The Fa’az shows what Pakistan can do when it stays the course
The first homegrown air-to-air missile is a real achievement. On the day gas went on a timetable, its lesson of patience belongs in the energy sector too
The Editorial Desk
Views from The Thursday Times' editorial desk.
Twenty years is long enough to wait for $800m
Pakistan is still owed about $800m for PTCL, over 32 properties worth a fraction of that. Arbitration is the right step, if the state fixes its own file and sets a deadline
Ten years on, Modi’s note ban has little to show for the pain
A decade after 86% of India’s cash was cancelled overnight, its own figures show cash, corruption and election money are all still there
A falling oil price is not an energy policy
Oil’s sharp fall on hopes of an Iran deal is a welcome reprieve. Pakistan should spend it on storage, a pricing rule, a fairer levy and the solar shift its people have already begun.
Four fiefdoms and a flag
Pakistan's four provinces are not an administrative map. They are four estates, kept intact by the men who profit from the distance between citizens and the state.
How Pakistan overtook India in global diplomacy
What does it take to go from an unanswered White House phone call to a UN Security Council seat in two years? Ask Pakistan. The Makkah Defence Pact. US-Iran mediation. An invite from Damascus. India lost Washington's favor in the same stretch.
A prisoner in his own inner citadel
Imran Khan’s sister says he is fit, with normal blood pressure and improved eyesight. Official records document specialist treatment and family access. Yet the international narrative remains one of isolation and medical crisis. The record versus the rhetoric.
Pakistan’s word is now worth a treaty
Countries do not enter mutual defence commitments with partners whose reliability they doubt, because the cost of misjudging that is measured in soldiers. Riyadh and Ankara have decided Pakistan is a state whose word will hold when it is expensive to hold it.
India’s playbook for dissent has run out of pages
A Chief Justice called unemployed youth cockroaches. An exam sat by 22 lakh students was leaked, and some of them killed themselves. India's government waited, then delegitimised, then used force, then blamed Pakistan. Each step has failed.
At Khamenei’s funeral, Pakistan made a statement
Pakistan may have disagreements with Iran, and Iran may have disappointed Pakistan by leaning too warmly towards India at times. But neighbours who share borders must also share funerals.
