India’s adeptness at propaganda and moving swiftly against states in the neighbourhood who do not accept its desires is certainly to be marvelled at. In fact, Pakistan could learn valuable lessons on how India conducts its external propaganda to bolster its overt diplomacy and even the US could take a lesson or two from its [...]
Are we a brutalised society or merely a militarised state? Recent developments on different fronts have highlighted the contrasting images of ourselves and our rulers. For instance, the floods have brought out some interesting dialectics of the Pakistani state and society. The latter has rallied round once again in the face of a natural calamity [...]
The present rulers have certainly tried to reduce Pakistan to a joke in the eyes of the world. Here we are confronting one of the largest natural disasters of the world, as even the UN has conceded, and our President has been busy frolicking in Europe with his team of loyalists who are giving out [...]
It is ISI bashing time again and this comes easy for the Western and Indian media especially, but also for the media at home since the ISI has figured as a larger than life organisation since the US-led war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. And undoubtedly the ISI has at times been highly controversial in [...]
As the US continues to deepen its intrusiveness in the affairs of Pakistan, there is a growing sense of disquiet as one senses increasingly strange developments within Pakistan’s policy-making circles. It is not just the absurdity of witnessing the public signing of minutes of negotiations and seeing the total abandonment of all protocol; nor is [...]
Countering terrorism in a holistic manner is often difficult because the easier option is to simply resort to the use of overwhelming military force which is always available to the state. Unfortunately, as in any asymmetric or unconventional conflict, this response undermines the effort and creates a more enabling environment for the militants/terrorists. After all, [...]
As if the US government’s diktat to our leaders was not enough of an issue of national concern, the US media has been targeting Pakistan in the blackest terms possible with no regard for facts or realities on the ground - barring citing a few like-minded locals who have their own links to the US [...]
The PAF and the Americans certainly tried to create the perfect photo op with the US Viceregal ambassador Ms Patterson and the Air Chief Rao Qamar smiling for the cameras at Jacobabad air base - once Pakistan’s sove-reign territory but now controlled effectively by the US military. All this apparent bonhomie was the delivery of [...]
If ever there was a reaffirmation of the present independence of the judiciary and its absolute determination to dispense justice come what may, it was the decision of a three-member bench of the Supreme Court to reject the federal and Punjab governments’ appeals against the release of Hafiz Saeed by the Lahore High Court. As [...]
The Non-Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT) Review Conference has once again brought to the fore the differing perspectives on the Treaty, its Articles dealing with non-proliferation as well as nuclear disarmament, and the duality of approach adopted by states like the US on the overall issue of proliferation and disarmament. This time around no one has exposed [...]
