The News
In the thickness of fog
http://thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=23802&Cat=9 Tuesday, January 4, 2011 By the time Pakistanis fell asleep on Sunday night, having been serenaded by the hysteria emanating from the MQM’s departure from the national government, a dense fog was busy enveloping itself right around Islamabad. Mother Nature moves in mysterious ways, and by Monday morning, the fog was so thick that [...]
Responsible Optimism in 2011
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=23340&Cat=9&dt=12/31/2010 Saturday, January 1, 2011 by Mosharraf Zaidi The morning of the first of January is always a sobering one. After all the inane New Year’s Eve celebrations, people have to get up in the morning, and get on with it. The year that has just ended wasn’t exactly one that left Pakistan drenched in [...]
Digging our way out of the cave
http://thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=22485&Cat=9 Tuesday, December 28, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi The outcome of a debate often depends on how the question is framed and who is asking it. In a perfect world, we would get to choose how to frame the question, and who poses the question. The real world is not perfect. The issue of blasphemy [...]
Wikileaks, ‘Fakileaks’ and Richard Holbrooke
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=21304&Cat=9 Tuesday, December 21, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi Mostly, having a 24-hour news culture is a phenomenal advantage. It allows us to stay informed, and to experience, in real time, the diversity of events and personalities that shape public life. Sometimes however, the one thing that an undulating and unstoppable stream of news does is [...]
Demystifying foreign aid (Part IV)
http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=20409&Cat=9 Demystifying foreign aid (Part IV) Tuesday, November 30, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi There is a carefully constructed mythology in development about how key risks that prevent donors from providing money directly to the government are mitigated by using these alternative instruments to provide international aid to countries. In truth, however, this mythology requires a [...]
Demystifying foreign aid (Part III)
Demystifying foreign aid (Part III) Tuesday, November 30, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi The only way to operationalise the consensus among serious public policy professionals, that aid needs to be provided primarily through the Pakistani government systems, is if the state is ready and able to be helped. In other words, if donors are expected to [...]
Demystifying foreign aid (Part II)
http://thenews.com.pk/23-11-2010/Opinion/16717.htm Demystifying foreign aid (Part II) Tuesday, November 23, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi To have a serious conversation about foreign aid to Pakistan, one doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist. However, a basic appreciation for the subtleties that distinguish different kinds of donors, different kinds of aid, and the different ways in which aid [...]
Demystifying foreign aid (Part I)
http://thenews.com.pk/16-11-2010/Opinion/15931.htm Demystifying foreign aid Tuesday, November 16, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi Since the devastating floods that hit Pakistan in July and August, there have been three major donor conferences. There was the September meeting at the UN in New York that was focused on the emergency and relief required in flood-affected areas. There was the [...]
Why Obama is skipping Pakistan
http://thenews.com.pk/09-11-2010/Opinion/14525.htm Why Obama is skipping Pakistan Tuesday, November 9, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi Most of the Pakistani response to the visit by President Barack Obama to India seems to be of the sour-grapes variety. These sour grapes are the fruit of Pakistan’s intoxication with regional parity. Pakistanis are upset, even jilted, that the recently humbled [...]
Angry young nation
http://thenews.com.pk/02-11-2010/Opinion/13332.htm Angry young nation Tuesday, November 2, 2010 by Mosharraf Zaidi On October 30, The Indus Entrepreneurs or TIE held a national conference on entrepreneurship whose theme was “Unleashing Change”. Without a generation of innovators and entrepreneurs, job creation in Pakistan will stay dormant, while our population and its appetite for consumption goes through the [...]
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