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Crime- ghting app
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dawn.com/news/1715807/crime- ghting-app
October 19, 2022
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IT is welcome to note that the Sindh police are opting for modern
technology in order to address the epidemic of crime that
principally a icts Karachi. Experts have often argued that the
long-used colonial methods of law enforcement are no match for
criminals who are often two steps ahead of the police, and it is
only through using modern methods that the crime graph can be
brought down. In this regard, the Sindh police chief launched the
Talash app on Monday that will hopefully help his force rein in
lawbreakers across the province, particularly the metropolis. The
app appears to have an impressive array of options designed to
assist the law enforcers in tracking down and capturing
criminals. This includes the fact that it is linked to the Nadra
database. According to police o cials, it possesses the data of
1.5m criminals across Sindh, while the app can also pick out fake
number plates and licences. As one police o cial put it, the
Talash app is a “moving online investigation centre”.
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It is hoped that the Talash app proves fruitful and achieves the
goal it was designed for. Despite police o cials’ efforts to
downplay incidents of crime and put a positive spin on the lawand-order situation, the truth is that law-abiding citizens remain
terri ed of being mugged or killed for a wallet or mobile phone,
while criminals apparently enjoy freedom to stalk the city. The
use of dubious methods such as ‘encounters’ to get rid of
lawbreakers has proved ineffective, while angry mobs have often
decided to take the law into their own hands by lynching
suspects. What is therefore needed is proactive policing, and the
Talash app can surely help in this regard, if the tool is deployed
effectively, and regularly updated. Through the use of other
technological aids, such as CCTVs, criminals can be identified,
caught and punished by the courts of law so that they can no
longer walk the streets terrorising innocent citizens.
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022
Opinion
Postponed again - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1715808/postponed-again
October 19, 2022
THE people of Karachi, unfortunately, will be deprived of an
elected local government for the foreseeable future. Pakistan’s
biggest metropolis has been without a functional third tier of
government for the past two years, when the term of the last
elected local bodies expired. The PPP-led Sindh government,
never keen on empowering the third tier, had written to the ECP
calling for the third postponement of LG polls, and on Tuesday,
the commission acceded to Sindh’s request, saying it had no other
option but to put off the polls if adequate security personnel
were not available. In a related move, the chief election
commissioner warned the Punjab government to enact
legislation within a week to pave the way for LG polls in the
province, or to hold elections under the existing law. As the CEC
noted, there has been no local government in Punjab for the last
10 months.
The fact that Pakistan’s two most populous provinces are
dragging their feet over LG polls speaks volumes about the value
mainstream political parties place on the elected third tier.
Whether it is the PPP in Sindh, or the PML-Q-PTI combine in
Punjab, those who claim to be the standard-bearers of democracy
are loath to see the democratic exercise carried out at the
grassroots level. The fear of losing influence at the local level,
and the possible emergence of alternative political options
perhaps fuels the mainstream parties’ paranoia against LG polls.
The first phase of the local polls in Sindh, barring Karachi and
Hyderabad, was held in July, but urban parts of the province
have yet to cast their vote. The elections were earlier put off due
to heavy rains and the subsequent devastating floods. But the
waters have started receding, and Karachi remained unaffected
by the deluge. Yet Sindh’s rulers came up with the plea that law
enforcers were busy in flood relief work, and they face a
shortage of 16,000 police personnel to ensure polls’ security.
Moreover, the interior ministry also expressed its inability to free
up army and Rangers’ personnel for election duty. The ECP is due
to meet in two weeks to re-evaluate the situation. Time will tell if
a new poll date is announced, or if the Sindh government, which
wants a postponement of at least three months, will again
express its inability to hold the polls. As for Punjab, the ruling
coalition needs to fast-track legislation to ensure polls are not
further delayed.
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022
Opinion
Blurred lines - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1715809/blurred-lines
October 19, 2022
IN a ‘normal’ democracy, fair and transparent elections can
neutralise pre-poll bellicosity and smooth the way ahead for the
government and the opposition to play their respective roles. Not
so in Pakistan’s dysfunctional democracy, where even those
claiming to have ‘people power’ behind them factor unelected
forces into their political strategy. At a press talk one day after
winning six out of eight seats up for grabs in Sunday’s by-polls,
PTI chairman Imran Khan raised the ante still further in his
campaign to force an early election by describing the result as a
“referendum against the government”. If polls were not called
soon, the long march would go ahead, he vowed, and this time
the participants would be “prepared to deal with violence”. The
former prime minister also acknowledged for the first time that
back-channel talks were happening between his party and the
powers that be, but conceded there was “no clarity as yet”.
