Pak Affairs

By: Ammar Awais The Challenge Ahead In spite of the recent challenges faced by Pakistan’s economy, there is a sense of economic optimism in the country, driven by the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). However, certain measures need to be taken to reap maximum benefits out of CPEC projects, one of which is to ensure robust, export-led investment in …

Finding the correlation Tax evasion is among the biggest problems Pakistan is faced with today. The fiscal deficit of the country has increased from 4.6 percent of GDP in 2015-16 to 6.8 percent in 2017-18. Increase in the fiscal deficit is due, mainly, to excessive expenditures and extremely low tax-to-GDP ratio, which remained within a narrow band of 9.8 percent …

Opportunities and Risks Envisaged in mid-2013 and launched in April 2015, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a set of projects under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, marks a new era of economic ties in a bilateral relationship historically defined by security cooperation. Pakistan’s economy clearly needs reform to better serve its people, and many officials say CPEC will help in …

By: Raashid Wali Janjua  What Pakistan needs do to cope with the menace? Recently, while speaking at the annual internship programme held at the ISPR Directorate, the Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa highlighted the issue of hybrid warfare and said that the nature and the character of war have changed now and in today’s age of hybrid …

By: Mahboob A. Khawaja Are the New National Elections a Prelude to Change? The people of Pakistan have spoken out loud and, quite logically, Imran Khan is the person they have elected to lead a futuristic system of political governance. To discard the incurable resentment against the former indicted criminals-turned-politicians, he people of Pakistan have rejected them through the ballot. …

By: Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed The ideas of nation and nationalism upheld by the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League were two different conceptions of nation and nationalism. Before explaining those, let us put their thesis in perspective. A nation, in a minimum sense, is a group of people who share some cultural affinity and claim a special relationship with …

In its origin, rationale, nature, course and leadership, the Pakistan Movement was truly democratic. During the last phase of the freedom struggle (1937-47), the leadership at the top and at the lower cadre was democratic and Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who overwhelmingly influenced the course of Indian Muslim politics, was a democrat to the core. He believed in democratic ideals, …

Hold the speed, else it’s disastrous! Although there has been a remarkable progress in the realm of higher education in Pakistan with an increasing number of students enrolling for MPhil and PhD degrees, overall research culture in the country presents a dismal picture of the state of affairs. Research culture in our country is still far from being inspiring as …

By: Qurrat-Ul-Ain Rehman Time to make it delivery-oriented The strength of a state is linked to the success of its legislative, judicial and executive authorities. The function of the judiciary is to disseminate justice and ensure equality of all before law by implementing laws and rules and regulations in their true spirit. Since the inception of Pakistan, the country’s Political …

By: Asad Hussain Grey must not convert into black! Pakistan has been included in its grey list by the Financial Action Task Force for not stopping the ‘financing of terrorism’. Despite hectic diplomatic efforts to avoid the preordained fate, the decision was taken on June 28 at the plenary session of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris, France, …