For Imran, and other aspiring hangmen
PTI chairman Imran Khan needs no introduction, but for some of you, Tara Maseeh probably will.Tara Maseeh was the man who hanged an elected former prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, on the gallows...
View ArticleAn open letter to Quaid-e-Azam, on Minorities Day
Respected sir,I am a citizen of the country you founded 67 years ago. I understand that you did not live long enough to see the shape your dream took on after you left for the hereafter. Sixty-seven...
View Article'Live! Long March! Breaking news! Breaking cars!'
Special Dawn.Com correspondent Sameena Yahya brings you live updates from the ‘long marches’ planned today in Lahore and Islamabad:... yes, Khalid, what can you tell us about the situation in...
View ArticleBeyond the march: The powers that (won't) be
A complex long game is finally afoot.After testing the waters in March and then again over the last few months, it seems the push for the big revamp is finally happening. I'd say get ready for some...
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The new Planning Commission: young and (hopefully) restless
They are youngish, green, and lacking experience. They are the new members of Pakistan’s Planning Commission. While their relatively inexperienced past has attracted controversy, I am more interested...
View ArticleWhy I choose to march
It seems the Prime Minister’s offer for a judicial commission has won him a whole bunch of new fans overnight. Many of these ‘pro-democracy’ enthusiasts have started saying that if Pakistan...
View ArticleRemembering Appi
For me, Appi’s death, was more than just the death of an eminent personality. Appi (Anita Ghulam Ali for others) was family; she was like a grandmother, after my own passed away in 2005. And she held a...
View Article'This independence day, we are the majority and we are miserable'
Standing on a dusty street as a hot dry wind rolled through, pulling all the moisture from wherever it lay, I talked to a phal-wallah (fruit seller) standing next to his cart as he tried, generally in...
View ArticleUnited for Gaza, divided for Pakistan
Only a few weeks ago, Pakistan seemed to be swept away in a wave of outrage over the Gaza conflict. Regardless of what the opinions were, there was at least a sense of solidarity. But after all the...
View ArticleWhy are matters of faith beyond discussion?
As I was leaving for Britain for the first time, many years ago, one of the Imams that I had held various discussions with, advised me:“Baita there is a class of people who do not believe in any god....
View ArticleThe story behind the loss of PTV's precious archives
In my previous blog post, I had talked about how profitability and creativity are becoming mutually exclusive terms on modern TV in Pakistan. Not to say that everything on TV is atrocious, but there is...
View ArticleIn Pakistan: Dark times, fair brides
No. No long march. No short march. No freedom rally. No revolution rally. We have had enough of marches and rallies. Today, I deleted 24 posts from my Facebook page – all on the long march in...
View ArticlePlease take the revolution off my front lawn
The government, as it happens, has more rights to safeguard than only your ‘right to protest’; there’s also, what’s technically known as “the rest of the country” to cater for, and to ensure its...
View ArticleSuicide and depression: Can we snap out of snap judgements?
The recent and very tragic death of Robin Williams set off the same spate of reactions which the living have traditionally been able to cough up to suicide incidents..On the one end, people expressed...
View ArticlePakistani teachers, check your egos at the door
I was never really a good student. Having been one of those kids who asked far too many questions in class, I usually ended up standing on a desk or in a corner because teachers couldn’t be bothered to...
View Article'Civil disobedience': Another nail in PTI's political coffin
Civil disobedience: the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, or commands of a government, or of an occupying international power.History is filled with several defining civil...
View ArticleWhat's wrong with our Kaptaans?
Sunday wasn’t good to the kaptaans from Mianwali.That’s an understatement, of course. The weekend more or less ended their plans of winning, or anything they might have had in the way of a plan to...
View ArticleFour reasons why a military coup is unlikely
It doesn't take much for the Pakistan Army to stage a coup.All four military coups in our 67 year history were bloodless. A small contingent of lightly armed troops jumps over the closed gates of a few...
View ArticleAzadi is here! But what does that mean?
All the revolutionary scenes I have seen in life have been on television – mostly in Bollywood movies. What’s happening today, revolutionary or not, I am again watching on television, although it’s...
View ArticleLahore, Ferguson & Toronto: Three sides of the same coin
Michael Brown and Sammy Yatim are two sides of the same coin. The two 18-year-old racialised men were shot dead by the police. However, unlike in Toronto, Canada, where Mr Yatim died, Ferguson,...
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