THE British Raj has been a long time dying. One vestige — the restaurant Veeraswamy — established 100 years ago in London’s Regent Street, is threatened with closure. Before 1947, visiting Indian aristocracy patronised it. it catered also for ‘India-returns’ — a sentimental breed of white Britishers who wished to recall imperial aromas. The restaurant […]
The First World has Davos, the Middle World has United Nations conferences, and the Third World has LitFests. Davos, UN moots and LitFests serve as a Speaker’s Corner where academics, intellectuals, politicians (serving and retired), movers and shakers collect to ventilate their opinions. Much carbon dioxide is emitted, much ‘sound and fury’ released, but all
Political doctrines, like public buildings, are often named after persons. The United States boasts the Lincoln memorial, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, even Washington D.C. itself. America’s very name owes its origins to the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454 – 1512). Had the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller not appropriated the name America for his map of
The Don-roe Doctrine Read More »
In Pakistan, the sun sets and rises in the west. Political meteorologists saw a waning sunset in US-Pak relations in the U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) encyclical of 2017, issued during President Trump’s first tenure. They notice a false sunrise in his latest NSS paper, issued in November 2025. NSS of 2017 devoted a precious
The privatization of our national airline reminds one of the Greek legend of Penelope’s loom – a continuous exercise designed to tire suitors. Since PIA’s creation in 1955, its history has been a triumph of experience over hope. Initially, PIA took off with enviable success, under Air Marshal Nur Khan (MD 1959-65 and chairman 1973-79)
Piety, not punctuality, is the politeness of princes. And none was more pious than the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh (1615-1659). As the eldest son of the emperor Shah Jahan, Dara Shikoh should have succeeded his father. However, Dara’s younger brother Muḥī al-Dīn Muḥammad (later the emperor Aurangzeb) practiced his own version of piety. His flexible
COMPARISONS can be odious, unless there is a justification. Consider these two examples. On Sept 30, 2025, President Donald Trump and his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth summoned almost 800 US generals, admirals and senior enlisted officers to the Marine Corps Base Quantico. The civilian duo harangued the uniformed, be-medalled corps — men and women,
The United Nations General Assembly functions as an air-pump: it inflates the egos of national leaders. The UNGA provides them a stage in New York where, (in Shakespeare’s words), they can ‘strut and fret,…full of sound and fury’,’ before an audience of 193 peer countries. In 1945, the United Nations was established by the survivors of
A SINGLE bullet often becomes a pivot in history: Sarajevo, Dallas, Los Angeles, Memphis, and now Utah. And nearer home, Rawalpindi in 1951, and again in 2007. At Sarajevo, a Serb student Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie on June 28, 1914. Within a month, World War I broke out.
