Last month witnessed some highly unusual developments even by Pakistani standards where political events can take a sudden and unexpected turn.
After refusing for years to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) - an international agreement aimed at limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons - both Pakistan and India announced in late September that they were willing to do so.
K M Azam, former senior Economic Adviser to the United Nations, continues his discussion on the application of Shari'ah in Pakistan. There is a strong emotional resurgence in all strata of Pakistani society for the re-establishment of Islam in their lives.
Pakistan is fast approaching a threatening social chasm, representing not the conventional divide between the secular and the religious but within the religious community itself.
Never have a country’s rulers shown so much incompetence in such a short period of time as demonstrated by those in power in Pakistan.
It was a foregone conclusion that there would be political as well as economic fallout from Pakistan’s nuclear explosions. Western governments had made clear that Islamabad would suffer terribly if it followed India down the nuclear path. Such pressure weighed heavily on Pakistani leaders before they took the plunge.
Whenever India’s independence from Britain is mentioned, two names connected with the event dominate: ‘Mahatma’ Karamchand Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, is either mentioned only in passing, usually as villain of the piece, or totally ignored.
Muslim masses around the world greeted Pakistan’s nuclear tests with joy while the enemies of Islam were gripped by grief. Soon after Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif announced that five successful tests had been conducted on May 28...
Within two weeks of India’s five nuclear explosions, Pakistan responded with five tests of its own on May 28 followed by one more on May 30. Not only did it out-bang India but also turned the near-gloom in Pakistan into euphoria.
The struggle in Kashmir has undergone a major metamorphosis over the last 18 months, sending the Indian occupiers into a tail-spin. If the years 1995-1996 were characterised by extreme hardships for the mujahideen...
The tragic sectarian clashes in Hangu and the surrounding areas in Pakistan’s Frontier Province last month that resulted in scores of deaths were entirely avoidable.
Since its creation more than 50 years ago, Pakistan has been trapped in a crisis of identity. For the ruling elite, it has meant the continuation of raj by other means with all the attendant pomp, ceremony and priveleges.
Fifty years after its creation, Pakistan is still unsure of its identity. Notwithstanding the Zionist settler entity in Palestine, Pakistan is the only country in the world to have come into existence on the basis of religion - Islam - but it has yet to find its moorings.
Prime minister Nawaz Sharif won the gladiatorial contest with the country’s president and the chief justice, banishing both into the political wilderness, but it was a gruelling experience for him.
First there was the troika - the president, prime minister and army chief - that ruled Pakistan. Now it is a foursome, with the chief justice elbowing his way in. In a perverse sense, it could be called progress towards democracy by 25 percent.
As Bangladesh aid donors met in Dhaka on November 4, they got a glimpse of the problems confronting the country. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) held a noisy rally in the capital condemning the regime’s performance.
The schizophrenic existence of the Pakistani ruling elite was on display during the six-day visit of Queen Elizabeth, the British monarch, to the ‘land of the pure’ from October 6 to 12.
Even the most ardent admirers of Benazir Bhutto do not deny that the former first family plundered the country’s wealth. Their defence of Benazir and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, an even bigger crook, is that it is nothing uncommon.
Pakistan launched its golden jubilee celebrations by a radio and television address by prime minister Nawaz Sharif at one minute past midnight on August 14. Then there was flag-hoisting ceremony at the parliament building attended by the country’s top brass while the people rejoiced in the streets waving flags and releasing thousands of balloons.
