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2000 + Latest Pakistani Urdu and English Articles, Features and Columns from Pakistani Writers

Things categorized as 'Kamila Hyat'

A familiar route to ‘change’

September 3rd by Kamila Hyat.
Unabashed, Altaf Hussain continues with his demand that the military intervene to remove corrupt politicians and that they do so with the assistance of the Supreme Court. The MQM chief's latest ...

The people, the parties and the problems

August 26th by Kamila Hyat.
It is quite correct to say that leaders can do very little to turn back the waters that have ravaged the country. What they can do, however, is inspire confidence and ...

Walking away from peace

July 22nd by Kamila Hyat. %
The men and women who draft headlines have been having a field day. Clever phrases have appeared in English, Urdu, Persian and no doubt other languages to describe the farcical talks ...

The slow slide to anarchy

July 1st by Kamila Hyat. %
A few days ago, in the town of Okara, a mob which included several women burst into a police station, poured petrol over two policemen and set them ablaze. Intervention ...

The business of land

September 17th by Kamila Hyat.
So far in 2009, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, 50 million acres of farmland has been sold or negotiated for sale or lease. More deals are due ...

The business of land

September 17th by Kamila Hyat.
So far in 2009, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, 50 million acres of farmland has been sold or negotiated for sale or lease. More deals are due ...

A case of suicide

September 10th by Kamila Hyat.
According to news accounts scores of young men and boys – some no older than seven or eight years old – have been taken into custody in Swat from militant ...

A case of suicide

September 10th by Kamila Hyat.
According to news accounts scores of young men and boys – some no older than seven or eight years old – have been taken into custody in Swat from militant ...

The future after Baitullah

August 13th by Kamila Hyat.
There have been many who have celebrated the death of Baitullah Mehsud – the man who had come to symbolise militancy and destruction in Pakistan. He will forever be associated ...

Making the impossible possible

August 6th by Kamila Hyat.
The latest incident of extremist mob violence, this time in a village near the town of Gojra, is a reflection of the anarchy, and the barbarity, we are spiralling towards. It ...

Presents for the powerful

July 9th by Kamila Hyat.
Through the Musharraf years, the slogan 'Sab sey pehley Pakistan' or 'Pakistan first' could be heard in many places. The former president himself flung it about on every occasion, insisting that ...

The sleepless state

July 3rd by Kamila Hyat.
Sleep deprivation is an established form of torture. It has been used extensively at Guantanamo Bay and other equally hellish centres of detention around the world. Amnesty International terms "prolonged ...

State of confusion

June 26th by Kamila Hyat.
Like some bizarre recipe concocted by a crazed chef, the issue of hatred for the US and its self-centred policies has become almost inextricably mixed up with that of extremism. The ...

Education and the growth of extremism

June 18th by Kamila Hyat.
At forums everywhere, most notably since President Barack Obama made his speech early this month to Muslims around the world from Cairo, appealing for a new era of cooperation, there ...

Better alive than dead?

June 11th by Kamila Hyat.
The ISPR has stated the victory over the Taliban would not be complete until the top leadership was defeated. This of course makes sense. The dramatic story of Sri Lanka's Tamil ...

End of the beginning?

June 4th by Kamila Hyat.
The battle for Swat seems to be reaching its final stages, at least in terms of the immediate fighting. Mingora is out of militant hands; people in the town hope ...

The fires of ethnicity

May 28th by Kamila Hyat.
The violent opposition in Sindh to the presence of IDPs in the province is a shocking reminder of the divisions that have effectively fractured society. The MQM and Sindhi nationalist parties ...

Can the state now make any difference?

April 9th by Kamila Hyat.
It is astonishing how many people – particularly professionals who are confident they can get a job overseas – are planning to leave the country, or give the question of ...

A moment lost

April 2nd by Kamila Hyat.
In the new mood of optimism that followed the restoration of the judges, many had hoped the momentum built up would be carried forward; that a new, brighter chapter would ...

The Days After the March

March 19th by Kamila Hyat.
The many who had advised deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to reach some sort of "deal" or "compromise" following the 2008 polls have reason to reconsider their words. Though in ...

A familiar sense of dread

March 12th by Kamila Hyat.
We find ourselves once more in chaos; the place on the brink where we precariously stand is one we have occupied before. There is a growing sense that disaster lurks ...

A wish for self-destruction?

March 6th by Kamila Hyat.
In the days before the Supreme Court delivered its widely expected verdict, disqualifying Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif, tensions ran high in the PML-N camp. The possibility that the apex court may ...

Hardliners, Moderates, Liberals and the State

February 26th by Kamila Hyat.
It is a telling testimony to the plight of Pakistan that a man such as Maulana Sufi Muhammad Khan, who broke away from the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to form his ...

Friends, foes or masters?

February 19th by Kamila Hyat.
As waiters at the Cuckoo's Den café in Lahore, breathtakingly located on the rooftop of an old 'haveli' a stone's throw from the majestic Badshahi Mosque and Lahore Fort, scurried ...

Still without a trace

February 12th by Kamila Hyat.
Almost a year after the PPP government took charge in Islamabad, hundreds of people who have been missing in the country for years have still to be located. Asif Ali Zardari, ...