If the bucolic Swat valley, tucked into the Himalayas less than 100 miles from the capital city of Islamabad, is a bellwether for Pakistan’s war against the Pakistani Taliban,1 the war is going badly. The Swat District — an integrated part of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) as opposed to the autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) — has been beyond government control since 2007. In this period the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Mohammaden Islamic Law), a militant Pakistani Taliban group,2 thoroughly destroyed the threadbare state institutions that existed in the area. Most notably they targeted schools and the police force. Rebuilding these will take years.

There is a long synopsis of the interview of Mr. Altaf Hussain, leader of the Muttahida Quami Movement who was interviewed by a renowned journalist named Najam Sethi while in London, United Kingdom. Altaf started answering questions by offering Najam Sethi with a self-hand-made Haleem party then moving on to clarifying the allegations on his party came during Military operation against his party in 1992.

The story tells how the government is recklessly abusing with the taxpayer’s money on a great-grand child of the elected members of the assembly. The so called democratic governments have yet again proved that they are the best guardians of the public money which is leeched by imposing direct taxes on the cow-innocent citizens of Pakistan by introducing taxes on tea, cold drinks, sugar and fuel.

Sharp differences within the ranks of the PML-N surfaced in the National Assembly on Friday over the issue of a Seraiki province when its MNA Hanif Abbasi, without naming anyone, snubbed the likes of Javed Hashmi, who had joined the voices backing this move.

At least 11 big and small, known and unknown, lobbying companies have been hired by Pakistan and state-owned Pakistani organisations in the US, paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, some of them having mysterious names and almost dubious credentials.

While seated bored at home, I was exploring, reading some of the recent articles; in one of the published piece, my sinful eyes found something which was very perplexing for me to read. It was the warning of Imran Khan, published in Times Online of UK, in which he exposed his utter sympathy with Taliban yet opposing the military operation against them.

The economic survey presided by Ministry of Finance showed unexpected results demonstrating poor performance as economy only grew by 2 percent in 2008-2009 which was forecasted to increase by 4.5 percent comparing it from last year growth of 4.1 percent.

By Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi
Pakistan has lost over a generation to Islamic orthodoxy and militancy. By now this generation has reached middle-level positions in the government, security services and private sector
The Swat operation has effectively countered …