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Our Columnist
Samson Simon Sharaf

Samson Simon Sharaf

The writer is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a political economist. Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

Sharaf Sargodhvi

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | May 25, 2013

This day fifty three years ago, Lal Din Sharaf Sargodhavi’s life was cut short during neurosurgery in Lahore. A few months earlier at Dacca, East Pakistan, he had suffered head injuries in a ...

The mandate

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | May 18, 2013

Elections 2013 are over and, as opined in the past, impacted by the US interests. As written in “The Election Conundrum”, the flurry of recent diplomacy and visits between London, Dubai, ...

Simulative appraisal

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | May 11, 2013

By the time this article gets to the readers, early birds would have already gone to queue the polling stations. A lot will depend for whom they vote, how they exercise their right of choosing the ...

Who’s war?

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | May 04, 2013

The speech of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on the Martyr’s Day rang familiar bells. Each phrase and word was well chosen to articulate a desired message of historical significance. The intent ...

Delusions of indispensability

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | April 20, 2013

The climax to the return of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf after a self-imposed exile of five years had been slowly building. He was returning to Pakistan with the make belief of having been a ...

US retrograde from Afghanistan

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | April 13, 2013

The US occupation of Afghanistan was never a consequence of strategic logic. As described in these columns, it was a war that stemmed out of revenge and hate post 9/11. The impulse to pulverise the ...

The election conundrum

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | April 06, 2013

The National and Provincial Assemblies have completed their tenures and caretakers have assumed controls to see through Pakistan till the next transition. Despite a week in office, the cabinets are ...

Que Sera Sera

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | March 30, 2013

“Whatever will be, will beThe future's not ours, to seeQue Sera, Sera. What will be, will be.”Jay Livingston and Ray EvansPakistan’s electoral scene has complicated beyond ...

March 23?

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | March 23, 2013

The Shakespearean Ides of March is historically related to patrimonial coups and cantankerous deceits. In Pakistan’s short and checkered history, March is perennially of political significance ...

The communal inferno

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | March 16, 2013

It happened umpteenth times in the past five years in Punjab. The forces of communal hate, intolerance, greed, qabza and extortion in the name of religious honour were unleashed on a Christian ...

The ides of Pakistan

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | March 09, 2013

    If all goes as planned, the caretakers will assume office and the challenges to handle a plethora of complicated, unresolved domestic and international issues seeking immediate ...

Why is India so jittery

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | March 02, 2013

Of late, relations between India and Pakistan have soured, to say the least. Continuous tensions along the Line of Control, India’s efforts to realign the control positions at Haji Pir and the ...

Pakistan’s unsung hero

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | February 23, 2013

Bishop Anthony Theodore Lobo, Bishop Emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rawalpindi, passed away in the early hours of February 18, 2013. He fought his last battle of prolonged illness lasting ...

Mystifying North Korea

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | February 16, 2013

On February 12, 2013, North Korea carried out its third nuclear test.  Nuclear watchdogs the world over were alerted by the three-day advance warning of testing a nuclear device of a smaller ...

Pakistan’s stinking black hole

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | February 09, 2013

By the time Pakistan’s present Parliament hangs up its gloves, the economy will be in a tailspin. Barring untoward incidents that may cause a delay in the forthcoming election schedules, the ...

War and policy

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | February 02, 2013

In war colleges all over the world, war an instrument of policy is the most romanced, flirted and oft quoted concept of Carl Von Clausewitz. For the past century, this quotation has been misused to ...

Pak-US ties

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | February 02, 2013

By virtue of the portfolio of Defence Secretary for which he has been nominated by President Obama it is only natural for Chuck Hagel to worry that aid to Pakistan serves to protect US strategic ...

The IRI survey: how Pakistanis think

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | January 30, 2013

The recent International Republican Institute (IRI) survey has attracted the media with a singular focus on the popularity of Pakistan’s political parties. This is a fallacy because it ignores ...

A flash flood that petered away

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | January 23, 2013

Every plan that works to perfection must be relentlessly investigated. This one fell apart or still has twists and turns warrants comments.Like a true Robert Ludlum thriller that keeps the reader ...

Pakistan’s uncertain portals

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | January 10, 2013

As 2013 begins to close in on the expected changes within and outside Pakistan, various actors are repositioning themselves to move into the void for diverse interests. Some interests relate to their ...

Resolutions everyone must make

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | January 02, 2013

For most photographers in Pakistan, it was not possible to capture the setting and rising suns of 2012-13. The dense fog made it impossible for the fiery sun to peep through the horizon neither in ...

Christmas: where faiths meet!

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | December 26, 2012

Last year, I joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf rally at Karachi on Christmas Day. Despite criticism by many Christian organisations, I had braved and asked Christians to show up at the venue for a ...

Treading the brink

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | December 20, 2012

Pakistan’s governance method during the past 10 years has acquired a propensity to walk the steep edge notwithstanding sharp precipices and blind curves. Because any system rots from the top, ...

Elections and religious minorities

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | December 12, 2012

As the election fever intensifies and political parties select winnable candidates for each constituency, the religious minorities of Pakistan despite the cosmetic ‘Joint Electorate’ will ...

The 2013 elections

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | December 05, 2012

“There isn’t to reason why?There’s but to do or die.”As the tenure of the present NRO sponsored regimes come to a close, political parties in Pakistan are gearing up for ...

Pakistan’s radio silence

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | November 28, 2012

The past week was a nightmare for wireless users in Pakistan. The blackout of cell phone communications in most parts of the country affected not only the GSM and CDMA based mobile and SMS ...

Tradition of St Catherine’s Monastery

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | November 23, 2012

Recently, in a seminar organised by the National Christian Movement on ‘Revival and Unity: Our Mutual Responsibilities’, it was noticeable that the awareness of responsibilities to the ...

Obama’s second term and Pakistan

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | November 14, 2012

Analysing ‘Obama’s latest surge’ in 2009, I had related it to a tight balloon in hot air that may rapture before it reaches close to its objectives. Obama followed by Hilary Clinton ...

Elusive national policy and narrative

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | October 31, 2012

Pakistan is unfortunate amongst a few select countries to have never had a cohesive, integrated and permanent national policy. It is a sad but a true reflection of a state that has spent half its ...

The President and anti-US mantra

By: Samson Simon Sharaf | October 24, 2012

President Asif Ali Zardari chose the twilight of his present incumbency to unequivocally and passionately diagnose the multiple ailments of the country he leads. He seemed frank, candid and at times ...

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