Miscellaneous

More than 3.6 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been registered worldwide and normalcy has been replaced with complete or partial lock-down. Even though the world continues to slowly circle back to a ‘new normal’ in the wake of an economic disaster following this pandemic, the world post corona continues to reflect a changed outlook of life. The uncertainties will persist unless a scientifically proven cure for this virus is provided to the masses. So far, most countries have implemented a ‘track and trace’ approach while organizations have been pushed by social distancing measures to keep introducing innovative working methodologies. It is believed that every organization will have to change its overall strategy to decrease human interaction in order to stop the transmission of COVID-19. Pakistan’s judiciary will also have to to take up the gauntlet and fight the battle in a post COVID world. However, Pakistan’s legal sector seems to be ill-equipped, unprepared and unresponsive to embrace the challenges posed by COVID-19. In this age of globalization, it has become apparent that the organizations which had already been at par with digitalizing their work are now able to continue to operate as their employees work from home and contribute towards retaining normalcy. Undoubtedly, layoffs are expected, as organizations reshape themselves in response to this unprecedented threat. As the legal sector in Pakistan returns to a new normal, it may be jolted by another spike in coronavirus cases which may be directly proportional to an increase in litigation. At…

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.”  At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.”  The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate.  There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be…

Behold her, single in the field,Yon solitary Highland Lass!Reaping and singing by herself;Stop here, or gently pass!Alone she cuts and binds the grain,And sings a melancholy strain;O listen! for the Vale profoundIs overflowing with the sound. No Nightingale did ever chauntMore welcome notes to weary bandsOf travellers in some shady haunt,Among Arabian sands:A voice so thrilling ne'er was heardIn spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,Breaking the silence of the seasAmong the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings?—Perhaps the plaintive numbers flowFor old, unhappy, far-off things,And battles long ago:Or is it some more humble lay,Familiar matter of to-day?Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,That has been, and may be again? Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sangAs if her song could have no ending;I saw her singing at her work,And o'er the sickle bending;—I listened, motionless and still;And, as I mounted up the hill,The music in my heart I bore,Long after it was heard no more. — William Wordsworth

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyesTo pace the ground, if path be there or none,While a fair region round the traveller liesWhich he forbears again to look upon;Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,The work of Fancy, or some happy toneOf meditation, slipping in betweenThe beauty coming and the beauty gone.If Thought and Love desert us, from that dayLet us break off all commerce with the Muse:With Thought and Love companions of our way,Whate'er the senses take or may refuse,The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dewsOf inspiration on the humblest lay. — William Wordsworth