People in the heartland of Punjab aren’t convinced by the verdict, the loud noises made by the cheerleaders of the creeping coup notwithstanding. The clash between de jure (the constitutional system) and de facto (the deep state epitomised by the JIT) predicted and feared by many has taken place in the form of the judicial coup. The de facto has ...

15 million plus FATA Pashtuns have been cheated once again by the rulers of the country. It has already happened more than a dozen times during the last 70 years. The government has once more failed to implement the publicly promised reforms for bringing out Pashtuns of the area from colonial bondage. But the betrayal is bound to elicit a ...

The fate of Nawaz Sharif, the third time elected Prime Minister of Pakistan who was disqualified and removed from his post by the Supreme Court of Pakistan under charges of corruption on July 28, epitomizes the state of democracy in Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif who also heads Pakistan Muslim League (N) was twice elected in 1990s as Prime Minister and his government ...

Although the Supreme Court is expected to take up the inquiry report of the JIT against the Sharif family on Monday, but it seems to be a mere  formality as the cheerleaders of the creeping coup are determined to force the Apex Court to sack the elected Prime Minister of the country. By now it’s pretty clear that in actual ...

On May 22, 2017, Pakistani band Khumariyaan performed to a packed theatre at Trinity College Dublin. Mr. Nasruddin Saljuqi, who is Chairperson of the Afghan Community of Ireland, was among the keynote speakers on the night. Mr. Saljuqi was born in Herat, Afghanistan in 1956.  After completing his degree in literature at Kabul University, he worked in the Ministry of Telecommunication ...

Re-plugging my post from Oct 25, 2016: Our friend Saif Nasar shows us very aptly how Michel Foucault would analyze the Quetta attack and discourse surrounding it. I loved his analysis. Consider myself lucky to live in an age where social media could keep you connected with such people. Some of us — who are not very much familiar with ...

The bloodbath in Kabul on May 31 will never be forgotten. Like a terrible nightmare it will haunt the memory of generations to come, not that Kabul had not seen atrocities before. Unfortunately, Afghan blood had callously been shed by both foreign oppressors and local warlords at different points in time. Particularly after 1992, Kabul has seen the wild ferocity ...

BY MOHSIN DAWAR: On March 21, young men, affiliated with the Islami Jamiat Talaba, stormed an event organized by the Pashtun students to celebrate Jashan-e-Nawroz, a 5,000 year-old festival. It was our right to do so. We had been granted official permission by the university administration. Pakistan is also one of the signatories of the United Nation’s convention that proclaims ...

On the evening of Monday, May 22, a group of Pashtun musicians from Peshawar lit up the Edmund Burke Theatre at Trinity College, Dublin with their electrifying, energetic instrumental folk sound, based on Pashtun tunes, fused with western instruments. Khumaryaan performed to a packed theatre with a big turnout of people originally hailing from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The concert involved ...

Photo: Gettyimages BY RYSZARD CZARNECKI, VICE PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have deteriorated sharply over the last few years, as also evident in the increase in exchange of fire between security forces of the two countries, along the Af-Pak border. The last such incident took place on May 7 at the Chaman border in Balochistan, when firing by ...