Both Messrs Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri claim to march independently, but most of Pakistan believes they are marching to the Army's tune
The India card is now almost obsolete. There are more pressing challenges. People of Pakistan are fed up with years of bad governance, corruption and broken promises of successive governments. However, the politicians and former generals are still provoking sentiments on what is happening on the Line of Control for petty political gains, says Shahzad Raza.
On Thursday, November 6, the Washington Post newspaper reported that controversial American diplomat, Ambassador Robin Raphel, had her office and home searched by the FBI. This most unusual development likely raised much cheer at India's ministry of external affairs, in whose flesh Raphel had been a thorn through much of her tenure in the first Bill Clinton administration in the early and mid-1990s by her anti-India and pro-Pakistan stand. Seventeen years ago, as she was about to step down as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, Raphel granted an exclusive interview to Aziz Haniffa and India Abroad, the leading Indian-American weekly newspaper, which is now owned by Rediff.com The July 1997 interview, which provoked a raging controversy in both capitals, Washington, DC and New Delhi, is reproduced here...
'Mufti is much more mellowed, much more accommodating. He knows he is stuck and he knows that he cannot retreat now.'
Protesting against enforced disappearances in Balochistan, Abdul Qadeer Baloch, 72, has led a small group that has covered more than 2,000 kilometres on foot, breaking the 84-year-old record set by Mahatma Gandhi during his Dandi march. Hamid Mir reports from Islamabad.
After weighing all the costs and benefits, the next administration is likely to reduce and restructure assistance to Pakistan but not to end it altogether, says Daniel S Markey.
