June 2014

Myth 1: The allocation for defence is the single largest component in our budget. Not true.  The single largest allocation in Budget 2013-14 went to the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). The second largest allocation in Budget 2013-14 went to servicing the national debt. The third largest government expenditure, including off the budget allocations, are the losses at public-sector enterprises …

The Government of Pakistan is on a borrowing spree these days and the country seems to be a favourite borrower among the multilateral financial institutions too. The most recent package came from the World Bank Group which approved an assistance programme of one billion dollars on 2nd May, 2014 to support Pakistan’s economic reforms. The package consists of two Development …

General Raheel Sharif has, no doubt, endeared himself to countless people in Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Diaspora and at the international level who subscribe to the jurisprudence of UN mechanism (UN Resolutions) on Kashmir.  The character of political and military leadership in Pakistan sets trends in the manner of interest of the Islamic Republic and common man and woman in the …

The relationship between politics and economy still remains a favourite subject of economists. Pakistan’s history reveals a strong correlation between the two. Although with the changing pattern of politics and governments, the relationship never remained on the same pace. It’s a known fact that political instability deeply causes the uneven economic growth. The causes and impact of the interplay of …

Pakistan continues to be afflicted by the worst power outages which have crippled the national economy. According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan, energy crisis is causing a 2-3% loss to GDP. Here darkness, literally, holds sway over the land. But, the crisis did not spark off all at once; the situation was in the making for a long time, …

Pakistan has earned quite a few unenviable distinctions. It now ranks high among the most corrupt countries, is a place where human rights are least protected and the media finds its freedom slipping from its hands. That it is also one of the three ‘the other two being Cameroon and war-torn Syria’ who ‘export’ poliovirus to other countries through their …

Winston Churchill once said, ‘If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law’. The saying is apt for Pakistan, which suffers from excessive legislation. Most of the legislation is arcane in nature as it has been inherited as a colonial legacy. The successive Constitutions of Pakistan have had provisions that protected and ensured continuity of legal …

The BJP-led coalition, as expected, got a landslide victory mainly because of the anti-incumbency vote but the size of the victory that Narendra Modi has scored is startling, 282 seats for the BJP and 336 for the NDA ‘ the BJP-led coalition. For the first time since 1984, a single political party has secured a majority enabling it to govern without …

The UN brings together 193 countries in allegedly shared aims: ‘to maintain international security, to develop friendly relations between nations, to co-operate in solving problems and promote human rights’. In June 1945 representatives of 50 countries met to draw up a United Nations charter. The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, with 51 member states. The major …

Former UK Prime Minister and current Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony Blair, recently took time out of his busy schedule as a consultant and advisor to oil corporations, financial institutions, and various governments to give a speech in London. The setting for this speech was the European headquarters of Bloomberg ‘the US business and financial news information conglomerate’ and the …