Category: Columns

I woke up in a hospital, with swollen eyes and sharp pain in my chest. With a million thoughts causing confusion, I asked my mom, “How is Bella now? Has she recovered? To which my mom replied, “Bella died an hour ago”. When my cat died, I felt a deep sense of loss. As if...

May 2023 marks the Silver Jubilee of the overt nuclearization of South Asia. In May 1998, India carried out a series of nuclear tests, and unlike in 1974 — when it used the euphemism “Smiling Buddha” to describe what it claims to be a peaceful nuclear explosion — it declared itself a nuclear weapons state....

Tragedy struck the Sangota Convent School in Mingora tehsil of Swat district as a police guard stationed at the premises was shot. It killed a young girl while injuring six others, including a teacher and fellow students. The constable responsible, identified as Alam Khan, has been apprehended, and authorities have assured the public that justice...

In a small dark room. Where you can hardly stand, a dim light hung in the middle of the room, and a tiny little window from which moonlight was passing through. A girl sat on the floor while her hands and feet were shackled with heavy chains. Her dark hair covered her bruised face, as...

Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine how India’s maritime ambitions under the Modi administration affect Pakistan’s security. The implications of India’s strategic maritime policies for Pakistan’s national security will be the subject of this article. Moreover, it will analyze the local elements in the Indian Sea and the potential for the struggle...

“It is a great failure of Pakistan’s state, government, intellectuals, and political elite that, from the inception of Pakistan to this day, they have not been able to establish an inclusive system that could ensure political and social rights for Pakistan’s religious minorities according to their marginalization in Pakistan. There is no such democratic system...

For once it had appeared that the stalemate could be broken through negotiations. The two sides sat across the table last week to find some middle way to end the impasse. Hopes were raised when the first round ended on a promising note. Both sides reined in their vitriol for a while. The next round was...

APRIL 23 marked six months since the death of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya. This week the Pakistan Press Foundation announced the 2023 Press Freedom Award for the journalist posthumously on the eve of World Press Freedom Day. Although Arshad Sharif’s murder is now over six months old, the mystery surrounding his death remains unsolved. According...

POLITICS in Pakistan is like an Abbas Mastan film (think Race) where twists and turns come faster than an Agatha Christie novel and the end brings so much relief from the edge-of-the-seat moments that no one wants to think of the holes in the plots. The only difference is that no one — just no...

Musarat Bibi, a Christian woman employed as a peon in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School 66 E/B situated in the Arif-Wala Pakpattan Pakistan, has been arrested on the accusation of desecrating Holy Quran, when she was cleaning the storeroom cupboards along with the gardener Mohammad Sarmand on the orders of the school administration. While...