Daily Articles

It is wondrous to think what Pakistan represented to the six and a half million people who migrated from India to what was then a newly-formed West Pakistan. As they left all their belongings, homes, families and legacies, and started off on a journey of thousands of miles on overladen oxcarts, trains filled with corpses, and on foot, they buried …

Pakistanis are quite sensitive to the plight of Muslims around the world. There is genuine outpouring of public sentiments against the mistreatment of Muslims in India, the genocidal level of violence being perpetrated against the Rohingya, and the longstanding plight of Palestinians in the Middle East. We also take strong exception to the rise of Islamophobia in the West and …

Michael Berdine’s succinct analysis of his subject Sykes’s political involvement in the Middle East is also a reflection that can be extended to the present-day turmoil in the region. “As a man of his time and class,” he writes, “Sir Mark Sykes was an imperialist driven more by ego and political considerations than humanitarian reasons.” His new book, Redrawing the …

Vagaries of Consciousness It’s not that bad The social media is abuzz with outlandish predictions of economic melt-down. A post attributed to former World Bank/IMF officials is particularly vicious, which reads like an apocalyptic scene: “the external deficit is so big that exchange rate would go down to Rs200 even with an IMF program; the country would face a situation …

As well as hitting Chinese exporters, the escalating US-China dispute will have an impact on many Asia-Pacific economies Aseries of decisions by the United States to impose trade tariffs on various key trade partners, including China, the European Union, India, Russia and the key NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) partners of Canada and Mexico, have catapulted the world toward …

The 10th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg has demonstrated that the group of five emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is placing even more emphasis on its partnership with Africa. Five years ago when the 5th BRICS Summit was held in Durban, South Africa, the theme was “BRICS and Africa”. Now it is “BRICS in Africa”, …

IN the run-up to elections both the PTI and PML-N claimed that they had achieved a lot in education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab respectively. And, to an extent, they were both right. There have been major reforms that have been carried out in the education systems in these provinces. But a few things should be clear. First, though a …

Are we moving towards a thirsty tomorrow? Independent studies and expert opinion have revealed that a country with an abundance of water resources is now on the verge of being severely affected by a water scarcity. South Asia has 1,500 million acre-feet (MAF) of the world’s share of fresh water supply. As the largest countries of South Asia, Pakistan and …

BANGKOK: Moun­tainous and landlocked Laos, known as the “Battery of Asia”, is building dozens of dams at breakneck speed so it can sell energy to power-hungry neighbours as a fast track out of poverty. But the communist country’s ambitious power plans are highly controversial. Most energy is exported to neighbouring countries Vietnam, Cambodia and China, with the lion’s share going …

NOTWITHSTANDING the controversies surrounding the run-up to the elections, the country is set to achieve a second consecutive democratic transition. They may be dirty but the votes still count. The people will give their verdict today in what is believed to be one of the most critical elections to determine the future course of politics in this country. The outcome …