Daily Articles

The long-awaited new United States policy on Afghanistan, announced by President Donald Trump on August 21, 2017, represents a narrowly focused ambitious agenda for peace and stability in Afghanistan. India and Pakistan have been asked to play two different but supportive roles for American policy — India contributing liberally to Afghanistan’s economic reconstruction and rehabilitation and Pakistan pursuing a counterterrorism …

The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court on Panama leaks that disqualified Nawaz Sharif as the prime minister has greatly stirred the country’s political environment and has set in motion various political forces with their standpoints. The post-disqualification politics of Sharif seems to centre on the rejection of the court’s verdict as the decision has violated the “sanctity of vote” …

Few of us expect much from political leaders: to do otherwise is to invite despair. But to Aung San Suu Kyi we entrusted our hopes. To mention her name was to invoke patience and resilience in the face of suffering, courage and determination in the unyielding struggle for freedom. She was an inspiration to us all. Friends of mine devoted …

LAHORE: In the immediate wake of 1998 nuclear tests, United States (US), European Union (EU), and Japan straitjacketed Pakistan’s economy by choking all kinds of monetary and non-monetary assistance. To make things worse, even International Monetary Fund (IMF) cancelled a $600 million loan agreement with Pakistan under the influence of the international powers. Pakistan braved that storm of sanctions back …

ISLAMABAD: The Senate was told on Thursday that Pakistan suffered the loss of Rs11,275 billion in the war on terror. PML-N Senator Javed Abbasi said the US must stop crying for $17 billion which had been given to Pakistan, but it had no idea that the so-called war against terrorism cost Pakistan over $107 billion (Rs11,275 billion) losses. Prime Minister …

LAHORE: Pakistan’s ruling regime should take a leaf out the policy the Chinese have successfully been employing to metamorphose their loss-amassing public sector enterprises into profit-piling global corporations. If this can’t be done then all the dying state-owned entities of the country should immediately be privatised. It has been observed that assigning the toughest tasks to the strongest and the …

LAHORE’S population is estimated to be about 12 million people. If a third of these are children who go to school, 4m children need to move from their homes to school in the morning and then back again around midday. If about half the population works, around 6m people need to move from their homes to their places of work …

As the new prime minister in Pakistan extends the federal government’s efforts to areas that did not fully involve the previous administration, it would be appropriate to bring Afghanistan into focus. Afghanistan’s present and its future cannot — in fact, should not — be considered in isolation. The country has already deeply affected its many neighbours, Pakistan and Iran in …

There is an impression that if the stock market is booming (with price earnings ratio and dividend yields of our market comparing quite favourably with those of other emerging markets) the economy must also be doing well, and vice versa. In other words, the stock exchange index is a good barometer of the state of the economy. The argument proceeds …

China’s strategic ambition to extend its maritime power across the Indian Ocean is hitting severe obstacles in the giant, volatile Pakistani province of Balochistan. Beijing’s priority is to develop the sleepy Baloch fishing port of Gwadar, 300 miles west of Karachi, to project its commercial and naval influence further west. But kidnappings, drive-by shootings and bomb attacks in the past …