The US and Pakistan: unequal partners on September 8, 2018US-Pakistan relations have been strained for quite some time. The recent visit of Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, was an attempt to restore bilateral confidence and revive cooperation in the context of the US led War on Terror (WoT) in and around Afghanistan. Why do the US and Pakistan mistrust each other? What […]
Elections 2018: areas that need improvement on August 9, 2018The much-hyped general elections 2018 are finally over. In its wake, it has left the data necessary for the critical assessment of the exercise. Talking of the positives, the topmost is they were held at all because many an analyst and media pundit propagated about its postponement if not an outright cancellation. It is, thus, […]
(Post) Election forecast on July 17, 2018Pakistan’s tenth general elections are scheduled for July 25. Presently, there is much debate on social media regarding the code and conduct of the election, expected voter turnout, expected seats the mainstream parties can win and the likely nature of the government. Will it be a simple majority, an overwhelming majority or a coalition government? […]
CPEC: the way forward-IV on July 6, 2018Pakistan has to take a number of steps to transform the challenges mentioned in previous articles into opportunities. Regarding governance challenges, Pakistan should host forums where local, regional, provincial and federal stakeholders can discuss the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Currently, the provincial governments interact with the two sides (civil and military) of the Federal […]
CPEC’s significance for BRI — III on July 1, 2018As has been argued in previous articles of this series, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is supposed to serve as the “flagship” bilateral project under the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). Both China and Pakistan have viewed and projected the corridor accordingly. As far as Pakistan is concerned, CPEC carries huge investment, infrastructural and fiscal […]
CPEC: the governance challenges ahead — II on June 20, 2018Pakistan faces both internal and external security threats. The monster of modern terrorism, however, is a post-9/11 phenomenon. When General-cum-President Pervez Musharraf supported the US-led War on Terror (WoT) against the Taliban, the latter, in reaction, started targeting the Pakistani society and state. Resultantly, more than thirty thousand civilians and law enforcement officials have lost […]
CPEC: the governance challenges ahead — I on June 4, 2018In 2013, China and Pakistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding that served as the cornerstone of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Two years later, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pakistan and formalised CPEC allocations at $46 billion. By the end of 2017, the total loans and investment under CPEC crossed $80 billion. To consolidate CPEC […]
A history of Pakistan’s interim governments on May 22, 2018Pakistan did not experience an interim government — particularly an interim prime minster — in much of its early to advanced timeline. It was in the early 1990s when the country had its first interim set up, led by the late Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, who ostensibly disagreed with the politics and policy of the dissolved […]
Politicised police on May 20, 2018The civil bureaucracy was considered ‘steel frame’ of the colonial state in British India. And steel frame it was for the illiterate, downtrodden and resourceless masses who were structurally controlled by the white colonialists in collaboration with the non-white local landed and mercantile elite. If Hamza Alavi is any guide, in certain cases the state, […]
Hybridised civil-military relations on May 6, 2018Throughout the 70-year history of Pakistan, democracy has suffered the most. The country experienced either martial laws or intermittent phases of defective democracy. The latter comprised rigged elections, controlled media and compromised civil and political liberties. Though the character of civil-military relations (CMR) was ‘proto-democratised’ during 1947-51, whereby politicians and political parties struggled to survive […]