CSS Special

The spectre of populism has gripped the world nowadays. We are living in a dangerous time of transition where industrial capitalism is breaking down and we don’t yet have a viable alternative. Incumbent politicians are still clinging to fixing the existing system while insurgent populists are arguing for big changes. This, to a large degree, explains the scary rise of …

The fiery US Presidential candidate Donald Trump is gaining huge popularity among masses as he is capitalizing on public’s aversion to Obama’s failed policies. In his foreign policy speech, Trump severely criticized Obama’s policy by calling it incoherent and the one that reflects diffidence and weakness of US power. He asserted that Obama’s restraint has made US enemies stronger, and …

Unprecedented violation, rather abuse, of human rights started immediately after the 9/11. Since then the United States has waged a war on terror but rather than protecting the humans, this unending battle has resulted in colossal abuse of human rights at global level. The war has contributed to the violation of human rights in a number of ways. First, people …

Palestine-Israel conflict has been rightly labelled as the mother of all issues in the Middle East. It is one of the most protracted and potentially dangerous conflicts in the world. After more than seven decades, the resolution of the conflict is still a distant dream. It caused wars, shed blood, created disorder and fomented instability in the region. Indeed, impact …

The importance and significance of justice can never be underestimated in the affairs of men. In fact, there can be no peace without order so there can be no order without justice. But, in the case of Pakistan, equal access to justice is a fragile concept. We, as a nation, have been unable to understand that justice is the application …

The energy-rich Central Asia has been the centre of attention of energy-hungry South Asian states especially Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. Two projects, Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) Pipeline and Central Asia-South Asia (CASA-1000) electricity transmission project are of monumental importance in this regard. The groundbreaking ceremony of the former was performed in December 2015 while the latter was inaugurated on May 12, 2016. …

Civilization is an elitist concept deployed as an ideological tool to mask the processes of class and state formation. It’s a way of organizing reality that legitimizes hierarchies and inequalities by naturalizing them and concealing the real exploitative relations and their historical development. It’s a narrative of history which propels “civilized” powers, such as the United States, to an unfolding …

In April 2016, the world was shocked by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) when it leaked the documents of a wealth management firm Mossack Fonseca. Known to the world as Panama Papers, these documents took the world by storm as they detailed nearly 214,000 offshore entities owned by different powerful rulers of countries in various parts of the …

Jean-Paul Sartre once famously said, “L’enfer, c’est les autres” (Hell is other people), and same is true for the present-day Pakistan. Slowly but steadily, Pakistan is being isolated on global stage and is losing its old friends. In order to fulfil their nefarious designs, foreign powers are carrying out covert operations in the country but still no one pays heed …

Pakistan has been in quest for stable democratic system since its very inception. It’s almost 7 decades since it came into being, and still we find that ‘endeavours’ are being made for not only developing a ‘democratic’ political system but also for introducing the true phenomenon of democracy in every socioeconomic aspect of the country. Before listing the challenges that …