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Reza Ali

In our article How Urban is Pakistan published in 1999, we analysed the preliminary results of the 1998 census, particularly regarding urban population. We noted that city populations were higher than what official data was prepared to reflect, pointing to the issue of definition..

Babar Ayaz

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government came into power riding the high horse of an anti-corruption campaign and gave the impression that once they are in the government, they would offer solutions to all the problems, including the economic situation..

Dr. Saulat Nagi

Eric Hobsbawm, one of the greatest Marxist historians, described the crash of 2008 as a “sort of right-wing equivalent to the fall of the Berlin Wall” (Seumas Milne: The Revenge Of History). The crash, according to Joseph Stiglitz, forced the capitalist cat to clamber up a tree and..

The shape of things, extant and to come

Seven months into the tenure of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan’s people have had any and all illusions about what this government would deliver stripped away in brutal fashion..

M Auwn Gurmani

It was late September 2018 when I along with some friends travelled from Lahore to Taunsa Barrage to attend the Sindh Saghar Sath (Indus People’s Tribunal) organised by Sindhu Bachao Tarla (Save Indus Plea), which is a small organisation of local fisherfolk..

Two Essays on Urbanisation in Pakistan

Reza Ali

In transitional societies, urbanisation and its key characteristics are major determinants of the political process. Independence, historically significant areas of poverty and social deprivation with their societal structures and explicit economic policies adopted by governments have contributed to the shaping of the urban systems and hierarchies in Pakistan..

Abdul Khalique Junejo

I started the journey of my life in the 1950s hearing the mantra: “Pakistan faces an existential threat.” As I grew older, this sound bite became more vociferous. Now when my grandchildren are in school, the phrase is still in vogue with even more ferocity..

Full Circle

Pakistan is no stranger to military domination. The country has seen four military coups since independence in 1958, 1969, 1977 and 1999. Almost half of the country’s existence since independence in 1947 has been spent under martial laws and military dictatorships..

Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

On January 20, 2018, five days after the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) reportedly agreed to suspend their protest for the recovery of missing persons for two months, a newspaper gave the good news: “Around a dozen people missing for many years reached..

Rashed Rahman

In a by now familiar rerun of the kind of creeping coups used by the US-led west in recent years to wring regime change in countries where the government does not kow tow to Washington’s hegemony, the left wing government of President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela is..