2018

Tax measures announced to achieve tax target In its 6th budget presented on 27th of April 2018, the outgoing PML-N government assigned to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) a tax revenue target of more than four trillion rupees for the upcoming fiscal year 2018-19. To achieve this target, the government has also proposed new tax measures aimed at generating …

It’s quite enigmatic On April 27th, the outgoing PML-N government unveiled its sixth and the last budget which is characterized by relief measures in taxes, higher spending on subsides and increase in salaries for government employees. In his budget speech, the federal finance minister Miftah Ismail announced an expenditure of Rs5.246 trillion for the next fiscal year – 8 percent …

A ray of hope for a water-scarce Pakistan The 37th meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI), held at the Prime Minister Office on 24th of April, brought good news for the water-scarce country of Pakistan. It was the unanimous approval of the country’s first-ever National Water Policy (NWP) that was signed by the prime minister and the four …

Preparing for the diplomatic détente with Washington On Tuesday, March 27, a mysterious armoured train made a round trip from North Korea to Beijing without revealing its key secret: Was Kim Jong-un on board? Speculations were rife after some media reports said that the train transported a number of high-level North Korean officials, including North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, to …

Whither US-Pakistan Relations? If I were running the policy right now, I would say that there should be some high level of engagement between the two countries. The dialogue should be private and discreet. A distinguished career diplomat, Ambassador Richard Olson, retired from the US Foreign Service in November 2016 with the rank of Career Minister. He is currently an …

Reaching a deal on the Korean Peninsula Soon after the 2018 Winter Olympics, South Korea is once again in the international spotlight. On 27 April, it hosted a long-anticipated inter-Korean summit on its territory for the first time in history. The highly choreographed meeting was held between the two lead actors almost exactly as scripted. Nonetheless, many impromptu moments of …

The fading hopes for peace in the Middle East  Israel frequently claims its ‘right’ to exist. In fact, states do not exist by right and neither do they have a right to exist. They continue to exist because they have a strong army, capable of taking land and imposing their rule on the native population. They exist because they have …

Days before the May 12 deadline, President Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the multilateral Iran Nuclear Deal, also referred to as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with an objective to find a different method of dealing with the so-called Iranian threat to the Middle East. The Trump administration has announced that “the highest level of economic …

Emergence of a new norm that justifies the use of force When Donald Trump ordered air strikes against Syria in April 2017, it was the first – and to date only – action of his administration that attracted widespread support, garnering positive responses even from critics. But, this praise and support for Trump was all the more surprising especially because …

The End of JCPOA Basically, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), widely known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, was signed and ratified between the P5+1 and Iran in 2015. The main purpose of the deal was to limit the size of stockpile of enriched uranium which is used to make nuclear weapons. Interestingly, the deal was named a peaceful agreement …