The plight of young law graduates, and specifically the fact that they get paid very little, has recently been much discussed on social media. Since...
The Supreme Court recently released its detailed judgment on Article 63A. Written by Justice Munib Akhtar, the judgment holds that when a...
There is no acceptable form of indigenously acquired wealth in Pakistan. If you were born wealthy, then obviously your ancestors were bootlickers of...
About a week ago, Federal Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb was accosted and harassed in London by a group of PTI supporters while on her way...
Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial is a good man faced with an impossible situation. No matter what he does, he is likely to be lambasted by one side or...
In my earlier column, ‘Fixing judicial appointments’ , I had argued that the intractable debate between those advocating unrestrained discretion...
Many years ago, there was an iconic radio show called ‘The Shadow’ in which the title character would be introduced with the tagline, “Who...
The last meeting of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan on July 28, 2022 ended badly. None of the five nominees proposed by the chief justice of...
The writer is a lawyer of the Supreme Court. The views expressed in this column do not represent the views of his firm.There have been plenty of...
The writer is a lawyer of the Supreme Court. The views expressed in this column do not represent the views of his firm.Marx said that history...
The deputy speaker’s ruling is far more troubling as a matter of law
My father died at 2:15 pm last Sunday. I would like to say that he died in my arms, but the truth is that by the time I heard my sister scream and...
In my previous column in these pages , I had argued that seniority was not a good criteria for appointments to the Supreme Court, and that there was...
Let us begin with two basic propositions: one, competence is not the same thing as seniority; and two, it is vitally important that only the most...
The novel coronavirus confronts Pakistan with an enormous crisis. Like many other countries, we are caught between two evils: the only apparent way...
Every Independence Day, we are told stories of horror and terror, of how friend turned on friend and how neighbour slaughtered neighbour. We hear...
There is an old joke which makes an important point about efficiency and transaction costs. A non-smoker is trying to get a smoker to give up...
Ten seconds. That’s how long it took Xiaodong Wu, a Chinese mixed martial arts fighter, to beat a bona-fide living legend tai chi master into...
In April 2014, the Sindh Assembly passed a law which made marriage to a female under the age of 18 punishable by up to three years months in prison....
It is common cause between lawyers, judges and most of Pakistan that our legal system is broken. And yet nothing ever happens to change that fact....
Many years ago, after being asked one too many a question, I sat down at my computer and hammered out what have henceforth been referred to as the...
I met the chief minister of Punjab yesterday. The meeting was in my capacity as a director of the newly reformed Punjab Board of Investment &...
Back in the dark ages when PTV was all one had to watch, one of the jingles that went viral was the ad for Burnol, a tube containing a panacea for...
The first edition of what is now known as the Cricket World Cup was held in 1975. Including that event, there have been a total of 11 World Cups so...
Pakistan’s recent baby steps out of the wilderness of mullah-dominated lunacy have rightly received much acclamation. But one aspect of this...
It’s a conundrum that Pakistanis know quite well: how can so many people be so enamoured of a bombastic, big-talking leader with no political...
The one question that gets asked most often in relation to privatisation is this: why can’t government-owned entities compete with...
I am now at that blessed age where I am no longer expected to dance at family weddings. Nonetheless, as a semi-respectable elder, I am still...
In a few weeks, Lahore will once again to play host to the Lahore Lit Fest. Last year, the LLF drew more than 75,000 visitors. For three days, from...
Two weeks ago, I presented an argument that the liberals of Pakistan should be grateful for the Shariat Court. My argument rested on the following...
For most liberals, the Shariat Court is an abomination – a blot on the constitution, the poisonous legacy of an evil regime. But is it really such...
If there is any city in Pakistan likely to reward an impromptu decision to snack, that city would be Lahore. Seen in that light, the decision of one...
Outrage sells. So does sarcasm, disgust, anger, loathing, bitterness and snark. Man bites dog is news. Dog bites man is not. My point here is that...
It is now a year since 144 children and teachers of APS Peshawar were gunned down. One year later, we are now familiar with their faces. There are...
Have you ever wondered why we don’t have mice the size of an elephant? Or to put it another way, why don’t elephants look like giant mice? The...
What makes some nations great and some nations fail? Britain occupies a small island off the coast of Europe and yet, for many centuries, it was the...
Remember the great petrol crisis of 2015? Remember how we all had to stand in lines for hours and hours to get a gallon of the precious liquid...
One swallow does not a summer make. By the same token, the odd pundit beseeching the armed forces to take over is no signifier of the national mood....
Historians tend to fall into two categories. There are those who believe in deep underlying categories, the kind of people who present theories...
How do you write about the killing of children? Then again, how do you ignore it? We all know the fa
The fearless leader of the PTI, Mr Cornered Tiger himself, recently announced a “Plan C” for the rem
The first known philosopher to have taken a whack at this problem was Aristotle. Since then, egghead
Many years ago, there was a very bad movie called ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’. The es
Every year a new diet becomes popular. One year it’s the Mediterranean diet. The next year it’s the
As I write this column, the streets of Islamabad are still occupied by supporters of Imran Khan and
While it is acceptable for one’s youth to be spent in the pursuit of utopian political dreams, there
