Archive for March, 2013

Sameer Arshad :  The execution of Afzal Guru smacks of political opportunism as the trial left gaping holes that were ignored at the altar of ‘collective conscience’ Indian political parties have rarely agreed on anything in the last few years, as myriad corruption scandals have had them at each other’s throats. But they spoke in […]

It is some irony that prime time television was probably at its best during the time of the worst dictatorship this country suffered. To think that the fare etched itself in the minds of my generation in spite of the suffocating code of morality — and on that inert worm called PTV — is to […]

By Aamir Saeed –  An 11-year-old girl was burnt to ashes after rape by her tutor’s boyfriend in Islamabad last month after the pair also collaborated to have another girl raped and killed All he dreamt of was a secure future for his daughter. But far from realizing the dream, barely got to recognize her […]

By Moeed Pirzada – A leading politician in Punjab, a PML-N hard hitter, recently confided in me: “TV has changed my politics; I don’t have to spend as much time in the constituency, my voters love me for this national persona TV has given me and many of us”. Others — mostly in the ruling […]

By Shaukat Qadir Education is not a product of degrees but a state of mind. That state of mind is anathema to the military mind “The only thing more difficult than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out”. —Basil H Liddel Hart, English soldier, military historian and […]

By Rahimullah Yusufzai –  Actual irritants as well as attitudes have to be realigned before all is well between Afghanistan and Pakistan Though Pakistan has publicly offered a strategic cooperation agreement to Afghanistan and showed interest in training the Afghan security forces, the Afghan government has generally ignored these offers. And when President Hamid Karzai […]

By Rabab Khan –  Why would someone else want to help us when we are not even willing to move a muscle for our own welfare? If there’s one thing that we Pakistanis have become adept at, it is protesting against the government. Read the newspapers or switch on the plethora of private TV news […]

By Iftikhar Firdous –  25 per cent of forests in Northern Areas are lost to timber mafia and authorised chopping According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Pakistan has the highest annual deforestation rate in Asia, while the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics’ (PIDE) assessment reveals that if deforestation continues at its current […]