EDITORIAL (July 29, 2010): After enjoying considerable popularity over the last few years, consumer financing by banks appears to be on the wane. According to the data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on 26th July, overall consumer financing plunged by Rs 50 billion or 17 percent, to Rs 224 billion at the end of June, 2010 as compared to Rs 294 billion a year earlier.

EDITORIAL (July 29, 2010): The tragic crash of an Air-Blue Islamabad-bound flight from Karachi with 152 people on board into Islamabad's Margalla hills has left many questions unanswered, the foremost being: why was the plane allowed to land when an earlier flight was reportedly refused landing? Secondly, the pilot is said to have violated the laid-down procedural parameters for landing, and made a larger detour than normally done.

EDITORIAL (July 29, 2010): Sardar Attique Ahmad Khan is set to be elected, unopposed, as the fourth prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir by the present AJK Legislative Assembly in its fourth year, consequent to a bizarre display of Byzantine politics in a region of immense sensitivity to Pakistan.

EDITORIAL (July 28, 2010): People nowadays have a serious lack of optimism but an even more serious overdose of unrealistic optimism. What is this type of optimism? The most conclusive definition or one of the most profound definitions can be the following: It has been revealed in an exclusive Business Recorder report that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has submitted an annual collection plan based on the revenue collections as envisaged in the budget for 2010-11.

EDITORIAL (July 28, 2010): Unquestionably, the unauthorised release of some 92,000 classified Pentagon documents is pregnant with profound implications for the future of war in Afghanistan. Of course as of now the leak is being downplayed by the United States and its allies, with their officials dubbing the leaked material an outdated, half-baked story told more as battlefield updates, or one-sided intelligence plants by hostile sources.

EDITORIAL (July 27, 2010): Human beings have a history of trying to find a cure whenever there is a disease of some sort. Whether the cure really worked or not in the ultimate analysis, was, however, another matter. Believing that it was the unbecoming conduct of the financial system which caused havoc in the US economy during the recent past, authorities of that country have been working hard to harness the so-called villain of the piece.

EDITORIAL (July 27, 2010): The murder of the only son of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa Information Minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, was so shocking that many in the province did not know how to react to it. ANP chief Asfandyar Wali, as well as Railways Minister Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, invoked Pashtun tradition to say it is not the way of the Pakhtoon to attack from behind or to target children [of an enemy].

EDITORIAL (July 26, 2010): Will a raise in State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) policy rate be beneficial or harmful for economic growth? Its answer lies in our profound fiscal woes because monetary policy has consistently been held hostage by fiscal breaches and as a result, the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission has always been weak.

EDITORIAL (July 26, 2010): During his maiden visit to Pakistan as secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) Anders Fogh Rasmussen was quite upbeat, to some bewilderment of the people who still remember him as the Danish prime minister who had stoutly defended the publication of the Holy Prophet's blasphemous caricatures.

EDITORIAL (July 25, 2010): Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, while inaugurating 225-MW Orient power plant at Balloki, has unveiled a 10-year roadmap that envisages doubling the country's power generation capacity, with a minimum addition of 20,000 MW, by the year 2020. This is indeed an ambitious plan, requiring not only a high-level of implementation capacity, but also huge funding. Addition of 20,000 megawatts in 10 years to the national grid works out an average annual addition of around 2,000 megawatts.