Study Kit

IN a couple of recent public comments, Prime Minister Imran Khan referred to drawing lessons from China. Can we learn from China, given the uniqueness of its historical experience, cultural and civilisational outlook, political discipline and command economy of a one-party system and national cohesion? Are there areas where China’s example offers relevance? China’s experience of the last century has ... Read More »

The PTI’s biggest achievement was the improvement made in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police under the KP Police Act, 2017. Imran Khan has attributed this success to former PPO Nasir Khan Durrani, who had his full backing. According to news reports, Durrani introduced ruthless in-house accountability by dismissing almost 800 policemen and awarding punishments to over 6,000 staffers. He established police ... Read More »

From relief to resilience Our region faces mild to mid range jolts of earthquake frequently and the recent shaking of Lahore with epicenter near Nankana Sahib indicate possibility of future seismic activity in Punjab.  Earthquake of 8th October 2005 that left 75,000 dead and 3.5 million homeless reminds us of how unprepared we were as government and as masses.  The ... Read More »

As things stand, Pak-US interests in security and economic wellbeing are poised to diverge even further We have grown into the habit of conceiving political arena as if it were the extension of our social relationship. Every time, a high profile American official is on a visit to Pakistan, an exercise in déjà vu revisits: what we have been doing ... Read More »

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 ... Read More »

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 ... Read More »

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 ... Read More »

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 ... Read More »

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 ... Read More »

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”, ... Read More »