By S.M. Shahid TV anchors are always looking for some big fish to be trapped. “Babboo, do you remember you once told me that it was the Russian poet Yevtushenko who had compared justice with a train that was always late?” “I have one more for you. This is from another cynic who said that laws were like a spider’s web from which anything small, if trapped, could NOT get out but all big things would break through and escape.” “I don’t agree. We have an independent judiciary and it means business this time. It intends to act neither as … Continue reading Two’s Company: Breaking news

Best-selling Indian author Chetan Bhagat is surrounded by picture and autograph hunters at the Jaipur Literary festival in the northern Indian city of Jaipur on January 23, 2010. – AFP Home JAIPUR: Amid the colour and celebration of the Jaipur Literary Festival, heralded as Asia’s largest, one question has furrowed many brows and sparked anxious debate: is fiction writing in English in India past its prime? Given the growing number of publishers and the constant flood of titles in bookstores, the question seems preposterous. But in hushed conversations in the quaint courtyards and manicured lawns of Diggi Palace in Jaipur, … Continue reading English fiction in India? It’s the same old story

By Shahid M. Amin The supreme duty of the state is to maintain itself. If the state disappears, then no other interest remains. –Photo by APP One hears much talk in the media these days about national interests and diplomacy, but many commentators do not seem to be clear about the meaning of these terms. Similarly, some observers think that diplomacy is a kind of exercise in futility undertaken by well-heeled diplomats. National interests are the vital interests of a state of which survival is the first and foremost interest. A state’s independence and territorial integrity come above all other … Continue reading National interests and diplomacy

Jawed Naqvi Both countries as well as their mentors across the seven seas are woefully short of good intelligence and, dare we say, common sense, in their battle with a bevy of determined non-state actors. –Photo by Reuters Let’s, for the sake of argument, leave alone the overpowering exigencies of imperialism, which are directly responsible for the unending mess in Afghanistan and Iraq. Let’s say the commonplace things instead. What do the Taliban want? They want to rule Afghanistan. And they probably aspire to outsource the government in Pakistan to a home-grown subsidiary from Waziristan. Moreover, the battle-hardened militias plan … Continue reading India, Pakistan lack the maturity and intelligence to win peace

Posted by Talha Zaheer  Recently, commemorations of last year’s atrocities in the Gaza strip were held the world over, with online campaigns to show solidarity with the people of the beleaguered strip of land. While most in the Muslim world and beyond share the pain of their Palestinian brethren, I have met many Pakistanis who believe that Palestinian Arabs should be left to fend for themselves. This thinking prevailed when Egypt was making things difficult for those associated with Viva Palestina and preventing them from taking truckloads of aid into Gaza. At a recent wedding in Lahore, I took note … Continue reading Why Palestine matters

The Times January 25, 2010 Mono Lake, California: ‘home to arsenic-loving beings’ It is the classic sci-fi scenario: discovering aliens, not in outer space, but right here on Earth, sitting next to you in the workplace, serving food in your local restaurant, or, scariest of all, in your own home. The premise might sound like the film Men in Black, but this week it will consume the great minds of science at a meeting of Britain’s most venerable institution, the Royal Society. Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, will suggest tomorrow that the search for extra-terrestrial life should … Continue reading Royal Society meet to discuss if extra-terrestrials are here on Earth

Leading up to the general election, we’ll be bombarded with political rhetoric. Here’s what our leaders really mean Rafael Behr The Observer, Politics is often conducted in code and never more so than in an election campaign. To help decrypt some of the phrases we’ll be hearing over the next few months, I offer the following print-out-and-keep election 2010 glossary. It is by no means exhaustive – contributions welcome. Antisocial behaviour Public-order offences that defied policing for so long they had to be rebranded as something other than crime. Apathy An explanation for low turnout that is more palatable to … Continue reading An insider’s guide to politicospeak

An ad campaign calls on Egyptians to use family planning more diligently – by trying to make larger families feel guilty Mohamed El Dahshan guardian.co.uk, A remarkably clumsy government-sponsored television campaign has recently hit the Egyptian airwaves. It encourages people to cap their offspring to two children, but only by making those with larger families feel bad about their choices. The string of ads features a second-tier actor unconvincingly playing a farmer interacting with fellow exhausted and demoralised villagers suffering from the consequences of having large families (rural areas have a significantly higher birth rate than urban zones, with 5.0 … Continue reading A bitter pill to swallow