Comment

A very disturbing piece of news has been published in the press that Nato fuel supply tankers are allowed to transit through Pakistan without paying any taxes. This is totally unfair and unjustified. Pakistan had agreed to Nato's demand of a supply route but it should not be taken for granted.
The country's economy is already dwindling. It cannot allow them to take advantage of our co-operation.
SHAFIQ SABIR
Lahore

It feels great biting a burger at your favourite cafe while surfing the internet, thanks to expanded wireless internet, WiFi, coverage but we should not ignore the fact that these cable less connections come with their own caveats.
Mr Elfren Meneses, head of the Anti-fraud and Computer Crimes Division of the Philipine National Bureau of Investigation said, "WiFi hackers set up fraudulent websites that appear to be log-in sites for legitimate WiFi hotspot vendors and steal

The Indian Army Chief Gen VK Singh said on October 14 that Pakistan and China were a major security threat for India but "India is well prepared to fight against the threats". He also said the instability and flourishing terrorist groups in Pakistan were a threat for India's security. "Along with that financially and militarily stable China is also a threat."
Such statements are not new. In November last year, then army chief of India said there was a possibility of limited war

If Pakistan had built some large dams in the wasted 10 years of Musharraf era, today, the impact of floods would have been on a much reduced scale.
These floods are an eye opener for those myopic politicians, who can't see beyond their noses. Today, Pakistan is economically standing, even behind the stage of 14th August 1947, where foreign exchange reserves are USD 15 billions against loans of about USD 60 billions.
We always crib that dictators had no vision and they did

The current tussle between the judiciary and the government has put the real problems of the people of Pakistan on the back-burner. Both the institutions should try to resolve matters amicably so that they can finally move towards providing relief to the masses, who at the moment are the biggest victims of this turf war.
NADEEM AHMED,
Lahore.

Disclaimer: The views and ideas expressed herein contain no relevance to real life, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Or is it...?
You can't go around misusing judicial authority. It's just one of those things that you don't do. For example, telling your wife that she's getting fatter just because you're too cheap to take her out for a nice dinner just isn't cricket. I mean, the power invested in man to judge the curvature of the female form

Directly Moulded Sole (DMS) boots are heavy and rugged shoes that are designed for use by soldiers. Since independence, the offices of our elected leaders have reverberated regularly with the thumping of these boots. Each time when we are under these heavy soles, we are told that as Pakistanis, we are not evolved enough to deserve the freedom of deciding our own destiny. Back in 1958, our first elected President; Mr. Iskander Mirza, after inviting our first Martial Law, legitimized it

When does a small town grow up and become a big boy? Does size matter? Geography is a peculiar addiction. Fat makes you large, possibly very large, but it does not make you strong. Some nations have a quarter of their population herded in slums extending in myriad directions because they have not created the capacity to build more cities. America's strength does not lie in New York and Washington but in the fact that Microsoft can be born in Seattle and the world's software industry

Each Pakistani is over fifty thousand rupees in debt, more than half of it foreign. The debts that previous governments have incurred are the gift that keeps on taking. This pound of flesh basically renders us absolutely unable to get out of the vicious cycle that we are in. This is in no way to imply that our own house is in order. Our misplaced fiscal priorities serve only to exacerbate the problem: defence and debt servicing eat up the lion's share of our resources, cutting off

After Prime Minister Gilani's speech and the adjournment by the Supreme Court of the related suo motu case, the crisis caused by the standoff between the two sides is hopefully defused. The story about the dismissal of the Supreme Court judges, avowedly through an impending executive order, was bound to create a countrywide sensation leading to a standoff between the government and judiciary and adding to the sense of uncertainty which is as much harmful for the country's economy as

The PML(N) has an identity crisis. This is but natural. A party that was midwifed by the military is bound to have issues when it jettisons the institution and joins the pro-democracy, anti-army route. But the episteme remains the same. The approach towards the people, development and the democratic process remains the same. So while the League might, at times, display a near Oedipal rage against its father institution, the statements its leaders make might as well have been given by

Karachi is ablaze. Yet again. The different players have been through this dance so many times that by now the rest of the country knows the sequence of events by heart. First there are the target killings. Then there is the standoff, both the ANP and the MQM urge the government to take action, the latter then lets it out that it is considering leaving the coalition, the interior minister flies over to Karachi to pacify the two parties and announces stern actions against anyone who

Learning is an arduous and difficult but thrilling and fascinating process. That's why individuals and nations are reluctant to learn something new. If someone wants to learn, he has to change his mindset and be ready to recognize those traditions and values which are contrary to his beliefs. It is the lesson of history that learning not only opens new venues of knowledge but also helps one explore a hidden and unknown world and eliminates outdated and obsolete ideas. It inspires one

Last week in this space I wrote that the lending of permanence to the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) through the Competition Act, 2010 ('the Act') is a welcome development. I argued that 'intra-provincial' trade cannot be covered by CCP and the provinces need to wake up to this fact. And even though pressing social issues such as the Brad-Angelina story deserve my attention this week, I somehow feel compelled to say more about competition law.
All that sounds good in

Munni Badnaam Hui is all the rage across the border these days. One of the easier barometers to judge a single's popularity - regardless of how connoisseurs define and measure its critical import - is to determine its radio gaga.
Munni has just entered the list of top 20 most frequently played songs on radio in India!
However, there's the munna matter of Munni's origin - or, as one Indian friend sportingly acknowledged, "inspiration". The chartbuster has been lifted from a

The manner in which Chile's President Sebastian Pinera and his Minister for Mining were personally involved in the rescue operation of 33 miners stranded in a collapsed mine 2,050 feet below the surface in San Jose gold and copper mine for 69 days, displays the priority that their elected leadership had for the lives of their citizens.
Their story of survival and extraordinary rescue operation mounted by government of Chile captured the world's attention. The last to emerge from

The opposition in a democratic setup is not just a check on the government but also an active partner in handling various national and international issues. This is not so in Pakistan where the opposition is busy in either litigation against the government - hampering any executive action it takes - or in a tirade against the government in the national press. When it comes to the national issues like flood relief efforts, NRO, Nato territorial incursions, they are either silent or not