Nov 2021

RETHINKING CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN PAKISTAN Every now and then, lot of noise is made about the poverty of imagination in dealing with criminal justice challenges in Pakistan. This cacophony is essentially emotional and sans serious thought. The shallowness of this approach has led to a public policy consideration that looks …

PAKISTAN’S DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGE In order to fully capitalize on the opportunity presented by the youth bulge, there are certain prerequisites that need to be fulfilled. The chief among them is the need for a comprehensive youth empowerment program. It is easier said than done, especially for a country that continues …

A CRIME THAT OFTEN GOES UNREPORTED HONOR KILLING  A Challenge to the law-enforcement agencies Brief Introduction Violence against women is not confined to our country only rather it is prevalent in almost all countries of the world. The worst kind of such violence is ‘honour killing’. It is termed Siyahkari …

Pakistan and the FATF Grey List It has become almost a routine now that the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) praises Pakistan for its hard work to meet the criteria to come out of its so-called grey list but, at the same time, keeps the country’s status unchanged. This …

Dealing with informality through Taxation Informality is considered a cause of low productivity and poverty in developing economies. It is empirically found that development is associated with declining informality. It is difficult to find a single unanimous definition of informality due to conceptual differences. Normally, evaders, avoiders and outsiders in …

20th SCO Summit The 20th Heads of State Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) took place in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on 16-17 September 2021. During the meeting, the participants mainly focussed their discussions on managing the situation arising from the exit of the US and its allied forces from Afghanistan and …

MODERN GEOPOLITICS A Race Through Chaos to Stability The third decade of the twenty-first century has compelled the world to face its most intractable challenge yet–offering a coherent, collective and equitable response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This has tested the faith of the most ardent internationalists, and is part of …

Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Friends and Foes Claim Echoes of Trump It his first address to the United Nations General Assembly, US President Joe Biden declared a “new era” for US diplomacy and repeatedly reassured US allies that his presidency would not echo the chaos of Trump’s four years in …

Indo-Pacific A Theatre of Sino-US Cold War? The term Indo-Pacific must not be confused with Asia-Pacific as the latter is associated with the part of Asia that lies in the Pacific Ocean and Oceania – China and ASEAN states are generally considered the major constituents of it – whereas ‘Indo-Pacific’ …

Has the Asian Century Begun? While commenting on America’s final act in Afghanistan, Chairperson of Senate of Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed said that America’s departure from Afghanistan marks the decline of America’s role as the sole superpower. The haphazard departure of the US, he said, shows …