Pak Affairs

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 …

The recent visit to Pakistan by US Foreign Secretary John Kerry’s saw the resumption of Pak-US strategic dialogue that was stalled after the Salala Check Post incident, in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were martyred after the bombing by the US fighter jets. Besides, the Raymond Davis issue also ignited public anger in Pakistan and led to heightened diplomatic tensions. The …

The recent visit by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Pakistan, after initially raising hopes of a thaw in Kabul-Islamabad bilateral relations, cut no ice in finding a solution to the Afghan problem. The statement by Afghan President Office at the conclusion of President Karzai reads: ‘The Pakistani side is expected to take specific and practical steps in accordance with the …

Renowned scholar Stanley Wolpert paying very high tributes to Quaid-i-Azam said: ‘Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state.  Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three. Hailed as ‘Great Leader’ (Quaid-i-Azam) of Pakistan and its first governor-general, Jinnah virtually conjured that country into statehood …

Water scarcity and energy security are the two major challenges being faced by Pakistan nowadays. There is a symbiotic relationship between water and energy as they are interdependent because the water sector uses a lot of energy while the energy sector makes the lifeline of water sector. Therefore, a ‘water policy’ does not mean only to ensure the access of …

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in his maiden address to the nation on August 19, declared that he had always given high priority to good relations with India for the sake of durable peace in the region and the nation has endorsed this standpoint during the recent elections. The Premier went on to say that ‘it is the responsibly for the …

The year 2013 marked the transition for Pakistan in all dimensions; may it be the new leadership in Islamabad or the country’s relations with India and the US. Pakistan’s focus and concentration has always been towards its foreign relations, and the chronology of the events evidently manifests that nothing is more imperative to any Pakistani government than its agenda for …

The instant article is primarily exploratory in nature and aims at examining some of the core issues related to Police laws in Pakistan. INTRODUCTION The landscape of policing in Pakistan is not very healthy; two eminent personalities bear witness to this and warrant mention here verbatim. Mr Ahmer Bilal Soofi who served as Federal Minister for Law in the interim …

Constitution of Pakistan binds all the provincial governments to have a local government system and hold their elections for a period as laid down by the constitution. But here the question arises whether any mode of local government system has answer to the problems of governance in Pakistan or not. There is a basic flaw in understanding what was missing …