Articles by Arifa Noor
THE past couple of weeks have been packed with news and not just of the international kind. There were elections in Azad Kashmir, verbal duelling between the PPP and PML-N and an intense debate on a s...
IT wasn’t an ordinary day by any stretch of the imagination, even though it began rather ordinarily. There was little news to interest anyone (and Kashmir was a no-no for television channels).
Initi...
BALOCHISTAN bled again this past week — for the rest of the country. In reality, it is the part of the homeland that has rarely ever stopped bleeding over the past 20 years. But for those of us who ...
A RECENT World Bank report has looked into the NFC Award post-18th Amendment and provided some interesting details. For instance, it has shown how the bulk of the money seems to have gone into expandi...
ARE the days of the government numbered? This is a question (or gossip) in Islamabad these days; I call it ‘a question’ because it is not the only one, which in itself reveals that it has its take...
THE budget is here and the government has rarely looked happier. For a change, the budget-related press conferences were held by confident ministers, eager to answer questions. They pointed out that t...
POLITICS in Pakistan appears to be dead. However, this is only because of the beating it has taken. Like whack-a-mole, it pops up when least expected. The moment headlines about international events n...
IT’S been a year since the May that Pakistan will celebrate. A few cycles ago, we had the unfortunate May 9, which too cannot be forgotten but for reasons best not to get into. But last year brought...
I HAVE a confession to make. I was far from a kid when the Harry Potter books came out and I inhaled them after being introduced to them. I didn’t just read them but also noted the publication dates...
THEY came, they talked and they left, only to return within a day. That was true of the Iranians but not the Americans who were to fly in from DC but last-minute changes to their plans meant they neve...