Holding PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif responsible for that lack
of clarity, Mr Khan said Mr Sharif was afraid of elections and
therefore determined to let the situation drag on further.
The by-election results have bolstered the PTI’s narrative
regarding its popularity, but they have also prompted Mr Khan to
go public about his negotiations with the establishment,
something he had only hinted at earlier. That suggests he has
decided to use his triumph at the ballot box to not only put the
squeeze on the coalition government to call early elections, but
also to increase pressure on the powers that be to throw their
weight behind him. Moreover, Mr Khan’s remark at the press
talk that the elder Sharif may get a “clean chit” much like other
PML-N leaders and that he was “ready to contest the election
against him” suggests interesting possibilities. Could it perhaps
allude to one of the issues being negotiated behind the scenes,
and indicate that the PTI chairman is open (if reluctantly) to a
‘level playing field’ being devised for the next general election?
As everyone knows, however, negotiations are best undertaken
from a position of strength. Mr Khan has kept the threat of the
long march hanging like a sword over a government already on
the back foot, and the by-poll outcome has strengthened the PTI’s
hand. Certainly, peaceful protest is a democratic right and
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah is out of line in threatening the
protestors with brute force should they attempt to enter
Islamabad. By that same yardstick, it is the government’s
prerogative to decide when to call elections, subject to
constitutional limits: to do so at a time it considers more
advantageous to its prospects is simply sound political strategy.
Long marches, on the other hand, are an unreliable strategy for
achieving professed objectives. The PTI should return to the
National Assembly, attempt to woo back its former allies and win
the political war from within parliament.
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022
Opinion
Apocalypse when? - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1715811/apocalypse-when
October 19, 2022
OBSERVERS of the current tensions between Moscow and
Washington, amid veiled threats of nuclear warfare and
warnings of massive retaliation, are divided over whether the
present predicament is less dire or a bigger danger than the
‘eyeball-to-eyeball’ confrontation between the US and the USSR
60 years ago this month.
It’s a tricky dilemma. The global situation is very different in any
number of ways, as are the particulars. The Soviet Union did not
invade any country in 1962. It shipped troops, missiles and
nuclear warheads to a recent ally that had just the previous year
staved off a CIA-organised invasion. It may not have been a wise
step, but nor was it illegitimate — even though this particular
ally happened to lie just 90 miles (145 kilometres) south of
Florida.
Until then, there had been plenty of US/Nato missile launchers
sited uncomfortably close to Soviet borders, but no reciprocal
deployments that would be seen as a challenge to American
exceptionalism. Once US spy planes brought back evidence of
Soviet missiles on Cuban soil, it was inevitable that the Kennedy
White House would issue an ultimatum to the Kremlin: ship out
of Cuba or face an attack.
It’s worth remembering that the other side showed no intent of
initiating military action, not even after the US imposed a
blockade around the island and took other actions incompatible
with international law in peacetime. However, military conflict
that may well have spiralled into nuclear war was avoided
essentially because both Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy
were aware of the inevitable consequences, and neither of them
was willing to contemplate wiping out one-sixth of humanity.
The Doomsday Clock is ticking and 2022 isn’t 1962.
As Daniel Ellsberg recalls in his fascinating (and frightening)
2017 book The Doomsday Machine, as a young adviser/consultant
he was privy to certain top secret information, including
Pentagon calculations in 1961 about the potential loss of life from
a US nuclear attack on the USSR. Including ‘collateral damage’
from fallout in neighbouring European and Asian countries, it
added up to half a billion in the first six months. The global
population then was less than 3.2bn, and the figures ignored the
likelihood of retaliatory strikes and their possible toll.
