As tensions rise between India and Pakistan, the usual arguments are being repeated on both sides of a serious divide in India on how to deal with that country. The reason we are unable to get the relationship right is that the country and the public
In recent months, the Pakistan army has been behaving in a rather aggressive manner on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir in blatant violation of the mutually observed cease-fire. Following closely on the heels of the beheading of an Indi
Sectarian violence aimed at religious minorities and social groups professing a version of Islam that is at variance with the fundamentalist and puritanical Wahabi philosophy continues to remain a hallmark of the social and spiritual landscape of con
Introduction Just days after Barack Obama announced fresh stipulations on the use of drones, a US drone strike on May 29 killed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) deputy chief Waliur Rehman. The TTP confirmed his death the next day, decl
Apart from being the first elections to be conducted by a legitimately constituted civilian set-up on completion of a full term by a democratically elected government, Pakistan’s upcoming elections scheduled for May 11, 2013, are notable in more th
In the end, Sarabjit Singh was executed not by a hangman but by Pakistan’s famed ‘non-state’ actors – his fellow prisoners on death row – who are believed to have been put up to the job of bludgeoning him into a lifeless pulp by ‘state’
Prologue In October last, we had carried out a detailed analysis of the 2013 general election scene in Pakistan, identifying the main players and their prospects. Over the last six months many new developments have taken place, which necess
In what is being called a first in Pakistan’s history, a former military strongman, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has been formally arrested on charges of terrorism and illegal confinement of judges. Musharraf’s detractors see his arrest as a sign of the
Pakistan’s quest to acquire tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) has added a dangerous dimension to the already precarious strategic equation in South Asia. The security discourse in the subcontinent revolves around the perennial apprehension of a conve
Pakistan’s former military dictator, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has ended his nearly five year long self-exile to return home to a tepid welcome by a handful of die-hard supporters and what was clearly a ‘rent-a-crowd’ bunch of people. While his ret