The road to hell — and similar destinations Islamabad diary Friday, January 01, 2010 Ayaz Amir We have a developed talent, honed over the years, for counting the trees and missing the larger picture. We see things in one dimension and forget that there may be other sides to reality. This leads to false conclusions and the begetting of great tragedies. Let us for argument’s sake accept that Asif Ali Zardari, the luckless president of a luckless country, is the author of a thousand villainies, the darkest thing to have happened to the Islamic Republic. But let us at least … Continue reading The road to hell — and similar destinations

J Sri Raman The common Indian can send this common message to Advani, Gadkari, Sushma, Jaitley, and the two Thackerays: “I showed in 2009 that I had learnt the lesson from 2008. Will you show in 2010 that you have learnt your lesson from 2009?” “The most important lesson that the outgoing year teaches us is that India cannot afford to have a government in which the prime minister has no real authority, and the leader who has the authority has no accountability…[The events of 2008] have taught an important lesson to India: to have a strong leader.” That was … Continue reading New Year messages

by Imran Kureshi Strangely enough, today it is Ziaul Haq who is almost universally condemned and his rival, whom he had ignominiously executed (rather assassinated) as a murderer, is idealised. Who could have imagined such a turnaround 25 years later? Oh boy! It really got my adrenaline flowing in November when I heard an acknowledged TV anchorman gleefully say, “The party’s over!” at the critical juncture when TV was erroneously announcing that the MQM had asked President Zardari to resign and it seemed he’d had it. And sort of like history repeating itself, I even read the statement in an … Continue reading The party’s over?