Adil Najam
What follows below is a repost. I had originally written this on July 19, 2007 after bomb blasts in Hangu, Hub and Kohat, which had themselves followed at the heels of blasts in Islamabad. Today, we just had two blasts in Rawalpindi with more than 15 people already being reported dead.
The continuing story here is of a nation at war with extremists. It is Pakistanis who are being killed here. Pakistanis who are being targeted. This is vile, this is cowardly and this is inhuman. While we are all distracted by the continuing political circus, the big story here is for Pakistan’s survival and the all-out war that has been declared on Pakistan by extremists and fanatics. The American forces across the Afghan border are not helping and their incursions into Paksitani territory has only led to other innocent Paksitani deaths which adds to the argument of the extremists and has made the politics of dealing with extremism in Pakistan that much more difficult. But, whereever you stand on politics, we must stand with Pakistan in this war and against extremists who have been murdering Paksitanis all over the place.
Pakistan’s telecommunication industry – mobile communication in particular – has made impressive strides in the last few years after deregulation. However broadband growth in the country has been very disappointing – there are less than 100,000 broadband users in Pakistan. The open competition observed in mobile industry has not been replicated to broadband. Reasons include high prices, control of PTCL over bandwidth resources, policy issues, lack of infrastructure and legal disputes.
I found this photograph at 
