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Party to indecision THE PML government has completed two years in office. In these 24 months, Shaukat Aziz is the third prime minister picked by President Musharraf to continue the policies that he has been pursuing ever since the general overthrew the Nawaz Sharif government in October 1999....		A game of numbers PRIME Minister Shaukat Aziz recently announced a plan to train 0.3 million educated youth in various skills, provide free education up to class X in federal schools, and to educate 0.8...
No hollow promises, please! IN his recent address to the nation Prime Minister Shuakat Aziz said the maternal death rate in Pakistan would be reduced by imparting proper education to birth attendants and making them...		Autobiography of a national alien THE huge and hefty deputy director looked straight in my eyes, and exclaimed, “So, you are an alien!” I bowed my head, and said, “Yes sir, I am an alien.” Without going through my registration form the deputy director asked, “What is the country of your origin?”...
Silent all these years THAT title may make many laugh once the subject matter is revealed. It’s about how women continue to be subservient to men....		''A tailor’s tale IN the early ’50s my family lived in Jhelum. Back then I was a schoolgoing child and my family’s living standard was extremely good. The bungalow, in which we resided, had...
Moving towards self-sufficiency FATE works in mysterious ways. When a decade ago, in California, Atiya Suhail learnt quilting and won prizes in quilting competitions, little did she know that one day she would be...		NET-CLIP: Online oranges The winters are here or so it seems. Nevertheless, December is very much into its first week and therefore winters are here....
The missing logic While addressing local newsmen on November 22, the federal education minister termed the results announced by the education boards in the country ‘doubtful’. He justified the procedure of holding entry tests as the substitute for the examinations conducted by the education boards....		A journey back in time Basant was in the air as we left the luxury of Lahore-Islamabad Motorway at the Kot Momin bypass and got onto a usual bumpy country road. It was well after sunset...
An emerald garland Thirty miles southwest of India, is the beautiful string of tens of hundreds of low-lying islands called Maldives. Surrounded by the serene waters of the Indian Ocean, the country comprises of 1190 islands of which only ninety are inhibited....		DIARY OF A VAGABOND: Lost in Rajhistan A trip to the Taj also deserves a must mention of the most sought after and the luckiest marble bench in the world. For it is continuously polished by the...
The uncontrolled epidemic The World Health Organization (WHO) in 1999 issued a list of 10 mega causes of death world wide. According to it, heart attacks and strokes put together claimed more than 25 per cent of the total world mortality and occupied the top two positions on the list respectively....		HOT SEAT Following his stints as Director Urdu Markaz in London and Chairman National Language Authority, Iftikhar Arif is currently heading Pakistan Academy of Letters. He also has the distinction of being one...
Religious freedom? DESPITE bending backwards to the US in its fight against terrorism, Pakistan has failed to be beatified for its efforts. In a recently published report titled, the International Religious Freedom Report 2004, released by the bureau of Democracy...		CHAPTER FROM HISTORY: The opium wars GREAT Britain waged two opium-related wars on China in the 19th century. It was a century in which China went through fragmentation. Back then it was ruled by the weak Qing...
POINT OF VIEW: A devotee’s account IN our times, a literary function classified as ‘an evening with a writer’ is nothing unusual. Every writer has at least one evening, if not more, to his credit where accolades...		Bowled over by success The glamour in the game of cricket never ceases to charm and fascinate its followers. Anecdotes abound and so are the stories of the cult figures and the legends who from time to time have graced this game....
THROUGH THE COVERS: A reward that was not due THE central contracts awarded by the Pakistan Cricket Board to certain players have evoked a mixed response from the keen followers of the game in the country. As for the fans...		Buy, buy, baby! IF you’re a student of University of Pennsylvania — better known as U-Penn — and are a woman, rejoice. You’re wanted, provided you’re pretty, brainy, very tall and white. Oops! Actually, it’s your eggs that are in demand....
Adam and Steve ... HARDLY had the dust settled on the batman issue in Pakistan when a storm hit the city of Boston in the state of Massachusetts where same sex marriages are being legally...		Down memory lane THE cry of the eagle, this morning, reminded me of the time when as a child I used to accompany my father to his office....
The genial genius WITH reference to the lead story The genial genius (November 21), the article is an attempt to inquire into the circumstances that made Faiz a ‘tolerant’ human being, a ‘forgiving person’...		NEWSMAKER Julia Roberts has more than one reason to flash her luminous smile these days. For last Sunday, the pretty woman became the proud mother of twins....