Kennedy had been advised early on by his UN ambassador Adlai
Stevenson to offer Khrushchev an off-ramp by promising to
withdraw Nato missiles from Italy and Turkey, and to return
Guantanamo Bay to Cuba, in return for a Soviet military
withdrawal from the Caribbean revolutionary isle. Ruling out a
further US attempt to invade Cuba was an even more obvious
concession. Certain other civilian aides offered similar advice,
but the military was keen to demonstrate its prowess.
Fortunately for humanity, Kennedy eventually adopted part of
the Stevenson strategy, ruling out an invasion and vowing to
withdraw the Jupiter missiles from Turkey’s border with the
USSR in exchange for a Soviet nuclear pullout from Cuba.
Khrushchev agreed, even though the US wanted the Turkish part
of deal to remain secret — as it did for many years. It wasn’t
widely known for even longer precisely how close the two
superpowers came in late October 1962 to sparking a nuclear
conflict. On at least a couple of occasions, a small miscalculation
could have caused an explosion that would have resounded
across the globe.
Back-channel contacts were key to avoiding Armageddon, and by
the following year, a Moscow-Washington hotline and related
measures had been put into place. That didn’t prevent future
instances of electronic or human error that came close to
initiating an irreversible descent into mutually assured
annihilation, but catastrophe was fortuitously avoided.
The risk, as estimated by the Doomsday Clock, has fluctuated
over the decades. It kicked off in 1947 at seven minutes to
midnight, and was back at that figure in 1962 after shifting
forward in the 1950s. For the past couple of years, it has stood at
100 seconds to midnight.
Joe Biden’s warning earlier this month of imminent Armageddon
was walked back by both the White House and Pentagon, amid
reassurances that it wasn’t based on any fresh intelligence.
Would Vladimir Putin, in the face of continuing conventional
military setbacks, use even ‘small-yield’ nuclear bombs in the
battlefields he has created in Ukraine? If he were dumb and
desperate enough to do so, the consequences beyond the obvious
crimes against humanity would be unfathomable. Unlike
Khrushchev, Putin considers himself unanswerable to anything
resembling a presidium or a politburo.
One can only hope that there are back cha­n­nels in place between
the US and Russia, but Putin would do well to heed what Khru­sh­chev noted long after he had been overthrown by his colleagues
(months after Kennedy’s assassination): “What good would it
have done me in the last hour of my life to know that though our
great nation and the United States were in complete ruins, the
national honour of the Soviet Union was intact?”
mahir.dawn@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022
Me-too to Gentoo - Newspaper
dawn.com/news/1715812/me-too-to-gentoo
October 19, 2022
WOMEN are making a mark for themselves in every field. They
are trailblazers — from participating in and covering sports
previously thought to be the exclusive preserve of men to
uncovering their heads when forced to do the opposite. Under
the most restrictive regimes, young girls and women are
challenging the authoritarian tendencies of erstwhile popular
movements that turn to “devour their own children”.
Nietzsche is supposed to have said, “nobody understands, only a
poet begins to”. Our own Majaz Lakhnavi encouraged 20thcentury Indian women, perhaps women everywhere, when he
wrote:
(it would have been better had you made a standard out of your
veil).
Imagine an Arctic outpost with nothing but a colony of penguins
in sub-zero temperatures, and no running water. A post office
will be the second most unimaginable thing in this setting; four
women running it being the first. This is what is happening on
Port Lockroy on Goudier Island in Antarctica, nearly 9,000 miles
(14,484 kilometres) from the UK. Four women have been selected
from some 6,000 applicants aspiring to run the post office for the
next six months. It sends out some 80,000 postcards annually to
more than 100 countries by ship crews who call on the island.
For the first 10 weeks of their assignment, these four brave souls
will be accompanied by a fifth person to show them the ropes of
surviving in extreme climes. ‘Aha! here comes the alpha male to
lead the pack,’ you are thinking. Wrong. The fifth is also a
woman, with previous experience in running the place.
Pakistan does not lag behind in female heroes.
These brave, adventurous and talented women deserve to be
named. Clare Ballantyne, 23, has been appointed postmaster. She
has just completed a Master’s degree in earth sciences from
Oxford University. Mairi Hilton, 30, a conservation biologist with
a PhD degree, will monitor the penguin colony on the island.
