We Are Responsible for Electing Corrupt Crorepati Politicians.

I was an MP not very long ago. I loved those six years. Everyone called me sir, not because of my age but because I was an MP. And even though I never travelled anywhere by train during those years, I reveled in the fact that I  could have gone anywhere I liked, on any train, [...]

Running Around Like Headless Chickens

We, Pakistanis are in the habit of grumbling, getting anxious and angry, verbally condemning everyone but ourselves for everything which goes wrong or which is not to our liking.  However, our laid-back attitude forces us to do nothing concrete to alleviate these sufferings. Both our federal and provincial governments continuously complain lack of resources for [...]

What We Have Today in Pakistan is Not An Islamic System?

There has been a concerted push in recent weeks and months, culminating on 14th August, by the chattering classes to denounce all things Islamic in Pakistan and call in earnest for secularism to be implemented. Religion was never supposed to control the State as it supposedly does today. Citizenry were supposed to be free to [...]

The Elected Rulers Do Not Represent the Majority

From the democratic point of view, in a country like Pakistan where due to ignorance, voter turnout during election times is awfully low, with the result that the ones who are elected to form governments are those who have the mandate of only a handful of the population – what makes the situation worse is [...]

500 Million Indians Without Sanitation: What Democracy?

Like the Egyptians who took to the streets of their capital, the Indians who got together in New Delhi — the young, frustrated unemployed men, the teachers and doctors — were rising up against the only system they had ever known, many protesting for the first time in their lives. In bothNew Delhi and Cairo, [...]

Is Indian Democracy Working?

Indians appear to be proud of democracy in their country and majority feels that the system is working. The question is whether it is actually working? What does one do when corrupt politicians regardless of their political affiliations get re-elected. The people who criticize this kind of re-elections do not re-elect these corrupt folks; it [...]