Opinion

Since the campaign to win Afghans over isn’t going so well, US soldiers decide to take a few skulls and fingers.

If we had principles and believed in Pakistan we would be willing to put opportunist politics aside and get to work.

If the ‘good’ Taliban can be persuaded to cooperate, additional troops could help bring the ‘bad’ ones in line.

The influence of the generals and admirals declined as the post-Waterloo environment receded in memory.

I know ‘balle balle’. And I feel the Commonwealth Games is on a trajectory dramatically different from that.

Does the prime minister really need an armed chaperone of seven cars every time he steps out.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s sentence of 86 years of imprisonment by a US court is both shocking and surprising.

Is there an end to the madness of American military misadventures that have destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.

The current economic situation requires re-envisioning of the economic development doctrine in Pakistan.

In the govt of the East India Company, the military exercised the dominant role in tandem with the governor-general.

Religion here is an excuse to get away with murder, encourage intolerance and cement backwardness and illiteracy.

The political instability is self-created and not the result of ‘political actors’ out to get the PPP government.

Is there any tangible evidence against Aafia except for the whodunit version where nothing was even done?

Poverty is threatening the whole society and system where the powerful and the elite would be the major losers.

Revolution begins at home. The key is to act as a model for others, and to become agents of change.

We should be spending money on Aafia's defence simply because she is a Pakistani national in trouble.

So, a majority of Pakistanis doesn’t like this government? What should we do? Get the jokers out? How?

Every cloud has a silver lining and the floods also bring many opportunities for Pakistan to build upon.

Muslim societies duelling between the modern world and Islam will remain the battleground of ideas for decades yet.

Under the ruling regime of firms forming “concentrated oligopolies” in Pakistan, price competition is stifled.

Unless there is agreement on a package of supply-side river-water management measures, we will not be able to manage.

The sight of elated children, laughing and full of spirits at a KESC organised flood relief camp took me by surprise.

Africans belong to very old and magnificent civilisations and their cultures are extremely rich and diverse.

Allama Iqbal was right in opposing Hudood, and a courageous son is right in defending his father’s thinking.

Pakistani politics has often been little more than an undisguised scramble for power, at times tense or utterly mad.

There is a symbolic connection between the scriptural incident and the floods, and whatever else is happening.

What compelled Musharraf to allow members elected under his patronage to pile up their assets so rapidly.

The rural masses are fed on empty promises, kept poor and beholden to the landlord. Doesn't sound like democracy.

Just because other societies are behaving inhumanely doesn’t give you the right to do so.

Trappe­d by a gang the workin­g woman was offere­d ‘work’ in the profes­sion she is curren­tly involv­ed in with.

Pakistanis should forget the ire of Allah, the rich might deserve it, and look to the real causes of their misfortunes

The nervousness exhibited by the establishment towards the mullah fraternity is not understandable.

Trust the silly economic team to start the exercise with the HEC at a time when degree verification raised its profile

It is still unclear how regime-change will be affected by the ardent, messiah-lovers on the idiot box.

We pay for a bureaucracy and government that does not seem to do much, and talk goes back to corruption, incompetence.

Mandelson’s memoir The Third Man, truly give us an insight into the whole grisly dysfunction of New Labour.

Three more faces that I need to reconcile with, they put me in a spot, they put me in a fix.

If banned charities can offer support the state cannot deliver, they are likely to succeed in gaining support.

Women prisoners in Pakistan need help, a contribution to the legal aid office would be a donation to a worthy cause.

With legislators, public representatives, demanding immunity from accountability, what can FIA or NAB do?

Two dangers that lurk for our democracy: shadowy intelligence outfits and inability to finance governmental operations

In order to start improving the quality of education, we need to understand where and why we have failed.

Literacy and education could turn the population into a resource rather than a burden on the country.

It seems the Pakistan media like a free media except when it comes to commenting on itself.

Watching local music channels makes me want to find a blunt object and pay someone to slowly beat me to death with it.

An operation needs to be launched in Mohmand to eliminate the strongholds of terrorists in Khwazai and Baizai areas.

Ayodhya is far from their reality, but as dreams go the chrysalises are quick to become mortician chroniclers.

It may well be that in the future the Taliban will not allow al Qaeda or a similar group a base in Afghanistan.

Land-owing, slave-owning ‘farmers’ do not require aid in any shape, why the scheme to make farmers buy fertiliser?

The govt should engage tribal insurgents in talks and bring them into the mainstream in order to isolate the jihadists