Welcome remarks
This is a worthwhile editorial published in ET The seasoned Congress leader and India’s well-known dove Mani Shankar Aiyarhas made some bold remarks at…
Book Review~ Nobody Can Love You More: Life in Delhi’s Red Light District
Writing about the lives of “fallen women” is a problematic endeavor, especially in South Asia where the morality of the middle classes defines the…
Pakistan: Ominous clouds of violence overshadow Elections 2013
Holding a peaceful election in 2013 would, perhaps, be one of the important milestones in countering the power and influence of the extremists Within…
Pakistan: Political transition amid regional instability
Last week I attended a roundtable organised by Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Berlin. The theme was “Shaping the Future of Pakistan: Loose,…
Challenges of Political Transition
My piece published here Pakistan’s next general election, due in a few months, will be the first where civilian forces are in charge of…
Time for complete justice
Dr Tahirul Qadri, who has kept Pakistani pundits busy for the past three months, faced a major blow when a three-member SC bench dismissed…
Pakistan: Ungoverned Spaces
My paper published by CIDOB – Barcelona Centre for International Affairs Even after more than six decades since its inception, Pakistan has been unable…
Afghanistan: no cooperation, no stability
This is a shorter version of a brief which was prepared for Pakistani Senate’s standing committee on Defence. Also published here. Full report here…
Books, bombs & mangroves (on the fourth Karachi Literature Festival)
In its fourth year, the Karachi literature festival (KLF) has become a public event that brings together the cosmopolitanism and the fissiparous identities of…
The dream that was not mine – Harris Khalique’s poetry
khud pe kia taari use woh khwab jo apna na tha (I let the dream take over me/ The dream that was not mine)…
Paradigm Shift? Reassessing Pakistan’s Security
Published in The News on Sunday The Pakistan army has reportedly revised its security assessment and is now placing more emphasis on ‘internal threats’…
Polio, extremism and a failing state
The death of nine anti-Polio workers has come as a new low in the life of the Pakistani nation. Almost as if the country…
Books in the times of jihad
After a hiatus of nearly a decade, I found myself in the United Arab Emirates, also popularly imagined as ‘Dubai’ in Pakistan. I was…
Pakistan: Media Freedoms and Judicial Accountability
Media freedoms in Pakistan are no longer a cause of celebration. Recent events have shown that journalists are facing pressure from all sides. Historically,…
This Moharram was turned into Karbala for Pakistani Shias
My piece published on 10th Moharram It is time the state reversed its policy of nurturing extremist groups and think of saving Pakistanis from…
A book I will be reading soon: “Nobody Can Love You More”
Mayank’s book Nobody Can Love You More has been published (see the rather lovely self-portrait by the author). I am so eager to get…
Karbala and the Imam Husayn in Persian and Indo-Muslim literature – Schimmel
Thanks to a friend on Twitter I rediscovered this essay by the great Annemarie Schimmel which I had read in the pre-internet times. The…
Civil service reform for state capacity
Only a meaningful civil service reforms can improve  the state capacity to perform better By Raza Rumi Pakistan’s inability to provide security and justice to…
Fighting the existential battle
What is the real, existential cause for concern — the imagined enemy, or a real, functional terror network in the shape of the TTP?…
Redeeming our tryst with destiny
Raza Rumi took a group of Pakistani politicians to India where, amid food fests and conferences and emotionally charged mushairas, the first pages of a…