(First published on January 4th, 2020) India has a new army chief. Well, sort of. Are you an army chief if your predecessor is still in uniform, sitting above you, waiting to…
Of one-trick ponies
(First published on December 28th, 2019) India seems to have woken up. It took a deeply vile regime’s repeated efforts to ostracise and eliminate a huge chunk of India’s population of 1.3…
Undiplomatic thought
(First published on December 21st, 2019) Two controversies raised their heads this week. One legal. The other diplomatic. You have heard much too much about the former; and as more details filter…
Trial by fire
(First published on December 14th, 2019) Democracy is on trial around the world. Literally. President Donald Trump faces a bruising impeachment process in the US which may hurt his image but leave…
Coincidences?
(First published on December 07, 2019) On Tuesday, December 3, the tech world was rocked by an interesting news. Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin announced that they were stepping down…
Power of attorney
(First published on November 30th, 2019) It is a frightening thought. A nation’s highest military post operating without any legal cover. Just think about it. For 72 years. And think if the…
Carousel of the system
(First published on November 23rd, 2019). The system’s endurance test is almost complete. Almost. Maulana Fazlur Rehman came and went. The matter of extensions and retentions is behind us. All those predictions…
Making of an Indian sausage
(First published on November 16th, 2019) “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making” — Otto von Bismarck. In the past six years we have…
Be careful, what you wish for
(First published on November 09, 2019) How do you pick a friend or an ally? Who decides you cannot be friends with someone? Is it human nature to have both friends and…
Fazail-e-Amaal
(First published on November 2nd, 2019) There are many ways to read the political situation we are in. Now that Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s march has reached Islamabad, some are obviously fearing the…
Wag the dog — on acid
(First published on October 26th, 2019) A file photo of supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) waving their party’s flags as they wait for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address…
Oiling democracy’s decline
(First published on October 19th, 2019) How often does it happen that you want to debate something entirely different but one book or idea compels you to go into an entirely different…
Hunger and langar
(First published on October 12th, 2019) On Monday, October 7, Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated the Ehsaas-Saylani Langar Scheme. It is an ambitious plan to open 112 langars (soup kitchens/food pantries) throughout the…
Our messianic paradox
(First published on October 5th, 2019) The tale grew in the telling. When Israeli elections could not produce decisive results the Israeli media turned to the orbs. One paper ran an interesting…
When paranoia is justified
(First published on September 28th, 2019) Paranoia, we are told, is not healthy. Democracies seldom act paranoid. However, the elements of nature, both material and mental, exist for a reason. Paranoia exists…
Rebirth of the democratic impulse
(First published on September 21st, 2019. “Democracy dies in darkness”, reads The Washington Post’s slogan that started appearing along with its masthead in 2017 after the paper came under heavy fire from the new…
Measuring global pain
(First published on September 14, 2019) When on April 6 this year, I wrote about the need to measure global pain in my piece titled “Measuring the Wrong Quantity”, it was an…
Unnecessary illusions
(First published on September 07, 2019) Today’s reading youth may not be acquainted with the name or the works of Alvin Toffler, but he was a big influence back in the 1980s….
On India
(First published on August 31, 2019) Writing about India these days is not a source of personal joy. For one, what is happening in an otherwise beautiful country, so brimming with potential,…
How India was lost
(First published on August 24, 2019) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, greet each other. Photo: REUTERS/FILE On August 21, officers of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)…
The grand Indian extortion
(First published on August 17, 2019) Is it a pure coincidence that right when a peace settlement in Afghanistan seems within reach, India carried out its recent campaign of brutal repression in…
Reverse Kargil
(First published on August 10, 2019) PHOTO: QUICKTAKE Only two weeks ago in this very space, I pointed out how the Kargil war of 1999 alienated the US and lost Pakistan some…
The dumbing down of dissent
(First published on August 03, 2019) “The two fundamental human drivers when it comes to taking information onboard effectively are hopes and fears and many of those are unspoken and even unconscious….
Two Julys two decades apart
(First published on July 27, 2019) PHOTO: PTI As far as inflection points go, here is another one. The Prime Minister of Pakistan has returned from his maiden official visit to the…
Vacuums of leadership
(First published on July 20, 2019) PHOTO: STOCK IMAGE The question was simple. Who would win the approaching elections? When they all had their say they turned to me. With only a…
Fool me twice
(First published on July 13, 2019) It is about to begin again. The much ado about nothing. The tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Opposition parties are gearing up to…
The fall of civilisation
(First published on July 06, 2019) CNN recently aired a documentary by Dr Fareed Zakaria titled ‘State of Hate’. There is reasonable cause to believe that in itself this work will become an…
How not to train a dragon
(First published on June 29, 2019) Few months ago, on a speaking occasion, I gave three reasons why we needed a world order where hate, prejudice and fear had little relevance. These…
The Israeli question
(First published on June 22, 2019) Recently a video has gone viral in Pakistan claiming to feature the opening of the Saudi Embassy in Israel. Upon closer scrutiny, you realise that this…
An inheritance of hurt
(First published on June 15, 2019 ) What does the United Kingdom owe India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the rest of the countries that were once part of the British Raj? This question…