.<br

Recently, the Global Handwashing Day was celebrated in many parts of the world.
In our country, the same the same was also held. I can picture former President Pervez Musharraf washing the blood off his hands for the political blunders he made during his dictatorial rule. Lal Mosque, Bugti murder, extraordinary renditions, Balochistan Operation, missing persons and many others speak for themselves.
After playing havoc with the country, he now claims to be a true patriot

The despicable act of smuggling rare and endangered species of birds to far off territories for petty gains shows clearly our emotional degradation and how clever we have become to trade anything and everything including humans as well. Cruel is the manner in which these birds are dealt with as they are displaced and dislocated from the climate and geography that the Lord assigned to them that is instrumental to end their flights of freedom. That they would adapt to foreign climes in

I recently had the misfortune of seeing the new cigarette packs that features the really disturbing image of a mangled mouth. Even though I am not a smoker myself, I am quite ambivalent about that image. It makes a supposition that people are idiots who need such graphic reinforcement. People make conscious choices and are well-aware of the consequences. If you are 18 and above (the age at which you can be sold a pack), then you should be rational enough to judge the pros and cons of

The recent order of the Apex Court that the executive order of reinstatement of Supreme Court Judges could not be taken back, short of being declared a subversion of the Constitution, feels like a breath of fresh air in the form of the majesty of the law that invigorates the soul of our nation.
The Apex Court was aware of the November 3rd 2007 emergency plus imposition which was denied a day earlier. So this was a case of once bitten twice shy. This time our Apex Court has grown

All the 33 Chilean miners trapped for over two months down under the 2,041-feet gold and copper mine were rescued on October 13 with the President Sebastian Pinera himself supervising the rescue operation, and the miners foreman Luis Urzua coming out as the last man from under the deepest cave, for he refused to see light of the day unless his all companions come out, safe and sound.
The entire Chilean nation, its President and the heroes of hero, Luis Urzua, deserve applause.

The truism "everything is political" is truer in Pakistan then any other country in the world. The ongoing saga of the pro-active and preemptive measures of our Judge Sahiban show that even the office that is supposed to be the most apolitical office, has also been politicised to an unacceptable extent. Juridical activism, judicial independence and other such jargon is thrown around to confuse the public and to justify actions that do not suit the honorable office of the apex court. I

I wonder when Pakistan cricket will be free of this scourge of mismanagement (an understatement, by all means). The PCB is in tatters. It has always been in tatters but the fact that now due to its high jinks, Pakistani cricket is in bad shape is unforgivable. Bad administration did not always result in bad cricket but now that is the case. There have been moments in the current administration's reign, when any self-respecting man would have resigned instantly. But, Butt Sahib lacks

It has been noticed that private colleges in Lahore have taken to increasing their fee arbitrarily. This is an injustice to the students and causes severe problems for them. As most of our population cannot afford these private colleges, public colleges being not enough in number to accommodate all the students, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get high quality education at affordable rates. This is not good for the society as, by offering various tiers of education system, we

This is with reference to the regional editorial "Abduction of doctors" that was printed in your editorial pages on 14 October 2010. This is an alarming trend that the Taliban are now targeting individual civilians like this. It is also very sad that this grave issue is getting very little coverage in the mainstream press as this was the first prominent piece I have seen on it. This issue should not be taken lightly. I think the people in our country find it hard to empathise with the

The rescue of 33 miners in Chile is both a matter of pride for humanity and a cause of concern as well. Now that they are save and brought back to the normal world, we should start thinking as to why they had to face such an incident? Why could they be not provided with better safety measures? And what steps, if any, are being taken to avoid such an incident in the future? In a country like ours, where there are no hard and fast rules on workers' safety, it is even more important to

Many of the diseases in our country are spreading due to unawareness about them. Our public is totally ignorant of what causes even the most common diseases as flu and malaria. There is an urgent need to spread awareness about these diseases so that the population could be saved from cruel clutches of these diseases. It takes only a little to do away with the ignorance while it can save valuable human resource. It would also save huge amount of money being spent on the cure of these

Our part of the world has always been known for calligraphy. In one form or another, the Asian calligraphers have been in the limelight. From Arabic to Persian and from Chinese to Pakistani calligraphers, Asia has produced calligrapher of top class level. But unfortunately, this subtle art is being forgotten slowly as there are no more training institutions for them and no one is making a serious headway in this regard. Names like Sadequain, Shakir Ali are now legends of the past. We

Lahore, the capital of Punjab and the heart of Pakistan, is totally mismanaged and seems to be forgotten by the authorities. The roads in Lahore are broken at more than comfortable ratios. They are also not repaired regularly. They lack balance, road signs and traffic signals. Many vehicles are meeting their fate sooner than expected due to the lower quality of carpetted roads. Accidents have been reported in the media but the authorities seem deaf to all the pleas. When the tax

Turkey has been a friend of Pakistan through thick and thin. It has stood by with Pakistan in many issues on the global level. Turkish PM is on a visit to Pakistan nowadays.
Being a Muslim country and among the fastest growing economies in the world, Turkey enjoys great esteem and respect among the world community. It would be a useless and futile effort by the Turkish PM if our political leadership does not learn any lesson from them. We should ask for their help in the

Pakistani media got some of its freedom in the government of a dictator. Though the new found freedom gave it a chance to bring to fore many problems of the country, it has also taken to exaggeration and creating hype over nothing. The example of NRO review petition is a case in point. Media had started sounding ominous about October 13, the date when it was supposed to be decided. Though nothing happened, media has again started whipping up new dates and has made the issue

The Pakistan Cricket Board has made it a habit to announce the name of the captain in a controversial manner. They have taken to appointing captains who were not in the team and been sidelined for sometime. The recently announced team also comes with a captain who was sidelined for more than a season. Misbah-ul-haq was not even in the playing eleven but he has been chosen as team captain. It seems the PCB knows only one way to bring a player in the playing eleven: make him captain.