“Board of Peace – has a nice ring to it.”

“We also have some boards – there is Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), then there is…”

“How much is the shortfall this time around?”

“Did I or did I not tell you in no uncertain terms that hopelessness is un-Islamic.”

“All I did was ask for the extent of the shortfall for the first six months – FBR has announced its Rs 336 billion and for your information the fault lies not with the Board but with the target, unrealistic target set yet again…”

“Good idea, let’s blame others. Speaking of blaming others, the German Chancellor Merz has debunked the long held favourable perception around the world that Germans are hard-working people.”

“Isn’t that a rather politically stupid statement to make!”

“Yep it is, he said Germans don’t work hard enough and take too many sick days which is hampering German growth rate.”

“And it has nothing to do with blowing up the Nordstream pipeline, voluntarily moving away from the cheapest energy source, Russian gas, to expensive US LNG; it isn’t about failure to compete with China and injecting huge amounts of German taxpayers’ money for Project Ukraine that anyone can see has failed and…”

“I guess his popularity is so low, about 10 percent when I last googled it, that he reckons it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s a record – none of our prime ministers have come close to this rating.”

“As per doctored surveys or undoctored?”

“Stupid question my friend, when you undertake a survey of the prime minister’s popularity then it stands to reason that he is in power and power begets favourable surveys in this country.”

“We also have a Board of Investment?”

“Minus 43 percent foreign direct investment as per the latest figures released by the Finance Division.”

“That reminds me the Prime Minister is going to award cash, at the taxpayers’ expense, to the power sector for borrowing at a cheaper rate and retiring debts incurred at a higher rate though the consumers get to pay the interest due – a usual policy, I mean nothing has changed and…”

“Don’t be a wise guy.”

“How about creating a Board of Awards?”

“Who would be members of that Board?”

“The Deputy Prime Minister…”

“Good Lord, anyway given our experience with boards, and I am including selection of the board of directors of state owned entities, I would urge President Trump to change the name from Board of Peace to Dedicated to Peace (DOP).”

“Just wondering if that qualifies as an unhappy opinion!”

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