While the Pakistani NGOs seek the Right to Information Law, the likes of “Wikileaks” are wikileaking clandestine governments! The latest ‘leaks’ of Wikileaks provide a historical opportunity to re-consider many a taken for granted truths! This writing too intends to discuss afresh some such propositions which relates to the affairs of the governments. For instance, […]
The country that taught us lesson regarding Rule of Law, Rule of Politics is winning there! On September 16, 2016, Dawn published the following Situationer, which explains how law may not win over politics in UK: Politics, not law, likely to decide murder probeBy Owen Bennett-Jones Here is the text of the piece: LONDON: Shortly […]
With time, disconnect with the Pakistan Peoples Party is widening. The more one listens to news and reads newspapers, the more one is convinced of the distending communication gap between the PPP and non-PPP camps. It seems both of them are talking to themselves only. Watching talk shows on TV channels, where representatives from both […]
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none -Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826. American people create abundant wealth. So, they are prosperous and happy. It is only because they are economically freer than many nations on earth. In consequence, that makes them politically freer. What makes all that possible is their declaration of […]
Judges rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to the pressures of the times.– Warren E. Burger (1907-1995), Chief Justice, US Supreme Court. The best thing that explains the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) July 20 judgment is: it is never too late to mend. As is being claimed, […]
Judges rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to the pressures of the times. – Warren E. Burger (1907-1995), Chief Justice, US Supreme Court. The best thing that explains the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) July 20 judgment is: it is never too late to mend. As is being […]
The theory of media consumption stands vindicated in Pakistan! The story goes thus: On June 29 the Federal Defense Minister, Ahmed Mukhtar, who had been sleeping all through the May 2 Abbottabad-Osama-Bin-Laden and May 23 PNS-Mehran-Karachi happenings, awoke to talk to a group of journalists apprising them that Pakistan had asked Washington to vacate the […]
When creative spirit of a nation is arrested from within, it is as vulnerable to external insinuations as is to internal machinations, and can never make any progress. “Pakistan is under siege.” We had enemies from the very first day. With time, the list of our enemies grew longer. So much so that today we […]
When creative spirit of a nation is arrested from within, it is as vulnerable to external insinuations as is to internal machinations, and can never make any progress. “Pakistan is under siege.” We had enemies from the very first day. With time, the list of our enemies grew longer. So much so that today we […]
When creative spirit of a nation is arrested from within, it is as vulnerable to external insinuations as is to internal machinations, and can never make any progress. “Pakistan is under siege.” We had enemies from the very first day. With time, the list of our enemies grew longer. So much so that today we […]
The middleman tends to be eliminated . . . He can only be safely eliminated by natural processes. Sometimes he is of real use and helps production; sometimes he is not; but this cannot be decided by a blind strike, but only by allowing the forces of competition to act upon him. [Hon. Auberon Herbert] […]
How to Privatize Successfully – Part I If privatisation needs to be done, it has to be done because it is the decisive step in transforming the economic system. Regarding foreign help Dr Klaus is very blunt: I think that the typical foreign help was sending would-be advisors and consultants. It became one of the […]
Changing the economic system is not an easy task. And, of course, it is more complex when carried out half-heartedly. As privatisation is only a part of this process, it may not succeed if done in an isolated manner. It needs certain other changes and a competitive environment to bear fruit. A case in point […]
He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.[George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950] People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.[Lao Tzu, 604 BC – 531 BC] Underneath our views of everything lies a theory of knowledge. We have views about the world, and what exists […]
[Here is the part 4 of the article: “Cynicism and Pakistan.”] The Theory of Lesser Evil (TLE) is a manifestation of cynicism. As cynicism finds its meaning mainly in negativity and faultfinding, TLE too believes that everything is Evil; there is no Good. If everything is Evil, and there exists no Good, then what we […]
You can bring the rich to the level of the poor overnight but it takes a lifetime to lift the poor to the level of the rich.– Irish proverb During the 1970s, Pakistan went in for wholesale nationalization of its private enterprises, taking even educational institutions into the state’s hands. This was a move laden […]
[Here is the part 3 of the article: “Cynicism and Pakistan.”] The discussion of the political cynicism here focuses only on the sections of society which exercise influence on the formation of public opinion. These sections may be considered as the mainstay of political cynicism in Pakistan. As far as the general citizenry is concerned, […]
