Moborate

This has already taken social media and even many television stations by storm. I am placing this here mainly for the record. Remember that 2-hour ' Dunya TV Special' yesterday where Meher Bokhari and Mubasher Lucman conducted a joint 'grilling' of property tycoon Malik Riaz , currently at the centre of what has been variously termed 'Bahriagate' and 'Familygate'? Well, here are the behind-the-scenes from that marathon that some conscientous soul at Dunya has put up on the net for all to see. You need to watch this if you haven't already, trust me. After this, only an idiot could possibly take Pakistan's 'investigative' television media seriously. Part 1: Part 2: So, basically we find out the following things: 1. This was a total set-up of an interview, with planted questions. 2. Malik Riaz is not only told the questions before-hand, he is fed some of the answers too and prompted by the intrepid interviewers to say things he might have...

I had half made up my mind to tweet about my impressions of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf 's (PTI's) Karachi rally today (yes, I did go despite the lack of Christmas pudding on hand) but seeing as how each tweet usually seems to end up needing two or three more to clarify and how, inevitably, someone's who's missed them asks you why you did not say anything about such and such, I decided it might be better just to do a brief post on the whole thing. PTI Jalsa: late afternoon (Photo: via PTI website) So here goes: 1. It was a big, big crowd: Exactly how big? Who really knows? Nobody we knew had done the only acceptable way of enumeration, by counting the legs and dividing by two. But the general consensus among media hacks was that it was above 100,000 people. Could easily have been 150,000 also. No, it was not 500,000 as the PTI spinners on stage were insisting by the end. No, there weren't a huge number of people outside the main ground or inside the grounds of the Quaid...

I had promised a comprehensive post about the unraveling of Husain Haqqani when it first happened. The different aspects of the case (technical, political, legal) that led to his resignation as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States - now commonly and irritatingly dubbed 'Memogate' - however, not only required a lot more time to deal with than I then had available, but has already been commented upon in bits and pieces by various analysts all over in newspapers, on television and on the net. Far more importantly, it now seems like a footnote in the rush of current events.   Eye of the storm: Husain Haqqani Because I had promised a post on it, I will state briefly what I thought of the entire episode as well as state some things that all should be aware of: *** The Unravelling of Husain Haqqani *** 1. The military establishment was never pleased with the appointment of Haqqani as Pakistan's ambassador to the US and had been gunning for his head right from the beginni...

We have been frequent critics of Imran Khan the politician in the past and with very good reason. I still hold that his prescriptions for Pakistan's various ills are entirely simplistic and that his flirtations with the mullah lobby are dangerous indicators of his muddle-headed analysis of this country's political economy. And if anything gets my back up more, it's his and his supporters' dour self-righteousness on top of it all. But even I have to admit that for the first time ever Immy bhai exhibited a sense a wit when he dubbed Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif , presiding over a grossly personalized maladministration in the Punjab , the "Dengue Biradraan" (the Dengue Brothers). It actually made me laugh. Perhaps a rising popularity graph in the province can do wonders for your self-confidence. It's certainly loosened Immy bhai's stiff neck it seems. Imran Khan addressing a big rally in Gujranwala in September A showdown of egos now looms as the P...

The recent spate of violence, mayhem and bloodletting in Karachi has drawn a number of responses, ranging from the outraged to the resigned, the depressed and confused . And all of them are understandable on their own terms. It would be fair to say, however, that in a city as teeming, complex and diverse, there is no single truth about the causes for the flare-up that trumps all others. Every actor in this sordid saga can (and does) point to the actions of other actors as an excuse for their own villainy. 'The burnt out ends of smoky days' (Photo source: Times of Karachi) If the MQM operates like a mafia, there is also no denying the underworld nexus that parties like the PPP and ANP are using to carve out their own slice of turf in the city. If Karachi's law enforcement is inefficient, corrupt and politicized, it is not an aberration from the rest of Pakistan where the writ of the state has been steadily eroded. If politicians are venal and self-serving about their po...

I was actually going to put up a different post, on Pak-US relations, tonight but some last minute technical glitches mean that post will have to wait another day at least. Meanwhile, the next big political scandal is about to hit the headlines so I thought we could give you all a bit of a heads-up. Some of you may have already heard about the Kim Barker - Nawaz Sharif hullabaloo (if you haven't, I can assure you you will be hearing a lot more of it in the coming days). I learnt about it only after a journo colleague mentioned it in vague terms. Then I came across a clip of Mubashar Lucman's show on Dunya TV from a couple of days ago discussing the same in his usual sensational manner (which @kamran9558 sent us). In case you don't have any idea of what I'm referring to, it basically involves what former South Asia correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and current ProPublica reporter Kim Barker has written in her book The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan ...

Since we're on the topic of poisonous senility... okay, so we weren't really on that topic, but it just seemed a good way to start this post... let me share with you what the Managing Director of the Nawai Waqt Group - which publishes the right-wing Urdu daily Nawai Waqt and the right-of-centre The Nation as well as runs Waqt TV - said at a recent 'Teacher Training Workshop' organized under the aegis of the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust [Pakistan Ideology Trust]. This lecture took place on November 2, 2010. The Trust is of course headed by the MD himself, Mr Majid Nizami , who not only fashions himself as, but actually believes he is, the defender of the 'true' ideology of the country. He has been a close confidante and supporter of Mardood-e-Momin General Ziaul Haq as well as Zia's one-time protege, former premier Nawaz Sharif (who calls Nizami 'uncle'). But keep in mind that this is also the head of one of the most politically influential media ...