BY COLIN COOK The Story of Munnies and Wallies The population is divided in two: five per cent are Munnies, the other 95 per cent Wallies. The Wallies are the ones that make the ‘stuff’ and provide the ‘services’ that everybody needs. The Munnies are the ones that organize it all – they manage and […]
BY MUHAMMAD AMIR RANA A transnational approach, flexible operational frameworks and interagency collaboration between traditional law enforcement agencies and other government institutions are considered the essential components of an effective counterterrorism policy. A successful counterterrorism model is still a work in progress. Countries continue to improve their national security policies by learning from the best […]
BY LYDIA JAMES When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery City in 1955, at the height of racial segregation in the US, she had no idea of the impact her spontaneous action would have. Others had done the same before, but by challenging the ‘laws of segregation’ during […]
BY AAKAR PATEL For someone who speaks a lot, Narendra Modi reveals very little about his actual views. He has preferred not to be interviewed by the press to the extent that a leader of his position should be open to doing, though he isn’t alone here. The two Gandhis and the chief ministers of […]
BY NASEER AHMED I was among a privileged few friends a self-proclaimed atheist invited to his wedding. The groom was ready to board a vehicle for the ceremonial journey to his bride’s home when the lines of a wanwun (traditional Kashmiri lyrics sung by women at marriages) stopped him in his tracks: sabz dastaras khuda chui raazi, pakistanuk […]
BY SHEKHAR GUPTA Several years ago, the then British high commissioner suggested, in the course of a spirited conversation one evening at his residence, that it would be a good idea if England and India were to play two cricket Test series every year, one in either country. “Brilliant idea,” I said, “but you will […]
BY ABBAS NASIR WHEN Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan makes statements such as a “majority of Taliban” are pro-Pakistan and pro-peace, who’d be surprised to find the interior minister in the critics’ cross-hairs? However we castigate him and with considerable justification, the bitter truth is that he represents a much wider malaise: a lethal mix of […]
BY DR LUDWIG WATZAL Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave one of his typical speeches at this year’s AIPAC convention in Washington. Before he delivered his usual sermon about Iran and the other “terrorists” in the region, he implored the friendship and the alliance between Israel and the United States of America. This time, neither President Barack […]
BY ADITYA IYER Pakistan zindabad. There, I said it. Now sue me. Or do whatever you deem is right, just like you labelled those Kashmiri university students in Meerut anti-national. The choice, my friend, is all yours. The other day, a couple of my colleagues and I clapped at our seats as Shahid Khan Afridi […]
BY ROBERT FISK Borders are becoming a bit odd in the Middle East. They always have been, of course. Ever since Mark Sykes and François Georges Picot – the latter a former French consul in Beirut, by the way, who cost a lot of brave Lebanese their lives by his carelessness in sealing their anti-Ottoman […]