Mis ing?

Following is the full version of the article that appeared on The New on Sunday today, January 15th, 2017. The TNS article can be accessed here. 

In the past one week three bloggers went missing in Pakistan. No one knows their crime but everyone knows why they have disappeared. Reports are pouring in that there might be several other bloggers and activists who are missing. Those missing seem to share a few common characters. They either ran blogs or contributed to ones that criticised religious bigotry and the security establishment’s heavy involvement in the state’s political affairs. Their political activism seemed to focus on spreading progressive or liberal ideas and a desire to make Pakistan a more democratic state where its institutions are accountable to its elected civilian representatives. How do we make sense of their disappearance? For the longest time the liberals and the progressives thought that the state’s security apparatus won’t touch them simply because they didn’t count too much. That remains true today. One can see the same 20 faces that have appeared in every protest organised by the liberals and the left wing political groups in this country. This remains true for protests being organised in Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. You see the same faces appear in front of the press club; chanting slogans and making the same kind of demands. Nobody bothers to stop and ask them why they are there. Nobody cusses at them while sitting in the car because they are not even a traffic nuisance. Why would the security agencies pick someone of this ilk? What danger these individuals posed to the national security apparatus that warranted such an action?

Will military courts save us?

My article that appeared in The News today.  It can be accessed here. 

People criticising the military’s role in establishing military courts often forget the role of the other important institution – the government led by Mian Sahib. This is not to absolve the military of blame, but to highlight that, in this instance, the civvies share it. 

Killing Enough

My article for The News. This appeared on January 10, 2015 and can be accessed here.

This is our moment of reckoning. Or it’s supposed to be. We had been waiting for this for such a long time now. The war that ends all wars. The ‘consensus’ that defeats all ideas. 

The more you think about it the more this consensus looks like a bear we have been trying to put to sleep. “Hush now, don’t question it.” Otherwise, the consensus will wake up and won’t look like one anymore. And it will run amok, destroying everything that we hold dear. Or the consensus looks like one big bomb – the bomb that blows all ideologies to smithereens. 

A Turbulent Flight

My article for The News on Sunday. This appeared on August 3, 2014 and can be accessed here.

Although the government has once again decided to privatise Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), indecisiveness remains on the mode of its privatisation. Recently, the minister of state for privatisation, Muhammed Zubair, told BBC that it wasn’t yet confirmed whether the state would privatise 26 per cent or 51 per cent of the state-owned enterprise.

Before outlining the merits or otherwise of this decision, it is important to discuss what the lack of clarity regarding the mode of privatisation entails.

Essentially, the ministers has hinted at two different models of privatisation that have been in vogue in this country since the early 1990s. The 26 per cent formula awards four votes to each percentage point and hands over the day-to-day functioning and control of the Board of Directors to the company. The government still retains 76 per cent of the share in the enterprise, but has no say in the running of the business. The investor, however, is not free to dispose of the assets of the enterprise.

A Turbulent Flight

My article for The News on Sunday. This appeared on August 3, 2014 and can be accessed here.

Although the government has once again decided to privatise Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), indecisiveness remains on the mode of its privatisation. Recently, the minister of state for privatisation, Muhammed Zubair, told BBC that it wasn’t yet confirmed whether the state would privatise 26 per cent or 51 per cent of the state-owned enterprise.

Before outlining the merits or otherwise of this decision, it is important to discuss what the lack of clarity regarding the mode of privatisation entails.

Essentially, the ministers has hinted at two different models of privatisation that have been in vogue in this country since the early 1990s. The 26 per cent formula awards four votes to each percentage point and hands over the day-to-day functioning and control of the Board of Directors to the company. The government still retains 76 per cent of the share in the enterprise, but has no say in the running of the business. The investor, however, is not free to dispose of the assets of the enterprise.

Where are they?

My article for The News on Sunday. This appeared on May 18th, 2014 and can be accessed here.

How do you account for the missing? How do we count a person who is missing? I have three brothers, one of them is not there anymore. He is not dead. He is missing. He is there, somewhere, but just not here.

Is privatisation and economic liberalisation the way forward?

Final part of my three part series against privatisation policy in Pakistan. This article appeared in The News on Sunday, December 8, 2013 (http://tns.thenews.com.pk/pursuing-economic-liberation/). The first two parts can be accessed here and here. 

Privatisation of DISCOs cannot work unless the government undertakes major restructuring of the power sector and offer lucrative contracts to the private owners. But before discussing that, let us consider our experience with pursuing economic liberalisation in the energy sector.

Power sector was liberalised in Pakistan in 1994. This is not necessarily an instance of privatisation but rather of liberalisation i.e. the state opened up a sector to private investors that had been hitherto under state control. Analysts (including myself) have traced the current crisis of the circular debt to the liberalisation of the sector in mid-1990s. What is more important is to understand how this liberalisation was carried out. Sure, the policy addressed the power shortages at that time but the investors were lured in ultimately by offering them extremely lucrative contracts that made investments virtually risk free. As usual, like in the rest of the developing world, all of this was done under the able guidance of various international financial institutions.

Privatising Khaki enterprises?

My article for the online magazine Viewpoint, Issue No. 180, December 6, 2013. The article can be accessed here.  

The advent of the right-wing PML-N government in Pakistan coincides with increased calls for privatization. Experts rush in to remind the government that privatization policies are a condition for aid and loans from international financial institutions (IFIs).Lest we forget, Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif also promised increased privatization during his election campaign. Over the last two decades these same experts have been ‘advising' all sorts of governments. Now they advise Nawaz Sharif to take a bold step and to go all the way to privatize state owned enterprises.