Adil Najam

On Friday I was able to check off one more thing from my ‘to do’ list in Islamabad. I was able to visit Lal Masjid. In fact, it was a busy day since I also went back to the Supreme Court – this time to watch the proceedings on the ‘missing people’ case, and separately to see Acting Chief Justice Bhagwandas in action. Saturday, of course, promises to be even busier, with the big government rally in Islamabad, the Chief Justice in Karachi and the planned MQM rally in retaliation to him.

Adil Najam

On your left is the picture of the flag of the Czech Republic. On your right is a ‘Check’ (or, rather, checkered flag; often used in car racing. The two should never be confused. Except for the fact that ‘Czech’ is pronounced as ‘check.’

Ordinarily, this should not be a problem. But right now the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic is visiting Islamabad, and the Capital’s PR people have adorned flags on flagpoles and a number of (very) large banners to welcome him in the spirit of good hospitality. The only problem is that instead of putting the ‘Czech’ flags on the banners, they have ‘Check’ flags!

Bilal Zuberi

Summer is in full swing in many parts of Pakistan, and an unfortunate treat of summer, i.e. electricity loadshedding, is also here. As I hear from my parents, losing power for a few hours a day is normal routine in Karachi, and the people are only left guessing for how long would they remain without such a necessary utility. Growing up we used to look for loadshedding schedules in newspapers pretty much the same way people look for Iftar timings during Ramzan.

Loadshedding is an unavoidable problem in Pakistan. In the past, excuses given by the administration for loadshedding were lame at best: heating up of transformers, shutting down of power-gen units, unforeseen technical problems etc. I have wished for the administration to just tell the truth about our inability to produce as much power as we consume. There is simply not enough electricity being produced in the country and given the lack of investments in power generation, the shortage of power is not just a nuisance to the ordinary people who need fans and cold water to cool themselves off, but is also stunting the growth of our industry and economy.