I.A. Rehman THE Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms (PCER) deserves credit for finalising its proposals for reform of the election system before next year’s polls. The National Assembly speaker had perhaps been unduly ambitious when he had asked the committee, set up 29 months ago, to complete its work in three months. The committee’s broad mandate reflected the concerns over …

By MATTHEW J. GOODWINJAN LONDON — The British Labour Party is in meltdown. After reviving the center-left in the 1990s, and then dominating British politics until 2010, Labour now faces the gravest challenge in its 116-year history. One of the oldest social-democratic parties in the world is fighting to survive; there is no guarantee it will. Labour’s crisis is a …

Swati Chaturvedi New Delhi-based journalist; author, “I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP’s Digital Army” NEW DELHI – Trolls are the goons of the online world. This story played out live during the recent U.S. presidential election, when Donald Trump supporters went on a rampage against Hillary Clinton and journalists who had anything critical to say …

by Nyla Ali Khan My maternal grandmother, Akbar Jehan, and her children were subjected to deprivation in my maternal grandfather, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s long absence after his ouster and arrest in 1953. They were condemned to isolation, but Akbar Jehan did not cringe. I still see vestiges of the distrust of statist versions of history and criminalization of progressive politics …

Nikhat Sattar THE wealth and pomp of several Muslim monarchies notwithstanding, the world of Islam is in tatters. Torn by internal strife, lack of focus on starving millions and controlled by greed as well as external powers, Muslim governments are in a state of disarray. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have reached such levels that they are waging proxy …

NEW DELHI: Recent remarks by India’s new army chief General Bipin Rawat have raised questions if the country has revived its controversial ‘Cold Start’ doctrine for any future standoff with Pakistan, leading analysts wrote in The Hindu on Thursday. Gen Rawat had told India Today last week that the doctrine — instituted after a terrorist attack on Indian parliament in …

Justin Wolfers If the November election was intended as a rejection of elites, of expertise and of the sort of technocratic advice that economists often give, it’s a punch that has landed. In somber analyses, huddled hallway conversations and pointed asides during endless panel sessions at the annual conference of economists last weekend in Chicago, the major theme was a …

By Muhammad Ali Ehsan The 15th retired chief of Pakistan Army, General Raheel Sharif, is being tipped to take over as the military chief of the Saudi led 34-member military alliance of Muslim countries. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif confirmed the news by stating that, ‘this thing was in the pipeline for quite some time and that the Prime Minister was …

By Syed Mohammad Ali Waste management has become an issue of growing global concern as urban populations continue to increase and consumption patterns continue to rise. The health and environmental implications associated with unsafe garbage disposal are mounting, particularly in developing countries. Wastewater produced by domestic use, industrial processes and agricultural practices is a major problem when it comes to …

Summary The nuclear race between India and Pakistan is intensifying, thanks in large part to Islamabad’s fear that its military is starting to lag behind New Delhi’s. Over the past decade, Pakistan has become alarmed by the widening gap between its ability to wage conventional war and India’s. Pakistan has turned to its nuclear inventory to level the playing field. But …