Newly-wed Natalie Corbett, 31, is temporarily leaving her
husband behind for what she considers a lifetime opportunity to
observe Arctic life. She will run a gift shop at the outpost. She
runs a pet accessories business in Hampshire. Lucy Bruzzone, 40,
a scientist with previous Arctic experience will act as base
manager, coordinating all the comings and goings of ship crews
and visitors to the island. Vicky Inglis, 42, will be the group’s
temporary mentor. The penguin variety on the island is, by the
way, called Gentoo.
Afghanistan, Iran, India, Bangladesh and all other countries in
our neighbourhood have their female heroes to boast of.
Pakistan does not lag behind. We too have our Benazirs, Asma
Jehangirs and Malalas. Most heartening is the fact that our
legions of brave women are not restricted to the past or those
who have already made their mark; the supply chain of
intelligent, persistent, and daring women seems inexhaustible in
Pakistan.
From politics to sports, and from law enforcement to the
sciences, young women are doing Pakistan proud. From polio
vaccination campaigns to dengue inspection teams, women are
leading from the front, undaunted by the harsh terrain or
climate change-driven disasters. They face resistance at times
beginning at home and from the community to the militants who
think nothing of murdering vaccinators trying to save our future
generations from preventable diseases and lifelong disabilities.
While women are raring to go, so are the reactionary forces.
Something as simple as a sports festival becomes controversial.
Threats and warnings were hurled at the org­anisers of the rece­ntly concluded Gilgit-Baltis­tan Women’s Spo­rts Gala. As is its
wont, the adm­inistration caved in and renamed the event GB
Women’s Fair. Have no doubts, the killjoys had nothing against
the ‘gala’ part of the nomenclature as they are pretty enamoured
of everything ‘gala’, and the infatuation is mutual, dare one add.
The words ‘women’ and ‘sports’ uttered in the same breath make
them breathe fire.
One big problem with appeasing regressive elements is that it is
never enough. Fast on the heels of the gala fiasco, wanted
militants brazenly blocked the road between KP and GB close to
Babusar Pass, holding tourists and commuters hostage including
a local minister. According to media reports, the miscreants’
demands included visiting rights to their imprisoned accomplices
and their release. This is reportedly the same outfit whose
members are suspects in the infamous killing of a foreign
mountaineering expedition to Nanga Parbat in 2013. What is
more outrageous? Blocking roads with impunity by associates of
suspects in the terrorist attack or the fact that almost 10 years
later only a handful of convictions could be handed down? Only
a few convicts are behind bars, two escaped from jail; the rest of
the suspects remain at large. Islamabad too braces for another
siege.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire
essays titled Rindana.
shahzadsharjeel1@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022
Democracy and dystopia
dawn.com/news/1715813/democracy-and-dystopia
October 19, 2022
IN Ireland, ordinary people are hoarding firewood, afraid that
they will not be able to heat their homes in the upcoming winter
owing to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. In Iran, protests against the
regime have continued into their fifth week. Last weekend, Evin
prison holding political prisoners (which means anyone opposed
to the regime) burned, with reportedly some female prisoners on
the roof of the prison screaming ‘down with the regime!’ Next
door in India, Hindu extremism has become so entrenched, such
a delicious intoxicant that now the ruling party is calling for an
economic boycott of Muslims. In the meantime, OPEC decided to
reduce oil output despite knowing the dire condition of fuel
inflation all over the world.
It is undoubtedly a dystopic universe. In Pakistan, we have our
own tableau of discordant ‘realities’. Some areas are still under
water with displaced women and children dying for want of
assistance. The videos of their hapless condition play in a loop on
various television channels, even as ordinary people become
desensitised to them. ‘What more can we do?’ they wonder,
embroiled as they are in their own particular stories of want and
desperation. The price of staples has risen exponentially, bloated
from unchecked inflation which the government has not been
able to control. The much-promised growth phase, as in previous
years, is nowhere in sight. The flood relief website asks citizens
to donate money, but the numbers also say that only a very tiny
percentage of recipients have actually received the help. This is
denied by various ministers but there are really no official
numbers released that back that claim. If pictures are any
evidence, it appears that help has not got where it should.
