Political and military analyst Ayesha Siddiqa discusses the support for Imran Khan in Pakistan’s recent election, the formation of a new government under Shebaz Sharif and growing public disaffection with the military
Pakistan’s military is obviously backing Nawaz Sharif and the PML–N, at the cost of Imran Khan and his PTI, but how long until it again falls out with an elected government it once supported?
Pakistan’s prisons remain terribly overcrowded and under-resourced, and nascent efforts at progressive reform are stymied by ingrained attitudes of discrimination, including against religious and ethnic minorities
‘For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit’, an anthology of prison poems, testifies to the coercive nature of the state and society – yet its under-representation of regional poets speaks of wider exclusions
The conditions that created Pakistanis’ unique relationship with the Bollywood star no longer exist, and they are so mired in political and economic turmoil that even his cinematic offerings provide no respite
A crackdown on undocumented migrants is forcing thousands back to uncertain fates in Afghanistan, and ratcheting up tensions between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban
With Nawaz Sharif’s return, the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz is looking to strengthen a shaky grip over Punjab, and testing again its tricky relationship with the military establishment
With Pashtuns suffering massive violence from the Taliban, Islamist militants and the Pakistan state, Pashto poetry today reflects the community’s new blood-soaked reality
New laws have created jurisdiction for the military to operate at both federal and provincial levels of government, with serious implications for Pakistan’s already precarious federation.
