Daily Articles

By: Amir Hussain I fear that I may not be doing justice to describing the sentiments of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral regarding CPEC. The intensity of these feelings emanate from a sense of being excluded and deprived from CPEC’s development potential – both in a political and economic sense. There is a new wave of a nationalistic upsurge, …

By: Talat Masood The latest visit of Prime Minister Narenda Modi to the US has been lauded as a great success by both the Indian and Western press. A lot of preparatory work had gone into the trip and, considering the type of relationship shared by the two countries and the congruence of their interests, this was expected. As regards …

By: Atta-ur-Rahman Pakistan has been struggling to establish a suitable system of democracy since 1947. The advantage of a presidential system is that the president can choose the federal ministers from the best brains in various fields in the country. These include people of international eminence who would otherwise not want to contest elections. However, under the parliamentary system, a …

There is little cogent or visionary opposition to the decimation of India’s secular and tolerant tradition By: Amartya Sen “Faith,” it has been said, “will move mountains.” It is an encouraging belief — when we need to move mountains. But in our day-to-day life, relying on unquestioned faith rather than on reasoning can be a big obstacle to leading an …

By: Zamir Akram Indian Prime Minister Modi’s recent US visit indicates the direction of Trump’s policy towards not only India, but South Asia as a whole. The ongoing review of the administration’s Afghan policy will also complement this strategy. This will have far-reaching implications for Pakistan. It is not surprising that Trump reaffirmed the partnership with India which has steadily …

By: Mazhar Abbas Politics and politicians have always been treated as ‘negative elements’ within the powerful elite, who’ve often been blamed for providing an excuse for imposition of martial laws. The politicians are termed corrupt, and have been blamed for lacking capacity and capability to run the system. These have been some of the excuses which have been given to …

By: Mohammed Ayoob The Cold War in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and Iran is coming to a head. So far carried out with the help of proxies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, it’s in danger of turning into a military confrontation between the two regional powers. A number of factors indicate that the Great Game is entering …

By: Samar Quddus Water is a basic necessity of life. Since access to water has been recognised as a human right, the obligation to provide clean and safe drinking water across the globe has fallen on various government agencies. However, over one billion people across the globe do not have access to basic water supplies. Nearly half of the developing …

By: Shahid Kardar TWO inextricably linked policy distortions, and poor governance, have impacted the economy’s competitiveness. They have created and reinforced potentially grim challenges in the not-too-distant-future for the financing of our external bills. These relate to: An increasingly slanted tax structure conjoined with the unpredictable interpretation of the laws that incentivise the movement of investable funds to either unproductive …

By: Fahad Ikram Qazi Reforming the civil service is prerequisite for good governance Though reforms of all sorts have become a refrain in political manifestoes of all the political parties, the fundamental civil service reforms are yet to be undertaken. The federal government initiated a process with much fanfare, yet the same has been halted with some superficial changes in …