If this mess weren’t enough to baffle and befuddle, elections
were held in 11 constituencies in the country last weekend. The
surreal nature of these is that voters had the option of voting for
a leader who will not be joining parliament. As the results show,
the vast majority did just that. So enfeebled and disenchanted are
the Pakistani voters that even non-representation, a nullifying
variable in the democratic equation, seems attractive to them.
Nobody in power belonging to any party cares about the
ordinary Pakistani’s general disillusionment with democracy,
submerged as they are in the details of this or that electoral loss
or victory. When the new government came to power a few
months ago, politicians continued to rule in their own ethnic
constituencies. This model has worked in the past; Pakistanis
have voted along ethnic lines with great regularity and continue
to do so now. At the same time, demographics have changed this
milieu in that patterns of urbanisation have delivered a mixing
of various ethnicities that was not present before.
So enfeebled and disenchanted are the Pakistani voters that even nonrepresentation seems attractive to them.
Urbanisation and the improvements in economic conditions that
result from it have produced their own kind of Pakistani voter.
Those who have moved from villages where their elders are still
under the thumb of this or that feudal leader or corporate farm
owner or industrial farmer, may be less interested in voting
unthinkingly for whatever party their leader belongs to in that
moment. This means that the party leaders who have relied on
these once-guaranteed seats as bastions of support cannot count
on them with the same certainty that was once the case. There is
also an argument that funds at the provincial level are being
spent unevenly on rural areas where feudal and ethnic ties still
provide guarantees and less so on cities. For instance, the current
government is trying to expand the agricultural sector even
though no tax revenue is extracted from these areas because
agriculture (for the sake of guaranteed constituencies) has never
been taxed. In the meantime, the urban voter who sees trash
piling up, no clean water and constant blackouts is not happy.
There was a time when this was true only of Karachi; now it is
the truth in every city of the country.
Then there is the complex and pressing issue of being a country
in a crisis and in want at a time when so many countries, not
least the US and those of Europe, are enmeshed in their own
challenges. The attention Pakistan or Iran or Afghanistan could
draw is diminished by a global context that is itself dystopian.
If the midterm elections in the US upset, as expected they will,
the Democratic majority, their place will be taken by isolationist
Republicans who are not interested in helping Ukraine or anyone
for that matter. Similarly, if the fuel crisis in Europe continues to
intensify and Europeans have to go without adequate heating,
the political cataclysms from that spectre will be divisive and
likely far more authoritarian, calling into question the cohesion
of the EU itself.
There will be no external saviours for Pakistan this time. All the
allusions and accusations of this or that party being allied with
the United States are in this sense blather. The ‘war on terror’, in
which the West bizarrely pilfered billions even trillions of dollars
to fight a largely overestimated enemy, is over and Pakistan
cannot extort rents on its basis anymore — no matter how
dangerous President Biden may think Pakistan is.
The question that remains then is whether Pakistanis, after all
our varied experiments with democracy, will continue to value
the latter as a basis of governance. The indications are bleak.
Brazil, India, Hungary and even Italy seem to be drifting into
fascism or at least towards fascism- and authoritarianismfriendly governments to seek protection from an unravelling
world order. They will not actually get that imagined protection,
but then, politics never has been about realities; it is about
perceptions. The game is the same in Pakistan, and the survival
of the country’s democracy, not so fledgling anymore, depends on
it.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political
philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022
Time for a new mandate?
dawn.com/news/1715814/time-for-a-new-mandate
October 19, 2022
IT is yet another emphatic electoral victory for the PTI. The latest
series of by-elections marked the rout of the ruling coalition
across the country. It could not have been more humiliating. It is
rightly being described as a personal triumph for former prime
minister Imran Khan who won six of the seven seats he
contested.
It is, indeed, an unprecedented feat that demonstrates the
shifting sands of Pakistani politics. It is the PDM government’s
hour of reckoning: how long can it stick to power with its fastslipping political space and a sliding economy? With its depleted
strength, the National Assembly has become redundant.
With the authority of the federal government virtually limited to
the capital, the situation is fast becoming untenable. The political
structure of the country is on the verge of collapse. An unwieldy
and fractious coalition administration cannot deal with the
multiple challenges confronting the country. Perhaps, it is time
for a new mandate.
