Op-Ed

The US and Israel launched an attack with at least 400 aircraft out of the 800 that were ready to obliterate Iran. The surprise was that Iran was waiting for them, its skies rigged with air defenses and digital bombs, forcing the American…

In my previous article, I wrote about how too much self-love and self-praise have blinded majority Pashtuns to the point where critical thinking has packed its bags and left the room. When you keep telling yourself you are perfect, you…

Punjab’s roads are witnessing a silent emergency. In 2025 alone, over 482,000 accidents were reported, leaving nearly 4,800 people dead and more than half a million injured. Behind these numbers are shattered families lost breadwinners and…

Sugarcane is a tropical crop. It evolved in wet climates, the kind found in Brazil's center-south, coastal India, and Thailand's humid plains, places where water arrives from the sky in abundance and the soil stays saturated for months. In…

Every evening in Pakistan, just when families sit down for tea and try to relax after a long day of surviving inflation, load-shedding and traffic, the real drama begins. Not in parliament. Not in the streets. But in brightly lit TV studios…

After years of working with federal and provincial governments across multiple administrations, I have learned something uncomfortable about reform in Pakistan. Failure here is rarely accidental. It is usually defended. Good ideas do not…

I don't know much first hand about the medical state of Imran Khan and the degree to which his right eye vision is impaired. I had the privilege to spend almost 2 hours sitting cross - legged on the floor next to him in Swat, where he…

Recently, I was back in my hometown Takht Bhai, sitting in my friend’s hujra — that sacred Pashtun institution where tea is strong, opinions are stronger, and facts are optional. We were armed with a kettle of black tea and thirty years of…

A new and deeply troubling chapter in Pakistan’s long struggle with militancy is unfolding quietly over the rooftops of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This time, the threat does not arrive on motorcycles or in explosives-laden vehicles. It descends…

I joined journalism more than two decades ago, young, idealistic, and full of borrowed theories about how societies change. On my very first beat, my mentor—an old-school reporter who had seen governments rise and fall—said something that…