Corruption farce?
The present era is being called the age of corruption by many in Pakistan. Ranging from the National Reconciliation Ordinance to the growing allegations of corruption within state institutions, the perception of the current regime being highly corrupt has solidified. Despite its dominance in popular discourse, there has been little effort made to understand the global political context in which the anti-corruption rhetoric has developed. It is essential for Pakistanis to understand where the anti-corruption slogan is coming from. Ivan Krastev in his 2004 book titled Shifting obsessions: three essays on the politics of anti-corruption, writes: “It was the new anti-corruption rhetoric ...
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Rebuilding an emperor’s dream
I do not feel very proud as I tell you about Akbari gate, it is more of a junkyard than a cultural heritage site. When you walk through this gate it feels like you have descended to some level of hell. The air is filled with dust and the odour of animal waste has permeated to even the edibles sold here. Surprisingly, people manage to live here. They conduct business very proudly, contributing to the increasingly vast garbage heaps in the area. There are no traces of monuments and our old heritage; all that is left is a materialistic mess of the greed of humanity. There is little sign of the gate named after Mughal emperor Jalaludin Muhammad ...
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Power crisis: The road to impending doom
The nation faces a severe power crisis yet again, not entirely unanticipated, as summers draw to their summit. Because of the frequent outages and prolonged load shedding hours, the masses are already on the streets, violently recording their protest. The disruption has also adversely affected commercial activity and industrial production all around the nation and the losses have accumulated to deteriorate national economic indexes. The governmental policy of two-day weekends and the 8pm shutter down have not fared well as the masses continue to express their anger against such short-term measures. It has also pushed ground-level commercial actors, the shopkeepers, ...
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Dilemma: Only 1.7m pay taxes in Pakistan
As always, we have to blame the other for our actions. No wonder Pakistan is at the verge of being globally labelled as a “failed state” and many countries do not want to be diplomatically associated with it. Conspiracy theories are something we live for, and do not even have the courage to verify. Most conspiracy theories come from sources who feed on propaganda purposely or only for “speaking the public’s language”. But we will not learn and be truthful to ourselves. Because we just like believing in them. The media is talking about Pakistanis not paying taxes, that only 1.7 ...
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