Devolution Fundamentalists Vs HEC Chamchaas By Mosharraf Zaidi
12 April, 2011
The debate about the status of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in a post-18th Amendment scenario is being presented in interesting ways. One version of the debate is that this fight pits those who favour a centralised Pakistani state, against a band of do-good federalist champions – whose only interest is the strengthening of provinces and their autonomy. This is the version that a lot of well-intentioned people believe to be true. Unfortunately, the graveyards of the world are full of good intentions.
The wait for a messiah by Irfan Husain
24 July, 2010Older readers will recognise this mantra from the past: “South Korea stole our first Five-Year Plan.” According to this urban legend, when a Korean was accused of this petty larceny by a Pakistani, he retorted: “Yes, but we implemented it.” The other pat on the back we give ourselves is about how PIA helped establish [...]
More of the same by Arif Nizami
24 July, 2010Saturday, July 24, 2010 Arif Nizami Pakistan has been at the epicentre of hectic diplomatic activity in the past few weeks. However, as they say, no matter how much things change they remain the same. Parleys between Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart, S M Krishna, failed to break any fresh ground. [...]
Resistance personified by Farooq Sulehria
24 July, 2010Saturday, July 24, 2010 Farooq Sulehria Afghan leader Malalai Joya is resistance personified. She is the most vocal critic of both US occupation of Afghanistan and the ruling warlords. At the same time, she speaks dismissively of the Taliban: “Their violence is no resistance”. However, Malalai Joya hardly grabs headlines in the Pakistani media that [...]
Poverty and pragmatism by Dr Sania Nishtar
24 July, 2010Governance Saturday, July 24, 2010 Dr Sania Nishtar Some of the statements in the wake of the recent meeting of Friends of Democratic Pakistan and strategic dialogues aimed at defining areas of priority for the use of incoming bilateral assistance from the Untied States have been positive and encouraging, including the bold admission by the [...]
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