Pakistan, Aug. 26 -- A province can be administratively justified and still be fiscally unsustainable. That distinction is largely missing from Pakistan's debate over new provinces. The issue is not o... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 25 -- In mid-July 2026, I went to Johi, a town in Dadu District, to write about an old temple. Before I reached it, however, I encountered a question of names: what should I call a buil... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 25 -- Pakistan has been independent for nearly eight decades. The Union Jack came down, the British went home, and we acquired our own flag, parliament, bureaucracy, courts and constitu... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 24 -- On August 19, 2026, Pakistan's Economic Coordination Committee sat in Islamabad and approved something so absurd it could only make sense in a country that has stopped keeping tra... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 24 -- Pakistan does not suffer from a shortage of development spending. It suffers from a shortage of development discipline. For decades, successive governments have poured billions of... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 24 -- For decades up till now, the concept of a "missile shield" captured the imagination of military planners and policymakers. The prevailing doctrine, championed most often by advanc... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 21 -- "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" Voltaire Few would dispute that the contemporary world enjoys unprecedented access to scientific knowl... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 21 -- In my last piece https://www.thefridaytimes.com/08-Aug-2026/iran-war-ending-anytime-soon I argued why it is unlikely that the Iran war is going to end anytime soon. It was the sam... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 21 -- I recently encountered a book that offers a powerful counterpoint to narratives depicting Pakistan as a monolithic, exclusionary state indifferent to its internal diversity and pl... Read More
Pakistan, Aug. 21 -- Former prime minister Imran Khan's transfer from Adiala Jail to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad may, on the face of it, be no more than what the Supreme Court ordered: a... Read More