One small step forward for Nawaz Sharif, the new election winner, but one big step forward for Pakistan. The religious parties and their militant, sometimes violent, followers have won so few votes they will play no significant role in parliament. The overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s...
He came, he saw, and...
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Cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri made a sudden landing in Pakistan from Canada, addressed a large gathering and threatened the Government in Islamabad with dire consequences if it did not quit. Then he returned Though the ‘Pakistan Spring’, launched with fanfare at Lahore on December 23, 2012, fizzled...
Pakistan coming apar...
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Distracted by the deadly violence in Mali and Algeria, no one seems to be paying adequate attention to the tragicomedy under way in Pakistan. This matters because events of the last week demonstrate without equivocation that Pakistan is an utterly failed state — but one that possesses...
Pakistan’s turmoil
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While western strategists debate the consequences of withdrawing from the long, drip-bleed conflict in Afghanistan, events across its porous eastern border should remind us that the real strategic challenge in the region is Pakistan. Nuclear-armed and bristling with jihadist groups selectively licensed by its generals, Pakistan – at the intersection of central and south Asia and the Middle East, and on a constant state of alert against India – is again being pulled apart by the egotism of its political class. With elections due in May, Pakistan has just been hit by three thunderbolts. Yet another massacre by Sunni extremists against the...
THE CRISIS STATE
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Pakistan has forever been a crises state with Allah, Army and America calling the shots in its state of affairs. With Tahir-ul-Qadri taking the centre stage this week calling for the dismissal of the civilian regime, Utpal Kumar analyses why Islamabad always finds itself in such a mess He...