Study Kit

Sikander Ahmed Shah MANY in the West view Pakistan as a safe haven for transnational terrorist organisations, and India is attempting very hard to exploit this global opinion. In reality, however, terrorist violence kills more innocent civilians and security personnel in Pakistan compared to all of Europe in any given year. Regrettably, Western societies ignore the causalities of terrorism inside …

By Waqar Ahmed The US Foreign Policy magazine had recently reported that India had built two top-secret facilities in Karnataka to enrich uranium in pursuit of its hydrogen bomb plans. Ostensibly, at Challakere, Karnataka, South Asia’s largest military-run complex of nuclear centrifuges, atomic-research laboratories and weapons and aircraft-testing facilities, the stated aims of the project are to “expand the government’s …

Syed Zeeshan Haider The solution to religious extremism in Pakistan “If we keep fighting like this, it will be very hard,” says petrified Sher Murad in a feeble voice, who is one of the thousands of Pakistan army soldiers injured in the war against Taliban. He recuperates in bed donned with white sheets while his body is covered in a …

BY Faraz Talat Who decides? Notable theologians agree that the further we retreat into history, the more the lines between religion and secular matters begin to blur. The modern Muslim world often struggles to differentiate between ‘Islam’ – as a timeless collection of religious laws and ideals – from the social-cultural model of 7th century Arabia. This difficulty, according to writers …

BY Kuldip Nayar Press pause and think  Islamabad has asked the World Bank to honour the Indus Water Treaty executed between India and Pakistan in 1960. This is in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark that India is free to use the water which flows into the sea. This is not correct because according to the treaty India cannot …

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Two months after the Indian government abruptly decided to swap the most widely used currency notes for new bills, the economy is suffering. The manufacturing sector is contracting; real estate and car sales are down; and farm workers, shopkeepers and other Indians report that a shortage of cash has made life increasingly difficult. Prime Minister Narendra …

Author: The New York Times Opioid addiction is America’s 50-state epidemic. It courses along Interstate highways in the form of cheap smuggled heroin, and flows out of “pill mill” clinics where pain medicine is handed out like candy. It has ripped through New England towns, where people overdose in the aisles of dollar stores, and it has ravaged coal country, …

By Tariq Mahmud As this column goes to press, I will be completing my four years of uninterrupted association with The Express Tribune as a contributor with a fortnightly regularity. During this period, I enjoyed the writer’s premium when it came to the choice of subjects, diction and the freedom of thought process. I had a fairly instructive experience in …

By Ehsan Malik It is natural to start a new calendar year on an optimistic note. Pakistan’s macro economy has stabilised. However, there is a fundamental issue that Pakistan needs to tackle urgently if it is to accelerate and sustain growth. On reversing the premature deindustrialisation which has impacted jobs, value-added exports and tax revenue, there should be a national …

Carl Zimmer Bird migrations have stumped the greatest minds for thousands of years. Aristotle thought that the robins living in Greece in the winter somehow turned into redstarts in the summer. In fact, robins migrate from Greece to Northern Europe around the time redstarts arrive from Africa. Scientists have gotten a much better understanding of bird migration in recent centuries, …