Nadeem F. Paracha

Articles by Nadeem F. Paracha

SMOKERS’ CORNER: MONSTERS AND THEIR BLOWBACK

NewsFebruary 8, 2026

Pakistan serves as a pre-eminent case study of a state creating a ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ by funding and facilitating proxies to destabilise a neighbour. Throughout the 1980s, acting at the behest of...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: MIRACLES AND MATERIALITY

NewsFebruary 1, 2026

A recent video showing a Quran that survived the devastating fire at Karachi’s Gul Plaza has reignited a centuries-old conversation. Throughout history, accounts of Bibles, Qurans or Buddhist sutras e...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: BEYOND THE CONFINES OF IDEOLOGY

NewsJanuary 25, 2026

The concept of ‘post-ideology’ often causes profound unease, as it suggests that the era of sweeping political narratives and dogmas is giving way to a more pragmatic, technocratic approach to governa...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: DOCTRINE DIORAMAS

NewsJanuary 18, 2026

In the theatre of global politics, a ‘doctrine’ is more than just a policy paper. It is a nation’s strategic DNA. From the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which fenced off the western hemisphere from European m...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: RELEASING THE PRESSURE

HealthJanuary 11, 2026

Illustration by Abro The sentiment that ‘revolution was just around the corner’ serves as a poignant distillation of the 1960s ‘counterculture’ zeitgeist. It was a unique hi...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE MOB AND THE STATE

BusinessJanuary 4, 2026

On December 18, 2025, a 25-year-old Hindu garment worker was lynched by a mob of approximately 150 people in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district. Following accusations of blasphemy, the victim was beaten...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: PAKISTAN'S PERMANENT GREY ZONE?

NewsDecember 28, 2025

While the concept of the ‘hybrid regime’ traces its origins back to 1970, it was formally solidified in modern political science during the 1990s as a scholarly response to the ‘Third Wave of Democrat...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: OUT OF CONTEXT ORWELL

HealthDecember 21, 2025

Illustration by Abro George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, explores a fictional totalitarian regime that maintains absolute power by dismant...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: UNPRECEDENTED TIMES

TechnologyDecember 14, 2025

The belief that history is a critical guide for predicting the future is facing a severe test. The enduring idea is best encapsulated by former British prime minister Winston Churchill’s 1944 observat...

SMOKERS’ CORNER: SUPERSTITIONS AND STATECRAFT

NewsDecember 7, 2025

On November 14 of this year, The Economist’s sister publication, 1843, ran a feature on the controversial spiritual influence of Bushra Bibi — the current wife of former Pakistani prime minister Imran...