To be sure, not all news items are hair-raising or earth-shaking. Yet, according to the Bangladesh army, it foiled a coup attempt by retired and serving officers late last week which intelligence sources said was driven by a campaign to introduce Shariah (Islamic law) throughout the majority Muslim country. Well, no doubt, Bangladesh, like Pakistan, has a strong history of coups, with army generals running the South Asian nation for 15 years until the end of 1990. Intelligence officials had...

Sharmeen Khan is a popular TV anchor and hosts a morning show. Her monthly pay package exceeds rupees five hundred thousand. She has a Chauffer-driven Porsche and lives in a palatial house in Defense Phase VII. She is married to Qurban Shah, a rich agriculturist cum businessman from interior Sindh who already has a wife and three kids in his native village, near Tando Adam. Sharmeen is thirty-three years old, twenty-seven years younger than her husband, (not that great a difference when you...

Who says I am afraid? Pakistan is a peaceful country where nobody has ever been harmed for their political views. Everyone in Islamabad lives in peace and harmony, except black goats, Chinese massage women and journalists led astray by petty notions of free speech. World renowned figures have made its relaxing holiday retreats such as Abbott Abad their second homes. International celebrities come and go with complete freedom...

It is reported from Tehran, that Dollar has reached 20500 rials and gold coin is priced at 10,500,000 rials  and yet, there is no official assessment of what is going on in Iran. By contrast, every now and then, if and when an opportunity offers itself, Iranian politicians claim that the USA is falling apart! In the last 12 months, rial lost about 50% of its value against the dollar, and hence, about $80 billion imports into Iran that would have required 867200 billion rials about a year ago, would now- on 23 January 2012- need 1,640,000 billion rials, a rise of nearly 90% in just one year. Needless to say, the unavoidable implication of this would be a sharp rise in inflation. On the other hand, the European Union has agreed...

In 1988, when democracy was restored in the country, ironically remnants of the Zia dictatorship began to demand due coverage for the opposition on state-controlled electronic media: the Pakistan Television (PTV) and radio Pakistan. A National Assembly member of the Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI), Umer Hayat Lalika, for instance,   in his speech on the floor of house on 7 February 1989, criticised the then Pakistan Peoples Party government, headed by the late...

Sun Tzu, in his classic text The Art of War, observed that there are five constant factors that govern this art: Moral law, heaven, earth, the commander, method and discipline (Sun Tzu, 2008, p.7). Similarly, Carl von Clausewitz defined war as an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will (Clausewitz, 1968, p.85). What these observations have in common is the degree of simplicity that underpins them. For instance, Sun Tzu’s five factors are applicable to modern warfare but each of those factors may have become more complex than, supposedly, when he noted them. In the same vein, one might find it difficult to make sense of Clausewitz’s definition, if applied to contemporary warfare (specifically, after the Second...

These days, former President and ex-Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan’s Armed Forces, General Pervez Musharraf, is stationed in Dubai. He flew in there from his self-imposed exile even before setting foot in Pakistan.  Press reports indicate that he plans to meet with rulers of the UAE and Saudi Arabia to seek financial, political and moral support  for rebuilding his political career and to energize his power base in Pakistan. At the same time, the current President of Pakistan, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari who had returned recently from the UAE after having received medical treatment...

Enlightened Pakistani expatriates in the USA have developed a consensus that the genesis of what ails Pakistan can be traced to the feudal system our former colonial masters imposed on India. The colonizers declared them and their vassals martial race, and used them against their own countrymen for sabotage of the national movement and to fight the inter-imperial wars all over the world. The feudal lords treated their peasants worse than one would a slave, forcing them to work in their homes with out any payment, treating the latter’s females as keeps. In the tribal regions the chief used his “seigniorial” right to spend the first night with any bride that took his fancy.

On the subject of the Princely States the Muslim League policy was identical to that of the British. On 29 January 1939 the Viceroy wrote, "I gathered further that a resolution was actually passed at Patna to the effect that the All India Muslim League would no longer be able to stand aside if Congress intervention in the affairs of the states continued." Jinnah was against according any democratic right to the people who lived in the Princely States. Of the 600 Princely States only ten had Muslim rulers. The Muslims of Kashmir were striving for their rights against the Hindu Maharaja. In their anxiety to please the British the Muslim League forgot the existence of their fellow Muslim brothers. They challenged the Congress for the rights of the Hindu rulers of Kashmir. On 28 March 1939 the Viceroy wrote regarding another meeting with Jinnah...

Home to ancient Darada,
Buddhist and Gandhara;
Where pilgrims from China,
And from central Asia,
Came for eternal solace;
As it was such a place.
Where cultures flourish,
It was everybody’s wish.

Neither are your lips dry nor are your eyes moist,
Time has stolen your pride in hunger and starvation
Where are you who proclaimed love?

You had risen to change the world,
But have changed in such a way
That the world itself is amazed.

All the seasons are unkind,
in the valley,
where rugged mountains,
hand out nothing but fire.  
Where dreams bleed into the neighboring river,
where orchards grow bitter fruits of hatred.
No one knows how many human crops
they reaped so far!
And outside the city gate,
mighty lords are gathering again,