Notwithstanding the defeat of the PTI candidate (the daughter of
former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi) in Multan, the
outcome of the by-elections was not surprising. The elections
were held on the seats left vacant by the resignation of the PTI
members. True, one can argue that the party has retained its own
seats. But the scale of victory and the fact that Imran Khan was
the sole PTI candidate in seven constituencies lends the outcome
much greater political significance. The voters’ verdict could not
have been more unambiguous.
What makes the situation extremely dangerous is the virtual collapse of all
state institutions.
More specifically, it signifies a spectacular erosion of the PML-N’s
electoral support base in its bastion in a very short period. Six
months in power, the party of the Sharifs seems to have lost most
of its political capital in Punjab, further weakening its capacity to
govern and to deal with a myriad of challenges. The government
seems to be in complete disarray.
It may not be a victory for the PTI narrative but certainly it is a
vote against the PDM. It has been a devastating blow to the party
that had dominated Punjab politics for the past several decades.
The power struggle within the Sharif clan and its ossified politics
have been a major reason for the party’s declining support base.
The lacklustre election campaign run by the PML-N in Punjab
denoted increasing despondency within party ranks.
No senior party leader was out in the field to campaign for the
party candidates. Curiously, Maryam Nawaz chose to go to
London on the eve of the critical by-elections while Hamza
Shehbaz, the former Punjab chief minister, has also been
conspicuous by his absence.
It seems as if the PML-N leadership was already resigned to the
outcome. The party has never fully recovered from the setback it
received in the Punjab Assembly by-elections earlier this year
that cost it the provincial government. The drubbing in the latest
series of by-elections in the province was foretold after that
debacle.
On the other hand, former prime minister Imran Khan has led an
extremely effective campaign. He declared the elections a
referendum against the present dispensation. It is apparent that
the government’s failure and the prevailing disorder have been
fully exploited by the former prime minister to galvanise his
supporters. The rising cost of living and the government’s failure
to stem the economic slide has turned the tide against the PDM.
The disappointing performance of the Shehbaz Sharif
government over the last six months has added to the public
discontent.
A huge army of ministers, advisers and special assistants has
exposed the unwieldiness of the motley alliance. The return of
Ishaq Dar as the country’s ‘economic czar’ underscores the
fallacy of the government’s claim of putting the economy back on
the track. His voodoo economics has brought the country back to
the brink of sovereign default.
Dar’s return to the pivotal position of finance minister has
accentuated the divide within the main ruling party. It is clear
that the government is now being run through remote control
from London undermining the authority of the prime minister.
That has worsened the predicament of a fledgling
administration. Given this messy situation, the PDM’s rout in the
by-elections is not a surprise. The coalition seems to have
completely lost the plot.
It was a very shrewd move by the PTI leader to stand himself on
nearly all the seats. People voted for him knowing that he was
not going to sit in the National Assembly. There is no indication
that the PTI will go back to the National Assembly after this
emphatic victory. In fact, the latest electoral triumph has
weaponised Khan’s demand for early elections. The outcome of
the latest by-elections has changed the entire political landscape.
Predictably, the PTI has stepped up pressure on the PDM
government after the by-elections and has threatened to storm
the capital. The threat seems to be much more serious this time.
The October storm is gathering strength. Can the PDM
government with its shrinking legitimacy survive the opposition
onslaught? With the odds stacked against it, it will be hard for
the government to reverse the tide. The country is in complete
chaos with the intensifying confrontation and political
polarisation.
What makes the situation extremely dangerous is the virtual
collapse of all state institutions. Imran Khan may now be
dominating the political power game but his flawed narrative
and confrontational approach remain a major obstacle in the
way of moving forward and reaching a democratic political
solution to take the country out of this existential crisis.
Surely fresh elections seem to be the most viable solution to
ending the existing political gridlock. But for a free and fair
election, it requires an agreement among the political forces on a
mechanism. In the absence of an agreed framework, the
elections will remain controversial, plunging the country deeper
into the morass.
It is imperative that all political forces start serious negotiations
on the process. Its victory in the by-elections may be a political
triumph for the PTI but the party cannot expect to bring about
change by storming the citadel.
The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
Twitter: @hidhussain
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022