MJ Akbar

THE PAST IS A courtroom without walls, its simultaneous trials a contentious cacophony, every judge sifting evidence through the sieve of self-interest, every jury a sectarian populace driven by rage …

Niggles apart, only two prime ministers were in office when one nation had one election on the same day, across the checkerboard of Parliament and Assemblies: Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952, …

The difference between clarity and confusion is often found on the flipside of a phrase. Watching the sudden resurrection of grand coalitions on the eve of our great democratic pentadactyl …

Guns, gas and gossip The 21st century, still young, is already in the grip of three superstates: the defence industry; energy cartels; and the infotech behemoths turbo-powered by the greatest …

<p> <strong>Colonialism split the personality of the subjugated. The demands of survival under an alien power could rarely synchronise with the pervasive emotions of an indigenous culture and, more substantively, …

<p> <strong>Politics, for Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, was the day job of a messiah. His logic followed a course through Pakistan’s history. Muhammad Ali Jinnah delivered the ‘promised land’ in …

<p> <strong>The sunset of Kabul has slipped into the twilight of Kyiv and the American era will fade into darkness if Washington crumbles before its next great challenge: a confrontation …