Invisible little workers
JUNE 12 was Day against Child Labour. It is a shame that we still have to observe such a day. But we must if we have to make our society less insensitive towards children.

The pace picks up
EARLY last month, the American deputy secretary who led his country’s delegation to the US-Afghan bilateral commission meeting in Kabul said: “Afghan-led reconciliation is also central to the transition as the surest way to end

What militants erase
THERE is almost nothing left of the frail wooden building. Pakistanis, however, are adept at imagining the whole where there is only a bombed-out hulk.

Possible key to a different Iran
THERE is something slightly surreal about the victory of the only cleric among Iran’s six presidential candidates being greeted as…

In the line of fire
AT the young age of 18, Sharafata had already attained the attributes of a quintessential Pakhtun woman born and bred in rural Peshawar.

Balochistan cauldron
THE latest bloodbath in Quetta is yet another grim reminder of Balochistan’s dangerous slide into anarchy.

Paying it off
SO we are told that the government plans to retire the circular debt and restore power supplies.

Perils of reaching out
IN his first press conference after winning the elections last month, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Pervez Khattak surprised hardly anyone with his comments regarding the stance of his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), on the Pakistani Taliban.

The view from Taksim Square
I FIRST went to Istanbul’s famous Taksim Square as a teenaged student fifty years ago. Since then, I have been back many times as it is the city’s hub with many important arteries leading to different points. On my first visit, my hostess, an old

Reforming the police
IN the wake of a successful democratic transition in Pakistan, the capacity of the new governments to ensure citizen security in the face of multiple national and international threats should be high on the agenda.

Judiciary goes native
IT is perhaps little known outside of legal circles, that the Supreme Court of Pakistan has recently initiated a programme for translating its judgments into Urdu and placing them on its website for easy public access.

The other Guantanamo
PRESIDENT Obama’s counterterrorism address last month was full of promising rhetoric.

Old lamps for new
FOR months, now, I’ve been dwelling upon a phenomenon that I thought other people must have noticed too.

Smokers’ Corner: True lies
A couple of questions, gentlemen: If US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas whip up an enraged sense of revenge among the area’s Pashtun populace, what do terrorist attacks by the extremists create?

View from US: Jaywalkers of political kind
There are a few who write columns to vent their frustrations against a political party they have left.

Calm eye of a storm
AMMAN: Jordan is as calm as the eye of a surrounding storm. As residents smoke shisha in cafés, and tourists trot out complaints without which no holiday is complete, you would never guess that an epochal civil war is devastating Syria, an

The dilemma of talks
DIALOGUE is a meaningful process. It should not be denied or abandoned on the basis of certain apprehensions or presumptions about the outcome alone.

Sharif and the boys
GOOD idea, bad idea; should have done it/ shouldn’t have done it; old Nawaz, new Nawaz — everyone’s got an opinion, but why has Sharif kept the foreign and defence portfolios for himself?

Militancy and drones
THE debate in Pakistan on drone strikes has mostly revolved around two areas. First, that it violates Pakistan’s sovereignty; second, that it creates more jihadis. Both these arguments can easily be defused.

Off the right track
LIKE many others, I am watching events in Turkey with deep sadness. Turkey is not an ordinary country. Over the last decades, even as repressive governments became more entrenched across the southern banks of the Mediterranean, the