Earlier this year The Samosa published The Bad Sufi, a controversial article looking at how modern Sufism in Pakistan has become a tool of the corrupt ruling elite and their US backers to maintain their power and privilege. Now Qalandar Bux Memon and Ali Mohsin look at the positive role that Sufis once played as campaigners for social change and against corrupt rulers - and how Sufism might reprise this role today.

By Farooq Nomani

Yesterday I was preparing to write about the shame of our feeble capitulation in both innings of the fourth test.

In an interview with Arshad Sharif of Reporter on DawnNews, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi spoke on numerous topics including the floods, the war in Afghanistan, trust deficit of the Pakistani government and her stance on the veil for Muslim women. Following is an English transcript of an Urdu interview with Baroness Warsi on “Reporter” in August 2010.

By Kalsoom Lakhani

If you follow the international news (or at least read this blog somewhat regularly), then you are well aware of the increasingly dire situation in Pakistan. Over 20 million Pakistanis have been affected by weeks of flooding, as the rains continue to displace families from their homes, fan dangers of cholera outbreaks, and destroy livelihoods. Pakistan’s senior meteorologist Arif Mahmood told reporters that floodwaters “won’t fully recede until the end of the month, and existing river torrents were still heading to major cities such as Hyderabad and Sukkur in the south.”

By Sana Saleem

“It would have been better if we had died in the floods as our current miserable life is much more painful,” said Ahmed who fled with his family from the town of Shikarpur and spent the night shivering in the rain that has continued to lash the country.”

The British prime minister’s charge that Pakistan plays a prominent role in exporting terrorism is grounded in an assessment of the Afghanistan war's core strategic realities, says Shaun Gregory of the Pakistan Security Research Unit.