Dr Zafar Khan Safdar

  PAKISTAN suffers from a shortage of government where it matters most. Power remains concentrated in Islamabad and the provincial capitals, while the institutions closest…

  PAKISTAN’S national security debate has long been dominated by the armed forces, border management and counterterrorism operations. Yet recent attacks across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan…

THERE is a particular cruelty in fighting a war that your neighbours are permitted to sustain indefinitely. Pakistan has lived with that reality for about…

  BALOCHISTAN is often portrayed as a province held hostage by terrorism. That is only part of the story. It has also been held captive…

THERE is a particular quality to the anger visible in Pakistan today that distinguishes it from ordinary frustration or political disagreement. It is not the…

  PAKISTAN increasingly functions as two parallel societies. One purchases solutions from the private market whenever public institutions fail. The other remains dependent on the…

  PETER Drucker, the management philosopher whose ideas shaped modern business thinking across 20th century, warned decades ago that the greatest danger in times of…

Every budget arrives wrapped in promises and expectations, but some budgets reveal more than fiscal priorities; they expose strengths and limitations of the state itself.…

  WHAT does the government give us in return for our taxes? In Pakistan, this question has become a reflex that is repeated in drawing…

FOR decades, we have heard the same familiar phrase: “This budget is for the common man”. Every year, the budget is announced, the same claim…