Point-blank “Hyderabad?” asks the man in a thick Pashto accent, looking quizzically towards other passengers in the economy...
Strangers in the house Colonial knowledge systems solidified the boundaries of consciousness between and among the populations living in...
Vote versus veto Scores of women, wrapped in big chadors and holding photos of young men, shout at the top of their voices in the ...
Campaign of terror Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti was on his way to address a public meeting in Mardan on...
Elections 2013: survey indicates close contest Pakistani voters appear divided on many questions of the day – including who to vote for in the upcoming elections...
It’s raining records In a unique, if bizarre, effort to project Pakistan’s positive image to the outside world, organisers of the ...
Troubled north-west comes to town On a mid-November day, factory worker Ghulam Shabbir was shot dead on the road adjacent to Manghopir Hills in...
Federal Influentials’ Agency “I am bothering you to inform that Mr Tahir Jamil, presently working on deputation as Additional Director, ...
Leap of faith Ram Kori, a young Hindu girl, fell in love and eloped with Amir Noor Ali, a Muslim boy. Her mother approached the...
Detained till death Ihsanullah, 39, was working with a telephone company when military officials took him away on March 29, 2012,...
Sleuths on the prowl “Even the Nazis would not have kept their enemy soldiers during the Second World War in such inhumane conditions ...
A tale of two localities Shahid Mahboob, a resident of Muhammadi Mohalla inside Lahore’s Walled City, has been living in a small room with...
Not without a fight More than a decade ago, women in Afghanistan lived under the blue burqa, their mobility restricted, in the company ...
Hope after war It’s called the ‘happiest place in Afghanistan’. Teachers at Kabul’s Afghanistan National Institute of Music...
The political void When at the Bonn conference in 2001 Hamid Karzai was appointed Afghanistan’s interim president by his ...
Necessity as the mother of laws When in 1955, Chief Justice Mohammad Munir said in one of his rulings that “necessity knows no law”, he never...
“Kill me, but don’t marry me off” In a black abaya, her headscarf wrapped tightly around her hair, a middle-aged woman stands outside the gate. She is...
Everything around here is mine It’s official: nearly 80 per cent of all minerals produced in Pakistan come from Balochistan, according to the...
Nobody told us we were guilty There are currently more than 2,400 prisoners at Bagram prison and there is no legal system that differentiates...
Show me the difference The details of PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) agenda of change are, perhaps, the best guarded secret...
At the military’s beck and call Only a week before dismissing Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo’s government in May 1988, military dictator...
Corps supporter Fear of being attacked while travelling to Turbat, has kept Zikris of Gorkok area from visiting Turbat city.
Person of the year It is known as the Butterfly Effect. A small occurrence snowballs into something big — a fraction of a second too soon..
What Pakistan can do to improve its flood management What Pakistan can do to improve its flood management
Plane truths: How costly is it to keep PIA flying? The airline, once seen as the pride of the nation, is now seen as a money-bleeding white elephant.
United we sit The year 2013, a particularly bloody year, opened with bombings on Alamdar Road and Hazara Town that killed around 100..
Subject(ive) choice The earliest formal establishment of higher learning was perhaps the Academy, founded in roughly 387 BC by Plato ...
The vicious circle Economists say the problem of circular debt started in 2007, when international oil prices increased exponentially...
Blame thy neighbour In the latest flaring up of tensions between Islamabad and Washington, Pakistan’s civil and military leaders are...
Missing Answers Local observers say the recurring pattern of people going missing points to the involvement of security agencies.
Areas of alarm The federal government is running an expensive ad campaign in the media patting itself on the back for what it calls...
Work at your own risk Four years ago in the early hours of dawn on a typically hot October day in Karachi, Rashid Ali Panhwer and his...
Perils of the sea Sitting in a small mud house in Pishukan, a fishing town near Gwadar, Khuda Bukhsh is assailed by worries about the...
“The federal petroleum ministry should have been abolished after the passage of the 18th amendment” Balochistan CM Dr. Abdul Malik speaks to Herald's Maqbool Ahmed
Stamp of authority It is not wrong to say that the ECP merely regulates and supervises an election while the ROs administer it for all...
PMLN, PTI are neck and neck The May 11 election appears too close to call, with two main contenders enjoying almost the same voter approval ratings.
A second coming In heading off one crisis, Zardari’s chosen path has often, laid the grounds for the next crisis.
In the ‘right’ direction Another indication of PPP’s waning fortunes in central Punjab, is finding almost no allies from among the smaller...
A textbook case: Do school books glorify war and martyrdom? In Pakistan, school textbooks have been criticised for attempting to militarise students by glorifying war...
One-stop shop for all ills One thing Justice Chaudhry is not lacking in is courage, although there are excesses sometimes.
The daughter of the nation The point the Taliban wanted to make by killing her had backfired. Malala had defied them a second time.
Looking in all directions The PMLN’strack record shows that it has little appetite for any restructuring of the existing federal system.
Victims of neglect Since there were no prior predictions for severe rain or flash flooding in the lower parts of Sindh, the authority.
Making a mark With magazines such as Maxim, which promises “scantily clad cover models and plenty of revealing photo layouts”, Liberty
Flash! Bang! Fizzle… Some stories in Pakistan this year took flight well before we’d had our fill — with a flash and a bang, a CIA contractor
On trial: Yousuf Raza Gilani With a mix of luck, guile, compromise, concessions and even confrontation, Yousuf Raza Gilani would expect to pull off.
Why was Manto considered a threat to the progressives? Manto resurrects the ghost of the feminine side, otherwise banished by the progressive patriarch.
Rough justice June 2012 will go down in the legal and political history of Pakistan as a watershed month as the Supreme Court (SC)...
Thou shalt not judge In between the accusations of impropriety against Iftikhar and the fall of outgoing prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Democracy Many political analysts agree to the extent that the SC verdict has “invented” a new mechanism to oust a government.
Mob rule To many, mob violence appears to be a ‘rural’ phenomenon, mostly involving ‘illiterate rustics’.
From bad to worse Though most critics of the blasphemy laws directly blame Zia for their introduction in the form they exist now,
The city of sorrow In this latest creation of historical records, Karachi has seen death toll climbing to unprecedented levels.
The chronicler of suffering For us, Manto’s writings on the Partition form the basis for establishing a process of truth and reconciliation around.
The historian of the individual Manto, certainly, stands head-and-shoulders above any other Urdu short-story writer.
Our case against Manto Mohammad Hanif on the writer who wasn't satisfied with mentioning one haram thing per story.
The men behind the image A meeting with Nazar Mohammad Narejo, a notorious criminal in upper Sindh who is also known as Nazroo Narejo.
Kidnapping for ransom: Professionals, amateurs and con men A low down on gangs, groups and organisations involved in the crime of kidnapping
Forced donations After successfully infusing terror in the minds of the masses, some Taliban groups are now involved in extorting money.
Missing in action Dost Ali, a resident of Baliari village, also does not know why the intelligence agencies arrested his son Lance Naik
State of intelligence Baloch separatists are now so visible and strong that now they can force any town to close down whenever they want.
