India

Shehbaz Sharif highlights Pakistan’s military success and offers India peace talks at UN

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the UN General Assembly claimed Pakistan’s military success over India including the downing of seven jets and offered comprehensive peace talks while pledging support for a Palestinian state and calling for recognition of Pakistan’s sacrifices against terrorism presenting Pakistan as both a security bulwark and a bridge for regional peace.

Shehbaz Sharif uses UN speech to claim Pakistan’s military victory over India while pushing peace talks and backing Palestinian statehood.. — FILE/THE THURSDAY TIMES

The season of institutions

Anchored by the Hafiz effect, Pakistan has shown that deterrence with restraint, tighter borders, cleaner markets, and a geo-economic push via the SIFC have recast the state as reliable, ensuring that routines, not miracles, move the country forward.

Power that fears questions is already weak. Power that welcomes them becomes resilient; and resilience is the only insurance policy that lasts longer than a news cycle. — MICHAEL MCCALL FOR THE THURSDAY TIMES

Stability, by any means necessary

The Field Marshal hasn’t come to charm headlines or peddle illusions; he’s come to stitch a broken republic back together, and in a region entranced by spectacle and the echo of its own bravado, his silence feels less like absence and more like authorship.

The Field Marshal's more difficult battle has been internal, and here too Munir has shown a style of leadership that is surgical rather than symbolic. — MICHAEL MCCALL FOR THE THURSDAY TIMES

Before India, there was Sindhu

The name Indus comes from the ancient Sanskrit Sindhu, which evolved through Persian, Greek, and Latin adaptations reflecting the river's role in identity, conquest, and civilisation; this transformation tells a larger story of how geography shapes names and history through foreign tongues, empires, and time.

In the hymns of the Rigveda, dating back over three thousand years, Sindhu was more than just a river — it was a force of nature. — ASIF HASSAN/AFP

Free of Britain, recolonised in saffron

In Narendra Modi, the RSS has found not just a leader but a messiah; one with the political cunning of an autocrat and the populist charisma of a televangelist. Under his watch, textbooks have been rewritten, history sanitised, minorities demonised, and a billion people convinced that all of this is progress.

In Modi's new India, the concept of reason has truly been tarnished into oblivion. — MICHAEL MCCALL FOR THE THURSDAY TIMES | DO NOT REPRODUCE

India’s Sikhs will never know how much Pakistan loves them

It is unfortunate to write that India's Sikhs may never fully grasp the depth of Pakistan’s affection because that affection is filtered through a wall of suspicion built by the Indian state, which views any bridge extended westward as inherently suspect.

A Sikh pilgrim embraces a Pakistani villager near Kartarpur, as the flag of Pakistan waves behind them. — MICHAEL MCCALL FOR THE THURSDAY TIMES
After Pahalgam, the cries of Kashmir echo not in Delhi, but in Jinnah’s silhouette—because when identity is punished, the dream of Pakistan becomes a refuge, not a threat. — MICHAEL MCCALL FOR THE THURSDAY TIMES

SCO Summit 2024: Who’s heading to Islamabad to attend?

The 2024 SCO Summit in Pakistan on October 15-16 will bring together heads of government from member nations like China, Russia, India, and Iran, focusing on security, economic cooperation, and regional connectivity.

The 2024 SCO Summit in Pakistan on October 15-16 will bring together heads of government from member nations like China, Russia, India, and Iran, focusing on security, economic cooperation, and regional connectivity. — ORIGINAL/THE THURSDAY TIMES
A combined file photo shows Indian prime minister Narendra Modi (L) and his Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif. — FILE/THE THURSDAY TIMES
A file photo is shown of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at a Bhopal rally on April 24, 2024. — FILE/THE THURSDAY TIMES VIA AFP
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