Shahzad Chaudhry Pakistan has had to reposition some of its troops to take on operations on the western border; India found some space to show its relative strength and ended up trading fire across the LoC, which hitherto was peaceful under an unwritten understanding to observe a total ceasefire on both sides There have been four different spins to the IPL episode. Preity Zinta and Ness Wadia’s — heading one of the franchises of the BCCI’s cricketing circus — perhaps was the most diplomatic: availability and visa facilitation of the Pakistani participants was uncertain and hence involved some risk in … Continue reading So, there…

Daniel Gilbert If you were asked to name the human brain’s greatest achievement, you might think first of the impressive artefacts it has produced — the Great Pyramid of Giza, the International Space Station, or perhaps the Golden Gate Bridge. These are great achievements indeed, and our brains deserve their very own ticker-tape parade for producing them. But they are not the greatest. A sophisticated machine could design and build any one of these things because designing and building require knowledge, logic, and patience, of which sophisticated machines have plenty. In fact, there is really only one achievement so remarkable … Continue reading The joy of next

Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain When I worked in the US, hospitals were strictly monitored and were expected to provide all the basic requirements of a cardiac facility. And more importantly, not only were my results monitored closely by the hospital but also by the state The recent legal furore against prominent physicians from some of the better known private hospitals in Lahore seems to be simmering down. The law will eventually take its course but for a change, justice delayed in this case will not be justice denied. Medical malpractice is not murder. Negligence yes, even extreme in its consequences, … Continue reading Doctors are not murderers

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