October 2013

Pakistan is, undoubtedly, a developing country but with a dwindling economy. We have a large country and big population, fertile plains, rivers, abundant minerals and natural resources, but still we lag far behind in every field. There are multifaceted reasons behind the poor economy of our country. When Pakistan came into being on August 14, 1947, all the industries were …

‘Behold, the first House established for mankind is the one at Bakkah: it is full of blessings and is a centre of guidance for the whole world.’ Miqaat For the people who go to Makkah to perform Hajj or Umrah, wearing Ihram is obligatory. It is put on at specified places around Makkah, before entering the boundaries of Haram. In …

This essay was declared the best in 1st JWT Essay Competition The pithy maxim above suits the contemporary situation of Pakistan. Much ails the country today’ from roads to courts, seminaries to granaries and educational institutes to public policy forums’ there is a lot that calls for our attention and adequate riposte. Is the state itself responsible for this incredible …

Water wars is a phrase used to describe increased competition for water resources, due to drought, climate change, or increasing populations; controversies over and reduced access due to privatization of water services; or the role of these tensions in leading to physical conflicts, within or among nations. This century would be an era in which rivers, lakes and aquifers will …

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian security organisation, which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Except for Uzbekistan, the other countries had been members of the Shanghai Five, founded in 1996; but after its inclusion in 2001, the members renamed the organisation. During the SCO’s June 2002 …

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometres) from our sun. Voyager 1 has been travelling for about one year through plasma, or ionized gas, present in the space between stars. Voyager is in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble, …

Until the recent past, wars were fought to pursue oil interests. But, now the era of wars for protection of energy interests is over. The world is fast moving towards a new kind of wars and that is wars over water. The way water security has emerged as a key theme in overall national security frameworks underscores the importance of …

The All Parties Conference (APC) convened by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on September 9, 2013 to discuss the national security crisis, called upon the Federal Government to initiate the dialogue with all stakeholders to bring peace in Pakistan. The APC authorized the Federal Government to take all necessary steps, including development of an appropriate mechanism and identification of interlocutors. The …

The skirmishes between Pakistan and India in the wake of alleged killing of five Indian soldiers near the Line of Control (LoC) have brought the spotlight back on the bilateral trade relations. As the tensions grew, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told television networks that the ‘government isn’t currently considering granting most favoured nation (MFN) trading status to India’. This was …

Back-channel diplomacy is one of the oldest forms of diplomatic interactions and its antecedents can be traced back to the time immemorial. At the outset, it signifies negotiations between states that takes place in secrecy, is removed from public examination and sometimes can even occur in the presence of front-channel negotiations. Back-channel diplomacy, in essence, is a sort of official …