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By Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal In the quiet dignity of retrospect, 28 May 1998 endures as one of the most solemn and elevating moments in Pakistan’s journey as a nation. On that day, amidst the rugged hills of Chagai, our homeland answered provocation with measured resolve, proclaiming through the voice of nuclear capability its unyielding right to self-defence and strategic equilibrium in South Asia. It was not a gesture of bravado but an act of necessity, born of a people long tested by adversity and determined never to bow before existential threat. By the grace of Allah Almighty, Pakistan stood firm,…
By Asghar Ali Mubarak On 28 May, Pakistan marks Youm-e-Takbir, a day that occupies a distinctive and deeply symbolic place in the country’s modern political and strategic identity. It is not simply a commemoration of a scientific milestone, but an assertion of national resolve forged under intense geopolitical pressure at a moment when the balance of power in South Asia was fundamentally altered. The official theme, “The Great Determination, Invincible Pakistan—The Guarantor of Peace, Strong Pakistan,” reflects how this event continues to be interpreted within the national narrative: as a fusion of deterrence, sovereignty, and the claim of regional stability…
By Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal The memory arrives with an almost cinematic persistence, as if time has refused to dim its edges. I still recall sitting in a packed cinema hall in the 1970s, watching Ben Hur unfold on the screen in all its sweeping grandeur. It was not merely a film in that moment but an experience of scale and movement, of human ambition rendered through spectacle. The chariot race, in particular, has stayed lodged in the imagination ever since. Charlton Heston’s character, steady and focused, guiding a team of powerful horses locked into a single harness, became an image…
For decades, Pakistan has occupied an uneasy yet unavoidable space in global geopolitics: strategically located, diplomatically significant, militarily consequential and economically under-realised. Successive governments have attempted to transform that geography into prosperity, but the country has often remained trapped between external dependency, domestic instability and regional rivalries. Now, however, Islamabad appears to be advancing a far more ambitious proposition — one that seeks not merely to secure foreign partnerships, but to reposition Pakistan as a pivotal energy and strategic corridor connecting competing global powers. At the centre of this emerging vision lies the country’s potentially vast offshore oil and gas…
By Professor Dr. Sheikh Akram Ali Politics, at its best, is often described as the art of translating collective aspirations into workable reality. Stripped of slogans and rivalry, it is supposed to serve a simple purpose: to organise society in a way that improves the lives of its people and gives direction to a shared future. Yet in practice it is rarely so clean. It moves between ideals and interests, between promises of welfare and the pressure of power. The tension between these two impulses has defined much of modern political history in South Asia, particularly in the long and…
By Dr Aliya Ahsan Kemal The question came recently in a clinic, posed with a mix of urgency and anxiety that is familiar to any paediatric cardiologist working in a country where festive traditions and complex medical realities often collide. “Doctor, how much Qurbani meat can my child eat this Eid?” The parents were referring to a child who had undergone stent placement for coarctation of the aorta and was still struggling with persistent hypertension. It is a question that will be echoed in thousands of households as Eid-ul-Adha approaches, particularly where congenital heart disease intersects with deeply rooted cultural…
The explosion near Chaman Gate in Quetta has once again drawn the city into a familiar but deeply unsettling cycle of violence, grief and official reassurances that struggle to match the scale of human loss on the ground. At least 16 people have been killed, including three personnel of the Frontier Corps, and many more injured after what authorities describe as a powerful blast on or near a railway track. In the immediate aftermath, the scene was one of shattered glass, twisted metal and stunned silence, as emergency teams worked through debris in an area that, while long accustomed to…
By Amjad Qaimkhani In politics, symbolism often matters more than speeches. And in Houston, at the “Marka-e-Haq” ceremony jointly organised by the Pakistan Association of Greater Houston and the Consulate General of Pakistan in Houston, symbolism was everywhere. The participation of MQM-London’s Houston chapter was not merely another diaspora appearance at a patriotic gathering. It represented something far deeper: a calculated political repositioning by a movement historically defined by confrontation with Pakistan’s establishment, now publicly embracing the very institutions it once fiercely criticised. For decades, the relationship between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan’s security establishment has been among the…