The credit for any reduction in poverty in the country goes to privatisation, de-regulation and liberalisation, not to the so called pro-poor expenditures. Over a period of five years between 1999-2004, the government of Pakistan spent Rs.1 trillion on poverty reduction. According to the Finance Ministry, Poverty Reduction Special Programme included budgetary and non-budgetary expenditures […]
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Please note: This post has been shifted to the Urdu Blog – Civil Pakistan. To see it, click the link below: Tahir-ul-Qadri Swaang: Hizb-e-Ikhtilaaf Aur Hizb-e-Iqtidaar
What’s a conspiracy mindset? It’s a mind set in to explaining things or events by going beyond the same things and events. That is, it
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Here is a cartoon published in The Express Tribune today (January 16, 2013) depicting Tahir-ul-Qadri as an exploiter of his followers. Is it so? Another
As the Supreme Court issues orders to arrest the Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in Rental Power case, the ever-alive factories of conspiracy mindset have
Apart from the fact of corruption, inefficiency and criminality rampant in and under the present government of Pakistan Peoples Party and its allies, Awami National
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Please note: This post has been shifted to the Urdu Blog – Civil Pakistan. To see it, click the link below: Niji Skool Aur Taaleem Ka
Amid continuing bloodshed and the criminally failed State, what the citizens of Pakistan need, first and foremost, is Protective Agenda – a State fully and
Animism did not die with the men that endowed inanimate things with life and soul. It survived and flourished in different areas in different forms
Here is the latest manifestation of ideological robotics: Maoists plant bomb in dead Indian cop Patna: Maoist rebels planted a bomb inside the stomach of
In the following they seem to be of the same ilk: Both believe in violence as the most effective instrument of their policy! Both believe
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Here is one measure how dangerous they are: Turkey lifts ban on thousands of books “Istanbul: From communist works to a comic book, thousands of
“Islamabad: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Thursday (December 20) directed the ministry of defence to abolish lifetime perks and privileges to all former managing directors
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Copied below is the Exordium from my latest paper, Pakistan’s Democratic Impasse – Analysis and the Way Forward, released by the Alternate SolutionsInstitute on December
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The caption reads: A rickshaw and a small trailer, with Jamaat-i-Islami posters and flags, have been making rounds on The Mall (Lahore) to tell people
“ISLAMABAD: Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) Buland Akhtar Rana on Thursday (January 3) told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that he had ordered to conduct
In order to secure constitutional protection for Muslims, the Muslim League argued in separatist language on the basis of a different religious identity. However, as
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Alternate Solutions Institute released my latest paper, Pakistan’s Democratic Impasse – Analysis and the Way Forward, today (December 29). Copied below is the text of
Please note: This post has been shifted to the Urdu Blog – Civil Pakistan. To see it, click the link below: Darbaari Media, Darbaari Experts
Please note: This post has been shifted to the Urdu Blog – Civil Pakistan. To see it, click the link below: Shah Kharchiyan Aur Mandate Ka
Most of the English and Urdu newspapers of today (December 27), published the following full page advertisement on behalf of “Chief Minister Sindh and All
In The News of December 24, on page 5 there published an Advertisement. Here it is: What does that Ad mean? How come that suddenly
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The News in its print edition on December 23 reported the following: Bakery boy absolves CM’s relative, cops of torture LAHORE: A judicial magistrate of
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Anyone can see that there is not one Pakistan. After more than 60 years the two Pakistans can clearly be demarcated. One is for the
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Ordinary Pakistanis are in the jaws of another government-created crisis: they are facing shortage of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in their homes as well as
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Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf by, using his discretionary powers, has appointed his son-in-law, Raja Azeemul Haq to the prestigious post of Executive Director of
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It is strange, rather outrageous that the same media, which is truly active and activist, as regards many a genuine issue, and in certain cases
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This book was published by Alternate Solutions Institute in February this year. Originally it is in Urdu, Pakistan Mein Riyasti Ashrafiya Ka Urooj. After the
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How vacuous the speeches and statements of state dignitaries look! But it is for them to inaugurate this or that thing, to make speeches! It
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Lal Masjid is once again making headlines. This time it has been resurrected by the Supreme Court. As a result of a hearing of a
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Secularism is an old song that keeps reverberating in the liberal, enlightened, progressive, leftist, and socialist circles of Pakistan. Earlier this January news from Bangladeshthat
