…wow, what a surprise. So I guess we all really are as fickle and callous as I suggested in my last post. The good news from the article is: Pakistani stocks are cheap and still worth holding in spite of political uncertainty, Merrill Lynch & Co.’s chief Asian strategist Mark Matthews said in an interview yesterday. … The [...]
Archive for the 'Pakistan' Category
The Bhutto saga continues
01Jan08…and now the backlash has begun. DM sent me this really interesting article called ‘The Prodigal Daughter’ (capitalisation mine, because apparently newspapers can’t afford the extra ink). Written by an Oxford contemporary, Vir Sanghvi, the first half is a really fascinating summary of Ms. Bhutto’s personality and her activities at Oxford. The PPP media machine has [...]
Out of sight, out of mind
23Nov07A couple of weeks ago, Newsweek’s cover proclaimed that Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world. It was only mildly disturbing, since constant immersion in hostile media does tend to numb one’s senses. I came across this wonderful article a few days ago. Every once in a while, an article comes by that scrapes [...]
Insanity
18Nov07There’s so much of it to pick from, but here’s a sampler: The IJT has expelled 17 members over the Imran Khan incident. Yay. But brace yourself now for the ‘operation’ that the IJT will launch to maintain its ‘hold on PU’. Na Islami, na Talib, siraf Jamia. Mr. Musharraf isn’t in right now. Choice quote: “Before [...]
BB speaks
16Nov07Benazir Bhutto - Musharraf’s Electoral Farce (washingtonpost.com) Oh, how I loathe BB. Even ignoring the Musharraf-size ego (regarding arrested political activists: “the majority [are] from my PPP”), she shows once again she’s perfectly happy to throw everyone and everything under the wagon to get her way, for example by implying that Musharraf could easily lay his [...]
Here she is again, this time outraged at the protests against Rushdie’s knighthood. First of all, let me say these protests are ridiculous. The protesters really need to take the chip off their shoulders and get on with their lives. We all learned in primary school that when something bothers you the best thing you can [...]
Cowasjee on Pakistan’s leaders
25May07Ardeshir Cowasjee’s latest column in Dawn, ‘The maker and the shakers’ is a one-page summary of the presidents and prime ministers Pakistan has suffered since independence. Having heard Benazir Bhutto sing her father’s praises a few weeks ago here at the LSE, I was extremely interested to hear someone as blunt and (relatively) unaligned as [...]
If I remember right, the idea behind Chowk is to encourage dialogue and understanding between the peoples of the subcontinent (read: Indians and Pakistanis), and underline our commonalities rather than our differences. (I would confirm that, but Chowk has a remarkably useless ‘About’ page.) Anyway, the article on Shaukat Aziz’s press conference yesterday put me in [...]
Press Conference of the Year
08May07Shaukat Aziz’s latest is my nomination. Some highlights of Mr. Aziz’s comments: the Constitution allows for the option of imposing a state of national emergency ‘but its use depended on conditions and circumstances as laid down in the book’ [as reported by Dawn]. “the May 12 rally in Islamabad would be in support of the presidential reference [...]
FairTax in Pakistan?
29Apr07I put a new article on the Nairang Foundation website, this one about the idea of FairTax, a new tax scheme that one of the Democratic candidates for US President is promoting. Check it out.
Unifying forces
20Apr07Bemoaning the lack of a single culture or socio-political aim to bring Pakistanis together to end the perpetual cycle of corruption, nepotism and stagnation is probably the activity Pakistanis indulge in most often. I was talking to SB in Karachi when she told me that they suffered 20-hour-a-day power cuts last summer and were expecting [...]
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