There are certain larger-than-life figures whose presence overflows the room they are in. Kaleem Omar was one of them, with his insistent voice dominating any gathering. When making a point, he would reel off a plethora of facts and figures that were impossible to verify. So we always gave him the benefit of the doubt,...
The Shaukat Tarin/Hina Rabbani Khar budget for 2009-10 is no different from any other Pakistani budget presented in the last two decades. There is nothing in there which will tangibly do anything for the 180 million wretched Pakistanis who find it difficult to make ends meet. Pakistani budgets are like Pakistani movies where viewers can...
Pakistan is lucky enough to have a visionary leader in the form of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain whose family has sacrificed so much for the people of Pakistan. So when this great leader’s younger brother Wajahat Hussain and three nephews were detained under the anti-terrorist law at Gatwick Airport in London for several hours upon their...
For those of you who don’t have dogs, ticks are probably the worst thing that happen to them throughout the year given Pakistan’s climate. Ticks for the uninitiated are parasites which live off the blood of mammals and occasionally reptiles and amphibians as well and are found commonly across the breadth of our country. If...
Richard Holbrooke is back and this time it’s to look at the refugee crisis as a result of the Swat Operation, meet with the folks he needs to, and generally earn his keep. By the looks of it Mr. Holbrooke spends as much time in Pakistan as President Zardari, and definitely much more time than...
Richard Holbrooke is back and this time it’s to look at the refugee crisis as a result of the Swat Operation, meet with the folks he needs to, and generally earn his keep. By the looks of it Mr. Holbrooke spends as much time in Pakistan as President Zardari, and definitely much more time than...
The 27th of May bombing in Lahore, which has taken a minimum of 23 lives and wounded over 300 people can only be seen as a retaliatory strike by the Taliban who are finally at the receiving end from the Pakistan Army. The highly effective Army operation in Swat and Malakand Division now has the...
Advertising in Pakistan has seen a paradigm shift which has traditional advertising agencies very worried as they should be. I set up a software company specializing in digital media nine years ago and the view from the trenches in the earlier years was not pretty. While our products and services grew exponentially in the West...
The 27th of May bombing in Lahore, which has taken a minimum of 23 lives and wounded over 300 people can only be seen as a retaliatory strike by the Taliban who are finally at the receiving end from the Pakistan Army. The highly effective Army operation in Swat and Malakand Division now has the...
Husain Haqqani has always reminded me of Baldrick from Black Adder because he is a man who always has a “cunning plan”. Writing an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on the 29th of April 2009, Ambassador Haqqani calls for employing the “pacification” model used so successfully in Fallujah in Iraq in Swat. Was it...
With Admiral Mullen and Richard Holbrooke meeting President Zardari as I write this article, initial reports quote the President telling the two Pakistan specialists from the Obama Administration, “Pakistan needs unconditional support”. As President Zardari knows very well there is no such thing as a blank check or a free lunch. The dynamic duo are...
When General Musharraf was in power and decided to sack Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and then felt the force of the discontent his move created there were many in and out of Government who questioned the wisdom of opening yet another front. Bad advice, a big ego, and the belief that he was actually popular...
