The Pakistani Spectator

Pakistan confronts most serious threat to its existence since 1971, one finds complete rot all around.
On the economic front, there is nothing to cheer about, Musharraf years’ growth of 5% to 7% in GDP was based on promotion of consumption and liberalization of credit facilities and, therefore, unsustainable. The incidence of poverty has increased substantially. [...]

The hapless people of Pakistan cannot afford yet another confrontation between the pillars of the state. Undoubtly this is all due to the former dictator and our flawed political system, but then this is formative phase which has to be passed with great caution and patience and things will filter out automatically. But at this [...]

Venturing into the turbid and much-disturbed waters of the political ocean is not something I often do in these columns, but events of the past week merit a dipping of the toe. Years of exposure to the venality and general incompetence of all things political has imbued me with a weary cynicism that roughly goes [...]

In the last week of November 2009, the transmissions of GEO concerning ‘Merey Mutabiq’ of Dr Shahid Masood were banned allegedly on the pretext that propaganda against the presidency was being sent on air without due scrutiny, care and caution. The presidency team considered that the media had mislead the general public with disinformation on [...]

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) presented to the government on Thursday a list of 248 politicians and bureaucrats, who were alleged to have plundered hundreds of billions of rupees but were cleared by the NAB under the NRO.
Sources in the Law Ministry while sharing with The News the “complete list” of NAB’s NRO beneficiaries, explained [...]

I think gone are the days; Jab Khalil khan fakhtaa uraya kartay thay. I mean to say our military has got no more appetite to come back and mount again on this nation— when in the past they use to come with their heavy boots and whip lash of NAB in their hand, floging and [...]

Do you now understand, why Asif Ali Zardari, the NRO-ed president of Pakistan was so dead against the restoration of the Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as chief justice of Pakistan, and why he fought till last to retain Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as the CJP?
Zardari is a shrewd man and Abdul Hameed Dogar was his plan [...]

A private company owned by President Asif Ali Zardari and his son Bilawal Zardari purchased 2,460 Kanals (307 acres) of prime land in Islamabad in March 2009, valued at a CDA price of over Rs 2 billion, for a mere Rs 62 million, proving after a long wait that a 1997 NAB reference against Zardari [...]

Judicial system works in any society to safeguard the interests of the oppressed or victims and keeps the unruly elements of society in check. In order for judiciary to carry on its duties without any interference it requires independence from executive, but unfortunately it has seldom been the case in Pakistan.
While I am not at [...]

The friendly opposition PML-N only sees government failing when they get a feet on their tail, and when they get what they want, they go back to their hybernation. Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has made it a habit of scolding government bitterly at the start of every assembly session, and then he goes [...]